Happy New Year, Happy New PRIMER
Monday, Jan. 4: Everything you need to know in 8 minutes — Trump hunts for votes, SecDefs’ warning … 1,300 coming NC COVID deaths … Downtown South developers buy land … Epic buys Cary Towne Center
Monday, Jan. 4, 2021
Happy New Year — and happy back-to-work Monday. Today will be mostly sunny and 50 degrees.
A special thanks to the hundreds of you who responded to our survey last week. Here’s a quick overview of what we learned and plan to do with that information.
SurveyMonkey sucks. It would only let me see all of the responses if I took out a second mortgage to “upgrade” my membership. I reviewed enough, however, to get a sense of how we could improve things. Three basic ideas follow.
Faster, to the point, local: As you’ll see, we’ve reworked the newsletter’s structure.
Bonus content for subscribers: We’ll occasionally make deep dives into local issues exclusive for paying members.
Broaden sources: I’ll link to more non-paywalled sources when possible and more thoroughly describe a story’s gist when it’s not. I’ll also try to draw from a more diverse set of outlets.
Today’s Number: 1,300
COVID deaths the CDC projects for North Carolina this month, bringing the state’s total over 8,000 by month’s end. (CBS17)
As of yesterday, a record 3,576 people were hospitalized with COVID in North Carolina. (N&O)
Due to potential false-negative tests, the state’s record-shattering case counts are likely far underestimating the real number. (WRAL)
More than 350,000 Americans have now died of COVID. (NBC News)
Source: CBS17
+TODAY’S TOP 4
1. Trump Tells GA Official to “Find 11,780 Votes”
For context, this was 50 weeks ago:
The Washington Post reported that Donald Trump — joined by his chief of staff, former North Carolina congressman Mark Meadows — phoned Georgia’s Republican secretary of state on Saturday to demand he “find 11,780 votes” and overturn the state’s election, and threatening him with criminal prosecution if he didn’t.
“The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated [Brad] Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act, and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims.”
In the hour-long recording, Trump leans into debunked tinfoil-hat conspiracies and insists he won Georgia by “hundreds of thousands of votes.”
Trump said Raffensperger’s failure to support his claims will hurt Republicans in Tuesday’s Senate elections and may lead to criminal charges against him.
“So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? … I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people who don’t want to find answers.”
It’s a state and federal crime to pressure election officials to change the outcome of a race.
—> LOCK HIM UP:
—> RELATED: The 10 living secretaries of defense — including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld — wrote an op-ed urging the military to stay out of “election disputes.”
“Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful, and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.”
Worth remembering: The president sacked the Pentagon brass and replaced them with sycophants right after the election.
Makes you wonder: What do the SecDefs know that we don’t?
2. Fee Proposed, Revoked for Sanitizer-Making Distilleries
Last week, the FDA announced that it would charge distilleries that manufactured hand sanitizer during the pandemic $14,000 a year for being good corporate citizens.
Jonathan Blitz, from Durham’s Mystic Farm and Distillery, to the N&O: “How much sanitizer do you have to be selling a month to make it worth paying $14,000 plus dollars every year?”
After a backlash, the Department of Health and Human Services said the FDA had gone rogue: “This action was not cleared by HHS leadership, who only learned of it through media reports late yesterday.”
3. Epic Games Purchases, Will Renovate Cary Towne Center
Fortnite maker Epic Games has shelled out $95 million for the 87-acre Cary Towne Center, which it will convert to its new headquarters by 2024.
The previous developers, who bought the site in 2019 for $31 million and got rezoning approval from the town of Cary, planned to break ground on a mixed-use project.
“Epic Games said the company is now working with the Town of Cary on its plans for the development, including ways to incorporate a community aspect into the project. This includes working with the town on plans for the Cary Community Recreation and Sports Center, a $193 million project also slated to be developed on the site.” (TBJ, sub. req.)
Skip the paywall: Here’s WRAL’s story.
4. Developers Buy the Rest of Downtown South
Kane Realty said that if it didn’t secure zoning approval for Downtown South by the end of 2020, it couldn’t close on the rest of the property. In mid-December, the Raleigh City Council obliged, over the planning commission’s objections. On cue, the developers dropped $38 million on the final, 45-acre chunk of land. (TBJ, sub. req.)
Kane Realty managing partner Bonner Gaylord: “The closing of this important parcel of land is a momentous way to end the year as we move one step closer to working on phase one of the district with the city and community stakeholders in 2021.”
The real question is whether the city will give the developers more than $300 million in tax rebates and other assistance they want in exchange for affordable housing, a soccer stadium, and other “community benefits.” Without the subsidies, the developers say, the project will be smaller and less dense.
—> RELATED: The TBJ also has a softball profile of Raleigh Raised Development, a Black-owned development firm co-owned by NC Central basketball coach LeVelle Moton, that conspicuously glosses over how RRD became part of Downtown South:
“In early December, amid contentious debates surrounding the requested rezoning of the Downtown South project, RRD announced it would become part of the planning and development team.”
In reality: Opponents and neighborhood advocates were pointedly accusing rich white guys John Kane and Steve Malik of displacing Black people while the city rolled out the red carpet for a political benefactor. A week before the zoning question went to the city council, RRD appeared as part of the Downtown South team, focused on equity and affordable housing. You do the math.
+NEED TO KNOW
—> Local & State
Wake County has given more COVID vaccines than any other in North Carolina. (N&O)
Orange County deputies arrested a Burlington man for throwing an NYE tent party near Hillsborough in violation of COVID rules. (N&O, WRAL)
When it rains, a veterans cemetery in Southeast Raleigh floods. (N&O)
The second phase of Apex’s downtown redevelopment initiative is getting underway, including streetscaping and parking redesigns and alley conversions. The town hired a Canadian firm to oversee the streetscaping and parking redesign; the firm says its goal is “to embrace the authenticity of downtown Apex by adding vibrant people places.” (TBJ, sub. req.)
The landfill underneath a Greensboro park is leaking toxins, including lead, arsenic, cadmium, iron, thallium, and manganese. (NC Health News)
A Charlotte church that already was ground zero for one COVID outbreak hosted another large event on Saturday. (ABC11)
—> Nation & World
On New Year’s Day, Congress overrode a Trump veto for the first time. Trump had vetoed a defense spending bill, insisting that Congress eliminate liability protections for social media companies (see below) and preserve Confederate names on military bases. (WaPo)
Iran says it will enrich uranium up to 20% — one step below weapons-grade — as soon as possible. (WaPo)
An Oregon COVID relief fund earmarked for Black residents is in limbo following discrimination lawsuits. (NYT)
The homes of Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi were vandalized with spray paint, fake blood, and a pig’s head. (WaPo)
Pelosi was re-elected as House Speaker by a 216–209 margin, with a handful of Blue Dogs voting “present” or for someone else. (CNN)
Donald Trump plans to give allies Devin Nunes, best known for suing a cow on Twitter, and Jim Johnson, who allegedly covered up sexual abuse at Ohio State, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (WaPo)
After confronting a man who had eluded police, a Texas pastor was shot and killed with his own gun. (CNN)
—> Tech & Science
Former Walmart pharmacists say the company ignored “red flags” while opioid sales shot through the roof. (NPR)
A Pennsylvania school district has asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether students can be disciplined for what they say on social media outside of school. (NYT)
Traveling this year may require a vaccine passport. (CNN)
Apple and TikTok have removed Vybe Together, an app that allowed people to plan parties during the pandemic. (CNN)
—> Culture & Entertainment
Larry King has been hospitalized with COVID. (CNN)
Masked rapper MF Doom died on Halloween, his label announced last week. (AV Club)
Amazon is purchasing the podcast network Wondery. (Vulture)
Here’s AV Club’s roundup of the best television performances of 2020. (AV Club)
Here’s WeRateDogs’ roundup of cute dog videos from 2020.
+WHAT I’M READING
1. “Those of Us Who Don’t Die Are Going to Quit”
Nurse Kristen Cline was working a 12-hour shift in October at the Royal C. Johnson Veterans Memorial Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when a code blue rang through the halls. A patient in an isolation room was dying of a coronavirus that had raged for eight months across the country before it made the state the brightest red dot in a nation of hot spots.
Cline knew she needed to protect herself before entering the room, where a second COVID-19 patient was trembling under the covers, sobbing. She reached for the crinkled and dirty N95 mask she had reused for days.
In her post-death report, Cline described how the patient fell victim to a hospital in chaos. The crash cart and breathing bag that should have been in the room were missing. The patient wasn’t tethered to monitors that could have alerted nurses sooner. He had cried out for help, but the duty nurse was busy with other patients, packed two to a room meant for one.
“He died scared and alone. It didn’t have to be that way. We failed him — not the staff, we did everything we could,” she said. “The system failed him.”
Source: ProPublica
2. “Why Victims of Internet Lies Want Section 230 Repealed”
The videos claim Maatje Benassi carried the virus to China on a bicycle. She was invited there as a member of a U.S. military cycling team. Maatje is a Dutch immigrant, American citizen, and soldier who served in Iraq. In 2019, during an international military Olympics, she crashed in Wuhan, where COVID-19 was discovered two months later. Her collision with the internet began after an innocent article about the race.
Maatje Benassi: And somebody came across it, and it had Wuhan in it, and they took a run with it. "Oh, we got a person."
Scott Pelley: Your name, the name Wuhan, and the rest only takes a lot of imagination.
Maatje Benassi: Correct.
Scott Pelley: What were they saying about you?
Maatje Benassi: First they said I brought it to China. And when I crashed, I spread it. And that I spread it in the hospital which I never was in a hospital. All these lies about vials in my bicycle hidden. And I have no idea.
The absurdity was spelled out, literally, by a hoax peddler named George Webb. He has a following among the “deep state” phony conspiracy crowd. …
Right about now you might be thinking, they should sue. But that's the problem. They can't file hundreds of lawsuits against internet trolls hiding behind aliases. And they can't sue the internet platforms because of that law known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Written before Facebook or Google were invented, Section 230 says, in just 26 words, that internet platforms are not liable for what their users post.
Source: CBS News | 60 Minutes
Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.