Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Ukraine-Russia latest, fallout from mask rules dropped on planes, fresh criticism of Capitol Police, DOE to address ''inexcusable failures' in student loan program and Kyrie Irving's big fine.
Note to email readers: Some clients will cut off our rundown due to length. Make sure to click “read more” or “view entire message” to continue reading!
We’ re trying something new: instead of publishing a normal format early each morning, we’re being a little more flexible.
Happy Tuesday. Here’s what is happening:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces have begun their new offensive against cities in the east and south, adding that a ‘substantial part’ of the Russian army is now taking part in the military operation, NPR reports:
"Today we can already say that Russian armed forces have begun the assault on the Donbas, which it has been preparing for," Zelenskyy said.
The Pentagon says Russia is still conducting "shaping operations," or laying groundwork for the offensive by sending in more battalions, artillery, bombs and missiles.
Russian rockets and artillery shells have fallen on multiple Ukrainian cities today, with Ukrainian media reporting explosions and air raid sirens across hundreds of miles.
Most, but not all, of those reports are coming from the eastern part of the country. Strikes hit its second-largest city, Kharkiv, one of the few escape routes from the besieged city of Mariupol, and even targets in the far west.
Meanwhile, a large portion of the Ukrainian army is already in place, and will soon be getting a lot more heavy weaponry from the U.S. and NATO in the form of artillery, helicopters, drones and armored vehicles.
Russian troops will try to box in the Ukrainians, he adds, but the big question is whether they have enough combat power and competence to do so in the days and weeks ahead.
Bowman points to Mariupol, where Russian troops have sieged, bombarded and starved the city but but failed to take control, as one of many examples of "bungling by Russian forces and their commanders."
Reuters: Ukrainian volunteers recount three weeks in Russian captivity, allege beatings.
In response to a judge striking down rules requiring masking on planes and trains, The White House said Tuesday that ‘public health decisions shouldn’t be made by the courts:’
This follows the The TSA saying it will not enforce mask wearing on planes and other public transportation, after a federal judge in Florida on Monday struck down the requirement, ruling that the CDC had overstepped its authority, CNBC reports.
CBS News reports Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit and United are no longer requiring masks on their flights, but they may still be required on some international flights. Philadelphia International Airport, for example, still requires masks inside their terminals as well.
Uber and Lyft have also lifted their mask rules, Reuters reports.
In The United Kingdom, PM Boris Johnson apologized again to the House of Commons after he was fined over parties during COVID-19 lockdowns, The Guardian reports.
The Associated Press reports that Moderna hopes to offer updated COVID-19 boosters in the fall that combine its original vaccine with protection against the omicron variant:
Today’s COVID-19 vaccines all are based on the original version of the coronavirus. But the virus continues to mutate, with the super-contagious omicron variant — and its siblings — the latest threat.
Before omicron came along, Moderna was studying a combination shot that added protection against an earlier variant named beta. Tuesday, the company said people given that beta-original vaccine combination produced more antibodies capable of fighting several variants — including omicron — than today’s regular booster triggers.
While the antibody increase was modest, Moderna’s goal is to produce a combination shot that specifically targets omicron. “These results really give us hope” that next step will work even better, said Dr. Jacqueline Miller, a Moderna vice president.
Tuesday’s data was reported online and hasn’t been vetted by independent experts.
COVID-19 vaccines still are providing strong protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death, even against omicron. That variant is so different from the original coronavirus that it more easily slips past the immune system’s defenses, although studies in the U.S. and elsewhere show an original booster dose strengthens protection. Some countries offer particularly vulnerable people a second booster; in the U.S., that’s anyone 50 or older or those with a severely weakened immune system.
CNN reports that John Eastman, a lawyer for then-President Donald Trump who wanted to block his electoral loss in 2020, is still withholding about 3,200 documents from the House committee investigating the January 6 attack, according to a new court filing:
Eastman previously was ordered by the court to turn over 101 documents after he unsuccessfully tried to claim some of his emails from January 4 through January 7, 2021, were confidential legal communications related to Trump. Since then, Eastman has continued to work through nearly 100,000 pages of emails from his Chapman University account that the House Committee seeks from other dates around the election.
At this time, Eastman is arguing that the thousands of documents, comprising about 36,000 pages, should stay confidential.
Federal Judge David Carter in Santa Ana, California, may continue to weigh whether Eastman can keep those pages secret.
Top members of the Oath Keepers now facing seditious conspiracy charges chatted for days about providing security for some of the highest-profile figures associated with Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election, according to a newly released trove of text messages, POLITICO reports.
Also from POLITICO: After a year of intense scrutiny following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, the Capitol Police is facing fresh criticism of its intelligence-gathering tactics from some of its own former analysts:
An employment lawyer, who represents five people who worked in the department’s intelligence division in January of 2021, says his clients believe Capitol Police conduct veered beyond protecting members to raising First Amendment concerns.
Dan Gebhardt, of Solomon Law Firm, PLLC, says his clients have long harbored grave concerns about the Capitol Police intelligence division’s practices. In a lengthy statement to POLITICO, Gebhardt laid out some of those concerns, underscoring tensions that have quietly plagued the department.
Among the allegations from Gebhardt’s clients: Capitol Police intelligence analysts were directed to scrutinize a religious leader who officiated a funeral that a member of Congress attended. Analysts were also directed to “conduct research” on the relatives of members of Congress as part of their security work, according to his statement. And they didn’t like it.
“Analysts’ complaints were filed with the USCP chain of command, Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and Inspector General (IG), as well as Congressional committees,” he said.
Since President Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol, the Hill’s police department has gotten a new chief and two new directors of its intelligence division. And the department staunchly defends its efforts to track and mitigate threats to members of Congress.
Specifically at issue is the way employees in the Capitol Police’s Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division assess threats related to lawmakers’ meetings and events away from Capitol Hill.
As part of a longstanding practice, members of Congress often share information with Capitol Police and the Sergeant at Arms regarding those gatherings. Lawmakers’ offices typically send over dates, times, locations and expected attendees for events that can range from large fundraisers to small dinners at supporters’ homes.
Last spring, after the attack on the Capitol, Gebhardt said this process was expanded. According to Gebhardt, the analysts were directed to start looking through the social media pages of people attending these events with members of Congress — including, at times, congressional staff.
Gebhardt said his clients grew so worried about the expansion to the department’s intelligence gathering that they filed complaints with a variety of oversight bodies. This is Gebhardt’s first detailed on-the-record discussion of this issue on behalf of Capitol Police employees who worked for the department’s intelligence division on Jan. 6. POLITICO is not publishing the names of the employees, and Gebhardt has previously said his clients have faced retaliation.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that the state's legislature will consider terminating the special status of a municipal district operated by Walt Disney Company, Axios reports:
It's an escalation in the weeks-long feud between the Republican governor and Disney over the state's controversial Parental Rights in Education Law — dubbed by critics the "Don't Say Gay" law.
"We are expanding the call of what [the state legislature] will be considering this week," DeSantis said, per Bloomberg. "They also will be considering termination of all special districts that were enacted in Florida prior to 1968, and that includes the Reedy Creek Improvement District."
The Reedy Creek Improvement District was created in 1967 to allow Disney to carry out municipal functions of its own, Bloomberg notes.
Disney last month came out in opposition to DeSantis's law, which bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for students in kindergarten through third grade. In response, DeSantis suggested that he would support stripping Disney of a special status that allows it to operate as an independent government in the area around its Orlando theme park.
Axios also reports The Department of Education on Tuesday announced new steps to address ‘longstanding’ and ‘inexcusable failures’ in federal student loan programs:
As Axios previously reported, the move comes as the Biden administration is being pressured to take broader steps to cancel student debt. While the moratorium on federal student loan payments was extended through August, lawmakers are pushing for the White House to cancel $50,000 in debt per borrower.
During his presidential campaign, President Biden pledged to forgive $10,000 in student loan debt per person.
State of play: The department, via rulemaking, will review how income-driven repayment (IDR) plans are administered, adding that it has found "significant flaws that suggest borrowers are missing out on progress toward IDR forgiveness," according to a press release.
It is also moving to end "forbearance steering," which happens when loan services place borrowers into forbearance without giving adequate information about their alternatives, including IDR plans, which make it easier for borrowers to pay back loans if their debt is high when compared to their income.
By being led into forbearance, borrowers' loan balance and monthly payments grow "due to interest capitalization and lead to delinquency or default."
The department will automatically apply IDR credit for borrowers who ended up in forbearance.
It will conduct a one-time review of IDR-qualifying payments for different loans, and will make it so that any months in which borrowers made payments will count toward IDR. Additionally, any borrower who has made the required number of payments for IDR forgiveness based on the revision will receive loan cancellation automatically.
The department said that their actions will result in the immediate student loan debt cancellation of at least 40,000 borrowers under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, and thousands more will become eligible for loan discharge under IDR.
The Hill reports that President Joe Biden has told former President Barack Obama that he is planning to run for reelection in 2024:
The admission to Obama is the latest indication that Biden is likely to run for a second term, something the president has spoken about publicly.
During a press conference in Brussels last month, he told reporters he’d be “very fortunate” to run against his rival in the 2020 election, former President Trump.
“[Biden] wants to run and he’s clearly letting everyone know,” said one of the two sources familiar with the conversations between Obama and Biden.
The source also said that Biden, despite his faltering approval ratings, remains the most likely Democratic candidate to defeat Trump. This was a key part of Biden’s salesmanship to voters as he sought support for his 2020 bid — and a big reason primary voters rallied to him in South Carolina and Super Tuesday states where he sealed his status as the Democratic front-runner.
“I believe he thinks he’s the only one who can beat Trump. I don’t think he thinks there’s anyone in the Democratic party who can beat Trump and that’s the biggest factor,” the source familiar with the Obama-Biden talks said.
The Democratic Party is in the process of banning its army of consultants from engaging in a wide array of anti-union activity following a report that one of its pollsters had helped Amazon combat organizing efforts, POLITICO reports:
An addendum to any contract between a Democratic Party political committee and a consultant would forbid the consultant — or any of its parents, subsidiaries or affiliates — from participating in an array of activities. That includes union-busting, aiding an employer in a labor dispute or lobbying against union-backed legislation.
The move comes less than a month after a report that Global Strategy Group, a prominent Democratic pollster based in New York, had aided Amazon’s campaign to fend off organizing efforts at several of its Staten Island facilities, including by producing videos and distributing flyers that featured company executives extolling the benefits of remaining non-unionized.
GSG representatives also reportedly attended some of Amazon’s so-called captive audience meetings, where bosses delivered anti-union presentations while employees were on the clock.
The news from CNBC prompted blowback from several of the U.S.’ largest unions: The American Federation of Teachers and the Service Employees International Union, among others, said they would not work with GSG going forward.
Axios: CNN+ looks doomed.
Warner Bros. Discovery has suspended all external marketing spend for CNN+ and has laid off CNN's longtime chief financial officer as it weighs what to do with the subscription streaming service moving forward, five sources tell Axios.
Inside CNN, executives think the launch has been successful. Discovery executives disagree.
CNN+ has roughly 150,000 subscribers so far.
Warner Bros. Discovery wants to eventually build one giant service around HBO Max.
New leadership has replaced CNN CFO Brad Ferrer with Neil Chugani, Discovery's current CFO for streaming and international, as part of a broader finance team restructuring.
Other high-level positions at WarnerMedia across different business functions are likely to be eliminated to cut costs and streamline leadership in coming weeks.
Some other media news:
From The New York Times: Joseph F. Kahn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning China correspondent who rose to lead the international desk of The New York Times, and then as managing editor helped steer the newspaper into the digital era, has been selected to be The Times’s next executive editor, the top newsroom job.
The Washington Post is out with a story on the popular ‘Libs of TikTok’ Twitter account: Meet the woman behind Libs of TikTok, secretly fueling the right’s outrage machine. The Post reporter, Taylor Lorenz, is now under fire for the story, The New York Post writes:
Taylor Lorenz, the Washington Post’s internet culture beat reporter, is being accused of “doxxing” the anonymous woman who operates the popular Twitter account “Libs of TikTok.”
Lorenz, the former New York Times journalist who earlier this month broke down in tears on MSNBC while recounting “harassment” she has experienced online, published an article on Tuesday revealing the identity of the social media user.
“Doxxing” is the term used to describe the act of posting the personal information of those who wish to remain anonymous.
Critics accused Lorenz of hypocrisy after it was claimed that she showed up at the home of the woman’s relatives to ask questions.
And Axios reports that an unnamed worker is alleging that Nintendo, and a firm it uses for hiring contractors, violated their legally protected right to unionize, according to a new filing with the National Labor Relations Board.
Actor Actor Johnny Depp took the stand Tuesday in his defamation case and denied abusing his ex-wife Amber Heard, Fox News reports:
“About six years ago, Ms. Heard made some quite heinous and disturbing, brought these disturbing criminal acts against me that, that that were not based in any species of truth," said Depp, wearing his hair pulled back in a ponytail. "It was a complete shock, it just didn’t need to go in that direction."
Arkansas police have sent out an Amber Alert after a man told a missing 17-year-old girl's mother he would kill the girl unless he was paid $10,000, ABC affiliate KHBS-TV reports.
Trynytee Case and a co-worker were walking to their cars at the Pour Some Sugar on Me bakery in Hot Springs shortly after 9 p.m. Monday when they saw a stranger standing near a parked vehicle.
The stranger said she was lost and her parents were staying in a condo in Hot Springs. She asked to borrow a cell phone to use the GPS coordinates and asked Trynytee to walk closer to her.
Trynytee's co-worker left to go get her car in a nearby parking garage. When she returned, Trynytee and the stranger were gone.
The friend called Trynytee's phone but didn't get an answer. She then called Trynytee's mother.
The mom called Trynytee's phone several times.
Trynytee answered once and said, "everything is fine."
A male voice then came on the phone and demanded $10,000 for Trynytee's return or they would kill and cut up the victim. The phone went dead.
Trynytee's phone was last pinged headed south on U.S. Highway 7 south of Hot Springs.
The Associated Press: An independent autopsy confirms that Patrick Lyoya was shot in the back of the head by a Michigan police officer while facedown on the ground, lawyers for the black man’s family said Tuesday.
ESPN reports that Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving has been fined $50,000 by the NBA after he flipped off several Boston Celtics fans on two occasions during Sunday's Game 1.
Kyrie Irving has been fined $50,000 for profane language and his middle-finger gestures to fans Sunday in Boston
A spring nor'easter has already dropped at least a foot of snow on parts of New York and Pennsylvania, leading to power outages and the closure of businesses and schools, NBC News reports:
More than 240,000 customers were without power in the Northeast Tuesday morning. New York had the most outages at more than 160,000, while Pennsylvania had more than 50,000, according to PowerOutage.us.
Piseco, in upstate New York, had seen the most snowfall by Tuesday morning, with 14 inches on the ground. Broome County to the south got just nearly a foot and implemented a travel ban.
The heavy, wet snow was falling at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour across upstate New York.
In Syracuse, the rapid snowfall and outages prompted numerous school and business closures.
Forecasters said the snow is expected to taper through the day, but not before dropping 3 to 6 more inches. The highest totals will be in the Adirondack Mountains.
CNBC: Stocks were up on Tuesday as traders navigated one of the busiest weeks of corporate earnings season and monitored the latest moves in interest rates. The numbers as we hit publish:
