Communications Breakdown: Former Capitol security officials and the Washington police chief blamed intelligence failures by law enforcement and the Defense Department for leaving them unprepared for the enormity of the January 6th insurrection and for slow mobilization of the  National Guard. 

  “None of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occurred,” former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund told a Senate investigating committee. Sund, who resigned nearly immediately after the riot at the demand of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, called the incident “the worst attack on law enforcement and our democracy that I have seen.” He said his officers were attacked with pipes, sticks, bats, metal barricades and even flagpoles bearing Blue Lives Matter flags.

  “These criminals came prepared for war,” Sund said.

  Chief Sund, Paul Irving, the former House sergeant-at-arms, and Michael Stenger, who held that position in the Senate, each said they had not been shown an FBI report about social media posts that warned of something big about to happen at the Capitol. 

  District of Columba Police Chief  Robert Contee said, “I would certainly think that something as violent as an insurrection at the Capitol would warrant a phone call or something.” 

 In the Rough: Golfer Tiger Woods had to be pried from the wreckage of his SUV after a one-car accident in Rancho Palos Verdes outside Los Angeles. He was reported to have suffered compound fractures in his legs and a shattered ankle.

  His car rolled over and landed on its side 30 or 40 feet off the road. Police said Woods was conscious and there was no evidence that he had been impaired, but he may have been speeding.

  It could be the end of his career for the man considered the greatest golfer ever. The 45-year-old Woods was recovering from his 5^th back surgery and had not played a tournament since December and. He had been suggesting that he hoped to play in the Masters Tournament in April. 

  It’s not his first accident. In November of 2009, Woods In November of 2009, Woods smashed an SUV in a fire hydrant outside his Florida home after a conflict with his wife, revealing marital discord that ended in divorce.

Pulling the Plug: Five members of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) Board of Directors, resigned effective later today in embarrassment about the collapse of the Texas grid in last week’s harsh winter weather. Their joint letter of resignation acknowledged “the pain and suffering of Texans.” At least four of them don’t even live in Texas.

Viral News: New cases of Covid-19 are down 37 percent over the past two weeks as infections continue to drop, but deaths are still high. Another 2,240 people died in the past 24 hours. 

The Bulletin Board: The Senate voted to confirm Linda Thomas-Greenfield, 68, as the UN ambassador and Thomas Vilsack, 70, as the secretary of agriculture. — While former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin awaits his murder trial in the infamous death of George Floyd, the Justice Department is opening an investigation into the incident last May. In Rochester NY, no charges are being placed against the officers in the case of Daniel Prude, a man who was having a psychotic episode and was pinned to the ground, causing his death. — A retired police officer who once was part of the security detail at New York’s City Hall was charged with assaulting a police officer with a metal flagpole during the January 6^th Capitol insurrection. — The Southern Poverty law center says more than 160 Confederate symbols were removed from public property in the past year.

The Obit Page: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, described as a father figure to the Beat poets of the 1950s and 60s, whose City Lights bookstore in San Francisco has been a cultural center and incubator for generations of writers, has died at age 101. 

  Ferlinghetti, although older, was a friend and publisher to the major Beat poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Michael McClure. He knew Jack Kerouac, author of the beat Bible, “On the Road.”

  Ferlinghetti once told an interviewer, “When I arrived in San Francisco in 1951 I was wearing a beret. If anything I was the last of the bohemians rather than the first of the Beats.”

  In 1956 he published Ginsberg’s famous poem “Howl”, and was arrested on charges of “willfully and lewdly” printing “indecent writings.” His acquittal became a landmark case in the exercise of the First Amendment.

One Man’s Trash: In New York City the pandemic has spawned what’s being called the “Golden Age of Free Stuff” as city dwellers take stuff they don’t want to the curb. At first it was the detritus of people fleeing the city, but now, The NY Times reports, people trapped at home are going through their stuff and weeding out what they don’t want. Gone to the sidewalk are sofas, chairs, a Korean wedding chest, and even a Tiffany bracelet was found.

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