Chhattisgarh: 8 policemen, 1 driver dead after naxals blow up their vehicle with IED in Bijapur
Eight jawans of the District Reserve Guard (DRG) and a civilian driver were killed after Naxals blew up their vehicle with a powerful improvised explosive device (IED) in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district
Nithari killings: SC to hear pleas against Surendra Koli’s acquittal on…
The CBI had registered 16 cases against Koli and Pandher over the rape and killing of girls that had shocked the nation.
Biden issues sweeping offshore oil, gas drilling ban in 625M acres of federal waters ahead of Trump transition
President Biden announced an 11th-hour executive action on Monday that bans new drilling and further oil and natural gas development on more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal and offshore waters. Biden, whose term expires in two weeks, said he is using authority to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from future oil and natural gas leasing. He invoked the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, meaning President-elect Trump could be limited in his ability to revoke the action. Congress might need to intervene to grant Trump authority to place federal waters back into development. “My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said in a statement. “It is not worth the risks. As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren.” The move garnered quick condemnation from Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. TRUMP PLANNING TO LIFT BIDEN’S LNG PAUSE, INCREASE OIL DRILLING DURING 1ST DAYS IN OFFICE: REPORT “This is a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices. Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill,” Leavitt wrote on X. Biden patted himself on the back for what he categorized as a legacy move in the fight against climate change. “From Day One, I have delivered on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in our country’s history. And over the last four years, I have conserved more than 670 million acres of America’s lands and waters, more than any other president in history,” Biden said. “Our country’s remarkable conservation and restoration progress has been locally led by Tribes, farmers and ranchers, fishermen, small businesses, and outdoor recreation enthusiasts across the country. Together, our ‘America the Beautiful’ initiative put the United States on track to meet my ambitious goal to conserve at least 30 percent of our Nation’s lands and waters by 2030.” BIDEN MOVING TO BAN OIL AND GAS LEASES FOR 20 YEARS IN NEVADA REGION, JUST WEEKS BEFORE TRUMP INAUGURATION “We do not need to choose between protecting the environment and growing our economy, or between keeping our ocean healthy, our coastlines resilient, and the food they produce secure and keeping energy prices low,” the statement added. “Those are false choices. Protecting America’s coasts and ocean is the right thing to do, and will help communities and the economy to flourish for generations to come.” Ron Neal, the chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America Offshore Committee, also slammed Biden’s last-ditch offshore drilling ban as “significant and catastrophic.” “While it may not directly affect the currently active production areas in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and adjoining coastal areas, it represents a major attack on the oil and natural gas industry. This should be seen as the ‘elephant’s nose under the tent.’ The ban severely limits potential for exploration and development in new areas therefore chocking the long-term survivability of the industry,” Neal, also the President of Houston Energy LP and CEO of HEQ Deepwater, said in a statement. “This move is a first step towards more extensive restrictions all across our industry in all U.S. basins including the onshore. If the activists come for anything, they are coming for everything. The policy is catastrophic for the development of new areas for oil and natural gas but, the environmentalists will eventually look to also shut down offshore wind farms for most of the same reasons. President Biden and his allies continue to push anti-energy policies that will hurt Americans.” Trump, during his 2024 campaign, promised to deliver American “energy dominance” on the world stage as he looked toward bolstering U.S. oil and gas drilling, as well as distance from Biden’s prioritization of climate change initiatives.
DOJ considers charging 200 more people 4 years after Jan. 6 Capitol attack
The Justice Department is considering charging up to 200 more people for their alleged involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, a report says. The new figures released Monday on the 4-year anniversary of the incident include 60 people suspected of assaulting or impeding police officers, according to Politico. President-elect Trump is set to be sworn in as the country’s next president in just two weeks. In December, Trump told NBC that he wanted to pardon the Jan. 6 rioters on the first day of his administration and said people on the Jan. 6 committee in Congress belonged in jail. “I’m going to look at everything. We’ll look at individual cases,” Trump said at the time. “But I’m going to be acting very quickly.” BIDEN TAKES DEPARTING JAB AT TRUMP, SAYS HE WAS A ‘GENUINE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY’ Around 1,600 people so far have faced federal charges relating to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 600 who allegedly assaulted or resisted police, Politico reported. Nearly 200 of the defendants were charged with carrying a dangerous weapon on Capitol grounds and 153 were accused of destruction of government property – but the new figures released Monday are the first time the Justice Department has estimated how many cases are yet to be prosecuted, Politico added. DOJ SEEKS TO BLOCK JAN. 6 DEFENDANTS FROM ATTENDING TRUMP INAUGURATION The news outlet also reported that around 1,100 Jan. 6 defendants have been convicted and reached sentencing, but 300 of the already charged cases have not entered the trial stage yet. “Over the past four years, our prosecutors, FBI agents, investigators, and analysts have conducted one of the most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in the Justice Department’s history,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Monday. “They have analyzed massive amounts of physical and digital data, identified and arrested hundreds of people who took part in unlawful conduct that day, and initiated prosecutions and secured convictions across a wide range of criminal conduct. We have now charged more than 1,500 individuals for crimes that occurred on January 6, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to the attack,” he continued. “The public servants of the Justice Department have sought to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6 attack on our democracy with unrelenting integrity. They have conducted themselves in a manner that adheres to the rule of law and honors our obligation to protect the civil rights and civil liberties of everyone in this country,” Garland added. President Biden on Sunday was asked by reporters if he still thought Trump was a threat to democracy. “We’ve got to get back to establishing basic democratic norms,” Biden told reporters in the White House East Room. “I think what he did was a genuine threat to democracy. I’m hopeful that we are beyond that.” Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
HMPV Cases In India: Why is HMPV impacting children?
HMPV significantly affects children due to its link with severe respiratory illnesses, particularly among young and vulnerable populations. It is a leading cause of acute respiratory infections, accounting for approximately 10 per cent to 12 per cent of such illnesses in children.
Texas has a housing affordability crisis. Here’s how state lawmakers may tackle it in 2025.
A likely fight over how much power to take away from local governments may dominate the debate.
Amid a $7 million deficit to Texas’ suicide hotline, thousands of calls are abandoned monthly
The state’s 988 suicide had the nation’s fifth highest rate of abandoned calls in August, the latest data available, amid a multi-million funding deficit that could worsen as federal dollars expire this year.
HMPV virus in India: What is the death rate in Human Metapneumovirus cases?
To shed light on the issue, the CDC in China stated that it is killing more people than it had previously, particularly regarding its mortality rate.
Third HMPV virus case reported in India, two-year-old child infected in Gujarat after 2 cases in Bengaluru
The HMPV infection was detected via routine surveillance in a 3-month-old girl and an 8-month-old boy in Bengaluru.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,047
Here are the key developments on the 1,047th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here is the situation on Monday, January 6: Fighting Russia says its forces seized control of Kurakhove, a town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Gaining control over Kurakhove “has significantly hampered the logistics and technical support” of Ukrainian troops, the Russian Defence Ministry said. Kurakhove lies 32km (20 miles) south of Pokrovsk, an important Ukrainian logistics hub towards which Russia has been advancing for months. The Ukrainian air force said it shot down two Kh-59 cruise missiles launched by Russia overnight. Of 128 drones launched, 79 drones were shot down and 49 “imitator drones” did not reach their targets, it added. The Ukrainian military launched a new offensive in the Kursk region of western Russia on Sunday, where Moscow’s forces have been trying to push back Ukrainian troops for the past five months. Russia’s Defence Ministry said Ukraine lost up to 340 soldiers in the past 24 hours in the Kursk region. It also said it shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29. Ukraine launched a counterattack in Kursk and “Russia is getting what it deserves,” the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, Andriy Yermak, said on Sunday, adding there was “good news” for Ukraine from the region. Serhiy Lysak, the governor of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, has said Russia attacked the Nikopol region with artillery fire “half a dozen times” overnight. He said Moscow also launched a “suicide drone over the region”. No casualties were reported. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has heard loud blasts near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, coinciding with reports of a drone attack on the plant’s training centre, it said in a statement. The IAEA has not yet been able to confirm any effect of the attacks. The IAEA team also reported hearing machine-gun fire coming from the site on multiple occasions, it added. Politics and diplomacy Advertisement United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, speaking in Seoul, South Korea on Monday, said Ukraine’s position in Kursk is “important” because it would “factor in any negotiation that may come about in the coming year”. Blinken said the US believes Russia is expanding space cooperation with North Korea in exchange for its troop contribution in fighting Ukraine. “The DPRK is already receiving Russian military equipment and training. Now we have reason to believe that Moscow intends to share advanced space and satellite technology with Pyongyang,” he said. Blinken also said the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden, which has given Kyiv billions of dollars in security assistance since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, wants to ensure that “Ukraine has the strongest possible hand to play”. President Zelenskyy said security guarantees for Kyiv to end Russia’s war would only be effective if the US provides them. “Without the United States, security guarantees are not possible. I mean these security guarantees that can prevent Russian aggression,” he said in an interview with US podcaster Lex Fridman published on Sunday. Zelenskyy said Ukrainians were counting on Trump to force Moscow to end its war and that Russia would escalate in Europe if Washington were to quit the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance. A Slovak government delegation travels to Brussels to discuss the gas situation after Ukraine ended the deal that allows Russian gas to travel through its territory to some European countries, including Slovakia. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)