Covid kids

COVID in California: $400 million in state grants for health work force, infrastructure

February 6, 2023 by www.sfchronicle.com Leave a Comment

The conclusion of the U.S. national health emergency status, slated to end May 11, will be felt mostly in the delivery and cost of pandemic health care. For California school kids, the shifting pandemic outlook means the government will not require them to get a coronavirus shot to attend classes. By the end of the month, the Bay Area’s largest county will have shut down its mass vaccination and testing sites, turning to the private health sector to pick up those services, in yet another sign of a new pandemic era.

Latest updates:

California grants seek to bolster health care infrastructure and workforce

More than $400 million in California grants is being awarded to expand the state’s health care workforce and infrastructure, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced Sunday. The growing burdens on health care workers and health systems across the state were especially prominent during the pandemic. “California is committed to ensuring people have the services they need and supporting the next generation of health care workers” with the money slated to strengthen community level partners addressing behavioral and mental health as well as general health care, Newsom said. Among the grants are those going to local organizations to build capacity in Medi-Cal delivery system, bolstering the caregiver workforce, support behavioral health students and professionals, support social work education in schools and residencies.

Deadline this week for general population under 50 to get boosters in England

This week is the last chance for people age 49 and younger in England to get a coronavirus booster. The National Health Service said that Sunday will be the last free booster offering at vaccination sites for people age 16 to 49. After that, boosters will be reserved for older adults and people at risk of serious illness, as recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. The deadline refers to the third jab for those who have already received a two-dose primary series, the BBC reports. A fall booster, in effect a fourth shot, also has been rolled out, but only for people 50 and older and people with special health issues; health officials, in urging people who have not had a third shot, their first booster, to come forward ahead of the deadline, said they are not expanding eligibility for the fourth shot.

The deadline comes as the U.K., following four months of improving trends, is contending with another COVID-19 wave driven by the rapid spread of two immune-evasive variants, CH.1.1 and XBB.1.5. Throughout the pandemic, the U.K. has often been a harbinger of what’s to come for California, first with the alpha variant, followed by delta, and most recently with omicron.

Some estimates see China’s COVID death toll at more than 1 million in coming months

Additional data from China on its COVID deaths shows the nation has recorded 80,000 lives lost since lifting of its COVID restrictions, the New York Times reports. But many experts say that figure is likely an undercount, as it includes only people who died in hospitals; some have estimated that the death toll in China could exceed 1 million people in the coming months. On Chinese social media, users have pointed to the skyrocketing number of obituaries published by places like two prominent Chinese academies with members from research institutions across the country, to suggest that the true number of deaths is much higher than the official figure. Any count is likely to be incomplete because the government has largely abandoned COVID testing, including in hospitals, said Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong. “The reality is that even the government might not know everything,” he said.

COVID Zero cost China standing in Asia-Pacific region, ranking institute says

China’s standing in the Asia-Pacific has been damaged by its decision to stick with its strict “COVID Zero” restrictions for most of 2022, leaving the US to solidify its role as the most influential power in the region, according to an Australian research group. The Sydney-based Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index for 2023 shows China with the greatest decline out of the 26 nations and territories in the report. Econimic and defense ties cemented the US as the leading power in the Asia-Pacific, Bloomberg reports. The index uses 133 indicators to assess diplomatic, economic and military power. The U.S. ranked first, followed by China, Japan, India and Russia. Susannah Patton, the institute’s project lead, said China’s connections with the rest of Asia declined “sharply” during the lockdowns and border closures of its COVID Zero policies. China’s rankings on cultural influence and economic capability fell the most, due to Beijing shutting off its citizens and businesses from the world for much of the year. One area where it did see improvement was in its military capability, the survey found.

My Husband Won’t Help Pay for My Kids’ Tuition. Should I Divorce Him?

February 6, 2023 by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

The younger two of my three children are currently enrolled in universities. They both have jobs and support their living expenses on campus. I left their father when all three were all under the age of 5 because he physically abused them. (Their father has had his paychecks garnished because he refuses to pay child support, but because he hides his money, the garnishment typically results in only $600 to $2,000 per year.) I remarried when the children were between the ages of 8 and 10. Their stepfather is a kind man and makes more than twice as much money as I do.

Here is the query: At the Ivy League university that one of my children attends, tuition is completely free if the parents make under $100,000. I make $60,000. However, the university insists that the stepfather’s income is counted in the annual income, and my husband makes $150,000. But he refuses to pay any of the tuition or related costs (which come to $80,000 a year); he says it’s my responsibility. So now I’m working 12-to-15-hour days to try to pay for tuition. The children receive some scholarship money, but you can imagine how infuriated I am. Is this grounds for divorce? Name Withheld

To state the obvious, your husband’s response to your financial difficulties doesn’t seem to be that of a loving partner or, indeed, a kind human being. Marriage, after all, is meant to involve the sharing of life’s challenges as well as its joys. But are you contemplating a divorce because he’s being a jerk about this or because you think it will leave you better off financially? For financial guidance, you should check with a lawyer about what alimony you can expect (and, of course, the price of actually securing a divorce). Setting up a separate household is itself an expensive business. And that’s to say nothing about the psychological repercussions of a divorce, including on your children.

Assuming that this letter expresses your reflective judgment (and not just a flash of anger after a disappointing conversation), I would say that the decision you need to make isn’t centrally about money. If you think the relationship merits salvaging, you should at least ask your husband to consider couples counseling; it might be worth exploring why he’s refusing to act as a parent to his stepchildren, and whether he appreciates the emotional consequences of his tightfisted ways. In marriage, a burden spurned is a burden doubled.

I live in a comfortable apartment in a four-unit building. My landlord is great, the rent is very reasonable and I love the neighborhood. I hope to remain a tenant for years to come. Unfortunately, one of the other tenants (with whom I share a wall) can be extremely volatile. When he gets angry at home, he screams and is verbally abusive toward his wife. I have worried about his wife’s safety on multiple occasions, as this screaming and verbal abuse is usually accompanied by him causing damage to their home. I’ve overheard him pounding on the walls and throwing things on the floor; I believe he has broken several pieces of furniture over the years. After his most recent episode, I watched him carry a broken chair to the dumpster later that day.

The reason I hesitate to bring this to the attention of my landlord is that the tenant in question is my landlord’s brother. I don’t think my landlord would condone his brother’s behavior, but I don’t know if he would do anything to address it either. And I would be meddling in family affairs by bringing this up. I also worry that reporting this to my landlord or calling the police during his brother’s next major outburst might lead to some sort of retaliation against me. But I also want to live in peace, and these outbursts make me quite anxious and uncomfortable. Additionally, I feel as if someone needs to know about his behavior in the event that he escalates and one day hurts his wife or someone else. What should I do? Name Withheld

It sounds as if you have reason to worry that your neighbor poses a threat to his wife’s safety. What’s at stake here, then, is much more than your own comfort. Simply asking your neighbor directly to be more considerate seems unlikely to meet the need. The police would intervene if you notified them during an episode of violence. That might mean that he would then be dangerously angry at you, of course. Studies on police involvement in incidents of domestic violence have reached different conclusions: Some find no effect in preventing revictimization, while some researchers say that it can increase the risks to the partner, but the preponderance of the evidence supports the view that it won’t make things worse and might make things better.

The police are unlikely to be able to do anything, though, unless you call them when you can hear that this man is behaving violently. Your landlord, on the other hand, can intervene when he chooses — urging his brother to stop embarrassing the family, for example, and perhaps persuading him to take anger-management classes. (Research suggests that these actually work for many participants.) You mention that there are four apartments in the building. A united approach to the landlord, asking him to do something to stop his brother from disturbing the peace of the building, would also give him notice that his sister-in-law may be in danger.

My younger sister has not spoken to me since last Christmas, when I requested to stay in an ocean-view room in the house where our family planned to spend the holidays. I needed the room’s sitting area for pumping breast milk and feeding my 3-month-old. My sister preferred the ocean-view room, and even moved her and her partner’s things into the room for a few days before the rest of the family pressured her to leave and allow me space to pump in private. She punished us by yelling at us and by giving the family, including my infant daughter, the cold shoulder for the holiday. After that, my sister had a wedding in May, but she and her groom contracted Covid nine days before the welcome receptions were to begin. She didn’t understand why my husband and I declined to attend, and she declined to tell the rest of the guests she had Covid. (Others became sick after the event.) She has continued cold-shouldering me and my daughter, whose first birthday she ignored.

Out of the blue, I received a text message from her that she and her husband want to fund an investment account for our daughter. We are not sure this seems wise to accept. Our daughter will be very well taken care of financially, even without these funds. I don’t want to accept funds from a couple who have proved emotionally abusive and tie my daughter to a potentially harmful relationship with them. Still, I wonder if declining funds on behalf of my 1-year-old is not fully my decision to make. Should I decline? Name Withheld

Your sister’s behavior , as you describe it, is churlish and wrongheaded. But what you call emotional abuse comes across like a pretty ordinary family row. Your younger sister might insist — who knows? — that she had dibs on that oceanfront room and that, in her opinion, the other bedroom had plenty of space for you to pump and nurse. Maybe she’ll report that she and her husband tested negative for Covid on Day 4 and their doctor gave them the all-clear. (The research still indicates people are most infectious just before and just after the onset of Covid symptoms.) Claims like these don’t contradict your account or put your sister in the right. The point is simply that quarreling siblings typically have different stories to tell.

Family disagreements like these don’t have to lead to permanent rifts, even if neither party ever admits to being wrong. And the natural way to interpret this text message is that, after a year of shunning you, she’s trying to re-establish a relationship. If you accept the offer with thanks, this froideur may defrost. The real issue isn’t about whether to accept money for your daughter; it’s about whether you want to keep open the possibility of your having a relationship with your younger sister — and therefore of your daughter’s having one. As a parent, your job is to act in your child’s interests; as a person, you’ll want to be mindful of your own. Alienating your daughter from her aunt isn’t likely to advance either goal.

Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy at N.Y.U. His books include “Cosmopolitanism,” “The Honor Code” and “The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity.” To submit a query: Send an email to [email protected] Want the Ethicist directly in your inbox? Subscribe to our new newsletter at nytimes.com/ethicist.

In latest blow to school closures, study finds kids over 100 times less likely to die from COVID than adults

February 6, 2023 by www.foxnews.com Leave a Comment

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COVID-19 school learning loss may lead to $70K less income, study shows

FOX Business correspondent Lydia Hu has the latest on the impact of the COVID-19 school closures on ‘America’s Newsroom.’

Kids in the U.S. are more than 100 times less likely to die from COVID than adults, according to a new study.

The study, published by the JAMA Network of medical journals, came after students suffered historic learning loss due to school closures during the COVID pandemic — a loss in academic progress whose effects may be felt for years to come.

Children aged 0-19 died from COVID at a rate of 1 per 100,000 from August 2021 through July 2022, the study found. There were 821 COVID deaths — meaning cases when COVID was the underlying cause of death — for this age range during the 12-month period.

Specifically, COVID death rates in infants younger than 1 year were 4.3 deaths per 100,000, 0.6 per 100,000 in children aged 1 to 4 years, 0.4 per 100,000 in children aged 5 to 9 years, 0.5 per 100,000 in children aged 10 to 14 years, and 1.8 per 100,000 in those aged 15 to 19 years.

Dr. Anthony Fauci accusing the GOP of “character assassination” masquerading as oversight. (Getty Images)

FAUCI SAYS SCHOOL CLOSURES LED TO ‘DELETERIOUS COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES,’ BUT HE HAD ‘NOTHING TO DO’ WITH IT

By comparison, there were more than 360,000 total COVID deaths in the U.S. in this time. This means, according to the study, that people died from COVID at a rate of 109 per 100,000, making kids more than a hundred times less likely to die from the virus than adults.

Meanwhile, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center released data on Sunday showing COVID has led to 337 deaths per 100,000 people in the U.S. The JAWA study used different methodology than Johns Hopkins, but both datasets suggest COVID is much less deadly for kids than for the overall population.

This suggestion was bolstered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which last week released data showing children account for less than 0.15% of all COVID deaths.

Still, COVID ranked eighth among all causes of death for children and young people aged 0 to 19 in the U.S. and fifth in disease-related causes of deaths — excluding unintentional injuries, assault, and suicide.

Unintentional injuries accounted for 18.4% of child deaths and 6.8% were from suicide, according to the JAWA Network study. About 6.9% were from assault.

CDC data shows that the vaccine reduces the small risk that kids could develop severe disease from the virus. (iStock)

US MATH, READING TEST SCORES PLUNGE FOR STUDENTS ACROSS COUNTRY FOLLOWING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

COVID accounted for 2% of all deaths in children, meaning kids are over nine times more likely to die in an accident and over three times more likely to die from assault or suicide than from COVID.

The new study comes as students in the U.S. are struggling to deal with the effects of learning loss suffered from school closures during the pandemic.

The Education Department’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card, which tests a broad sampling of fourth and eighth graders, was released in October and showed the “largest score declines” since the federal government began tracking these metrics in 1990.

Math and reading scores took major hits nationwide, especially among the country’s most vulnerable students. Black and Hispanic students, for example, experienced steeper declines than white and Asian peers in fourth-grade math after already starting out behind.

Between 2019, the results of the last National Assessment of Educational Progress, and 2022, the number of black students in public schools performing “below basic” in fourth-grade math on the national assessment spiked from 35% to 46%. The share of Hispanics rose from 27% to 37%. The share of whites scoring at the lowest performance level only increased from 12% to 15%.

Teacher with a group of preschool children in a nursery. (iStock)

LEARNING LOSS FROM COVID LOCKDOWNS CAUSED ‘UNMITIGATED DISASTER’ PARTICULARLY IN STUDENT BEHAVIOR: EXPERTS

Many categories saw significant declines in academic performance across the board, regardless of race. But overall, performance gaps between white students and their black and Hispanic peers widened since 2019.

More broadly, fourth-graders who were in the bottom 25th percentile in both math and reading lost more ground compared with students at the top of their class, leaving these low-performing students further behind.

Students with less resources at home especially struggled. Only half of fourth graders who were low-performing in math said they had access to a computer at all times during the 2020-2021 school year, compared with 80% of high-performing students, according to a survey included in the assessment. Similarly, 70% of low performers said they had a quiet place to work at least some of the time, compared with 90% for high performers.

The new national figures coincided with California releasing state-specific data showing two out of three California students didn’t meet state math standards and more than half didn’t meet English standards on state assessments taken in the spring, further highlighting the toll that school closures during the pandemic took on student learning.

The test results were more devastating for low-income and minority students. Indeed, 84% of black students and 79% of Hispanic and low-income students didn’t meet state math standards this past year.

Private tutors can cost anywhere from $20-$70 dollars an hour per kid. (iStock)

HIGH-POVERTY SCHOOL DISTRICTS SUFFERED MORE LEARNING LOSS DURING COVID PANDEMIC, ACCORDING TO STUDY

Several other data sets over the last two years have found similar results showing low-income and minority students have been hit especially hard by school closures.

As early as July 2021, McKinsey & Co., a leading consulting firm, released a report that detailed how children in low-income schools ended the school year on average seven months behind in math and six months behind in reading.

In majority Black schools, students ended the year six months behind in both math and reading on average, according to the report. Their peers in high-income and majority white schools, meanwhile, fared better, although they still lost several months of learning due to the shutdowns.

McKinsey forecast that “pandemic-related unfinished learning” could reduce lifetime earnings for K–12 students and create a potential annual GDP loss of hundreds of billions of dollars.

More recently, a Stanford University study found that students enrolled in schools during pandemic restrictions will face an average of a 2% to 9% drop in lifetime earnings, resulting in states facing a 0.6% to 2.9% drop in total GDP.

Tired business woman resting her head on desk (iStock)

PANDEMIC LEARNING LOSS COULD COST STUDENTS THOUSANDS IN INCOME OVER THEIR LIFETIME: STUDY

“At the extreme, California is estimated to have lost $1.3 trillion because of learning losses during the pandemic,” wrote the study’s author, Eric Hanushek. “These losses are permanent unless a state’s schools can get better than their pre-pandemic levels.”

Hanushek argued there’s “overwhelming evidence that students in school during the closure period and during the subsequent adjustments to the pandemic are achieving at significantly lower levels than would have been expected without the pandemic.”

The study analyzed National Assessment of Educational Progress data and found that between 2019 and 2022, test scores in math and English dropped an average of eight points across the country. The drop came after nearly two decades of progress, the study noted, erasing all the gains in test scores made between 2000 and 2019.

As early as 2020, some medical experts publicly opposed school closures , arguing COVID was significantly more deadly for the old and infirm than younger people. However, Sweden was the only major Western country to keep schools open for kids 15 and younger throughout the pandemic. The New England Journal of Medicine published an analysis of the health effects on Swedish kids.

“Despite Sweden’s having kept schools and preschools open, we found a low incidence of severe COVID-19 among schoolchildren and children of preschool age during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic,” the 2021 study stated . “Among the 1.95 million children who were 1 to 16 years of age, 15 children had Covid-19, MIS-C, or both conditions and were admitted to an ICU, which is equal to 1 child in 130,000.”

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The study also found that few school teachers had to receive intensive care for COVID.

In the U.S., schools are now open, but some are reinstituting pandemic-era protocols. Schools in Michigan and Massachusetts, for example, recently put mask mandates in place for both staff and students, following in the footsteps of districts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Aaron Kliegman is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital.

Toyota Took 2022 Global Sales Crown Without Selling More Cars

January 30, 2023 by jalopnik.com Leave a Comment

Toyota is The Morning Shift for Monday, January 30, 2023.

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1st Gear: Three-peat

Toyota’s done it again, beating second-place Volkswagen Group to sell the most cars globally last year. It wasn’t even close: the Japanese automaker moved 10.5 million cars in 2022 to Volkswagen’s 8.3 million. That’s more or less the same output Toyota achieved in 2021, and it was good enough for the No. 1 title for the third consecutive year. In 2020, Toyota had notched the top spot for the first time in five years beating — who else — Volkswagen.

The automaker attributed the strong performance to “solid demand centered around Asia,” according to Agence France Press via Barron’s :

“Despite the impact of production constraints caused by the spread of Covid-19, increased demand for semiconductors, and other factors, global sales were at the same level year-on-year as a result of solid demand centered around Asia,” the Japanese car giant said.

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2022 also saw a slight jump in Toyota’s electrified sales. This being Toyota, “electrified” of course pretty much means conventional hybrids, some plug-ins and virtually no electric vehicles, save for those few people who were able to nab bZ4Xs before they were taken off the market .

In 2022, Toyota sold 2.7 million electrified vehicles, around five percent more than the previous year. The vast majority of those — 2.6 million — were hybrid models.

[…]

Mio Kato, an analyst at Lightstream Research who publishes on Smartkarma, told AFP that Toyota was likely to keep its top-selling crown in the near term.

“In terms of the actual volumes, it will still be difficult for Volkswagen or General Motors to surpass Toyota easily because both are under more pressure in China with their internal combustion engine business,” he said.

Electric-only carmakers like China’s BYD will one day pose “a genuine threat” to Toyota, he said, because they have strong battery technology and “more experience and better branding” with EVs.

It’s a good point. China’s auto sector is kind of moving toward a state of isolation again, as domestic brands are taking increasingly larger slices of the pie, particularly in the realm of EVs . Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors all maintain joint ventures with local manufacturers, but that business strategy appears anything but healthy these days . Toyota will probably lose the region eventually, but so will its current global rivals. At which point the state of play will start looking awfully different.

2nd Gear: Nissan and Renault Have Done It

Months of talk about an alliance restructuring have finally paid off, as the two automakers tentatively agreed to new terms on Monday that will see Renault reduce its stake in Nissan to 15 percent — the same percentage Nissan has historically owned of Renault. From the Wall Street Journal :

Nissan and Renault had initially hoped to announce the restructuring as early as November, but snags emerged. One issue was the treatment of intellectual property jointly developed by the companies over the past two decades.

The companies made progress with discussions recently. Earlier this month, Nissan’s independent directors signaled support for a deal, people familiar with the matter said. The Wall Street Journal reported its outlines last week.

The companies said that to reduce its Nissan stake to 15%, Renault would transfer the excess shares into a French trust. Voting rights tied to those shares would be neutralized for most decisions, but dividends and other proceeds will continue to go to Renault until the shares are sold, the companies said. The trustee designated by Renault to sell Nissan shares will do so “if commercially reasonable for Renault,” with no obligation to sell within a specific period, the companies said.

Under French law, Nissan hasn’t been able to vote its longstanding 15% stake in the French company because Renault holds a greater than 40% stake in Nissan. The deal announced Monday means Nissan will now be able to vote its Renault shares, although the companies said the Japanese car maker’s voting rights would be capped at 15%.

The agreement hasn’t been formally approved by both companies’ boards yet. Once it is, the official announcement is expected on February 6. When pressed for comment about the news, fellow partner Mitsubishi smiled politely and called it a “banner day for the equal parties of this alliance.” Look, I only kid out of love.

3rd Gear: Don’t Call It a ‘Lease’

Back in 2020, Volvo trialed a subscription service in California called Care by Volvo that lumped in a new Volvo with insurance, tire protection and maintenance for $650 per month, all ordered online.

That unsurprisingly provoked the ire of the Swedish luxury brand’s dealer network, who felt corporate was infringing on its turf. Now Volvo appears ready to give it another shot with some key changes, so that it doesn’t get routed out of the Golden State a second time. From Automotive News :

“It became clear to us that we needed to provide more differentiation between our current subscription and a lease,” Care by Volvo U.S. former chief Peter Wexler told Automotive News following the revamp. “The most natural way to do that was to introduce more flexible terms.”

The revised California subscription service is similar to Volvo’s program in New York: Customers can choose a vehicle from retailer stock and must secure their own insurance coverage.

Brian Maas, president of the California New Car Dealers Association, said the new Care by Volvo is “significantly different than the earlier iteration, which was found to violate California law by our DMV.”

Volvo retailers are the contact point for subscription consumers and are free to price the vehicles, Maas told Automotive News . Also, Volvo won’t offer a competing lease product.

“Dealers would not be mere ‘delivery agents’ for Volvo, which was a fatal flaw previously,” Maas said.

With today’s news, Volvo now offers the subscription service in 45 states. On the surface, it seems a little more serious about the initiative than its rivals are .

4th Gear: Where Ariya?

The Ariya is Nissan’s most important model in as far back as I can remember, and I maintain that, for an electric crossover, it looks really nice. Problem is, Nissan just can’t build the dang things quickly enough. Its dealers want to know why. Once again, courtesy Automotive News :

Availability and affordability of the Ariya were on dealers’ minds at the [2023 National Automotive Dealer Association c] meeting Sunday, with many of the roughly 200 retailers in attendance wanting to know why they aren’t receiving more units.

“Every dealer was saying how many customers they have waiting or wanting to order one,” Nissan Dealer Advisory Board Chairman Tyler Slade told Automotive News .

Nissan declined to disclose U.S. allocations of the Ariya. But a person briefed on the matter said about 6,000 units were allocated for fiscal 2022, which ends March 31, 2023. About 4,500 of those are built.

Nissan will ramp up Ariya production later this year, with U.S. allocations expected to rise to about 30,000 units for fiscal 2023.

Slade, operating partner at Tim Dahle Nissan Southtowne in suburban Salt Lake City, said his store received interest from about 100 potential customers, some of whom have put down a deposit.

One dealer at the meeting said he was “shocked and deflated” at the lack of supply of the halo model.

“Why can’t we produce the Ariya in any acceptable volume?” the dealer said, requesting he not be identified.

“Customers are walking in saying, ‘I’m sold, let me buy one,’” the dealer said. “But we can’t tell them when it’s coming.”

Welcome to 2023, where designing a killer product is only half the battle.

5th Gear: Mitsubishi Is Playing It Slow and Steady

On that very subject, the Outlander has finally given Mitsubishi dealers in North America a reason to be optimistic about the future . And it’s really just the Outlander — the company doesn’t have an arsenal of products lined up, so the best and most obvious thing it can do right now its put the full weight of its resources behind making more of the reasonably-priced SUV. Take it away one last time, Auto News :

“Would dealers love to hear about more products and everything like that? Absolutely,” Herod said. “But right now the short-term play is we have to stabilize our dealers’ inventory with what we have.”

Mitsubishi Motors North America CEO Mark Chaffin said the message to dealers was focused on the successful progress of rebuilding the brand together. “We’re not stopping here,” he told Automotive News . “We’ve got plans and we’re going to continue that momentum heading into 2023.”

What dealers are most interested about, Chaffin said, is vehicle supply since retailers are selling every vehicle they can get “and they want more.” Barring global disruptions, Mitsubishi is expecting to stabilize supply in the new year.

The automaker is also “keeping an eye on the market,” given expectations of slower economic growth in the U.S. “There are a lot of headwinds as we look at the economy and fear of recession and a market slowdown,” Chaffin said.

There was also something in the article about a Ralliart flavor of the Outlander Sport on the way. It seems as though Ralliart is about to be repositioned as Mitsubishi’s Wilderness or TRD, etcetera. That’s an obvious play, but let’s hope it amounts to more than a sticker package.

Reverse: The First Zoom

On this day, 103 years ago…

Neutral: Now’s the Time

The market can’t get enough of off-road posturing. But there’s a way to do this right, if Mitsubishi wants to. What better time has there ever been for a Pajero Evolution revival?

Republicans rage over Sam Smith’s Grammy performance: “This is evil”

February 6, 2023 by www.newsweek.com Leave a Comment

Singer Sam Smith sparked outrage among conservative figures over their performance at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, with many declaring it to be “satanic.”

Smith, who along with Kim Petras won the award for best pop duo/group performance on the night, sang their hit single “Unholy” at the ceremony.

During the performance, Smith sang while dressed head to toe in red, including a devil horn hat, while being surrounded by dancers who resembled Samara from the horror film The Ring.

Petras performed in a cage surrounded by flames while flanked by famed drag stars Violet Chachki and Gottmik, who were dressed as dominatrixes also sporting devil horns.

Smith and Petras also made history on Sunday by becoming the first non-binary person and openly transgender woman, respectively, to win a Grammy in the best pop duo/group performance category.

In response to their performance, a number of Republicans expressed their horror and anger at the apparent ” satanism ” being evoked by Smith and Petras.

Conservative podcaster Liz Wheeler tweeted : “Don’t fight the culture wars, they say. Meanwhile demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan. I could throw up.”

In response to Wheeler’s tweet, Texas Senator Ted Cruz added: “This…is…evil.”

Ben Kew, editor-at-large for political news website Human Events, tweeted : “I know we on the right probably use the word satanic too often but this performance from Sam Smith is literally a tribute to Satan.”

Charlie Kirk, political commentator and founder of Turning Point USA , also noted that an advert for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer , which developed a COVID-19 vaccine, appeared at the end of Smith and Petras’ performance.

“The Devil. Brought to you by Pfizer…,” Kirk tweeted .

Robby Starbuck, a former GOP congressional candidate for Tennessee’s 5th district, tweeted: “People like Sam Smith who love to mock Christianity and use Satanic themes always think they’re super edgy artists by doing it. In reality it’s not edgy. It’s boring, vile, rehashed shock tactics that Hollywood seals clap for because they’re evil & stupid.”

When asked about the supposedly devilish performance backstage at the Grammys, Petras said it was inspired by not feeling accepted by religion.

“I think a lot of people, honestly, have kind of labeled what I stand for and what Sam stands for as religiously not cool, and I personally grew up wondering about religion and wanting to be a part of it but slowly realizing it didn’t want me to be a part of it,” she said.

“So it’s a take on not being able to choose religion. And not being able to live the way that people might want you to live because as a trans person, I’m already not kind of wanted in religion. So we were doing a take on that and I was kind of hell keeper Kim.”