Nation and World news — at a glance — for December 4
After fierce lobbying, Treasury sets rules for billions in hydrogen subsidies
(NYTimes) — The Biden administration on Friday made final its plan to offer tax credits to companies that make hydrogen, in the hopes of building up an industry that might help fight climate change. When burned, hydrogen mainly emits water vapor, and it could be used instead of fossil fuels to make steel or fertilizer or to power large trucks or ships. The final guidelines followed months of lobbying from lawmakers, industry representatives and environmental groups and roughly 30,000 public comments. They include changes that make it somewhat easier for hydrogen producers to claim the tax credits, which could total tens of billions of dollars over the next decade.
European ministers visit Syria to strengthen ties with new government
(NYTimes) — Syria’s new leaders met the French and German foreign ministers in the capital, Damascus, on Friday in one of the highest-level Western diplomatic visits since the fall of President Bashar Assad last month. Annalena Baerbock of Germany and her French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, arrived in Damascus for the first such trip in years on behalf of the European Union, as world powers have begun building ties with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that leads the new Syrian government. The visits are among a flurry of contacts between rebel leaders and Western officials looking to gradually open channels to the new Syrian authorities.
Honduras threatens to expel US military as Latin America gears up for Trump deportations
(NYTimes) — Honduras’ president threatened to push the U.S. military out of a base it built decades ago in the Central American country should President-elect Donald Trump carry out mass deportations of immigrants. The response by President Xiomara Castro of Honduras was the first pushback by a leader in the region to Trump’s plan to send back millions of Latin American citizens living illegally in the United States. Honduras’ foreign minister, Enrique Reina, said afterward that Honduras’ leader has the power to suspend a decades-old agreement with the United States that allowed it to build the Soto Cano air base.
Elon musk has a strange fixation with trolling Britain
(NYTimes) — In a fusillade of posts that began before the new year, Elon Musk moved on from his enthusiastic boosting of a far-right party in Germany to targeting Britain on multiple politically sensitive fronts. After mostly ignoring Musk’s trolling, the British government on Friday snapped back. “Elon Musk is an American citizen and perhaps ought to focus on issues on the other side of the Atlantic,” the government’s health minister, Andrew Gwynne, said in an interview. Gwynne’s boss, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, told reporters, “Some of the criticisms Elon Musk has made, I think, are misjudged and certainly misinformed.”
Awaiting sentencing, Menendez pleads for leniency, blames wife
(NYTimes) — With less than a month to go before Bob Menendez, New Jersey’s disgraced former U.S. senator, is scheduled to be sentenced for corruption, his lawyers submitted an emotion-laden appeal for leniency based on what they depicted as Menendez’s hardscrabble upbringing, life of service and devotion to family. In a legal brief filed minutes before midnight Thursday, the lawyers, Avi Weitzman and Adam Fee, laid out Menendez’s rise to political prominence in Hudson County, New Jersey, and a catalog of good deeds done for constituents during three decades in Congress. Weitzman and Fee suggested that their client’s greatest failing was being led astray by a conniving wife.
A powerful winter storm is poised to move through the middle of the US
(NYTimes) — A strong winter storm accompanied by arctic cold is poised to bring “significant wintry weather” this weekend to about a dozen states across the middle of the country, from the Central Plains to the mid-Atlantic, according to the Weather Prediction Center, with forecasters warning that some places may get their heaviest snowfall in a decade or more. The storm is expected to bring a nasty mix of sleet, snow and freezing rain that is expected to disrupt travel and daily life with road closures, flight delays and power outages beginning Saturday and lasting through Monday. As the storm moves on, arctic air is predicted to settle in its wake.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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