Daily Briefing: All is not OK in the UK

Nicole Fallert, USA TODAY
·6 min read
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UK Prime Minister has resigned amid a political crisis stemming from her botched economic plan. Also in the news: Russian strikes are targeting Ukrainian utilities as winter looms. The Supreme Court may weigh in on President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan.

🙋🏼‍♀️ I'm Nicole Fallert, Daily Briefing author. Did you know you can get notifications for this newsletter to your phone? Set them up in the free USA TODAY app here.

Ready to go with Thursday's headlines.

🎃 Up first: You won't see ''It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'' on TV this year. Here's how to watch.

What's going on with UK politics?

Liz Truss became the shortest-serving leader in British political history after she resigned Thursday less than two months into the job. A botched economic plan unveiled by the government last month triggered financial turmoil and a growing political crisis that has seen the replacement of Truss’ Treasury chief, multiple policy U-turns and a breakdown of discipline in the governing Conservative Party. Read more

What comes next? Truss, 47, lasted just 44 days in office. Because Britain elects a party, not a specific leader, she will replaced by another lawmaker from her ruling Conservative Party.

  • Who is Liz Truss?  The U.K.'s prime minister models herself on Margaret Thatcher and was foreign secretary in Boris Johnson's government.

  • The beginning of the end: Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng, her close ally and finance minister, on Oct. 14, even though he was implementing the pro-growth economic policies she campaigned on.

  • Truss had vowed to stay. Truss described herself as “a fighter and not a quitter” Wednesday as she faced a hostile opposition and fury from her own Conservative Party over her economic plan. Truss faced more turmoil in Parliament Wednesday evening on a vote over fracking for shale gas — a practice that Truss wanted to resume despite opposition from many Conservatives.

Protester gather outside the gates of Downing Street during a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion, in central London on October 14, 2022. Truss has said that Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion were part of an "anti-growth coalition" with trade unions and the main opposition Labour party determined to derail her economic reforms.

With winter coming, Russia targets Ukrainian utilities

Russia has declared its intention to increase its targeting of Ukraine’s power, water and other vital infrastructure in its latest phase of the nearly 8-month-old war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Moscow's forces have destroyed 30% of the country's power stations since Oct. 10. Amid power woes, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared martial law Wednesday in the four regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed as Ukrainian troops continue their unrelenting drive to retain control of the occupied territories. Biden called the tactic an intimidation attempt by Putin – the "only tool available to him'' – and said it won't work. Read more

In this file photo taken on September 30, 2022 (L-R) The Moscow-appointed heads of Kherson region Vladimir Saldo and Zaporizhzhia region Yevgeny Balitsky, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin and Lugansk separatist leader Leonid Pasechnik join hands after signing treaties formally annexing four regions of Ukraine Russian troops occupy, at the Kremlin in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 19, 2022 introduced martial law in Ukraine's Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions that Moscow claims to have annexed.

More news to know now

🌤 What's today's weather? Check your local forecast here.

Taxpayer group asks Supreme Court to weigh in on Biden's student loan forgiveness program

A Wisconsin taxpayer group filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking to temporarily block President Joe Biden's administration from implementing its student loan forgiveness program. The appeal from the Brown County Taxpayers Association is one of several percolating in federal courts attempting to stop the effort, which critics argue exceeds the Department of Education's authority. Because the case is arriving on the court's emergency "shadow docket" it could be decided relatively quickly – within a matter of days. If the high court rules that the group has standing to sue, that would send the case back down to a lower court to decide the questions raised by the lawsuit on the merits. Read more

An American flag waves in front of the Supreme Court building, Nov. 2, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
An American flag waves in front of the Supreme Court building, Nov. 2, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

COVID-19 contributed to a quarter of maternal deaths from 2020 to 2021, report finds

COVID-19 contributed to a quarter of all U.S. maternal deaths last year and in 2020, according to an oversight report. The report, released Wednesday morning by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan government auditing agency, details maternal mortality disparities during the pandemic. Out of last year’s 1,178 reported maternal deaths, COVID-19 contributed to 401, according to the report. In 2020, the virus was behind almost 12% of maternal deaths.

COVID-19 drove a dramatic increase in the number of women who died from pregnancy or childbirth complications in the U.S. last year, a crisis that has disproportionately claimed Black and Hispanic women as victims, according to a report released Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022.
COVID-19 drove a dramatic increase in the number of women who died from pregnancy or childbirth complications in the U.S. last year, a crisis that has disproportionately claimed Black and Hispanic women as victims, according to a report released Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022.

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Will fights over curriculum usher in new era of segregated schools?

Education policy experts warn that efforts to keep certain books out of the classroom or ban the teaching of sensitive topics such as race and gender risk turning back the clock to a time when segregated schools meant separate – and vastly unequal – forums for learning. Millions of American students still go to schools where their classmates are predominantly the same race or ethnicity, decades after the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional. But experts see a new era in which how and what students learn will be determined by what their schools are allowed to teach. Read more

📷 Photo of the day: Best photos from MLB playoffs' League Championship Series 📷

The San Diego Padres stunned the Philadelphia Phillies 8-5, scoring eight unanswered runs, including a five-run, 37-minute fifth inning that was sparked by Austin Nola’s run-scoring single off his brother, turning the game upside down. The two teams are tied at one game apiece in the National League Championship Series, where the next three games are scheduled in Philadelphia and the winner going to the World Series. Read more

Click here to see more photos from baseball's latest competition.

Padres catcher Austin Nola hits an RBI-single in the fifth inning off his brother Aaron.
Padres catcher Austin Nola hits an RBI-single in the fifth inning off his brother Aaron.

One more thing

The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of color in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared-light view. The pillars look like arches and spires rising out of a desert landscape, but are filled with semi-transparent gas and dust, and ever changing. This is a region where young stars are forming – or have barely burst from their dusty cocoons as they continue to form.

Nicole Fallert is a newsletter writer at USA TODAY, sign up for the email here. Want to send Nicole a note, shoot her an email at NFallert@usatoday.com or follow along with her musings on Twitter. Support journalism like this – subscribe to USA TODAY here.

Associated Press contributed reporting.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Liz Truss, Ukraine, Padres, student loan forgiveness, pregnancy: Daily Briefing