IT’S POLITICAL: The United Automobile Workers yesterday endorsed President Biden for re-election, giving him a working-person’s boost against Donald Trump in the labor vote.  Biden calls himself the “most pro-union president in history.” 

  “Let me tell you something I learned a long time ago,” Biden said, appearing at a national conference of autoworkers. “If I’m gonna be in a fight, I want to be in a fight with you, the UAW.” The big car companies were highly annoyed when Biden appeared on a striking UAW  picket line last fall.

  Taking on the abortion issue, Biden invited Kate Cox, the Texas woman denied an emergency medical abortion in her state, to be his guest at his State of the Union address.

  Biden is only beginning to campaign and is doing little to take on Donald Trump directly. It’s as if he expects Trump to self-destruct with anger and what is beginning to look like mental exhaustion or early onset dementia.

  Here for example is what Trump said at a campaign rally in New Hampshire:

“We’re also going to place strong protections to stop banks and regulators from trying to debank you from your, you know, your political beliefs. What they do, they want to debank you. And we are going to debank, think of this. They want to take away your rights. They want to take away your country, the things you’re doing. All electric cars. Give me a break. If you want an electric car, good. But they don’t go far. They’re very expensive.” 

THE NONES: As many as 28 percent of Americans have no religious affiliation, according to Pew Research, making them the largest cohort of religiously active or inactive people in the country.   Because these people checked the box that said “none,” researchers have dubbed them the “Nones.”

  Most Nones believe in God or another higher power, but few attend any kind of religious service, according to the research.

  The other major cohorts are Catholics, twenty-three percent, and evangelical Protestants, twenty-four percent. As recently as 2007, Nones were only 16 percent.

  Researcher Gregory Smith at Pew told NPR that the growth of Nones could affect American public life. “We know politically for example,” Smith said, “that religious Nones are very distinctive. They are among the most strongly and consistently liberal and Democratic constituencies in the United States.”

LAST KISS: A judge in Spain has ruled that the former head of Spanish soccer must go to trial over his nonconsensual kiss of a female player during the wild celebration of his country’s winning of the World Cup in Sydney, Australia last year.

  The judge concluded that Luis Rubiales kissing Jennifer Hermoso “was nonconsensual and was a unilateral and surprise act.” The judge found that even if the kiss was more celebratory than sexual in nature, the behavior was within the bounds of the “intimacy of sexual relations” and Rubiales should be held to account.

DEATH BY NITROGEN: Alabama plans to carry out the first execution in this country tonight using nitrogen gas over the opposition of concerns from death penalty opponents about the untested method. Lawyers for Kenneth Smith are making last ditch appeals, even though the case has already gone to the Supreme Court.

  The 58-year-old Smith is one of three men convicted in the 1988 murder of a woman whose husband, a pastor, had recruited them to kill her. The state tried to execute Smith by lethal injection in 2022 but technicians could not find a suitable vein in which to insert the needle.

  In execution with nitrogen, a mask is put over the subject’s face and lawyers for the state have argued that he would be unconscious within seconds and his heart would soon stop.

THE OBIT PAGE: Melanie Singer, who surprised the crowd at the 1969 Woodstock festival with a solo performance when she was only 22, has died at age 76. She went on to have a hit with her song, “Brand New Key.”

   The opening lyrics:

    I rode my bicycle past your window last night
    I roller-skated to your door at daylight
    It almost seems like you’re avoiding me
    I’m okay alone, but you’ve got something I need

    Well, I’ve got a brand-new pair of roller skates
    You’ve got a brand-new key

THE SPIN RACK: A Minnesota state trooper has been charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a motorist who drove away during a traffic stop last summer in Minneapolis. “Open season on law enforcement must end,” Londregan’s lawyer said, “And it’s going to end with this case.” — The Ohio legislature has voted to override Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that bans gender affirming medical care for minors. — More than 21 million people have signed up for health plans through the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Donald Trump has vowed that if he’s president again, he’ll get it repealed. — Comedian Jon Stewart, who hosted “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central from 1999 to 2015, is returning to the show as executive producer and the host on Monday nights. The show has had a rotating cast of hosts.

BELOW THE FOLD: Five fans of the Kansas City Chiefs gathered in a rented house on January 7th to watch their team beat San Diego. Three of the men mysteriously never returned home and their host was off the radar for two days.

  After the fiancée of one of the missing men called police for a welfare check, they found three men dead and frozen behind the home. The three were 36, 37, and 38 years old. One was found on the back porch and two in the yard. Their host said he had no idea they were out there and that it was not unusual for them to have left their cars. He said he’d been asleep most of the two days since the game.

  Autopsies are likely to tell a more complete story.

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