# data[].attributes.body
How did this affect your position as an Instructional Leader?

The Pandemic has been a daily challenge for me this school year.  It has added numerous tasks as well as take time away from my Role as a BRT Leader and a Magnet Coordinator.  A lot of ups and downs.. But thank God, we get through!!

# data[].attributes.body
How can he be described as an Equity Warrior?

# data[].attributes.body
How his life impacted the world?

# data[].attributes.body
Did the pandemic change your habits and have they continued through to now?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This story is part of a group of stories called

Peloton is in a pickle.

In 2020, the at-home digital exercise company could not get its products out the door fast enough. It surpassed $1 billion in quarterly sales during the last three months of the year, and leadership fretted its profits could take a hit as it invested to try to keep pace with pandemic-induced Pelotonpalooza. People waited weeks and months for their bikes and treadmills to be delivered. Alongside companies such as Zoom and Clorox, Peloton's stock was a solid stay-at-home bet on Wall Street. But nothing lasts forever.

Fast-forward to 2022, and Peloton finds itself in quite a different spot. The good news: It has caught up on the supply side and finally has bikes and treadmills readily available. The bad news: The demand it's trying to catch up to is no longer there. CNBC's Lauren Thomas reports that Peloton is going to hit pause on production for a while.

"Peloton has been plagued with a supply-demand mismatch since the pandemic started," said Simeon Siegel, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets who has been bearish on the company for quite some time. "The problem has basically inverted."

Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people have found out more about the supply chain than they ever imagined. American consumers are accustomed to things just showing up at their doorsteps or on the shelves when they want, no questions asked. Everyone knows about supply and demand theoretically, but everything we're learning about them in practice now is, to quote the meme, against our will.

The public health crisis has thrown many parts of the economy out of whack, and it's made doing business more complicated across industry after industry. There have been plenty of well-documented kinks in the supply chain. (Who knew there'd be this surge of interest in shipping containers?) There's been all sorts of weirdness in demand as well. (Remember when everyone wanted yeast?)

"The problem is that when you start believing your own stories, you start making decisions accordingly"

What makes doing business extra tricky in pandemic times is it's hard for companies to know how long anything will last, and whether and how much to adjust. Peloton took the optimistic view; it thought its pandemic surge would last forever. Now the company and its investors are learning the hard way that this may not be the case.

"Forecasting a business, at the end of the day, is tied to supply and demand as opposed to emotional content. Peloton has one of the most powerful and best marketing departments I've ever seen in an industry; their storytelling is unparalleled," Siegel said. "The problem is that when you start believing your own stories, you start making decisions accordingly."

I love Peloton, but there is a limit on how many Peloton bikes I will buy, which is one

I bought my Peloton bike in June 2020. Things were not good for me in the sense that I barely left my home, which is why they were so good for Peloton. I spent upward of $2,000 on it and waited two months for it to be delivered. Part of it came semi-broken, and I was terrified I'd have to wait another two months for it to be replaced and for me to finally live my stationary bike dreams. (I did not.)

I really like the Peloton a lot. I use the bike itself or one of the other exercise classes available through my subscription most days. I also share my subscription with a coworker, meaning our combined activity makes me look very fit. I have my favorite instructors, and I talk about Peloton an embarrassing amount. I also am not going to buy another bike, nor am I going to buy the treadmill, both of which Peloton spent the 2021 holiday season advertising to me in my email inbox - often at a discount - heavily.

Part of what has happened with Peloton, Siegel explained, is that the company misunderstood the demand surge that took place at the start of 2020. "The primary question surrounding Peloton was did the pandemic pull forward demand, or did it expand the audience side?" he said. "Based on all the data we had been seeing throughout the pandemic, it seemed like this was a pull forward. And the company, on the other hand, viewed this as an expansion and built accordingly."

In other words, people who would have bought Pelotons in 2021 or 2022 instead got them in 2020, but more people didn't necessarily want them overall. Peloton had a lot of things break its way at the start of the pandemic - it had home equipment and content ready to go, for example, compared to competitors such as SoulCycle. And unlike basically all other gyms and fitness studios, it didn't depend on in-person attendance. Still, those breaks weren't really enough.

The company has tried to bring more customers into the mix by playing around with the prices of its products, which are definitely high. It started cutting prices on its original bike, released a less expensive treadmill, and last year slashed the price of its bike even further. As the Wall Street Journal notes, it looks as though some of those price cuts worked for a while - sales of its products excluding treadmills jumped five times over after it lowered the cost of its bike in August 2021. Still, sales were down for that quarter, and cheaper products mean lower margins. Peloton is going to raise prices this year: As of January 31, it is charging $250 for the delivery and setup of some of its bikes and $350 for the delivery and setup of some of its treadmills.

People who would have bought Pelotons in 2021 or 2022 instead got them in 2020

It's been a rough several months for Peloton. Concerns about the safety of its treadmills caused it to recall some of its products last year. The last time it reported earnings in November, it cut its annual revenue forecast by up to $1 billion. More recently, it weathered the And Just Like That debacle (Mr. Big dies after a Peloton workout). The company recovered quickly, releasing an ad with actor Chris Noth - only to pull it after sexual assault allegations against the actor came out the same week. Now, it's reportedly hired consultancy McKinsey to help it sort out its cost structure, which could entail halts on production and layoffs. Its market cap peaked at about $50 billion; on Friday, it was just under $10 billion.

In an open letter to customers and employees on Thursday, Peloton CEO John Foley seemingly disputed the production halt, saying the company is "resetting our production levels for sustainable growth." He did acknowledge tumultuous times, including that layoffs may be on the table. However, he declined to go into much detail, citing a "quiet period" before the firm's next earnings report on February 8.

What's apparent is that Peloton's leadership has been doing a bit of guessing its way through the pandemic, and some of its guesses have been wrong. Foley himself has recognized that the demand surge made the company " a little undisciplined" in its decisions. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that executives and insiders at Peloton sold nearly $500 million worth of stock in 2021, before its stock price took a big hit, though most of those were prescheduled sales. That means some executives, including Foley, aren't feeling Peloton's stock price drop as much as they might have.

Peloton did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Planning in a pandemic: Hard (but high-paid executives are supposed to be good at it)

Peloton's pickle is not Peloton's alone. For a lot of businesses, it's been really hard to figure out what's a blip in the pandemic economy and what's an enduring shift.

You can look at the lumber industry as an example. One thing that contributed to the surge in lumber prices and lumber shortage last year was that when the pandemic hit, there was a huge jump in demand for lumber as people decided to build houses or take on home improvement projects. Producers were skeptical about whether the heightened demand would persist, so they were slow to ramp up production to try to catch up. In hindsight, some would probably have done some things differently. At the same time, imagine if back in March of 2020 Purell's parent company had decided to build eight more factories. That would have been way too much.

Getting the supply chain right and matching demand is always a key part of any business. Every company, like Peloton, has had to navigate grounds shifting underneath them during the pandemic. Arzum Akkas, an assistant professor of operations and technology management at Boston University's Questrom School of Business, explained that the No. 1 rule in business forecasting is that forecasts are always wrong. There's generally a range within a certain level of confidence decision-makers target. Covid-19 has introduced an X-factor that makes that range, and therefore the margin for error, wider for businesses.

"They have to make the range bigger in terms of forecasts, and they have to consider bigger risks for supply and plan accordingly," Akkas said. "They cannot plan their operations assuming that I'm going to get what I want when I want it."

While striking the right balance has been harder during the pandemic, it's not impossible - or, at least, plenty of companies have managed to avoid the situation Peloton finds itself in. Akkas pointed to Walmart and Amazon as examples of businesses that have successfully managed pandemic choppiness in terms of operations. Peloton's "operations are not strong. Whose muscles are strong? Walmart, they are masters in operations plans," she said. "The companies that we don't hear about on the news get it right. If Amazon got it wrong, we would hear about it."

So what's next for Peloton? It's hard to say. Perhaps it will manage to turn things around, cut costs, unfortunately via layoffs and store closures, and figure out how to get more people buying its products again. Maybe there's a deal to be made or a prospective buyer out there, such as Apple.

In a nutshell, the pandemic was the best thing to happen to Peloton until it was the worst

Peloton's fanbase is certainly strong. It has 6.2 million members, including digital-only subscribers (meaning people who use its app but didn't buy any equipment). As of November, it had nearly 2.5 million connected fitness subscribers, meaning people who own one of its products and also pay to use its fitness content, like spin and running classes. Foley also noted that Peloton has a less than 1 percent churn rate, meaning people stay once they're signed up. Still, it's hard not to look at boutique fitness trends that came before Peloton, including those in the spin space like SoulCycle and FlyWheel, and wonder whether Peloton won't face the same fate.

Apart from its missteps, Peloton might also just be a victim of timing - timing that was first very advantageous and now not so much. In a nutshell, the pandemic was the best thing to happen to Peloton until it was the worst, Siegel said.

"The company misread the demand cues, engaged in very heavy spending, and the pandemic helped whittle away at Peloton cash while, ironically or not, spotlighting how great connected fitness was and helping their competitors fundraise," he said. Perhaps had Peloton not been so poised to meet the moment two years ago, or had the pandemic not happened, it might be in a better spot today. "I would be talking about a very strong growth company that had drastically less brand awareness but a drastically better revenue arc that was coming into its own and with a competitive set that was drastically less capitalized."

Peloton hasn't imploded, so if you're a member, don't panic. Also, your favorite instructors like Cody Rigsby and Robin Arzon are going to be fine. Many of the people who were there early on made a lot of money off Peloton's pre-pandemic IPO as the stock surged, assuming they cashed out on at least some of it. Plus, the trainers have gained fame in their own right.

During workouts, one of Rigsby's common refrains is, "Get your life together." It's advice he should maybe give to his employer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This story is part of a group of stories called Peloton is in a pickle. In 2020, the at-home digital exercise company could not get its products out the door fast enough. It surpassed $1 billion in quarterly sales during the last three months of the year, and leadership fretted its profits could take a hit as it invested to try to keep pace with pandemic-induced Pelotonpalooza.

# data[].attributes.body
Live, Laugh, Love How did she make you feel?

# data[].attributes.headline
Braves win first World Series since 1995, defeating Astros in Game 6

# data[].attributes.subject
Braves win first World Series since 1995, defeating Astros in Game 6

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Most of the season, it just seemed this wasn't their year. The Atlanta Braves dropped their first four games, and soon injuries piled up. They lost their most dynamic player before the All-Star break. They were stuck below .500 in August.

Yet out of nowhere, suddenly, these Atlanta Braves transformed themselves and took off.

Jorge Soler, Freddie Freeman and the Braves breezed to their first World Series championship since 1995, hammering the Houston Astros 7-0 Tuesday night in Game 6.

Max Fried threw six shutout innings in the signature pitching performance of the Series. Soler, a July acquisition who tested positive for COVID-19 in the playoffs, backed him early with a monster three-run shot for his third homer against the Astros.

Freeman hit an RBI double and then punctuated the romp with a solo home run in the seventh that made it 7-0.

By then, it was a total team effort. Ailing star Ronald Acuña Jr., the dynamo of Atlanta's future, bounded from the dugout to join the celebration for Freeman, the longtime face of the franchise.

Soler tapped his heart twice before beginning his home run trot after connecting off rookie Luis Garcia in the third inning, sending the ball flying completely out of Minute Maid Park. Dansby Swanson also homered and by the final out, nothing could stop them.

Steadied by 66-year-old manager Brian Snitker, an organization man for four decades, the underdog Braves won the franchise's fourth title.

Major credit for the Braves, too, goes to general manager Alex Anthopoulos. Undaunted by Acuña's knee injury, he pulled off a flurry of July trades that brought the Fab Four to the outfield - NL Championship Series MVP Eddie Rosario, Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson and Soler.

But even in the Analytics Era, guided by a GM fully versed in new-age ways, the path these Braves took wouldn't add up in any computer. Especially with how things looked in midseason.

"At that time, we were searching," third baseman Austin Riley said before Game 6. "I think there's no question about that."

Minus Acuña, Atlanta wasn't over .500 for a single day until the first week in August. The Braves finished 88-73 for the 12th-best record in the majors and fewest victories among playoff teams; their win total was the lowest for a World Series champion since St. Louis' 83 in 2006.

Favored in spring training to win their fourth straight NL East title, the Braves lost Acuña to a torn knee in July. Earlier, 2020 Triple Crown contender Marcell Ozuna was injured and later placed on leave while Major League Baseball investigated him under its domestic violence policy. Projected ace Mike Soroka never got back from an Achilles injury.

Plenty of fans around the country were rooting hard against Jose Altuve and the Houston crew. Many continue to heckle them as the "Cheatin' Astros" for an illegal sign-stealing scheme on the way to their 2017 title, and those feelings might last forever.

Truist Park was packed and the outside plazas were jammed over the weekend, and pulsating crowds filled Minute Maid Park.

Quite a change from last October. Only a limited capacity was permitted for that World Series as the Dodgers beat Tampa Bay at a neutral-site stadium in Arlington, Texas, which followed a total shutout for fans during a regular season shortened because of the coronavirus.

Now, all of baseball waits to see whether spring training is on deck in a little over three months. A squabble between owners and players threatens soon to shut down the sport.

In the meantime, the sport can savor a year in which things, slowly, started to get back to normal.

Trending News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Braves win first World Series since 1995, defeating Astros in Game 6

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Most of the season, it just seemed this wasn't their year. The Atlanta Braves dropped their first four games, and soon injuries piled up. They lost their most dynamic player before the All-Star break. They were stuck below .500 in August. Yet out of nowhere, suddenly, these Atlanta Braves transformed themselves and took off.

# data[].attributes.body
What is your current number one series recommendation?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A financial advisor drags his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks, where he must launder money to appease a drug boss. A financial advisor drags his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks, where he must launder money to appease a drug boss. A financial advisor drags his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks, where he must launder money to appease a drug boss.

Ozark is a unforgivably dark crime drama with unforgettable performances and moments. It masters tension for pretty much every scene. Ozark also has a very unique scenery which gives it all the more flavor. Outstanding performances all around especially from Jason Bateman, Julia Garner, and Laura Linney. And the fact that Jason Bateman was behind the camera directing as well, is all the more impressive. Great job to everyone involved. Ozark is not afraid to go full on dark mode, which I personally love. There is hardly any happy moments. In my eyes Ozark isn't a "Breaking Bad Knock Off" but a masterpiece in its own way, and is definitely worth watching.

IMDb's Top 50 TV Dramas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A financial advisor drags his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks, where he must launder money to appease a drug boss. A financial advisor drags his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks, where he must launder money to appease a drug boss.

# data[].attributes.body
What are you doing about it?

# data[].attributes.body
Has justice been served?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Travis and Greg McMichael, who were convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. William "Roddie" Bryan, who was also convicted in the case, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole - meaning he must serve at least 30 years before he's eligible for release.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley announced the sentences Friday, about six weeks after a jury found the men guilty of the high-profile killing that is widely seen as racially motivated. In early 2020, the men chased down and killed Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was jogging through their neighborhood near Brunswick, along Georgia's coast.

Arbery's murder was "a tragedy on many, many levels," Walmsley said, adding that "a young man with dreams was gunned down in this community."

The judge sentenced Travis McMichael to life plus 20 years and Greg McMichael to life plus 20 years, with the additional punishment stemming from assault and false imprisonment charges. He sentenced Bryan to life plus 10 years - which would be suspended.

In an extraordinary moment in court, the judge interrupted his remarks to sit silently for one full minute - representing a fraction of the time, he said, that Arbery spent running for his life as the other men chased him for roughly five minutes. In considering the case, Walmsley said, he kept returning to "the terror" that must have been in Arbery's mind.

The judge's decision largely mirrors prosecutors' requests. His ruling came after Arbery's family delivered passionate requests for the three men to face the maximum penalty.

Attorneys for Travis McMichael, 35, his father Greg McMichael, 66, and their neighbor Bryan, 52, had asked for leniency during Friday's hearing. They have also previously said they will appeal their clients' guilty verdict.

Just before Walmsley delivered the sentence, he repeated the defendants' own words - what he called the "narrative" that Greg McMichael sought to establish about Arbery, including his repeated use of profanities to discuss the young man, even as he said he had no proof that Arbery had done anything wrong.

Arbery "was hunted down and shot," Walmsley said. And then the men who did it turned their backs and walked away, he added.

After the sentence was announced, the prosecution asked the court to impose a condition on the guilty parties, to bar them from using their experience to make money. The judge said he will review that request. Court was then adjourned.

Outside the court, demonstrators cheered the sentencing, chanting Ahmaud Arbery's name and "What did we get? Justice! When do we get it? Today!"

The Arbery family walked out of the courthouse with raised arms and cheers from the demonstrators.

Arbery's mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, addressed the crowd outside the courthouse in a quiet voice thanking supporters through several months of the investigation and trial.

"I sat in that courtroom for five weeks straight, but I knew we would come out with a victory, I never doubted it. Thank you all for supporting me who stood with me through this very long fight," she said.

Defense lawyers urged leniency, after Arbery's family asked for the maximum

Ahmaud Arbery's father, Marcus Arbery, had told the court earlier that the defendants lynched his son in broad daylight, saying he wished he could have saved Ahmaud from "their evil and hate."

The McMichaels and Bryan should think about what they did every day for the rest of their lives, Marcus Arbery said, adding, "and they should do it from behind bars, because me and my family, we've got to live with his death for the rest of our life."

Travis McMichael's attorney, Robert Rubin, said later that his client had acted without thinking, arguing that his actions against Arbery were not proof of "an abandoned and malignant heart."

And while prosecutors had pointed to a lack of remorse as additional reason for a stiff penalty, Rubin said McMichael could not express remorse while also facing the threat of a separate federal trial later this year.

Rubin argued that McMichael should be given the opportunity to change and seek redemption, rather than spending the rest of his life in prison.

Greg McMichael's defense attorney Laura Hogue said her client shouldn't face the maximum sentence, citing a lack of prior criminal history. She also argued that the prosecution hadn't proven aggravating circumstances that would warrant the stiffest sentence.

Hogue also cited the jury's verdict, which she said had found her client's role in Arbery's death stemmed from an "unintentional act." She noted that despite carrying a handgun that day, he never fired a shot at Arbery. His actions weren't motivated by hate, but by the urge to "get to the bottom" of Arbery's previous visits to a construction site in the Satilla Shores neighborhood.

Bryan's attorney, Kevin Gough, began his argument by saying he agreed with much of what the prosecution had said about the case, including mention of Bryan's cooperation with the investigation and the recommendation of a lesser sentence.

Like the McMichaels, Gough said, Bryan had no prior felony convictions. But he said his client's circumstances were very different from those of his fellow defendants. And he added that Bryan didn't know the McMichaels were armed.

"Roddie Bryan really had no idea of what was going on - or why - until after the tragic death of Mr. Arbery," Gough said.

Both of the McMichaels showed a "demonstrated pattern of vigilantism," lead prosecutor Linda Dunikoski said as she argued for them to be sent to prison for life without parole. Citing their experience with law enforcement, she added that the men "should have known better" than to arm themselves and pursue Arbery.

The sentencing hearing at the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, Ga., began Friday morning and extended into the afternoon.

As the three men entered the courtroom, a pool report from inside the courtroom described the scene: "Greg McMichael looks noticeably nervous, he hugs and greets his attorneys but when seated has a trembling hand over his mouth."

Arbery's family delivered emotional victim impact statements

After Marcus Arbery spoke, Ahmaud's sister, Jasmine, smiled in court as she described her brother as a tall, athletic young man with a positive outlook and a sense of humor, who loved to run. But while he looked like her and other people she loves, she added, the defendants saw him as a threat.

"Ahmaud had a future that was taken from him in an instance of violence," Jasmine Arbery said as she wept. "He was robbed of his life pleasures, big and small. He will never be able to fulfill his professional dreams, nor will he be able to start a family, or even be a part of my daughter's life."

"The loss of Ahmaud has devastated me and my family," she said, "so I'm asking that the man that killed him be given the maximum sentence available to the court."

Ahmaud Arbery's mother, Cooper-Jones, began her impact statement by speaking directly to her son.

"This verdict doesn't bring you back, but it does help bring closure to this very difficult chapter of my life," she said. "I made a promise to you the day I laid you to rest. I told you I love you - and someday, somehow, I would get you justice. Son, I love you as much today as I did the day that you were born. Raising you was the honor of my life, and I'm very proud of you."

Cooper-Jones told Walmsley that the defendants had lied about her son and her family and that because they showed no remorse, they don't deserve leniency.

"This wasn't a case of mistaken identity or mistaken fact," she said. "They chose to target my son because they didn't want him in their community. They chose to treat him differently than other people who frequently visited their community. And when they couldn't sufficiently scare him or intimidate him, they killed him."

During the trial, defense attorneys highlighted the condition of Arbery's feet and toenails. On Friday, his mother responded to those statements.

"He was messy, he sometimes refused to wear socks or take good care of his good clothing," Cooper-Jones said. "I wish he would have cut and cleaned his toenails before he went out for that jog that day. I guess he would have if he knew he would be murdered."

Noting that her son never spoke to or threatened the McMichaels or Bryan, Cooper-Jones added, "They were fully committed to their crimes - let them be fully committed for the consequences."

The men used pickup trucks to chase Arbery through their neighborhood

In February 2020, Travis and Greg McMichael pursued Arbery, who was Black, as he was out for a run through a residential neighborhood. They said they suspected he was responsible for a string of recent break-ins. Bryan joined in the chase, which the prosecutor said lasted five minutes. All three killers are white.

Bryan captured some of the confrontation on video, including the moment that Travis McMichael shot and killed Arbery during a struggle. Footage of the killing became a key piece of evidence at trial.

All three defendants had pleaded not guilty.

Travis McMichael was found guilty of all nine counts against him, including one count of malice murder and four counts of felony murder. Greg McMichael was found not guilty of malice murder but was convicted on the other eight counts, including four counts of felony murder. Bryan was found guilty of six charges, including three felony murder counts.

They all faced a sentence of either life in prison or life in prison without the possibility of parole; prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in this case. Prosecutors previously said they would seek life in prison without parole for all three defendants.

The men also face a separate federal hate crimes trial later this year.

Who are the judge, prosecutors and defense?

Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley presided over the trial at the Glynn County Courthouse. The Eastern Judicial Circuit judge was given the case after all five judges in the Brunswick Judicial Circuit recused themselves. Walmsley was appointed to the bench in February 2012.

Lead prosecutor Linda Dunikoski is the senior assistant district attorney in Cobb County, outside of Atlanta. She was put in charge of the case in April, after two local prosecutors recused themselves.

Defense attorney Kevin Gough of Brunswick has represented Bryan since his arrest. Attorney Jessica Burton of Atlanta is also on Bryan's defense team.

Defense attorneys Robert Rubin and Jason Sheffield represent Travis McMichael. They're from the same Atlanta-area law firm.

Defense attorneys Laura and Franklin Hogue, who are married, represent Greg McMichael. They're based in Macon, Ga., where they've handled numerous death-penalty cases.

The case was a flashpoint in the reckoning over racial justice

Although the murder occurred in February 2020, neither the McMichaels nor Bryan were immediately arrested. Only after the video footage recorded by Bryan was leaked online did authorities make any arrests, in May, some 10 weeks after Arbery's death. There was a string of recusals from prosecutors with ties to Greg McMichael - a former police officer.

The video shows the McMichaels chasing Arbery through the Satilla Shores neighborhood. Travis McMichael was armed with a shotgun.

Defense attorneys said at trial that the McMichaels were trying to make a citizen's arrest of Arbery, who they suspected had burglarized several nearby homes. Surveillance video shows Arbery entering a home under construction several times, but no evidence was presented at the trial that he stole anything or that he had any involvement in any of the neighborhood break-ins or thefts.

The video shows Travis McMichael, who is standing outside of his white pickup truck, confront Arbery. The two get into a brief scuffle, and that's when McMichael shoots and kills Arbery, who was unarmed. At trial, McMichael testified that he fired in self-defense.

"They shot and killed him," lead prosecutor Linda Dunikoski said during closing arguments, "not because he was a threat to them, but because he wouldn't stop and talk to them."

Family members have called Arbery's murder a "modern-day lynching," and others have bemoaned that fact that it took the public release of Bryan's video for authorities to file charges.

"This case, by all accounts, should have been opened and closed ... the violent stalking and lynching of Ahmaud Arbery was documented for video for the world to witness," Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney, said in a statement after the verdict.

"But yet, because of the deep cracks, flaws, and biases in our systems, we were left to wonder if we would ever see justice," he added.

The video was released days before George Floyd was killed by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and in the midst of continued protests for racial justice across the U.S.

At the state trial of the McMichaels and Bryan, there was no evidence of racial animus raised, but that is expected to be central to the upcoming federal hate crimes trial.

Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who stood with the Arbery family outside of the court after the sentencing Friday, said the federal hate crimes trial will have broader implications and represents an important step in addressing the issues of racism and hate in a court of law.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
All 3 white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery are sentenced to life in prison

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Travis and Greg McMichael, who were convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. William "Roddie" Bryan, who was also convicted in the case, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole - meaning he must serve at least 30 years before he's eligible for release.

# data[].attributes.body
Who are you rooting for?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Los Angeles Rams are Super Bowl LVI champions. They defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 on Sunday, Feb. 13, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

Matthew Stafford threw three touchdown passes and two interceptions in the win, while Joe Burrow had a touchdown throw and no picks. Cooper Kupp had eight catches for 92 yards and two scores.

Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent and Anderson .Paak performed during the halftime show.

Here's how the 2021 NFL playoffs shook out, from the wild-card round through Super Bowl LVI.

Super Bowl LVI: Feb. 13
(4) Los Angeles Rams 23, (4) Cincinnati Bengals 20
Conference championships: Jan. 30

AFC

NFC

Wild-card weekend: Jan. 15, 16 and 17

AFC
(2) Kansas City Chiefs 42, (7) Pittsburgh Steelers 21 (3) Buffalo Bills 47, (6) New England Patriots 17 (4) Cincinnati Bengals 26, (5) Las Vegas Raiders 19 Bye: (1) Tennessee Titans
NFC
(2) Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31, (7) Philadelphia Eagles 15 (6) San Francisco 49ers 23, (3) Dallas Cowboys 17 (4) Los Angeles Rams 34, (5) Arizona Cardinals 11 Bye: (1) Green Bay Packers
Divisional round: Jan. 22 and 23

AFC
(4) Cincinnati Bengals 19, (1) Tennessee Titans 16 (2) Kansas City Chiefs 42, (3) Buffalo Bills 36
NFC
(6) San Francisco 49ers 13, (1) Green Bay Packers 10 (4) Los Angeles Rams 30, (2) Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
NFL playoff bracket: Rams beat Bengals to win Super Bowl LVI

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Los Angeles Rams are Super Bowl LVI champions. They defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 on Sunday, Feb. 13, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Matthew Stafford threw three touchdown passes and two interceptions in the win, while Joe Burrow had a touchdown throw and no picks.

# data[].attributes.body
How has the back and forth on the mask mandate impacted you this week?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A New York judge rules that the state’s mask mandate is unconstitutional and can’t be enforced.

Image

Credit...Gabby Jones for The New York Times

Read the latest on the ruling on a New York State mask policy.

A New York State judge ruled on Monday that the state’s mask mandate had been enacted unlawfully and is now void, according to court documents.

Gov. Kathy Hochul had renewed a rule requiring masks or proof of vaccination at all indoor public places throughout the state in December, amid a winter virus surge, and said it would last a month. The state Health Department then extended the mandate an additional two weeks, to expire on Feb. 1.

In his six-page decision, State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Rademaker wrote that Ms. Hochul and state health officials lacked the authority to enact the mask mandate without the approval of state lawmakers, and that it violated the state constitution. Regardless of the “well aimed” intentions of state officials, such authority is “entrusted solely to the State Legislature,” Justice Rademaker wrote.

The office of the state attorney general, Letitia James, filed a notice of intent to appeal the ruling on Monday night. Emily DeSantis, a spokeswoman for the state Education Department, said the department had informed its schools that, as the legal issues are resolved, “schools must continue to follow the mask rule.”

We’re appealing last night’s decision that struck down the mask mandate in New York.

We will continue to do everything in our power to protect New Yorkers from #COVID19.

— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) January 25, 2022

While the ruling overturns the statewide mandate for masks in schools and public places, it does not reverse local mandates. City Hall officials, for example, said that the decision had no immediate impact on New York City’s schools since the city’s education department had its own masking policies in place before the state’s mandate.

Ms. Hochul said in a statement on Monday that her office strongly disagreed with the ruling and would be “pursuing every option to reverse this immediately.”

“My responsibility as governor is to protect New Yorkers throughout this public health crisis, and these measures help prevent the spread of Covid-19 and save lives,” she said.

The Omicron surge has been receding in New York, but it is not over. An average of about 20,000 people in the state are now testing positive for the coronavirus each day, down sharply from the surge’s peak of 90,000 people who tested positive on Jan. 7. The positivity rate has also fallen, by half, from more than 22 percent to 10 percent.

But New York’s daily case numbers remain far higher than at the start of the surge in early December, and hospitals are still straining to treat about 10,000 Covid patients statewide. Hospitalizations have begun declining but remain higher than at any point since May 2020. More than 130 people each day have been dying of the virus statewide.

Justice Rademaker, who has run on the Conservative Party line, was elected to the Supreme Court in Nassau County in 2019. The Supreme Court in New York is the highest trial court in the state, but not the court of last resort; the Court of Appeal is the highest court.

Following his ruling, some schools districts on Long Island began telling parents that masks were optional as of Tuesday morning.

“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 posted on its website.

The Lindenhurst school district issued a similar message on Monday night, saying that it would work in accordance with the judge’s decision.

“Until otherwise directed, the wearing of masks will be optional for all students and staff members,” the district posted on Facebook. “We are also aware that this decision will undoubtedly result in an appeal from the state, which could result in the restoration of the mask mandate until the court issues further ruling.”

The ruling was applauded by some New York Republicans, including Representative Elise Stefanik, who said in a statement that it was a “win for small businesses, parents, students, and the freedom of all New Yorkers.”

“Governor Hochul’s authoritarian mandates were crushing New York small businesses that already have faced unprecedented challenges throughout the Covid-19 pandemic,” Ms. Stefanik said. “By forcing masks on the children in our schools, these mandates have impeded the development of our next generation.”

U.S. officials limit treatments that don’t work on Omicron, but doctors say alternatives are scarce.

Image

Credit...Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

The Food and Drug Administration has formally restricted the use of antibody treatments that lost their once-considerable effect when faced with the Omicron variant, pausing a therapy that had been widely embraced, including by people who eschewed vaccinations.

Many health systems stopped using the antibody treatments weeks ago as Omicron surged. And while doctors have welcomed the news of additional treatments like antiviral pills, they say the trickle of pills and other treatments are no match for the geyser of new cases.

The F.D.A. said on Monday that it was limiting the emergency use authorizations of the Regeneron and Eli Lilly antibody treatments to say the infusions should not be used now, with the Omicron variant dominant, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated at 99.5 percent of all new cases nationally.

During an earlier wave driven by the Delta variant, those Regeneron and Lilly medications were effective at keeping infected people out of the hospital if given early enough. As Omicron emerged, it became apparent that the treatments would not neutralize the virus, and large health systems, including some in New York City, stopped using them in December.

Federal officials moved to pause their use soon after but were rebuked by Republican governors saying they could still help some patients with the Delta variant. That has become an increasingly shaky position, given the difficulty most doctors have in figuring out which variant each patient has.

Since then, one monoclonal antibody treatment by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology has remained effective against Omicron, though doctors have said it is in short supply. Physicians on the front lines who stopped using the ineffective treatments in December immediately began looking for replacements as cases soared.

Federal officials in January began shipping the antiviral pills Paxlovid by Pfizer and molnupiravir from Merck. The medications have proven complicated to dispense, given Paxlovid’s interactions with many other drugs and molnupiravir’s risks to patients of childbearing age.

They have also been hard to find, with doctors saying they have to place dozens of calls to find pills in stock at pharmacies.

Dr. Mark Morocco, a University of California, Los Angeles emergency physician, said high-risk patients, no longer eligible for the antibody treatments, were getting treatment that is similar to what people got in 2020, including supplemental oxygen and steroids. As for the antiviral pills and the effective antibody treatments, he said, supplies are “very difficult to find.”

“In my view, those drugs are not really available, essentially to us, at all,” Dr. Morocco said.

Despite the lack of efficacy in the Regeneron and Eli Lilly products, federal data show that nearly 20,000 doses were given to patients last week alone, with the heaviest use in Florida, Louisiana and Michigan.

The treatments, widely considered safe, can have side effects including shortness of breath, nausea and vomiting.

Options for the early treatment of Covid continue to expand. On Friday, the F.D.A. approved the use of remdesivir for outpatients, as researchers found it effective at reducing hospitalizations when used early.

Brii Biosciences has announced that its monoclonal antibody works well against Omicron and is under review by the F.D.A.

New, effective treatments can’t come soon enough, though, said Dr. Steve Pergam, a professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who also treats patients.

He said quantities were so sparse that early treatments are going to the leukemia patients with the highest risk of death from Covid. And given the current delays in testing, matching the highest-risk cancer patients to the handful of treatments is a major undertaking.

“The thing we tell patients is you need to do everything you can to not get this,” he said, “because it can still be pretty dangerous.”

— Christina Jewett

Omicron offers hope the pandemic could stabilize, a W.H.O. official says.

Image

Credit...Miguel Medina/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The astonishing spread of the Omicron variant could help set the stage for the pandemic to transition from overwhelming to manageable in Europe this year, a top health official said on Monday, potentially offering the world a glimpse at how countries can ease restrictions while keeping the virus at bay.

That hint of hope came with a heavy dose of caution: Immunity from the surge of infections will probably wane, and new variants are likely to emerge, leaving the world vulnerable to surges that could strain health systems. In the United States, where vaccination rates are lower and death rates are considerably higher than in Western Europe, there are bigger hurdles on the path to taming the pandemic.

Dr. Hans Kluge, the director for the World Health Organization’s European region, warned in a statement released Monday that it was too early for nations to drop their guard, with so many people unvaccinated around the world. But, he said, between vaccination and natural immunity through infection, “Omicron offers plausible hope for stabilization and normalization.”

The question that remains, however, is what a new normal looks like — a picture that would have seemed disastrous in 2019 could be a big improvement in 2022 — and how long it could last.

Video

transcript

transcript

W.H.O. Chief Cautions Against Predicting a Pandemic ‘Endgame’

The World Health Organization’s director general said it was dangerous to assume the end of the pandemic was nearing and warned that current global conditions were “ideal for more variants to emerge.”

There are different scenarios for how the pandemic could play out and how the acute phase could end. But it’s dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame. On the contrary, globally, the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge. To change the course of the pandemic, we must change the conditions that are driving it. It’s true that we will be living with Covid for the foreseeable future, and that we will need to learn to manage it through a sustained and integrated system for acute respiratory diseases, which will provide a platform for preparedness for future pandemics. But learning to live with Covid cannot mean that we give this virus a free ride. It cannot mean that we accept almost 50,000 deaths a week from a preventable and treatable disease.

The World Health Organization’s director general said it was dangerous to assume the end of the pandemic was nearing and warned that current global conditions were “ideal for more variants to emerge.”Credit Credit...Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Omicron variant will undoubtedly leave behind much higher levels of immunity in the population, scientists said. But whether the world will have to endure deadly and disruptive future surges of the virus before the pandemic stabilizes is not at all clear.

And while Dr. Kluge said he believed that Europe could withstand new waves without resorting to lockdowns, countries there are still working to determine what other measures they may use. New antiviral pills are more readily available in Europe than in other parts of the world, scientists said, but countries still need to administer them more quickly.

Experts said that precautions like testing and isolating would remain essential. And if coronaviruses cases climb in the coming winters, scientists said, short-term mask mandates could be a way of suppressing cases to help hospitals dealing with other respiratory illnesses, too.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the W.H.O., said on Monday that the emergency phase of the pandemic was still very much here.

“It’s dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame,” Dr. Tedros said at an executive board meeting of the organization. “On the contrary, globally, the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.”

Over the past two years, people around the world have become exhaustingly familiar with the wicked way the virus evolves and confounds expectations. Last fall, with vaccination spreading and the Delta variant waning, there were predictions of a return to normal — only for the world to be blindsided by Omicron.

China lifts a monthlong lockdown on the 13 million residents of the city of Xi’an.

Image

Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The authorities in China have said that, starting on Monday, the 13 million residents in Xi’an will be allowed to travel in and out of the city, ending a 32-day lockdown that raised questions about the country’s harsh Covid controls and commitment to preventing any outbreak of the disease.

Streets, supermarkets, and public areas once emptied by the restrictions were again crowded, according to posts on Chinese social media from residents. Local officials said that the city had been downgraded to a “low-risk area” and that normal work and production could be restored.

Prompted by an outbreak of more than a thousand infections of the Delta variant last month, the lockdown in Xi’an was as severe as the country’s first, in the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first observed two years ago. After an initial outbreak in early December, the shutdown was imposed on Dec. 23. In total, the city recorded 2,080 infections, but has not had any cases since Jan. 21, according to local officials.

The harsh lockdown in Xi’an became a symbol of the extreme measures that China’s government has taken to control Covid after testimonies emerged on Chinese social media of problems including people struggling to get enough food. In other cases, those in need of medical care were denied entry to hospitals because of stringent epidemic prevention measures. In one case, a pregnant woman was refused treatment because of an expired coronavirus test. She later lost her child.

Public transport in Xi’an, as well as flights and trains to and from the city, resumed service over the past week. Those with a green health code in China’s official Covid-19 tracking software can now leave the city without official approval.

In other parts of China, cities remain in various states of lockdown as officials seek to beat back other outbreaks, including cases of the highly infections Omicron variant. In Beijing, officials have struggled to control an outbreak of Omicron as the city enters the final preparations to host the Winter Olympics.

Some Covid-19 counter measures for the Olympics were eased on Monday, according to a statement released by the International Olympic Committee. The committee said that changes had been made to lower the threshold for a test being classified as a positive coronavirus case. It also adjusted the period of time for someone to be considered a close contact of a Covid case to seven days, from 14.

Idaho reactivates crisis standards to ration care at overwhelmed hospitals.

Image

Credit...Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Severe staffing and blood shortages in southern Idaho have prompted state officials to again activate “crisis standards of care” that allow hospitals to triage care, potentially resulting in longer wait times, unavailable equipment and harrowing decisions about which patients need treatment the most.

The crisis standards apply to hospitals in most of the southern part of the state, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. The standards could be extended throughout Idaho, the state’s Health Department said.

Health officials had previously announced crisis standards statewide in September 2021; they were lifted three months later.

While the Omicron wave seems to be peaking nationally, cases remain dangerously high and are continuing to rise in parts of the South, Midwest and West, flooding hospitals whose staff have been depleted by the virus. Hospitalizations nationwide are averaging 157,000 each day over the past week, up 14 percent. Deaths are up 25 percent from two weeks ago to more than 2,000 a day.

Colorado reactivated crisis standards earlier this month, advising patient transport in “only the most severe cases,” according to reporting by Colorado Public Radio. And there is a continuing medical oxygen shortage in California, where emergency workers in Los Angeles were urged this month to administer as little oxygen as possible.

New cases in Idaho are still climbing steeply, up 174 percent over two weeks, a New York Times database. Hospitalizations are up 67 percent.

Cases

Hospitalizations

Deaths

About this data
Sources: State and local health agencies (cases, deaths); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (hospitalizations).

Only 48 percent of Idaho’s population is fully vaccinated, the lowest rate in the country, according to a Times tracker.

Dave Jeppesen, the director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, said in a statement on Monday that “the highly contagious Omicron variant has thrown us a curve ball.”

“Once again, the situation in our hospitals and health systems is dire — we don’t have enough resources to adequately treat patients,” Mr. Jeppesen said.

Two facilities in Idaho’s Saint Alphonsus Health System, the hospital network that requested the reactivation of crisis standards, are nearly out of I.C.U. beds.

Sarah Palin, who is unvaccinated, recently dined indoors in New York City before testing positive.

Image

Credit...Robert Wright for The New York Times

Sarah Palin, who is not vaccinated against the coronavirus, dined indoors Saturday night at Elio’s, an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that regularly draws celebrities, despite New York City’s requirement that all indoor guests show proof of vaccination. She tested positive for the virus on Monday.

“We just made a mistake,” said Luca Guaitolini, a manager for the restaurant, who was not working Saturday night but confirmed Ms. Palin’s visit. In an interview on Monday, he said that the restaurant checked vaccination cards for all first-time customers but not for regulars who come each week, and that Ms. Palin had dined with a longtime guest, whom he declined to name.

“She probably just walked in and strolled over” to the table, Mr. Guaitolini said. “We are trying to get to the bottom of this.”

Ms. Palin’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Guaitolini said that the restaurant was notifying customers that they had been exposed to the coronavirus, and that the staff would be tested this week.

Ms. Palin, the former Alaska governor who ran for vice president in 2008, had traveled to New York for the trial of her defamation lawsuit against The New York Times. The trial was set to begin this week, but because of her positive test result, it will now start on Feb. 3. According to the judge in the case, Ms. Palin’s lawyers reported that she had received three Covid tests, all of which came back positive, and that she had not been vaccinated.

Shawn McCreesh, a features writer for New York Magazine, tweeted Saturday that he had spotted Ms. Palin at Elio’s while out to dinner on Saturday night. (“My mom thought she was Tina Fey,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet.)

Brian Schwartz, a political finance reporter at CNBC, tweeted that he had also recently dined at the restaurant, and that the staff there had not verified his vaccination status.

New York City recorded 8,914 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, according to a Times database, 19,634 fewer than the Sunday before. Hospitalizations, which lag cases, have risen 106 percent in the past two weeks.

In light of the highly contagious Omicron variant, some restaurants have imposed more stringent safety measures for workers than those required by the government, including keeping Covid tests on hand and strictly enforcing the wearing of masks. But at many of these restaurants, including at Elio’s, the sole requirement for diners is that they be vaccinated.

Elio’s, which opened in 1981 on Second Avenue at East 84th Street, is known for its famous clientele, which has included Tom Hanks, Joan Didion and Mick Jagger. An obituary for the restaurant’s founder Elio Guaitolini, who died in 2016, described the place as “an informal clubhouse for Manhattan’s social and media elite.”

His son, Mr. Guaitolini, said Ms. Palin “is a controversial person wherever she goes. I just hope she has a speedy convalescence.”

Fauci suggests Omicron wave is peaking but warns of ‘more pain’ to come.

Image

Credit...Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press

The crushing wave of Omicron variant cases may show signs of receding in the United States, but Dr. Anthony S. Fauci has warned that the surge has not yet peaked in some parts of the country and that Americans should not let their guard down.

The highly contagious Omicron does seem to have peaked in the Northeast, parts of the Upper Midwest and other areas where it first arrived, offering a bit of relief to virus-weary Americans. Nationally, new cases and hospital admissions have leveled off in recent days.

“What we would hope,” Dr. Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser for the coronavirus, said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” “is that, as we get into the next weeks to month or so, we’ll see throughout the entire country the level of infection get to below what I call that area of control.”

That does not mean eradicating the virus, Dr. Fauci said. Infections will continue. “They’re there, but they don’t disrupt society,” he said. “That’s the best-case scenario.”

For now, the United States remains in a precarious position, averaging 690,000 daily cases, still far higher than at any other point in the pandemic. Hospitals are overstretched and deaths have risen to about 2,100 a day. Parts of the West, South and Great Plains are still seeing sharp increases.

“There may be a bit more pain and suffering with hospitalizations in those areas of the country that have not been fully vaccinated or have not gotten boosted,” Dr. Fauci said. Hospitals are struggling to keep up after multiple surges and staffing shortages, including in Mississippi, where nearly all of the state’s acute-care hospitals have been pushed to capacity. The National Guard and active-duty U.S. military medics have been deployed to hospitals in several states.

States that are lagging in vaccinations, including Utah, are reporting record levels of cases and hospitalizations.

But Omicron also has yet to peak in some Western states with higher vaccination rates.

Oregon is reporting a 71 percent increase in daily average cases over a two-week period and a 65 percent increase in hospitalizations, according to The Times’s database. This month, Gov. Kate Brown said she would be deploying up to 500 National Guard members to help strained hospitals with the soaring caseload.

California reported a 47 percent increase in daily average cases over the past two weeks, and a 61 percent increase in hospitalizations. Masks continue to be mandated indoors by state officials, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has also called on the National Guard in his state.

Scientists say it remains an open question whether Omicron signified the transition of the coronavirus from a pandemic to a less-threatening endemic virus, or whether future surges or variants would introduce a new round of tumult.

Dr. Fauci advised that remaining ready for the possibility of what he called “the worst-case scenario” would be wise. “I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but we have to be prepared,” he said, describing that situation as, “We get yet again another variant that has characteristics that would be problematic, like a high degree of transmissibility or a high degree of virulence.”

But overall, he said, “Things are looking good. We don’t want to get overconfident, but they look like they’re going in the right direction right now.”

Esha Ray, Kenneth Chang, Mitch Smith, Julie Bosman and Tracey Tully contributed to this report.

— Ron DePasquale

Proposals by California officials move to treat the coronavirus as endemic.

Image

Credit...Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

SACRAMENTO — As health experts warn that Covid-19 will remain a fixture of life after the current surge passes, a group of California legislators on Monday rolled out the latest in a package of proposals aimed at coping with the coronavirus long-term in the most populous U.S. state.

In a measure that would treat the virus like measles and whooping cough — longstanding threats against which most Americans are vaccinated in childhood — the lawmakers said they would seek to eliminate an exemption for “personal belief” from a new mandate that schoolchildren receive coronavirus vaccinations.

Last week, the group — roughly a half-dozen members of the State Legislature’s Democratic majority — introduced a bill that would allow children 12 and older to be vaccinated against the coronavirus regardless of parental consent, as is the case in California for immunization against hepatitis B and human papillomavirus. Additional proposals for workplace and consumer protections and for countering vaccine disinformation are expected in the coming weeks.

Amid a towering surge in cases and hospitalizations driven by the Omicron variant, the proposals are part of a push not only to drive down infections and strengthen the state’s aggressive health protections, but also to set the stage for a future in which the virus becomes a manageable risk.

In news conferences this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom has hinted that state policy will soon begin “the endemic phase of this reality and how we live with future variants.” Last week, a group of physicians at the University of California, San Francisco petitioned state health policymakers to ease masking requirements in public schools, among other emergency measures, calling for a “post-Omicron pivot.”

“You can’t just drive this virus down, you’ve got to keep it down,” said Senator Richard Pan, a Sacramento pediatrician who has led the state’s efforts on vaccine policy and is the chairman of the Senate’s health committee. “With these kinds of fundamental policies in place, we hopefully can lift other restrictions that are more intrusive and less effective, because there’s no indication that Covid is going away.”

California’s Covid vaccination rates are among the nation’s highest, with about 67 percent of children 12 to 17 fully vaccinated, roughly the same as the state’s overall population. Dominated by Democrats, who hold a legislative supermajority, the electorate has largely supported the state’s emphasis on public health.

But vaccination rates vary widely from county to county. And a mandate that Mr. Newsom issued in October, adding Covid vaccines to the list of immunizations required for California’s more than six million K-12 students, is contingent on Food and Drug Administration approval of vaccines for each age group.

The F.D.A. has granted emergency authorization for the Pfizer vaccine in children ages 5 to 15, but has given full approval only for people 16 and older. The mandate is not expected to cover most students until at least July.

Additionally, because the vaccine was added to the school immunization list by the governor rather than the Legislature, state law requires that families be allowed to opt out if their personal beliefs preclude vaccination. Closing that loophole is expected to engender fierce backlash, as is the proposal to let older children be vaccinated against Covid-19 without parental consent.

When the 2014-15 measles outbreak at Disneyland prompted the state to end the personal belief exemption for other required immunizations, vaccine resisters jammed the Capitol for weeks, screaming at lawmakers in hallways and harassing public health lobbyists on sidewalks.

Senator Pan received death threats, and demonstrators invaded his wife’s dental practice. In 2019, after a further tightening of vaccine rules, an anti-vaccine activist livestreamed himself assaulting the senator outside a Sacramento restaurant.

Senator Pan said that aligning Covid policies with California’s other vaccine laws, which are among the nation’s strictest, would help raise vaccination rates and minimize educational disruptions. In the state’s largest school district, in Los Angeles, roughly nine in 10 students have complied with a mandate that conditions in-person instruction on vaccination for students 12 and older, even though a lack of documentation among some 34,000 students recently prompted the district to postpone enforcement of the requirement.

Last month, a judge in San Diego struck down a Covid vaccine mandate for students there, and the Los Angeles school system has been sued over its mandate. In a letter on Friday, officials in those districts urged legislators to take “urgent action” to mandate coronavirus vaccinations for students statewide.

Covid setbacks to schooling are ‘nearly insurmountable,’ the U.N. says.

Image

Credit...Dustin Chambers for The New York Times

Almost two years into the coronavirus pandemic, more than 635 million children globally remain affected by full or partial school closures, the United Nations said Monday in a report that called the setbacks to education “nearly insurmountable.”

The report from the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said that many of these children had lost basic numeracy and literacy skills from the prolonged loss of classroom learning.

The UNICEF report was derived from studies done recently with the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.

In low- and middle-income countries, UNICEF said up to 70 percent of 10-year-olds could not read or comprehend a simple text, up from 53 percent before the coronavirus became a pandemic in March 2020.

Notable data points in the report included Brazil, where 75 percent of second graders in some states are behind in reading, compared with 50 percent prepandemic; and South Africa, where schoolchildren are up to a full year behind where they should be.

In the United States, the report said, states including California, Colorado, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia have reported that two-thirds of their third graders scored below grade level in mathematics last year, compared with half in 2019.

“Quite simply, we are looking at a nearly insurmountable scale of loss to children’s schooling,” Robert Jenkins, the chief of education at UNICEF, said in the report. “While the disruptions to learning must end, just reopening schools is not enough. Students need intensive support to recover lost education.”

Globally, the report said, “disruption to education has meant millions of children have significantly missed out on the academic learning they would have acquired if they had been in the classroom, with younger and more marginalized children facing the greatest loss.”

Despite efforts to mitigate the effects of school closures with remote learning, that solution is impractical or impossible where families lack internet access and home computers. And many students in low-income countries are not returning to class even when schools reopen.

Earlier this month in Uganda, where schools reopened for the first time since the pandemic began, educators estimated that up to one-third of students, who had taken jobs to help support their struggling families, might not return.

Education is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, benchmarks established by the United Nations to help measure basic improvements in people’s lives. According to the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which monitors each goal on its website, the coronavirus has “wiped out 20 years of education gains.”

Seven school boards sue Virginia’s governor over his order making masks optional.

Image

Credit...Stephanie Klein-Davis for The New York Times

Seven school districts in Virginia sued Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Monday, objecting to his executive order overruling their mask policies and making the wearing of masks optional in public schools.

The school districts include the Fairfax County Public Schools, the state’s largest with more than 178,000 students, as well as the school systems in Prince William County, Alexandria, Arlington, Falls Church, Hampton, and Richmond. Together, the districts serve more than 350,000 students.

The school districts said in a statement on Monday that the suit “defends the right of school boards to enact policy at the local level, including policies that protect the health and well-being of all students and staff.” The lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court in Arlington County.

The school officials questioned whether an executive order “can unilaterally override” the authority given to local boards by the state constitution. The suit also disputes whether the governor’s order can override legislative action taken in 2021 that allowed students to attend classes in person while local school boards follow recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Without today’s action, school boards are placed in a legally untenable position — faced with an executive order that is in conflict with the constitution and state law,” the lawsuit says.

A spokeswoman for the governor, Macaulay Porter, said in a statement that the governor’s office was “disappointed that these school boards are ignoring parent’s rights.” She said Mr. Youngkin and the state attorney general were committed to fighting the lawsuit.

Mr. Youngkin issued an executive order on Jan. 15, the day he took office, that said parents could decide for themselves whether to follow school mask mandates. The order aimed to end a mandate imposed by Mr. Youngkin’s predecessor, Ralph Northam.

Mr. Youngkin ordered that the parents of any child enrolled in a school or a school-based early child care and educational program “may elect for their children not to be subject to any mask mandate in effect” at the facility.

“Parents should have the ability to decide whether their child should wear masks for the duration of the school day,” it reads.

The schools’ lawsuit said, in part, that the plaintiff’s schools “have students and staff members who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of Covid-19, and for whom an infection with the virus could lead to serious illness or death” and that masks were among the mitigation measures the schools have taken for the 2021-22 school year.

Asked about the lawsuit on Monday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said: “Studies show that masks reduce transmissions in school. They’re a proven tool that helps keep students and teachers safe from Covid. And they can thus help keep schools open and safe.”

She added, “What we’re advising school districts on is to abide by public health guidelines and follow public health guidelines.”

Adeel Hassan contributed reporting.

Correction:

Jan. 24, 2022

An earlier version of this item misstated the court where the lawsuit was filed. It was filed in the Circuit Court in Arlington County, not the Arlington District Court.

Researchers are trying to figure out how Omicron defied the normal rules of evolution.

Image

Credit...NIAID, via EPA, via Shutterstock

As nurses and doctors struggle with a record-breaking wave of Omicron cases, evolutionary biologists are engaged in a struggle of their own: figuring out how this world-dominating variant came to be.

When the Omicron variant took off in southern Africa in November, scientists were taken aback by its genetic makeup. Whereas earlier variants had differed from the original Wuhan version of the coronavirus by a dozen or two mutations, Omicron had 53 — a shockingly large jump in viral evolution.

In a study posted online last week, an international team of scientists further deepened the mystery. They found that 13 of those mutations were rarely, if ever, found in other coronaviruses, suggesting they should have been harmful to Omicron. Instead, when acting in concert, these mutations appear to be key to some of Omicron’s most essential functions.

Now the researchers are trying to figure out how Omicron defied the normal rules of evolution and used these mutations to become such a successful vector of disease.

“There’s a mystery here that someone has to figure out,” said Darren Martin, a virologist at the University of Cape Town who worked on the new study.

Mutations are a regular part of a coronavirus’s existence. Every time a virus replicates inside of a cell, there’s a small chance that the cell will create a flawed copy of its genes. Many of those mutations would make new viruses defective and unable to compete with other viruses.

But a mutation can also improve a virus. It could make the virus stick more tightly to cells, for example, or make it replicate faster. Viruses that inherit a beneficial mutation may outcompete others.

Over most of 2020, scientists found that different lineages of the coronavirus around the world gradually picked up a handful of mutations. The evolutionary process was slow and steady, until the end of the year.

In December 2020, British researchers were jolted to discover a new variant in England carrying 23 mutations not found in the original coronavirus isolated in Wuhan a year before.

Biden’s response to the pandemic has struggled to pivot, experts say.

Image

Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden took office last January with a 200-page coronavirus response strategy, promising a “full-scale wartime effort” rooted in science and competence.

Mr. Biden and his team have gotten much right, including getting at least one dose of a vaccine into nearly 85 percent of Americans 12 and older and rolling out lifesaving treatments. Those achievements have put the United States in a far better place to combat the virus than it was a year ago, with most schools and businesses open and the death rate lower because the vaccine significantly reduces the chance of illness or death, even from the highly contagious Omicron variant.

But an examination of Mr. Biden’s first year of fighting the virus — based on interviews with scores of current and former administration officials, public health experts and governors — shows how his effort to confront “one of the most formidable enemies America has ever faced,” as he recently described it, has been marked by setbacks in three key areas:

The White House bet the pandemic would follow a straight line, and was unprepared for the sharp turns it took. The administration did not anticipate the nature and severity of variants, even after clear warning signals from the rest of the world. And it continued to focus almost single-mindedly on vaccinations even after it became clear that the shots could not always prevent the spread of disease.

The administration lacked a sustained focus on testing, not moving to sharply increase the supply of at-home Covid tests until the fall, with Delta tearing through the country and Omicron on its way. The lack of foresight left Americans struggling to find tests that could quickly determine if they were infected.

The president tiptoed around an organized Republican revolt over masks, mandates, vaccine passports and even the vaccine itself, as he worried that pushing certain containment measures would only worsen an already intractable cultural and political divide in the country. The nation’s precarious economic health, and the political blowback that Mr. Biden and members of his party could face if it worsened, made him all the more cautious. So rather than forcing Americans to get shots, he spent months struggling to accomplish it through persuasion.

Germany’s vaccine mandate forges an unlikely coalition of protesters.

Image

Credit...Constantin Zinn/EPA, via Shutterstock

At the start of the pandemic, Germany was widely lauded as a model of unity in combating the coronavirus. A general trust in government encouraged citizens to comply with lockdowns, mask guidance and social distancing restrictions.

But that confidence in the authorities has steadily waned as the pandemic enters its third year and the fight has shifted toward vaccines, exposing deep rifts in German society and setting back efforts to combat Covid cases.

Plans by the new German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to make the vaccine mandatory have galvanized a nationwide protest movement, mobilizing tens of thousands in marches in cities and villages every week even as Covid cases surge to new highs with the spread of the Omicron variant.

Germany, with a vaccination rate of 69 percent, has the largest share of unvaccinated people among big Western European nations, and its organized resistance to vaccines may be more pronounced than anywhere else in Europe.

Most Germans back not just vaccinations but also a vaccine mandate, but the opposition has forged an alliance of strange bedfellows that stretches across the political spectrum. Much of its center of gravity remains on the far right, giving new momentum to the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, a party best known for its anti-immigrant views.

South Korea urges people to avoid travel for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Image

Credit...Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum of South Korea urged the public on Monday to avoid traveling during the coming Lunar New Year holiday, which takes place from Jan. 31 through Feb. 2, because of rising cases of the coronavirus.

“It’s been two years since we haven’t been able to celebrate a proper Lunar New Year,” Mr. Kim said in a statement. “We ask that once again, you all celebrate the holidays at heart while social distancing.”

On Monday, South Korea reported 7,513 new daily cases, almost double the figure for the same day last week. Omicron is now the dominant coronavirus variant in the country.

The country tightened its social-distancing rules a few weeks ago, and the new regulations will last through the holiday weekend, meaning that businesses will have to close at 9 p.m.

Restrictions on social gatherings however, have been raised from four to six people. According to the Our World in Data project at Oxford University, South Korea has a vaccination rate of 85 percent. People must prove that they are fully vaccinated status before they are allowed to enter businesses or public buildings.

The world surpasses 10 billion vaccine doses administered, but gaps persist in who gets the shots.

Image

Credit...Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel rolled up his sleeve in December 2020 to receive a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, kicking off one of the world’s first mass rollouts of Covid shots, he declared that it marked “the beginning of the end” of the pandemic.

Thirteen months later, his prediction has proved far from true, but 10 billion vaccine doses have been administered globally, a milestone that reflects the astonishing speed with which governments and drug companies have mobilized, allowing many nations to envision a near future in which their people coexist with the virus but aren’t confined by it.

The milestone, reached on Friday, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford, has not been arrived at equitably, even though 10 billion doses could theoretically have meant at least one shot for all of the world’s 7.9 billion people.

In the wealthiest countries, 77 percent of people have received at least one dose, whereas in low-income countries the figure is less than 10 percent. As North America and Europe race to overcome Omicron surges by offering boosters, with some nations even contemplating a fourth shot, more than one-third of the world’s people, many of them in Africa and poor pockets of Asia, are still waiting for a first dose.

The United States has administered five times as many extra shots — about 85 million — as the total number of doses administered in all of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.

“Ten billion doses is a triumph of science but a complete failure of global solidarity,” said Madhukar Pai, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at McGill University in Montreal.

And not all vaccines are the same. Those made in China have shown to be less effective than the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. And while nearly all of the world’s Covid vaccines protect against severe illness, early research suggests that most offer little protection against infection from Omicron.

The consequences of the vaccine gap have been highlighted by Omicron, which was first identified in southern Africa. Low vaccination coverage creates conditions for widespread virus circulation and with that the possibility of new variants emerging.

The disparities remain even as Covax, the global vaccine sharing initiative that facilitates distribution of donations from rich nations, increases its deliveries. After a slow start because of hoarding by rich nations and large outbreaks that prompted export blockages, Covax said this month that it had delivered its billionth dose — though that is less than half of its initial target.

Misinformation on social media and mistrust of government and pharmaceutical companies has fed into vaccine hesitancy in many countries. Even where people are willing to be inoculated, delivering doses to far-flung areas with poor health infrastructure has been challenging.

Thomas Hale, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Oxford, said that in sub-Saharan Africa, “We’re seeing pretty good vaccination rates in cities and capitals, where vaccines tend to land, but that supply runs headfirst into the general challenges of building stronger health systems in these countries.”

High-income nations have announced initiatives to assist, including the Global Covid Corps, a U.S. government program to help countries overcome logistical and delivery hurdles. But experts say that another monumental challenge is that rich countries have failed to agree on waiving intellectual property restrictions on vaccines, and have not put pressure on drug companies to share their technology so that poorer nations can manufacture doses locally.

South Africa, for example, has set up a hub to begin developing mRNA vaccines where scientists, with the backing of the W.H.O., are trying to reverse-engineer the Moderna vaccine from scratch, because the U.S. drugmaker won’t share its technology.

Dr. Pai likened this to reinventing the wheel while a car is on fire.

“We have learned through this pandemic that charity does not work in global health, and charity is not the same as justice,” he said. “And that is what countries are looking for — a just approach to be able to save themselves.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Covid News: New York Judge Blocks State's Mask Mandate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read the latest on the ruling on a New York State mask policy . A New York State judge ruled on Monday that the state's mask mandate had been enacted unlawfully and is now void, according to court documents. Gov.

# data[].attributes.headline
LOW COVID-19 CASES BRING ABOUT NEW GUIDELINES

# data[].attributes.subject
LOW COVID-19 CASES BRING ABOUT NEW GUIDELINES

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As the COVID-19 cases started to decline rapidly from late January through March, many COVID-19 guidelines have altered. The CDC Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention K-12 Schools shortened the amount of time spent in quarantine and stated that masks are recommended by students (ages 2 years and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status, but they are not mandatory.

As COVID-19 cases also decreased in Ohio, Westerville City Schools District transformed from requiring staff and students to wear masks at all times to making masks optional on Tuesday, Feb. 22. Later on March 7, passengers and drivers were also able to participate in the mask optional guideline set by the CDC.

Given this transition, there are certain conditions under which the CDC strongly advises individuals to continue wearing a mask regardless of their vaccination status.

For example, wearing a mask while attending plays, concerts, athletic contests, and other indoor events with an audience or group of spectators. During one-to-one meetings or small group gatherings, even if able to maintain appropriate physical distancing.

Because the school district has been enforcing the new guidelines, many students have been split on whether or not to participate.

Senior Sara Ismael said, "I do not mind the guidelines as long as people take precautions of their health and ultimately make other people feel safe. Safety is the number one reason why I still wear my mask. COVID-19 is still here and it's not completely gone. My parents also encourage me and siblings to wear masks wherever we go".

"I feel like it would be selfish not to wear a mask, seeing as many immune compromised people can't as of now. I won't move on and "be done" until everyone can, including immune compromised people can," sophomore Cassie Chakford said.

Other students at Westerville South participated in the uplifted mask mandate and chose not to wear their masks.

"I choose not to wear my mask because I don't fear it. I'm young, vaccinated and quite healthy. No comorbidities, in fact, nothing of the kind. I would never force my beliefs on anyone else - I think that anyone who wants to wear a mask should be able to, but I just choose not to," freshman Michael McWhorter said.

"I have respiratory issues that affect my ability to breathe so the masks make it harder to breathe so I decided to not wear my mask," said junior Andra Vaughan.

As for the staff at Westerville South, social studies teacher Eric Calland said, "Overall, I do think it was time. I think our district has done a pretty good job of getting kind of a feel for the area. My concern is that I just want people to feel comfortable and I hope everyone respects other people's decisions. It has also made a difference in the classroom. I feel as if there is more emotion and it probably helps to see teachers' faces. In all, I hope people respect other people's decisions."

With spring break coming up and people planning to travel, the covid rates may be affected. Westerville South nurse, Jessica Gilbert said, "I think that there is a concern when people are traveling but good news is on air planes, masks are still mandated. So people going on airplanes with people they do not know still have to wear masks. If people are going somewhere and they are driving, it is with their immediate family. Therefore, I don't think there will be a drastic change."

The Westerville City School District COVID-19 numbers also display the low cases. Ever since the mask mandate was lifted, there have been little to no COVID-19 cases in most schools and high schools- about seven cases in total in the Westerville City School District.

The City of Westerville has also decided to lift their mask mandate and now states that "masks are optional in all City of Westerville buildings".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
LOW COVID-19 CASES BRING ABOUT NEW GUIDELINES

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As the COVID-19 cases started to decline rapidly from late January through March, many COVID-19 guidelines have altered. The CDC Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention K-12 Schools shortened the amount of time spent in quarantine and stated that masks are recommended by students (ages 2 years and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless...

# data[].attributes.body
Were you surprised?

# data[].attributes.body
All caught up on the various Power series?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Don't believe all the bad reviews

I think the show is very good. It is not about Ghost anymore. If you can't leave that behind, don't bother watch it. I can't wait to see how this show will turn out. Seeing Tariq grow from a little boy to a man and making his own decisions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Power Book II: Ghost (TV Series 2020- ) - IMDb

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Don't believe all the bad reviews I think the show is very good. It is not about Ghost anymore. If you can't leave that behind, don't bother watch it. I can't wait to see how this show will turn out. Seeing Tariq grow from a little boy to a man and making his own decisions.

# data[].attributes.body
Thoughts?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Eric Adams 'stop and frisk' answer on PIX11 draws backlash

# data[].attributes.body
How do we prevent the past from becoming our future?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
2nd N.Y.P.D. Officer Dies of Wounds From Harlem Shooting (Published 2022)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Wilbert Mora, 27, joined the department in 2018. He and his partner, Jason Rivera, were killed by a man who opened fire during a domestic call, the police said.

# data[].attributes.headline
Bob Mackie says Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe's gown to Met Gala was a 'big mistake'

# data[].attributes.subject
Bob Mackie says Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe's gown to Met Gala was a 'big mistake'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"It was designed for her. Nobody else should be seen in that dress," the famed designer who drew the original sketch for star's 1962 Jean Louis gown, tells EW.

While some celebrated Kardashian for her nod to the icon, others worried about the implications of her wearing the real gown. Costume historians and conservationists decried the unfortunate precedent it would set and the potential damage it could cause.

Another person who didn't love Kardashian's choices? Fashion designer Bob Mackie, who drew the sketch for the original gown in his early career working as an assistant to Jean Louis. "I thought it was a big mistake," Mackie tells EW, while previewing the new Turner Classic Movies' fashion on film series Follow the Thread. "[Marilyn] was a goddess. A crazy goddess, but a goddess. She was just fabulous. Nobody photographs like that. And it was done for her. It was designed for her. Nobody else should be seen in that dress."

Mackie also echoes historians' concerns that wearing the gown was undoubtably damaging to its preservation and structural integrity. He was only 23 when he did the sketch for the gown under the direction of Louis, not even knowing what the dress was for besides an original design for Marilyn Monroe to wear.

Kim Kardashian; Marilyn Monroe

TCM host Alicia Malone, who spoke with Mackie as part of the network's forthcoming Follow the Thread series and can be seen on CNN's Reframed: Marilyn Monroe, also raises concerns for the impact on the gown. "There are all the issues with the actual preservation of the dress and things like oxygen can affect a dress," she explains. "Usually, these outfits are kept very much in controlled environments. So, it was quite alarming that she was able to wear it. I personally wish she wore a replica instead of the real thing."

Malone says there are striking similarities between Kardashian and Monroe, however. "You can draw many parallels between Marilyn Monroe and Kim Kardashian in the way that they're both very publicity savvy," she notes. "Of course, this was very much a publicity stunt that worked for Kim Kardashian. Marilyn Monroe was someone who also loved to create sensation, as she did with that naked dress. Also, they are women who have changed the ideal beauty of the moment. Marilyn Monroe, when she came in her curves became very popular during the 1950s. And we see a lot of young women vying to look like Kim Kardashian. For better or worse, she's changed the ideal body shape for women."

Monroe remains a subject of fascination, but she's also perpetually misread and misunderstood, commodified in her death as she was in life. She wanted desperately to be seen as more than a beautiful face and body, to be taken seriously as an actress and as a human being. Her lifelong struggle to achieve that contributed to mental health challenges that impacted her work and ultimately played a role in her death.

In wearing Monroe's dress - and going on the record about her risky crash diet to fit into it, and dying her hair blonde, has Kardashian only celebrated the part of Marilyn the woman herself so desperately wanted others to see past?

Monroe earned admirers and fame for her beauty and sex appeal, and she remains one of the most recognizable icons of Hollywood to this day. But she wanted to be loved for her soul, not her body. She wanted to be understood and respected as an intellectual, a thinker, and a performer. What does it say when a woman most famous for, well, being famous, is the person assuming her image?

Malone ponders these questions. "Marilyn Monroe is just such a mess of contradictions," she reflects. "She's not easy to place in a box and that's why she has that appeal. I don't know what Kim Kardashian sees in Marilyn herself or how much she knows about her history. But definitely now, Kim will be tied to that dress as Marilyn is - so it'll be the Marilyn Monroe dress that Kim Kardashian also wore to the Met Gala."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bob Mackie says Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe's gown was a 'big mistake'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"It was designed for her. Nobody else should be seen in that dress," the famed designer who drew the original sketch for star's 1962 Jean Louis gown, tells EW. While some celebrated Kardashian for her nod to the icon, others worried about the implications of her wearing the real gown.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Grocery Stores And Manufacturers Rush To Restock Empty Shelves | TODAY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Gas Prices Keep Dropping But Is Omicron Playing the Grinch? Read more "

# data[].attributes.headline
Roe V Wade Ruling Disproportionately Hurts Black Women, Experts Say

# data[].attributes.subject
Roe V Wade Ruling Disproportionately Hurts Black Women, Experts Say

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn a woman's constitutional right to an abortion is expected to have a disproportionate impact on Black women and other women of color, who have traditionally faced overwhelming costs and logistical obstacles in obtaining reproductive healthcare, experts said.

The reversal of Roe v Wade leaves the decision of whether or not an abortion is legal in the hands of state governments. While some states have recently reaffirmed the right to an abortion, 26 states are likely or certain to ban abortion in most or all circumstances.

More Black women live in states that will ban abortion and those living in southern states - with the most restrictive laws - will bear the brunt. For example, Black people make up about 38 percent of Mississippi's population, according to recent Census data, compared to about 13% of the U.S. population overall.

Black women in the United States are five times more likely to have abortions than White women, while Latina women are twice as likely, according to 2019 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Health experts trace the relatively high rates of abortion among Black women to disparities in access to healthcare, including lack of health insurance and contraceptives in underserved communities.

In Mississippi, Black women accounted for 74 percent of abortions in 2019, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"There is no denying the fact that this is a direct attack on all women, and Black women stand to be disproportionately impacted by the court's egregious assault on basic human rights," said Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

If more Black women are forced to carry pregnancies to term, there will be a disproportionate increase in deaths of Black women in childbirth, a study from Duke University finds.

More American women overall die of childbirth every year than in any other developed nation, according to the White House. And Black women in the United States die in childbirth at a rate three times white women, data shared by the White House show.

A full abortion ban could further increase Black maternal deaths by 33%, compared to a 21% increase for the overall population, the Duke study says.

The Supreme Court ruling "marks the beginning of a new public health crisis for Black women," said Michelle Webb, chief communications officer of the Black Women's Health Imperative, a non-profit focused on improving the health of Black women.

LONG-TERM FINANCIAL DISTRESS

Women who are forced to have an unwanted baby are more likely to be in poverty and experience financial distress for years afterward, with higher rates of evictions and bankruptcies, research including a 2020 paper https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26662/w26662.pdf published by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows.

When a woman is not able to obtain an abortion, the psychological impact of such an action hampers productivity, it said. Women also face medical costs associated with prenatal care, birth, postpartum recovery in addition to costs associated with raising a child that typically exceed $9000 a year, the research showed.

"Abortion rights are economic rights," said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. "This decision means the loss of economic security, independence, and mobility for abortion seekers," she said, which will impact women of color the most.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington, Editing by Heather Timmons)

Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Roe V Wade Ruling Disproportionately Hurts Black Women, Experts Say

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn a woman's constitutional right to an abortion is expected to have a disproportionate impact on Black women and other women of color, who have traditionally faced overwhelming costs and logistical obstacles in obtaining reproductive healthcare, experts said.

# data[].attributes.headline
Why Kourtney Kardashian’s veil featured a depiction of the Virgin Mary

# data[].attributes.subject
Why Kourtney Kardashian’s veil featured a depiction of the Virgin Mary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Kourtney Kardashian incorporated a very special detail into her veil during her wedding to Travis Barker.

The newlyweds tied the knot on Sunday in Portofino, Italy, and the bride wore a lingerie-inspired Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda lace and satin corset mini dress.

When it came time to select a veil, Kardashian decided to add in some meaningful details, aka a depiction of the Virgin Mary, as Vogue reports.

Wowza! The veil had a train for days. kimkardashian / Instagram

The Virgin Mary image was inspired by an identical tattoo on Barker's skull, which includes the words "family," "loyalty" and "respect." Naturally, the veil featured the same words.

Travis Barker's Virgin Mary tattoo inspired his wife's veil. John Shearer / Getty Images

In addition to the Virgin Mary, the striking veil also featured an ultra long train and hand embroidered flowers that took inspiration from Portofino’s Mediterranean gardens.

The 43-year-old shared several professional photos from her nuptials on Instagram, including one where she poses with her newly minted husband as he pops open a bottle of champagne.

The mother of three accessorized her custom dress with tulle gloves and lace pumps, and her husband also looked dapper in a black double breasted Dolce & Gabbana suit.

The bride and groom on their special day. alabamaluellabarker / Instagram

In the days leading up to the wedding, the entire Kardashian clan stepped out in style in Portofino, and the bride wore another religious-inspired frock: a black dress with a depiction of the Virgin Mary in the middle.

Kardashian's three children — Mason, 12, Penelope, 9, and Reign, 7 — were on hand for the festivities, as were Barker's children — his son Landon, 18, daughter Alabama, 16, and step-daughter Atiana De La Hoya, 23.

The matriarch of the Kardashian clan, Kris Jenner, was present for her daughter's big day, as were the bride's sisters, Kim, Khloé, Kendall and Kylie. Kim also brought her eldest child, daughter North, 8, and Kylie traveled with her daughter Stormi, 4.

Last week, the happy couple made things legally official and tied the knot. Afterwards, Kardashian shared several photos after their courthouse wedding.

“Till death do us part,” she captioned her Instagram post.

In April, the couple had everyone wondering if they were actually married after they held a private wedding ceremony in Las Vegas. Alas, they didn't have a legally binding wedding license with them, so it was all for fun.

Chrissy Callahan covers a range of topics for TODAY.com, including fashion, beauty, pop culture and food. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, watching bad reality TV and consuming copious amounts of cookie dough.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kourtney Kardashian depicted the Virgin Mary on her veil. Here’s the sentimental reason why

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The bride took inspiration from her groom’s skull tattoo while designing her veil.

# data[].attributes.headline
Abortion Ruling Casts Cloud Over Usual Cheer at U.S. Pride Parades

# data[].attributes.subject
Abortion Ruling Casts Cloud Over Usual Cheer at U.S. Pride Parades

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Randi Love and Nathan Frandino

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - People attending Pride celebrations hosted by LGBTQ+ communities across the United States this weekend expressed outrage at the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, and a wave of anti-transgender legislation.

For more than 50 years, LGBTQ+ people and supporters have marched on the last weekend in June to celebrate hard-won freedoms. But now many fear those freedoms are under threat.

Pride parades in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Denver followed protests in some of the same cities decrying the Supreme Court's decision on Friday to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

"This march is going to have more of a serious tone than celebratory, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all," said Krystal Marx, executive director of Seattle Pride, which drew thousands of people to its parade on Sunday.

In New York City, throngs of people dressed in rainbow colors cheered as representatives of the abortion rights group Planned Parenthood took part in a parade in Manhattan. The marchers held pink signs that read "Together. We fight for all."

"Everybody please scream for Planned Parenthood!" an announcer called over a loudspeaker. "We won't back down!" the crowd responded.

The marches commemorate protests that broke out after police raided a gay bar at the Stonewall Inn in New York City on June 28, 1969.

LGBTQ leaders fear the abortion ruling by the court's conservative justices endangers personal freedom beyond abortion rights. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Court might reconsider other precedents, mentioning specifically the rulings protecting the rights to contraception, same-sex intimacy and gay marriage.

"The anti-abortion playbook and the anti-LGBTQ playbook are one and the same. Both are about denying control over our bodies and making it more dangerous for us to live as we are," Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of LGBTQ advocacy organization GLAAD, said in a statement.

Even before the Supreme Court's ruling against abortion rights, the LGBTQ+ community's Pride month jubilation was weighed down by a raft of Republican-backed state laws that specifically target transgender youth.

The measures enacted in several red states bar classroom discussion of gender identity, block access to healthcare to help young people transition, and restrict participation in sports.

In Texas, where Republican Governor Greg Abbott has called for prosecuting some gender-affirming care as child abuse, the line from overturning Roe to rolling back LGBTQ+ rights was clear to Patrick Smith, who attended Houston's Pride Parade.

"The government should stay out of our private lives," said Smith, who attended the event on Saturday with his partner. "Women went first. I fear what could happen to us too."

Abortion rights and transgender rights were top of mind at San Francisco's Pride parade, where people held signs that read "Abort the Court," "Protect trans youth," and organizers led a chant of "Get your laws off our bodies."

"It feels like there's a cloud over everybody who has a uterus," said Maya Reddick, a high school student attending San Francisco's celebration with friends. She held a sign that said "reproductive rights are human rights."

(Reporting by Randi Love, Nathan Frandino, Dan Fastenberg, Soren Larson, Gabriella Borter, Sabrina Valle and Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Nick Zieminski, Ross Colvin and Diane Craft)

Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Abortion Ruling Casts Cloud Over Usual Cheer at U.S. Pride Parades

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Randi Love and Nathan Frandino NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - People attending Pride celebrations hosted by LGBTQ+ communities across the United States this weekend expressed outrage at the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, and a wave of anti-transgender legislation.

# data[].attributes.headline
‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Catapults Past $1B At Worldwide Box Office

# data[].attributes.subject
‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Catapults Past $1B At Worldwide Box Office

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Refresh for latest...: Paramount/ Skydance's Top Gun: Maverick has raced past the $1B mark worldwide, becoming only the second movie of the pandemic era to reach such rarefied air - and Tom Cruise's first time to the milestone in a career that has spanned 40 years. It took just 31 days for the aviators to get to $1B with the total through Sunday at an estimated $1.006B worldwide, including domestic's estimated $521.7M and $484.7M from the international box office.

Cruise's flying ace had already raced across $900M last Monday, and a few days prior had topped $800M to become Cruise's biggest movie ever globally.

The overseas holds on this 36-years-later sequel directed by Joseph Kosinski have been nothing short of stellar. Last weekend was off just 21%, and the current frame, at $44.5M in 65 markets, is down only 26% - simply phenomenal.

TGM's performance is a testament to the work that Paramount's distribution and marketing teams put behind it, while Cruise himself deserves massive credit. The indefatigable star traveled to San Diego, Mexico City, Japan, Cannes, London and Seoul to promote the movie. After his Korea trip, he even made a pit-stop at the CineEurope convention in Barcelona this past Wednesday (en route from Seoul to the set of the next Mission: Impossible), thanking exhibition personally for its efforts.

What's even more impressive about the movie that puts Cruise back in the cockpit where he first catapulted to global action stardom, is that it is reaching these hypersonic heights without China or Russia in the mix. And, it is pulling in "older" audiences as well as the younger folk who weren't even around for the first movie.

To recap, at release in late May, Maverick lit the fires with Cruise's biggest overseas and domestic debuts; and the following weekend was not devoured by the start of Jurassic World Dominion, proving there is room in the marketplace for more than one major tentpole - which is great news for everyone after the past couple of years of uncertainty.

In notable performances this weekend, TGM is still ranked at No. 1 in Japan - for the fifth weekend in a row - and down just 15% for a $51.1M running cume. The UK came in behind Warner Bros' Elvis, down 18% from last week for a total to date of $78.7M. Australia dipped 24%, landing No. 2 behind Elvis for a $45.5M cume to date. In France, the total so far is $38.8M. Germany's total to date is $23.4M.

MORE...

Read More About:
JavaScript is required to load the comments.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Top Gun: Maverick' Catapults Past $1B At Worldwide Box Office

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Refresh for latest...: Paramount/ Skydance's Top Gun: Maverick has raced past the $1B mark worldwide, becoming only the second movie of the pandemic era to reach such rarefied air - and Tom Cruise's first time to the milestone in a career that has spanned 40 years.

# data[].attributes.headline
WHO Says Monkeypox Is Not Yet a Health Emergenc

# data[].attributes.subject
WHO Says Monkeypox Is Not Yet a Health Emergenc

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LONDON (Reuters) -Monkeypox is not yet a global health emergency, the World Health Organization (WHO) ruled on Saturday, although WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was deeply concerned about the outbreak.

"I am deeply concerned about the monkeypox outbreak, this is clearly an evolving health threat that my colleagues and I in the WHO Secretariat are following extremely closely," Tedros said in a statement.

WHO said in a separate statement that although there were some differing views within the committee, they ultimately agreed by consensus that at this stage the outbreak is not a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

The "global emergency" label currently only applies to the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing efforts to eradicate polio, and the U.N. agency has stepped back from applying it to the monkeypox outbreak after advice from a meeting of international experts.

There have been more than 3,200 confirmed cases of monkeypox and one death reported in the last six weeks from 48 countries where it does not usually spread, according to WHO.

So far this year almost 1,500 cases and 70 deaths in central Africa, where the disease is more common, have also been reported, chiefly in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Monkeypox, a viral illness causing flu-like symptoms and skin lesions, has been spreading largely in men who have sex with men outside the countries where it is endemic.

There are vaccines and treatments available for monkeypox, although they are in limited supply.

Some global health experts said WHO may be have been hesitant to make a declaration because its January 2020 declaration that the new coronavirus represented a public health emergency was largely met with skepticism around the world.

But others said the outbreak met the criteria to be called an emergency.

Gregg Gonsalves, an associate professor of epidemiology at Yale University who advised the committee but who is not a member of WHO, told Reuters by email on Saturday that he thought the decision was "misguided".

"It met all the criteria but they decided to punt on this momentous decision," he said.

(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; additional reporting by Mrinmay Dey; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
WHO Says Monkeypox Is Not Yet a Health Emergency

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
LONDON (Reuters) -Monkeypox is not yet a global health emergency, the World Health Organization (WHO) ruled on Saturday, although WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was deeply concerned about the outbreak. "I am deeply concerned about the monkeypox outbreak, this is clearly an evolving health threat that my colleagues and I in the WHO Secretariat are following extremely closely," Tedros said in a statement.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Johnny Depp–Amber Heard Verdict Is Chilling

# data[].attributes.subject
The Johnny Depp–Amber Heard Verdict Is Chilling

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
During closing arguments in the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard, one of Heard's attorneys, Benjamin Rottenborn, described a series of Catch-22s that often ensnare women who, like Heard, accuse their partners of domestic violence. "If you didn't take pictures, it didn't happen; if you did take pictures, they're fake," he said. "If you didn't tell your friends, you're lying; and if you did tell your friends, they're part of the hoax. If you didn't seek medical treatment, you weren't injured; if you did seek medical treatment, you're crazy." Rottenborn did not name a few other damned-if-you-do scenarios that were advanced by Depp's ferociously adept legal team in the course of the six-week-long trial: if you surreptitiously record abusive behavior, you are conniving and untrustworthy; if you don't, it didn't happen. If you ever try to laugh off your partner's ghastly behavior-because the "cycle of abuse" is no less terrifying for being so pathetic and predictable-then it's not abuse. If you talk back or fight back, then you are the real abuser.

The jury was not swayed by Rottenborn's litany, or perhaps they took it literally. On Wednesday, a panel of five men and two women found that Heard defamed Depp in an op-ed for the Post, in December, 2018, by referring to herself as "representing domestic abuse," by stating that she witnessed "how institutions protect men accused of abuse," and by tweeting a link to the online version of the op-ed, which carried the headline "I spoke up against sexual violence-and faced our culture's wrath. That has to change." Depp was awarded fifteen million dollars in damages; Heard reportedly plans to appeal. (The jury also found that Depp was liable for defamatory statements that his former attorney Adam Waldman had made about Heard and her friends staging a scene of alleged abuse; they awarded Heard two million in damages.) Heard did not write the headline, and, in the article, she specified that she had been "sexually assaulted by the time I was of college age"-long before she met Depp, who has denied ever hitting or assaulting Heard. In fact, Heard does not name Depp at all in the Post piece, which was proposed and initially drafted by the A.C.L.U., and which argued for reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act and for preserving Title IX protections against sexual assault in schools. (Neither the Post nor the A.C.L.U. were defendants in Depp's lawsuit.) The trial, in short, turned the op-ed into an ouroboros: what was intended as a #MeToo testimonial about women being punished for naming their experiences became a post-#MeToo instrument for punishing a woman who named her experiences.

Heard did accuse Depp of domestic violence when she filed for a temporary restraining order against him, in 2016, and, at that time, she appeared in paparazzi photos and on the cover of People magazine with apparent bruises and lacerations to her face. In bringing the suit against Heard, Depp mounted a case for defamation by implication. The pivotal twelve words in the 2018 op-ed were "Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse." This is an accurate statement, but Depp argued that Heard was able to make that statement only because she had lied and faked her injuries when she sought the restraining order. The burden of proof rested with Depp's side to demonstrate that Heard had engineered an abuse hoax across several years, that the "defamatory implication" of her op-ed "was designed and intended by Ms. Heard," and that she had acted "with actual malice," which the Supreme Court, in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, in 1964, defined as making a statement "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."

It would have seemed to be Heard's case to lose. "One time, ladies and gentlemen, one time-if he abused her one time, Amber wins," Rottenborn told the jury. "Actually, if he fails to prove that he never abused her one time, Amber wins."

And yet she lost. She lost despite vile text messages from Depp, spinning out violent fantasies of rape and murder. She lost despite photograph after photograph of cuts, bruises, and swelling. She lost despite audio recordings of Depp verbally abusing her. She lost despite her sister, multiple friends, a makeup artist, and a couples counsellor attesting to seeing her injuries. And she lost despite facing the jury and recounting graphic, painful episodes of alleged physical and sexual violence. Heard, admittedly, was not good on the stand during direct examination-she did a lot of tearless crying, and she often appeared to be performing her sorrow rather than reliving it. (She was much better squaring off with the unconquerable Camille Vasquez, another of Depp's lawyers. If you didn't watch the trial, picture Regina George from "Mean Girls" as the defense attorney in "The Accused.") Then again, if Heard had testified with perfect composure, she might have been pilloried as calculated and unfeeling; if she had cried an ocean, as Patricia Bowman did when she testified against William Kennedy Smith, in his 1991 rape trial, she might have been ridiculed as messy and hysterical, just as Bowman was. But that returns us to Rottenborn's list of all the pincer movements that close in on abuse victims. The accuser's affect and presentation are somehow a more damning incrimination than, say, a video of her alleged abuser trashing a kitchen.

Heard also lost because her legal team could not catch a break. They did not succeed in moving the case from Virginia, where Depp filed suit and where the Post's servers are situated, to California, where Depp and Heard reside, where much of their relationship unfolded, and where legal protections (known as anti-SLAPP laws) for people who speak up on matters of public interest-such as preventing domestic violence-are significantly stronger than in Virginia. They could not get the case dismissed after the High Court in London, in 2020, ruled against Depp in his libel claim against the tabloid the Sun, which called him a "wife beater"; the judge in that case found that twelve of Heard's fourteen abuse accusations as presented in court were proven to be "substantially true." They could not exclude from the jury pool a man who read out the following text from his wife: "Amber is psychotic. If a man says a woman beat him, they never believe him." They could not present evidence in Heard's favor that the judge, Penney Azcarate, ruled out as hearsay, including testimony from seven medical professionals that Heard had reported contemporaneous episodes of abuse to them and a series of text messages from one of Depp's employees, Stephen Deuters, in which Deuters appears to acknowledge that Depp physically harmed Heard on an airplane. ("When I told him he kicked you, he cried.")

But the two most crucial strikes against Heard may have been that Azcarate permitted cameras in the courtroom and did not sequester the jury-a perfect one-two for Depp's online brand of asymmetrical warfare. Trials are not often live-streamed in Virginia; that one centered on allegations of domestic abuse, including sexual assault, was televised is downright shocking. (Certain passages of Heard's testimony in the U.K. case were kept confidential even in the final ruling; in the U.S., those details, as recounted by Heard in Virginia, were made available on YouTube in perpetuity.) The trial's live stream provided hours of raw material for the fancams, TikTok lip-synchs, and cheapo animations that the pro-Depp legions used to saturate every corner of digital space. "Remember tonight do not do any outside research," Azcarate would often admonish the jury when they took a break, revealing a naïveté about the inexorable seepage of the #JusticeForJohnny movement into every social-media feed. To "research" the case only required glancing at TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram, where Heard was cast as the delusional harpy and Depp as the lovable rogue. (As Amanda Hess wrote, in the Times, "I did not follow the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard-it followed me.")

In a previous piece, I wrote about how this trial evoked revenge porn in forcing the defendant to document and participate in her own spectacular humiliation in front of a judge, a jury, and the viewers at home. If Depp's prime motivation in bringing the suit against Heard was to embarrass and stigmatize her, then he would have won, regardless of the verdict; that he became a men's-rights folk hero in the process may have come as a surprise even to him. Others have already taken cues from his success. In March, Depp's longtime buddy Marilyn Manson, who is godfather to Depp's daughter, filed a defamation lawsuit against the actress Evan Rachel Wood, who has publicly accused Manson of emotional abuse and rape. Meanwhile, domestic-violence advocates have spoken widely of the chilling effects of the case-that victims may conclude from these proceedings that they will be disbelieved, harassed, shamed, and ostracized if they press charges or share their experiences. The real legacy of this entire ugly debacle, then, may never be fully known: a palimpsest of stories not told, of justice not sought.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Verdict Is Chilling

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
During closing arguments in the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard, one of Heard's attorneys, Benjamin Rottenborn, described a series of Catch-22s that often ensnare women who, like Heard, accuse their partners of domestic violence. "If you didn't take pictures, it didn't happen; if you did take pictures, they're fake," he said.

# data[].attributes.headline
Biden Signs Gun Safety Bill Into Law, Takes Swipe at Supreme Court

# data[].attributes.subject
Biden Signs Gun Safety Bill Into Law, Takes Swipe at Supreme Court

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law the first major federal gun reform in three decades, days after a decision he condemned by the Supreme Court expanding firearm owners' rights.

"God willing, it's going to save a lot of lives," Biden said at the White House after signing the bill with his wife Jill by his side.

The bipartisan bill came together just weeks after mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo that killed more than 30 people, including 19 children at an elementary school.

The law includes provisions to help states keep guns out of the hands of those deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

The reform came the same week as the Supreme Court expanded gun owners' rights, saying on Thursday for the first time that the U.S. Constitution protected an individual's ability to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.

"The Supreme Court has made some terrible decisions," Biden told reporters after that ruling, and another on Friday that eliminated the right to abortion nationwide.

Gun control has long been a divisive issue in the nation with several attempts to put new controls on gun sales failing time after time.

Biden, who is looking to improve sagging public approval ratings ahead of Nov. 8 midterm elections for control of Congress, made securing victories on gun control a part of his campaign pitch to voters.

The new law blocks gun sales to those convicted of abusing unmarried intimate partners and cracks down on gun sales to purchasers convicted of domestic violence. It also provides new federal funding to states that administer "red flag" laws intended to remove guns from people deemed dangerous to themselves and others.

It does not ban sales of assault-style rifles or high-capacity magazines. But it does take some steps on background checks by allowing access, for the first time, to information on significant crimes committed by juveniles.

"At this time when it seems impossible to get anything done in Washington, we are doing something consequential: If we can reach compromise on guns, we oughta be able to reach compromise on other critical issues," Biden said before traveling to Germany for the Group of Seven rich nations summit.

"I know there's much more work to do, and I'm never gonna give up. But this is a monumental day."

He said he would host families of gun violence victims and lawmakers at a White House event on July 11 to mark the passage of the gun safety law.

(Reportng by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani; editing by John Stonestreet and Chizu Nomiyama)

Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Biden Signs Gun Safety Bill Into Law, Takes Swipe at Supreme Court

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law the first major federal gun reform in three decades, days after a decision he condemned by the Supreme Court expanding firearm owners' rights. "God willing, it's going to save a lot of lives," Biden said at the White House after signing the bill with his wife Jill by his side.

# data[].attributes.headline
At least 4 dead, hundreds injured after collapse at stadium in Colombia

# data[].attributes.subject
At least 4 dead, hundreds injured after collapse at stadium in Colombia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
At least four people were killed and hundreds injured, about 30 of them seriously, after part of a stadium in El Espinal in Colombia's western state of Tolima collapsed during a bullfight Sunday, government officials said.

"At this moment, we have four (dead) victims confirmed - two women, an adult man and a minor - plus about 30 people seriously injured. Of course, we have activated all the hospitals and ambulances we can work with," Tolima Gov. Ricardo Orozco said on BluRadio Colombia, a local radio outlet.

Video posted by Colombia's President-elect Gustavo Petro shows a stand full of spectators collapsing as people run from the area.

The mayor of Espinal, Juan Carlos Tamayo, confirmed the accident in a Facebook post Sunday, calling on citizens to evacuate the area.

"We deeply regret what happened in our bullfight arena," Tamayo said in the statement. "I want to ask all the citizens who are in the area to please evacuate, authorities are already responding to the emergency and the injured have been taken to hospitals. Please, let's evacuate, together let's help the emergency services, so they can do their job."

Local hospitals received 322 patients who were injured in the stadium collapse, Tolima Health Secretary Martha Palacios said Sunday night.

Colombia's civil defense body, Defensa Civil Colombiana, said on Twitter volunteers had transported injured victims to medical facilities in the area.

It posted photos showing people on stretchers in hallways and courtyards.

Local councilor Iván Ferney Rojas posted a video to Twitter appearing to show the collapse. Screaming can be heard in the background of the footage as the three-level structure falls inward.

The video shows the stand apparently filled with people as it crashes. Others on the ground run as the structure topples toward them.

No official cause of the collapse has been given, but Tamayo said in his statement authorities "have already begun investigating the causes of what happened."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
At least 4 dead, hundreds injured after collapse at stadium in Colombia | CNN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At least four people were killed and hundreds injured, about 30 of them seriously, after part of a stadium in El Espinal in Colombia's western state of Tolima collapsed during a bullfight Sunday, government officials said. "At this moment, we have four (dead) victims confirmed - two women, an adult man and a minor - plus about 30 people seriously injured.

# data[].attributes.body
Justice is served in no small part to the media coverage and a massive public outcry that the perpetrators of this crime be punished. What about the racial motivated crimes that are NOT caught on video or reported about on the news? What about justice for those victims?

# data[].attributes.headline
Russia Misses Bond Deadline, Signaling Its First Default on Foreign Debt Since 1918

# data[].attributes.subject
Russia Misses Bond Deadline, Signaling Its First Default on Foreign Debt Since 1918

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Russian Central Bank headquarters in Moscow. The head of the bank, Elvira Nabiullina, has said that there won't be any immediate consequences of a default. Credit... Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Russia missed a deadline for making bond payments on Sunday, a move signaling its first default on international debt in more than a century, after Western sanctions thwarted the government's efforts to pay foreign investors. The lapse adds to efforts to seal Moscow off from global capital markets for years.

About $100 million in dollar- and euro-denominated interest payments failed to reach investors within a 30-day grace period following a missed May 27 deadline. The grace period expired Sunday night.

A formal declaration of default would need to come from bondholders because ratings agencies, which normally declare when borrowers have defaulted, have been barred by sanctions from reporting on Russia. The Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee, a panel of investors that rules on whether to pay out securities linked to defaults, hasn't been asked to make a decision on these bond payments yet.

But it appeared that the payments had not reached bondholders' accounts as of Sunday night, as required by the bonds' contracts. On Monday, Russia's finance ministry said it had made the payments in May and they had been transferred to Euroclear, a Brussels-based clearinghouse, but subsequently blocked from reaching bondholders.

Russia is rejecting the default declaration, on the grounds that it has made efforts to pay. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesman, told reporters on Monday that the statements about default were "absolutely illegal."

"The fact that Euroclear withheld this money, did not transfer it to the recipients, it is not our problem," Mr. Peskov said. "In other words, there are no grounds to call this situation a default."

The finance ministry added that the actions of foreign financial institutions are beyond its control and "it seems advisable for investors to contact the relevant financial institutions directly" over the payments.

The risk of default emerged in late February after Russia invaded Ukraine and sanctions were imposed to sever the country from international financial markets. In late May, Russia tried to navigate tightening sanctions that cut off its access to American banks and bondholders by sending the payments to a Moscow-based institution. But ultimately, the funds didn't make it all the way to bondholders' accounts because of far-reaching American and European sanctions.

This default is unusual because it's a result of economic sanctions blocking transactions, not because the Russian government has run out of money. Moscow's finances remain resilient after months of war, with nearly $600 billion in foreign currency and gold reserves, though about half of that is frozen overseas. And Russia continues to receive a steady influx of cash from sales of oil and gas. Still, a default would be a stain on the country's reputation that will linger in investors' memories and probably push up its borrowing costs if it is able to tap international capital markets.

Unlike other major defaults in recent history, such as in Greece and Argentina, the immediate economic and financial impact of this default on international markets and the Russia's budget are expected to be relatively small.

For one, Russia has already lost access to international investors, traditionally the worst consequence of default.

"The only clear negative outcome of the default is that the external market will be effectively closed for the ministry of finance," said Sofya Donets, an economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. "But it's already closed."

Ivan Nechepurenko and Andrés R. Martínez contributed reporting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Russia Misses Bond Deadline, Signaling Its First Default on Foreign Debt Since 1918

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Russia missed a deadline for making bond payments on Sunday, a move signaling its first default on international debt in more than a century, after Western sanctions thwarted the government's efforts to pay foreign investors. The lapse adds to efforts to seal Moscow off from global capital markets for years.

# data[].attributes.headline
Love to sur with love. Sydney Poitier amazing person. Timeless and inspiring 

# data[].attributes.subject
Love to sur with love. Sydney Poitier amazing person. Timeless and inspiring 

# data[].attributes.body
One way I was able to balance my life as the pandemic surge through the US was to create a schedule that made time for self-care Pilates and running.

# data[].attributes.body
Definitely one of my favorite shows on TV. This past season was WILD lol ! Can’t wait for them to air the new season!

# data[].attributes.body
Of course. It seems every social challenge hurts the Black community more than others. Sad but not surprising.

# data[].attributes.body
Lord let’s not even get me started on how I’m paying close to $100 to fill up ! Miss the good ole days when gas was under $4 😩😩😩

# data[].attributes.body
Equity is an important factor in the educational field, especially because it creates opportunity for unprivileged students so that they are able to overcome disadvantages and at the same time find success. in fact, Mr. Poitier can be described as an equity warrior because with his charisma and grace he was able to break racial barriers making it fairer and more equitable for women and people of color.