Congress nears passage of a bill to avert another Jan. 6 crisis
As the Jan. 6 committee wraps up its work, Congress is expected to take a major step this week toward preventing a repeat of the assault on the Capitol. The authors of legislation overhauling the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act anticipate that a bipartisan measure will pass the House and Senate and be signed into law as one element of a giant year-end spending bill. The measure seeks to close loopholes Donald Trump and his allies tried to exploit in stalling the electoral vote tally. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader, said last week that he was “optimistic” that the measure will be part of the spending bill.
Putin visits Belarus, stirring new concern on future of Ukraine war
President Vladimir Putin of Russia made a rare visit to Belarus on Monday to strengthen his bond with the country’s president and his closest regional ally, Alexander Lukashenko, a fellow strongman who has been under growing pressure from Moscow to provide more support for the war in Ukraine. Appearing together at a palace in Minsk after their talks, Putin and Lukashenko spoke about the need to withstand Western economic pressure. Putin said the two had also discussed the formation of a “unified defense space,” without describing what that would entail, and had agreed to continue joint military exercises.
Nearly every country signs on to a sweeping deal to protect nature
Roughly 190 countries on Monday approved a sweeping United Nations agreement to protect 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 and to take a slew of other measures against biodiversity loss, a mounting crisis that, if left unchecked, jeopardizes the planet’s food and water supplies as well as the existence of untold species. The agreement comes as biodiversity is declining worldwide at rates not seen before in human history. Researchers have projected that 1 million plants and animals are at risk of extinction, many within decades. The United States is one of just two countries in the world that are not party to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Dutch PM apologizes for his country’s role in the slave trade
Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands on Monday formally apologized on behalf of his government for the country’s role in abetting, stimulating, preserving and profiting from centuries of slave trading. “For hundreds of years, people were made merchandise, exploited and abused in the name of the Dutch state,” Rutte said. He also said Dutch governments had not done enough to acknowledge that slavery had had lasting negative effects since it was abolished in the Dutch colonies in 1863. The run-up to Rutte’s apology was fraught, with multiple groups of descendants saying that the government had not consulted them and that the occasion lacked any significance.
Elon Musk Twitter poll ends with users seeking his departure
Millions of Twitter users asked Elon Musk to step down as head of Twitter in a poll the billionaire created and promised to abide by. But by Monday afternoon there was no word from Musk on whether he’ll step aside or who a new leader might be. Twitter has grown more chaotic and confusing under Musk’s leadership with rapidly vacillating policies that are withdrawn or altered. Many of the votes for Musk to step down likely came from Tesla investors, who have grown tired of the 24/7 Twitter chaos, which they say has distracted the eccentric CEO from the electric car company, his main source of wealth.
FTX founder agrees to extradition to US, attorney says
Sam Bankman-Fried may be ready to come to the U.S. to face criminal charges related to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX following a chaotic court appearance in the Bahamas. A lawyer for Bankman-Fried was quoted as saying Monday that the disgraced FTX founder has agreed to be extradited to the United States. A court hearing was stopped earlier in the day when his attorneys said it was premature for him to stand before the court. Jerone Roberts, a local defense attorney for Bankman-Fried, told The New York Times that lawyers will prepare the necessary documents for extradition. It was not immediately clear when extradition could occur.
Children’s medicine shortage hits as flu season starts fast
Caring for sick children has become extra stressful for many U.S. parents recently due to shortages of Children’s Tylenol and other medicines. Doctors and other experts say the problem could persist through the winter cold-and-flu season. But they say it’s shouldn’t last as long as other recent shortages of baby formula or prescription drugs. Experts say a spike in demand due to recent rises in respiratory illness is behind the shortages. They also say parents have several alternatives to consider if they encounter empty store shelves. Your doctor may have some suggestions.
Homicides of children soared in the pandemic’s first year
As the pandemic spread across the United States in 2020, the number of children who were killed rose precipitously, as did the number injured by firearms, scientists reported in two studies Monday. A majority of the homicides were among Black children, and almost half were among children in the Southern United States. Each of those groups also accounted for most of the children brought to pediatric hospitals with gun injuries. The rate of child homicide in the U.S. rose by about 28% in 2020, from 2.2 per 100,000 in 2019 to 2.8 per 100,000 in 2020, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.
By wire sources
