Good morning.
Joe Biden said the US would not supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, in a brief exchange with reporters overnight, a significant and potentially terminal setback to Kyiv’s campaign to obtain the fast jets that had been rapidly gaining momentum.
The president, when asked at the White House if his country would provide F-16s, answered simply “no”, days after national security officials had said Washington would be discussing the issue “very carefully” with allies.
The brief exchange came shortly after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia had begun exacting its revenge for Ukraine’s resistance to its invasion with relentless attacks in the east. Ukraine planned to push for western fourth-generation fighter jets such as the F-16 after securing supplies of main battle tanks last week, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister said on Friday.
Zelenskiy has warned for weeks that Moscow aims to step up its assault on Ukraine after about two months of virtual stalemate along the frontline that stretches across the south and east. Ukraine won a huge boost last week when Germany and the US announced plans to provide heavy tanks, ending weeks of diplomatic deadlock on the issue.
Why won’t the US send fighter jets? John Kirby, the US national security council coordinator for strategic communications, defended the decision, highlighting the other military aid the US had sent since the war started, which had a total value of $27.1bn. “What I can tell you is that there’s a lot of capability that is being sent, and will be sent in the coming weeks and months,” Kirby told CNN.
Paul Pelosi attack: rightwing pundits backtrack after release of police video
Conservative commentators were forced to backtrack over conspiracy theories and jokes about the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, after the release of police video and audio last week.
While Republican leaders including Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell condemned the attack, prominent rightwingers including Donald Trump Jr, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Tesla and Twitter owner Elon Musk and Republican members of Congress including Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene spread jokes, misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Last week, a judge in San Francisco ordered the release of police and surveillance footage. This included CCTV footage showing David DePape breaking into Paul Pelosi’s home and bodycam footage when the police arrived. On Friday, the footage played widely on TV and online, leading some including Musk to apologise.
One Fox News commentator had to retreat from his claim there was no “evidence of a breaking and entering” when his host pointed out that footage of the attacker breaking into Pelosi’s home was playing on screen at the time.
“Got it,” Brian Claypool said. “Yeah. OK. Can’t we talk more about what is the DoJ doing?”
What’s happening with the case? The Department of Justice has charged Pelosi’s attacker, David DePape, with assault and attempted kidnapping. The 42-year-old also faces state charges including attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
Donald Trump sues Bob Woodward over The Trump Tapes for $50m
Donald Trump has sued Bob Woodward for a fraction less than $50m, claiming he did not agree to the veteran Washington Post reporter publishing tapes of their conversations as an audio book.
Woodward’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, and its parent company, Paramount Global, were also named as defendants.
The Trump Tapes was released in October 2022, under the subtitle Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews With President Donald Trump.
Amid generally positive reviews, the Guardian called the audiobook “a passport to the heart of darkness” of Trump’s presidency.
Woodward also wrote three print bestsellers about Trump and his administration: Fear, Rage and Peril – the last cowritten with Robert Costa. The interviews which formed The Trump Tapes were mostly carried out from December 2019 to August 2020, when Woodward was writing Rage.
What does the lawsuit say? In the suit filed in the northern district of Florida yesterday, lawyers for Trump said their case “centers on Mr Woodward’s systematic usurpation, manipulation and exploitation of audio of President Trump”.
What has Woodward said? When Trump first complained when the audiobook was released, Woodward was asked about Trump’s claim that he “never got his permission to release these tapes” by CNN. Woodward said: “Well, they were done voluntarily, it was all on the record. I had used some of it before. So he’s president and … so he’s out there. And this is out there to the tenth power.”
In other news …
A nine-year-old girl who had a neighbor call the police on her as she worked to eradicate invasive insects from her home town has earned honors from one of the US’s most prestigious universities. The Yale School of Public Health held a ceremony citing Bobbi Wilson’s efforts in tackling the spotted lanternfly,
Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing investigation as part of an inquiry into an alleged attempt to topple the country’s government, has filed a request for a six-month visitor visa to stay in the US. He entered the US on an A-1 visa reserved for sitting heads of state, which expires today.
Michael Jackson is to be portrayed by his nephew Jaafar Jackson in a biopic directed by Antoine Fuqua. The film, titled Michael, will be the first big film role for 26-year-old Jackson. He was chosen after the team behind the film searched the world for an actor to play the late singer.
The world is on the brink of breaching a critical climate threshold, according to a study published yesterday, signifying time is running exceedingly short to stop global heating before the 2C tipping point. Using AI, researchers found Earth was on track to exceed 1.5C warming in the next decade.
Don’t miss this: what would have saved Tyre Nichols’ life?
The heartbreak and anger in writing about police is that they never run out of people to kill, writes Derecka Purnell. “When I learned about Tyre Nichols’ death, I immediately noticed that almost all of the reforms that liberals suggest will save Black lives were present when he died. Diversity was not an issue: the five cops who killed him are all Black. The body cameras strapped to their chests did not deter their fists from delivering blow after blow. Memphis has about 2,000 cops, and if this were a ‘few bad apples’ in the department issue, then maybe they all happened to be working on the same shift. Cops did not shoot Tyre; they opted for a less deadlier force: they beat him for three minutes, shocked him and pepper-sprayed him. So what works?”
Tyre Nichols’ death: seven officers have been removed from duty, police confirm
… or this: sleeping late isn’t a sign of laziness. Stop the circadian-rhythm shaming
It’s January, the month of new year’s resolutions and other doomed efforts at self-improvement, writes Matthew Cantor. And what better way to make more of one’s life than rising earlier to seize the day? At least that’s what the voice in my head says as I hit the snooze alarm for the 10th time at 9.30am. Then it’s time to get up, racked with guilt at my laziness, as if sleeping in were some kind of ethical lapse. It’s not, of course. People’s sleep/wake cycles are inherently varied, and if you, too, are a late to bed, late to rise person, you’re simply a night owl – or, in clinical terms, you have a delayed sleep phase. It’s time for this circadian-rhythm-shaming to end. But night owls, take comfort: it’s not your fault. Your daily sleep-wake schedule, called your chronotype, appears to be mostly genetic.
Climate check: emissions divide now greater within countries than between them – study
The difference between the carbon emissions of the rich and the poor within a country is now greater than the differences in emissions between countries, data shows. The finding is further evidence of the growing divide between the “polluting elite” of rich people around the world, and the relatively low responsibility for emissions among the rest of the population. Most global climate policy has focused on the difference between developed and developing countries, and their current and historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. But a growing body of work suggests a “polluting elite” of those on the highest incomes globally are vastly outweighing the emissions of the poor.
Last thing: woke’s no joke – breakfast cafe’s name awakens US conservative ire
A Connecticut restaurant has been forced to defend itself in the face of conservative anger over its name: Woke. The owner of the newly opened restaurant, Carmen Quiroga, said she had intended to communicate “Wake up and have a coffee” when she named her business in Coventry, Connecticut. Instead, Quiroga opened a hornets’ nest, the Connecticut Post reported. Several people in a Coventry Facebook group complained about the restaurant being called Woke, a word that has become a derogatory term among the rightwing for people, concepts and even cartoon chocolate spokespeople who allegedly have liberal leanings. Quiroga, who emigrated to the US 17 years ago, told the Connecticut Post she was unaware that the term could be interpreted in such a fashion.
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