“I’m not gonna even discuss the process anymore … Up to now, it’s all been theoretical. Moving forward, we’re gonna let [Romney’s] process play itself out.” — Florida Senator and Sherman-esque Veepstakes contender Marco Rubio on CNN this morning.
If you’re over the thrill of not having to think about Trump-related figures on a daily basis, the book publishing industry has you covered
William Barr, Trump’s former attorney general who resigned two days before Christmas after disagreeing publicly with Trump’s voter fraud conspiracy theories, recently sold a book about his time at the Justice Department, according to three people familiar with the deal.
This will be Barr’s first book and he started writing it within the last two months, according to one of the people.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s last pick for the Supreme Court, has also sold a book — garnering a $2 million advance for a tome about how judges are not supposed to bring their personal feelings into how they rule, according to three publishing industry sources. The figure was “an eye-raising amount” for a Supreme Court justice and likely the most since book deals won by Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O’Connor, one of the people added.
… Geoffrey Berman, who tangled with Barr and whom Trump ousted as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, also has sold a book — for what one industry source described as “a lot of money” — about his time in office. The person described the book as “part Paul Giamatti and ‘Billions,’ and then sort of the Trump show in the Southern District.”
… Outside of the legal world, Scott Atlas, the health policy scholar from the Hoover Institution who was a coronavirus adviser to Trump and noted skeptic of sharp coronavirus restrictions, recently sold a book to Post Hill Press’s Bombardier Books.
A giant leap for drones
NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter made history early Monday when the small but intrepid drone became the first powered craft to fly on another world, space agency officials announced.
Overcoming extreme cold, dangerously thin air and flawed flight software, the $85 million autonomous copter spun its twin carbon fiber rotor blades to rise about 10 feet into the thin Martian air. It hovered briefly in the breeze before safely landing at about 3:30 a.m. ET Monday back on Earth, NASA officials said. The flight was the first of five planned for the next 30 days.
As flight data streamed from Ingenuity to Earth Monday, mission engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California cheered and clapped.
“It’s real; it’s real,” said Ingenuity project manager MiMi Aung, slapping the table in front of her with glee and showing a thumbs-up. “We can now say human beings have flown a drone on another planet.”
Welcome to the halfway point, America
Half of all adults in the U.S. have received at least one COVID-19 shot, the government announced Sunday, marking another milestone in the nation’s largest-ever vaccination campaign but leaving more work to do to convince skeptical Americans to roll up their sleeves. Almost 130 million people 18 or older have received at least one dose of a vaccine, or 50.4% of the total adult population, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Almost 84 million adults, or about 32.5% of the population, have been fully vaccinated.
The U.S. cleared the 50% mark just a day after the reported global death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million, according to totals compiled by Johns Hopkins University, though the actual number is believed to be significantly higher. The country’s vaccination rate, at 61.6 doses administered per 100 people, currently falls behind Israel, which leads among countries with at least 5 million people with a rate of 119.2. The U.S. also trails the United Arab Emirates, Chile and the United Kingdom, which is vaccinating at a rate of 62 doses per 100 people, according to Our World in Data, an online research site.
Disowning OAN
DOJ isn’t done with Roger Stone
The Justice Department on Friday sued Roger Stone, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, accusing Stone and his wife of owing nearly $2 million in unpaid income taxes. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, says the couple underpaid their income taxes by $1,590,361 from 2007 to 2011. It further says Stone did not pay his full tax bill in 2018, coming up $407,036 short.
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