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Pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol. As Congress met yesterday to certify president-elect Joe Biden’s victory, hundreds of supporters of outgoing president Donald Trump breached police lines and broke into the Capitol, forcing lawmakers to be rushed away. For hours, law enforcement treated the rampaging mob far more delicately than they did Black Lives Matter protesters last year.
So was it a coup, an insurrection, or sedition? For many watching from around the world, there was no question that this was a coup, but others, including Biden, went with “insurrection” when he called on Trump to rebuke the mob the president had incited. Whatever we call it, it’s a defining moment.
Congress is on the verge of certifying Biden’s votes. Lawmakers made it back to the Capitol to continue confirming the election result, voting down challenges that many Republican lawmakers still tried to bring.
Democrats took the US Senate. In normal times, the victories of Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the state’s senatorial runoffs—credited to years of work by voting activist Stacey Abrams—would have been the biggest news of the day.
Trump’s days on mainstream social media could be numbered. Twitter suspended his account and said a permanent block could be forthcoming. Facebook blocked the president for 24 hours. But there are other places he can go to keep stoking anger.
What to watch for
On the opposite side of the world from Washington, a protest of a different kind is taking place in Delhi, as farmers who oppose India’s newly passed agricultural laws plan to march into the city with 2,500 tractor trolleys today. It’s the latest action in nearly two months of demonstrations that have grabbed headlines globally for their scale, but also for their inventiveness—some of the tractors have previously doubled as screens for movie viewing as protesters dug in for the long haul.
The latest round of talks between the government and farmers is scheduled for tomorrow. If the two sides can’t agree on a path forward, farmers’ union leaders say a tractor rally and nationwide protests will start on Jan. 26, when the country celebrates Republic Day.
Charting Reliance’s pivot to tech
The year 2020 was an astonishingly good one for India’s richest billionaire.
Mukesh Ambani, chairman of the country’s most valuable publicly listed company, Reliance Industries, became richer during the pandemic. And his oil-to-telecom conglomerate became debt-free thanks to more than $20 billion in investment from global tech platforms backing his vision for the 50-year-old company’s future.
The pivot in Reliance’s focus from its longtime oil, gas, and petrochemicals business to tech couldn’t have been clearer than at its annual meeting in July, where mentions of Jio dominated the tycoon’s two-hour long speech.
Global warming is changing city temperatures
Urban areas are home to more than half the global population, but global-scale climate models tend to focus on much broader regional projections. As Tim McDonnell explains, a new paper helps demonstrate the disproportionate impact on cities.
It projects urban areas will be 4.4°C (7.9°F) warmer on average by 2100 assuming a high volume of greenhouse gas emissions, and 1.9°C (3.4°F) warmer with mid-level emissions. Those numbers are a bit lower than the global average projections because urban areas are starting from a warmer baseline—but they still end up warmer overall.
While the projections may not be granular enough to be practically useful to urban planners, any climate model that gets scientists closer to understanding urban warming trends is a step in the right direction—especially since neighboring cities will need to work together on solutions.
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Surprising discoveries
Run, you tiny horses! A pair of dwarf giraffes with a condition known as skeletal dysplasia are half the size of giraffes of average height.
French wine thieves threw stolen wine at police. They used what they had at their disposal.
Your car’s data can be used by law enforcement. Looser standards surrounding the privacy of vehicle data are a boon for cops.
We’ll soon get the truth that’s been out there. An obscure law in the recent stimulus bill has put the government on the clock to disclose what it knows about UFOs.
The NHL is selling the naming rights to four divisions. The corporate sponsorship will help replace lost ticket revenue.
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