JANUARY 20: Inauguration Day, Plus

Three days from now, January 20, will be a busy day:

Donald Trump's inauguration has been moved indoors, the Capitol rotunda, with viewers being sent to the Capital One Arena. The last time this happened was in 1985 for Ronald Reagan, when the temperature reached 7F. Not so bad this year at up to 19F, but the prominent factor was wind chill. It is very uncomfortable in DC at this time of year.

It was on 13January1982 when I was working for the U.S. Senate.
This was a particularly cold period for the city, with temperatures dropping to below zero. Chicago that day was -25F. Citrus groves in Florida froze.
It began snowing, all told, around 6 inches in a few hours.
A fire in the Metro train line made for a particularly traffic nightmare.
When the snowfall seemed to be ending, the first plane to take off at National Airport (later named Reagan International--he first got elected in 1981) when visibility was only a sixteenth of a mile, and crashed into the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River. Only five of 79 on the plane could be rescued.
My office was in the midst of all the above, and I remember the trouble I had getting home that day. Finally reached my apartment around 10PM.

The Supreme Court upheld the law to ban TikTok, meaning closure on January 19. However, President Joe Biden punted and left it up to the next administration. Congress is working on giving Trump an extra three months to settle this problem. Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, was invited with billionaires and other favorites to sit close to Trump for the inauguration. Why has Trump changed his mind about this matter? One possibility is that one of his billionaire colleagues owns a lot of ByteDance (parent company of TikTok) shares. This could become my posting tomorrow.
And by the way, did you know that the population of China dropped for the third straight year?

As you must know, India in 2023 surpassed the population of China: India=1,419,316,933 vs China=1,407,181,209. India has 12 million more, with a growing difference.
China has a landmass three times larger than India.
Here is something that you probably did not know: U.S. has 3.8 million square miles of land area, while China has only 3.7 million square miles.
However, China has four times more people.
Russia covers 6.6 million square miles.
However, the USA is #3 in population, while Russia is #10.

Actually, inaugural festivities start on Saturday, January 18, with Trump's reception and fireworks, a cabinet reception and vice president's dinner.
Then on Sunday, a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. To follow will be a Make America Great Again Victory Rally, with Trump delivering remarks. At the end of the day a candlelight dinner with more from Trump.
On Monday, first, service at St. John's Church (remember his Bible debacle?) and White House tea, while musical performances start at 9:30, with opening remarks at 11:30AM and the swearing-in at noon. There will be a luncheon for dignitaries. The presidential parade, with freezing participants and spectators. Commander in Chief Ball, where Trump will talk, Liberty Inaugural Ball, for more Trump comments, and Starlight Ball, when Trump speaks again.

Of course, at some break in the day, Trump will make his Day One announcements. Read NBC for 11 things he will address. A big one will be his pardons for 6January21 defendants, for there are 1580 of them.

The opposition will have their National Day of Action, not only in DC, but nationwide.
On January 20 we will know if that Gaza Strip ceasefire and hostage return has occurred.
January 20 is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday.
In Los Angeles County, the Santa Ana winds return.

For sports fans, there will be the college football championship game: Ohio State vs Notre Dame.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
ESPN at 7:30 PM ET.
Ohio State is favored by 8.5 points.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

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