Photo: Science Photo Library RF
1 Major Winter Storm Continues To Wreak Havoc In Eastern US
More than 50 million people in the US remained under winter weather alerts late yesterday afternoon. The arctic air mass moving through the country brought freezing temperatures, heavy snow, freezing rain, and road closures to multiple states, with the cold weather continuing today. As of late yesterday, nine fatalities have been attributed to the storm system; two in Missouri, two in Kansas, three in Virginia, one in North Carolina, and one in West Virginia, with all of them related to car crashes on slick roads. Over 2-thousand flights were canceled yesterday due to winter weather, with Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport the hardest hit. Heavy ice blanketed parts of Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana causing power outages. The general advice from officials in the affected states is the same: If you don’t have to travel, stay off the roads.
2 Congress Certifies Trump Election Win With No Problems
This time, January 6th came and went in a businesslike fashion. A joint session of Congress officially certified the Electoral College vote count yesterday afternoon with no objections, recording 312 votes for Donald Trump and 226 for Vice President Kamala Harris. The process was overseen by Harris as the head of the Senate but in a ceremonial role with no real power. That’s a new development in the process brought about by the Presidential Election Reform Act that amended the 1887 Electoral Count Act to make it clear that the Vice President serves no other role in the process. The 2022 legislation also changed the threshold for objections; previously, it only took one member each from the House and Senate to agree to an objection on a state’s electoral slate. It now takes 20-percent of the members of each chamber to trigger debate. Newly-elected Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey said yesterday “Jan. 6th should be an unremarkable day. This is a day that the rest of America should never have to really think about.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York repeated his statement from the floor of the joint session that “There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle.”
3 Justin Trudeau Announces He's Resigning As Canada's Prime Minister
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced yesterday that he’s resigning as the Liberal Party leader and as prime minister. His resignation will go into effect once his party has chosen a new leader, a process that could take months. Canada’s parliament is paused until a new leader is selected, set to resume no sooner than March 24th. The now-embattled Trudeau took over as Prime Minister in 2015 after the Liberal Party won a decisive parliamentary majority. Calls for his resignation picked up after President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement of a potential 25-percent blanket tariff on Canada and Mexico if they don’t address illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Polls show the Liberal Party in Canada trailing the Conservatives by 20 points; Canada will hold its next election in October.
