[KARAH RUCKER]

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, IS DEBATE DAY IN THE U.S. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN AND FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP WILL TAKE THE STAGE AT CNN’S STUDIOS IN ATLANTA THURSDAY NIGHT. 

THE CABLE NEWS NETWORK IS HOSTING THE DEBATE WITH ANCHORS JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH MODERATING. 

BOTH BIDEN AND TRUMP HAVE LONG AGREED TO CNN’S RULES: 

NO LIVE AUDIENCE. 

MICS WILL BE MUTED WHEN ITS THE OTHER CANDIDATE’S TURN TO SPEAK. 

PODIUMS ARE EIGHT FEET APART — WHICH IS CLOSER THAN THE LAST TIME BIDEN AND TRUMP MET ON A DEBATE STAGE IN 2020 — WHEN THE PODIUMS WERE POSITIONED 12 FEET APART DURING THE PANDEMIC.  

PRESIDENT BIDEN WON THE COIN TOSS – 

CHOOSING TO STAND “STAGE LEFT” — WHICH SHOWS AS THE RIGHT SIDE OF YOUR TELEVISION SCREEN — 

THIS GIVES TRUMP THE FINAL WORD OF THE NIGHT. 

THE EVENT IS 90 MINUTES LONG. 

TWO COMMERCIAL BREAKS. 

THOUGH CNN IS THE HOST FOR THE EVENING – OTHER NETWORKS WILL BE ALLOWED TO AIR IT AT THE SAME TIME. 

THIS WILL BE THE EARLIEST A GENERAL ELECTION DEBATE AS EVER BEEN HELD WITH WEEKS TO GO BEFORE BOTH PARTIES HOLD THEIR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS — 

TO OFFICIALLY SECURE THEIR PARTY NOMINATIONS.   

THERE WILL BE A SECOND DEBATE IN SEPTEMBER HOSTED BY ABC. 

A TEXAS MAN WHO KIDNAPPED, SEXUALLY ASSAULTED, AND FATALLY SHOT AN 18-YEAR-OLD WOMAN IN 2001 WAS PUT TO DEATH WEDNESDAY NIGHT — ON WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HIS VICTIM’S 41-ST BIRTHDAY. 

RAMIRO GONZALES WAS PRONOUNCED DEAD JUST BEFORE 7 P-M AT THE STATE PRISON IN HUNTSVILLE… FOR THE KILLING OF BRIDGET TOWNSEND. 

THE SUPREME COURT DENIED A DEFENSE PLEA TO INTERVENE LESS THAN TWO HOURS BEFORE THE EXECUTION. 

GONZALES USED HIS FINAL WORDS TO APOLOGIZE TO TOWNSEND’S FAMILY. 

GONZALES WAS ALSO SERVING TWO LIFE SENTENCES FOR KIDNAPPING AND RAPING ANOTHER WOMAN. 

THIS EXECUTION WAS THE SECOND THIS YEAR IN TEXAS AND THE 8-TH IN THE U-S. 

IT WAS ALSO THE FIRST OF TWO SCHEDULED THIS WEEK IN THE U-S. 

TODAY — OKLAHOMA IS SCHEDULED TO EXECUTE RICHARD ROJEM (ROW-JEM) FOR THE 19-84 ABDUCTION, RAPE, AND MURDER OF A 7-YEAR-OLD GIRL. 

THE WHITE HOUSE SAYS THE U-S AND ISRAEL HAVE WORKED THROUGH SO-CALLED “MISUNDERSTANDINGS” ABOUT WEAPONS SHIPMENTS AS ISRAEL’S DEFENSE MINISTER IS IN THE U-S MEETING WITH TOP DEFENSE OFFICIALS THIS WEEK TO BROKER A SOLUTION TO THE WAR IN GAZA. 

THE MEETINGS COME AFTER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU RELEASED A VIDEO LAST WEEK —  

SAYING THE U-S WAS SLOWING WEAPONS SHIPMENTS PROMISED TO ISRAEL. — ACCUSATIONS THE U.S. DENIED.  

HOWEVER — THE PAUSE ON SENDING LARGE BOMBS THAT’S BEEN IN PLACE SINCE MAY WHEN PRESIDENT BIDEN VOICED CONCERNS ABOUT THEIR POTENTIAL USE IN POPULATED AREAS … IS STILL UNDER REVIEW — SO THOSE SHIPMENTS WILL NOT BE GOING OUT JUST YET. 

ISRAEL’S DEFENSE MINISTER MAKING THIS STATEMENT AFTER WEDNESDAY’S MEETING: 

YOAV GALLANT | ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER 

“In every family – and we consider the American people as our family – disagreements may arise. Yet, like all families, we discuss our disagreements in-house, and remain united.” 

“Looking at the future, we stand firmly behind the President’s deal, which Israel has accepted, and now Hamas must accept, or bear the consequences. We are committed to bringing the hostages home, with no exception. We are committed to defending our people.” 

ALSO ON WEDNESDAY — DEMOCRATIC PENNSYLVANIA SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN TRAVELED TO ISRAEL TO MEET WITH NETANYAHU. 

FETTERMAN HAS BEEN A vocal SUPPORTER OF ISRAEL SINCE THE WAR WITH HAMAS BEGAN — A POSITION THAT’S ISOLATED HIM FROM MANY OF HIS PROGRESSIVE SUPPORTERS. 

IN A VIDEO — NETANYAHU THANKED FETTERMAN FOR HIS UNWAVERING SUPPORT… SAYING “ISRAEL HAS HAD NO BETTER FRIEND.” 

AFTER RAMMING THE DOORS TO BOLIVIA’S GOVERNMENT PALACE WITH ARMORED VEHICLES — SOLDIERS PULLED BACK IN THE COUNTRY’S CAPITAL OF LA (LAH) PAZ (PAHZ) WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND AN ARMY GENERAL WAS ARRESTED — WITH BOLIVIA’S PRESIDENT SLAMMING THE “COUP” ATTEMPT AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT AND CALLED FOR INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT. 

IN A REBELLION THAT LASTED JUST THREE HOURS — BOLIVIAN TROOPS SEEMED TO TAKE CONTROL OF THE GOVERNMENT… UNTIL THE PRESIDENT NAMED A NEW ARMY COMMANDER — WHO IMMEDIATELY ORDERED THE TROOPS TO STAND DOWN. 

LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT BOLIVIA’S DEFENSE MINISTER SAID “EVERYTHING IS NOW UNDER CONTROL.” 

THE APPARENT COUP ATTEMPT CAME AS THE COUNTRY HAS FACED MONTHS OF TENSIONS AND POLITICAL FIGHTS BETWEEN ITS PRESIDENT AND FORMER PRESIDENT OVER CONTROL OF THE RULING PARTY — AND A SEVERE ECONOMIC CRISIS. 

IT’S THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA IN ‘PANDA DIPLOMACY.’  

THE SAN DIEGO ZOO’S NEWEST GIANT PANDAS ARE ON THEIR WAY FROM CHINA  — MARKING THE FIRST TIME BEIJING LOANED PANDAS TO THE U-S IN TWO DECADES. 

CHINESE STATE MEDIA REPORTS THE TWO PANDAS LEFT CHINA WEDNESDAY NIGHT — FOR A CHARTERED FLIGHT TO THEIR NEW HOME IN CALIFORNIA. 

ZOO OFFICIALS SAY THE PANDAS WON’T BE VIEWABLE TO THE PUBLIC FOR A FEW WEEKS — AS THEY GET USED TO THEIR NEW SURROUNDINGS. 

THE PANDA LOAN MARKS A STEP FORWARD FOR RELATIONS BETWEEN THE U-S AND CHINA AS THEY TRY TO REPAIR TIES STRAINED BY DISPUTES OVER TRADE, TECHNOLOGY, THE STATUS OF TAIWAN AND OTHER ISSUES BETWEEN THE WORLD’S TWO LARGEST ECONOMIES. 

FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN THE ROW – A BASKETBALL PLAYER FROM FRANCE WAS SELECTED FIRST IN THE NBA DRAFT —  

AND SEVERAL OTHER RISING STARS FROM THE COUNTRY WOULD SHORTLY FOLLOW.  

ADAM SILVER | NBA COMMISSIONER   

“With the first pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, the Atlanta Hawks Zaccharie Risacher from Leon, France and France’s JL  Bourg in France.” 

THE 19-YEAR-OLD 6-FOOT-9 FORWARD BECAME THE 15TH INTERNATIONAL PLAYER TO GO AT NUMBER ONE. 

RISACHER (REE-ZAH-SHAY) WAS THE FIRST OF FOUR FRENCH PLAYERS TAKEN IN THE FIRST ROUND – INCLUDING ALEX SARR — SELECTED SECOND BY THE WASHINGTON WIZARDS. 

[LAUREN TAYLOR]

DANISH COWS ARE SET TO GET A LOT MORE EXPENSIVE.

DENMARK IS SET TO BECOME THE FIRST COUNTRY ON EARTH TO TAX FARMERS FOR THE GREENHOUSE GASSES THEIR COWS, PIGS AND SHEEP CRANK OUT. ALL IN THE NAME FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE.

RESEARCH SHOWS THE AVERAGE COW EMITS UP TO 84 GALLONS OF METHANE EVERY DAY, SO THE DANISH GOVERNMENT AGREED TO IMPOSE A NEW EMISSIONS TAX ON LIVESTOCK STARTING IN 2030.

THE TAX BILL WILL BE LARGE FOR THE DANES, SINCE THE COUNTRY IS A MAJOR EXPORTER OF DAIRY AND PORK.

THE REPORTED COST TO FARMERS WILL BE AROUND 100 DOLLARS PER COW PER YEAR.

THAT’S RAISING A STINK AMONG SOME IN THE AG INDUSTRY. 

A SPOKESPERSON FOR A DANISH FARMERS GROUP SAID THEY RECOGNIZE CLIMATE CHANGE IS A PROBLEM BUT CALLED THE AGREEMENT “PURE BUREAUCRACY.”

OTHERS WERE LUKEWARM, EUROPE’S LARGEST DAIRY GROUP’S CEO SAID THE AGREEMENT WAS “POSITIVE” BUT FARMERS WHO “GENUINELY DO EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO REDUCE EMISSIONS” SHOULD NOT FACE THE TAX. ADDING THE TAX SHOULD “BE BASED ON EMISSIONS FOR WHICH THERE ARE MEANS TO ELIMINATE THEM.”

FROM STORIES ON AG TO CLIMATE CHANGE— DOWNLOAD THE STRAIGHT ARROW NEWS APP– AND SIGN UP FOR NEWS UPDATES.

Simone Del Rosario: Taxpayer-funded sports stadiums, deal or no deal? In two days this week, two cities committed nearly $1.5 billion in public money to keep their NFL teams in town.

But did taxpayers get a say? In both Charlotte and Jacksonville, city councils made the calls. 

Charlotte committed $650 million in taxpayer dollars for stadium renovations to keep the Panthers in town for the next 20 years. 

While Jacksonville city council is giving $775 million in public funds to renovate the Jaguars EverBank stadium. That’s in exchange for a 30-year commitment to squash those pervasive relocation rumors. 

Victor Matheson: The entire city council of Jacksonville can fit in the owner’s box. The entire electorate of Jacksonville can’t. 

Simone Del Rosario: Before the Jacksonville city council voted 14-1 in favor of the funds, Jacksonvillians stepped up to the mic. 

Jacksonville resident: Many of us who came out here today took off work just to tell you how repulsed we were about this new stadium. 

Jacksonville resident: Not one dime is going to the community that this proposal was made around. It’s shameful. 

Simone Del Rosario: While Jacksonville’s mayor sang a different tune.

Jacksonville mayor Donna Deegan: We can reach historic generational progress when we focus and we work together for a singular goal. Together.

Simone Del Rosario: But does it do what she said…create generational progress? The numbers don’t lie, we’re talking with sports economist and professor at the College of the Holy Cross, Victor Matheson. 

The argument to taxpayers, when you put up these levels of public funds for stadium is that the city will get it back in the economic benefit. Do you find that to be to the case?

Victor Matheson: Well, so economists who are not associated with the leagues or the teams have been looking at this, this idea, for over 30 years now, and it is the overwhelming consensus of independent economists that spending money on public stadiums, spending taxpayer money is an extremely poor use of public money. The approximate amount of economic impact you get from stadiums is somewhere between zero and very low.

Simone Del Rosario: Zero and very low. Would you say that there’s not a single case where public funds for a stadium are worthwhile? 

Victor Matheson: So you can probably argue for some level of public funding. It’s a level of public funding that is way below that we were seeing in cases like Jacksonville and Charlotte this year and the amount that are being proposed for other stadium proposals, for example, a new Kansas City stadium for both the Royals and the chiefs. So there is a public role for things like infrastructure, certainly putting in millions, or even 10s of millions of dollars to make sure that people can get to the businesses they want to get to. That’s a core function of government. We can also understand that, to at least some extent, sports teams are a public good that are enjoyed by everyone, not just the fans of the team. So we’ve have studies of that about the feel good effect that a team has. As a matter of fact, we have an academic study on Jacksonville itself, talking about what the feel good effect was back when the original stadium was built, and it was about $30 million so in today’s money, we would probably be, you know, 5070, maybe even $100 million you could justify, but nowhere close to the $600 million In subsidies that we’ve been seeing recently for NFL stadiums.

Simone Del Rosario: Okay, you’ve caught my interest. What is the feel good economics behind it? What goes into that?

Victor Matheson: So feel good economics is you ask people, okay, we know how much people are willing to pay actually, for tickets, because we can actually see those people buy tickets. But what you do is you ask a bunch of people who aren’t season ticket holders who don’t buy jerseys, who don’t go to games. And you say, Well, how much would you be willing to spend in in the way of increased taxes every year just to have this team in town, even if you never plan on going right? So that captures what people who aren’t otherwise paying for the stadium and for the team would be willing to spend, and people fill out basically questionnaires asking those sort of questions. And we see this all over the place and again for Jacksonville, the Jacksonville folks, again, 20 years ago, said that they valued the team, collectively as a city, at about $30 million in terms of value, even if you don’t go to the games, even if you don’t watch the games at home on TV.

Simone Del Rosario: Yeah, and it stretches a lot further, or farther than just the city in question. I was looking into this a little bit more, and especially when public funds are used, and then you add in these like tax exempt bonds, this ends up being federally subsidized, doesn’t it? So someone in Nebraska could be paying for a little piece of a different stadium project that’s nowhere near them.

Victor Matheson: No even it gets even worse, right? So a deal like the Buffalo Bills, it’s not just that someone in Nebraska is paying for the Buffalo Bills. Someone in Boston, who’s a Patriots fan pays for part of the stadium of their arch rivals, someone in Boston who’s a Red Sox fan pays for part of the Yankee Stadium. So obviously, that’s great for the Yankees. Great for the bills, not so great for taxpayers around the rest of the country.

Simone Del Rosario: And Victor. You can explain that phenomena better than I can about why these taxpayers across the country are paying for this too.

Victor Matheson: So sometimes it’s just explicit, right? So sometimes the tax subsidies that you’re getting for billing stadiums are being paid for not just by the city or the county in which a stadium takes place, but might be state subsidies. So that’s pretty obvious, right? So in the case of the Buffalo Bills, about half of the subsidy for the stadium came from New York state money. Most of that money is coming from folks on Long Island. Most of that money is coming from folks in New York City, because that’s where all the money is in New York. It’s not in it’s not in Buffalo, right? It’s not in Albany, it’s not in Rochester. So that’s coming from places outside of upstate New York. The other thing that can happen is if, if a stadium is paid for at least in part, with tax exempt bonds, what that means is that the owners of those bonds are getting a lower interest rate because they don’t have to pay taxes on those bonds. But guess what that means? The federal government that runs on taxes has to collect. Taxes some other place because they’re not collecting taxes on this set of bonds. And a group of economists worked on that a few years ago and published that work and found that the total amount of municipal bond subsidy was in the was in the billions of dollars of subsidies to professional sports teams from regular taxpayers all across the country, whether they have a professional franchise in their state or not. 

Simone Del Rosario: Let’s take it back down to the city level here. Why do public funds continue to be used when to your point, independent economics proves that it’s bad economics. 

Victor Matheson: One of the reasons is because owners are terrible to their customers, right? And in order to get a get a an opportunity to make more money, they are willing to sell out their existing customers, all of the leagues, all of the big leagues, the NFL, the National Basketball League, Major League Baseball, these leagues have exactly the same number of teams today that they had 20 years ago, which means that what essentially, when you set a fixed number of franchises, that means that gives a lot of leverage to every franchise, because if someone else wants a team, they have to steal it from another city, and Jacksonville was a place that Is that could be very high on the list of franchises that could be stolen. Same thing with Buffalo Bills. These are both small, these are both small metropolitan areas. And there’s probably better other better places in the country to put a team. If you are a regular business, you just open up a new team. There a new shop, there a new business there, right? But if you’re the NFL, you want to extract money out of local taxpayers by threatening relocation of that team, and that’s exactly and explicitly what was done in Jacksonville. The city leaders say we are justifying this, not on economic reasons, but because we are terrified that we’ll lose this team if we don’t give into the extortion of Shaheed Khan, the owner of the Jaguars.

Simone Del Rosario: Yeah, and I’m speaking as a San Diego Chargers fan who dealt with what happens when voters do not approve stadium funds and the team goes.

Victor Matheson: Right, so you lose your team. And that’s that’s San Diego. And of course, the big difference there between what went on in Jacksonville, and what went on in San Diego is San Diego voters had the option to decide what how they wanted to spend their money. And they said, Hey, we love the chargers, but we don’t love spending a billion dollars of our taxpayer money to enrich a billionaire team owner. We’d rather spend that money on, for example, a better Convention Center to keep so that we can continue to have a great comic con. Tony Hawk was there campaigning against the stadium. Said, Hey, you’d rather have that money spent on skateboard parks around San Diego than on a new stadium. And so the voters got a chance, but the voters in Jacksonville didn’t get a chance because the team owners and the city council, they know that these stadium projects are unpopular. The voters in Charlotte also another stadium project that was approved this week, they didn’t get a chance. So it’s taxpayers not getting the opportunity to actually have a say about how their money gets spent. Of course, one of the reasons that city councilors are much more giving of funds than taxpayers. Is the city councilors. They get wined and dined by the team owners. The entire city council of Jacksonville can fit in the owner’s box the entire electorate of Jacksonville can’t?

Simone Del Rosario: I love that analogy, and when they put this issue in front of voters, increasingly, voters are saying, No, we’re seeing that in Kansas City right now. Voters rejected that sales tax for the new downtown ballpark and renovations to arrowhead, and now there’s talk of potentially moving the Kansas City teams over to Kansas City, Kansas. I know a lot of people don’t you know that aren’t familiar with the area. Don’t know that there’s two Kansas cities right next to each other. There, what would Kansas gain by giving those teams the state benefits that they would be looking for?

Victor Matheson: So from a dollars and cents issue, not much the amount of additional economic activity that Kansas will gain because of the chiefs moving across the state line is, by every measure, less than what they will lose in in taxpayers subsidies building that stadium. So this is not a great deal for them. And and again, no one’s considering putting this in front of Kansas voters. They’re only considering putting it in front of Kansas, Kansas lawmakers, again, taking it out of the hands of the taxpayer, putting into the hands of politicians, is what team owners. Team owners want, because it’s a whole lot easier to convince a small number of legislators than it is to convince a large number of taxpayers that you should enrich. Which the already billionaire owners in the NFL or major league baseball or the NBA.

Simone Del Rosario: And who decides whether it goes to vote or it goes to city council?

Victor Matheson: Often, it’s the City Council itself. Alright. Occasionally, you do get things that taxpayer coalitions will force things to go to the ballot but but often, owners will use a tricks to try to keep things off the ballot. So they will call us something, even if it’s a complete uh, demolishing of a stadium and rebuilding a new stadium in the same place you might just keep a tiny bit of the stadium in place. So you can laughably call it a remodeling. And therefore the City Council says, oh, no, no. This isn’t a new stadium project. This is, this is just repairs and maintenance of the addition of the existing stadium. So therefore, this doesn’t have to come before a vote. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what happened in Chicago when the new Soldier Field was built. At the time, just the rehabilitation of the old Soldier Field cost more than any Stadium in US history, yet they cleverly called it a remodel by keeping a handful of old stone columns from the original stadium in the new design. And therefore it didn’t have to become go before the voters, where it was looking very unlikely like the voters wanted to hand over their money again to a billionaire owner,

Simone Del Rosario: This is a tough topic, because the facts are what they are. You pointed it out. And if you look at a number of research out there, the facts are, is that the the economics of any kind of publicly funded stadium, especially to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars like we’re seeing in these latest deals, is just not good for the taxpayer. But I’m going to ask us to put on our devil’s advocate hat. What does a stadium project do for the area? There has to be some economic benefit, even if it doesn’t pay for itself.

Victor Matheson: So we do know that stadiums, first of all, they are going to generate some revenue in the area. They just generally don’t generate enough revenue to pay for, you know, the the bond payments on a billion dollar stadium or a $2 billion stadium, they do, generally not in the NFL, but in other in other leagues where you have games more often, such as major league baseball or NBA, they often cause some level of gentrification of the local area around the stadium, and so you know, again, you’ll get you’ll get money being spent at local bars and restaurants, at retail right around in the area. We do know that professional sports are pretty good, actually, at changing where money is spent in a local economy. The problem is they’re just not very good at generating new economic activity in an economy. So either they’re just having people spend money at the stadium or the area around the stadium, rather than in other entertainment options in the area, or they, or they, they serve to have people spend money on football rather than other types of entertainment options.

Simone Del Rosario: I’m glad you brought this up, because then we get to talk about the transfer of wealth that you’re alluding to right now, where research shows that the regional economy remains unchanged if a stadium moved, say, 20 minutes down the road. So it’s just the specific location that gets the boom in economic benefit, but that doesn’t it just it’s flat for the rest of the region, isn’t that, right? So Arlington, you know the ballparks there, or the stadiums there. Sorry, I’m baseball minded.

Victor Matheson: So again, there’s, there’s no doubt that you will have a change in how money is spent in a local area. If you’re in Atlanta, a new baseball stadium in Cobb County really relocates some economic activity out of Fulton County Downtown up to Cobb County, where the new stadium is. It also relocates money within Cobb County from restaurants and bars around the county to a small, more concentrated district called the battery, right around where the stadium is. Same thing happens when the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals float the idea of moving out of DC into into Virginia. Again, it doesn’t change the total amount of economic activity that occurs in the metro area, but it does change where some of that spending occurs and and importantly, in the cases both of Kansas and Missouri as well as Washington, DC and Virginia, it changes, you know, the side of a of this imaginary line right from from Missouri to Kansas or from DC to Virginia, which is it does have certainly some economic impact, but again, it’s more changing up who gets the money, not how much money is actually out there.

Simone Del Rosario: We’ve got the Olympics coming up in a month now, and there’s always a lot of conversation where Olympics are being hosted about the investment. That goes into that for certain infrastructure projects, stadiums, etc. And I’m thinking specifically, we just talked to someone who was crucial in getting the 96 Atlanta games there, and he made a really good point that while that was actually largely a privately funded affair, the investment that was made for the Atlanta Olympics wouldn’t have been spent. Otherwise it was something that was done, that infusion of spending in the area was done specifically because the Olympics were coming to town. Can the same argument be made? And I guess do you even agree with that level of the argument that something like the Olympics brings in an infusion of spending that wouldn’t actually be there otherwise, can the same argument be made for stadiums with Jacksonville not be spending $775 million on some other benefit to the city, if it weren’t for the stadium renovations, right?

Victor Matheson: So again, the in the Atlanta case, you did spend, you know, several billion dollars bringing the event there in terms of construction, and you also brought in several billion dollars of tourist money that was part of that. And with all these cases, it’s not as if that tourist money’s not a good thing. This is a little different than the case of of Jacksonville. You know, Jacksonville Jaguars regular season games. Most of the people coming to those games are local residents who are just spending their money there, rather than elsewhere in the Jacksonville economy. When you’ve got a mega event like the Atlanta Olympics or the Paris Olympics coming up, this is bringing new money from the outside into the city. And so of course, that is a benefit to the economy. The question though, is, how much did it cost you to bring that money in? So a typical Olympic Games will definitely bring in for a summer Olympics Games, at least $5 billion of additional spending into the city that hosts them. The problem is, most of the recent summer Olympics have cost in excess of 10 billion to host them. So again, it’s no one’s denying that you’re bringing in a lot of economic activity. The question is, what is it costing you to bring in that activity? And do you get any sort of lasting legacy of a cost? If it costs you more to bring this in than you’re getting right away, do you at least get some sort of legacy out of that? And most of the evidence suggests there’s not a particularly big legacy either, because in the case of the Olympics, no one needs a 10,000 seat swimming pool after the Olympics is done, no one needs a world class track facility or a or a velodrome. After all, the Olympics fans are gone. 

Simone Del Rosario: Victor, a lot of gems in this interview. Thank you so much for your time. Victor Matheson,

Victor Matheson: It’s my pleasure. Thank you. 

[RAY BOGAN]

The Supreme Court appears ready to allow abortions during medical emergencies in Idaho, according to a decision obtained by Bloomberg. 

The decision was briefly posted on the court’s website and removed. The press office said it was inadvertent and will be officially released in due course. 

According to the posted decision, which could change, the Justices will rule 6-3 that doctors at Idaho hospitals can perform abortions to protect the health of the mother. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissent. 

Although as Bloomberg points out – the court did not address broader questions, like whether state laws that create an outright ban on abortions conflict with a federal law that requires hospitals provide stabilizing care to patients experiencing an emergency. 

Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote in a concurring opinion: “Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is a delay.” 

“While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his dissent. The court “has simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents.”

The court’s decision in this case will lift a stay on a district court’s ruling. Now a San Francisco appeals court will consider the case on the merits.

[LAUREN TAYLOR]

ISIDORE OF SEVILLE CATHOLIC VIRTUAL SCHOOL IN OKLAHOMA CITY WAS SET TO OPEN THIS FALL AS THE NATION’S FIRST RELIGIOUS PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL .

HOWEVER – THE OKLAHOMA SUPREME COURT THIS WEEK RULED IT  UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

WHEN THE ARCHDIOCESE OF OKLAHOMA CITY PROPOSED THE CATHOLIC CHARTER SCHOOL, IT SAID IT WOULD EVANGELIZE THE CHURCH’S MISSION AND REQUIRE TEACHERS TO ALSO UPHOLD THE CHURCH’S VALUES IN THEIR PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL LIVES.

OKLAHOMA’S REPUBLICAN ATTORNEY GENERAL FILED A LAWSUIT LAST YEAR – CLAIMING THE RELIGIOUS CHARTER SCHOOL VIOLATES STATE AND FEDERAL LAW.

CHARTER SCHOOLS USE PUBLIC FUNDS AND HAVE TO MEET GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE STANDARDS BUT ARE NOT A PART OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT AND CAN CHOOSE THEIR OWN CURRICULUM. 

UNDER OKLAHOMA STATE LAW – THE STATE IS PROHIBITED FROM USING PUBLIC MONEY FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION.

ACCORDING TO THE HIGH COURT’S RULING – ST. ISIDORE “DOES NOT DISPUTE THAT IT IS A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. ITS PURPOSE IS ‘[T]O CREATE, ESTABLISH, AND OPERATE’ THE SCHOOL AS A CATHOLIC SCHOOL.”

JUSTICE WINCHESTER WROTE “HERE, THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT THE STATE WILL PROVIDE MONETARY SUPPORT TO TEACH A CATHOLIC CURRICULUM, AND STUDENTS AT ST. ISIDORE WILL BE REQUIRED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE RELIGIOUS CURRICULUM.”

 THE COURT SAID “THE STATE WILL BE DIRECTLY FUNDING A RELIGIOUS SCHOOL AND ENCOURAGING STUDENTS TO ATTEND IT.” AND THAT “THIS STATE’S ESTABLISHMENT OF A RELIGIOUS CHARTER SCHOOL VIOLATES OKLAHOMA STATUTES, THE OKLAHOMA CONSTITUTION, AND THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE.”

THE ARCHDIOCESE OF OKLAHOMA CITY SAID  THEY’RE DISAPPOINTED FOR THE HUNDREDS OF FAMILIES THAT WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO SENDING THEIR KIDS TO THE CHARTER SCHOOL THIS FALL AND THEY’RE PURSUING ALL LEGAL OPTIONS IN THE BELIEF “ST. ISIDORE WOULD HAVE AND COULD HAVE STILL BE A VALUABLE ASSET TO STUDENTS, REGARDLESS OF SOCIOECONOMIC, RACE OR FAITH BACKGROUNDS.”

FOR SAN, I’M LT…

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