THE SHOW NOTES: Biden's Houthi Backtrack, The Chinese Lab Surprise, & Protesting Kids With Cancer
Welcome! Lloyd Austin and his team went to extraordinary lengths to hide his medical condition.
NEW: The Fire Department was treating people for hypothermia at the Chiefs game while the temperature was -9 degrees.
HEADLINE: It's so cold, Teslas are struggling to charge in Chicago - NPR
SHOCK: Hamas’ underground tunnels are at least 350 miles long and have turned Gaza ‘into a fortress’ - NY Post
MUST READ: Why the Houthis Matter - Commentary
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The Houthi Backtrack
The US military launched a fresh round of airstrikes against key Houthi positions in Yemen after the terrorist organization launched anti-ship missiles at cargo vessels in the Red Sea on Monday. The third round of strikes from the US preemptively targeted four of the Houthi’s anti-ship ballistic missiles but failed to stop a fifth missile which struck a Greek-owned commodities ship later that day.
Why this matters: The uncontained violence in the Red Sea is forcing commercial vessels to travel around the southern tip of Africa in order to avoid danger. The additional 15-day journey is creating fresh supply chain crises that are predominately impacting the automotive industry according to the Financial Times (paywall).
Yemen: The Pentagon announced that the US Navy on January 11th seized an Iranian shipment of key components for cruise and ballistic missiles that was headed for Yemen. Unfortunately, two Navy Seals were lost at sea and are yet to be recovered.
🚨 Terror: The Biden administration plans to re-designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization after removing the designation when Biden took office in 2021.
Chinese Lab Mapped Deadly Coronavirus Two Weeks Before Beijing Told the World, Documents Show
Chinese researchers isolated and mapped the virus that causes Covid-19 in late December 2019, at least two weeks before Beijing revealed details of the deadly virus to the world, congressional investigators said, raising questions anew about what China knew in the pandemic’s crucial early days.
Documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by a House committee and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show that a Chinese researcher in Beijing uploaded a nearly complete sequence of the virus’s structure to a U.S. government-run database on Dec. 28, 2019. Chinese officials at that time were still publicly describing the disease outbreak in Wuhan, China, as a viral pneumonia “of unknown cause” and had yet to close the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, site of one of the initial Covid-19 outbreaks.
China only shared the virus’s sequence with the World Health Organization on Jan. 11, 2020, according to U.S. government timelines of the pandemic.
Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
The Gaza Protest at the Cancer Hospital
As if blocking the Brooklyn Bridge or the tunnel into Manhattan weren’t alienating enough to the average New Yorker, pro-Palestinian activists held a raucous march on Monday that included shouting accusations of “genocide” at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Seriously, that actually happened.
“MSK, shame on you / you support genocide, too,” the crowd yelled, according to video circulating online. A leader with a microphone called the cancer center “another complicit institution,” and urged the protesters: “Make sure they hear you! They’re in the windows!” They, meaning, cancer patients? Cancer doctors? Cancer nurses?
Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
China’s population falls for a 2nd straight year as births drop even after end of one-child policy
China’s population fell by 2 million people in 2023 in its second straight annual decrease, as births dropped for the seventh straight year and deaths jumped following the end of COVID-19 restrictions, the government said Wednesday.
The number of deaths rose by 690,000 to 11.1 million, more than double the previous year’s increase. Demographers said the rise was driven by the aging of the population and the widespread COVID-19 outbreaks that started in December 2022 and continued into February of last year.
The total population stood at 1.4 billion, the statistics bureau said. China, long the most populated country in the world, dropped into second place behind India in 2023, according to U.N. estimates.
The falling births reflect a decline in the fertility rate that is a long-term economic and societal challenge for China. Women are having fewer babies despite government incentives and the easing of its one-child policy in recent years to allow up to three children.
Full story at the Associated Press.
Trending news:
‘We all have concerns’: Hill Democrats see flawed Biden campaign - Rollcall
ABC News cancels New Hampshire Republican primary debate - ABC
Kate Middleton hospitalized for surgery, expected to stay for up to 2 weeks - Fox News
Pakistan condemns deadly Iranian missile strike on its territory as tensions spike across region - CNN
Biz expert says Stanley unleashed 'perfect storm' of viral marketing for Quencher mugs - Fox Business
King Charles III to undergo a 'corrective procedure' next week for an enlarged prostate - Fox News
Amid National Backlash, Colleges Brace for Fresh Wave of Anti-DEI Legislation - Archive
Russian missiles hit Ukrainian apartment buildings in latest deadly strikes on civilian areas - AP
They drove from the Arctic to the South Pole — in an electric car - The Washington Post (paywall)
Market snapshot:
“ Women are having fewer babies despite government incentives..”
Correction. There are fewer women to have babies as well.
The one child policy caused a despairage in women to men ratio. Not sustainable.
Two quick bits:
1) Kate gets 2 weeks in the hospital? Guess she's not on the National Health Service Plan.
2) Wonder whats going to happen to all those frozen Teslas when the batteries finally thaw out?