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WASHINGTON
Warnock delivers 51-seat Senate for Democrats, and much more
For Senate Democrats, an oh-so-slim 51-49 majority never sounded so good.
Sen. Raphael Warnock’s victory in swing-state Georgia gives Democrats a welcome “lift,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday at the Capitol — newly confident of sidelining Trump-inspired Republicans in Congress and reaching across the aisle to other GOP lawmakers to deliver on bipartisan priorities with President Joe Biden.
“If we can get some bipartisan things done, it will of course be better for the country. And it will be better for the Republican Party,” he said.
Tuesday’s election was for just one seat, but Warnock’s win in the tight runoff provides an unexpected capstone to the midterm election cycle for his party. It makes easier for Senate Democrats to organize and govern, and provides a crucial edge in a divided Congress as Republicans take hold of the House.
Gone is the especially intense political pressure of a 50-50 Senate that required all Democrats to toe the line — and made it possible for a single senator, notably Joe Manchin, to buck party priorities.
WASHINGTON
Justices skeptical of elections case that could alter voting
The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed skeptical of making a broad ruling that would leave state legislatures virtually unchecked in making rules for congressional and presidential elections.
In nearly three hours of arguments, liberal and conservative justices appeared to take issue with the main thrust of a challenge asking them to essentially eliminate the power of state courts to strike down legislature-drawn, gerrymandered congressional district maps on grounds that they violate state constitutions.
But it was harder to see exactly where the court would land. In particular, a trio of conservative justices who probably control the outcome, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, indicated they might be open to imposing restraints on state court power in limited circumstances.
The case has profound potential effects on elections and democracy, and it is also a fresh test for the court that increasingly has been criticized as having become politicized.
Republicans from North Carolina who brought the case to the high court argue that a provision of the U.S. Constitution known as the elections clause gives state lawmakers virtually total control over the “times, places and manner” of congressional elections, including redistricting. That means cutting state courts out of the process, they say.
DENVER
FBI got tip about shooting suspect a day before 2021 arrest
Authorities said the person who would later kill five at a Colorado gay nightclub was on the FBI’s radar a day before being arrested for threatening to kill family members but agents closed out the case just weeks later.
The disclosure by the FBI to The Associated Press creates a new timeline for when law enforcement was first alerted to Anderson Lee Aldrich as a potential danger. Previously it was thought Aldrich only became known to authorities after making the threat on June 18, 2021.
The details of the June 17, 2021, tip to the FBI are not known. But the next day, Aldrich’s grandparents ran from their Colorado Springs home and called 911, saying Aldrich was building a bomb in the basement and had threatened to kill them. Details of the case remain sealed, but an arrest affidavit verified by the AP detailed how Aldrich was upset the grandparents were moving to Florida because it would get in the way of Aldrich’s plans to conduct a mass shooting and bombing.
The grandparents were concerned about Aldrich even before the 911 call, according to the document, with the grandmother telling authorities she and her husband had been “living in fear” because of Aldrich’s “recent homicidal threats toward them and others.”
As part of the FBI’s probe, the agency said it coordinated with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, which had responded to the June 18, 2021, call from Aldrich’s grandparents and arrested Aldrich, now 22, on felony menacing and kidnapping charges. But about a month after getting the tip, the FBI closed its assessment of Aldrich, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.
RICHMOND, Va.
Interracial marriages to get added protection under new law
One day in the 1970s, Paul Fleisher and his wife were walking through a department store parking lot when they noticed a group of people looking at them. Fleisher, who is white, and his wife, who is Black, were used to “the look.” But this time it was more intense.
“There was this white family who was just staring at us, just staring holes in us,” Fleisher recalled.
That fraught moment occurred even though any legal uncertainty about the validity of interracial marriage had ended a decade earlier — in 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws banning marriages between people of different races.
In the more than half-century since, interracial marriage has become more common and far more accepted. So Fleisher was surprised that Congress felt the need to include an additional protection in the Respect for Marriage Act, which goes to the House for a final vote expected this week. It would ensure that not only same-sex marriages, but also interracial marriages, are enshrined in federal law.
The 74-year-old Fleisher, a retired teacher and children’s book author, attended segregated public schools in the 1950s in the then-Jim Crow South, and later saw what he called “token desegregation” in high school, when four Black students were in his senior class of about 400 students.
KYIV, Ukraine
Putin says Ukraine fight is taking longer than expected
Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Wednesday that his “special military operation” in Ukraine is taking longer than expected but said it has succeeded in seizing new territory and added that his country’s nuclear weapons are deterring escalation of the conflict.
“Of course, it could be a lengthy process,” Putin said of the more than 9-month-old war that began with Russia’s invasion Feb. 24 and has displaced millions from their homes, and killed and wounded tens of thousands. Despite its length, he showed no signs of letting up, vowing to “consistently fight for our interests” and to “protect ourselves using all means available.” He reiterated his claim that he had no choice but to send in troops, saying that for years, the West responded to Russia’s security demands with “only spit in the face.”
Speaking in a televised meeting in Russia with members of his Human Rights Council, Putin described the land gains as “a significant result for Russia,” noting that the Sea of Azov “has become Russia’s internal sea.” In one of his frequent historic references to a Russian leader he admires, he added that “Peter the Great fought to get access” to that body of water.
After failing to take Kyiv due to fierce Ukrainian resistance, Russia seized broad swaths of southern Ukraine at the start of the invasion and captured the key Sea of Azov port of Mariupol in May after a nearly three-month siege. In September, Putin illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions even though his forces didn’t completely control them: Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, and Donetsk and Luhansk in the east. In 2014, he had illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
In response to an increasing influx of advanced Western weapons, economic, political and humanitarian aid to Kyiv and what he saw as Western leaders’ inflammatory statements, Putin has periodically hinted at his potential use of nuclear weapons. When a member of the Human Rights Council asked him Wednesday to pledge that Russia would not be the first to use such weapons, Putin demurred. He said Russia would not be able to use nuclear weapons at all if it agreed not to use them first and then came under a nuclear strike.
LIMA, Peru
Peru’s president ousted by Congress in political crisis
The president of Peru was ousted by Congress Wednesday after he sought to dissolve the legislative body and take unilateral control of the government, triggering a grave constitutional crisis.
Vice President Dina Boluarte replaced Pedro Castillo and became the first female leader in the history of the republic after hours of wrangling between the legislature and the president.
Boluarte, a 60–year-old lawyer, called for a political truce and the installation of a national unity government.
“What I ask for is a space, a time to rescue the country,” she said.
Lawmakers voted 101-6 with 10 abstentions to remove Castillo from office for reasons of “permanent moral incapacity.”
SAN JOSE, Calif.
Holmes’ former partner gets nearly 13 years in Theranos case
A judge on Wednesday sentenced former Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani to nearly 13 years in prison for his role in the company’s blood-testing hoax — a sentence slightly longer than that given to the CEO, who was his lover and accomplice in one of Silicon Valley’s biggest scandals.
Balwani was convicted in July of fraud and conspiracy connected to the company’s bogus medical technology that duped investors and endangered patients. His sentencing came less than three weeks after Elizabeth Holmes, the company’s founder and CEO, received more than 11 years in prison for her part in the scheme, which has been dissected in a book, HBO documentary and award-winning TV series.
The scandal revolved around the company’s false claims to have developed a device that could scan for hundreds of diseases and other potential problems with just a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick.
After years of promoting the technology, Holmes and Balwani were warned that the blood tests were inaccurate, but they continued to raise money from investors, including from billionaires such as software magnate Larry Ellison and media magnate Rupert Murdoch, and deployed the technology in some Walgreens stores.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila said the financial statements drawn up by Balwani “weren’t just projections, they were lies” and “a true flight from honest business practices.”
BERLIN
Suspected German coup plot spawns dozens of arrests
German police rounded up dozens of people including a self-styled prince, a retired paratrooper and a former judge Wednesday, accusing the suspects of discussing the violent overthrow of the government but leaving unclear how concrete the plans were.
A German official and a lawmaker said investigators may have detected real plotting, drunken fantasizing, or both. Regardless, Germany takes any right-wing threat seriously and thousands of police officers carried out pre-dawn raids across much of the country.
“We’re talking about a group that, according to what we know so far, planned to violently abolish our democratic state of law and an armed attack,” on the German parliament building, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said.
Sara Nanni, a lawmaker with the Green party, part of the German government, suggested the group may not have been capable.
“More details keep coming to light that raise doubts about whether these people were even clever enough to plan and carry out such a coup,” Nanni said in a post on the social network Mastodon. “The fact is: no matter how crude their ideas are and how hopeless their plans, even the attempt is dangerous!”
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii
Hawaii remembrance draws handful of Pearl Harbor survivors
A handful of centenarian survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor joined about 2,500 members of the public at the scene of the Japanese bombing on Wednesday to commemorate those who perished 81 years ago.
The audience sat quietly during a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the same time the attack began on Dec. 7, 1941.
Sailors aboard the USS Daniel Inouye stood along the rails of the guided missile destroyer while it passed both by the grassy shoreline where the ceremony was held and the USS Arizona Memorial to honor the survivors and those killed in the attack. Ken Stevens, a 100-year-old survivor from the USS Whitney, returned the salute.
“The ever-lasting legacy of Pearl Harbor will be shared at this site for all time, as we must never forget those who came before us so that we can chart a more just and peaceful path for those who follow,” said Tom Leatherman, superintendent of the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.
About 2,400 servicemen were killed in the bombing, which launched the U.S. into World War II. The USS Arizona alone lost 1,177 sailors and Marines, nearly half the death toll. Most of the Arizona’s fallen remained entombed in the ship, which sits on the harbor floor.
NEW YORK
Oldest DNA reveals life in Greenland 2 million years ago
Scientists discovered the oldest known DNA and used it to reveal what life was like 2 million years ago in the northern tip of Greenland. Today, it’s a barren Arctic desert, but back then it was a lush landscape of trees and vegetation with an array of animals, even the now extinct mastodon.
“The study opens the door into a past that has basically been lost,” said lead author Kurt Kjær, a geologist and glacier expert at the University of Copenhagen.
With animal fossils hard to come by, the researchers extracted environmental DNA, also known as eDNA, from soil samples. This is the genetic material that organisms shed into their surroundings — for example, through hair, waste, spit or decomposing carcasses.
Studying really old DNA can be a challenge because the genetic material breaks down over time, leaving scientists with only tiny fragments.
But with the latest technology, researchers were able to get genetic information out of the small, damaged bits of DNA, explained senior author Eske Willerslev, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge. In their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, they compared the DNA to that of different species, looking for matches.
— The Associated Press
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