—Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been extradited to the United States from a Mexican prison, one day before Donald Trump assumes the presidency. More here
—Police in Washington, D.C. deployed tear gas as hundreds of protesters gathered outside a pro-Trump gala Thursday night. More here
—An avalanche, reportedly triggered by an earthquake, struck a hotel in central Italy; rescue workers say at least 30 people are missing. More here; live blog here
—We’re tracking the news stories of the day below. All updates are in Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5).
D.C. Police Launch Tear Gas at Anti-Trump Protesters
John Minchillo / AP
Police in Washington, D.C. deployed tear gas as hundreds of protesters gathered outside a pro-Trump gala Thursday night. Local media reports that some attendees of the “DeploraBall” were hit by objects and clashed with anti-Trump protesters as they left the National Press Club. Some protesters, blocking the street, called gala attendees “racists” and “Nazis.” Other protesters set fires in trash cans and in the middle of the street. There was also a 15-foot-tall white elephant with a banner labeled “racism” on its side. Police arrested several people.
Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been extradited to the United States from a Mexican prison, one day before Donald Trump assumes the presidency. Guzman, a notorious cartel kingpin who was arrested by Mexican police in a raid last January, six months after escaping prison, is facing federal indictments in seven courts across the U.S. for distributing narcotics, murder, and organized crime. He landed in New York since the indictment for the Eastern District of New York requires Guzman enter the U.S. through the district to preserve the indictment. He was in a prison in Juarez, near the Texas border. Guzman, who had a net worth of $1 billion, escaped prison in Mexico twice before. In the last prison escape, he vanished through a mile-long tunnel, from a shower to a nearby construction site. The incident was a massive embarrassment for the Mexican government. A top U.S. official told Reuters that the Mexican government did not give the timing of the extradition “a whole lot of thought.”
Brazilian Judge Investigating Political Scandal Dies in Plane Crash
Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters
Teori Zavascki, the Brazilian Supreme Court justice who presided over Operation Carwash, a massive scandal that has embroiled politicians from across the political spectrum, has died in a plane crash, his son said on Facebook. The crash occurred outside Paraty, in Rio state, O Globo, the Brazilian newspaper, reported. Bloomberg adds: “Zavascki is the judge overseeing the trials of defendants in the Operation Carwash investigation at the Supreme Court.” The scandal involves corruption at Petrobras, the state-run oil firm. The investigation into the case is led by Sergio Moro, another judge.
Gambia's New President Sworn In as Old President Refuses to Leave
Crowds gather outside the Gambian embassy ahead of President-elect Adama Barrow’s inauguration in Dakar, Senegal on January 19, 2017. (Reuters)
Senegalese troops crossed the border into Gambia Thursday after the UN Security Council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution recognizing Adama Barrow as the West African country’s rightful president. The move comes one day after the troops threatened to “take action” if longtime Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh did not step down, and hours after the swearing in of Barrow as Gambia’s president from the Gambian embassy in neighboring Dakar. Jammeh, who originally conceded to Barrow in the December election only to later reverse his decision, filed an injunction barring Barrow from being sworn in and on Wednesday declared a state of national emergency. Senegal and other West African leaders have threatened to remove Jammeh by force, though the UN reaffirmed in its adoption of the resolution that the transition of power should be pursued “by political means first.”
This is a victory of the Gambian nation. Our national flag will fly high among those of the most democratic nations of the world. #Gambiapic.twitter.com/QRGZg1gzbs
Oakland Raiders File Paperwork to Move to Las Vegas
(Reuters)
The Oakland Raiders have filed paperwork to move the NFL team to Las Vegas, Steve Sisolak, the Clark County, Nevada, Commission Chair said on Twitter Thursday. The move must now be approved the owners of the NFL’s 32 teams. Mark Davis, the Raiders majority owner, needs 24 votes. The Raiders were established in 1960 and have spent much of the time since then in Oakland—though there were 12 years (1982-94) the team played in Los Angeles. Thursday’s announcement comes just days after the Chargers announced they’d leave their longtime home, San Diego, for L.A.
It is official! The @RAIDERS have filed their paperwork to relocate to #LasVegas.
Firefighters Among Dead as Landmark Tehran Building Catches Fire, Collapses
Firefighters grieve at the site of the collapsed high rise in Tehran, Iran, on January 19. (Tasnim News Agency / Reuters)
The 17-story Plasco building, a Tehran landmark, caught fire and collapsed Thursday, killing many firefighters, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. IRNA, which described the building as “a center for making apparel,” reported the structure was engulfed in a blaze that resulted in the collapse of a wall on its northern side—and the structure’s eventual collapse. Firefighters had been battling the blaze for hours when it collapsed in a matter of seconds—a moment captured on live television. Pir-Hossein Kolivand, the head of the national emergency medical services, said it was unclear how many firemen were killed in the collapse, only that there were many fatalities. About 200 people have been taken to local hospitals, the news agency added.
URGENT: Footage shows the moment of major commercial building collapses in Iran's capital Tehran after hours of severe blaze pic.twitter.com/89GPmRa3GU
Many Are Feared Dead as Avalanche Hits Italian Hotel
(Reuters)
An avalanche triggered Thursday by several earthquakes in central Italy swept away a hotel in the Abruzzo region, leaving “many dead,” ANSA, the Italian news agency, reports. The avalanche struck the Hotel Rigopiano in the region’s Gran Sasso National Park. Rescuers pulled out one victim from the snow; about 30 others are missing. Two people have been rescued, ANSA added. Follow our live blog here
Trump Reportedly Names Sonny Perdue as Choice For USDA
President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly picked Sonny Perdue, the former Georgia governor, as agriculture secretary. Perdue, who served as governor from 2003 to 2011, was the state’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction. The post, which needs Senate confirmation, would put Perdue in charge of a department that has a budget of $150 billion and oversees everything from food safety to food stamps. The nomination is Trump’s last before his inauguration Friday as the 45th president of the United States. His Cabinet would be the first that hasn’t included a Hispanic since President Reagan.
The pandemic has exposed a fundamental weakness in the system.
America has too many managers.
In a 2016 Harvard Business Review analysis, two writers calculated the annual cost of excess corporate bureaucracy as about $3 trillion, with an average of one manager per every 4.7 workers. Their story mentioned several case studies—a successful GE plant with 300 technicians and a single supervisor, a Swedish bank with 12,000 workers and three levels of hierarchy—that showed that reducing the number of managers usually led to more productivity and profit. And yet, at the time of the story, 17.6 percent of the U.S. workforce (and 30 percent of the workforce’s compensation) was made up of managers and administrators—an alarming statistic that shows how bloated America’s management ranks had become.
The right-wing rally at the Capitol turned out to be a forum for random grievances, and an opportunity to dress like Batman.
No one overran the U.S. Capitol this time or tried to subvert American democracy. What the people who came to the rally on a stretch of grass near the Capitol Reflecting Pool on Saturday afternoon really wanted to do was talk. Talk and argue. And then talk and argue some more.
The “Justice for J6” rally was supposed to highlight the plight of those charged with nonviolent crimes in the January 6 insurrection who, the organizers claim, have been denied fast and fair trials. In reality, the afternoon was a forum for any number of grievances, some difficult to discern. One guy walked around in a Batman costume. Another was accompanied by a service dog whose collar read Abolish the Democrats. Two men argued about whether the 2020 election was stolen, as former President Donald Trump has falsely claimed. Two others argued about God. A retired firefighter in a navy-blue uniform, complaining about the election results, said the U.S. had become a “banana republic.” “I’m a firefighter, too, and this guy is talking pure bullshit,” a man who’d been listening in said. If there was any mortal danger, it was a blend of heatstroke and tedium.
If you accept the ridiculous premise that the election needed to rechecked, why do such a bad job of it?
If you’ve forgotten about the Arizona “audit” of Maricopa County’s votes in the 2020 election, you can be forgiven. At times, it seems like the audits’ backers have forgotten about it too.
Arizona state-Senate Republicans launched the process this spring as a response to false claims of election fraud spread by several of themselves, as well as former President Donald Trump. The Senate hired Cyber Ninjas, a firm run by a “Stop the Steal” backer that has repeatedly declined to offer any evidence it is qualified for the job. The process was originally expected to conclude by May 14. This was a hard deadline, because the coliseum rented for the count was due to hold another event. But the count missed that deadline, and the process resumed later in May.
There are no simple rules for timing on a third jab—but maybe don’t rush it.
After a long and tense meeting today, an FDA committee unanimously recommended that the agency authorize third shots of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for Americans who are over 65 or at high risk of severe COVID. The vote came after the panel voted overwhelmingly against the original question up for its consideration: authorizing boosters for everyone over 16. If the FDA follows the committee’s recommendation (as is expected), a CDC committee will help refine those guidelines next week, clarifying which groups qualify as “high risk.”
Even as we await these final decisions, the nation’s summer wave of COVID infections seems like it’s beginning to pass. Cases and hospitalizations are trending slightly downward. Now that we have more clarity about whether (and which) Americans need booster shots—and given that so many people are already getting boosters, eligibility be damned—more questions loom: When, exactly, should those people get those shots? Is it better to load up on extra antibodies as soon as possible, or should people wait until COVID rates start to rise again?
U.S. life spans, which have fallen behind those in Europe, are telling us something important about American society.
America has a death problem.
No, I’m not just talking about the past year and a half, during which COVID-19 deaths per capita in the United States outpaced those in similarly rich countries, such as Canada, Japan, and France. And I’m not just talking about the past decade, during which drug overdoses skyrocketed in the U.S., creating a social epidemic of what are often called “deaths of despair.”
I’m talking about the past 30 years. Before the 1990s, average life expectancy in the U.S. was not much different than it was in Germany, the United Kingdom, or France. But since the 1990s, American life spans started falling significantly behind those in similarly wealthy European countries.
According to a new working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Americans now die earlier than their European counterparts, no matter what age you’re looking at. Compared with Europeans, American babies are more likely to die before they turn 5, American teens are more likely to die before they turn 20, and American adults are more likely to die before they turn 65. At every age, living in the United States carries a higher risk of mortality. This is America’s unsung death penalty, and it adds up. Average life expectancy surged above 80 years old in just about every Western European country in the 2010s, including Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the U.K., Denmark, and Switzerland. In the U.S., by contrast, the average life span has never exceeded 79—and now it’s just taken a historic tumble.
SpaceX's first private astronauts have returned to Earth from a three-day stay in orbit.
The space tourists are back.
On Saturday night, the private astronauts braced themselves as their spacecraft streaked through Earth’s atmosphere, deployed parachutes, and then drifted down off the coast of Florida. When the capsule touched the waves, they might have heard a voice from mission control radio in: “Thanks for flying SpaceX.” As if the passengers had just touched down on a runway at O’Hare instead of surviving a fiery reentry. As if they hadn’t just spent three days flying higher than the International Space Station, with a window seat that looked out on the contours of entire continents.
The mission, known as Inspiration4, was the first-ever spaceflight of a crew made entirely of non-professional astronauts. The tech billionaire who chartered the trip for himself and three others paid “under $200 million” for it, and for that kind of money, SpaceX let him customize the experience, from the food menu to the flight plan. The crew—the businessman Jared Isaacman, the geoscience professor Sian Proctor, the physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, and the data engineer Chris Sembroski—spent their time in orbit doing a few science experiments and generally basking in the microgravity. They even made a call to Tom Cruise, who plans to fly SpaceX to shoot a movie on the space station someday.
Conventional wisdom says that venting is cathartic and that we should never go to bed angry. But couples who save disagreements for scheduled meetings show the benefits of a more patient approach to conflict.
For decades, when Liz Cutler’s husband, Tom Kreutz, did something that bothered her, Cutler would sometimes pull out a scrap of paper from the back of her desk drawer. On it she would scribble down her grievances: maybe Kreutz had stayed late at work without giving her a heads-up, or maybe he’d allowed their kids to do something she considered risky. The list was Cutler’s way of honoring a promise she and her husband had made. They would talk about their frustrations only in scheduled meetings—which they held once a year for a time, and later, every three months. It’s a system they’ve adhered to for more than 40 years.
Any psychologist will tell you that conflict is both an inevitable and a vital part of a close relationship. The challenge—which can make the difference between a lasting, satisfying partnership and one that combusts—is figuring out how to manage conflict constructively.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that ebooks are awful. I hate them, but I don’t know why I hate them. Maybe it’s snobbery. Perhaps, despite my long career in technology and media, I’m a secret Luddite. Maybe I can’t stand the idea of looking at books as computers after a long day of looking at computers as computers. I don’t know, except for knowing that ebooks are awful.
If you hate ebooks like I do, that loathing might attach to their dim screens, their wonky typography, their weird pagination, their unnerving ephemerality, or the prison house of a proprietary ecosystem. If you love ebooks, it might be because they are portable, and legible enough, and capable of delivering streams of words, fiction and nonfiction, into your eyes and brain with relative ease. Perhaps you like being able to carry a never-ending stack of books with you wherever you go, without having to actually lug them around. Whether you love or hate ebooks is probably a function of what books mean to you, and why.
Justin Trudeau’s reelection bid forces the left to ask whether it prioritizes policy victories or ideological purity.
Let’s start with what’s undeniable: Justin Trudeau has achieved a progressive’s wish list of policy accomplishments. Since becoming Canada’s prime minister in 2015, he has raised taxes on the rich, legalized marijuana, put a rising price on carbon, renegotiated NAFTA, centered women’s rights in the country’s foreign policy, reduced child poverty to its lowest level in decades, and resettled tens of thousands of refugees. By any measure, Trudeau is the most progressive leader of my lifetime. So why don’t progressives—even ones, like me, who have worked for him—love him?
The answer is complicated. Canadians go to the polls on Monday in an election that Trudeau called from a position of strength. He was hoping to ride his array of policy achievements to turn his minority government into a majority one, but a new wave of the pandemic—Canada’s fourth—has changed his prospects.
It’s surprisingly easy to get unauthorized COVID-19 vaccines for 10- and 11-year-olds who can “pass” for 12.
These days, the distance between ages 11 and 12 is more than a year. It is a chasm between danger and safety. Vaccines promise people 12 and older protection from COVID-19, but aren’t yet approved in the U.S. for younger children, and it isn’t clear exactly when they will be. Frustrated by the wait and desperate to protect their children, some parents are sneaking their 10- and 11-year-old kids across this chasm, and hoping not to get caught.
Meghan’s 10-year-old son has just started in-person school in Los Angeles County, and he’s fully vaccinated against COVID-19. (Meghan asked to be identified by her first name only, because she’s afraid of consequences if her lies are found out.) This summer, the rapidly spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus had Meghan worried for her kids’ safety. Her older children, ages 12 and 15, are also fully vaccinated, but the vaccines are still not approved for children younger than 12. So Meghan lied about her 10-year-old’s age. And this wasn’t her first time.
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