The American Illness: Ten people died yesterday afternoon including the first police officer on the scene in a shooting inside a Boulder, Colorado  grocery store. A wounded suspect was taken into custody.

  People inside the King Soopers market on the south side of Boulder described a rush to the doors when the shooting started. “It was muffled at first,” One woman said, “and I thought maybe someone had dropped something, but then it went again, probably about 15 to 20 shots, really fast. My husband came up and shoved me out the door, and yelled, ‘Call 911!’”

  In a sign of current social media connection, parts of the shooting were live-streamed by witnesses.

  Boulder Police Off. Eric Talley, 51, was killed outright, leaving behind a wife and seven children. Emergency workers staged an impromptu procession in his honor last night.

  Boulder is a relatively wealthy small city of 100,000 with a university and well-educated population. It’s been known as a place where trust-funders go to live. 

 One man said in a self-recorded video, “Boulder feels like a bubble and the bubble burst.” It doesn’t feel like there’s anywhere safe anymore sometimes. And this feels like the safest spot in America and I nearly got killed for getting a soda and a bag of chips.”

Trillions and Trillions: Coming off the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill that isn’t even spent yet, President Biden’s economic advisers are preparing to deliver a $3 trillion infrastructure plan  to further spur the economy and improve life for Americans.

  The ambitious plan to be financed in part by taxes on the rich and corporations, would include money for 5G telecommunications, rural broadband, advanced job training, affordable and energy-efficient housing units plus $1 trillion for roads, bridges, rail lines, ports, electric vehicle charging stations, and improvements to the electric grid.

  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already described it as a “Trojan Horse” for tax increases.

Tired, Poor, and Here: With illegal migrants overwhelming shelters and facilities, the Biden administration is searching for ways to stem the tide, warning immigrants not to come to the US and sending emissaries to Mexico and Guatemala asking for their help.

  President Biden is caught between forces demanding a stop to illegal border crossings, and those asking humane treatment for the desperate adults and unaccompanied children trying to escape crime and poverty. It is both a political and logistical crisis for Biden.

  Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas said, “The system is being overwhelmed right now. No ifs, no buts about it.”

Be Not Proud: The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on whether the death penalty should be reinstated for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

  He and his brother Tamerlan, who died in a shootout with the police, killed three people and wounded hundreds with pressure cooker bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon. They later killed an MIT police officer.

  Last July the federal appeals court in Boston threw out Tsarnaev’s death sentence because, it said, the trial judge did not do enough to ensure the jury would not be biased in favor of death.

  The Trump administration, which carried out 13 executions right up to the last week of Trump’s term, appealed to reinstate death for the 27-year-old.

  Complicating the question now is that President Biden is against the death penalty. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “He has grave concerns about whether capital punishment as currently implemented is consistent with the values that are fundamental to our sense of justice and fairness.”

The Spin Rack: Americans put on half a pound a week during the pandemic lockdown according to study of weight gain among 300 subjects. The study is small, and not fully reliable, but there is supporting data sitting here at the editorial desk. — “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” has lost more than a million viewers, a 43 percent decline since the host apologized on air in September for running a toxic workplace. Several of the show’s current and former staff had said they had dealt with sexual harassment, racism, fear, and intimidation on the set working for Ellen. — A Pennsylvania police detective is divorcing his 55-year-old wife after seeing her on video at the Capitol insurrection with another man. The wife, Jennifer Heinl, also faces federal charges. 

The Obit Page: Elgin Baylor, the Hall of Fame forward with the Los Angeles Lakers who was one of the all-time greats of the NBA, has died at age 86. His dashing athletic style was considered a harbinger of what was to come in the NBA with the likes of Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant. 

  Baylor was one of the players who broke the old formal style of scoring with set shots. He ran, flew, and twisted in the air on his way to the basket. Hall of Fame guard Oscar Robertson wrote in his biography that “You could not stop Elgin from driving to the basket. You sure couldn’t out-jump him, or hang in the air any longer than he did.”

The Social Network: Banned from Twitter and Facebook for being an agitator and lying liar, former President Donald Trump is preparing to go live with his own social network in two or three months, according to his spokesman, Jason Miller.

  The new network will have “tens of millions” of new users and “completely redefine the game,” Miller told Fox News. You can also bet that “Trump” will be in the name and it will be the most incredible, fantastic social network like nothing you’ve ever seen before. 

  Wouldn’t it be fun if his own social network banned him?

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