Dems..

 

As an exhausted nation continues to grapple with the coronavirus, Democrats are facing growing public pressure to move on to the pandemic’s next phase even as high case rates, hospitalizations, and death rates persist.

This week, several Democratic governors responded by rolling back their state’s mask mandates.

Leaders in New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Oregon announced changes to such policies in schools, while those in New York, Illinois, Nevada, and California did the same for indoor mask requirements.

Republicans are already using the issue to go on the offense against Democrats, calling it hypocritical.

“The science never changed. The science didn’t matter,” said Joanna Rodriguez, deputy communications director at the Republican Governor’s Association. “The science was an excuse they used in order to control people’s lives and rule people in a way that they felt was appropriate while they played by their own rules.”   Just a thou8ght.

Charged..

 

Former New York City police union president Ed Mullins was charged with fraud on Wednesday, accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the union and spending it on a "lavish lifestyle."

The charge against Mullins comes following a raid last year on his home and union office. He resigned in October as head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) and retired from the NYPD in November following the raids.

"As alleged, Edward Mullins, the former President of the SBA, abused his position of trust and authority to fund a lavish lifestyle that was paid for by the monthly dues of the thousands of hard-working Sergeants of the NYPD," said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.

The prosecutor's office said Wednesday that Mullins was reimbursed more than a million dollars over the years through his expense reports, much of which was "fraudulently obtained." Can anyone do this nowadays?   Just a strange thought.

Bankrupt..

 

Growing up in Queens, New York, Kenny Anderson was a star on the court from an early age. In a 1994 profile of Anderson, Sports Illustrated reported recruiters went to watch him play when he was in sixth grade.

After 14 years in the NBA, he’d earned just over $63 million. And he enjoyed spending that cash. At one point, he owned 11 cars and spent large amounts of money on champagne, cigars and partying.

“I lived a fast life,” he told The Undefeated in 2019, “and enjoyed every bit of it.”

But with expenses for seven children, child support ate up another huge chunk of his budget. By 2005, he had filed for bankruptcy.

Fortunately, he rebounded with a second career as a basketball coach and is now head coach.

Gas..

Neither Qatar nor any other single country has the capacity to replace Russian gas supplies to Europe with liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the event of disruption due to a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Qatar's energy minister said on Tuesday.

With most of Qatari volumes are locked into long-term contracts mostly to Asian buyers, the amount of divertable volumes that can be shipped to Europe is only 10-15%, Saad al-Kaabi Minister of Energy of Qatar added.

Kaabi's comments renewed concerns over Europe's security of gas supplies as tensions escalated between Russia and Ukraine.

"Russia provides 30-40% of the supply to Europe. There is no single country that can replace that kind of volume.

The United States and its European allies are set to announce fresh sanctions against Russia after President Vladimir Putin formally recognized the independence of the two regions in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions could affect the Russian flow of gas into Europe so it is punishment for the Uropeans and the Americans with double the prices that was just doubled last year. Good going.

 

Price..

 

House Republican lawmakers championed the measures when introduced in 2021. The bills received almost unanimous support in both legislative chambers.

The three bill's signed Wednesday establish new rules for contracts between pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers. These contracts cannot include provisions that would prevent a pharmacist from disclosing if a different medication, like a generic, would be cheaper for a customer. 

Patients can't be forced to pay a co-pay that's more expensive than the medication received under changes in the bills. The legislation also requires benefit managers to be licensed with the state and to submit annual "transparency reports." Benefit managers are barred from using spread pricing, a tactic smaller pharmacies typically oppose that allows managers to recoup additional fees.

Whitmer signs bills into Michigan law to cut prescription costs, increase accountability.  Can Biden's administration do this for poor people.

Just a thought.

Selective..

 Two prosecutors leading the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into the Trump Organization abruptly resigned on Wednesday, The New York Times reported.

The resignations from the two prosecutors, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, reportedly came after the new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, expressed doubts about moving forward with a case against former President Donald Trump.

Pomerantz confirmed his resignation to The Times. The paper reported that the investigation into Trump has stalled amid Bragg's hesitation to pursue charges against Trump, and that neither Pomerantz nor Dunne had questioned any witnesses before a grand jury in more than a month.

It also comes after lawyers for Trump and Weisselberg asked a judge to dismiss the DA's case against the Trump Organization and its CFO, citing "selective" and politically motivated prosecution. No investigation to the Nursing home Deaths.

Just a thought.

Deaf..

 

President Biden and his administration appear unconcerned about the public's anxiety over rising prices. Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, was eviscerated when he retweeted last October,

 "Most of the economic problems we're facing (inflation, supply chains, etc.) are high class problems. We wouldn't have had them if the unemployment rate was still 10 percent. We would instead have had a much worse problem."

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has repeatedly mocked reporters who have asked sincere questions about the administration's efforts, or lack thereof, to fight inflation.   Just a thought.

The president himself has downplayed the unease among Americans concerning skyrocketing inflation. This comes after he promised that inflation would be transitory. Just a thought.

Hug ..

 

Most people would agree that hugging has a positive effect on mood, we just feel ever so slightly better if a loved one gave us a heartfelt hug. But what influences how hugging affects mood? A recent study by researcher Anna L. 

Dueren from the Department of Psychology, at the University of London, U.K., and her team focused on the question of what influences the effect of hugging on mood (Dueren et al., 2021). 

In the study, the 45 women hugged a confederate of the researcher for either one second, five seconds, or 10 seconds and reported how the hug felt. 

The results were clear: five-second and 10-second hugs both were rated as more pleasant than one-second hugs. Thus, the optimal hug should be at least five seconds long. 

Just a thought.

Nord..

 

Germany on Tuesday halted the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, designed to double the flow of Russian gas direct to Germany, after Russia formally recognised two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.

Europe's l ok upenergy project, worth $11 billion, was finished in September, but has stood idle pending certification by Germany and the European Union. 

The pipeline had been set to ease the pressure on European consumers facing record energy prices amid a wider post-pandemic cost of living crisis, and on governments that have already forked out billions to try to cushion the impact on consumers.

But on Tuesday the European benchmark gas price, currently the Dutch March contract , was up 10% to 79.28 euros per megawatt hour (MWh).

Prices were set to double.

Magpies..

 

When we attached tiny, backpack-like tracking devices to five Australian magpies for a pilot study, we didn't expect to discover an entirely new social behavior rarely seen in birds.

 goal was to learn more about the movement and social dynamics of these highly intelligent birds, and to test these new, durable and reusable devices. Instead, the birds outsmarted us.

As our new research paper explains, the magpies began showing evidence of cooperative "rescue" behavior to help each other remove the tracker.

While we're familiar with magpies being intelligent and social creatures, this was the first instance we knew of that showed this type of seemingly altruistic behavior: helping another member of the group without getting an immediate, tangible reward.  Researchers.