Important Takeaways:
- The House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a contempt resolution against the top Biden administration Cabinet secretary, setting it up for a House-wide vote after Congress returns from a six-week recess.
- A secretary of state has never in history been held in contempt.
- If the House votes to hold Blinken in contempt, he would be automatically referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal charges.
- House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul has accused Blinken of stonewalling his committee’s probe into President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
- It comes after McCaul’s committee released an explosive report detailing Biden administration shortfalls that led to the hasty military withdrawal from Kabul following a lightning-fast takeover of the country by the Taliban.
- The Republican-led paper opens by hearkening back to President Biden’s urgency to withdraw from the Vietnam War as a senator in the 1970s. That, along with the Afghanistan withdrawal, demonstrates a “pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners,” according to the report.
- The report also disputed Biden’s assertion that his hands were tied to the Doha agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021, and it revealed how state officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them.
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Important Takeaways:
- United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a stark warning to world leaders on Tuesday, stating that the globe is on the brink of an explosive crisis.
- Addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Guterres said impunity, inequality, and uncertainty were pushing modern civilization toward “a powder keg that risks engulfing the world.”
- “We can’t go on like this,” he stressed to the forum.
- The former Portuguese Prime Minister described the world as being in “an era of epic transformation,” with geopolitical divisions deepening and conflicts escalating.
- Despite the grim picture, Guterres, who has been in his position since 2016, pointed to a recent “Summit of the Future” as a step in the right direction.
- At the summit, nations agreed to a “Pact for the Future,” a blueprint aimed at tackling climate change, poverty, and the risks posed by artificial intelligence.
- The pact also advocates reforming the U.N. and other international institutions to meet the demands of the 21st century.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah hurled dozens of projectiles into Israel Wednesday, including a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group’s deepest strike yet, while the Israeli military conducted more strikes in Lebanon that the Lebanese health minister said killed more than 50 people.
- The missile set off air-raid sirens in Tel Aviv and across central Israel. There were no reports of casualties or damage. The military said it struck the site in southern Lebanon where the missile was launched.
- The launch ratcheted up hostilities as the region appeared to be teetering toward another all-out war, even as Israel continues to battle Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
- Israel said Wednesday its air force had struck some 280 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon by early afternoon, including launchers used to fire rockets on the northern Israeli cities of Safed and Nahariya.
- Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency
- The Israeli military said it was the first time a projectile fired from Lebanon had reached central Israel.
- With tensions still escalating, the Israeli military said it would activate reserve troops.
- The announcement about reserve troops indicated Israel is planning even tougher action against Hezbollah. The army said it would call up two reserve brigades for missions in the north.
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Important Takeaways:
- China said Wednesday that it had successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean, in a rare public test that may raise international concerns as the country builds up its nuclear arsenal at a time of tensions with the United States.
- The Chinese defense ministry said the test was a routine part of the Rocket Force’s annual military training.
- But analysts said this was the first time China had launched an ICBM into international waters since 1980.
- China’s description of the test as routine and annual “seems odd,” Panda said, “given that they don’t do this sort thing either routinely or annually.”
- The Japanese government’s top spokesperson, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said China was rapidly expanding its nuclear and missile arsenal and increasing its defense expenditures without sufficient transparency.
- “These developments in China’s military activities, combined with their lack of transparency, have become a matter of serious concern for Japan and for the international community,” he said.
- ICBMs typically have a range of more than 3,400 miles and are designed to carry nuclear warheads. Analysts say China usually tests long-range missiles over its own land.
- China suspended nuclear arms talks with the U.S. in July to protest U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims as its territory.
- China’s test on Wednesday comes amid heightened military activity in the Asia-Pacific region, where nuclear-armed North Korea has accelerated its weapons testing since 2022. Last week, North Korea fired several short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea for the second time this month.
- North Korea says its weapons tests are in response to intensifying joint military exercises among the U.S., South Korea and others that it sees as a rehearsal for invasion.
- The U.S. also deployed an advanced missile system in the Philippines earlier this year that China sees as a threat.
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Important Takeaways:
- One person was fatally shot when an MTA bus was hijacked with passengers on board and then pursued by police from South Los Angeles to downtown L.A. early Wednesday morning.
- Authorities learned that a person on the bus had pulled out a gun, prompting the bus driver to activate a panic button that displays a “CALL 911” outside the bus.
- Officers found the bus stopped near West 117th Street and South Figueroa Street, but it began to move when officers got close, prompting a pursuit. Police said the suspect was holding the driver at gunpoint.
- “Clearly he was under duress and under the threat of violence … for him to be able to keep his composure is a reflection on the bus operators in the system,” Graham said about the driver after the incident.
- Officers deployed spike strips, which flattened the bus’s tires. The pursuit ended after roughly an hour
- Once the bus came to a stop, SWAT officers deployed a flash-bang device which allowed the driver to escape by climbing through a window.
- Police said SWAT officers also rescued a passenger who was not seriously hurt.
- Another passenger was found on the bus suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. The unidentified victim was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead, Graham said.
- The suspect was taken into custody.
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Important Takeaways:
- These two characteristics are making it a unique threat to millions of Floridians and people in surrounding states as it moves north-northeastward today and Thursday.
- The storm’s large size, with tropical storm winds (sustained at 39mph to 73mph with higher gusts) extending at least 250 miles east of the storm center, ensures that nearly every Florida city outside the western Panhandle will see strong winds.
- Power outages are also likely to be widespread in Georgia and parts of South Carolina, as the storm may still be a hurricane when it moves into southern and south-central Georgia on Friday.
- Storms that have large wind fields can push more water close to the coast and produce a larger, more damaging storm surge.
- The Hurricane Center’s forecast intensification rate on Monday morning was the highest it had issued to date when going from a pre-named system to a major hurricane.
- The storm’s size and intensification rate will require most, if not all, storm preparations to be made across Florida today, with residents of Georgia having slightly more time.
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Important Takeaways:
- A satellite image analyzed by CBS News shows a large crater and remnants of a possible explosion on a launchpad at Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia on Sept. 21. The crater is approximately 200 feet wide, and the site contains dark rubble and other debris indicating a large fire or explosion.
- Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project, an arms control and nuclear weapons analysis blog, said an explosion may have occurred during the defueling of the missile as the images indicate the missile may have “exploded in the silo.”
- The Plesetsk Cosmodrome is located roughly 500 miles north of Moscow and 250 miles east of Russia’s border with Finland.
- Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment in a press briefing on Monday, Sept. 23, about the alleged explosion, saying: “We do not have any information on this matter.”
- The Sarmat is classified as a “heavy” ICBM designed to reach a target about 11,000 miles away and is capable of carrying up to 10 tons in payload, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project.
- According to Russian independent news outlet Sirena, Russia has conducted six failed tests of nuclear weaponry since June, including its Poseidon torpedo and Bulava submarine-launched missile.
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Important Takeaways:
- The people who opened fire in a mass shooting in Birmingham, Alabama, late Saturday are suspected of using “conversion devices” in carrying out the attack, and over 100 shell casings were collected at the scene, according to a preliminary investigation from police.
- The shooting, which left four dead and 17 injured, is just the latest spurt of mass violence made possible by the small part known as a “conversion device,” “Glock switch” or “auto sear.”
- Whatever the term, the devices have the power to transform a handgun into a fully automatic firearm.
- Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond called the devices “a huge problem,” adding they were still investigating whether the shooters used a switch or another type of weapon.
- With these switches, shooters can fire a huge number of rounds in a very short amount of time. The rapid fire and recoil also make it difficult to aim properly, so these types of shootings can lead to innocent bystanders caught in the spray, as appeared to be the case in Birmingham.
- There are several efforts in Alabama and across the country working to stop the spread and use of these devices.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hurricane, storm surge and tropical storm watches have been issued for parts of Florida
- Tropical Storm Helene could form later today, and it is forecast to strengthen into a large, major hurricane before it strikes Florida’s Gulf Coast Thursday.
- The hurricane could be both strong and large at landfall with life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain.
- Locally strong winds and heavy rain will push well inland in parts of the South into Friday.
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Important Takeaways:
- A boy who was abducted from a California park in 1951 has been found alive and well on the East Coast thanks to DNA testing and the persistent efforts of his family.
- Luis Armando Albino was just 6 years old when he was kidnapped from the Oakland park where he had been playing with his older brother, lured by a woman who promised to buy him candy.
- Instead, she “transported him out of state and eventually to the East Coast,” the Oakland Police Department (OPD) told NPR.
- State and federal authorities searched extensively for Albino in the wake of his disappearance, but couldn’t find him or his remains.
- All the while, his mother, Antonia Albino — who had moved the family from their native Puerto Rico just the year before — never gave up hope that he was alive.
- Alida Alequin, 63, knew she had a missing uncle because her family talked about it. Alequin decided to take an online DNA test in 2020 “just for fun,” as she told the Mercury News.
- FBI agents were eventually able to interview Albino and take a DNA sample.
- His statements and genetics confirmed what police call “the best possible outcome”: He was indeed the boy who’d been snatched from the park 73 years earlier.
- Details about Albino’s life on the East Coast are relatively scarce, and police say his case remains under investigation.
- He has some memory of the abduction and his cross-country trip, she added, but had never gotten answers from the adults in his life.
- Alequin said her uncle hugged her, gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, “Thank you for finding me.”
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