Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022
Good Saturday morning. Here’s an extra edition to start the weekend:
NBC News: CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Friday omicron cases could fall just as quickly as they rose.
The rise and fall of Covid diagnoses has historically been shown as "waves," but Walensky suggested the omicron surge in the U.S. may be visualized more as an "ice pick," with a dramatic rise and fall in cases similar to South Africa, which has passed its omicron surge.
"I do think in places that we are seeing this really steep incline, that we may well see also a precipitous decline," Walensky said during the briefing.
Currently, new Covid cases in the U.S. are up more than 204 percent compared to two weeks ago, according to an NBC News analysis.
The New York Times: The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed skeptical Friday that the Biden administration has the power to mandate employers require workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo frequent testing.
The oral argument over that mandate, which rocketed to the court on an emergency basis after a flurry of legal challenges around the nation from Republican-led states, business groups and others, raised the prospect that the court might deal a severe blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to address the coronavirus as the highly transmissible Omicron variant continues to spread.
The court seemed more likely to allow a separate mandate requiring health care workers at facilities receiving federal money to be vaccinated. That regulation, the subject of a second case, was in keeping with other kinds of federal oversight of medical facilities and was supported by virtually the entire medical establishment, some justices said.
But the questioning concerning the employer mandate was more lopsided. That regulation, one of the most far-reaching policies imposed by President Biden in a bid to control the pandemic, would affect 84 million American workers employed by companies with more than 100 workers. Several conservative justices said it was doubtful that a federal workplace safety law provided the administration with the legal authority to impose it.
The court may act quickly in the case, which was argued on an exceptionally rapid schedule.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the states and Congress, rather than a federal agency, were better suited to address the pandemic in the nation’s workplaces. “This is something that the federal government has never done before,” he said, adding that the administration’s several virus-related mandates were “a workaround” in response to congressional inaction.
The court’s three more liberal justices said the mandate was a needed response to the public health crisis.
“This is a pandemic in which nearly a million people have died,” Justice Elena Kagan said. “It is by far the greatest public health danger that this country has faced in the last century.”
“We know that the best way to prevent spread is for people to get vaccinated,” she said.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer said he would find it “unbelievable that it could be in the public interest to suddenly stop these vaccinations.”
Yahoo News: After announcing a plan to send out 1 million at-home COVID-19 tests, Florida officials say a stockpile of up to 1 million tests expired in late December.
Kevin Guthrie, the director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management, joined DeSantis at the press conference and disclosed the gaffe in response to questions from reporters.
"We had between 800,000 and a million test kits, Abbott rapid test kits, in our warehouse that did expire," Guthrie said. He added that the tests expired in the last week of December. He said there wasn't adequate demand to use them. DeSantis added that he was asking the Biden administration to extend the expiration dates on the batch of tests.
The purpose of the press conference, which Insider attended, was to announce plans to send 1 million at-home COVID-19 tests to nursing homes, long-term care facilities, and other residences with high numbers of seniors in the state.
The stockpile of expired tests was first probed by Nikki Fried, the commissioner of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, who is running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in hopes of defeating DeSantis.
On December 30, Fried said in a statement, "It's come to my attention that Governor DeSantis' Department of Health has a significant number of COVID-19 tests stockpiled that are set to expire imminently."
"There's no known public information about these tests or how soon they expire," Fried continued. "With omicron infections exploding throughout Florida, I beg of him to release these tests immediately to local counties and cities, and to stand up state-sponsored testing sites. To let these tests expire while Floridians anxiously wait for hours in testing lines is negligent at best, and heartless at worst."
DeSantis has stood in opposition to the Biden administration's COVID-19 response, rejecting vaccine requirements and issuing new statewide testing guidelines, which advise young, healthy, asymptomatic people with COVID-19 to skip testing.
The Associated Press: The men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia have been sentenced to life in prison with the father and son not eligible for parole.
Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley said Arbery left his home for a jog and ended up running for his life for five minutes as the men chased him until they finally cornered him. The judge paused for a minute of silence to help drive home a sense of what that time must have felt like for Arbery, whose killing became part of a larger national reckoning on racial injustice.
“When I thought about this, I thought from a lot of different angles. I kept coming back to the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man running through Satilla Shores,” he said, mentioning the neighborhood where Arbery was killed.
Greg and Travis McMichael grabbed guns and jumped in a pickup truck to chase Arbery after spotting him running in their neighborhood outside the port city of Brunswick on Feb. 23, 2020. Their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael firing close-range shotgun blasts into Arbery.
“Ahmaud Arbery was then hunted down and shot, and he was killed because individuals here in this courtroom took the law into their own hands,” the judge said. Walmsley ordered the McMichaels to serve life without parole and granted Bryan a chance to earn parole after serving at least 30 years in prison.
A few dozen supporters cheered Arbery’s family as they exited onto the courthouse steps Friday afternoon.
“Today your son has made history, because we have people who are being held accountable for lynching a Black man in America!” said Benjamin Crump, a civil attorney representing the family.
Murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison under Georgia law unless prosecutors seek the death penalty, which they opted against in this case. During the sentencing hearing, Arbery’s family had asked the judge to show no lenience in deciding whether to grant an eventual chance at parole.
Chicago Tribune: Chicago Public School officials are planning on classes again being cancelled Monday unless there’s a ‘breakthrough’ in COVID-19 talks with the teachers union.
Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez said Friday that classes are canceled Monday “until we get to some breakthrough in the negotiations” with the Chicago Teachers Union over COVID-19 safety protocols, though some individual schools may offer services and programs.
Martinez also said the district explored temporarily transitioning to remote learning amid the standoff with the union, but he worried the programs would not be of high quality.
“This is already so incredibly difficult for our families,” Martinez said Friday in an online discussion with community leaders. “For me to just increase the pressure on both the staff and our families to try to put up a program that we know the quality won’t be what our children deserve, I just couldn’t do it.”
Martinez said Friday he is “cautiously optimistic that we’re making ground on the big issues” with the union — including devising a metric that would shift a school to virtual learning and increasing COVID-19 testing in schools — and promised to negotiate through the weekend if necessary. Classes were canceled Friday across the district for the third day in a row, but CPS officials said individual schools could reopen for in-person activities if enough staff members were present.
The Guardian: The January 6 committee is investigating former President Donald Trump over potential criminal conspiracy.
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is examining whether Donald Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy on 6 January that connected the White House’s scheme to stop Joe Biden’s certification with the insurrection, say two senior sources familiar with the matter.
The committee’s new focus on the potential for a conspiracy marks an aggressive escalation in its inquiry as it confronts evidence that suggests the former president potentially engaged in criminal conduct egregious enough to warrant a referral to the justice department.
House investigators are interested in whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy after communications turned over by Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others suggested the White House coordinated efforts to stop Biden’s certification, the sources said.
The select committee has several thousand messages, among which include some that suggest the Trump White House briefed a number of House Republicans on its plan for then-vice president Mike Pence to abuse his ceremonial role and not certify Biden’s win, the sources said.
NPR: The chair of the January 6 committee says they will ask former Vice President Mike Pence to appear.
Pence's role on the day of the siege has drawn close interest from the committee, as it examines then-President Donald Trump's actions that day, as well as in the days leading up to the attack. Trump had been pressuring Pence to step out of his ceremonial role and reject Joe Biden's election results in several key states.
Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, shared the timing plans for the Pence ask in an interview with NPR.
"I think you could expect that before the month's out," Thompson said.
He described Pence's appearance as critical, especially as the former vice president ultimately issued a letter before the Jan. 6 proceedings that said he would not step out of his ceremonial role.
"The vice president was put in a tough spot. The president was putting a lot of pressure on him to break the law, and he stood fast," added Thompson. "And because of his respect for law, there were people who came to the Capitol a year ago wanting to hang him. And so, if for no other reason, our committee really needs to hear what are his opinions about what happened on Jan. 6."
CNBC: While brushing off weak job growth numbers released Friday, President Joe Biden said strong wage gains achieved during his first year in office represent the economy he promised Americans.
Average hourly earnings rose 0.6% for the month and were up 4.7% year over year. Some industries have seen especially strong wage growth in the last year: Leisure, hospitality and restaurant wages have increased a whopping 14.1% over the past 12 months, outpacing all other industries.
"This is the economy I promised and hoped for," Biden said in remarks at the White House. "Where the biggest benefits go to the people who work the hardest and who are more often left behind. The people who have been ignored before. The people who just want a decent chance to build a decent life for their families."
The unemployment rate in December fell to a new post-pandemic low of 3.9%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. But the economy added only 199,000 new jobs to nonfarm payrolls, less than half of what economists had predicted.
Biden framed the nationwide labor shortage as a reflection of more worker choice and mobility, not, as his critics allege, a year of overly generous government pandemic benefits that have sapped people's need to work for a living.
Americans aren't quitting jobs in record numbers to stay home, Biden said. "They're moving up to better jobs, with better pay, with better benefits.
"This isn't about workers walking away and refusing to work. It's about workers able to take a step up to provide for themselves and their families," he said.
Biden gave relatively little attention Friday to the inflation that is a part and parcel of the strong wage growth. In short, the cost of workers is rising along with the cost of everything else.
He dismissed critics who say his administration is ignoring the link between those higher wages and current runaway inflation rates, calling the critique being leveled at him by Republicans and some economists "malarkey."
The Associated Press: Oscar winner and groundbreaking star Sidney Poitier has died.
Sidney Poitier, the groundbreaking actor and enduring inspiration who transformed how Black people were portrayed on screen, and became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw, has died. He was 94.
Poitier, winner of the best actor Oscar in 1964 for “Lilies of the Field,” died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles, according to Latrae Rahming, the director of communications for the Prime Minister of Bahamas. His close friend and great contemporary Harry Belafonte issued a statement Friday, remembering their extraordinary times together.
“For over 80 years, Sidney and I laughed, cried and made as much mischief as we could,” he wrote. “He was truly my brother and partner in trying to make this world a little better. He certainly made mine a whole lot better.”
Few movie stars, Black or white, had such an influence both on and off the screen. Before Poitier, the son of Bahamian tomato farmers, no Black actor had a sustained career as a lead performer or could get a film produced based on his own star power. Before Poitier, few Black actors were permitted a break from the stereotypes of bug-eyed servants and grinning entertainers. Before Poitier, Hollywood filmmakers rarely even attempted to tell a Black person’s story.
Messages honoring and mourning Poitier flooded social media, with Oscar winner Morgan Freeman calling him “my inspiration, my guiding light, my friend” and Oprah Winfrey praising him as a “Friend. Brother. Confidant. Wisdom teacher.” Former President Barack Obama cited his achievements and how he revealed “the power of movies to bring us closer together.”
NBC Sports: Aaron Rodgers is denying a report that he might boycott the Super Bowl over the league's COVID-19 rules, calling it the "#dumbestf***ingstoryever."
Rodgers, retweeting the @BackAftaThis clip of Boomer Esiason suggesting that a trusted source has told him that Rodgers would take a stand by sitting out the Super Bowl over the NFL’s approach to the pandemic, laughed it all off with emojis and a variety of hashtags, including #dumbestfuckingstoryever.
Esiason’s co-host, Gregg Giannotti, added a second clip that shows the two hosts reaching a conclusion that it was some sort of a prank.
The original clip from @BackAftaThis should have included that part, frankly. However, when choosing to engage in real-time vetting of potentially phony tips during a live radio show, there’s a chance that some in the audience won’t hear the part where, after expressing confidence in the accuracy of the information, the hosts come to the conclusion that it was all a hoax. That’s why it always make sense to run tidbits like this through the crap filter before the show, not during it.
“he’s told @jordan3love to be ready” 😂😂😂 #directcircle #dumbestfuckingstoryever #fakenews #boycottfakenews #boycottbums #boycottshoes #boycottwaterfalls #boycottAJsmokingcigars #boycottLafleursBrows #boycottGutchiesBoomer Esiason received a text from a trusted source which indicates that Aaron Rodgers will threaten to boycott the Super Bowl, should the Packers make it that far. #GoPackGo https://t.co/8ycIyJzqKNFunhouse @BackAftaThis
UPI: A 105,000-square-foot Los Angeles megamansion listed Friday for $295 million is officially the most expensive property in the United States.
The Bel Air home, known as "The One," was listed Friday by Branden Williams of The Beverly Hills Estates and Aaron Kirman of Aaron Kirman Group at Compass.
The home was built by developer Nile Niami with a stated goal of creating the most expensive home in the country, with an eventual asking price of $500 million.
Niami's debt on "The One" grew to more than $180 million, and in 2021 it was placed into receivership. A bankruptcy agreement struck in December will see the house go to auction if it does not sell by Feb. 7,
Williams said he has already received offers from a Saudi royal and a wealthy Chinese buyer. He said he expects further offers from cryptocurrency buyers looking for investments.
This day in history: In 1982, known as the ‘Bell System Breakup,’ AT&T agreed to a settlement that would divest its 22 subdivisions as part of an antitrust agreement. From The New York Times when the changes went into effect almost two years later in 1984:
A new era for American telecommunications and for American business begins today as the once-unified Bell System begins life as eight separate companies. It is a time of great expectations and great concern for both the telephone industry and the nation as a whole.
No company so large and technologically integrated as the Bell System has ever split itself into pieces before, not even in the great trust-busting days early in the century.
No nation has ever made a determination to let the forces of competition, rather than government-backed monopoly, determine the future of something so vital as its telephone network. It is an especially daring course for the nation that, by almost all accounts, already has the best phone system in the world. If the gamble is lost, quality of telephone service could deteriorate.
''To break up a very tight network is something quite unprecedented,'' said Alfred D. Chandler Jr., professor of business history at the Harvard Business School. ''It was one of the best managed companies in the world for a long time. You go overseas and people there can't understand why we're breaking up A.T.&T.''