Turkey Can Forget About Getting F-16s If Sweden, Finland NATO Bids Blocked: Senators
The United States is now threatening Turkey with holding more American-made fighter jets captive, this time over the Erdogan government’s refusal to allow Sweden into NATO.
Turkey starting in 2021 issued a formal request purchase 40 F-16 jets and about 80 modernization kits from the US, but a group of over two dozen US senators has said they are ready to block the sale if Turkey doesn’t ratify Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession protocols.
“Congress cannot consider future support for Türkiye, including the sale of F-16 fighter jets, until Türkiye completes ratification of the accession protocols,” the senators, led by Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), wrote in a letter to the president Thursday.
“Failure to ratify the protocols or present a timeline for ratification threatens the Alliance’s unity at a key moment in history, as Russia continues its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” the lawmakers stressed.
The White House appears favorable to the Congressional members’ stance regarding getting tougher on Turkey while Ankara blocks Sweden’s NATO membership:
“We have made the same point to our Turkish allies … that we need this Congress’s support moving forward for the security enhancements that we think that they need, as allies, F16s, some of them are old, but that this Congress is likely to look far more favorably on that after ratification,” [Victoria] Nuland said, urging senators to “keep making your points and we will too.”
But Turkey has never been easily pressured by Washington – and this is perhaps given the Turkish military remains the second largest in NATO, and the fact that Turkey plays host to American military bases.
With the F-16 hold-up now having dragged on a couple of years, Turkey has long flirted with the idea of acquiring Russian-made Su-35s and Su-57 fighter jets, causing alarm among NATO allies. Turkey has argued it’s a problem of Washington’s own making, given the 2019 decision to boot Turkey from the Lockheed F-35 program.
Lately, Erdogan has said Turkey looks favorably on Finland joining the alliance, while at the same time suspending accession talks with Swedish officials, especially after last month’s Quran-burning incident in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.
A new report compiled by the Center for Biological Diversity has revealed that the number of households having their electricity disconnected by power companies as a result of not being able to pay soared between 2021 and 2022.
Leading the way among states who report such data is Illinois, whose main electricity providers shut down power for nearly 300,000 households between January and October 2022, a massive increase over the previous year.
According to the report, disconnects in Illinois rose 26 percent from 2021 to 284,720 in the first ten months of 2022. The state’s two largest electricity providers, Exelon’s Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) and Amaren, accounted for the vast majority of shut-offs.
Both companies are investor-owned and have been criticized for increasing executives’ salaries while working to make electricity more expensive for customers.
As the report states, ComEd imposed a 26 percent rate hike in October 2021, and gained permission from regulators in November 2022 to raise prices yet again by $199 million. All the while, customers were having their lights turned off for non-payment.
During this time, ComEd was also embroiled in a corruption scandal, in which it was accused of “using ratepayer funds as part of a bribery scheme” to secure the passage of 2011 legislation that implemented a “formula rate” system. The system subjected customers to hundreds of millions of dollars in rate hikes over the last decade, but ComEd benefited to the tune of nearly $4.7 billion.
At the onset of Covid-19, a moratorium on shutoffs due to nonpayment was imposed across the nation, however, Illinois was one of the states that ended the policy as soon as it possibly could. By late 2021, no such forgiveness was offered.
“The preventable practice of disconnections keeps millions of Americans in poverty and narrows their avenues of escape,” the report lamented. “By giving utility companies the power to penalize poverty, we license them to perpetuate it.”
Adani Races To Restore Confidence With Lender Talks As Corporate Empire Falters
Losses in Gautam Adani’s corporate empire surged to $108 billion on Thursday, sparking fears of a potential systemic implosion one day after the Indian conglomerate’s flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd. scrapped a 200 billion-rupee ($2.4 billion) stock offering.
The suddenness of the equity offering withdrawal reverberated across markets, politics, and business circles. One dealmaker told Bloomberg that he has never seen an equity offering canceled so quickly in his two-decade career.
Indian lawmakers are questioning and requesting a broader probe into the plunge in Adani Enterprises shares. Even the Reserve Bank of India is checking on banking exposure to ensure there’s no systemic threat.
In a separate report, Bloomberg said Credit Suisse and Citigroup have stopped accepting some bonds issued by Adani’s companies as collateral for margin loans to high-net-worth clients. However, Goldman Sachs told investors Adani bond prices have likely hit a floor.
A crisis in confidence plagues Adani and his corporate empire, and he is racing to plug the holes in his sinking ship.
A person familiar with the situation said Adani is in discussions with lenders to prepay and release pledged shares as he seeks to restore confidence,.
Adani nor his companies have faced margin calls on these pledges and aiming for quick prepayment, the person said, adding the move is to dismiss concerns about margin calls.
They noted Adani officials would address investors about the prepayment in the coming days.
This turmoil comes in the wake of Hindenburg Research’s short-seller report. The US firm alleges Adani oversees a sprawling empire built on market manipulation and accounting fraud — allegations he and his conglomerate have repeatedly denied.
Simultaneously, Adani’s personal wealth has taken a massive hit. In just six trading sessions, the billionaire, but no longer Asia’s richest person, has lost $52 billion in personal wealth.
Adani’s primary goal in the short term is to remove concerns about a wave of potential margin calls concerns and default risk as dollar bonds plunge to very distressed levels.
There is no clear messaging (yet) from India’s government if they will get involved in the fight between Hindenburg and Adani.
“Adani and his officials are trying their best to paint it as a foreign conspiracy against the rise of India as an economic power,” said Ashok Swain, head of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden.
However, fund managers aren’t buying that messaging: veteran emerging-markets investor Mark Mobius told Bloomberg that Adani Enterprises’ massive debt load “scared us away” from participating in the share offering.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will allow two chief border patrol agents to testify before a Congressional hearing on the U.S. border crisis, after initially trying to “muzzle” them, according to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.).
In a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Comer highlighted how DHS leadership sought to prevent the chief border agents from testifying at the Feb. 7 hearing, but later reversed its stance after Comer threatened to use subpoenas.
The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability plans to hold the hearing to gather facts from U.S. Border Patrol witnesses. The hearing is titled “On the Front Lines of the Border Crisis: A Hearing with Chief Patrol Agents.”
Comer wrote that he invited the agents’ testimony on Jan. 19 and that DHS “initially sought to prevent Congress from hearing invaluable testimony from Chief Patrol Agents, believing that DHS’s internal protocols superseded Congressional oversight prerogatives.”
“I am pleased that the DHS is no longer taking such a position, and will make available as witnesses Chief Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez, Rio Grande Valley Sector and Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin, Tucson Sector,” Comer wrote (pdf). “These two law enforcement professionals also serve as Lead Field Coordinators for the border regions that collectively include Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.”
In a statement, Comer described the Biden administration’s “radical open borders policies” as the cause of the “worst border crisis in American history.”
“Starting on day one in office, President [Joe] Biden and his administration rolled back deterrent-focused policies, halted the construction of the border wall, gutted interior enforcement, pushed amnesty for illegal immigrants—all of which have made it difficult for U.S. Border Patrol agents to secure the border,” Comer said in a statement.
“Next week, we will hear firsthand from the Border Patrol about this humanitarian and national security crisis,” he continued, adding the Republicans on the panel were committed to holding the Biden administration accountable.
Republicans have been critical of Mayorkas’s handling of the crisis at the southern U.S. border, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) repeatedly calling on him to resign last year, and declaring his intention to investigate and impeach Mayorkas.
On Monday, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) told Fox News that he intends to file articles of impeachment against Mayorkas.
Woman Charged With Stealing $1.5 Million In Chicken Wings From Chicago Suburb School District
A 66-year-old woman was charged with stealing over $1.5 million worth of food – primarily chicken wings, while working as the Director of Food Services for a school district within a suburb of Chicago.
Bond was set at $150,000 Thursday for Vera Lidell, who began working for Harvey School District 152 in July 2020, placed hundreds of unauthorized orders for items between July 2020 and February 2022 – which included 11,000 cases of chicken wings through the school’s primary supplier, Gordon Food Service.
Liddell is accused of placing the orders alongside legitimate orders for the district.
“The massive fraud began at the height of COVID during a time when students were not allowed to be physically present in school. Even though the children were learning remotely, the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up,” according to prosecutors.
“The food was never brought to the school or provided to the students,” reads the proffer.
Believing the orders were genuine, Gordon Food Service billed Harvey School District 152, which then paid for the food items, according to court records. Lidell would then allegedly use one of the school district’s cargo vans to pick up and transport the stolen food.
A routine mid-year audit conducted by the district’s business manager in January 2022 showed the food service department had exceeded its annual budget by over $300,000 despite only being halfway through the school year, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said Lidell was the only person responsible for placing food orders on behalf of the district. –Fox5NY
“Upon closer review, she discovered individual invoices signed by Liddell for massive quantities of chicken wings, an item that was never served to students because they contain bones,” the proffer continues.
Gordon Food Service employees got to know Lidell “due to the massive amount of chicken wings she would purchase,” while surveillance footage from the facility revealed that she would often arrive prior to them opening to pick up orders.
Lidell, whose bail is set at $150,000, is currently being held at Cook County Jail until she’s scheduled to appear in court again on Feb. 22.
Update 6:00pm: Apple has staged a remarkable reversal after hours, and erased almost the entire loss after the company said that it expects a 5% impact from FX rates in Q2, and also expects iPhone revenue growth to accelerate in Q2. CEO Tim Cook was also asked whether the move to higher ASPs for the iPhone is sustainable in light of the sharp decline in sales, and whether this will continue in a worsening economy. Cook said the 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max did extremely well until the supply-chain constraints. He says this is definitely a “strong Pro cycle” and credits the new features in the device. He says he’s happy that Apple is now shipping to the demand.
Tim Cook also said that AI is critical to Apple and mentions features like crash-and-fall detection and the use of AI in features like EKG on the Apple Watch. He says AI will effect everything the company does, including all products and services.
Apple is quite bullish on India and other emerging markets, with CEO Tim Cook saying the company will soon open its first retail stores in India. He also said Apple saw marked improvement in China in December (versus November) after another round of Covid re-openings.
As Bloomberg notes, the company also stuck to a line that revenue and sales of individual product categories would have been higher if not for supply-chain constraints and issues stemming from the macroeconomic environment.
* * *
With both Amazon and Google sliding after reporting disappointing earnings and mixed guidance, it was all up to the world’s biggest company, AAPL, to provide some hail mary for the tech earnings season which for better or worse is concentrated in a one hour stretch this afternoon. Alas, it was not meant to be and after missing on the top and bottom line, AAPL has joined the parade of selling and tumbled after hours due to numbers which the market was clearly not impressed with.
And here is AAPL’s diluted EPS in context: needless to say, could have been better.
Commenting on the quarter, Tim Cook said that “during the December quarter, we achieved a major milestone and are excited to report that we now have more than 2 billion active devices as part of our growing installed base.”
CFO Luca Maester chimed in: “our record September quarter results continue to demonstrate our ability to execute effectively in spite of a challenging and volatile macroeconomic backdrop. We continued to invest in our long-term growth plans, generated over $24 billion in operating cash flow, and returned over $29 billion to our shareholders during the quarter. The strength of our ecosystem, unmatched customer loyalty, and record sales spurred our active installed base of devices to a new all-time high. This quarter capped another record-breaking year for Apple, with revenue growing over $28 billion and operating cash flow up $18 billion versus last year.”
Going back to the results, Apple missed consensus revenue in most product categories, with the exception of iPads, to wit:
Of note: Apple recorded its first decline in iPhone revenue since the third quarter of 2020; yet in context, the 8% drop was still less than the 20% decrease reported by Samsung. Other major smartphone providers that have yet to report are expecting to see double-digit losses. Ironically, Apple may have fared comparatively well on smartphone revenue.
The silver lining: service revenue $20.77 billion, +6.4% y/y, beating estimates of $20.47 billion…
… and rose 6.5% Y/Y, an improvement from last quarter’s 5.0%
One other place where investors were pleasantly surprised was China sales, which at $23.91 billion, beat the estimate of $21.8 billion by more than $2 billion.
None of that changes the fact that AAPL’s sales by region were uniformly negative across the board.
And another potential problem: AAPL’s gross cash continues to slide, dropping to $165 billion, the lowest since June 2014…
… while cash net of debt rebounded modestly from $49 billion to $54 billion, just above a 12 year low with the company having spent hundreds of billions on stock buybacks. Let’s hope that Apple doesn’t actually need to use that cash.
Commenting on the results, Bloomberg writes that the results show that Apple hasn’t been able to dodge the tech slowdown afflicting many of its competitors. Demand for smartphones and computers has slumped in the past year, and Covid-19 restrictions in China added to Apple’s woes during the holiday sales period. Timing was another issue: The company didn’t launch new Macs and HomePods until recent weeks, missing the end of the first quarter.
In response to these disappointing earnings, the stock predictably slumped as much as 4% before recouping some losses, although even with the drop it is back to where it was… yesterday.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the latest developments in the Biden classified document investigation. The latest search occurred on the first day at the office for Robert Hur as Special Counsel. He may find that any potential criminal case has already been made more difficult by decisions by the FBI.
Here is the column:
The FBI issued the “all clear” on its latest search of one of President Biden’s residences. The announcement came with the first day of special counsel Robert Hur on the job at the Justice Department.
It could be challenging to make a criminal case after how the investigation has been handled.
At every stage, the FBI has adopted an approach that would compromise or complicate any criminal charge.
The FBI left the home untouched for over three months after classified documents were found in Biden’s former office in DC. While it was recently learned that the FBI did go to that office a couple weeks later, they reportedly elected to have personal counsel for the president conduct searches on the residences. Biden then spent weeks traveling to these residences after the FBI waited to search the premises.
The private searches clearly went through these documents and moved (and potentially organized) material. Despite being given the opportunity to conduct and record the initial searches, the FBI will now have to rely on the accounts of private counsel on how these documents were originally left, including any visible classification markings.
For example, to go through the papers, counsel had to handle them, sort them, and stack or box them. That means that the original conditions are lost in determining, for example, if anyone in the vicinity could have seen a telltale bordered classified jacket or whether a classified document was partially or fully outside of a jacket.
The FBI allowed uncleared private counsel to tread all over these scenes, creating a nightmare of chain of custody.
It then waited weeks to send its own agents to places like Rehoboth Beach as counsel and the Bidens frequented the property.
It is also not clear how the FBI conducted these searches. Reports recently indicated that Biden included classified information in notebooks that were seized in earlier searches. If true, that is a nightmare for investigators because it would require agents to do more than simply look for classified documents with markings at the beginning of paragraphs and tops of pages. They would have to actually read material to determine if Biden incorporated classified material.
In fairness to the FBI, the same hands-off approach was initially used with Trump as the FBI allowed for material to be collected and stored with additional security at Mar-a-Lago.
There are two differences.
First, Trump never denied having such material. He insisted that he was allowed to have the files because he considered them unclassified.
Second, while the Trump team insists that the FBI was given access to the documents, Trump resisted efforts to turn over all of the documents. Indeed, the FBI has raised a pattern of obstruction and false statements.
With Biden, the FBI did not know where documents might be located. The findings overlap with residential and office space used by Biden over the years. Moreover, they were reportedly told that they could search and seize any documents. They did not use that opportunity to search all of these locations, even after counsel erroneously stated that no more classified material was present at these locations.
The FBI is moving no more aggressively with other possible areas containing classified material. The FBI still has not reportedly searched the massive trove of Biden documents being stored at the University of Delaware. Reports indicate that Biden removed classified material as senator and these records cover that period. Looking for a few documents in Rehoboth Beach and not the university (roughly 80 miles away) with a truckload of documents is like driving past the ocean to go fishing in a wading pool.
The result for Hur is a case that is messier than Biden’s garage.
It is hard to see how this investigation would yield a solid criminal case absent confirmation that Biden worked off clearly classified material.
If so, he showed both intent and knowledge of unlawful possession during prior years. It would also make his categorical denials of any knowledge appear more sinister and incriminating.
Either way, none of this suggests “transparency,” as Biden likes to boast. The investigation has proceeded with a small fraction of the information leaked or released against Trump. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) also says that the National Archives were blocked from putting out a press release about the case — either by the Department of Justice or the White House. Combined with the fact that nothing was made public until after the midterms, it shows that Biden’s team wanted to keep this quiet.
In the end, both Biden and Trump come out looking bad but that is not nearly as bad a thing for Trump.
Hunter Biden $55,000 Offer For Russian Oligarch Info Falls Under Fresh Scrutiny
An email from Hunter Biden to US aluminum company Alcoa is raising fresh concerns over the first son’s access to classified documents which were recently discovered in his father’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, as House Republicans kick off investigations into allegations of influence peddling.
The emails which date back to 2011 reveal Hunter Biden offering to trade information on Russian oligarchs to Alcoa for $55,000, according to the NY Post‘s original October 2021 report.
Specifically, Hunter – while his father was Vice President – offered to provide a “statistical analysis of political and corporate risks, elite networks associated with Oleg Deripaska, the Russian CEO of Basic Element company and United company RUSAL.”
Deripaska had notably just signed a metal supply agreement with Alcoa – which Hunter also offered a “list of elites of similar rank in Russia, map of [Deripaska’s] networks based on frequency of interaction with selected elites and countries.”
Now, in light of the fact that classified documents have been found all over the house that Hunter was living at, the Alcoa revelation raises new questions over Hunter’s access to sensitive information.
The deeply detailed proposal has come under sharp scrutiny given recent revelations that Hunter Biden had access to the Delaware lake-front home where secret papers from his father’s time as vice president were discovered in a garage, basement and library — combined with Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the high-profile former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, told The Post that the Alcoa solicitation fits within a broader picture. -NY Post
“The Biden family is the most corrupt family in the history of American politics,” said Banks. “The biggest question facing Republican investigators: Where to begin?”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has also raised the question over whether Hunter used classified documents found at the 6,850 sqft mansion in his business dealings.
Specifically, Johnson referenced an April 12, 2014 email from Hunter to his business partners about Ukraine, which looked “suspiciously” like it could have contained classified information.
“It reads like one of those scene-setters — highly detailed information in terms of Ukraine,” Johnson told Fox News on Tuesday.
The email, from Hunter to partner Devon Archer, includes a 22-point memo which he described as “thoughts after doing some research.” It included predictions such as the election of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, as well as “some sort of decentralization will likely occur in the East.”
“If it doesn’t the Russians will continue to escalate there [sic] destabilization campaign, which could lead to a full scale take over of the eastern region most critically Donetsk,” Hunter wrote. “The strategic value is to create a land bridge for RU[ssia] to Crimea.“
Hunter was obviously fed detailed information on Ukraine so he could show Burisma why he was worth millions of dollars.
Was this classified information? Did Joe Biden know about this?
Next week kicks off fresh hearings in the House Oversight Committee, which will investigate Hunter’s alleged influence peddling – including cashing in on his ties to his father in order to rake in millions from foreign companies.
“We have evidence that … we’ll continue to be transparent with as we start our hearings next week, where this family is taking in millions of millions of dollars from our adversaries,” said Rep. James Comer (R-KY), Chairman of the committee. “And I think we need to determine what was that money for [and] who supplied that money?”
“Why did the FBI, according to Elon Musk and the Twitter Files … the FBI was implying to them that that laptop was Russian disinformation,” Comer continued. “It’s not, and what’s concerning is the FBI had the laptop. Why were they doing that?”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer spreads the baseless conspiracy theory that “there most certainly is a connection” between Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China and President Biden’s classified documents case. pic.twitter.com/GCP5I3KJnE
“The New York Post is fourth biggest newspaper in America; they’re a credible news organization. They’ve done extensive reporting on on the hard drive,” Comer said, adding that the committee must dispel “a lot of misconceptions about the laptop.“
“So we’re gonna start with with the hard drive, because there’s a lot of evidence on the hard drive that would suggest that Joe Biden knew very well what his family was involved in.”
“There’s emails from some of these people’s texting and emailing Hunter Biden saying, ‘Thanks for setting up the meeting with your dad. This is why we’re investigating – we want to make sure that our national security is not compromised,” Comer continued, adding that Hunter’s international business dealings are particularly suspicious given the services he was providing to foreign agencies.
“We’d like to know what that consulting was. I feel like if China or anyone pays you millions of dollars they expect to get a return on that investment,” said Comer. “If they would explain that, then think that a lot of these problems would subside a little bit, but all they do is just like roll their eyes or the audacity of Republicans to ask these questions.”
The oversight committee has pressed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to release more than 150 suspicious activity reports filed by banks regarding foreign transactions and wires to and from Hunter Biden, his businesses and associates. -NY Post
“Right now, we just want the bank records. Those suspicious activity reports were created to help Congress and everyone communicate about foreign suspicious foreign transactions,” said Comer. “If you do a major foreign transaction with a country, the bank is probably going to write a suspicious activity report to cover themselves for liability.”
Chronic absenteeism rates are higher in Chicago than statewide, with 49% of low-income Chicago students missing at least 10% of their days in school. That rate has nearly doubled since the pandemic.
Chronic absenteeism in Chicago Public Schools is on the rise: nearly 45% in 2022, according to state data. That compares to a statewide rate of 30%.
The rate is even higher among Chicago’s low-income students, with 49% missing at least 10% of their schooling, according to Illinois State Board of Education data.
The pandemic and 17 months out of the classroom appear to have seriously aggravated the problem.
Absenteeism in CPS was 24% for all students and just over 25% for low-income students in 2019. That was the final full school year before the pandemic shut down in-person learning in CPS schools.
But those numbers may not show the severity of the absentee issue in CPS. A recent report by the Chicago Board of Education Inspector General shows administrators in CPS may have misreported absent students as transfers, boosting attendance rates and other key metrics.
Chronic absenteeism among Chicago’s low-income students
The Board of Education reported 49% of low-income students in Chicago Public Schools were chronically absent during the 2021-2022 school year. Chronic absenteeism is determined by missing 10% or more of school days per year either with or without a valid excuse. That means nearly half of Chicago students from low-income families missed 18 or more days of school.
Research shows frequent absences from school place children and adolescents at a higher risk of poor outcomes, such as dropping out of school and lower academic achievement. Experts also find lower socioeconomic status is associated with higher levels of absenteeism.
Amid high rates of absenteeism, students from low-income families in CPS are struggling to meet proficiency in core subjects. Just 14% of 3rd through 8th grade students from low-income families met proficiency standards in reading and 9% in math this spring. Compared to students who are not from low-income families, low-income students were 28 percentage points less likely to score as proficient in reading and 27 percentage points less likely in math.
Missing school certainly can’t help.
It may be worse than the numbers show
While CPS absenteeism rates are already high, the data may be worse than reported because of miscoding of students as transfers rather than truant.
The CPS Inspector General’s 2022 annual report released in early January 2023 questioned the reliability of CPS’s transfer and dropout data, which is used to calculate metrics such as attendance rates. The investigation found “a districtwide problem of schools failing to document transfers and lost children as required by law and CPS policy.”
This misreporting of students is not new to CPS. The Office of the Inspector General has investigated and reported on this kind of misconduct five times since 2014, according to the report.
The report concludes the consequence of this misreporting is twofold: it causes significant negative effects on vulnerable students and produces unreliable CPS metrics.
CPS has procedures in place to locate and reengage missing students. Students whose absenteeism is hidden by administrators do not receive those interventions and the reengagement assistance they need and would otherwise have received if they were properly reported.
The district’s key metrics, such as attendance and graduation rates, may be skewed by misreporting.
CPS student attendance isn’t helped by the frequent Chicago Teachers Union walkouts
The militant bargaining tactics used too often by Chicago Teachers Union leaders to get their demands met have not been in the best interests of CPS students and families. They have left district students missing even more days of classroom instruction. CTU has walked out on students five times since 2012, with students missing at least 24 days of school as a result.
It’s probably hard for students to take school seriously when CTU walks out at a moment’s notice.
CPS is committed to improving student attendance
The Illinois Policy Institute contacted CPS for comment about the district’s low rates of absenteeism.
The district responded that it is committed to improving and expanding methods which work to help students return and stay in the classroom. CPS has made additional investments during the 2022-2023 school year since COVID-19 impacted student attendance in districts across the country. Investments include targeted interventions, additional systems of support, mental health services and other support services.
An MSNBC anchor revealed in a recent segment that she was hospitalized with heart inflammation in December, leading her to miss work for about a month.
Yasmin Vossoughian said that the health scare started on Dec. 20 when she started to experience chest pains that “waxed and waned over a period of 10 days.” Those pains “continued to get worse” over the coming days, she added.
The anchor, who hosts a weekend program on the left-wing network, said she went to urgent care on Dec. 30 and was told she had acid reflux. A day later, she woke up with severe chest pains and pain in her left shoulder, leading her to believe she was suffering from a heart attack.
Vossoiughian, 44, said she went to the emergency room. Doctors diagnosed her with pericarditis, or inflammation of the lining of the heart. They claimed it was caused by “a literal common cold,” she said.
She added that she doesn’t smoke, she runs several miles per week, does yoga, doesn’t eat meat, and drinks occasionally. “I’m a pretty healthy person,” she said.
After she was admitted to the hospital, she spent several days there before she was released on Jan. 4, Vossoiughian said.
“But that was not the end … three days later, I was readmitted when I felt a flutter in my heart like a butterfly,” she said. Doctors then informed her that she developed myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, and she spent another five days in the hospital.
Vossoiughian then said that it was “just the cold that was doing … all the inflammation in and around my heart.”
Speculation
With Vossoiughian’s confirmation that she suffered pericarditis and myocarditis, there was widespread speculation on social media that it may have been caused by a COVID-19 vaccine or booster. The MSNBC host did not make mention of COVID-19 or vaccines during her segment, and she said her doctors blamed it on the common cold virus.
Both pericarditis and myocarditis are considered side effects of mRNA vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna, according to the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But, according to Johns Hopkins University, while rare, myocarditis can be caused “by an infection in the body,” including the common cold, influenza, and COVID-19. Bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections can also lead to myocardial inflammation.
The Myocarditis Foundation, meanwhile, says that “viral infections are the leading cause of myocarditis,” but it notes that “a wide range of infections, diseases, and substances may cause this condition.”
And the UK National Health Service says that “pericarditis often follows a viral infection, such as a sore throat or cold.”
In 2021, Vossoiughian wrote on social media that she was fully vaccinated for COVID-19. “We are both vaccinated…that was confirmed before this pic!” she said in April of that year. Comcast’s NBCUniversal also mandated that its employees, including those working at MSNBC, get the vaccine before returning to the office in early 2022.
