Good morning.
The January 6 committee has recommended criminal charges against Donald Trump, accusing the former president of fomenting an insurrection and conspiring against the government over his attempt to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, and the bloody attack on the US Capitol.
After the members of the panel approved the move, it referred Trump to the justice department to face criminal charges yesterday, which is the first time in American history that Congress has recommended charges against a former president. It comes after 18 months of investigation by the bipartisan House of Representatives panel tasked with understanding Trump’s plot to stop Joe Biden from taking office.
“The committee believes that more than sufficient evidence exists for a criminal referral of former president Trump for assisting or aiding and comforting those at the Capitol who engaged in a violent attack on the United States,” the congressman Jamie Raskin said as the lawmakers held their final public meeting.
“The committee has developed significant evidence that President Trump intended to disrupt the peaceful transition of power under our constitution. The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.”
What have the committee accused Trump of? He’s accused of breaching four federal criminal statutes, including those relating to obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, assisting an insurrection and conspiring to defraud the United States. It also said Trump may have committed seditious conspiracy.
How will prosecutors pursue the House panel’s charges? The justice department may find it difficult to obtain a conviction for each charge referred by the January 6 committee, writes Hugo Lowell.
Harvey Weinstein found guilty of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles trial
A Los Angeles jury has found Harvey Weinstein guilty of rape and sexual assault, five years after dozens of women spoke out against the Hollywood producer and galvanized the #MeToo movement.
After more than nine days of deliberation, the jury convicted Weinstein of three counts of rape and sexual assault against one woman, a European model and actor who testified anonymously as “Jane Doe 1”, while remaining divided on three other charges of rape and sexual assault by two other accusers, including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California’s governor. Weinstein was also acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by a fourth woman.
The guilty verdict on some of the most serious charges in the Los Angeles case, including forcible rape, seals the downfall of the former Hollywood powerbroker. Weinstein, 70, who is already serving a 23-year prison sentence after a criminal conviction in New York in 2020, now faces a maximum of 18 to 24 additional years in prison, and is expected to spend the rest of his life incarcerated, no matter the outcome of his current appeal of his conviction in New York.
What did Siebel Newsom say after? “Throughout the trial, Weinstein’s lawyers used sexism, misogyny and bullying tactics to intimidate, demean and ridicule us survivors,” she said in a statement. “This trial was a stark reminder that we as a society have work to do.”
Supreme court blocks Biden from lifting Covid-era border restrictions
The US supreme court has said Covid-era restrictions at the US-Mexico border that were due to end tomorrow should stay in place, at least temporarily, as a Republican legal challenge moves forward.
The development came just as the White House had been attempting to prepare for an increase in the number of migrant crossings, even as some border cities were struggling to cope with undocumented people arriving and being obliged to sleep on the streets in freezing weather, especially El Paso in west Texas in recent months.
John Roberts, the chief justice of the court, at the request of Republican officials in 19 states, blocked the Biden administration from ending a pandemic-era policy of rapidly expelling most people apprehended or turning themselves in at the US-Mexico border.
The Republican officials led by the attorneys general in Arizona and Louisiana asked the supreme court to act after a federal appeals court on Friday declined to put on hold a judge’s ruling last month that invalidated an emergency order known as Title 42. The policy was due to expire Wednesday.
What is Title 42? Title 42’s originally stated aim was to slow the spread of Covid-19, and it was issued in March 2020 under Donald Trump. It proved to be an effective anti-immigration tool in line with his swath of hardline policies.
In other news …
The same racketeering legislation used to bring down mob bosses, motorcycle gangs, football executives and international fraudsters is to be tested against oil and coal companies who are accused of conspiring to deceive the public over the climate crisis.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said the situation in four areas of eastern Ukraine – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – that Moscow annexed in September was “extremely difficult”. Russia’s annexation of the four territories was condemned by Kyiv and its western allies as illegal.
British Airways has apologised after a technical issue triggered a wave of flight delays across the US. The airline said problems with its third-party flight planning supplier were behind the delays, as customers reported disruption in departing cities including Denver, New York and Miami.
A German court has convicted a 97-year-old woman of having contributed to the murder of more than 11,000 people during her time working as a typist at a Nazi concentration camp during the second world war. The district court in Itzehoe handed Irmgard Furchner a two-year suspended sentence.
Stat of the day: More than 100 new designs discovered in Peru’s ancient Nazca plain
More than 100 new designs discovered in and around Peru’s ancient Nazca plain and surrounding areas could bring new information to light about the mysterious pre-Columbian artworks that have intrigued scientists and visitors for decades. After two years of field surveys with aerial photos and drones, Peruvian and Japanese researches from Yamagata University earlier this month reported the discovery of 168 new designs at the Unesco world heritage site on Peru’s southern Pacific coast. The geoglyphs, huge figures carved into the South American desert, date back more than 2,000 years and represent humans, cats, snakes, killer whales, birds and more.
Don’t miss this: How rescue groups saved 3,776 abused beagles
It was still dark when the nine volunteers left that morning, writes Seyward Darby. Black metal crates rattled in the back of the passenger vans they had secured for their trip. The people in the vans were from Triangle Beagle Rescue of North Carolina (TBR), a nonprofit organization that does exactly what its name suggests: it rescues beagles in the area known as the Triangle of North Carolina. But on 26 July 2022, TBR was taking its efforts out of state, to rural Cumberland, Virginia, a three-hour drive north. There, in a sprawling 322-acre facility, were nearly 4,000 beagles that needed rescuing. Afterwards, the hard work began.
… or this: US media embrace Harry & Meghan doc as UK right wing rages
Over the past week there’s been endless coverage of Harry & Meghan, Netflix’s most-viewed documentary premiere, the show that’s offered the pair a chance to win the all-out narrative war that has emerged between them and the palace. Who will emerge victorious? It depends where you’re watching. In the UK, Meghan is pilloried as a traitor but in the US her story plays as an emotional one and commentators cannot tell it without analyzing the palace’s treatment of her from a racial lens. Writing for the New York Times, the activist and scholar Salamishah Tillet said Meghan’s exasperated remark that she’d “tried so hard” to fit in rang true as “a frustratingly familiar refrain” for women of color.
Climate check: Global temperatures in 2023 set to be among hottest on record
Next year is forecast to be one of the hottest on record, with global average temperatures forecast to be about 1.2C above what they were before humans started to drive climate change, the UK Met Office predicts. If correct, it would be the 10th year in a row in which global average temperatures reach at least 1C above what they were in pre-industrial times, measured as the period 1850-1900. The current hottest year in records dating back to 1850 is 2016, a year that saw an “El Niño” climate pattern in the Pacific, which pushes up global temperatures on top of global warming trends.
Last Thing: ‘Don’t worry about me’ – Nasa’s InSight Mars rover prepares to sign off from the red planet
Nasa’s InSight lander has delivered what could be its final message from Mars, where it has been on a history-making mission to reveal the secrets of the red planet’s interior. In November, the space agency said the lander’s time may becoming to an end as dust continued to thicken and choke out the InSight’s power. A message shared on the Nasa InSight Twitter account on Monday read: “My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send. Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me.”
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