Could one of the biggest travel weeks of the year be disrupted by a big snowstorm or a nasty rain storm? The answer, according to weather forecasters, is maybe — but it’s too early to know for sure.
Forecasters from the National Weather Service’s regional office in New Jersey say there is the potential for a storm system to develop in the Great Lakes region and impact the eastern United States early next week, sometime from late Monday into Tuesday, when many people will be traveling for Thanksgiving holiday gatherings.
Much uncertain remains this far out and it’s too early for forecasters to know whether the storm — if it does head this way — will impact the Garden State and whether it will bring snow or rain, said Jonathan O’Brien, a meteorologist at the weather service office.
“We will be watching it closely, but at this point, it’s really hard to have any confidence (in the forecast for early next week). It’s still too early to say,” O’Brien noted Tuesday afternoon.
“It’s one of those deals where some of the computer forecasts have come out, with a lot of models showing a big storm system coming Monday into Tuesday,” O’Brien said. He noted that the computer guidance models have been flip-flopping between rain and snow, and where the potential storm system will track.
“The model guidance today looks a lot less interesting than it did yesterday,” he said. “It’s common for it to go back and forth like that.”
Under this scenario, AccuWeather says the New Jersey region would likely get rain.AccuWeather
Thanksgiving travel concerns
Should holiday travelers be worried about next week’s road conditions?
“We would encourage people to monitor the forecast, but not be too concerned at this point,” O’Brien said. “It’s so far out and there’s so much uncertainty at this point.”
Steven DiMartino, a meteorologist who heads the private NY NJ PA Weather forecasting company, agrees it’s too early to get a good handle on whether our region will get hit with snow or rain, or something in between. But he thinks people should pay attention to the latest forecasts.
“There is a lot of volatility in this forecast for early next week. So you’re gonna see a lot of different depictions of this time period,” DiMartino said in a video forecast posted on his company website and on YouTube Tuesday morning.
“Everything has been shown already, from raging snowstorm to raging rain storm with gale (winds), to nothing at all — a complete miss,” he said. “That’s because there’s a lot of uncertainty on how the various parts of the atmosphere and shortwaves are going to be interacting for this storm and set up the evolution of this storm developing.”
Under this scenario, forecasters from AccuWeather say a low pressure system would strengthen off the coast of New Jersey and potentially bring snow or rain to a large region of the Northeast.AccuWeather
For now, DiMartino said, holiday travelers should know there’s a potential that travel could be rough next week if the storm materializes.
“Just have some backup plans and just be prepared to take a little bit longer to get to your destinations between Tuesday and Wednesday in the northern Mid-Atlantic, and you can also extend that into New England,” he said.
Forecasters from AccuWeather are also urging holiday travelers to be aware “that a significant storm could rapidly strengthen and cause a host of disruptions from the Midwest to portions of the Great Lakes, interior Northeast and mid-Atlantic over the weekend and the days before Thanksgiving.”
Just like the National Weather Service and other forecasters, AccuWeather says “the exact timing and track of the storm have yet to be pinned down,” but there could be a “broad area of stormy weather developing early next week.”
“We could be looking at a huge mess and a real wrench in holiday travel,” AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jon Porter said in a forecast report on AccuWeather.com.
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Nov 16 (Reuters) – Top U.S. infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday it is possible for COVID-19 to be reduced to an endemic illness from the current health emergency next year if the country ramps up vaccination rates.
Booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines are vital for reaching that point, Fauci said in an interview during the Reuters Total Health conference, which runs virtually from Nov. 15-18. [https://reutersevents.com/events/healthcare/]
Experts believe COVID-19 cannot be eliminated and will likely become endemic, meaning it will always be present in the population to some degree, such as the flu or chickenpox.
“To me, if you want to get to endemic, you have got to get the level of infection so low that it does not have an impact on society, on your life, on your economy,” Fauci said. “People will still get infected. People might still get hospitalized, but the level would be so low that we don’t think about it all the time and it doesn’t influence what we do.”
To get there, he said, would take a lot more people rolling up their sleeves for initial COVID-19 shots and boosters.
If the United States makes boosters available for everyone, it is possible the country can get control of the virus by spring of 2022, Fauci added.
Booster shots are currently available – at least six months after completing prior vaccination – to the immunocompromised, those 65 and older and other people at high risk of severe disease or frequent exposure to the virus through their jobs or living situations.
Some states and New York City have expanded boosteravailability ahead of federal recommendations.
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A child reacts while receiving a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at Smoketown Family Wellness Center in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., November 8, 2021. REUTERS/Jon Cherry
“Look what other countries are doing now about adopting a booster campaign virtually for everybody. I think if we do that, and we do it in earnest, I think by the spring we can have pretty good control of this,” Fauci said.
There is a wide range of opinion as to what might be considered getting the virus under control, Fauci noted. “You could control it at 50,000 cases a day. To me, that’s not good control, and that’s not endemicity that I would accept.”
He disagrees with those who argue that it is time to start learning to live with the virus.
“I don’t want to sit back when we have 70,000 to 85,000 new infections a day and say, ‘Oh, well, we can’t do any better than that. Let’s live with that.’ Sorry, that’s not where we want to be,” he said.
That is why he keeps pushing to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
“For me, endemicity means a lot more people get vaccinated, a lot more people get boosted, and although you don’t eliminate or eradicate it, that infection is not dominating your life,” he said.
Fauci said it is clear that boosters can increase antibodies to a protective level. And while it is too soon to say whether those antibodies will eventually wane, there is a reasonably good chance that booster doses will result in “affinity maturation” – a process in which the booster fine tunes the immune response, increasing its power and durability.
“This is a brand new virus,” he said. “We can’t predict.”
“I truly believe that 50 years from now,” he said, “historians are going to look back at this moment and say, ‘That’s the moment America began to win the competition of the 21st century.’”
Brian Deese, the director of Mr. Biden’s National Economic Council, said in an interview that the law would increase competitiveness and productivity through a variety of spending programs.
“This bill is going to be a game-changer in getting Americans to work,” Mr. Deese said.
He added that it would allow people to gain access to economic opportunities through better public transportation, roads and bridges, and provide high-speed internet, which he called “the lifeblood of the 21st-century economy.”
China’s large investments in its own infrastructure, and its threat to U.S. dominance in new and longstanding global industries, loomed large over the congressional negotiations that produced the law. Democratic and Republican lawmakers are more attuned than ever to Chinese spending, thanks to Mr. Biden and President Donald J. Trump, who both put competition with China at the center of their presidential campaigns last year.
Understand U.S.-China Relations
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A tense era in U.S.-China ties. The two powers are profoundly at odds as they jockey for influence beyond their own shores, compete in technology and maneuver for military advantages. Here’s what to know about the main fronts in U.S.-China relations:
Pacific dominance. As China has built up its military presence, the U.S. has sought to widen its alliances in the region. A major potential flash point is Taiwan, the democratic island that the Communist Party regards as Chinese territory. Should the U.S. intervene there, it could reshape the regional order.
Trade. The trade war started by the Trump administration is technically on pause. But the Biden administration has continued to protest China’s economic policies and impose tariffs on Chinese goods, signaling no thaw in trade relations.
World leadership. China’s leaders see signs of American decline everywhere and they want a bigger voice in global leadership, seeking a greater role in Western-dominated institutions and courting allies that share their frustration with the West.
Government investment in infrastructure and advanced industries has been key to China’s economic transformation to a country of skyscrapers and bullet trains from one of subsistence farming, bicycles and dirt roads only 40 years ago. Partly because of hefty government subsidies, the country manufactures more than half of the world’s steel and cement, most solar panels and a growing share of electric vehicles.
China spends more than 5 percent of its gross domestic product on infrastructure, far more than most developed countries and several times the proportion in the United States, where federal infrastructure spending is poised to grow to about 1.2 percent of gross domestic product in the coming years, according to the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.
U.S. officials have accused China of seeking advantage through more nefarious means as well. Mr. Biden raised concerns about China’s “unfair trade and economic policies” in his virtual meeting with Mr. Xi on Monday, according to a White House readout of the call. Mr. Biden has chosen to maintain tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed on China as retaliation against what his officials charged were intellectual property violations and other unfair trade behaviors.
A gush of corporate tax payments come the middle of next month could make the accounting trick work, filling federal coffers enough to keep Treasury from reaching the absolute breaking point now that the nation has again exhausted its roughly $28 trillion debt limit. While the delay is unlikely to hold up any transportation projects, the bookkeeping maneuver shows how Republican intransigence continues to pinch Democrats unable to suspend the debt ceiling on their own.
Yellen concluded her letter Tuesday with a plea to leaders on Capitol Hill: “To ensure the full faith and credit of the United States, it is critical that Congress raise or suspend the debt limit as soon as possible.”
Outside forecasters have said the influx of revenue on Dec. 15 could give the Treasury enough cash to keep paying the government’s bills until late December. The Bipartisan Policy Center, which consistently forecasts the debt limit with accuracy, predicts that Treasury might even be able to stave off a debt crisis until mid-February.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said his party won’t help Democrats avert the next debt limit cliff, after 11 GOP senators ended up voting last month to raise the nation’s borrowing limit by $480 billion. Instead, the Kentucky Republican insists that Democrats use the budget reconciliation process, which they’re using to pass Biden’s sweeping safety net bill, to act alone on the debt limit. That pathway is more time-consuming and would likely require the majority party to raise the debt limit to a specific number, further fueling Republican campaign attacks characterizing Democrats as reckless spenders.
Top Democrats on Tuesday declined to rule out using the special budget maneuver to lift the cap on the nation’s borrowing ability, as they have for the last several months. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he wants the upper chamber to pass Biden’s social spending package by Christmas.
“Look, we must pass the debt limit,” the New York Democrat said. “We cannot let the full faith and credit of this country lapse, and we hope to do it in a bipartisan way.”
When asked about removing reconciliation as an option for raising the debt ceiling, Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said, “We’ll look at all the options, but this country cannot fail to pay its debt.”
Along with action on the debt limit, the next government shutdown deadline could also get punted into the new year. Federal funding runs out on Dec. 3, but Republicans are blocking spending negotiations, demanding that Democrats acquiesce to a slew of conservative stipulations on how government money is spent.
“This was already a confusing and murky area, and the line between who is and is not ‘eligible’ for a booster is not clear,” said Jennifer Kates, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Most fit at least one of the federal indications for a booster, and in practice, many were already getting them. At this point, states are leading on this and the train has left the station.”
The violence, which had died down by midafternoon, came just a day after the E.U. agreed to impose new sanctions against Belarus, which it accuses of using vulnerable refugees and migrants to launch a “hybrid attack” on its borders.
Photographs from the autopsy of Ahmaud Arbery were shown to jurors on Tuesday, at the murder trial of three white men who chased the 25-year-old Black man before he was fatally shot in their neighborhood last year.
Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and pursued Arbery in a pickup truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood. Their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times with a shotgun.
Arbery was hit in the chest and suffered massive bleeding, a medical examiner testified. Jurors saw photos that showed Arbery’s white T-shirt stained entirely red.
Dr Edmund Donoghue said Arbery was hit by two of three shotgun rounds fired, adding that either blast alone would have killed him.
The first shot at close range tore an artery in Arbery’s right wrist and hit his chest, breaking several ribs and causing heavy internal bleeding, said Donoghue, a medical examiner for the Georgia bureau of investigation.
The second shot missed. The third, point-blank, punctured a major artery and vein near Arbery’s left armpit and fractured bones in his shoulder and upper arm.
“Is there anything law enforcement or EMS could have done to save his life at the scene?” prosecutor Linda Dunikoski asked.
“I don’t think so,” Donoghue replied. “No.”
Donoghue examined Arbery’s body on 24 February 2020, the day after he was killed, at the Georgia bureau of investigation’s crime lab in coastal Georgia.
The jury saw closeup photos of Arbery’s injuries, which included several large abrasions to the face from when he fell in the street following the third gunshot.
Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, reacts to autopsy photos entered into evidence. Photograph: Getty Images
Asked by Dunikoski how Arbery was able to fight back after sustaining such a severe chest wound from the first shot, Donoghue called it a “fight or flight reaction” that raised Arbery’s heart rate and blood pressure while sending adrenaline coursing through his body.
The testimony followed the judge’s refusal to declare a mistrial over defense claims jurors were tainted when Arbery’s mother wept over evidence photos, calling attention to the presence of the Rev Jesse Jackson, sitting beside her in the courtroom’s public gallery.
Rejecting a defense lawyer’s complaints about Black pastors at the trial as “reprehensible”, superior court judge Timothy Walmsley said no group would be excluded from his courtroom.
The defense say the presence of civil rights leaders at the trial will unfairly influence the jury, all but one of whom are white.
On Monday, Jackson acknowledged that Arbery’s mother wept “very quietly” in the courtroom after prosecutors showed a photo of her son to a witness.
“As the judge said, it was my constitutional right to be there,” Jackson said outside the courthouse. “It’s my moral obligation to be there.”
The Rev Al Sharpton sat last week with the victim’s parents, Wanda Cooper-Jones and Marcus Arbery Sr. He pledged to return. Activists said 100 Black pastors will join him.
Ahmaud Arbery trial: defense attorney requests ‘no more Black pastors in here’ – video
Bryan and the McMichaels are charged with murder and other crimes. The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbery was a burglar after security cameras recorded him several times inside a home under construction, five houses away.
Lawyers for the defendants say they had a right to make a citizen’s arrest of someone they suspected of stealing, and that the younger McMichael fired in self-defense after Arbery tried to take the gun from him.
Prosecutors say the men chased Arbery for five minutes to keep him from leaving the Satilla Shores subdivision outside the port city of Brunswick.
The chase ended when Arbery, trailed by Bryan’s truck, tried to run around the McMichaels’ truck as it idled. Video shows Travis McMichael confronting Arbery and shooting him as he throws punches and grapples for the gun.
The Wyoming Republican Party has voted to no longer recognize GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney as a member due to her repeated criticism of former President Donald Trump.
The party’s central committee voted 31-29 over the weekend to take the step against Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
A spokesperson for Cheney, Wyoming’s lone representative in the House, said it was “laughable” for anybody to suggest Cheney isn’t a “conservative Republican.”
“She is bound by her oath to the Constitution,” spokesman Jeremy Adler said. “Sadly a portion of the Wyoming GOP leadership has abandoned that fundamental principle and instead allowed themselves to be held hostage to the lies of a dangerous and irrational man.”
After a 31-29 vote over the weekend, the Wyoming GOP refuses to recognize Liz Cheney as part of the Republican Party.AP Photo/Mary Schwalm, FileLiz Cheney was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump and was seen as a “traitor” to the party.REUTERS/Rachel Mummey/File Photo
Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump Jan. 13, saying her decision was an act of conscience in defense of the Constitution and claiming that Trump had “incited the mob” and “lit the flame” of violence.
In May, House Republicans voted to remove Cheney from her position as conference chair — the third-highest office in the caucus — over her anti-Trump stance.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stripped Liz Cheney of all her committees and voted to remove her as the Republican Caucus Conference chair.EPA
Cheney is facing at least four Republican opponents in next year’s House primary. Trump has endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman, who unsuccessfully sought Wyoming’s governorship in 2018.
Two men look at a partially submerged recreational vehicle in the flood-swollen Skagit River in Sedro-Woolley, Wash., on Monday.
Elaine Thompson/AP
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Elaine Thompson/AP
Two men look at a partially submerged recreational vehicle in the flood-swollen Skagit River in Sedro-Woolley, Wash., on Monday.
Elaine Thompson/AP
A massive wind and rain storm that began Friday is causing flooding and mudslides in the Pacific Northwest near the Canadian border, leading to the closure of an interstate highway, evacuations and power outages.
On Monday, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a severe weather state of emergency for 14 counties in the western part of the state.
Landslides caused by rain and wind as well as saturated soil from an earlier storm led to the closure of Interstate 5 overnight. The West Coast’s main north-south highway, which had been blocked off in both directions, partially reopened Tuesday morning.
A man operates a personal watercraft along a road flooded by water from the Skagit River on Monday in Sedro-Woolley, Wash.
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A man operates a personal watercraft along a road flooded by water from the Skagit River on Monday in Sedro-Woolley, Wash.
Elaine Thompson/AP
Dramatic drone video posted by the city of Bellingham, Wash., showed abandoned cars in streets submerged by floodwaters and people using kayaks to get around.
Multiple areas of the state faced evacuations, and more than 158,0000 customers in western Washington had no power at one point Monday afternoon, The Associated Press reported. Many schools were also closed or delayed.
Flood warnings remained in effect for several counties into Tuesday afternoon, but the National Weather Service said the high waters were expected to recede.
A rock and mudslide briefly closed a portion of Interstate 5 through Bellingham, Wash., on Monday.
Washington State Department of Transportation via AP
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Washington State Department of Transportation via AP
A rock and mudslide briefly closed a portion of Interstate 5 through Bellingham, Wash., on Monday.
Washington State Department of Transportation via AP
“Thanks to all the crews working to keep Washingtonians safe,” Inslee tweeted Monday evening.
The devastating flooding also extended into Oregon, where officials in one area rescued 20 people and three dogs from an inundated RV park.
Heavy flooding across the state closed roads, trapped people in their homes and knocked out power in one area, the Salem Statesman Journal reported.
An “atmospheric river” brings the severe weather
Monday’s severe weather was caused by an “atmospheric river” that had been pelting the Pacific Northwest with rain and heavy winds for days, according to the AP.
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of water vapor in the sky that often release rain or snow when they make landfall, NOAA says.
Local residents walk up to a flooded roadway in Sedro-Woolley, Wash., on Monday.
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Local residents walk up to a flooded roadway in Sedro-Woolley, Wash., on Monday.
Elaine Thompson/AP
Because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, it means that climate change makes rain and extreme flooding events even worse.
British Columbia is also facing heavy rain and winds
The storm’s devastating effects were felt across the Canadian border, where wind and storm warnings were in effect across British Columbia on Monday.
The entire city of Merritt was ordered to evacuate after the municipal wastewater treatment plant failed, the CBC reported, and authorities were using helicopters to rescue 275 people who had been stranded on a main highway.
The province saw rain, wind and even forecasted snow that caused power outages and prompted officials to close schools and block some roadways, according to CTV News Vancouver.
Same-sex married couples may get a tax break from Democrats’ $1.75 trillion social and climate spending plan.
The latest iteration of the Build Back Better Act would let taxpayers who were legally married under state law before 2010 claim federal tax benefits that are unavailable under current rules.
Essentially, the revision would let couples file amended tax returns for years as early as 2004. They could file a joint federal return as a married couple, and claim refunds and credits that may result in a net tax benefit.
“It’d be pretty significant for some folks,” said Jeffrey Levine, an accountant and certified financial planner at Buckingham Wealth Partners in Long Island, New York.
Democrats’ legislation, which the House aims to pass this week, may change and its ultimate success isn’t guaranteed.
United States v. Windsor
The current gap in tax rules for some same-sex married couples dates to a Supreme Court decision in 2013, United States v. Windsor, which struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act.
The ruling required the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where they were legal.
Following the Windsor case, the IRS issued guidance that let taxpayers amend their tax returns with respect to their marital status, but only generally back to 2010, according to a Nov. 3 summary of the Build Back Better Act.
However, same-sex marriage was legal in five states (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont) plus Washington, D.C., before 2010, according to the Pew Research Center.
(Massachusetts became the first state to legalize the unions, in 2003, after its Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state constitution gives gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, according to Pew; weddings began in 2004. The U.S. Supreme Court later legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, in 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges.)
Gay and lesbian couples who legally wed before 2010 would be able to file an amended tax return if Congress passes the Build Back Better Act with the provision intact.
“This is a fair thing to do,” said Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “People were married [but] the federal government wasn’t recognizing their marriages.”
While fair in terms of tax policy, it’s questionable whether many couples would make the effort to redo their tax returns and take advantage of new rules, Wamhoff said.
Marriage penalty
It’s also not a given that all married couples would benefit from filing a joint return instead of as single taxpayers.
Same-sex couples who’d benefit most from new rules would likely be those in which one spouse is a high earner and the other has little to no income, Levine said.
That’s largely due to the so-called marriage penalty, which is most common when each spouse earns a similar income.
For example, in 2004, single taxpayers were in the 28% tax bracket if their income exceeded $70,350. However, instead of a level twice that amount, married couples filing a joint tax return hit the 28% rate once income exceeded $117,250.
That basically meant married couples jumped into that tax rate more easily with respect to their income. (There’s still a marriage penalty, but a federal tax law in 2017 temporarily eased it.)
Married couples may also be able to claim certain tax benefits unavailable to single filers, Levine said.
For example, if a higher-earning spouse had paid for medical or education expenses for the other spouse pre-2010, the high earner couldn’t claim medical or education tax breaks for those costs on their individual return, Levine said. They’d perhaps be able to do so on a married-joint return.
Defense attorney Mark Richards gives his closing argument in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Monday. (Sean Krajacic/Pool/Getty Images)
Kyle Rittenhouse provoked the fatal shootings in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year by pointing his AR-15-style weapon at Joseph Rosenbaum, prosecutors said Monday in closing arguments of his homicide trial.
In response, defense attorney Mark Richards said Rittenhouse did not act recklessly when he fatally shot Rosenbaum, who Richards argued had threatened him, chased him, thrown a plastic bag at him and lunged for his gun.
The dueling closing arguments, which took up most of Monday, came at the end of a two-week trial highlighted by emotional and illuminating testimony from Rittenhouse himself, who said he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Rosenbaum.
A crowd of people then pursued the teenager, and Rittenhouse testified he shot in self-defense at a man who tried to kick him; fatally shot Anthony Huber, who had hit him with a skateboard; and shot Gaige Grosskreutz, who was armed with a pistol. Rosenbaum and Huber were killed, and Grosskreutz was wounded.
The group of 18 jurors will be narrowed to 12 this morning and will then begin deliberating in the case.
Earlier Monday, Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed a misdemeanor weapons charge against Rittenhouse, now 18. He still faces five felony charges and, if convicted on the most serious charge, could face a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Schroeder also read a set of legal instructions to the jury members and informed them they will be allowed to consider lesser included offenses for two of the five counts.
The trial featured more than a dozen videos from the night of August 25, 2020, showing what happened before, during and after the shootings. Most of the facts of what happened that night were not up for debate — rather, the heart of the trial was the analysis of Rittenhouse’s actions and whether they can be considered “reasonable.”
The Biden administration is trying to take a middle-of-the-road approach, said Michael Mazza, a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. A diplomatic boycott, especially on a unilateral basis, is unlikely to improve Beijing’s behavior. For that reason, more steps should be taken to use the Olympics as an opportunity to pressure China on human rights, he said.
Bannon was indicted last Friday by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress. He arrived at the FBI’s Washington Field Office and was taken into federal custody Monday morning.
He made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court later in the afternoon, and was released on his own recognizance. The conditions of Bannon’s release require him to notify the court if he travels domestically outside the Washington, D.C., area. He is not allowed to travel outside the U.S. without court approval, and he has surrendered his passport. He is due to appear in court next on Thursday.
Bannon is represented by David Schoen, an Alabama-based attorney who was a member of Mr. Trump’s legal team in his second impeachment trial earlier this year. The former president was impeached by the House on a single charge of incitement of insurrection for his role in the January 6 assault on the Capitol and acquitted by the Senate.
Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, Bannon vowed to fight the charges. “What we’re doing is taking on this illegitimate Biden regime,” Bannon told reporters. He urged supporters not to “ever let this noise up here take you off message.”
The former White House chief strategist is charged with one count of contempt for his refusal to appear for a deposition, and another count stemming from his refusal to produce documents to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. If convicted, he would face between 30 days and a year in prison on each charge, as well as fines of up to $100,000.
An FBI officer observes as Steve Bannon arrives at the FBI’s Washington Field Office to turn himself in to federal authorities on November 15, 2021.
KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS
Bannon, who was a private citizen on January 6 and during the run-up to the attack on the Capitol, has said Mr. Trump directed him “not to produce documents or give testimony that might reveal information” that the former president’s lawyers are trying “to legally protect,” according to a letter sent to the committee from Bannon’s attorney and obtained by CBS News.
The indictment alleged that Bannon has “not communicated with the Select Committee in any way since accepting service of the subpoena on September 24, 2021.”
President Biden has rejected Mr. Trump’s claims of executive privilege over documents related to the January 6 attack. Mr. Trump has sued to keep the documents private, and an appeals court last week temporarily blocked the release of Mr. Trump’s White House records from the National Archives to the House committee.
“The National Archives and Records Administration and the Archivist be enjoined from releasing the records requested by the House Select Committee over which appellant asserts executive privilege, pending further order of this court,” the court order read.
The court noted this is simply to allow time for legal arguments on a longer injunction to be made and the ruling “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits,” meaning they are not ruling on the validity of Mr. Trump’s claims. Oral arguments will be held in front of a three-judge panel later in November.
Bannon is the first person to be charged for refusing to appear before the House committee, which has subpoenaed other top Trump aides, including former senior adviser Stephen Miller and former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
Congressman Adam Schiff, who is a member of the House committee, said Sunday on “Meet the Press” that they will “move quickly” to refer contempt charges for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for refusing to turn documents over. Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson on Thursday released a letter to Meadows that accused him of resisting the panel’s demands for documents and testimony and rejecting any grounds for non-compliance.
The House January 6 select committee was created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this year to investigate the attack, when thousands of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol as Congress counted the electoral votes, a largely ceremonial final step affirming Mr. Biden’s victory. Lawmakers were sent fleeing amid the riot, which led to the deaths of five people and the arrests of hundreds more. Mr. Trump, who encouraged his supporters to “walk over” to the Capitol during the Stop the Steal rally, was impeached by the House one week later for inciting the riot, but was later acquitted by the Senate.
The full House of Representatives voted in October to hold Bannon in contempt after he refused to appear for a deposition and they referred the matter to the Justice Department.
Robert Legare, Catherine Herridge, Jake Rosen and Zak Hudak contributed to this report.
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The Russian military destroyed a defunct satellite on Monday, showering low Earth orbit with shrapnel and causing astronauts to shelter on the International Space Station as the debris cloud passed by.
U.S. officials from the Pentagon, State Department and NASA condemned Russia’s anti-satellite weapon (or ASAT) test as “reckless” and “dangerous,” while U.S. Space Command confirmed that the test created more than 1,500 pieces of debris. The test destroyed the defunct, Soviet-era Kosmos 1408 spy satellite.
“Russia has demonstrated a deliberate disregard for the security, safety, stability, and long-term sustainability of the space domain for all nations,” U.S. Space Command commander James Dickinson said in a statement.
But the Russian military called the U.S. response “hypocritical,” saying in a statement translated by NBC that “the United States knows for certain that the resulting fragments” from the ASAT test “did not and will not pose a threat to orbital stations, spacecraft and space activities.”
Both the U.S. and Russia, as well as India and China, have previously destroyed their own satellites in ASAT tests. The U.S. most recently conducted an ASAT test in 2008, while Russia on Tuesday called out the Air Force’s testing of the X-37 spacecraft as showing the Pentagon “is actively developing” space weapons.
Industry experts believe the debris field created by Russia’s latest ASAT test will stay in orbit for years, creating a threat to other spacecraft. Earth imagery company Planet, which has more than 140 small satellites in low Earth orbit, emphasized that Russia’s ASAT test makes it the fourth country “to blow up its own satellite from a missile in the past 15 years.”
NASA confirmed that the International Space Station went into emergency procedures on Monday, closing the ISS hatches while crew sheltered. The ISS is “passing through or near” the debris field every 90 minutes, NASA said.
“It is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS, but also their own cosmonauts,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.
In recent weeks, some residents and business owners had questioned the District’s reasoning for maintaining a strict indoor mask requirement. While some jurisdictions, including neighboring Montgomery County, set measuring sticks for when they would lift mask requirements, based on data like coronavirus case rates or portion of the population vaccinated, the District had no set metrics, and repeatedly told business owners and reporters who asked that epidemiologists in the D.C. Health department would know when it was time to change the rules.
Asked about a Texas law that authorizes private citizens anywhere in the country to sue anyone who performs or aids someone in obtaining an abortion in Texas after about six weeks of pregnancy, the Post-ABC poll finds 65 percent say the court should reject the law, while 29 percent say it should be upheld. The Supreme Court is considering the role federal courts can play in evaluating the Texas law, which was intended to avoid federal court review. A separate question finds 36 percent support state laws that make it more difficult for abortion clinics to operate, while 58 percent oppose such restrictions, including 45 percent who oppose them “strongly.”
During a virtual summit China’s president told Joe Biden that China was prepared to take “decisive measures” if Taiwan made any moves towards independence that crossed Beijing’s red lines.
Xi Jinping also warned Biden that any support for Taiwanese independence would be “like playing with fire”, according to a Chinese state media account of the summit, adding that “those who play with fire will get burned”.
In response, Biden said the US remained committed to the “one-China policy” that recognises only one sovereign Chinese state, and that Washington “strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.
Was the rest of the conversation tense? No: in fact, the overall cordial tone of the video conference exchange, with Xi referring to Biden at one point as “my old friend”, gave an immediate boost to financial markets in Asia.
What did Biden want to achieve? One of his aims in the summit was to establish regular dialogue between US and Chinese officials on a range of issues. It was unclear how far the two leaders had gone to achieve that, however.
Alex Jones liable for damages over Sandy Hook shooting claims, judge rules
Court in Connecticut will determine amount conspiracy theorist must pay over claims that school massacre was a hoax. Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP
The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was found liable on Monday for damages in lawsuits brought by parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, over Jones’s claim the massacre was a hoax.
Twenty first-grade children, aged five and six, and six adults were killed in the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. The 20-year-old gunman killed his mother before the shooting and killed himself as police arrived at the school.
The shooting was portrayed on Jones’s Infowars show as a hoax involving actors, aimed at increasing gun control. Jones has since acknowledged the shooting did occur.
Families of victims said they had been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones’s followers because of the hoax conspiracy broadcast on Infowars. They sued Jones and his companies in courts in Connecticut and Texas, for defamation and infliction of emotional distress.
Alex Jones was, in a rare step,defaulted by Judge Barbara Bellis for his and his companies’ failure to disclose information related to the defamation suit.
The default means the judge found in favor of the parents and will hold a hearing on how much damages Jones should pay.
Ghislaine Maxwell jury selection begins in New York sex trafficking trial
Ghislaine Maxwell will come face to face with some of the 231 potential jurors who cleared a pre-screening questionnaire. Photograph: Rick Bajornas/AP
The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell will come face-to-face with prospective jurors for her Manhattan federal court sex trafficking trial on Tuesday, as jury selection begins in earnest.
Fifty potential panelists are expected to appear in the New York courtroom to answer questions.
The process is meant to filter out possible jurors who might hold biases that could favor the defense or prosecution. Roughly 600 people completed pre-screening questionnaires earlier this month; of those, prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed that 231 should proceed to jury selection.
Maxwell, 59, was arrested in July 2020 at a secretive, luxury estate in the small New Hampshire town of Bradford. She was charged with sexual offences, conspiracy and perjury related to the actions of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in a New York jail cell while awaiting sex trafficking charges.
What is she accused of? Maxwell “played a critical role in helping Epstein to identify, befriend and groom minor victims” and “in some cases, Maxwell participated in the abuse”, Audrey Strauss, then the acting Manhattan US attorney, said after Maxwell’s arrest.
Biden signs hard-fought $1tn infrastructure deal into law
Biden signs the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at the White House in Washington. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Biden has signed his hard-fought $1tn infrastructure deal into law before a bipartisan, celebratory crowd on the White House lawn, declaring that the infusion of cash for roads, bridges, ports and more would make life “change for the better”.
The president hopes to use the infrastructure law to build back his popularity, which has taken a hit amid rising inflation and the inability to fully shake the public health and economic risks from Covid-19.
“My message to the American people is this: America is moving again and your life is going to change for the better,” he said.
However, the prospects are tougher for further bipartisanship ahead of the 2022 midterm elections as Biden pivots back to more difficult negotiations over his broader $1.85tn social spending package.
The $1.2n infrastructure bill cleared the Senate 69-13 with Republican support, but scraped through the House last week with just 13 Republican votes – who have been called “traitors” by members of the party.
The deadlock over part two of Biden’s agenda, known as Build Back Better, is not helping his approval rating, hovering around the 40% mark despite jobs growth.
In other news …
The Kyle Rittenhouse trial nears the end as the jury prepares to deliberate after closing arguments. Photograph: Reuters
Prosecutors and defense attorneys delivered closing statements in the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old who has been charged with homicide after fatally shooting two men during racial justice protests last August in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Several outbreaks of severe bird flu in Europe and Asia have been reported in recent days to the World Organisation for Animal Health, in a sign the virus is spreading quickly again. The spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has put the poultry industry on alert.
The US has accused Russia of “dangerous and irresponsible behavior” after it conducted an anti-satellite weapons test that threatened the lives of the seven astronauts. Russia fired a missile at one of its own satellites over the weekend, generating thousands of pieces of debris.
Stat of the day: Seattle records its third-wettest November in more than a century
Road closure near the Snoqualmie River in Washington state. Forecasters said rain is expected to remain heavy. Photograph: Ted S Warren/AP
Heavy rainfall and pounding storms are taking a toll on the US Pacific north-west, where flooding and mudslides in Washington state have forced evacuations and school closures. The National Weather Service warned that winds nearing hurricane strength were possible in the region, which has had nearly ceaseless rain for about a week. More than 158,000 customers were without power in western Washington at one point on Monday, the Seattle Times reported and less than halfway into the month it is already the third-wettest November that Seattle has recorded in more than a century. Communities in western Canada have also been forced to flee their homes.
Don’t miss this: ENO teams up with TikTok stars for opera based on Tiger King
Members of the orchestra performing in Tiger King at the English National Opera. Photograph: Netflix/English National Opera/PA
It is being billed as the world’s first “TikTopera” – a collaboration between the English National Opera and Netflix – based on the hit documentary series Tiger King, created entirely on TikTok in the run-up to the second series this week. Each performer recaps a portion of the Tiger King story, including the battle between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin. This is set to the music of George Bizet’s 1875 masterpiece Carmen, performed live in London by ENO’s 40-person professional chorus and full string orchestra. Stuart Murphy, the chief executive of ENO, said the project, which features TikTok stars cast in the lead roles, spoke to their “key value of trying to take opera out to everyone”.
… or this: Goop’s sex therapist on her radical approach to pleasure
Darshana Avila with a client. Avila is a sex and intimacy coach on Netflix’s Love, Sex and Goop. Photograph: Alexandra Dubov
Shandra Barrera, one of the participants on Sex, Love and Goop, the Gwyneth Paltrow-fronted Netflix series that aims to help couples “experience genuine arousal, desire and pleasure”, is using a mirror to look at her vagina. It’s a technique used by Darshana Avila, one of the show’s coaches,who is helping Barrera with the pain she experiences when she receives penetrative touch. This is all part of the buildup to the main event, when Avila will penetrate Barrera with her hand, hopefully without causing her pain. “I’ve learned that we have a major cultural bias against pleasure,” Avilasays of her work, which is illegal in every US state except California.
Indigenous Peruvian people protest in London, saying Cop26 was a failure. Photograph: Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
Indigenous communities facing a surge in land grabs, water shortages and human rights violations as a result of the Cop26 deal have accused world leaders of sacrificing them in order to postpone meaningful climate action and shield corporate profits. The Critics warn that the new global carbon-trading market will incentivize countries and corporations to offset – rather than cut – emissions responsible for global heating by investing in so-called green energy projects, which are linked to environmental destruction, forced displacement, arbitrary arrests and even murder.
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Last thing: New York billionaire seeks permission for ‘temple for a titan’
Bill Ackman’s proposed Norman Foster penthouse in New York. Photograph: Foster + Partners
The billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman will on Tuesday attempt to convince New York’s powerful Landmarks Preservation Commission to allow him to build a “flying saucer” penthouse on top of a historic apartment building in the Upper West Side overlooking Central Park. Ackman, an activist investor, has been engaged in a years-long public relations battle with his merely millionaire neighbors to garner support for his planned Norman Foster-designed two-story penthouse that has been described as a “temple to a titan”.
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