GOP stumbles with independents contributed to midterm woes
A sweeping national survey of the electorate, AP VoteCast, finds that Republican House candidates nationwide won the support of 38% of independent voters during last month’s midterm elections. That lackluster showing among independents helps explain why the GOP flipped just nine House seats. The party secured a threadbare majority in the House that has already raised questions about its ability to govern. Some Republican strategists say it’s a sign that messages that resonate during party primaries, including searing critiques of President Joe Biden, were less effective in the general election campaign. The reason, they say, is because independent voters were searching for more than just the opposition.
Flight cancellations strand thousands
Thousands of travelers were stranded at U.S. airports on Monday as a wave of canceled flights — many of them operated by Southwest Airlines — spoiled holiday plans and kept families from returning home during one of the busiest and most stressful travel stretches of the year. The cancellations and delays one day after Christmas left people sleeping on airport floors, standing in hourslong customer service lines and waiting on tarmacs for hours on end. The problems are likely to continue into Tuesday and later this week. As of Monday night, about 2,600 U.S. flights scheduled for Tuesday were already canceled, including 60% of all Southwest flights.
4th Washington state electrical substation vandalized
A fourth electrical substation was vandalized late on Christmas Day in Washington state, leaving homes in Kapowsin and Graham temporarily without power. By 7 a.m. Monday, more than 10,500 Puget Sound Energy customers were without electricity across the region. The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office says the suspects broke into a fenced area and vandalized equipment, causing a fire. The fire was extinguished and power was later restored, but no suspects are in custody. The attacks come as federal officials are warning that the U.S. power grid needs better security to prevent domestic terrorism and after a large outage in North Carolina earlier this month that took days to repair.
Ukraine FM aims for February peace summit
Ukraine’s foreign minister has said that his nation wants a summit to end the war but he doesn’t anticipate Russia taking part, a statement making it hard to foresee the devastating invasion ending soon. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told The Associated Press that his government wants a peace summit within two months at the United Nations with Secretary-General António Guterres as mediator. Kuleba told The Associated Press that Russia must face a war-crimes tribunal before his country talks with Moscow but that other nations should talk feel free to negotiate, as happened with a grain agreement between Turkey and Russia.
COVID is spreading rapidly in China, new signs suggest
Since China abandoned its restrictive “zero-COVID” policy about two weeks ago, the intensity and magnitude of the country’s first nationwide outbreak has remained largely a mystery. Now, a picture is emerging of the virus spreading like wildfire. One province and three cities have reported COVID-19 estimates far exceeding official tallies in recent days. At a news conference Sunday, for example, an official in Zhejiang province, home to 65 million people, estimated that daily COVID cases there had exceeded 1 million. The numbers contrast sharply with those from China’s national health commission, which Friday reported about 4,000 COVID cases for the entire country.
Heavy snow in Japan leaves 17 dead, dozens injured
Large swaths of Japan are seeing heavy snow since last week, killing 17 and leaving hundreds of homes without power. Powerful winter fronts have dumped heavy snow in northern coastal regions since last week, stranding hundreds of vehicles on highways, delaying delivery services and causing 11 deaths by Saturday. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said Monday that snowfall over the Christmas weekend after heavy snow last week caused more casualties, bringing the number of dead to 17 and injured to 93 by Monday morning. Many of them had fallen while removing snow from the roofs or were buried underneath thick piles of falling rooftop snow.
By wire sources