This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily Newsbrief for Wednesday, January 18th, 2023.
 
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Now, let’s go to Italy! 
 
The Godfather Theme Song- Play 0:07-0:20
 
https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/crime-pmn/arrest-of-last-godfather-deals-new-blow-to-ailing-sicilian-mafia
 
Arrest of 'last godfather' deals new blow to ailing Sicilian mafia
 
ROME — The arrest of Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro deals a powerful blow to the mythology of the Cosa Nostra, toppling a symbol of the group’s resistance to police efforts to break up organized crime.
 
Messina Denaro, 60, was Italy’s most wanted mafia boss and had been on the run for three decades. He had been sentenced in absentia to a life term for his role in the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
 
His arrest comes almost 30 years to the day after police caught Salvatore “Toto” Riina, Cosa Nostra’s biggest figure of the 20th century, and marks the last step in efforts to dismantle the group’s historical clan leadership.
 
Experts describe Cosa Nostra, its fame amplified by movies such as “The Godfather,” as an ailing crime group facing several difficulties, including competition in the highly lucrative drugs market.
 
Although Cosa Nostra retains control of its Sicilian territory and a capacity to infiltrate the broader economy, it has been supplanted by groups such as the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta in the drugs trade.
 
Sergi said it was not clear who would step in to replace Messina Denaro in what is now a more factionalised mafia.
 
https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-administration-urges-judges-to-lift-stay-on-cdcs-airplane-mask-mandate_4990674.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport
 
President Joe Biden’s administration in a court hearing on Jan. 17 urged judges on a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling from a lower court that struck down the administration’s airplane mask mandate.
 
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had “good cause” to impose the mandate and bypass the notice- and comment period required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Brian Springer, an attorney for the government, told judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
 
At the time the mandate was imposed, in early 2021, “there were variants that had just been detected that showed signs of increased transmissibility, and people were starting to travel again,” Springer said. “In those circumstances, the CDC had good cause to issue this order, particularly when the CDC detailed the reasons why in this particular environment, namely in the transportation sector and in transportation settings, COVID had a specific tendency to spread among people who are traveling together because they’re standing together in lines and sitting together on conveyances.”
 
One of the judges expressed skepticism with the line of thinking, accusing the CDC of issuing “boilerplate” language to impose the mandate without a notice and comment period. Under a ruling in a separate case, boilerplate statements that COVID-19 exists and that there’s a public emergency aren’t sufficient to satisfy the “good cause” exception to the APA. Springer disagreed, saying the CDC’s statement provided rationale that met the standard.
 
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump appointee, said in her 2022 ruling that the CDC violated the APA by only issuing a singl