Author: CNN

CNN
 — 

A California father has been charged with three counts of attempted murder after he allegedly drove a car off an oceanside cliff with his wife and two children inside earlier this month, prosecutors said in court Monday.

Prosecutors accuse Dharmesh Patel, 41, of intentionally steering his Tesla off a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway called Devil’s Slide, sending the family plunging about 250 feet to a rocky beach below. All four family members survived the crash.

Two of the three counts against Patel come with domestic violence and great bodily injury enhancements, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said during a news conference Monday.

Patel’s wife is still hospitalized after suffering “major injuries” and the couple’s 7-year-old child was also injured, Wagstaffe said, though the extent of the child’s injuries are unclear.

“Miraculously though, the four-year-old came out with just some bruises, and that does not qualify for significant bodily injury,” Wagstaffe said, explaining why the enhancements were left off the third charge.

Though the victims were not named in the charging documents, the California Highway Patrol previously said the passengers of the vehicle were the driver’s wife and two children.

Patel appeared in San Mateo County court Monday and did not enter a plea, which he is expected to give at his next court appearance on February 9.

Superior court judge Jeffrey Finigan ordered Patel be held without bail. Patel’s attorney Joshua Bentley said he plans to bring a motion on bail at a later date. Bentley declined to speak with CNN about the matter.

Investigators are still looking into Patel’s motive but feel there is enough evidence from surveillance cameras and eyewitness accounts to prove that his actions on January 2 were intentional, Wagstaffe said. The wife also gave an “incriminating” statement to first responders on the scene, he said, but did not share further details.

Investigators have not been able to speak with Patel’s wife because her attorney is declining interviews until she is “physically ready to do so,” Wagstaffe said.

Finigan denied prosecutors’ request for a no-contact order, instead granting them a no-harassment order which allows Patel to contact his wife and children, but it must be “peaceful and non-threatening,” the district attorney said.

There is no indication at this time that Patel’s Tesla malfunctioned at the time of the incident, but the state highway patrol is examining the car to determine if there were any issues, the district attorney said. Prosecutors expect that process to take several months, he added.

Patel has been hospitalized since the crash, Wagstaffe said, but prosecutors were informed Friday that he was being discharged and booked into jail.

While the family lives in Pasadena, it appears they were in the area visiting family at the time of the incident, he said.

CNN
 — 

Lynda Bennett, who was backed by then-President Donald Trump and Mark Meadows in her run for the latter’s former House seat in North Carolina, has agreed to plead guilty to accepting an illegal campaign contribution during the 2020 primary election cycle, court filings show.

Bennett accepted an illegal campaign contribution from a family member for $25,000 in 2019, prosecutors said. The family member made the donation in someone else’s name, according to court documents.

“This case involves a technical violation of campaign-finance regulations, based on a loan from a family member,” Kearns Davis, an attorney for Bennett, said in a statement. “Lynda looks forward to putting it behind her.”

While Bennett has already signed a plea agreement, prosecutors said in a status report filed in court, it has not yet been approved by a federal judge. Politico first reported on the agreement.

Bennett was backed by Meadows, then the Trump White House chief of staff, when she ran in a crowded field in 2020 to represent North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District. She advanced to a runoff election, which she lost to Madison Cawthorn.

She also earned former Trump’s endorsement during the primary and runoff elections. Trump encouraged his supporters at the time to vote for Bennett, tweeting: “Please let this serve as my Complete and Total Endorsement of a great fighter and ally in North Carolina, @LyndaBennettNC. She is strong on Crime, Borders, Military, our Great Vets & 2A.”

For the 2020 election cycle, individual campaign contributions were legally limited to $2,800 for the primary and the same amount for the general election, meaning an individual could only donate $5,600 per candidate during an election cycle.

“Contributions from members of the candidate’s family are subject to the same limits that apply to any other individual,” the Federal Election Commission notes on its website, describing campaign finance rules, while “candidate contributions to their own campaigns are not subject to any limits.”

Minneapolis
CNN
 — 

Every year the Federal Reserve’s policymaking committee — aka the officials who decide interest rate moves — gets a slight refresh, with four of the district presidents rotating out as official voting members and four rotating in.

The 2023 rotation brings a more dovish-leaning flock, and it comes during a critical year for the US central bank and the American economy.

This year the Federal Open Market Committee’s new voting members include the newest district president Austan Goolsbee, head of the Chicago Fed; Patrick Harker, of the Philadelphia Fed; Lorie Logan, the Dallas Fed president who started in August 2022; and Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Fed.

Rotating out as voting members are James Bullard of the St. Louis Fed; Susan Collins of the Boston Fed; Esther George, the Kansas City Fed chief who’s also retiring this month; and Loretta Mester of the Cleveland Fed.

On the whole the FOMC contingent remains largely similar, with eight of the 12 voting members continuing from 2022. The non-voting members still lend their voices and perspectives to the proceedings.

Following a stretch of seven consecutive heavy-handed interest rate hikes last year to battle rising prices, the Fed this year is expected to take a more delicate approach to its blunt monetary policy tools by downshifting on rate increases to an eventual idle.

For new Fed members, be they governors or district presidents, it can take a while to stake out their territory and potentially differ from consensus, said Ellen Meade, a Duke University economics professor who had a 25-year career at the Fed.

History has shown that the Reserve bank presidents typically tend to dissent more than board members; however, even that is a small percentage — about 7% — of votes cast, she added.

“I’m not expecting that we will see a lot of dissent in terms of votes,” she said. “I think where we might see it is how they color the data that they’re seeing.”

“Hawks” and “doves” are commonly used terms to describe Fed members’ differing monetary policy approaches. Doves tend to favor looser monetary policy and issues like low unemployment over low inflation. Hawks, however, favor robust rate hikes and keeping inflation low above all else.

“If I had to qualify them as the hawkish- or dovish-leaning, I would say that last year’s constellation was a reasonably hawkish one, and this year’s constellation is almost certainly not quite as hawkish,” Meade said.

That could change, however, if Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard leaves to head President Joe Biden’s economic council. Brainard has been considered as leaning more dovish than Powell and others, so her departure could result in a more hawkish shift in ideology at the top of the Fed.

This particular Fed is obviously not quite as well known, Meade noted, adding that “because we have some new policymakers voting in 2023, we don’t have as much information on their policy inclinations as we did for last year’s voters.”

For any potential split to occur would take some large moves in labor market outcomes – something not seen to this point, Meade said.

“If [moderating inflation] holds up and the labor market softens but doesn’t take a very negative turn, then I think consensus is with us,” she said. “I think the question is what happens if the labor market starts to turn quickly?”

The Fed has indicated, through its economic projections, that it would tolerate unemployment rising to the 4.5% to 4.75% range. But if that grows closer or past 5% and inflation hasn’t moderated as much as desired, “then I think we’re in a place where we’re going to see more signs of disagreement.”

As it stands now, Fed officials have largely been singing from the same songbook, said Claudia Sahm, a former Fed economist and founder of Sahm Consulting.

“Whether it was voting members or non-voting members, you didn’t see a lot of pushback in public,” she said. “There was really a unified force of ‘we’re going to go big, and we’re going to go fast.’”

That unified messaging continued during recent speeches on how the Fed would slow it down, be patient and stay the course, Sahm added.

“The Fed is being very clear across the board, even people you would think of as more ‘dovish,’ that they do not want to let up too soon and get us into a situation where then they have to come back and do even more,” she said. “I don’t think that switching up who’s voting will matter much.”

“They’re all hawks now,” Sahm added.

The Fed also does not want to be in a position where it is lulled into a false sense of security by positive inflation data, she added. Fed Governor Christopher Waller put it bluntly in a speech last week: “We do not want to be head-faked.”

“It’s going to take months and months of good news, and frankly, we’re in store for a bumpy ride this year,” Sahm said. “It’s not like every month is going to be good news on inflation.”

2023 Federal Open Market Committee

Permanent voting members (Board of Governors):

Jerome Powell, chair

Lael Brainard, vice chair

Michael Barr, vice chair for supervision

Michelle Bowman, governor

Lisa Cook, governor

Philip Jefferson, governor

Christopher Waller, governor

Voting Districts:

John Williams, New York (permanent voting district)

*Austan Goolsbee, Chicago

*Patrick Harker, Philadelphia

*Lorie Logan, Dallas

*Neel Kashkari, Minneapolis

Non-voting districts:

Helen Mucciolo, interim first vice president, New York

Loretta Mester, Cleveland

Thomas Barkin, Richmond

Raphael Bostic, Atlanta

Mary Daly, San Francisco

James Bullard, St. Louis

Esther George, Kansas City (plans to retire this month)

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CNN
 — 

Chimpanzee teens may not be so different from the ones living in our homes, a new study says.

Except that your teen might be more impulsive.

Researchers worked with 40 chimpanzees born in the wild while they were at a sanctuary in the Republic of Congo, playing games that tested the adolescent animals’ orientation toward risk-taking and impulsivity, according to the study published January 23 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General by the American Psychological Association.

“Human adolescents are grappling with changing bodies and brains, and tend to be more impulsive, risk-seeking, and less able to regulate emotions than adults,” said lead study author Dr. Alexandra Rosati, associate professor of psychology and anthropology at the University of Michigan, via email. “Chimpanzees face many of the same kinds of challenges as humans as they grow up.”

The study described chimpanzees’ adolescence as a period from about ages 8 to 15 in a 50-year life span. Like young humans, they experience rapid hormone changes, new social bonds, increased aggression and a competition for social status.

Teen chimpanzees are overlooked in studies compared with infants and adults, said Dr. Aaron Sandel, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, who was not involved in the current study.

“For a while there was a pretty big gap in the literature on (chimpanzee) adolescents,” Sandel said, noting that researchers often don’t focus on this period. Scientists may avoid studying teen chimps because their own human experiences with teenage years are complicated, he said.

The new study found that adolescent chimpanzees were more likely to take risks in their games than their adult counterparts, but they just as likely would wait for a greater delayed reward.

But human teens are known to be more likely to take a smaller, more immediate reward, the study noted.

The chimpanzees underwent two tests with food rewards. These animals tended to dislike cucumbers while liking peanuts somewhat and loving bananas.

The first test involved a bit of a gamble. Both adult and teen chimpanzees were asked to choose between two containers: one that always had peanuts and another that had either the dreaded cucumber or treasured banana, the study said.

The adolescent chimps were more likely to take a risk and go for the cucumber or banana container than the adults, the study said. Both groups showed similar negative reactions – such as moaning, whimpering, screaming and banging on the table – when they ended up with a cucumber.

The second test resembled a well-known one that has been given to human children. Chimpanzees had the option of having one banana slice immediately or waiting for a minute and then getting three slices.

Both adults and adolescents waited for the three slices at a similar rate, but the teens were more likely to throw a fit while they waited a minute, the study said.

In a similar test, human teens were more likely to take the smaller treat right away, according to the study.

“Prior work indicates that chimpanzees are quite patient compared to other animals, and this study shows that their ability to delay gratification is already mature at a fairly young age, unlike in humans,” Rosati said.

Sandel noted that it is important to be careful about comparing the experience of humans with other animals. While primates are our closest relatives, we are different species, he pointed out.

So how might a parent handle a teen who engages in risky behavior and hates to wait for a reward?

The first step is to understand what is going on in their developing brains, said Dr. Hina Talib, an adolescent medicine specialist and associate professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

“I think teenagers get a bad rap,” she said. “We often think of them as risky little devils. It does come from some element of truth.”

The human teenage years are a time of explosive growth and development, she added.

Their brains are wired to seek out new experiences and information, which often means taking risks, Talib said.

At this time, they can try new things, build their ideas of who they are and try on different identities, said Tina Bryson, a Pasadena, California, therapist and author of “The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired.”

They learn from the information they gain, which can help them manage their behavior better – eventually, Talib said.

Families can encourage them to try new things, she said, while providing ground rules and support that will help keep them safe.

“We want you to go anywhere and do everything … Here is where we might step in or where we have house rules about something,’” Talib recommended that parents say. Your conversations should be “coming from a perspective of we are here as the floor, as the safety net as you go and have these amazing trapeze experiences.”

And while their brains are growing a lot, not every area is able to be fully and optimally utilized at the same time.

Late middle and early high schoolers might be relying on the parts of the brain that rule emotion and reactivity, she added, while their decision-making and reasoning parts are busy growing.

That doesn’t mean that teens are not capable of good decision-making and long-term planning, she added – you just have to help set them up for success.

“When things are calm, they are able to problem solve just as well as adults,” Talib said. Help them stay calm when they are in trouble and need to solve a problem and save the difficult conversations for when they are no longer stressed out, she added.

Instead of worrying about how to get rid of their impulsivity, Bryson recommended finding ways to help strengthen empathetic, thoughtful, and reasoned decision-making.

Encourage them to pause before acting and walk through the thinking process with them, she said. You can also talk through how you think through your own decisions, Bryson said.

And while their brains may be undergoing changes, be sure to call out the things they are doing well, Talib said.

“The more you do that, the more you help them see themselves in a positive light, the more that gets hardwired in them,” she said, “and they are better able to face the world around them.”

CNN
 — 

President Joe Biden and senior administration officials are embarking on a travel swing this week, showcasing what they see as successful measures to rebuild America’s ailing infrastructure.

In what’s been described as a preview of some of the messaging for next week’s State of the Union address, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Cabinet secretaries are all hitting the road to highlight the implementation of the landmark legislation signed into law during the president’s first two years in office. Among those accomplishments are the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Chips and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

The president traveled to Baltimore on Monday to showcase the implementation of his policies, and later this week, he’ll head to New York City and Philadelphia for similar remarks.

The trips are taking place in the lead up to Biden’s State of the Union speech in Washington next week – a national platform where he’s expected to illustrate how his policies are successfully going into effect – and a prospective reelection announcement in the coming months. Biden’s approach is expected to be focused on touting the rebound of the American economy and taking aim at Republican proposals – while still underscoring his desire to work across the aisle.

In Baltimore on Monday, he discussed how the infrastructure law will fund replace the 150-year-old Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, addressing the largest bottleneck for commuters on the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D C, and New Jersey. The new tunnel will be named in honor of civil rights leader and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Speaking from a presidential podium set to the backdrop of an American flag and an Amtrak train on the tracks, Biden recalled that he’d made a thousand trips through the tunnel and walked through it in the 1980s.

“When folks talk about how badly the Baltimore tunnel needs an upgrade, you don’t need me to tell you. I’ve been there and you’ve been there, too,” Biden said.

“You ought to get inside and see,” he remarked, discussing his tour of the tunnel decades ago. “This is a 150-year-old tunnel. I wonder how in the hell it’s still standing.”

“The structure is deteriorating. The roof is leaking. The floor is sinking. This is the United States of America, for God’s sake. We know better than that,” he continued.

When the project is done, Biden said, trains will roll through the tunnel at 110 mph instead of 30 mph, shortening regional MARC train commutes from Baltimore to Washington to 30 minutes.

At Monday’s project kickoff, the president announced an agreement between the state of Maryland and Amtrak, which includes a $450 million commitment for the tunnel replacement project, according to the White House. A project labor agreement between Amtrak and the Baltimore-DC Building and Construction Trades Council was unveiled to cover the first phase of the project. And he also announced an agreement between Amtrak and the North American Builders’ Trade Union “that ensures Amtrak’s large civil engineering construction projects controlled by Amtrak will be performed under union agreements,” according to the White House.

The program is expected to cost approximately $6 billion, of which Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding could contribute up to $4.7 billion, the White House said. Biden was joined by labor leaders, state and local officials, as well as members of Congress and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

On Tuesday, Biden travels to New York City to discuss how Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding will improve the Hudson River Tunnel, which sees 200,000 passengers passing through each weekday on Amtrak and New Jersey Transit.

On Friday, Biden and Harris are scheduled to travel to Philadelphia to discuss how Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding is removing lead pipes and ensuring clean water across Philadelphia and the country, the official told CNN.

According to the White House, the pair “will discuss the progress we have made and their work implementing the Biden-Harris economic agenda that continues to deliver results for the American people.”

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge will also travel to Chicago to discuss progress made to address homelessness as a result of provisions within the American Rescue Plan, according to the official.

While Biden has often embarked on domestic trips to highlight his policies in action, these stops have served as a significant messaging platform since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives this year.

In a speech at a union hall in Virginia, Biden, for example, sought to contrast his economic policies with House Republicans’ effort in the debt limit standoff.

He asked the crowd, “(Why) in God’s name would Americans give up the progress we’ve made for the chaos they’re suggesting?”

“MAGA Republicans,” he added, “are literally choosing to inflict this pain on the American people.”

Despite that heavy emphasis on his warnings about GOP plans, Biden this week is expected to hone in on his ability to work across the aisle to push legislation into law. Specifically, in a preview of the travel, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre underscored Biden’s “success (in) bringing Republicans and independents and Democrats together to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”

In Baltimore on Monday, the president brought up his recent trip to Kentucky, where he stood alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to herald the implementation of the massive $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that McConnell and 18 other Senate Republicans supported.

The policy messaging trips also carry more weight as the prospect of a presidential reelection campaign looms large over the White House.

Biden has been working intensively on his State of the Union Speech speech – including over the weekend – which his team views as a launching pad for the reelection bid. His speeches around the East Coast week will offer a preview of his message as he touts new infrastructure projects.

Behind the scenes, aides are building up a campaign infrastructure and the West Wing is in the process of restructuring for a politically intense two years.

Peppered in between stops to visit projects funded though the proposals which were the bedrock of his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden will participate in events that are part of an intense fundraising push ahead of the campaign announcement.

The travel comes as Biden also contends with a number of simmering issues in Washington – House Republican probes, investigations into classified documents found at his residence and former office and the debt ceiling standoff. The US Treasury is already taking extraordinary measures to keep the government paying its bills after the US hit the debt ceiling set by Congress.

While the president is in Washington on Wednesday in between travel stops, he’s scheduled to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

In 1960, British painter John Craxton was passing by the store when he recognized the unique Alberto Giacometti light fixture as a piece once owned by his late friend and benefactor Peter Watson, a collector and patron of the arts.

The bronze with golden-brown patina masterpiece is 53 inches tall and 60 inches wide, and has an estimated value of $1.9 million-$3.7 million. In 2018, a Giacometti chandelier sold for more than $9 million.

Alberto Giacometti is best known for sculptures of a human figure in plaster or bronze. Credit: Paul Almasy/Corbis/Getty Images

According to a preview of the auction catalog sent to CNN by Christie’s, Watson commissioned “Chandelier for Peter Watson” during a trip to Paris — where Giacometti lived and worked — circa 1946-1947. It was destined for the office of the famed London literary and arts magazine “Horizon,” which Watson co-founded. The chandelier hung in the office until the magazine’s closure in 1950, when it was packed away into storage.

A decade later, and after Watson’s death, Craxton spotted the chandelier in the antique shop, bought it and hung it in the music room of his home in Hampstead, north London. Craxton died in 2009 and the chandelier is being sold by his estate.

Michelle McMullan, Christie’s senior specialist and head of the 20th-century evening sales, called the chandelier a “sculpture in its own right.”

Speaking to CNN on Monday, McMullan said it was a blend of Giacometti’s works and styles, unlike anything else she has seen from the sculptor, which is one of the ways in which the piece is unique.

“I just think it’s a great combination of Giacometti’s sculptural language, combined with the refinement of his works in design,” she said.

The auction starts in London on February 28 at 2.00 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET).

Johnson & Johnson’s strategy to use bankruptcy to resolve the multibillion-dollar litigation over claims its talc products cause cancer was rejected by a federal appeals court on Monday, but the healthcare conglomerate said it would challenge the ruling.

The decision by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia removed from bankruptcy the company’s LTL Management unit, which was facing more than 38,000 legal claims tied to products such as its Johnson’s baby powder.

J&J

(JNJ) shares were down about 3% in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

J&J, which maintains and reiterated on Monday that its talc products are safe, created and spun off LTL and assigned its talc liabilities to the unit and placed it in bankruptcy in 2021.

J&J had argued that bankruptcy provided a way to resolve tens of thousands of legal claims more efficiently and fairly than taking the cases to trial individually. The company pledged a funding “backstop” to ensure LTL could pay talc claimants.

The appeals court said it dismissed the LTL Chapter 11 petition because the unit was created solely to access the bankruptcy system.

“Applied here, while LTL faces substantial future talc liability, its funding backstop plainly mitigates any financial distress foreseen on its petition date,” said the 56-page opinion by the three-judge panel.

J&J said it will challenge the Third Circuit’s ruling and continue to seek a resolution of the lawsuits in bankruptcy court.

“As we have said from the beginning of this process, resolving this matter as quickly and efficiently as possible is in the best interests of claimants and all stakeholders,” J&J spokeswoman Allison Fennell said. “We continue to stand behind the safety of Johnson’s Baby Powder, which is safe, does not contain asbestos and does not cause cancer.”

J&J used a restructuring strategy known as the “Texas two-step” that was criticized by lawmakers and academics who argued the maneuver could provide a blueprint for other big companies to avoid juries in mass tort lawsuits.

Before the bankruptcy filing, J&J faced costs from $3.5 billion in verdicts and settlements, including one in which 22 women were awarded a judgment of more than $2 billion, according to bankruptcy court records.

But more than 1,500 talc lawsuits have been dismissed without J&J having to pay anything, and the majority of cases that have gone to trial have resulted in defense verdicts, mistrials or judgments for the company on appeal, according to LTL’s court filings.

The appeals court was urged to dismiss the bankruptcy petition by plaintiffs suing over the talc products. They argued one of the world’s largest healthcare companies should not be using bankruptcy to protect itself from lawsuits.

The cancer victims asked the appeals court to overrule a New Jersey bankruptcy judge who had allowed LTL’s bankruptcy to continue. LTL’s bankruptcy filing automatically stopped lawsuits from proceeding against it, and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan in Trenton, New Jersey ruled in February that LTL’s bankruptcy should also stop talc lawsuits from proceeding against parent company J&J.

Kaplan said the bankruptcy court is better equipped to handle mass tort litigation than other courts.

CNN
 — 

Six people died and three others were injured in a crash involving an express bus and a freight truck in upstate New York Saturday morning, according to authorities.

New York State Police responded to a collision between the bus and the Freightliner box truck around 6 a.m. ET on State Highway 37 in Louisville, a town near the US-Canada border, according to a press release from the agency.

The crash left one person in critical condition and seriously injured two people who were on the express bus, state police said. Victims were transported to several hospitals, according to the release.

There were 16 people on board the vehicles, 15 in the express bus and one in the truck, according to Matthew Denner, director of Emergency Services for St. Lawrence County.

“The facts about the cause of this accident are unknown at this time,” spokesperson Randolph P. Ryerson for Penske, the rental company for the truck involved, told CNN in a statement.

“We do not yet have specific information about the rental vehicle involved or information about who was driving the rental vehicle at the time of the incident,” Ryerson added.

The National Transportation Safety Board announced it is launching a six member team to conduct a safety investigation into the fatal collision.

Mayor Mike Zagrobelny of Waddington, a town near the scene of the accident, thanked first responders from around the county who assisted in a post on Facebook Saturday.

CNN
 — 

Michael B. Jordan is giving full insurance coverage a whole new meaning.

The actor portrayed an interloping version of State Farm’s popular spokesperson, Jake, in a hilarious sketch during his “Saturday Night Live” hosting debut on January 28.

In what began as an all too familiar State Farm commercial, the sketch featured Heidi Gardner and Mikey Day as a mother and father in need of help filing an insurance claim after their daughter clogged the toilet with stuffed animals.

Jordan then showed up as Jake from State Farm and, much to Day’s plight, never left.

A thriller-esque montage depicted Jordan further ingratiating himself into Day’s family, with things at home unraveling when Jordan caught Day as he looked up rates at insurance competitor Geico. Amid a fight with Gardner, Jordan later taunted Day by saying menacingly, “Save even more when you bundle home and auto.”

In the end, a distressed Day was saved by the Liberty Insurance mascots – the LiMu Emu and Doug, played by Andrew Dismukes – while the catchy “Liberty Liberty Liberty” jingle closed out the sketch.

First-time “SNL” host Jordan also confirmed his relationship status after he mentioned going through his “very first public breakup” in his opening monologue, which featured various “SNL” cast members taking the stage to hit on the actor.

Jordan was seemingly referring to his relationship with Lori Harvey – the pair went public as a couple in January 2021 and reportedly broke up in June 2022.

The “Creed III” actor-director joked that while most people after a breakup try to “get in better shape,” he was already in “‘Creed’ shape” so he decided to learn a new language instead.

Jordan then said, “Estoy en Raya,” a reference to a popular dating app – thereby confirming that yes, indeed, Michael B. single.

CNN
 — 

Two years ago, Moscow eyed a US-German standoff over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as a litmus test of transatlantic power.

Russia had invested heavily in the 750-mile undersea pipeline linking it to Germany and wanted to increase global sales and ramp up economic leverage over Europe and its power-hungry heavy industries. Germany, a leading consumer, was on board from the get-go. Washington was not.

The United States didn’t want the new, high-capacity subsea supply to supplant old overland lines that transited Ukraine, providing vital revenue to the increasingly Westward-leaning leadership in Kyiv.

Russia reasoned that if Washington blocked Nord Stream 2, which it ultimately did, then it would show that European power no longer flowed through Berlin, but actually via the White House.

Fast-forward two years, and reading that transatlantic dynamic post-Angela Merkel, and particularly post-Russian President Vladimir Putin’s failing invasion of Ukraine, has become one of the most pressing political questions vexing the Kremlin.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s refusal, in his words, “to be pushed” to go it alone in sending tanks to Ukraine – instead standing his ground and demanding US President Joe Biden join him in the venture, risking Putin’s wrath – has shown the transatlantic power dynamic has shifted.

Europe has been slow to respond to the deep fissures in US politics and the uncertainty another Trumpian-style presidency could wreak on its allies. Decades of a reasonably unshakable reliance, if not complete trust, in the US, has been replaced by stubborn European pragmatism – and Germany leads the way.

Former Chancellor Merkel was Europe’s moral compass. Scholz has found unexpected metal in his ponderous, often stop/go/wait traffic-light governing coalition and won thunderous applause in Germany’s Bundestag on Wednesday as he flashed a rare moment of steely leadership.

At their summit in March last year, NATO leaders agreed to equip, arm and train Ukraine to NATO standards. It wouldn’t be a member, but the message to Moscow was unequivocal: In the coming years, Ukraine would look and fight like it was in NATO.

Ukraine’s ongoing metamorphosis from legacy Soviet force to NATO clone hasn’t just been about the mechanics or even diplomacy of getting tanks, fighting vehicles, air defenses and artillery, it’s been about bringing NATO member states’ near-billion people along with their politicians. Scholz made that point in parliament on Wednesday.

“Trust us,” he said, “we won’t put you in danger.” He spelled out how his government had already handled Russia’s aggression and how fears of a freezing winter and economic collapse were not realized. “The government dealt with the crisis,” he said, adding: “We are in a much better position.”

The applause at each step of his carefully crafted speech spoke as loudly as his words. In short, Scholz got it right for Germany, bringing with him a population typically averse to war and projecting their own power, and deeply divided over how much they should aid Ukraine in killing Russians and potentially angering the Kremlin.

But if in Europe Scholz seems to have wrestled some vestige of influence over America in the Ukraine war, in Moscow they don’t believe his new vigor changes much.

Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, says that in Moscow, “most people believe Biden calls the shots.”

Indeed, rather than Germany having more leverage, he says, “the American leadership looks stronger than ever.”

Nevertheless, Russia’s diplomats have been shoveling their animus toward the West into the public arena on both sides of the Atlantic.

Russia’s ambassador to Germany said Berlin’s move to send tanks was “extremely dangerous” and accused Scholz of refusing “to acknowledge its [Germany’s] historic accountability to our people for the horrific crimes of Nazism.” Meanwhile his counterpart in Washington accused the White House of “blatant provocation” and Biden of being intent on the “strategic defeat” of Russia.

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and deputy chairman of its national security council, has said Russia would never allow itself to be defeated and would use nuclear weapons if threatened.

Oddly, closer to the Kremlin, statements are less bellicose, signaling that Putin is perhaps cooling to nuclear escalation.

Responding to Biden and Scholz’s decision on tanks, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said it adds “tension to the continent, but it cannot prevent Russia from reaching our goals.”

The mixed messaging has some Muscovites CNN spoke with after the announcements by Biden and Scholz on tanks confused. Some said Russia would win regardless, and lumped the US and Germany together as the losers, but a significant proportion were worried about the war, dismayed at the heavy death toll and frustrated that Putin ignored their concerns.

How much Scholz is aware of Putin’s softening popularity or whether he believes it relevant at this moment is unclear, but his actions now, sending tanks, may help ease Putin’s iron grip on power.

From being late to recognize Russia’s threat, reorient Germany, reinvigorate its military, and ramp up weapon supplies to Ukraine, the pragmatist Scholz has now signaled Germany is very much in play – and, indeed, wants hands on the controls. He said Germany would “coordinate” supplies of the Leopard 2 from allies to Ukraine, a power invested in him by German legislation preventing any purchaser of the country’s war-fighting hardware to pass it on to a third state.

With Scholz shouldering his way to the diplomatic helm, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may find his territorial ambitions to restore the entirety of Ukraine’s sovereignty including Crimea, before peace talks with Putin, constrained. The German chancellor has been at the forefront of friendly leaders wanting a speedy end to the war and the restoration of economic stability to Europe.

Longer debates about the next military moves for Ukraine could be coming and will likely signal to Zelensky that weapons supplies will be on more of a German leash, and less unilaterally led by Washington.

This shift in the power dynamic may not change the way the war is fought but could impact the contours of a final deal and shape a lasting peace when it comes.