The Gropes of Wrath

Nomo Cuomo, Masks in Schools, 10 Second Earthquake Warning

After being backed into a corner by a scathing report from the state's attorney general and the threat of impending impeachment, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo has resigned from office. "I have been too familiar with people. My sense of humor can be insensitive and off-putting. I do hug and kiss people casually, women and men. I have done it all my life. In my mind, I've never crossed the line with anyone but I didn't realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn." (His speech wasn't as touching as his behavior.) 

+ New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul will become governor of New York.

2. Enchanted Aisle

The Senate has at long last passed an infrastructure bill. So pull up the trucks and get the shovels out because it's hammer time! Oh, wait. The House still needs to pass the bill. That won't happen before the Fall. And the debate will be part of a broader, generational big bill. But let's celebrate the two parties crossing the deserted aisle. Here's the latest. 

+ Here's What's Included In The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.

3. Schools Teaching Irony This Fall

"Although vaccination is the best way to prevent Covid-19, universal masking is a close second, and with masking in place, in-school learning is safe and more effective than remote instruction, regardless of community rates of infection. Vaccination is the strongest method for preventing the ill effects of Covid, but students under 12 years of age are ineligible for the vaccines." NYT (gift article for ND readers): We Studied One Million Students. This Is What We Learned About Masking. (It sucks that our kids need to wear masks. It's also mostly the fault of those fighting to prevent them from being required to.) 

+ Dallas and Austin school districts defy governor's order, will require masks. 

+ COVID vaccines to be required for military under new US plan. 

+ Bangladesh vaccinating Rohingya refugees amid virus surge. (Where ever the virus is left to fester, variants can occur. All of us are connected in this fight, whether we act like it our not.)

4. The Price is Wrong

"The move effectively made it illegal for anyone in the US to do business with XPCC and made it more difficult for the organization to work with other countries, too. But new research from a Washington, DC–based nonprofit shows that the XPCC’s many subsidiaries continue to export goods all over the world. The report found that some of the consumer items made with those products, such as tomato sauce or textiles, are sold in the United States as well as to other countries like Australia, Canada, and Germany." This Is How Banned Goods From China's Xinjiang May Be Entering The US.

5. Yanking Our Cheney

"By lying about how close the insurgents had come to harming Cheney, the U.S. military sank deeper into a pattern of deceiving the public about many facets of the war, from discrete events to the big picture. What began as selective, self-serving disclosures after the 2001 invasion gradually hardened into willful distortions and, eventually, flat-out fabrications." A book excerpt from WaPo: Deceptions and lies: What really happened in Afghanistan. 

+ US vows to isolate Taliban if they take power by force. (The twenty years of bombing didn't dissuade them, but maybe some stern words will do the trick.)

6. Shake and Rattle Roles

"In downtown San Francisco, the elevators in the thirty-four-story P.G. & E. headquarters are already programmed to let passengers out on the nearest floor before locking in place; at a high-tech Menlo Park fire station, the electronic bay doors will swing open, averting the risk of a power outage blocking the exits, as happened during the 1994 Northridge quake. Further north, in Vancouver, an alert directs incoming traffic away from the outdated George Massey Tunnel, which is not expected to survive the next serious quake." We're getting better at giving folks early warning signals about impending earthquakes. But there won't be much time. What can we get done in about 10 seconds? Zoey Poll in The New Yorker: There’s an Earthquake Coming!

7. The Prince and the Stopper

"A US woman who alleges she was brought to the UK aged 17 to have sex with the Duke of York has filed a civil case in New York claiming he abused her. Virginia Giuffre, who was an accuser of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, claims she was sexually assaulted by Prince Andrew in London and New York." 

+ Gabe Sherman in Vanity Fair: "The former model, Guzel Ganieva, makes the shocking allegation that Leon Black trafficked her to Epstein in an amended complaint that’s the latest salvo in her ongoing lawsuit against Black."

8. Herd on the Street

"Authorities said they deployed more than 25,000 personnel and conducted nearly 1,000 drone operations to monitor the elephants and lead them back to a path home. Some 180 metric tons of food, such as corn and bananas, had been provided to the herd." China’s Runaway Elephants Are Going Home.

9. Just Be a Sport!

"Anti-vax athletes are everywhere, and despite their penchant for calling the vaccine a 'personal decision,' they all sound exactly the same." Why Can’t Anti-Vax Athletes Just Tell the Truth? 

+ Lamar Jackson still isn't sure about the vaccine after getting Covid for a second time. "I feel it's a personal decision." (IT'S NOT A PERSONAL DECISION. IT'S A COMMUNITY DECISION.)

10. Bottom of the News

"There was an unexpected shopper browsing the aisles at a Ralphs store in Porter Ranch over the weekend. Video shows a black bear wandering through the San Fernando Valley supermarket before eventually walking out." 

+ 49ers quarterbacks have been working through center Alex Mack's profuse sweating in training camp. (Being a QB isn't all it's cracked up to be.)