Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of February 7

A missing game of Wordle helps end a 17-hour hostage ordeal

Denyse Holt, 80, was alone at home in Illinois on 5 February when a naked and mentally ill suspect entered her home.

Her daughter in faraway Seattle noticed something was amiss when Ms Holt failed to send her daily Wordle.

While Mr Davis told her he wouldn't harm her, he did force her - still wearing a nightgown - to take a warm bath with him before taking two knives from the kitchen, disconnecting phones, and locking her in a cold basement bathroom.

Across the country in Seattle, Ms Holt's daughter, Meredith Holt-Caldwell, soon noticed that her mother wasn't responding to text messages and hadn't sent in her Wordle, a popular daily word puzzle.

It's hard to trust the press when journalists keep saving scoops for future books

context:

Maggie Haberman, who was White House correspondent for the New York Times during most of Trump's presidency, has a new book coming out this October.

as part of what I guess is the start of the press tour for the book (8 months before its release?) Haberman told Axios, among other things:

While President Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet — and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper

she then quote-tweeted the Axios piece, promoting her book and linking to the Amazon preorder page.

if that reporting is true...it would be a crime, a violation of the Presidential Records Act. and also newsworthy, and something that maybe voters should have known about before they went to the polls.

this is overwrought to the point of being a cliche, but compare coverage of Hillary Clinton's private email server - multiple front-page stories in the NYT, all before the election - to the NYT story that mentioned this, which was on page A16, and frames this as Republicans being the ones unduly outraged about Clinton's transparency & records-keeping issues, rather than the Times itself:

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 11, 2022, Section A, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Outraged Over Clinton’s Records, Republicans Say Little About Trump’s.

importantly, I think, this is not an isolated incident. from the op-ed I linked at the top of this comment:

In September 2020, Bob Woodward promoted the release of his book Rage with a recording of Trump on February 7, 2020, telling him that the novel coronavirus found in China was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” and that it was “deadly stuff.”

“It goes through air, Bob,” said Trump. “That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air — you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed.”

this, to me, is the single most damning thing about Trump's handling of covid. almost a month before the very first confirmed case of covid in the US, Trump talking to reporters about how it's airborne and definitely worse than the flu.

and Woodward just sat on it until September 2020. in order to promote his book.

US father and son 'chased and shot' black FedEx driver

Mr Gibson said he was not taken seriously until he and his manager went to the station the next day to show them the bullet holes in the van.

Also of note, Ex-Prosecutor Accused Of Interfering With Investigation Into Ahmaud Arbery's Killing

A former Georgia prosecutor was indicted Thursday on misconduct charges alleging she used her position to shield the men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery from being charged with crimes immediately after the shootings.

Federal Reserve: U.S. Economic Activity

• GDP is up
• Employment is up (Unemployment is down)
• Wage growth is up
• PCE Inflation is up
• Core Inflation is up
• Yield curve is quickly flattening

US 'freedom convoy' headed to DC, supposedly leaving in late February. Sorry everyone. :/

Police largely clear 'Freedom Convoy’ protesters from key U.S.-Canada border crossing but keep it closed for now