Spill the Beans, Pence!

Start your day smarter with the most important world news, plus intriguing and offbeat stories. www.ozy.com [OZY]( [OZY]() Your World. Bold & Bright [Presidential Daily Brief]( Sponsored by [Cariuma]( Start your day smarter with a dossier on the most important world news, rounded off with a shot of intriguing and offbeat stories. Like the president, you deserve no less. Feb 10, 2023 Today Investigators subpoenaed Mike Pence in the Trump 2020 election probe. The death toll in Turkey and Syria pushed past 20,000. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni lashed out at European counterparts. And Nicaraguan political prisoners arrived in the U.S. after a sudden mass release. All this and more in today’s PDB. [GET ‘EM BEFORE THEY’RE GONE!]( [Cariuma]( If you missed them last time around, the sneakers you’ve heard us rave about from the cool sustainable sneaker brand, [Cariuma]( are back after clearing a 77k waitlist! With over twenty-thousand (😲) 5-star reviews, a vast range of colors, prints, and limited edition collabs, they’re sure to have exactly what you’re looking for to gear up for spring. And for a limited time, the OZY family can take 15% off your pair. Use the code [OZYFEB]( at checkout. [SHOP HERE]( IMPORTANT Front Up What Did Pence Know in 2020? Post Content: That’s the question investigators into former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election hope to learn in compelled testimony. Former Vice President Mike Pence was served in recent days, sources close to the investigation revealed Thursday. Pence has been effectively estranged from former boss Trump since the Jan. 6 2021 insurrection, and Pence appears poised to launch his own presidential run for 2024. It’s an escalation in tactics for special counsel Jack Smith and his team, all but guaranteed to spark a debate on executive privilege. Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien was also reportedly subpoenaed. (Sources: [AP](, [Reuters]() Disaster Response Moments of Hope and Global Help as Quake Death Toll Hits 21,000 More than 18,000 people have been killed in Turkey and another 3,000 in Syria — making Monday’s earthquake the seventh most deadly natural disaster in history. Days after the quake, rescuers continue to pull survivors from the rubble, including children. Rescue workers in both countries warn that hunger and cold weather will only exacerbate the crisis, but the global community has responded in kind. The U.S. Agency for International Development committed $85 million to the disaster with a focus on providing “hygiene and sanitation assistance to keep people safe and healthy,” the agency said in a statement. (Sources: [Reuters](, [BBC]() ‘You Can’t Sit With Us’ Meloni’s Zelenskyy Snub Sparks European Spat “I think our strength in this matter is community and unity,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Thursday, before slamming Germany and France for “privileging domestic public opinion” over the Ukrainian cause and a united European front. The comments follow a dinner with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Paris Wednesday night, to which Italy was not invited. It marks a new escalation in tensions between Italy and France since Meloni came into office last year on a wave of right-wing support. Zelenskyy is in Western Europe to drum up weapons donations. (Sources: [Al Jazeera](, [Politico]() Landed of the Free Hundreds of Nicaraguan Political Prisoners Released, Arrive in US Many of the more than 200 prisoners suddenly released by the Nicaraguan penitentiary system flew into the U.S. on Thursday. The U.S. State Department stressed that those who arrived in the U.S. had “voluntarily consented to travel” while others chose to stay in Nicaragua. Family of the prisoners were blindsided — but thrilled — by the news. “This has been a very long slog for us and I just can’t believe it,” Georgiana Aguirre-Sacasa, the daughter of jailed former foreign minister Francisco Aguirre-Sacasa, said. The releases come after a sharp authoritarian turn in the country under President Daniel Ortega. (Sources: [CNN](, [The Guardian]() Briefly Here are some things you should know about today: Bunker down. New Zealand has warned residents to brace for wild weather over the weekend and expect category 3 Cyclone Gabrielle to hit Auckland on Tuesday. It follows record flooding in the country earlier this month. (Source: [Stuff]() Bust. Negotiators from Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund failed to broker a deal for a $1.1 billion bail-out loan ahead of IMF representatives leaving Islamabad on Friday. Virtual discussions will continue. (Source: [BBC]() He’s back. Former President Donald Trump’s Instagram and Facebook accounts, deactivated in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, are back online ahead of next year’s presidential elections. Parent company Meta declined to issue a statement. (Source: [CBS News]() [A Special Offer For The OZY Family]( [Cariuma]( Look good while doing good with the cool sustainable sneaker brand, [Cariuma](. With over 20 thousand 5-star reviews and a waitlist that’s just cleared 77k, they’re not only a cult-favorite but have made OZY’s must-have closet staples for years now. Best of all, we’ve gotten OZY readers an exclusive code for 15% off. Use code [OZYFEB]( at checkout. [SHOP NOW]( INTRIGUING Mama’s Boys After a Son, Female Killer Whales Rarely Birth Again K16, an adult female orca spotted off the coast of Washington and British Columbia, gave birth to a male calf 20 years ago. She’s still finding him food. “These two have an extremely close social relationship,” Michael Weiss, the research director at the Center for Whale Research, said. Orcas that birth female calves cut the proverbial cord early on, Weiss and the research team found. But when it’s a male calf, moms rarely have another birth. The connection between mom and son whales is so strong, Weiss found, males typically die within a year or two of their mothers. (Source: [NPR]() Bang for Buck As Cash Crunch Bites, Advertisers Get Creative for Super Bowl Ad slots this year are selling for “north of $7 million,” FOX Sports revealed — not counting production costs. “It’s not just the ad time, it’s everything that goes around it, all the other events, all the other activities, that becomes wildly expensive,” marketing expert Tim Calkins said. So for some brands, teaming up is a no-brainer. Netflix, a Super Bowl staple, will run spots together with other advertising classics GM and Anheuser-Busch. Think a Caddyshack-themed ode to beer and electric vehicles. Viewers, including non-Netflix subscribers, will be gifted access to an episode of docuseries Full Swing via a QR code. (Source: [Hollywood Reporter]() Mystery Solved This Gibbon in Japan Is no Virgin Mary Momo, a 12-year-old white-handed gibbon, has had her handlers at the Kujukushima Zoo and Botanical Garden in Nagasaki scratching their heads since she gave birth in February 2021. At the time, Momo lived alone. Testing on the baby’s DNA found the father is Itō, a 34-year-old agile gibbon housed in an adjacent enclosure. Zoo workers knew who, but how remained elusive. Now, they believe the still-unnamed baby gibbon was conceived via a very unromantic 0.3-inch “glory hole” connecting the two spaces. “It is a precious life born into the world,” Hideki Hisano, deputy director of the zoo, said. (Source: [CNN]() Game On In Kansas, Indigenous Activists Won’t Celebrate the Super Bowl Rhonda LeValdo, founder of the Kansas City-based Indigenous activist group Not In Our Honor, won’t be cheering on the Kansas City Chiefs in Monday’s Super Bowl in Arizona. The team’s insistence on using Native American imagery means Indigenous Kansans are left out of the fun: “It’s not bringing our people into this celebration together. Really, it’s hurting us more because now it’s the bigger spotlight where you’re seeing this all over the world,” LeValdo said. Indigenous activists have had success in recent years in dropping caricature mascots and renaming teams, but Chiefs President Mark Donovan hasn’t flagged any changes. (Source: [AP]() A Win Student-Athletes in Florida Won’t be Probed on Menstrual History High schools in the Sunshine State will no longer ask students five menstruation questions on the “pre-participation physical evaluation form.” The decision to drop the questions was made during an emergency meeting of the Florida High School Athletic Association’s board of directors on Thursday evening. The board voted 14-2 in favor of removing the questions. Ire rose among students, parents and healthcare professionals after the association’s medical board last month suggested making the questions mandatory. Student athlete data is stored digitally, sparking fears that in a post-Roe v. Wade era this information could be used by authorities. (Source: [CBS News]() NOW STREAMING FROM OZY STUDIO COMMUNITY What else are you curious about? 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