📌 Death Sentences Commuted, Cough Spreads, More

President Joe Biden said today he is taking 37 of 40 people off federal death row to serve out life sentences.

“These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder,” Biden said, referring to his Justice Department’s halt on federal executions.

The majority of the 37 individuals whose sentences were commuted Monday were convicted for less high-profile offenses, such as murders tied to drug trafficking or the killings of prison guards or other inmates.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims … and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss.” Biden added he wanted to stop the death penalty federally and could not “stand back” and let a new administration resume the executions.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump indicated he would restart federal executions and work to expand the pool of crimes eligible for capital punishment under federal law, which generally allows for the death penalty in cases of murder, espionage and treason.

Outside of the federal system, there are over 2,000 people in the US who were convicted in state courts and put on death row, reported the Death Penalty Information Center. Biden has no power to stop those death sentences.

There’s been an uptick in anecdotal reports of a brutal, long-lasting cough going around.

“We have been seeing an unusually large number of patients who had typical viral upper respiratory infections but have had a lingering cough that has lasted weeks to months,” said Dr. Scott Braunstein, a double-board certified internal medicine and emergency medicine physician.

Dr. Janet O’Mahony, an internal medicine physician at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., said many of her patients have recently come into her practice with a nasty cough that’s lingered for two weeks or so. Some people have also had sinus congestion, a sore throat, and post-nasal drip.

“They’ve tested negative for the flu and Covid. Plus, they aren’t responding to antibiotics, which suggests it’s purely viral. O’Mahony suspects the sickness is “caused by the regular viruses that cause colds like rhinovirus, non-Covid coronaviruses or adenoviruses.”

The reason we don’t know exactly what’s causing it is because primary care doctors and urgent care clinics don’t routinely test for these other viruses unless someone is hospitalized with severe symptoms, said Dr. Theodore Strange, an internal medicine physician with Northwell Health.

Braunstein said the persistent cough is likely due to prolonged inflammation in the airways. Even after the virus is gone, the body continues to produce mucus and have bronchospasms — when the muscles in the airways tighten and cause a cough. The inflammation can persist from two weeks to two months.

The Massaco people appear to be thriving despite pressure from ranchers and illegal encroachment into the Amazon.

Cameras have recorded the Massaco, whose numbers have doubled since the early 1990s to around 200–250. Population growth among isolated peoples is a trend across the Amazon. Satellite images show larger cultivated plots and expanded longhouses.

Specialists have seen evidence in the forest of similar growth among nomadic communities that do not plant crops or build large structures visible from space. This has been accomplished by a public policy of not initiating contact, pioneered by Brazil in 1987.

Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia have similar practices. There are 61 confirmed groups living in the Amazon and Gran Chaco region, with a reported 128 not yet verified by authorities.

To honor the land rights of isolated peoples — as required by Brazil’s constitution — and to put logging, gold, fish, soya bean, and coca planting off limits means proving the people are there. The first argument for those interested in grabbing forest areas is to negate the existence of inhabitants.

“These peoples have a right to live, to their land, and chosen lifestyles, but respecting the rights of isolated Indigenous peoples is also fundamental to preserving tropical forests,” said Paulo Moutinho, co-founder of the Institute for Environmental Research in the Amazon.

Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan plan to merge, forming the world’s third-largest automaker by sales.

The two companies said they signed a memorandum of understanding today and that smaller Nissan alliance member Mitsubishi Motors agreed to join the talks on integrating their businesses. The aim is to have a formal merger agreement by June and to complete the deal by August 2026.

No dollar value was given, and the formal talks are just starting, Honda’s president, Toshihiro Mibe, said. Automakers in Japan have lagged behind their big rivals in electric vehicles and are trying to cut costs and make up for lost time.

A merger could create a behemoth worth over $50 billion based on the market capitalization of all three automakers. Honda and the Nissan alliance with Renault SA of France and smaller automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. would gain scale to compete with Toyota Motor Corp. and Germany’s Volkswagen AG.

Even after a merger, Toyota, which rolled out 11.5 million vehicles in 2023, would remain Japan’s top automaker. If they join, the three smaller companies would make about 8 million vehicles. In 2023, Honda made 4 million, and Nissan produced 3.4 million. Mitsubishi Motors made just over 1 million.

Louisiana prisons hold inmates long after their sentences expire, the US Department of Justice alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday.

The suit against Louisiana follows a multiyear investigation into what federal officials say is a pattern of “systemic over detention” that violates inmates’ rights and costs taxpayers millions of dollars a year.

The DOJ alleges that since at least 2012, more than a quarter of those due to be released from Louisiana prisons have instead been held past their release dates. The DOJ warned Louisiana officials last year that the state could face a lawsuit if it didn’t fix the problems.

DOJ lawyers said the state’s “marginal efforts” to address the issues were “inadequate” and showed a “deliberate indifference” to the constitutional rights of incarcerated individuals.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and state Attorney General Liz Murrill blamed the problem on the “failed criminal justice reforms” advanced by “the past administration.”

Advocates have repeatedly challenged the conditions in Louisiana’s prison system, which includes the country’s largest maximum-security prison, known as Angola, where incarcerated individuals toil under the blazing sun picking vegetables by hand at what was once a slave plantation.

Two US Navy pilots were shot down over the Red Sea early Sunday in “an apparent case of friendly fire,” the US military said.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said later on Sunday they had “targeted” the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman a day earlier in an operation that led to “shooting down an F-18 aircraft” and thwarting “American-British aggression” against Yemen.

US Central Command said late on Saturday that both US pilots were recovered alive, but “initial assessments indicate that one of the crew members sustained minor injuries.” This incident “was not the result of hostile fire, and a full investigation is underway,” CENTCOM said.

The Houthis have repeatedly targeted merchant vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, waterways vital to global trade. CENTCOM said the guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg “mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18” fighter aircraft, which Navy pilots had flown off the USS Harry S. Truman.

On Saturday, the US said it struck targets, including a missile storage facility in Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sana’a, hours after a Houthi rebel missile wounded people in Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv.

The official Santa Tracker originated when a child accidentally called the telephone number of a top-secret Pentagon hotline.

In December 1955, one year after President Eisenhower established the hotline to alert the military of an attack on North America, the red phone rang. The US was in the middle of the Cold War and tensions were high. Thoughts were far from a service that later delighted families worldwide for 70 years.

Commanding Officer Colonel Harry Shoup picked up. He heard a squeaky voice asking, “Is this Santa Claus?” Shoup thought it was a prank and responded accordingly until the boy started crying.

Realizing it wasn’t a joke, Shoup, a father of four, played Santa and then spoke to the mom, who told him the number was in a holiday ad for the Sears department store. The number printed in the advertisement was one digit off from what Sears intended to print.

The kids kept calling. Shoup put two airmen on phone duty to answer as Santa. A giant board for tracking planes was altered to include a sleigh with reindeer. In the festive spirit, Shoup called a radio station. “This is Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.”

The radio stations started calling him every hour: “Where’s Santa now?” Today, over 1,250 volunteers answer the calls and emails to the Santa Tracker. Volunteering has become a family tradition. In some cases, three generations have been participating. Shoup’s daughter Terri is among them.