Breaking news: The NFL postponed last night\'s Monday Night Football game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills after Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle. Hamlin received CPR on the field and was taken to a local hospital, where he remains in critical condition. This is a developing story, read more here. |
Members of the 118th Congress will be sworn in on Capitol Hill today, kicking off a new government with a Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate. Of the 535 seats, a record 149 will be filled by women and 82 will be held by freshman members, including 25-year-old Rep. Maxwell Frost (D, FL-10), the first member from Gen Z. See more about the freshman class here.
The Senate and House will begin the new session at noon today, a date and time set by the 20th Amendment of the US Constitution. Republicans flipped the House in last year\'s election, securing a nine-seat majority, while Democrats secured 51 seats in the Senate. The agenda for the new Congress is expected to include the country\'s position on Russia and China, immigration policy, and Big Tech.
Separately, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R, CA-23) remains just shy of the 218 votes needed to become the next speaker of the House, despite offering a number of concessions to a group of at least five members opposing him. Voting will begin today and continue until McCarthy or another candidate secures a majority of votes (see overview). |
Ukrainian Missile Strikes |
At least 63 Russian troops were killed by Ukrainian strikes on a former vocational school being used as barracks and ammunition storage in the Russian-occupied eastern Donetsk region over the weekend, according to Russian officials. Ukrainian forces allegedly fired long-range missiles from a US-supplied HIMARS launch system (see 101). Ukrainian officials estimated the death toll closer to 400, one of the deadliest days for the Russian military since the war began.
The news came as Russia continued to bombard Ukrainian cities yesterday, with the Ukrainian military claiming it shot down at least 40 Russian drones and a cruise missile. Russia has launched a series of recent missile and drone attacks on the country, targeting civilian infrastructure. See updates on the war here.
Separately, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged just over $19B in aid to support Ukraine with necessities through the winter. |
Sarcophagus Returns to Egypt |
The US returned a nearly 3,000-year-old sarcophagus to Egypt yesterday after US attorneys concluded it had been looted from the country in 2008. The artifact had been on display in Houston\'s Museum of Natural Science since 2013.
Measuring almost 10 feet in length, the wooden coffin is known for its brightly painted green face. Despite blurred inscriptions, historians argue the coffin likely belonged to a Late Dynastic priest named Ankhemmaat (see timeline). Revelations last summer alleged a network of leaders in the art world were involved in illicit antiquities trading, leading to the indictment of a former director of the Louvre Museum in Paris. In September, Manhattan district attorneys announced the sarcophagus was stolen from an Egyptian necropolis by that same network and sold to a private German dealer.
The handover comes as part of a larger effort by Cairo\'s antiquities council to return its looted artifacts. During 2021 alone, over 5,000 ancient objects were returned from across the globe. |
Editor\'s note: In yesterday\'s science section, we incorrectly described an experiment studying aging in roundworms. In fact, the experiment used a technique known as optogenetics to boost the functioning of normal mitochondria. Thanks to our readers for flagging the mistake! |
|
|
|
|
