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The Washington Post
Biden shifts tone on Republicans, blasting Republicans in news conference
President Biden escalated his partisan rhetoric Wednesday during his first news conference in 10 months, laying the blame for his stalled agenda at the feet of Republicans and suggesting on the eve of his one-year anniversary that he has been surprised by their intransigence.
“I honest to God don’t know what they’re for,” Biden said at one point during his nearly two-hour exchange with reporters. “What is their agenda?” […]
The roughly two-hour [news conference] was much longer than expected or typical for a presidential news conference, and Biden called on far more reporters than he usually does.
Biden renewed a free program to feed needy kids. Most states haven’t even applied.
Odessa Davis worked three jobs to get by, until the pandemic shutdowns made it impossible to work to put food on the table for herself and her 12-year-old son, Leon. […]
Soon, the federal government devised a plan to get lunch money into the hands of low-income families, like Davis and her son, to make up for meals missed because of school closures or illness, which meant $200 every month for the duo. […]
“I was upset that it stopped, because I did rely on it.” she said. “They cut it off, and we’re still in a pandemic.”
At its peak, 18.5 million kids relied on Pandemic-EBT, which began under the Trump administration and continued under President Biden. The program gave families forced home a debit-card benefit to use at the grocery store, for some online food shopping or even at farmers markets.
Now the program is flagging. Most states have not applied for the school year that began in September.
Vox
The Senate filibuster vote dooms much of Democrats’ agenda
The Senate on Wednesday voted 48-52 against changing the chamber’s filibuster rules, dooming much of Democrats’ agenda for the near term. […]
Because of Manchin and Sinema’s longstanding opposition to filibuster reforms, the outcome of the vote wasn’t surprising. […]
Because the filibuster is still intact, a lot of Democratic bills have no path forward.
Bloomberg
Senate Republicans Block Voting Bill, Setting Up Rules Change Bid
Senate Republicans again blocked legislation designed to expand voter participation and restore some protections from the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, touching off an unusual and likely doomed effort by Democrats to alter Senate filibuster rules to usher it through. […]
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’ll move next to make a one-time change to Senate filibuster rules to clear a way for passage of the voting rights legislation. But he lacks support within his party to do so. Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, while backing the voting legislation, have defended the filibuster and said they don’t support using the so-called nuclear option to change Senate rules with just a simple majority rather than the usual 67.
Schumer plans to propose switching to a “talking filibuster” for the bill. Under that scenario, the legislation could move to a final vote after every senator has exhausted their right to speak on the matter twice on the floor. On Wednesday, he urged senators to consider how the filibuster has been repeatedly used for decades to block civil rights legislation.
Biden Expects Russia to ‘Move In’ on Ukraine, Warns Putin
President Joe Biden said he thinks Vladimir Putin doesn’t want a full-blown war but will “move in” on Ukraine after amassing 100,000 troops on its border, part of an extraordinarily blunt assessment of Russian intentions and the West’s likely response.
“I’m not so sure he has -- is certain -- about what he’s going to do,” Biden said of his Russian counterpart during a nearly two hour-long news conference Wednesday marking his first year in office. “My guess is he will move in, he has to do something.”
While the president said the U.S. and its European allies are united on making sure Russia faces “severe economic consequences,” Biden acknowledged what his top aides have so far said only in private: that NATO allies are divided about what to do if Russia takes action against Ukraine that falls short of an invasion.
Stars and Stripes
US special operations presses on in Ukraine amid threat of Russian invasion
U.S. special operators are continuing with a mission to build up an elite fighting force in Ukraine, military officials said, even as Russia threatens invasion with its thousands of troops, tanks and artillery massed along their borders.
“The bottom line is that our training mission in Ukraine is ongoing,” Lt. Col. Juan Martinez, spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command Europe, said Tuesday. […]
The Stuttgart-based SOCEUR has quietly operated out of a training center outside of Kyiv for the past several years. The mission’s focus is assisting Ukrainian forces to defend more effectively against Russian aggression.
South Korea pressures US military to do more to curb coronavirus infections
South Korean health officials are pressuring the U.S. military to increase its COVID-19 mitigation measures after weeks of record-high infection rates within U.S. Forces Korea. […]
South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday “entreated” the U.S. Embassy in Seoul “to urge USFK” to provide daily public updates on its COVID-19 cases and to have its “troops receive booster shots,” a ministry official said in an email Wednesday on the customary condition of anonymity.
NPR News
Britain's Johnson faces growing calls to quit after throwing parties during lockdown
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is weathering ever-louder calls to step down — coming even from within his own party — amid a scandal over events he hosted while the rest of the U.K. was on COVID-19 lockdown.
Johnson at first said that no rules were broken by the parties held at the prime minister's London residence in 2020 and 2021, some of which were advertised as "bring your own booze" and called "work events."
On Tuesday, Johnson, speaking to Sky News, further inflamed the situation by suggesting he wasn't aware the parties were against the social distancing protocols that his own government had drafted.
"Nobody told me and nobody, nobody said that this was something that was against the rules," he said.
Jan. 6 panel seeks phone records from Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle
The Democratic-led House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is moving closer into … Donald Trump's inner circle.
The panel is now pursuing phone records for Trump's son, Eric Trump, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is engaged to Donald Trump Jr. It marks the first public reporting of the committee seeking records from the former first family.
Both Eric Trump and Guilfoyle were part of an all-star line up at … Trump's rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, rallying the crowd and exhorting them to keep up the fight.
Los Angeles Times
Supreme Court rejects Trump’s plea to shield White House records from House inquiry
The Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down … Trump’s plea to shield his White House records from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6. attack on the U.S. Capitol.
With one dissent, the justices agreed with two lower courts that decided the former president’s claim of executive privilege could not outweigh the views of President Biden, who supported the release.
Only Justice Clarence Thomas voted to grant Trump’s appeal. […]
It’s not clear whether the archives have records that will prove significant for the House committee.
White House to distribute 400 million N95 masks for free, starting next week
The Biden administration plans to distribute 400 million high-quality masks to Americans for free starting next week in the hopes of offering better protection against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the White House announced Wednesday.
The White House said N95 masks — limited to three per person — will be available for pickup at pharmacies and community health centers across the country by late next week. The administration will begin shipping masks at the end of this week, and the program “will be fully up and running by early February,” the White House said in a statement.
Gizmodo
Pentagon Plans to Spend $52 Million in 2022 on U.S Border Spy Blimps
The Department of Defense will spend tens of millions of dollars this year on a number of “surveillance blimps”—high-tech balloons that will be sent to the U.S. border with Mexico for the purposes of ferreting out drug smugglers. […]
The Pentagon’s agreement, which is designed to aid the Department of Homeland Security, will fund the operation and upkeep of six 17-meter blimps owned by the U.S. Border Patrol and as many as a dozen 22-meter blimps owned by the Defense Department over the course of the next fiscal year. […]
While the limited domestic deployment of aerostats has apparently gone on since at least the 1980s, similar balloons have also seen significant use as a U.S. spy tool in the Middle East. Professional bomb-maker Lockheed Martin, which manufacturers them, proudly proclaims on its website that dozens of the balloons have been “put into action” in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003.
AP News
Rare, pristine coral reef found off Tahiti coast
Deep in the South Pacific, scientists have explored a rare stretch of pristine corals shaped like roses off the coast of Tahiti. The reef is thought to be one of the largest found at such depths and seems untouched by climate change or human activities.
Laetitia Hédouin said she first saw the corals during a recreational dive with a local diving club months earlier.
“When I went there for the first time, I thought, ’Wow — we need to study that reef. There’s something special about that reef,” said Hédouin, a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Moorea, French Polynesia.
San Francisco Chronicle
Biden Administration pledges billions to fight wildfire crisis in California and across the West
Acknowledging that the U.S. Forest Service has fallen short when it comes to preventing wildfires, the Biden administration this week said it would spend nearly $3 billion to reduce risk across the most fire-prone areas of the United States, largely in the American West. […]
The Forest Service says the goal is to address fire danger across 20 million acres of federal forests in 10 years and provide funding to support projects on another 30 million acres of state, private, tribal and other federal properties. With these funds, it will double the acres each year — from 2 million to 4 million — it treats with thinning projects, prescribed burns and other methods for clearing overgrowth to lessen wildfire dangers thanks to new funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Protesters seek class action against Portland over police use of force
A “campaign of widespread violence” by the Portland Police Bureau violated thousands of protesters’ constitutional rights during the city’s 2020 racial justice demonstrations, according to a motion filed Wednesday in federal court on behalf of protesters.
Specifically, the filing alleges the police and City of Portland consistently fired crowd control weapons such as tear gas, flash bang grenades and impact munitions indiscriminately into crowds, even when large numbers of people were not violating any laws. […]
In addition to First Amendment free speech violations, the plaintiffs allege the city violated protesters’ Fourth Amendment rights against excessive use of force.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
'We have a lot to lose': 16 Minnesota cities declare climate emergency, urge legislative action
Sixteen Minnesota cities that span from the North Shore through the metro to southeastern bluff country are declaring a climate emergency, sending a message to lawmakers ahead of this legislative session that the time for action is now.
"We have a lot to lose," Grand Marais Mayor Jay DeCoux said. "This is too little, too late, but this is where we're at."
City leaders say the signs of a changing climate in Minnesota are impossible to ignore, from never-before-seen tornados in December to severe drought this summer that fueled wildfires and the dirtiest air on record. With the state failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions, there is a growing sense of urgency within this coalition. Many are reaching sustainability goals at the local level, but want more state and federal funding to slow the effects of climate change.
Chicago Sun-Times
Sun-Times sale called a ‘marriage with a dowry’
The sale of the Chicago Sun-Times to the owner of public radio station WBEZ is not your typical transfer of a corporate asset. […]
The sale to Chicago Public Media involves no cash paid to Sun-Times investors. On the contrary, principal Sun-Times owner Michael Sacks has pledged an unspecified sum for ongoing support. Also, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Pritzker Traubert Foundation are early funders in the deal.
“The Sun-Times is being donated to Chicago Public Media to form a larger, local news powerhouse. This is a marriage with a dowry, including Michael Sacks contributing both the Sun-Times and additional funds to help it succeed,” [Jim Friedlich, executive director and CEO of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism] said Wednesday in an email. “The conversion of the Sun-Times to nonprofit ownership has also provided the combined business access to significant new financial backing from major Chicago foundations in support of this transaction and more robust local news in the region. This approach has worked well in Philadelphia and is off to a promising start in Chicago.”
Mongabay
We’ve breached Earth’s threshold for chemical pollution, study says
Many thousands of human-made chemicals and synthetic pollutants are circulating throughout our world, with new ones entering production all the time — so many, in fact, that scientists now say we’ve crossed a critical threshold that heightens the risk of destabilizing the entire Earth operating system and posing a clear threat to humanity.
There are about 350,000 different types of artificial chemicals currently in the global market, from plastics to pesticides to industrial chemicals like flame retardants and insulators. While research has shown that many of these chemicals can have deleterious impacts on the natural world and human health, most substances have not been evaluated, with their interactions and impacts not yet understood or entirely unknown. […]
The mismatch between the rapid rate at which novel entities are being produced, compared to the snail’s pace at which governments assess risk and monitor impacts — leaving society largely flying blind as to chemical threats — is what prompted Carney Almroth and colleagues to make a weighty argument in a new paper published in Science and Technology: that we have breached the “planetary boundary” for novel entities, endangering the stability of the planet we call home.
ProPublica
How a Powerful Company Convinced Georgia to Let It Bury Toxic Waste in Groundwater
For the past several years, Georgia Power has gone to great lengths to skirt the federal rule requiring coal-fired power plants to safely dispose of massive amounts of toxic waste they produced. […]
Thousands of pages of internal government correspondence and corporate filings show how Georgia Power made an elaborate argument as to why it should be allowed to store waste produced before 2020 in a way that wouldn’t fully protect surrounding communities’ water supplies from contamination — and that would save the company potentially billions of dollars in cleanup costs. […]
Earlier this month, Georgia Power was on its way to getting final approval from the state to leave 48 million tons of coal ash buried in unlined ponds — despite evidence that contaminants were leaking out. Georgia is one of three states that regulate how power companies safely dispose of decades worth of coal ash, rather than leaving such oversight to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency itself.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Stacey Abrams lands key union endorsements for 2022 bid
Stacey Abrams centered her first in-person campaign event around an announcement from a coalition of unions that endorsed her run for governor, highlighting the prominent role that organized labor will play in her 2022 bid.
The Democrat embraced the support Wednesday from the Georgia chapter of AFL-CIO and roughly a dozen other unions at a press conference where she also blasted Gov. Brian Kemp as a “failed” leader and insisted there’s still hope for the passage of a federal voting rights measure.
Orlando Sentinel
Senate ignores DeSantis’ redistricting map, moves forward with plan less friendly to GOP
Florida Senate moved forward Wednesday with a congressional redistricting map that carves out fewer Republican-friendly districts than a surprise proposal put forth by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this week.
The Senate map is seen as the plan that would keep much of the status quo in place, reinforcing the 16-11 Republican advantage over Democrats in congressional seats and even giving Democrats a good shot at a new seat being created.
The House must still vote on its version of the map, one draft of which would radically reshape many districts. The final map must also be signed into law by DeSantis, or he could veto it.
Houston Chronicle
How Gov. Abbott's border crackdown is backfiring, giving more migrants a clearer path to the U.S.
When Gov. Greg Abbott deployed thousands of Texas National Guard troops and state police to arrest migrants along the southern border, he pitched it as a way to deter them from crossing into the country illegally, out of fear they could be jailed for months on state misdemeanor charges.
But in some cases, Operation Lone Star is having the opposite effect, according to defense attorneys and a county official who handle the state’s criminal cases against the migrants.
Instead of sitting in jail for 6 months to a year on trespassing charges, as Abbott suggested, some immigrants are resolving their cases in far less time or being released from jail on bond. They are then free to stay in the U.S. as they make their claims for asylum.
CNN
Starbucks scraps vaccine requirement following Supreme Court decision
Starbucks is no longer requiring employees to get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing, following the US Supreme Court's rejection last week of President Joe Biden's vaccine and testing requirement for large businesses. […]
But after the SCOTUS decision, Starbucks told employees that it would adjust its requirements.
"We respect the Court's ruling and will comply," John Culver, chief operating officer and group president for North America at Starbucks, said in a Tuesday message to employees.
In practical terms, that means workers no longer have to be vaccinated by the company's February 9 deadline, and they won't have to be tested weekly.
The Texas Tribune
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has fought vaccine mandates, tests positive for COVID-19
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has tested positive for COVID-19, his office said Wednesday. […]
Paxton, a second-term Republican, has challenged attempts by President Joe Biden to mandate vaccines for health care employees at facilities that receive funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and troops serving in the Texas National Guard. He has also fought attempts by the Biden administration to require staff and volunteers at Head Start programs to be vaccinated and for all parents, staff, volunteers and children over the age of 2 to wear a mask while at schools.
The Atlantic
People Are Hiding That Their Unvaccinated Loved Ones Died of COVID
[…] In 2020, dying of COVID-19 was widely seen as an unqualified tragedy. It was the beginning of the pandemic, when it felt as if the entire world was in a state of collective grief. There was a palpable, shared mourning for all the lives gone too soon: the smiling mothers and jokester grandfathers and so-and-so from church who always lent a helping hand. All victims of a virus, unfurling and cruel.
But that was before the vaccines. Before COVID deaths got caught up in a culture war.
Now the majority of COVID deaths are occurring among the unvaccinated, and many deaths are likely preventable. The compassion extended to the virus’s victims is no longer universal. Sometimes, in place of condolences, loved ones receive scorn.
Lumber Prices Are off the Rails Again. Blame Climate Change.
Last year, lumber turned into the surprise superstar of the U.S. economy when it briefly outperformed bitcoin, gold, and the S&P 500 to become “the hottest commodity on the planet.”
Now it’s happening again. Yesterday, the market closed at more than $1,200 per thousand board feet, a surge in price with only one precedent in the decades-long history of lumber trading. Last year, I wrote about the role that climate change was playing in the lumber volatility. Its effects now seem even more pronounced. “The lumber price story is really a climate-change story,” Stinson Dean, a lumber trader in Colorado, recently tweeted. He has argued that climate change has all but dictated the ongoing price rally, going so far as to call the lumber price a “climate price.”
Seehafer News
Wisconsin’s High-Speed Trains Heading to Nigeria
Wisconsin’s never used high-speed trains are headed to the African nation of Nigeria. […]
The Spanish firm Talgo has reached a deal with Nigeria’s Lago State for the trains, which were built in Milwaukee 11 years ago.
Former Governor Scott Walker blocked construction of high-speed rail between Madison and Milwaukee and the trains have been in storage ever since.
The Guardian
Antimicrobial resistance now a leading cause of death worldwide, study finds
Antimicrobial resistance poses a significant threat to humanity, health leaders have warned, as a study reveals it has become a leading cause of death worldwide and is killing about 3,500 people every day.
More than 1.2 million – and potentially millions more – died in 2019 as a direct result of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, according to the most comprehensive estimate to date of the global impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The stark analysis covering more than 200 countries and territories was published in the Lancet. It says AMR is killing more people than HIV/Aids or malaria. Many hundreds of thousands of deaths are occurring due to common, previously treatable infections, the study says, because bacteria that cause them have become resistant to treatment.
Israeli police demolish Palestinian family’s Sheikh Jarrah home
Israeli police have forcibly removed a Palestinian family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah, the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood where evictions helped trigger a round of fighting between Israel and Hamas last year.
About a dozen police officers arrived at the Salhiya family’s house in the early hours of Wednesday, dragging the 15 occupants outside before demolishing their home with a bulldozer. The eviction was the first to be successfully carried out in Sheikh Jarrah in nearly five years.
Yasmin Salhiya said in a social media post that some of the family had been beaten, including her nine-year-old sister while other neighbourhood residents present said police used rubber bullets and detained about 25 people, including five members of the family. In a joint statement with the Jerusalem municipality, police said several people were arrested on suspicion of violating a court order and disturbing the peace.
EuroNews
Categorical imperative': Moscow will only accept a full NATO expansion ban
Moscow will accept nothing less but “watertight” US guarantees precluding NATO's expansion to Ukraine, a top Kremlin diplomat warned Wednesday as Russia maintains a tough posture amid the tensions over its troop buildup near Ukraine.
Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation at the security talks with the US in Geneva last week, reaffirmed that Moscow has no intentions of invading Ukraine as the West fears, but said that receiving Western security guarantees is the categorical imperative for Moscow.
Since November, Russia has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine in what the West fears might herald an invasion.
Pandemic is 'nowhere near over', World Health Organization warns
The World Health Organization chief warned on Tuesday that the pandemic is "nowhere near over", adding that new variants are likely to continue emerging after Omicron.
"This pandemic is nowhere near over and with the incredible growth of Omicron globally, new variants are likely to emerge, which is why tracking and assessment remain critical," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, at a press conference.
The new, highly transmissible Omicron variant was first identified at the end of last year and has swept across the globe fuelling record-high cases in Europe and globally. WHO officials said that while the variant is less severe on average, it is still causing hospitalisation and death.
Deutsche Welle
Dutch museums open as salons to protest COVID rules
Museums and concert halls in the Netherlands opened briefly on Wednesday to protest their continued closure. Cultural venues, including famous museums and Amsterdam's historic concert hall, offered yoga sessions, haircuts and manicures.
Last weekend, the Netherlands eased a month-long lockdown, by allowing gyms, hairdressers and shops to reopen. However, cultural venues were ordered to remain closed to the public.
On Wednesday, authorities handed out enforcement notices to a number of the 70-odd venues that took part in the day-long protest.
EU to withhold funds for Poland over Turow coal mine
The European Commission said Wednesday that it is moving to withhold millions of euros in funds intended for Poland after leaders there refused to pay legal fines over the Turow coal mine near the Czech border.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) last year ordered Poland to close the mine, with the Czech government claiming that it drains groundwater from Czech villages and causes pollution.
Poland has refused to shut down the mine, saying it boosts the economy and helps the country meet its energy needs. Warsaw claims the EU does not have the legal authority to order the closure of the mine.
IOL
Mozambique court sentences poaching boss to 30 years
A court in Mozambique has sentenced the leader of a poaching gang to 30 years in prison on Wednesday.
According to BBC News Africa, judges in Maputo Province found Admiro Chauque guilty of illegal possession of weapons, and numerous poaching offences in southern Mozambique, as well as in South Africa's Kruger National Park.
The defendant, Admiro Chaúque, “led a gang of poachers operating in Magude and Massingir districts and the Kruger National Park in South Africa,” the ministry said in a statement issued today, local media reported on Wednesday.
The Independent
UN chief cites 'demonstrable effort' at peace in Ethiopia
The United Nations secretary-general said Wednesday he was delighted to hear “there is now a demonstrable effort to make peace” in Ethiopia after more than 14 months of war, but he gave no details.
Antonio Guterres’ statement on Wednesday came after a call with African Union envoy Olusegun Obasanjo following the envoy’s latest visit to Addis Ababa and the capital of Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region.
Guterres said Obasanjo “expressed optimism that there is now a real opportunity for political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict.”
Al Jazeera
Aid flights on way to Tonga, images reveal devastation
The first flights carrying emergency relief supplies are on their way to Tonga after the runway at the Pacific island nation’s main airport was cleared of ash and debris from last weekend’s devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami.
Like many other parts of the country, the runway at Nuku’alofa was blanketed in ash after the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, an undersea volcano, which sent giant plumes of ash, volcanic debris, and smoke into the air.
Israel to probe alleged use of Pegasus to spy on its citizens
Israel’s justice ministry has pledged a full investigation into allegations that the controversial Pegasus spyware was used on Israeli citizens, including people who led protests against former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli police firmly denied a report by the business daily Calcalist that Pegasus, a surveillance product made by the Israeli firm NSO, was used on citizens at the forefront of last year’s protests against Netanyahu, as well as on journalists and dissidents worldwide.
AFP
Taliban PM calls for Muslim nations to recognise Afghan government
The Taliban's prime minister called Wednesday on Muslim nations to be the first to officially recognise the government that seized power in Afghanistan in August.
No country has yet recognised the Taliban government, with nations watching to see how the hardline Islamists -– notorious for human rights abuses during their first stint in power between 1996 and 2001 -– will rule this time around. […]
"I call on Muslim countries to take the lead and recognise us officially. Then I hope we will be able to develop quickly," Mohammad Hassan Akhund told a conference in Kabul to address the country's massive economic crisis.
MercoPress
South American countries might form “lithium OPEC”
Developers in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and possibly Peru are evaluating the idea of creating an association of lithium-producing countries that will function like the mineral's OPEN for the region.
Prospects of such a development have gained momentum following Gabriel Boric's presidential victory in Chile, now that all governments will have similar leftwing ideologies. […]
Bolivia is the country with the largest lithium reserves in the world with 21 million tons, above the 14.8 million tons of Argentina and the 8.3 million tons of Chile. Outside the region, the countries that have the mineral are China and Australia.
South China Morning Post
China to boost economy with 12,000km expansion of high-speed railway by 2025
China will extend its high-speed rail network nearly 32 per cent by 2025, roughly equal to the combined length of the next five largest countries by network size, amid an emerging consensus that Beijing is again leaning on infrastructure investment to curb an economic slowdown.
The country also plans to widen use of its Beidou satellite navigation system at home and abroad, while tightening control of transport data, as technological self-reliance and national security have become government work priorities.
China, which has the world’s largest high-speed railway network, will expand its length to 50,000km by 2025, 12,000km longer than the end of 2020, according to the new five-year transport plan issued on Tuesday by the State Council, the country’s cabinet.
NBC News
Why are airlines squaring off against wireless companies over 5G?
[…] Verizon and AT&T are set to roll out 5G wireless services, which offer increased connectivity, higher bandwidth and ultrafast internet speeds. A significant portion of fifth-generation wireless technology, or 5G, operates within a specific range of frequencies that make up what's known as the C-band segment of the radio spectrum. The issue is that this part of the spectrum is near the segment of radio airwaves dedicated to commercial aviation and air traffic operations.
The Federal Aviation Administration has said 5G networks could disrupt aircraft operations. The main concern is that cellular towers and antennas near airports could interfere with radio altimeters, which are electronic devices in aircraft that help pilots gauge their altitude above the terrain. This equipment is particularly important when planes land in poor weather or when helicopters operate at low altitudes.
"The problem is that wireless signals are not 100 percent confined to the bands of spectrum they're assigned to," said Randall Berry, a professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University. "The concern here is that signals from the 5G band could leak over into the band that airlines are using and confuse these altimeters."
Ars Technica
Microsoft set to purchase Activision Blizzard in $68.7 billion deal
Microsoft announced plans on Tuesday morning to purchase gaming mega-publisher Activision Blizzard for a record-setting $68.7 billion. When finalized, the acquisition would bring franchises like Call of Duty, Overwatch, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and many more under the umbrella of the Xbox maker.