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Wednesday, January 3, 2024

1/3 WAKE-UP CALL: Disgraced Harvard Prez To Collect $900,000 A Year


Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned after mounting criticism over her response to antisemitism on campus and plagiarism allegations.

Gay, who became president in July after serving as a Harvard dean for around five years, said she would return to the faculty. Gay was under pressure for her initial responses to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and her equivocal remarks when asked at a House committee hearing in December whether calls for the genocide of Jewish people violated the campus code of conduct. Harvard said reviews of her work uncovered some instances of “inadequate citation” but not outright research misconduct. “[I]t has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor—two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am—and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus,” Gay wrote in her resignation letter.

She won’t be leading the Crimson, but green shouldn’t be a problem. Outgoing Harvard President Claudine Gay will still likely earn nearly $900,000 a year despite being forced to resign her position as the school’s top administrator. Political Science professor Gay — who stepped down amid a tempest of allegations she did not do enough to combat antisemitism and academic plagiarism Tuesday — will now return to a position on the Cambridge, Mass., school’s faculty. Her new position was not specified Tuesday, but she is expected to receive a salary comparable with what she previously received — if not higher.


🛬THEY ALL GOT OUT: Everyone on a burning Japan Airlines jet was evacuated safely after it collided with a plane on a runway at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. All 379 passengers and crew members escaped with minutes to spare. The other aircraft, a Japan Coast Guard plane, exploded, killing five of the six people on board. The Japanese Transport Ministry official said a formal investigation would be conducted. The Coast Guard plane was getting ready to fly to an earthquake zone on Japan’s west coast to deliver food, water and other relief supplies. At least 55 people have died in the 7.6 magnitude quake that struck on New Year’s Day.

➤JAPAN HUNTS FOR SURVIVORS: Aftershocks continued to rattle Japan on Tuesday after at least 48 people were killed in a powerful earthquake on the western coast that flattened buildings and triggered tsunami warnings. On Monday, the 7.6 quake rocked Ishikawa, about 180 miles west of Tokyo, where all the deaths so far have been reported. More than 100 aftershocks were recorded since Monday afternoon as rescue crews searched the rubble for survivors. More than 1,000 soldiers have been deployed by the Japanese military to the disaster zones to join rescue efforts, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday.


ࣸ➤ANOTHER HAMAS LEADER NEUTRALIZED: A suspected Israeli attack in Beirut killed a Hamas leader and at least six other members of the militant group, according to Lebanese and Palestinian security officials. Saleh al-Arouri was a founder of its military wing, deputy head of its political bureau and, according to Hamas, an architect of the group’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel that killed 1,200 people. The Israeli military declined to comment on the blast. 


The attack immediately impacted Israel’s efforts to secure the release of 100-plus hostages captured by Hamas, which put an indefinite hold on talks, according to Egyptian officials. Israeli military officials said they were bracing for retaliatory strikes from Hezbollah and Hamas militants in Lebanon.

➤TRUMP SUES MAINE ELECTION OFFICIAL: Former President Donald Trump sued Maine's secretary of state Tuesday for disqualifying him from the state's primary ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, opening another legal front in the saga over whether voters in some states will be barred from selecting the Republican frontrunner.

Election officials and courts in several states are considering whether Trump's actions on Jan. 6 disqualified him under a Reconstruction-era provision of the 14th Amendment known as the insurrection clause. Only two states − Maine and Colorado − have so far decided that Trump should be removed from this year's primary ballots. The decision from Colorado's top court has already been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Maine, the decision was made by the secretary of state rather than by a court. Trump's first line of appeal is to file a lawsuit in state court challenging that secretary's decision and that is what he did on Tuesday. Trump called the secretary of state a "biased decisionmaker" in the suit and said his disqualification was the "product of a process infect by bias and pervasive lack of due process.".


➤ROCHESTER NY EXPLOSION INTENTIONAL: A fatal New Year's Day crash and explosion in Rochester, New York, appears to be intentional, police said Tuesday, and the driver suspected of causing the crash has died. Police and the FBI said a Ford Expedition SUV crashed into a smaller Mitsubishi Outlander at about 1 a.m. on Monday, careening into pedestrians and hitting two other vehicles before erupting in a ball of flames that took almost an hour to extinguish. One of the vehicles involved was carrying at least a dozen gasoline cans. Two adults in the Outlander were pronounced dead on the scene and a third person was injured, Rochester Police Capt. Ryan Tauriello said. Several pedestrians were also injured. Police identified the two who died as Justina Hughes, 28, of Geneva, and Joshua Orr, 29, of Webster.

➤MAN ARRESTED FOR OPENING FIRE INSIDE COLORADO SUPREME COURT: A man was arrested early Tuesday after he broke into the Colorado Supreme Court overnight and opened fire inside the building. According to a press release from the Denver Police Department, 44-year-old Brandon Olsen is being held for investigation of robbery, burglary and arson. Police report that the incident took place around 1:15 a.m. and lasted for about two hours. There were no injuries to building occupants, the suspect or police personnel but there was “significant and extensive damage to the building.” Colorado State Patrol told news outlets that there is a “high probability” that the incident is not connected to “recent threats against the Colorado Supreme Court Justices.” The break-in comes two weeks after the court ruled 4-3 to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot.

➤NYC HIT WITH EARTHQUAKE: New York City was hit with an earthquake early Tuesday morning. The U.S. Geological survey said one measuring 1.7 magnitude was reported in Astoria around 5:45am. CBS News reports that residents from Astoria to Roosevelt Island claimed they felt a series of small explosions in the early hours. 911 calls sent firefighters and Con Edison crews searching for hours to find the source of the “explosions.”

➤KENTUCKY CLERK FORCED TO PAY $360K FOR REFUSING MARRIAGE LICENSE: A former county clerk in Kentucky will have to pay more than $360,000 in fees for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. U.S District Judge Davis L. Bunning ordered Kim Davis to pay David Ermold and David Moore 100,000 in damages and an additional $260,084 to their attorneys. Ermold and Moore sought a marriage license shortly after the 2015 Obergefell vs. Hodges Supreme Court ruling granted same-sex couples the right to marry across the country. Davis, who was Rowan County clerk at the time, refused based on her religious beliefs and ended up spending five days in jail for failing to comply with an order to issue marriage licenses.

⛽GAS PRICES TO DECREASE: Gas prices are on their way down. GasBuddy.com analyst said Tuesday, "There's a window of opportunity over the next six weeks" for the national average to dip below three bucks a gallon, which last occurred in May of 2021. A Triple-A spokesperson told CBS News that gas is currently averaging at $3.10 a gallon nationwide but the median average is $2.79, as the national number is heavily influenced by higher prices on the west coast.


🏈DAVID TEPPER FINED BY NFL: Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper on Tuesday was fined $300,000 by the NFL for tossing a drink at Jaguars fans from his suite at Jacksonville’s EverBank Stadium. The NFL called the act, which took place during Sunday’s game “unacceptable conduct.” The league said in a statement, “All NFL personnel are expected to conduct themselves at all times in ways that respect our fans and favorably reflect on their team and the NFL.” Tepper responded with regret, saying, “I respect the NFL’s code of conduct and accept the League’s discipline for my behavior.”

 ➤KIMMEL RESPONDS: A list of disgraced financier Epstein's associates from court filings is set to be made public in the first few days of 2024 and Rodgers claimed that late show host Jimmy Kimmel could be among the names on the list.  During his weekly appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, Rodgers began offering a conspiracy theory on the colors of the NFL's Super Bowl emblems predicting the teams who will play the big game that season.  The panel were left slightly confused by the 40-year-old's long-winded explanation and co-host AJ Hawk interrupted to jokingly ask if it involved the Epstein list. 'There's a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, who are hoping that list doesn't come out,' the quarterback responded.

🏈KENNY PICKETT DENIES HE REFUSED TO DRESS FOR NO. 2 SLOT: Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett denies rumors that he refused to be the backup to Mason Rudolph against the Seahawks. He said Tuesday, “It was either I was going to start and play or if they didn’t think I was good enough to do that, healthy enough, I was going to be the 3 and not dress.”

✞FRANK RYAN DEAD AT 87: Frank Ryan, the quarterback who lead the Cleveland Browns to their last NFL title in 1964, died Monday at the age of 87. Ryan’s family said in a statement that he died while being cared for at a nursing home in Connecticut. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease that the family says may have been exacerbated by chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Ryan donated his brain to Boston University’s CTE Center for study.  


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