January 31, 2024

Vol. 13, No. 2101

THE THREAT PICTURE:  President Biden says he has decided what he will do in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three US soldiers in Jordan and injured 40.

  Biden did not elaborate on what the response will be, but said, “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East.” An Iran-backed militia group has claimed responsibility for the attack, raising the question of whether the US will strike back directly at Iran or its militia proxies in other countries.

  The militia believed responsible, hinting that it’s under pressure from Iran and Iraq, said it would cease its attacks. 

  The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also said that Tehran was “not looking for war.”   But Gen. Hossein Salami also said, “You have tested us and we know each other — we will not leave any threat unanswered.”

THE WAR ZONE: Presented with a proposal for a six-week cease fire, Hamas militants in Gaza are so far sticking to demands for a permanent end to the shooting, withdrawal of Israeli forces, the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, rebuilding of Gaza, and an end to the yearslong Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip. It’s a big agenda.

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shot back that Israel will not withdraw its military from Gaza or free thousands of Palestinian prisoners. “We will not compromise on anything less than total victory,” he said.

  Furthering that goal, Israeli forces say they have begun to flood the network of tunnels which Hamas has used to house its militants, build and store weapons, and hold Israeli hostages. Hamas fighters have built tunnels under schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings, allowing them to pop up out of nowhere.

  Israeli special forces dressed as Palestinian civilians and medical personnel also entered a hospital in Gaza where they say they killed a Hamas commander and two fighters. 

BORDERLINE POLITICS: Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee are pushing ahead with impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for what they say are “high crimes and misdemeanors” in failing to staunch the flow of migrants over the southern border. 

  This comes as House Speaker Mike Johnson under pressure from former President Donald Trump says a bill that would give President Biden greater authority to deal with the border crisis is dead on arrival. Speaking of Trump as if he is the sitting president, Johnson said, “I’ve talked to President Trump at length and he understand that, he understand that we have a responsibility to do here. The president of course, President Trump, wants to secure the country.”

THE SCANDAL SHEETS: Lead prosecutor Nathan Wade in the Georgia election-interference case settled his divorce yesterday, dodging a hearing set for today in which he would have had to answer embarrassing questions about the nature of his personal relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis.

  One of Donald Trump’s co-defendants, Mike Roman, accused Willis and Wade of having an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” and had hoped to develop evidence of that through the divorce case. But the divorce settlement does not protect Willis and Wade from further scrutiny.

ORANGE ALERT: Fighting four criminal indictments and a battery of major civil lawsuits, Donald Trump last year spent $50 million from his political action committees on legal bills, the NY Times Reports. Trump has a reputation for stiffing lawyers and he’s been paying them with money from political donors. 

  The exact figure spent on legal bills is supposed to be reported today in new filings to the Federal Election Commission.

  The two pacs are “Save America” and MAGA Inc. Trump has been diverting 10 percent of donations to his Save America Pac to pay legal bills, the Times reports.

THE OBIT PAGE: Chita Rivera, the electrifying singer and actress who stepped into stardom in the original Broadway production of “West Side Story” and immortalized that role as Anita on screen, died in New York at age 91.

 She brought the vivacious heat to the dance and song number as a Puerto Rican immigrant in “West Side Story.”

          “I like to be in America
            Okay, by me in America
            Everything free in America”

  Name the great show, and Rivera was in it. In addition to Anita in “West Side Story” (1957), she was Rosie in “Bye Bye Birdie” (1960), the murderous Velma Kelly in “Chicago” (1975) and the title role in “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1993). 

  Newsweek called her “only the greatest musical-theater dancer ever.” 

THE SPIN RACK: With falling package volume and higher wages as the result of a new union contract, United Parcel Service says it’s cutting 12,000 employees to save about $1 billion this year. UPS has half a million employees. — After sinking money into the development of artificial intelligence, profits at Microsoft are up 33 percent. It has surpassed Apple as the most valuable public company. — Responding to a shareholder lawsuit, a judge in Delaware voided Elon Musk’s $50 billion pay package, calling it “excessive.”

BELOW THE FOLD:  A statue of baseball great Jackie Robinson that was stolen last week from a park in Wichita was found Tuesday in a trash can, cut apart, burned, and beyond repair. All that was left attached to the pedestal in the park were the baseball shoes.

  Robinson, the famous number 42, was the first Black player in Major League Baseball as we know it today. The statue was erected at Wichita’s McAdams Park in 2021 by League 42, a youth baseball organization named in honor of Robinson’s jersey number. 

  Police say they have identified the pickup truck used in the theft and they swear there will find and arrest who did it.

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