Nikki-Dee's early morning forecast: Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Nikki-Dee Ray's early morning forecast for Wednesday, January 13, 2021.

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  • Biden's foreign policy challenges, from Iran's nuclear program to Russian hacking

    These are the issues the Biden administration will be dealing with on the foreign policy front.

  • Israeli police, ultra-Orthodox protesters clash over schools

    Ultra-Orthodox demonstrators clashed with Israeli police in two major cities on Sunday, as authorities faced new difficulties in enforcing coronavirus restrictions in the country's religious communities. The clashes occurred in Jerusalem and Ashdod as police attempted to close religious schools that had opened in violation of lockdown orders. This has contributed to a disproportionate infection rate, with the ultra-Orthodox community accounting for over one-third of Israel's coronavirus cases, despite making up just over 10% of the population.

  • Biden administration to unveil more climate policies, urges China to toughen emissions target

    U.S. President Joe Biden's administration next week will release more policies it believes are needed to tackle climate change and is urging China to toughen one of its targets on greenhouse gas emissions, his top climate advisers said on Saturday. Gina McCarthy, the White House's national climate adviser, did not say what policies would be released. A memo seen by Reuters on Thursday showed Biden will unveil a second round of executive orders as soon as Jan. 27 that include an omnibus order to combat climate change domestically and elevate the issue as a national security priority.

  • Navalny's wife detained amid mass arrests as protests sweep across Russia

    Russian police detained Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, at a protest in Moscow on Saturday as demonstrations in support of the opposition leader swept across Russia. Authorities detained at least 1,600 people at unauthorised rallies in Moscow and dozens of cities across the country, with some reports of violent clashes between protesters and riot police. At least 10,000 people joined protests in Moscow, according to estimates, in a test to Vladimir Putin. Protests began in Russia’s Far East and Siberia on Saturday morning. Seven time zones east of Moscow, about 3,000 people marched across the city of Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean, chanting “Navalny!” In Novosibirsk, chants “Putin is a thief” rang out in freezing minus 19 C temperatures as opposition supporters walked across the city to the main square.

  • WH announces initiatives to combat violent domestic extremism

    During a White House briefing on Friday, press secretary Jen Psaki announced the Biden administration’s plans to fight violent extremism in the U.S.

  • Ailing pope, reducing appearances, prays for homeless dead

    Ailing Pope Francis, who this week is making limited public appearances due to persistent pain, has drawn attention to the plight of homeless people in winter, including a Nigerian man who froze to death near the Vatican. Francis on Sunday asked for prayers for the 46-year-old man named Edwin who he said was “ignored by all, abandoned, even by us.” The pontiff said on Jan. 20 “a few meters away from St. Peter's Square, because of the cold, a Nigerian homeless man was found dead.”

  • Mexican leader says Biden offers $4B for Central America

    President Joe Biden's first calls to foreign leaders went to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at a strained moment for the U.S. relationship with its North American neighbors. Mexico's president said Saturday that Biden told him the U.S. would send $4 billion to help development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — nations whose hardships have spawned tides of migration through Mexico toward the United States.

  • Israel expands vaccination drive to include 16 to 18-year-olds in bid to save exams

    Israel has started vaccinating teenagers as it expanded its world-leading Covid-19 vaccination campaign to 16-18 year-olds in an effort to get them back in schools to take their winter exams on schedule. At least one dose has been administered to over 25 per cent of Israel’s 9.25 million population, with just over 10.5 per cent having received a second dose. Working its way down its priority list, the vaccine in Israel is now available to anyone over 40 or, with parental permission, those aged between 16 and 18. The winter matriculation certificate is a large part of university and military admissions. Israel struck a deal with Pfizer at the beginning of January that allowed them to expedite delivery of the vaccine so that all over 16s would be inoculated by the end of March, in return for extensive data on their vaccination campaign to share with the world. Israeli health minister, Yuli Edelstein, told The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that the data from their vaccination programme suggests a first dose gave just 30 per cent protection from coronavirus. “We are just at the beginning of the (vaccination) campaign, we do see cases of people that after getting the first dose still get sick with the coronavirus,” he said.

  • Priest who attended pro-Trump rally ahead of Capitol insurrection is suspended from post and may be defrocked

    Reverend Mark Hodges described event as ‘joyful, positive and orderly’

  • China sees fall in new COVID-19 cases amid strict local lockdowns

    China reported 80 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, mostly in the northeast where some residents complained they were short of food amid an ongoing local lockdowns, down from Friday's 107. Saturday's toll included 65 domestic cases, with more than half in the northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin. China, which this weekend marked the anniversary of the world's first coronavirus lockdown in the central city of Wuhan, is facing its worst wave of local cases since March last year.

  • Citizenship data is latest rollback of Trump census efforts

    The U.S. Census Bureau is suspending efforts to create neighborhood-level statistics on the citizenship and age of residents, using 2020 census data, in the latest rollback of Trump administration census-related initiatives that critics feared would be used to favor Republicans and whites during the drawing of state and local districts. As part of an order President Joe Biden signed Wednesday on the 2020 census, the Census Bureau said Friday that it would discontinue efforts to create citizenship tabulations at the city-block level using 2020 census data combined with administrative records.

  • SNP reveals 'roadmap to referendum' as poll shows support for independence

    The SNP has revealed a "roadmap to a referendum" on Scottish independence, with the latest poll showing a majority want a fresh vote. Mike Russell, the Scottish Government's Constitution Secretary, will present the 11-point document to the party's policy forum on Sunday. It says a "legal referendum" will be held after the pandemic if there is a pro-independence majority following May's election. The roadmap states any attempt by the UK Government to challenge the legality of the referendum in the courts will be "vigorously opposed". A Section 30 order - part of the Scotland Act 1998 which allows Holyrood to pass laws normally reserved to Westminster - was granted by the UK Government ahead of the 2014 independence referendum.

  • $1 billion U.S. Mega Millions jackpot up for grabs after record winless streak

    A billion-dollar Mega Millions jackpot that has been building for four months will be up for grabs on Friday, available to whoever can beat the one-in-302 million odds. "We generally see a lot of the sales occur on the day of the drawings," Mega Millions spokesman Seth Elkin, of the Maryland State Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, said by telephone. The selection of the six numbers will be the 37th semi-weekly drawing since the last grand prize winner was picked on Sept. 15, the longest jackpot dry spell Mega Millions has ever had, Elkin said.

  • Democrats make federal election standards a top priority

    Democrats plan to move quickly on one of the first bills of the new Congress, citing the need for federal election standards and other reforms to shore up the foundations of American democracy after a tumultuous post-election period and deadly riot at the Capitol. Absentee voting allowed for all or just voters with an excuse? Democrats, asserting constitutional authority to set the time, place and manner of federal elections, want national rules they say would make voting more uniform, accessible and fair across the nation.

  • Rioters who entered Capitol building may not be charged if they didn’t engage in violence, report says

    Federal officials do not want to crush court system with hundreds of cases

  • The limits of Biden's plan to cancel student debt

    Data: New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax; Chart: Axios VisualsThere’s a growing consensus among Americans who want President Biden to cancel student debt — but addressing the ballooning debt burden is much more complicated than it seems.Why it matters: Student debt is stopping millions of Americans from buying homes, buying cars and starting families. And the crisis is rapidly getting worse.Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here.By the numbers: Student debt — which stands at $1.55 trillion — is the biggest category of debt Americans owe, aside from mortgages. * Most borrowers are white, but Black college graduates owe an average of $25,000 more than their white counterparts. * According to a new Harris Poll survey, 64% of Americans support canceling some student debt, and 55% support canceling all of it.What's happening: Biden has proposed immediately cancelling $10,000 of federal student loan debt for every borrower. The move would cost around $370 billion. * That would eliminate debt for the 15 million borrowers that owe $10,000 or less — a broad-based approach that would help all 42 million borrowers.Yes, but: Here's what that alone wouldn't do: * It wouldn't make much of a difference for the nearly 30 million borrowers who owe more than $10,000. Many of them went to graduate school and owe hundreds of thousands. * It wouldn't stimulate the economy. Student debt stops many from investing or buying property, which is a drag on the economy, but canceling a small amount of debt wouldn't change that, experts say. * It wouldn’t target the most vulnerable borrowers. Canceling the same amount of debt for all doesn’t account for the fact that many Americans with student debt are also among the most well-educated and high-earning individuals. * It wouldn't help future borrowers. “The problem with forgiving student debt is that every day we’re making new loans in this broken system,” says Adam Looney, an economist at the University of Utah. “You’ve not solved the problem.”Insurmountable student debt is a recent phenomenon, Looney says. It's been growing at six times the rate of the U.S. economy, and it's only getting worse. * There are no limits on how much students can borrow and few restrictions on how they spend the money. * And, on top of that, the cost of college and graduate school is skyrocketing. As a result, young people are borrowing sums of money they can’t possibly repay and many are using that money to pursue degrees at online or for-profit colleges with higher than average dropout rates.What we're watching: Among the American public, canceling debt isn't a fringe or far-left idea any more. * In the Harris Poll survey, 78% support putting restrictions on the price of a university education. And 59% support no tuition at public universities.Be smart: sign up FREE for the most influential newsletter in America.

  • Indonesia says it has seized Iranian and Panamanian tankers

    Indonesian authorities said that they seized an Iranian tanker and Panamanian tanker suspected of carrying out the illegal transfer of oil in their country's waters Sunday. The tankers — the Iranian-flagged MT Horse and the Panamanian-flagged MT Frea — were seized in waters off Indonesia's West Kalimantan province, said Wisnu Pramadita, a spokesman for the Indonesian Maritime Security Agency.

  • Slim majority of Americans want Senate to convict Trump: Reuters/Ipsos poll

    A slim majority of Americans say former President Donald Trump should be convicted by the Senate of inciting an insurrection and barred from holding public office, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, which showed a sharp partisan divide over the issue. The national public opinion poll, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, found that 51% of Americans think Trump should be found guilty for inciting the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Another 37% said Trump should not be convicted and the remaining 12% said they were unsure.

  • Former police officer who climbed over fences to get into Capitol during riot claims he was there to see art

    Regular phone camera roll shows no images from January 6 but ‘deleted’ folder filled with images and videos of officer inside Capitol building during riot

  • Afghan war: Biden administration to review Trump's Taliban deal

    Officials say they want to check the group are "living up to its commitments" as violence continues.