Condo Collapse: Four more bodies as well as some human remains were found over the weekend in that collapsed Florida condominium, bringing the number of dead to 9. As the hours pass, hope wanes for finding anyone alive.

  Emergency crews have dug a 125-foot long trench through the rubble, hoping to make it easier to get to possible air pockets that could be a haven for survivors.

  Families and friends are expressing frustration with the pace of the search operation, which is dangerous and painstaking. “We are not resource-poor,” said Mayor Charles Burkett of Surfside yesterday morning on ABC’s “This Week.” He said, “We don’t have a resource problem, we’ve had a luck problem. We just need to start to get a little more lucky right now.”

  Authorities are also concerned about the collapsed building’s sister building, which is only feet away from the rubble. Burkett said, “I don’t know if I’d be comfortable staying in that building until I knew for sure that they had done a comprehensive top-to-bottom study on what’s going on in the systems in that building.”

The Washington Walkback: President Biden has backed off his threat to refuse signing the bipartisan infrastructure bill if he doesn’t get what he wants in other legislation. The Republicans who reached the deal with Biden were shocked, but now they say that all’s well after Biden said he’ll sign the bill no matter what.

  The Democrats plan to pass the rest of Biden’s economic agenda through the process known as reconciliation to bypass the 60-vote filibuster, which is sure to annoy the Republicans.  

Return of the Native: Former President Donald Trump over the weekend made his first speech to a crowd since January 6^th when he inspired the Capitol insurrection.

  “Do you miss me?” Trump asked, getting applause. “They miss me,” he declared to the crowd, many of whom were holding signs that said, “Save America!”

   The former president repeated his false claim that the election was stolen. “We won the election twice,” Trump told supporters. Hinting at another run for office, he said, “We may have to win it a third time.”

  The crowd dwindled as he spoke, but Trump has bigger problems. New York prosecutors have given lawyers for the Trump Organization a deadline of this afternoon for presenting final arguments as to why the company should not be indicted for criminal activity.

  No individual appears to be a target for the moment, but investigators have been examining whether Trump’s company used misleading valuations of its properties to deceive lenders and tax authorities, and whether taxes were paid on fringe benefits for company executives.

BS: Former Attorney Gen. William Barr told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that Trump’s claims about election fraud are “bullshit.”

  Although he didn’t say so publicly after the election, Barr told Karl for his upcoming book that, ““If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit.”

  Barr is revising the record. He fanned the flames about election fraud long before the election. Karl writes in an excerpt published in The Atlantic that the week after the election, Barr “gave prosecutors the green light to investigate ‘substantial allegations’ of vote irregularities that ‘could potentially impact the outcome’ of the election.”

  Barr first expressed his doubt about election fraud to a reporter from the Associated Press in December, resulting in Trump calling him to the Oval Office.

  Karl reports the following exchange:

        “Did you say that?”

        “Yes,” Barr responded.

        “How the fuck could you do this to me? Why did you say it?”

        “Because it’s true.”

        The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.”

Balloon Disaster: Five people were killed in Albuquerque Saturday when a hot air balloon struck a power line on descent and the passenger basket caught fire. The dead included the pilot. Albuquerque is a popular spot for hot air ballooning.

The Spin Rack: The US carried out airstrikes early today in Iraq and Syria against two Iranian-backed militias that the Pentagon said had conducted drone strikes against Americans in Iraq in recent weeks. — The temperature in Portland, Oregon hit 112 yesterday. It’s expected to be 108 or more today in the frequently soggy and chilly Seattle. — Officials of the Tour de France are looking for a woman who held up a sign meant to be seen by cameras that got in the way of cyclists, causing a massive crash and pileup. They say that if they can find her, they’ll sue her. — Forty-year-old Olympic gold medalist Serena Williams announced she will not compete in the Tokyo Olympic tennis. — Despite the denial by Nepalese authorities that there were any cases of COVID-19 on Mt. Everest this season,  The NY Times  reports that there were at least 59 infected people including Sherpas and climbers on the mountain by the end of the season earlier this month.

Trigger Warning: Brandeis University in Massachusetts has issued an “Oppressive Language List,” an index of words and phrases students and faculty are being urged to avoid.  Under such headings as “Gender Exclusive,” “Ableist,” “Culturally Appropriative,” and “Violent” language it includes “victim,” “tribe,” “addict,” and even “rule of thumb,” which refers to the old British law that said a man could not beat his wife with a stick thicker than his thumb. 

  The word “picnic,” is on the list because it “has been associated with lynchings of black people in the United States, during which white spectators were said to have watched while eating.”

  The list suggests substitution of “content note” for “trigger warning” because “the word ‘trigger’ has connections to guns for many people,” which, by the way, is the purpose of the expression.

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