Top News Stories for Today – Dec 29, 2018
Top News Stories for Today – Dec 29, 2018
Trump again threatens to shut US-Mexico border
US President Donald Trump on Friday once again threatened to close the entire US-Mexico border and cut aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador if Congress fails to give him money to fund the border wall. In a series of tweets, Trump also asked to change the “ridiculous immigration laws that our country is saddled with.”
Closing the US-Mexican border would mean disrupting a $1.68 billion-a-day trade relationship between the two countries, according to the office of the US Trade Representative. VOA
Egypt police kill 40 militants
Police in Egypt have killed dozens of militants during security raids on their hideouts, the interior ministry has said. The raids killed “40 terrorists” in Giza and North Sinai on Saturday morning, according to a statement from the ministry. It said the militants were planning a series of attacks on tourist sites, churches and military personnel.
The raids followed Friday’s roadside bomb attack on a tour bus in Giza. No group has yet said it was behind the blast, which killed three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian tour guide, but Islamist militants have targeted tourists in Egypt in the past. BBC
Dramatic collapse of Indonesian volcano
The scale of the dramatic collapse of the Indonesian volcano that led to last Saturday’s devastating tsunami in the Sunda Strait is becoming clear. Researchers have examined satellite images of Anak Krakatau to calculate the amount of rock and ash that sheared off into the sea. They say the volcano has lost more than two-thirds of its height and volume during the past week.
Much of this missing mass could have slid into the sea in one movement. It would certainly explain the displacement of water and the generation of waves up to 5m high that then inundated the nearby coastlines of Java and Sumatra. BBC
Arrests in death of California police officer
Authorities on Friday announced the arrests of two more people in connection to the death of police officer Ronil Singh in Newman, California, this past week. Conrado Virgen Mendoza and Ana Leyde Cervantes are respectively the brother and girlfriend of the primary suspect, who was identified Friday as Gustavo Perez Arriaga.
He was in the US illegally and was attempting to flee to Mexico when he was caught. Another brother of Arriaga, one of his coworkers, and three more people who were in the home where Arriaga was found have been arrested as well. The Week
EPA moves to weaken mercury pollution regulations
President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule change Friday to soften its regulation of toxic mercury emissions. It will reconfigure the Obama-era Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS), giving higher consideration to how much future regulations would cost manufacturers before implementing them.
The Obama-era standards cost power plants upwards of $9.6 billion annually, the EPA found. They reduced mercury pollution by 80 percent, but produced only an estimated $4 to $6 million in annual health benefits, per the statement. Obama’s EPA found similar figures, but said the rules would also reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in the air, producing further cost benefits. Mercury can “lower IQ, cause motor function deficits, damage the nervous system, and lead to more heart attacks,” Bloomberg says. VOA