Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and 11 Republican senators are calling for accountability after a Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general (IG) report revealed that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to notify the White House and Congress of multiple hospitalizations. The report concluded Austin violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) and left critical defense responsibilities unaddressed during his incapacitation.
The devastating wildfires raging across Los Angeles have drawn sharp criticism over years of mismanagement and budgetary neglect under Democrat leadership. The crisis has exposed a severely underfunded Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), leaving firefighters and residents to face unprecedented challenges.
L.A. Times columnist Sammy Roth has attributed the recent Palisades Fire and other devastating wildfires in Los Angeles to climate change, framing the issue as a result of fossil fuel dependence and global warming. In his column titled “Los Angeles is a climate disaster. The fires will change nothing,” Roth called for systemic changes, such as reducing fossil fuel use, supporting green businesses, and prioritizing climate action in public policy and personal decisions.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court was forced to adjourn its first impeachment hearing for President Yoon Suk-yeol on Tuesday after he failed to attend, citing security concerns. Yoon, impeached in December following his abrupt imposition of martial law, faces charges of insurrection and is subject to an arrest warrant, further complicating the political turmoil.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) criticized a Republican-backed bill seeking to prohibit biological men from participating in federally funded K-12 women’s sports. Jeffries argued on MSNBC’s All In that the legislation could lead to harmful outcomes for children, claiming it risks enabling predators under the guise of enforcing the law.
France’s birthrate fell to its lowest level since the end of World War I, with only 663,000 babies born in 2024, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE). This marks a 2.2% decline from the previous year and the lowest recorded births since 1946. The fertility rate also dropped to 1.62 children per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement level needed to maintain population stability.
