And another day of special counsels, billionaires treating Justice Thomas to luxury, insurance for Alzheimer’s drug, kids missing school, college students not able to afford school, longevity enthusiasts, and the myth that women don’t want sex as they age comes to a close:
“Let's take a beat to be clear about what's happening today. Republicans are throwing a tantrum that the AG named a *Trump-appointed* US attorney to be the special counsel investigating the president's son. Nobody should pretend these complaints are being made in good faith.” — Aaron Rupar
Attorney General Merrick Garland appoints a special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe. Garland said he was naming David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who has been probing the financial and business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, as the special counsel. Just as his appointment as special counsel was announced, Weiss notified a federal judge in Delaware that plea deal talks in the Hunter Biden case were at an “impasse.” Garland noted the “extraordinary circumstances” of the matter as he made the announcement at the Justice Department. He said that Weiss asked to be appointed to the position and told him that “in his judgment, his investigation has reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a special counsel.”
Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel. During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to far-flung vacations aboard their yachts, ushered him into the premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to fetch him — including, on more than one occasion, an entire 737. It’s a stream of luxury that is both more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood. Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include: At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast. This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount. -- Republicans always play by rules that are different from the ones they apply to others.
Death toll from Maui wildfires rises to 67 as survivors begin returning home to assess damage. Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people had to run for their lives. Instead, officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations — but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.
More evacuations considered in Norway where the level in swollen rivers continues to rise. Authorities were on standby to evacuate more people in southeastern Norway Friday, where huge amounts of water, littered with broken trees, debris and trash, were thundering down the usually serene rivers after days of torrential rain.
Indonesia province orders men and women to stay apart in public places, vehicles. Authorities in Indonesia’s ultra-conservative Aceh province have ordered men and women not immediately related or married to stay apart in vehicles and public places, the local government said Thursday as it seeks to tighten Islamic law.
Insurers won’t cover new Alzheimer’s treatment for some customers. Insurers selling coverage in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New York, among other states, told The Associated Press they won’t cover Leqembi with insurance offered on the individual market and through employers because they still see the $26,000-a-year drug as experimental. Their decision stands in contrast to Medicare, which will wind up covering most patients who take the drug. The federal coverage program mainly for people ages 65 and older announced shortly after Leqembi received full approval last month that it will cover the treatment while still tracking its safety and effectiveness. -- Healthcare should never be a for-profit enterprise.
Millions of kids are missing weeks of school as attendance tanks across the US. When in-person school resumed after pandemic closures, Rousmery Negrón and her 11-year-old son both noticed a change: School seemed less welcoming...Across the country, students have been absent at record rates since schools reopened during the pandemic. More than a quarter of students missed at least 10% of the 2021-22 school year, making them chronically absent, according to the most recent data available. Before the pandemic, only 15% of students missed that much school...Kids are staying home for myriad reasons — finances, housing instability, illness, transportation issues, school staffing shortages, anxiety, depression, bullying and generally feeling unwelcome at school.
92% of students concerned they won't have enough money to pay for fall term, study shows. Finetti said it takes the average student 20 years to pay off their student loans, which means people will delay the kinds of milestones that many look forward to in adulthood to pay off that debt. — And we wonder why college enrollment is down.
Did the “Runaway Train” Music Video Really Save 21 Kids? The creators of the MTV classic say it rescued more than a dozen missing children. When we tracked down the kids, we got a different answer…Renfro said that following decades of social upheaval, this amorphous “missing child” narrative colored news reports, the anxieties of parents, and pushes for tough-on-crime laws into the 1990s and beyond. “There are kids ‘on the streets,’ right? And that’s juxtaposed to ‘the home,’ and ‘the home’ is always good or usually good, and perhaps some family situations and domestic situations are not ideal, but the place where the child should be is the home.” The actual lives of “Runaway Train” kids were more complicated. They ran from sexual molestation, cycles of abuse, and school days that filled them with dread. Some, impressively, found stability. It wasn’t always by coming home. — A fascinating story.
Paper exams, chatbot bans: Colleges seek to ‘ChatGPT-proof’ assignments. Now, educators are rethinking how they’ll teach courses this fall from Writing 101 to computer science. Educators say they want to embrace the technology’s potential to teach and learn in new ways, but when it comes to assessing students, they see a need to “ChatGPT-proof” test questions and assignments.
A ‘once every 7.5 million years’ event is currently unfolding in Antarctica: ‘To say unprecedented isn’t strong enough’. In the past eight years, sea ice in Antarctica has reached a new record low four times, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports. The first three times, ice levels that have dropped in the summer have rebounded in the winter. But this year — during what is currently winter in Antarctica — scientists have confirmed that the ice is not re-forming, leaving long stretches of the Antarctic coastline bare...“This is a five-sigma event. … Which means that if nothing had changed, we’d expect to see a winter like this about once every 7.5 million years. … There are people saying it could be natural variability … but it’s very unlikely.”
It’s a myth that women don’t want sex as they age, study finds. “If women are able to speak up with their partner and make sure that they’re having sex that’s fulfilling and pleasurable to them, then they’re more likely to rate it as highly important as they get older.”...About a fourth of the women (28%) followed traditional thinking on the subject: They valued sex less during midlife years. However, another fourth of the women in the study said the exact opposite. Some 27% of them said sex remains highly important throughout their 40s, 50s and 60s — a surprising contradiction of the belief that all women lose interest in sex as they age...Women in the study who highly valued sex shared the following characteristics: They were more highly educated, they were less depressed, and they had experienced better sexual satisfaction before entering midlife. “Women who were having more satisfying sex when they were in their 40s were more likely to continue to highly value sex as they got older.”
Longevity enthusiasts want to create their own independent state. They’re eyeing Rhode Island. I’m here for a gathering of longevity enthusiasts, people interested in extending human life through various biotechnology approaches. One attendee, with whom I ended up sharing a cross-border taxi ride, told me half of his luggage was “supplements and powders.” Most attendees seem to be wearing “longevity” stickers. Everyone is super friendly, and the sense of optimism is palpable. Everyone I speak to is confident we’ll be able to find a way to slow or reverse aging. And they have a bold plan to speed up progress...Now a community of people is working on an alternative setup, including perhaps even establishing an independent state. Aging is “morally bad,” they argue, and it’s a problem that needs to be solved. They see existing regulations as roadblocks to progress and call for a different approach. Less red tape allows for more innovation, they say. People should be encouraged to self-experiment with unproven treatments if they wish. And companies shouldn’t be held back by national laws that limit how they develop and test drugs.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
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