U.S. says Indian official directed assassination plot in New York
Federal prosecutors in New York on Wednesday charged an Indian national with involvement in a scheme to kill a Sikh separatist and political activist, who is a U.S. citizen and has been outspoken in his belief in a Sikh-majority homeland. The hit was planned by an Indian government official who told the man tapped to carry it out, Nikhil Gupta, that there was a target in New York and another in California, according to prosecutors. Gupta, 52, faces charges of murder for hire and conspiracy to commit murder for hire. The target of the plot was identified by U.S. officials as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who is general counsel for the New York-based group Sikhs for Justice.
Wolverines get protection in the lower 48 states
Wolverines in the contiguous United States are threatened by climate change and habitat fragmentation and will be listed under the Endangered Species Act, the federal government announced Wednesday. While scientists say they never existed in large numbers south of Canada, only an estimated 300 remain, inhabiting areas of the Northern Rocky Mountains and Northern Cascades of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon. Federal agencies such as the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management will have to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service if they are considering activities on public lands that could harm wolverines.
U.S. life expectancy creeps up as COVID deaths fall
Life expectancy in the United States has begun to climb again as the threat of COVID-19 has receded, increasing by more than a year from 2021 to 2022, according to data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rise represents a slow and partial recovery for the country, which tallied more than 1.1 million COVID deaths and lost 2.4 years in life expectancy from 2019 to 2021. But an array of other conditions continued to pose grave risks to Americans’ health. Deaths from flu, pneumonia, fetal and infant conditions and kidney disease rose in 2022, the agency reported, partially offsetting the fall in COVID deaths.
Top Ramaswamy aide resigns to start working for the Trump campaign
Vivek Ramaswamy’s national political director is switching Republican teams and heading to former President Donald Trump’s campaign. The political director, Brian Swensen, has resigned and plans to join Trump’s reelection effort, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy said Wednesday. The move came as Ramaswamy, whose campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination has plateaued in the polls, is barnstorming the early primary states in the final weeks before the start of the primary season in Iowa and New Hampshire in January. Tricia McLaughlin, the Ramaswamy campaign’s spokesperson, said Swensen had left on good terms and that the move had been “in the process for a while.”
Google agrees to pay Canadian media for using their content
Canada’s standoff with technology giants Google and Meta over their use of domestic news content eased on one front Wednesday, as the federal government announced that it had reached a deal with Google to compensate publishers in Canada. The agreement comes weeks before a national law is set to take effect that will require tech companies to pay news outlets for using their content online. Under the deal, Google will provide 100 million Canadian dollars (about $73.5 million) each year to news organizations, including independent outlets, Indigenous media and multilingual media. The funds will be distributed based on the number of workers each qualifying news outlet employs, government officials said.
NATO ministers vow to maintain support for Ukraine
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top Western diplomats vowed Wednesday to sustain support for Ukraine and its bid to join NATO despite dwindling military supplies and competing crises. Blinken’s remarks came at the tail end of a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels. A White House proposal to send Ukraine additional emergency aid has stalled in the Republican-led House of Representatives, and the war in Gaza has consumed global attention. He added that he expected that President Joe Biden’s request for $61.4 billion in additional military and economic support for Ukraine would be approved by Congress.
India ignored repeated warnings before tunnel trapped 41 men
As the trapped workers came out of the under-construction road tunnel after 17 days, the happy end to a rescue effort that had riveted India set off celebrations across the country. While activists and environmentalists also watched with relief, the scenes carried a different meaning for them. They had long warned, in futile court cases and failed tribunal hearings, that the $1.5 billion road-widening project was dangerously destabilizing the already fragile Himalayan landscape. To them, the fact that the work had proceeded anyway, ultimately incurring a disastrous landslide, was another reminder of how Prime Minister Narendra Modi has removed almost every obstacle to getting his way.
Scottish country music venue ends display of Confederate flag
Until recently, a night of live music at the Grand Ole Opry in Glasgow, Scotland, a members’ club that holds public events, would end with what it described as a salute to the war’s dead and a ceremonial folding of the Confederate battle flag, which to many in the United States and abroad is a symbol of white supremacy. After years of tension, the club’s leadership announced last month that it would ban the flag’s display, a move that exploded into a rift among the organization’s members, most of whom are white and Scottish. During an emergency meeting Monday, they voted to uphold the decision banning the flag.
By wire sources