Nation and world news — at a glance – November 20

Texas education board backs curriculum with lessons drawn from Bible

(NYTimes) — Texas education officials on Tuesday backed a new elementary school curriculum that infuses material drawn from the Bible into reading and language arts lessons, a contentious move that would test the limits of religion’s presence in public education. The curriculum, which will be optional, has already drawn protests in Texas, which has emerged as a leader in the ascendant but highly contested push to expand the role of religion in public schools. The new curriculum could become a model for other states. The vote was preliminary. But the final vote is scheduled to take place later in the week, with the same outcome expected.

Asheville gets drinkable tap water back after hurricane Helene

(NYTimes) — Jeff Watts, 57, barely followed the incremental updates on his city’s water distribution system after Hurricane Helene knocked it offline in September. All he knew was that life in Asheville, North Carolina, had become more difficult and dirty. But Monday, he listened to every word of a voicemail from the city informing him that, for the first time in 53 days, the water was clean enough to drink. City officials said they tested 120 water samples over the weekend before lifting the boil-water notice. About 12,000 people in Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, have filed for disaster-related unemployment benefits, according to Blue Ridge Public Radio.

Orders for morning-after pills and abortion pills rise after Trump’s election

(NYTimes) — The day after the election, Beth Ryan ordered two packages of emergency contraception pills and had them sent to her 27-year-old daughter. “We all felt so helpless,” said Ryan, who lives in Florida, describing her fear that a second Trump administration could further threaten access to reproductive health care. Across the country, people are taking similar steps, ordering emergency contraceptives, abortion pills or both. There is no national data, but interviews with numerous providers of abortion and contraceptive drugs point to a surge in demand in the immediate aftermath of the election.

Trump’s treasury challenge: A pick who loves tariffs yet calms markets

(NYTimes) — The conflicting goals of President-elect Donald Trump’s economic agenda have been playing out as he debates whom to choose as his Treasury secretary, a job that will entail steering tax cuts through Congress, leading trade talks with China and overseeing the $30 trillion U.S. bond market. Budget experts have warned that his plans could add as much as $15 trillion to the national debt while increasing inflation and slowing growth. But Trump is not in the market for a naysayer. He is seeking a Treasury secretary who will carry out his unconventional plans while still having the credibility to keep markets buoyant.

Severing of Baltic sea cables was ‘sabotage,’ Germany says

(NYTimes) — Germany’s defense minister on Tuesday called the severing of two fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea an act of sabotage aimed at European countries that are supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia. One undersea cable connecting Finland and Germany was cut Monday and the other, which runs between Lithuania and Sweden, was severed late Sunday. The damage disrupted some data transfers but did not endanger the internet connection or security of any of the countries, authorities said. “Nobody believes that these cables were severed by accident,” Germany’s minister of defense, Boris Pistorius, told reporters before a meeting of European security officials in Brussels.

UK farmers protest in London over inheritance tax change

(NYTimes) — Thousands of farmers gathered in central London on Tuesday in the biggest show of opposition to a policy announced by Britain’s center-left Labour government since it won power in July. Angry at inheritance taxation changes outlined in last month’s budget by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, protesters carried placards reading “No farmers no food,” while a procession of tractors drove past Parliament, voicing a broader sense of grievance among some of those who live in the countryside who accuse successive governments of betraying their interests. The change under Reeves’ plan applies to people who inherit agricultural assets worth more than 1 million pounds (about $1.3 million).

The Onion’s bid to acquire Infowars has gotten messy

(NYTimes) — There was a merry triumphalism to the announcement last week that The Onion, a satirical outlet based in Chicago, won an auction to acquire the conspiracy site Infowars out of bankruptcy. But the sale process has been drawn out by an unexpected twist in the bankruptcy proceedings, when a bidder affiliated with Alex Jones raised an eleventh-hour objection to the deal. The auction’s only other bidder, First United American Cos., is contesting the sale to The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron. The outcome of that effort will become clear after a hearing Monday, set by Judge Christopher Lopez in a federal bankruptcy court in Houston, to review the bidding process.

Netanyahu offers $5 million for each hostage freed in Gaza

(NYTimes) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday repeated his vow that Israel would hunt down and punish anyone who hurts a hostage, but he added a new promise: Israel will give a generous reward to anyone who returns a captive, paying $5 million and providing safe passage out of the Gaza Strip. “Whoever brings us a hostage, will find a safe way out for himself and his family,” he said. Netanyahu’s comments confirmed recent Israeli media reports that the government would offer a reward for freed hostages. It was not clear if the prize would apply for the return of a body of a hostage who had died in captivity.

Dozens of Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders jailed up to 10 years in mass trial

(NYTimes) — Elsewhere, it wouldn’t have been controversial: a public vote by pro-democracy activists trying to strengthen their hand in legislative elections, to decide who should run. More than 600,000 people took part in the unofficial poll. But this was Hong Kong, just after Beijing imposed a national security law. On Tuesday, the price of defying Beijing became clear. Forty-five former politicians and activists who had organized or taken part in the 2020 primary by the opposition were sentenced by a Hong Kong court to prison, including for as long as 10 years. The sentences were the final step in a crackdown that cut the heart out of the city’s democracy movement.

Lula was target of assassination plot, Brazilian police say

(NYTimes) — Brazilian authorities arrested several members of a Brazilian army unit Tuesday, accusing them of planning to assassinate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, shortly before he was to become the country’s president, as part of a plot to keep the far-right incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, in power. Four of those arrested were members of the military, including a former top aide to Bolsonaro, according to a police official. A fifth person arrested in the case is a federal police agent, the official said. A lawyer for Bolsonaro said his client had no involvement in or knowledge of the plot.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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