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IMPORTANT
|  | What Now? | Russia Ramps Up Rhetoric After Finland Says It’ll Join NATO Moscow vowed “retaliatory steps” to “balance the situation” after Finland announced it’ll seek NATO membership. One of President Vladimir Putin’s stated reasons for invading Ukraine was stemming NATO’s eastward expansion — but he banked on a fractured Western response. Finland’s decision, and the likelihood that Sweden will also join NATO, threatens to reshape a decadeslong strategic balance. The Kremlin only knows one response. Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, warned that Sweden and Finland would “become part of the enemy and they bear all the risks.” Meanwhile, $40 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine was single-handedly blocked by libertarian Sen. Rand Paul. (Sources: NYT, WaPo) |
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| |  | ‘Dies at 51’ | Who Killed Shireen Abu Akleh? Bullet at Center of Controversy Eyewitnesses say the Al Jazeera journalist was shot in the head by Israeli snipers. Israeli officials initially circulated a video suggesting she was killed by a Palestinian gunman. But now that independent analysis shows the footage “could not possibly ” depict her killer, Israel is demanding access to the bullet that killed her. “We reject a joint investigation with the Israeli state, because it is the one that committed this crime,” said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Western media’s been slammed for whitewashing Israel’s role in her death — case in point a New York Times headline saying Abu Akleh “dies at 51.” (Sources: Al Jazeera, Sky News, NYT) |
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|  | Supermassive! | Scientists Release First Image of Black Hole at Heart of Our Galaxy Over five nights in 2017 the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, a global network of eight radio telescopes, collected data from Sagittarius A, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Now they have an image of it — and it looks exactly as Albert Einstein predicted. It’s the second time a black hole has been photographed, as EHT’s 2017 observations also yielded an image of the larger and more distant black hole at the center of the neighboring M87 galaxy. “But this new image is special because it's our supermassive black hole,” said Heino Falcke of Radboud University in the Netherlands. (Sources: Nature, BBC) |
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|  | Served | Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Five Republican Lawmakers In a marked escalation, the committee investigating the Capitol riot has issued subpoenas compelling five GOP representatives, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, to testify before the panel. Reps. Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs and Mo Brooks also received subpoenas. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chair of the bipartisan panel, said all five had refused to appear voluntarily. The subpoenas leave the men in a tight spot, as complying with them would add legitimacy to the panel’s investigation, but ignoring them could result in criminal prosecutions. “This whole thing’s a charade,” Perry said. Lengthy court battles seem likely. (Source: The Hill) |
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|  | Briefly | Here are some things you should know about today: Tweet this. Elon Musk says his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter is “temporarily on hold” pending details about spam and fake accounts on the platform. (Source: AP) That was quick. One day after confirming its first COVID-19 case, North Korea announced that six people have died from the virus and 187,800 are being “isolated and treated.” (Source: The Guardian) ‘Perfect storm.’ The price of Bitcoin plunged to its lowest level since 2020 and $300 billion has been wiped from the cryptocurrency market since Monday. (Source: NYT) |
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INTRIGUING
| | | ‘Hero River’ | Opening a Soviet-Era Dam Saved Kyiv — and Restored a Wetland By opening a dam on the Irpin River and reflooding 32,000 acres of wetlands that had been drained by the Soviets in the 1960s, Ukraine was able to repel Russian forces from Kyiv in March. Before the war, there were plans to build a massive housing development on the floodplain — but now some ecologists hope it can return to being a biodiversity hot spot teeming with wildlife. Whatever happens, the way ahead will not be simple. “War doesn’t do rewilding,” said Bohdan Prots of Ukraine’s National Museum of Natural History. “There was no research, there was no planning or mitigation.” (Source: The Guardian) |
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| | What Are the Chances? | Polish-Born State Trooper Changes Tire for … Poland’s First President Connecticut state trooper Lukasz Lipert got more than he bargained for when he responded to an SUV with a flat tire Wednesday. It turned out President Lech Walesa, the anti-communist who served as Poland’s first popularly elected leader, was a passenger in the vehicle. Lipert, who immigrated to the U.S. when he was 18, struck up a conversation in their native language. “It was definitely a great opportunity to meet the man who had a voice during those times,” Lipert said. “It was definitely a great experience.” Walesa is in the U.S. campaigning for aid for Ukrainian refugees. (Source: AP) |
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| | ‘The Big One’ | InSight Lander Detects Largest Marsquake Yet NASA’s InSight lander has detected a magnitude 5 marsquake on the red planet — by far the largest of the 1,313 it’s detected so far. Unlike earthquakes, which are usually caused by shifting tectonic plates, marsquakes are believed to result from gradual cooling that causes the planet’s crust to crack. “Since we set our seismometer down in December 2018, we’ve been waiting for ‘the big one,’” said InSight’s principal investigator Bruce Banerdt. “This quake is sure to provide a view into the planet like no other.” Dust gathering on InSight’s solar panels means it will soon be out of commission. (Source: The Verge) |
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| | Karma Police | Man Dies of Heart Attack While Burying Woman He Murdered After receiving a report of an unresponsive man lying in his yard Saturday, sheriff’s deputies in Trenton, South Carolina, found 60-year-old Joseph McKinnon — who'd seemingly died from natural causes. “While investigating the death,” explained an Edgefield County statement, “and making notifications to the next of kin, a second body was located in a freshly dug pit.” The body of 65-year-old Patricia Ruth Dent was wrapped in trash bags and partly covered with earth. Autopsies confirmed that McKinnon died of cardiac arrest and Dent was strangled. Investigators believe McKinnon killed his girlfriend and died while trying to conceal her body. (Sources: WJBF, NPR) |
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| | Full of Hot Air | Soccer Player Dropped for ‘Continuous Farting and Laughing’Last August, it was reported that Brazilian centerback Marcelo Antônio Guedes Filho, aka Marcelo, was dropped by French club Olympique Lyonnais for laughing during a captain’s speech following a heavy defeat. Now it’s emerged that the defender — who left the club in January — was also disciplined for repeatedly farting in the dressing room and for laughing in the presence of manager Peter Bosz and sporting director Juninho. Marcelo took to Twitter Tuesday to defend himself: “Thanks to @lequipe, after a long time, I have to come back to @Twitter to deny all the allegations. Journalism nowadays is a joke!” (Sources: Business Insider, ESPN) |
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