— Compiled by Jesús Espinoza, Deputy Press Secretary, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto
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RJ – Teamsters blast CCSD support staff union over lack of transparency – A leaked copy of the agreement between the Clark County School District and its support staff shows changes in the contract were negotiated between the two sides, not awarded through an arbitrator. It’s a key distinction, the local union that’s trying to oust the Education Support Employee Association said, because it shows how the approximately 12,000 support employees would benefit from new representation with more transparency. “They were going out of their way to hide this information,” said Grant Davis, vice-president of the local Teamsters union trying to replace the ESEA. “That’s the bigger issue.” The Teamsters were given the document by an employee within the school district, Davis said. It’s another salvo in a bitter battle for control of the employee association. The ESEA and Local Government Employee-Management Relations Board are awaiting a state Supreme Court decision to see whether that board will be able to move forward on a decision to allow the Teamsters local to take over representing the support employees. The Supreme Court decision, expected sometime in the spring, will end a 15-year battle between the two unions. Until a ruling comes down, the two sides are using contract negotiations and other tactics against each other in an effort to sway members. LINK RJ – Las Vegas union president files labor complaint against University Medical Center – University Medical Center’s largest union has accused hospital management of interfering with the union’s labor-management committee, according to a complaint filed Monday with the state’s Employee-Management Relations Board. The complaint is the latest development in a monthlong fight between Service Employees International Union Local 1107 president Cherie Mancini and UMC Chief Human Resources Officer John Espinoza over Mancini’s removal of two elected union officials from the committee. The hospital did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the EMRB complaint. LINK Las Vegas Sun – Sen. Heller, say no to ACA repeal – One of Congress’ first orders of business in 2017 is an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the landmark health insurance program that has provided enormous benefits for millions of women. As an OB-GYN, I am calling on Sen. Dean Heller to take it from me: Undoing the ACA would be devastating to my patients, Nevada’s women. LINK Desert Valley Times – Mesquite City Council will revisit pot debate – The Mesquite City Council will once again discuss recreational marijuana at Tuesday’s meeting in hopes of providing a clear stance for the city’s lobbyist during the upcoming legislative session in which Nevada’s recreational marijuana regulations will be developed. The discussion is expected to be twopronged. LINK RGJ – RTC assessing damage to mercury-containing dirt stockpiles – Twelve stockpiles of mercury-containing dirt near the Southeast Connector project were hit by flood waters Sunday, raising concerns from nearby homeowners. Regional Transportation Commission officials are assessing how badly the stockpiles were breached by the flood and are testing waters both upstream and downstream from the storage site. But they argue that the mercury-containing soil would have been an issue in a flood event regardless of whether it had been stockpiled and said it could have been worse had the dirt not been stored in one place. LINK RGJ – Lemmon Valley homes flood as storm water system is overwhelmed – Stan Creveling, who works the nightshift as a security guard, sleeps during the day. So, he was in a sound slumber when a cascade of mud and flood water hit his house in Lemmon Valley. When he awoke, it was too late to keep the water out. “I put my foot down in my bedroom and there was water in my house!” he said. “I began rushing around putting towels under my door.” He called his friends and family, forming a crew of volunteers to help him erect a small wall of sandbags to keep more water from seeping in. His front yard, which he described as “the nicest yard around”, was covered in a foot or more of silty mud from the flood waters, which swirled around his house to the backyard. Creveling’s house was one of dozens of homes in Lemmon Valley hit by flood waters from Washoe County’s overwhelmed storm drain system– a system that is inundated regularly in big storms. “They have not updated it. They haven’t cleaned it. They don’t do nothing,” Creveling said. LINK RGJ – Mining company claims 4,000 acres in Black Rock Desert – A Canadian-funded mining company has staked nearly 4,000 acres of Lithium mining claims on the Black Rock Desert playa, a high profile alkali flat used for the annual 68,000-person Burning Man celebration. Between April and December last year, Nevada Energy Metals, LLC staked 199 claims in the southwest arm of the Black Rock Desert, according records from the Washoe County Recorder’s Office. The claims are just east of Gerlach, a small mining town two hours north of Reno, and west of where Burning Man takes place. The claims are south of the Black Rock-High Rock Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area protected and overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, though the claims still are on federal land. Anyone can make a mining claim, which equates to mineral rights but nothing else on federal land. Fees, permits and a public process are necessary to break ground. LINK KUNR – Governor Sandoval Tours Flood Damage – Governor Sandoval toured that area as well and called the damage “catastrophic” saying that state agencies would be deployed in order to avoid safety issues in the area. Sandoval also talked about the immense amount of preparation and cooperation among agencies that occurred. That included having crews and machinery set up along the Truckee River to remove huge trees from the water as it flowed downstream. LINK KNPR – The City of Las Vegas Goes 100 Percent Renewable – The City of Las Vegas made an announcement last month that kinda got lost in the hubbub of politics and holidays. Its energy sources are now 100 percent renewable. That means all city buildings, street lights, traffic signals, lights for public parks. Everything the City of Las Vegas owns is now powered 100 percent by renewable energy. The goal for being 100 percent sustainable was set for 2025. Las Vegas came in nine years early. LINK Fusion – A top senate Democrat says he’s ‘desperate and determined’ to protect DREAMers from deportation – President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to end the DACA program that protects undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children. Two senators are hoping to change that. Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican Lindsey Graham recently announced a bill to protect the more than 740,000 young people who were granted reprieve from deportation and work permits under DACA. Durbin told Jorge Ramos the “BRIDGE Act” would allow DREAMers to keep their benefits for three more years if they’re revoked. LINK El Mundo Las Vegas – Cortez Masto Sworn In (No Link) El Mundo Las Vegas – Obama: Plan to Repeal without Replacement is “Irresponsible” Univisión Noticias – Trump’s Most Problematic Nominees for Senate Confirmation Univisión Noticias – Jared Kushner, The Powerful Son-in-Law with Whom Trump Can Evade Law Motivated by Kennedy Telemundo Noticias – Jeff Sessions, The Attorney General They Don’t Want La Opinión – New Sanctuary Movement Embraces Immigrants from Local Government, Churches, and Schools NYT – Jared Kushner Named Senior White House Adviser to Donald Trump – Jared Kushner will become a senior White House adviser to his father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, cementing the New York real estate executive’s role as a powerful and at times decisive influence on the president-elect. Mr. Kushner, 35, who married Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka in 2009, is closer to Mr. Trump than any other adviser, a steady and stabilizing presence inside an often chaotic transition team who has provided input on most of his father-in-law’s most consequential hiring and firing decisions. Mr. Trump described Mr. Kushner as “a tremendous asset and trusted adviser throughout the campaign and transition” in a statement issued early Monday evening announcing an appointment that perhaps more than any other defines the way the incoming president will govern. Mr. Kushner plans to sell some of his real estate holdings and other assets, his lawyer said. Some ethics experts have questioned whether the appointment will be legal under federal anti-nepotism laws designed to prevent family ties from influencing the functioning of the United States government. LINK WSJ – Donald Trump Pressures Republicans to Repeal, Replace Health Law at Same Time – President-elect Donald Trump is increasing pressure on congressional Republicans to vote at the same time to both repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but party leaders haven’t indicated any shift in strategy to make that happen. Mr. Trump’s push, combined with doubts from different factions of Republicans, could end up slowing down party leaders’ efforts to rapidly overturn much of the law. Mr. Trump, who backs simultaneously repealing and replacing the 2010 health-care law, is finding allies in the Senate, where a half-dozen Republicans are worried about repealing the law without having a replacement plan ready. “I believe we should vote on replacement the same day we vote on repeal,” Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) said in an interview Monday. Mr. Trump called the senator on Friday night “to say he agrees completely,” Mr. Paul said. LINK WaPo – Trump camp faces a complex scramble in avoiding potential conflicts – Despite expressing initial reluctance to separate from the company, Trump over the past two months has taken steps to unwind some of the most visible potential tension points. He has dissolved some potential transactions in international hot spots such as Azerbaijan and Georgia, pledged “no new deals” for his business during his time in the White House, and settled lawsuits that threatened to consume his time and stain his image. Advisers, meanwhile, have been examining how to address touchy legal questions about his ownership of the Trump International Hotel blocks from the White House, which leases its property from the federal government. Nevertheless, on the eve of the much-anticipated announcement Wednesday by Trump detailing how he intends to wall off his presidency from the company, it has become clear that Trump’s approach is unlikely to eliminate all of the potential pitfalls stemming from the complex web of real estate holdings, partnerships and merchandising agreements that make up the Trump Organization. LINK NYT – Muted Response From Health Lobby as Affordable Care Act Faces Repeal – The speed of Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act has stunned health industry lobbyists, leaving representatives of insurance companies, hospitals, doctors and pharmaceutical makers in disarray and struggling for a response to a legislative quick strike that would upend much of the American health care system. The Senate is expected to take the first step by Thursday morning, approving parliamentary language in a budget resolution that would fast-track a repeal bill that could not be filibustered in the Senate. House and Senate committees would have until Jan. 27 to report out repeal legislation. Health insurance and health care for millions of Americans are at risk. But far from reflecting the magnitude of the moment, the most prominent message from lobbyists that lawmakers saw in their first week back at work was a narrowly focused advertisement from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce demanding the repeal of “Obamacare taxes,” especially an annual fee imposed on health insurance companies to help pay for the expansion of coverage under the health law. LINK NYT – Ed Board: Big Worries About Betsy DeVos – Mr. Trump’s nominees will need only a simple majority vote to be confirmed. So what’s the hurry? Republicans seem worried that the more time the Senate has to examine some of these nominees’ backgrounds, the more chance a Republican or three could break ranks. Maybe they’re afraid of Mr. Trump’s ire, should any of his picks generate red flags. That’s backward thinking, of course: The potential for conflicts is more reason, not less, to take the time needed for thorough vetting, and the only route to a responsible vote. LINK WSJ – Senate Report: Classified-Ad Site Backpage.com Filtered Escort Ads – Classified-ad website Backpage.com routinely deleted incriminating words from escort ads, including some terms that might indicate trafficking of children, according to a new Senate report. For instance, Backpage officials set up an automated ad-filtering system that deleted numerous terms such as “teenage,” “amber alert” and “school girl” that might suggest the person being advertised was underage, according to the report. The filtering “changed nothing about the true nature of the advertised transaction or the real age of the person being sold for sex,” the report says. Even after the company started rejecting ads altogether if they used unacceptable terms, the company “implemented this change by coaching its customers on how to post ‘clean’ ads for illegal transactions,” the report says. LINK WaPo – Sessions failed to disclose oil interests as required, ethics experts say – Attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions did not disclose his ownership of oil interests on land in Alabama as required by federal ethics rules, according to an examination of state records and independent ethics lawyers who reviewed the documents. The Alabama records show that Sessions owns subsurface rights to oil and other minerals on more than 600 acres in his home state, some of which are adjacent to a federal wildlife preserve. The holdings are small, producing revenue in the range of $4,700 annually. But the interests were not disclosed on forms sent by Sessions to the Office of Government Ethics, which reviews the assets of Cabinet nominees for potential conflicts of interest. LINK WaPo – Hundreds join the Rev. William Barber’s ‘Moral March’ in D.C. to protest Jeff Sessions as attorney general – With several clergy members of various faiths, he led about 500 demonstrators on the short march from the Lutheran Church of the Reformation to the Russell Senate Office Building, where they filed in ranks of two along the marble hallways, reciting their grievances against Sessions, and delivered an anti-Sessions petition to the offices of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and others. “Just because somebody’s nice doesn’t mean they’re not racist,” Barber told the gathering at the church, before they set out for the Russell Building, inching along East Capitol Street NE in the frigid air. This apparently was a reference to Sessions’s personal popularity in the Senate, where he has a reputation for being collegial, patient and attentive toward political allies and foes. LINK Politico – Inside Sessions’ strategy to combat racism allegations – The Trump team and Senate Republicans have a strategy to usher Sen. Jeff Sessions through his attorney general confirmation hearing that will highlight his ties to moderate Republicans and Democrats and efforts on bipartisan legislation, according to interviews with more than a half dozen senators, aides and transition officials leading the effort. As the Senate Judiciary Committee kicks off a two-day marathon hearing on Sessions Tuesday, the goal isn’t just to get him confirmed. Trump’s team wants him to emerge unscathed, with a clear runway to enact his policy agenda at DOJ despite his controversial history on voting rights and decades-old allegations of racism. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will introduce Sessions — an unambiguous signal that even the most moderate member of the GOP conference is on board. And committee Republicans plan to serve as character witnesses for Sessions, playing up the Alabama senator’s longevity in the clubby chamber and his personal relationships with Democrats. LINK Politico – What Jeff Sessions thinks about immigration, police and terrorism – Sessions has been one of the fiercest opponents of comprehensive immigration reform in Congress, most recently the Gang of Eight effort in 2013 that sought to create a pathway for citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants and overhauled every corner of the nation’s immigration system. Sessions and his backers can tout deep support from the law enforcement community, who sees the former prosecutor as someone deeply versed in criminal law who will advocate on behalf of police. Sessions’ alleged insensitivity on race was the biggest factor in the defeat of his nomination for a federal judgeship in 1986, so regardless of how much attention those personal questions get Tuesday, Sessions’ history on civil rights issue seem sure to be the focus of close questioning. Sessions has taken an aggressive stance toward terrorism that has often put him at odds with the Obama administration and even some of his own Republican colleagues. With Trump advocating waterboarding and the killing of terrorists’ families on the campaign trail, senators could be looking to see whether Sessions adopts a more moderate tone on those subjects. LINK Politico – The new Cabinet litmus test: Admitting Russia hacked the U.S. – Senators of both parties are preparing to employ a new litmus test for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees: making them acknowledge Russia’s alleged election-year cyberattacks. “We want to hear — I want to hear — from the incoming administration’s nominees that they’re going to take this threat seriously,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters in advance of the avalanche of confirmation hearings that kicks off Tuesday. In deference to the incoming president, Trump’s transition team is training Cabinet picks to eschew major policy pronouncements and stick to generalities in the nomination hearings, putting them through grueling, hours-long mock sessions called “murder boards.” But that might be tough after intelligence agencies last week officially accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of personally ordering a cyber “influence campaign” to sway the election, with an aim that eventually evolved to putting Trump in the Oval Office. LINK CNN – Republicans increasingly worried about Obamacare plan – Republicans are preparing to take a major vote this week aimed at repealing Obamacare — but the drumbeat of concern within GOP ranks about the lack of a replacement is growing louder. The Senate is poised to vote on a budget resolution later this week, the first in a two-step process of rolling back major parts of the Affordable Care Act. At the same time, GOP lawmakers are speaking out with force, concerned about the political backlash if the GOP is perceived as being reckless given that 20 million Americans have health coverage through Obamacare and there’s no clear vision or firm timeline for an alternative. LINK CNN – First on CNN: Condoleezza Rice endorses Sessions for attorney general – Condoleezza Rice, who served as secretary of state to former President George W. Bush, endorsed former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions Monday to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general. Rice, who is also from Alabama, wrote a letter of appreciation to Sen. Chuck Grassley about Sessions, where she said that Sessions, a “friend,” was someone she admired “greatly.” “He is a man who is committed to justice and knows that law and order are necessary to guarantee freedom and liberty,” she wrote. LINK Huffpost – Congress Quietly Passes New Rule Allowing House Members To Hide Records From Ethics Probes – Just when you thought ethics standards couldn’t get much worse on Capitol Hill… It’s emerged that the House GOP quietly changed a rule last week to allow members to keep their records hidden from ethics or criminal investigations. The tweak allows politicians to conceal any information members produce — even suspicious expenditures and budgets — if the Office of Congressional Ethics or the Department of Justice investigates them for criminal activity, the Center for Responsive Politics reports. The change essentially makes a member of Congress the owner and sole controller of any records he or she creates, regardless of whether those documents touch on a public interest, such as use of taxpayer funds or the commission of a crime. LINK Huffpost – A Half-Dozen GOP Senators Just Fired A Big Warning Shot On Obamacare Repeal – Anxiety about repealing Obamacare without a replacement got a lot more visible in the U.S. Senate on Monday evening, as a half-dozen Republican senators called publicly for slowing down the process. It’s not clear how strongly these senators feel about it, or whether they are willing to defy party leadership over how and when efforts to repeal Obamacare proceed. But at least three other GOP senators have now expressed reservations about eliminating the Affordable Care Act without first settling on an alternative. That brings the total to nine ― well more than the three defections it would take to deprive Republicans of the majority they would likely need to get repeal through Congress. And the restlessness isn’t confined to the Senate. Members of the House Freedom Caucus on Monday evening issued their own call for slowing down the repeal process. At the very least, these developments suggest that taking President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy off the books is unlikely to go as smoothly or as quickly as GOP leaders once hoped. LINK NBC – Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. John Lewis to Testify Against Jeff Sessions for Attorney General – Sen. Cory Booker will apparently make history this week when he testifies before the Judiciary Committee against Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination for attorney general in hearings that begin Tuesday. Booker’s office said Monday that the Senate historian had been unable to find any previous instance of a sitting senator’s testifying against a fellow sitting senator nominated for a Cabinet position. Several other prominent African-American figures in addition to Booker also plan to testify against Sessions, R-Alabama, a former U.S. attorney and attorney general in Alabama, including two members of the House: Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, a leader of the civil rights movement of the 1960s; and Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-Louisiana, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. LINK NYT – Retired Generals Tell Trump Not to Bring Back Torture for Terrorism Suspects – In a large show of military opposition to reinstating torture, 176 retired officers — including 33 four-star generals and admirals — have sent a joint letter to Mr. Trump urging him not to follow through on his campaign vows to bring back waterboarding “and a hell of a lot worse.” The letter, obtained by The New York Times, was dated Jan. 6 and signed by some of the most prominent military figures of the recent era. They included two former Afghanistan war commanders, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and Gen. John R. Allen, and the Special Operations commander who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Adm. William H. McRaven. Citing their “six thousand years of combined experience” in commanding troops, the retired officers expressed concern “about statements made during the campaign about the use of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody,” and noted that waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” are illegal under domestic and international law. The officers also called torture both “unnecessary” and “counterproductive,” adding that it “violates our core values as a nation.” LINK NYT – Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Pick, Plays Hardball With Her Wealth – In announcing his intention to nominate Ms. DeVos, Mr. Trump described her as “a brilliant and passionate education advocate.” Even critics characterized her as a dedicated, if misguided, activist for school reform. But that description understates both the breadth of Ms. DeVos’s political interests and the influence she wields as part of her powerful family. More than anyone else who has joined the incoming Trump administration, she represents the combination of wealth, free-market ideology and political hardball associated with a better-known family of billionaires: Charles and David Koch. In the 2016 cycle alone, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, the family spent roughly $14 million on political contributions to state and national candidates, parties, PACs and super PACs. LINK NYT -Trump’s National Security Pick Sees Ally in Fight Against Islamists: Russia – Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, traveled to Moscow about a year after he took charge of the Defense Intelligence Agency to cultivate what he saw as natural allies in the fight against Islamist militants: Russia’s spy agencies. It was June 2013, a briefly optimistic moment for both the Americans and Russians, and Mr. Flynn hoped to take advantage of it. During the trip, which got almost no attention, he met with the chief of the Russian military intelligence unit known as the G.R.U. — the same agency that has since been implicated in interference in the 2016 presidential election — and held an hourlong discussion with midranking officers at its headquarters. Relations with Moscow have soured significantly since then, yet Mr. Flynn has grown only more vehement about the need for the United States to cultivate Russia as an ally. LINK NYT – Jared Kushner Will Sell Many of His Assets, but Ethics Lawyers Worry – After President-elect Donald J. Trump announced Monday that he would appoint his son-in-law, the real estate investor Jared Kushner, as a senior White House adviser, lawyers for Mr. Kushner said he would sell many of his assets to avoid myriad potential conflicts of interest. But because he plans to sell to his brother or to a family trust controlled by his mother, some ethics lawyers interviewed questioned how meaningful the divestiture would be. LINK Politico – White House win provides a stimulus for the Trump brand – Donald Trump is already making money from the presidency, a post-election bump to the value of his brand that highlights the inextricable ties between his famous name, his business interests and the powerful public office he is about to assume. Since his surprise November win, the value of Trump’s name has risen to all-time highs, coinciding with a surge in demand for everything from his condominiums and hotel rooms to his golf courses and men’s suits, according to experts in marketing, real estate and other industries who have been tracking the Trump brand since long before the launch of his political career. LINK NYT – U.S. Commandos Kill Midlevel ISIS Leader in Syria – United States Special Operations forces carried out a ground raid that killed an Islamic State leader in eastern Syria on Sunday, the Pentagon said, underscoring how the military is using risky commando missions and not just airstrikes to battle the militants. A Defense Department spokesman, Capt. Jeff Davis, confirmed on Monday that the operation had occurred. But he dismissed a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in London, that about 25 fighters had been killed in a two-hour raid in al-Kubar, a village in Deir al-Zour Province. LINK WSJ – U.S. Pilots See Close Calls With Russian Jets Over Syria – The skies above Syria are an international incident waiting to happen, according to American pilots. It is an unprecedented situation in which for months U.S. and Russian jets have crowded the same airspace fighting parallel wars, with American pilots bombing Islamic State worried about colliding with Russian pilots bombing rebels trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Russian warplanes, which also attack Islamic State targets, are still flying daily over Syria despite the recent cease-fire in Moscow’s campaign against the anti-Assad forces, according to the U.S. Air Force. The U.S. and Russian militaries have a year-old air safety agreement, but American pilots still find themselves having close calls with Russian aviators either unaware of the rules of the road, or unable or unwilling to follow them consistently. LINK WSJ – Obama Administration Takes Aim at Some For-Profit Colleges – The Obama administration identified hundreds of for-profit college programs Monday that are in danger of closing due to new rules designed to punish schools that leave students with high levels of debt, but weak job prospects. If the high-debt levels continue, those colleges could lose access to federal student loans and grants, which most schools rely on for most of their revenue. Nearly a tenth of all career-training programs big enough to fall under the rules—almost all of them at for-profit colleges—are affected. The move marks a key step in one of the administration’s final moves to stem a yearslong surge in Americans defaulting on student loans. LINK WaPo – U.S. increases support for Turkish military operations in Syria – U.S. aircraft have begun regular aerial intelligence surveillance in support of Turkey’s offensive against the Islamic State in northwestern Syria, in anticipation of increased U.S. support for the flailing Turkish military operation around the town of al-Bab. The increased support comes after weeks of U.S. military and diplomatic talks with Turkish counterparts, and Russian airstrikes backing the Turkish offensive. LINK NYT – Anonymous Bomb Threats Rattle Jewish Centers Across Eastern U.S. – The morning rush at the Jewish community center in Columbia, S.C., had subsided when the phone rang on Monday. The caller, an elderly-sounding woman, “in a loud screaming voice kept saying there’s a bomb,” said Barry A. Abels, the center’s executive director. At roughly the same time, a woman dialed the Jewish community center in Rockville, Md., nearly 500 miles away, and said there was a bomb. Not long after, a man called a Jewish organization in Wilmington, Del. He, too, warned of a bomb. Similar threats, which turned out to be unfounded, were reported all over the Eastern United States on Monday, at as many as 16 Jewish community facilities, one advocacy group estimated. Time and time again, the police responded, buildings were evacuated and, after tense waits, the centers and schools reopened. Federal law enforcement officials did not definitively link the threats, but the episodes rattled nerves, and raised deep concern and little doubt that the phone calls had been orchestrated. LINK NYT – 2016 Was Second-Warmest Year on Record in U.S. – The average temperature of the lower 48 states reached the second-highest level in the historical record in 2016, the government said on Monday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that only 2012 had been warmer in archives stretching to 1895. The near-record average temperature was influenced by the long-term global warming trend caused by human emissions, scientists said, as well as by a burst of heat from the El Niño climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean. LINK NYT – Andrew Cuomo Raises His Profile, Stirring Talk of a 2020 Run – It had all the trappings of a presidential campaign rollout: the cheering crowd, the flag-draped stage, an appearance and a hearty endorsement from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The topic last week was also ripped from the 2016 campaign trail: a tuition-free college plan. It was the latest in a series of high-profile, left-leaning policy moves that the Democrat behind the event, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, can claim, including the legalization of same-sex marriage, the passage of gun-control laws and a higher minimum wage. LINK NYT – Cuomo Confirms Deal to Close Indian Point Nuclear Plant – The Indian Point nuclear power plant north of New York City has been supplying low-cost electricity to the metropolitan area for more than 50 years. But to hear Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo tell it, New Yorkers will hardly miss Indian Point. Mr. Cuomo announced on Monday that the state had reached an agreement with the plant’s operator, Entergy, to shut it down by April 2021. He minimized the effects the closure would have on the power grid, electric bills, workers and the regional economy. LINK NPR – As Obamacare Repeal Heats Up, Newly Insured North Carolinians Fret – Darlene Hawes lost her health insurance about a year after her husband died in 2012. Hawes, 55, is from Charlotte, N.C. She ended up going without insurance for a few years, but in 2015 she bought coverage on HealthCare.gov, the Affordable Care Act marketplace, with the help of a big subsidy. “I was born with heart trouble and I also had, in 2003, open-heart surgery,” she says. “I had breast-cancer surgery. I have a lot of medical conditions, so I needed insurance badly.” After the results of the 2016 election came in, she was scared she’d lose her insurance immediately. For years, Republicans have vowed to scrap the health care law. The new Congress is already working on a plan to undo the Affordable Care Act. But they have not settled on how to replace the health care structure that Obamacare set up. Hawes is one of about 550,000 North Carolinians who relies on the Obamacare marketplace for health insurance. She was relieved after she talked with an enrollment specialist last month who told her she can renew her policy for 2017. LINK