Truck caravan with far-right links heads to Capitol
Billed as an event to oppose COVID-19 mandates, a truck caravan that left California for Washington, D.C., Wednesday appeared to be aligned with far-right organizations. Many behind the demonstration, which follows recent Canadian protests, have connections to the January 2021 attack on the Capitol or supported the lie that fraud was to blame for Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss. About 40 truckers rolled out Wednesday from California, and a rally drew about 100 more vehicles. The group behind the convoy is demanding an end to the national emergency declared by Trump in March 2020 and extended by President Joe Biden.
DOJ to end Trump-era initiative to deter Chinese threats
The Justice Department said Wednesday that it was ending a contentious Trump-era effort to fight Chinese national security threats that critics said unfairly targeted professors of Asian descent. A top Justice Department official, Matthew Olsen, said the Justice Department will retire the China Initiative name and set a higher bar for prosecutions of academics and researchers who lie to the government about Chinese affiliations. The more “comprehensive approach” addresses the alarming rise in illegal activity from other hostile nations, which would extend beyond China, Olsen said.
North Carolina court imposes new district map, eliminating GOP edge
A North Carolina court rejected a Republican-drawn map of the state’s 14 congressional districts Wednesday and substituted its own version, the second time in less than two weeks that a state court has invalidated a Republican House map as unconstitutionally partisan. The new map, drawn by a panel of redistricting experts, appeared to split North Carolina’s congressional districts roughly equally between Republicans and Democrats. It gives each party six relatively safe House seats and makes the remaining two winnable by either side. The Republican-drawn map that was rejected would have awarded the GOP six safe seats and Democrats four.
Ivanka Trump in talks with Jan. 6 panel about being interviewed
Ivanka Trump, former President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter who served as one of his senior advisers, is in talks with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol about the possibility of sitting for an interview, according to two people familiar with the discussions. It was not immediately clear whether the negotiations were simply a stalling tactic, as some committee aides fear. But it was the latest example of the panel trying to reach into the former president’s inner circle to ascertain what he was doing and saying as rioters stormed the Capitol in his name.
Sea ice around Antarctica reaches a record low
Sea ice around Antarctica has reached a record low in four decades of observations, a new analysis of satellite images shows. As of Tuesday, ice covered 750,000 square miles around the Antarctic coast, below the previous record low of 815,000 square miles in early March 2017, according to the analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. Warmer ocean temperatures may have played a role, “but there are other factors that we will be working on finding out in the next months,” said Marilyn N. Raphael, a professor of geography at UCLA.
Retrial begins in killing of American in Greece
In the summer of 2017, Bakari Henderson, a 22-year-old American student, was beaten to death on the Greek island of Zakynthos. The men convicted in Henderson’s case were initially charged with murder, but a court instead found them guilty of assault and most have served their sentences and been released. On Wednesday, a court began in earnest to retry the case, again on murder charges. The retrial comes after a prosecutor deemed the assault convictions and subsequent sentences too lenient. The defendants were five Serbian nationals and a Briton of Bosnian descent.
Trudeau revokes emergency powers after Canada blockades end
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday he is removing emergency powers police can use after authorities ended the blockades at the borders and the occupation in Ottawa by truckers and others opposed to COVID-19 restrictions. Trudeau said the “threat continues” but the acute emergency that included entrenched occupations has ended. His government invoked the powers last week and lawmakers affirmed the powers late Monday.
Energy agency: Methane emissions higher than countries claim
The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that emissions of planet-warming methane from oil, gas and coal production are significantly higher than governments claim. The Paris-based agency said its analysis shows emissions are 70% higher than the official figure provided by governments worldwide. If all leaks were plugged, the methane captured would be enough to supply all of Europe’s power sector, it said. Experts say methane is responsible for almost a third of the temperature increase that has occurred since the start of the industrial revolution. The gas remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter period of time than carbon dioxide, however.
By wire sources