Kami Rita Sherpa makes climbing Mount Everest look easy — as of Saturday, it’s something the 52-year-old Nepali mountaineer has done 26 times. He first set the record for most Mount Everest summits in May 2018 — 22 — and broke that record twice in 2019, NPR reports. The 2020 climbing season was canceled because of COVID-19, and in May 2021, Kami Rita was back at it, summiting the world’s tallest peak for the 25th time. Kami Rita’s father, Mingma Tshering Sherpa, was one of the first professional guides to help international climbers summit Mount Everest. As a young teenager, Kami Rita began working as a porter, bringing gear up to Everest’s base camp, and his first successful climb was in 1994, he told Guinness World Records. [NPR]
Senate Democrats failed to advance the Women’s Health Protection Act, their bill seeking to codify abortion rights in federal law. The vote came as the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is poised to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion rights nationwide. Democratic leaders knew they didn’t have enough support to get the legislation past a Republican filibuster, but they said they wanted to hold the vote so that every senator is on record about where they stand on ensuring women’s access to abortion. The vote was 49 to 51, with all 50 Senate Republicans opposing it, and moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) joining them. [The Wall Street Journal, NPR]
Senate Democrats failed to advance the Women’s Health Protection Act, their bill seeking to codify abortion rights in federal law. The vote came as the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is poised to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion rights nationwide. Democratic leaders knew they didn’t have enough support to get the legislation past a Republican filibuster, but they said they wanted to hold the vote so that every senator is on record about where they stand on ensuring women’s access to abortion. The vote was 49 to 51, with all 50 Senate Republicans opposing it, and moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) joining them. [The Wall Street Journal, NPR]
Finland’s prime minister and president said Thursday that their country “must apply for NATO membership without delay.” “NATO membership would strengthen Finland’s security,” President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said in a statement. “As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defense alliance.” The announcement was expected. They said the next steps should begin within days. Finland’s parliament must approve NATO membership before the country can apply. Public support for the move has risen dramatically since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Sweden, too, is considering joining NATO. Its leaders are expected to announce their position this weekend. [The New York Times, BBC News]
The consumer price index rose 8.3 percent in April compared to a year earlier, down from the 8.5 percent pace recorded in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Prices were up 0.3 percent compared to the month before, down from a 1.2 percent increase in March. Despite the slowdown, inflation remained near 40-year highs. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.6 percent in April, compared to 0.3 percent in March. The April numbers were slightly higher than expected, fueling investors’ inflation fears. The three main U.S. stock indexes dropped on Wednesday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was hit hardest, falling 3.2 percent. Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq futures fell early Thursday. [The Washington Post, CNBC]
Five Republican lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have been subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on theCapitol, the panel announced Thursday. All five of the GOP lawmakers are closely allied with former President Donald Trump, whose supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. McCarthy and the other Republicans — Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), and Scott Perry (Pa.) — are the first sitting lawmakers to be summoned to testify before the bipartisan committee. All five previously refused requests to testify voluntarily. Days after theriot, McCarthy was recorded telling colleagues he would ask Trump to step down. [CNBC]
North Korean state media said Friday that six people had died and 350,000 were treated for a fever spreading “explosively” across the country. The news came a day after North Korea acknowledged aCOVID-19 outbreak for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic started more than two years ago. Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said 162,200 of the 350,000 people hit with fevers since late April have recovered, with 18,000 new cases on Thursday. North Korea likely lacks the COVID-19 tests to confirm the cause of the fevers. “But a big outbreak of thecoronavirus could be devastating in a country with a broken health care system and an unvaccinated, malnourished population,” The Associated Press says. [The Associated Press]
The Biden administration said Thursday it will take steps to address a worsening baby formula shortage. The White House said after a meeting between Biden and retailers and manufacturers thatthe administration will push states to waive packaging regulations to help get formula into stores faster. The Federal Trade Commission and state authorities will take steps to discourage price gouging. Biden is also urging companies to impose buying limits to discourage hoarding. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce within days thatthe United States will start importing formula from Mexico, Chile, Ireland, the Netherlands, and other countries. Republicans complained thatthe Biden administration was sending formula to the border to feed migrant babies during the shortage. [The New York Times, Fox News]
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday thatthe leak of a draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade was “tremendously bad” and had damaged the atmosphere of trust on the Supreme Court. “The institution that I’m a part of, if someone said that one line of one opinion would be leaked by anyone, you’d say, ‘Oh, that‘s impossible. No one would ever do that,'” Thomas said at a conference in Dallas hosted by the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. Thomas cited the close friendship between ideologically opposed Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg as an example of the “family” the court once resembled.
Organizers of nationwide abortion rights protests said they expect hundreds of thousands of people to show up on Saturday at events in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other major cities. Abortion rights groups have reportedly organized more than 300 “Bans Off Our Bodies” marches to protest the leaked draft Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade.
“For the women of this country, this will be a summer of rage. We will be ungovernable until this government starts working for us, until the attacks on our bodies let up, until the right to an abortion is codified into law,”
Women’s March President Rachel Carmona said. [Reuters]
The Texas Supreme Court unanimously ruled Friday that child abuse investigations into the parents of transgender children can continue but thatthe governor and attorney general cannot directly order such investigations. The ruling came after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate the family of a 16-year-old transgender girl identified as “Mary Doe.” Abbott had called on state officials to consider medically accepted treatments for transgender youth — such as hormones, puberty suppressants, and gender-affirming surgery — as potential abuse in cases involving minors. Mary Doe’s family filed a lawsuit when investigators began requesting medical records related to their daughter’s treatment. [TheWeek, The New York Times]
The government of Turkey does not support Finland and Sweden joining NATO, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Friday.
“We are following the developments regarding Sweden and Finland, but we are not of a favorable opinion,”
Erdoğan said in Instanbul.
“Scandinavian countries are guesthouses for terrorist organizations,”
he added. Erdoğan’s comments throw a potentially huge wrench in both Finland and Sweden’s possible membership, considering all 30 NATO allies must approve a candidate country’s application. Sweden has not yet made final its intention to apply, though a decision is expected soon. Finland announced its plans to move forward with accession on Thursday. [Axios, TheWeek]
Ten people were killed and three others wounded when a gunman opened fire with an AR-15 at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday. The shooter, an 18-year-old man named Payton Gendron, drove to Buffalo from Conklin, New York, around 200 miles away. Gendron, who described himself in a 180-page manifesto as a white supremacist, was apprehended alive after police persuaded him not to shoot himself and has been charged with first-degree murder. 11 of the 13 victims were Black. President Biden issued a statement late Saturday describing the attack as an example of “hate-fueled domestic terrorism.” [Reuters, CNN]
Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat as a Republican and would be the country’s first Muslim senator if elected, slammed primary opponent Kathy Barnette on Saturday for her history of posting Islamophobic tweets.
“We must stop interacting with them as if they r rational human beings. There is nothing rational about Islam,”
Barnette tweeted in 2015. She also shared an article with the headline
“Pedophilia is a Cornerstone of Islam.”
Oz said he considers Barnette’s “Islamophobic” remarks to be “disqualifying.” Despite her huge disadvantage in funding, Barnette is polling neck-and-neck with Oz ahead of Tuesday’s primary. [The New York Post, Fox News]
Thousands of people attended hundreds of demonstrations across the United States on Saturday to express their outrage at a Supreme Court draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) both attended the march in New York City, as did Mayor Eric Adams, who told reporters he believes there should be no limits on abortion. Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama both tweeted support for the protests. Barack wrote that he was
“proud of everyone making their voices heard,”
while Michelle shared an infographic warning that state lawmakers could
“strip womxn of the right to make decisions about their bodies.”
Hundreds of people gathered Sunday near the Jefferson Avenue Tops Markets to hold a prayer vigil for the victims of adeadly mass shooting there that police are calling a racist hate crime by a white supremacist. The vigil evolved into aBlack Lives Matter protest and an expression of anger against gun violence. The white 18-year-old arrested for the shooting, which left 10 people dead, had researched the predominantly Black neighborhood’s demographics and traveled 200 miles to the area with the “express purpose” of murdering as many Black people as he could, officials said. The suspect, Payton Gendron, reportedly posted a racist manifesto and made threatening comments at his high school last year. [The Buffalo News, The Associated Press]
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced Sunday that her party, the Social Democrats, had decided that Sweden should join NATO. The Social Democrats voted in a Sunday meeting to support working toward applying to join the Western military alliance, setting up a vote in parliament. Hours earlier, Finland formally announced it will seek to join NATO. Andersson said Sweden’s military non-alliance had served it well for 200 years, but Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine showed the policy
A gunman killed one person and critically injured five others Sunday during a lunch banquet at a Laguna Woods, California, Taiwanese church. A witness said the pastor hit the attacker with a chair when the man paused to reload, and members of the Geneva Presbyterian Church congregation tackled and hogtied him. Undersheriff Jeff Hallock said the churchgoers’ “heroism and bravery” prevented further bloodshed. As many as 40 congregants were attending the lunch after a church service. Police said they believed the suspect, a 68-year-old Asian man, was originally from Las Vegas. The attack shook the quiet Orange County suburb. “Things are just breaking down in society right now,” resident Patricia Wallace said. “It’s just so sad.” [Los Angeles Times]
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Sunday that he expects senators to advance the new $40 billion Ukraine aid package on Monday, followed by a final vote to approve the funding on Wednesday. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held up the money last week, but McConnell, who made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Saturday, said
“it’s important for the United States to help, important for the free world to help.”
McConnell said the Ukraine aid is “not charity” but a necessary step to protect U.S. interests by showing thata “ruthless thug” can’t “march through Europe” unchecked. McConnell also said he would support designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. [The Washington Post]
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday he will call a special legislative session to pass a total abortion ban if the Supreme Court strikes down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion rights nationwide.
Ricketts said he doesn’t want to allow exceptions for rape or incest. The comments came a day after abortion-rights protesters held rallies nationwide calling for keeping abortion legal. Expectations of a Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe mounted last week after the leak of a draft opinion by a five-justice conservative majority in which Justice Samuel Alito indicated the court was poised to reverse Roe and uphold a Mississippi abortion law tightening abortion restrictions. [CNN]
David Chou, the 68-year-old Las Vegas man suspected in Sunday’s Southern California church shooting, appears to have been motivated by “political tensions between China and Taiwan,” making the attack “a politically motived hate incident,” Orange County Sheriff Donald Barnes said Monday. Chou faces one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder. He is accused of opening fire in a lunch meeting of members of the Taiwanese congregation at the Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, an Orange County suburb. Churchgoers tackled and subdued him while he reloaded, witnesses said. Dr. John Cheng, 53, was dead shot while charging Chou in an attempt to disarm him, Barnes said. [NBC News]
Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters, dozens of them seriously wounded, were evacuated Monday from the besieged Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, ending their standoff against Russian fighters who have seized control of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. Ukraine and Russia agreed to a local cease-fire that allowed dozens of buses to leave. “Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said. About 1,000 Ukrainian fighters, many from the skilled and controversial Azov Regiment, had held out for weeks in the steel plant’s network of underground tunnels and bunkers as Russia bombarded the complex. Hundreds of civilians who had sheltered there were evacuated earlier after being trapped for weeks. [The Washington Post]
The U.S. COVID-19 death toll has risen above one million, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Monday. President Biden last week ordered all federal flags flown at half-staff to mark the grim milestone. The news came as “cases are spreading at an alarming rate across the United States, particularly in the Northeast and the Midwest,” The New York Times reported. Average daily new cases have surpassed 90,000, up 60 percent in two weeks. Hospitalizations have reached more than 21,000, far below peak levels but up 23 percent from two weeks ago. Experts believe the wave of infections is worse than official data show, because results from many at-home tests aren’t officially recorded. [The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times]
Newly re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday named Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne to replace Jean Castex as prime minister. Borne will be the first woman to serve as France’s prime minister in 30 years, and only the second in the country’s history.
“Nothing should stop the fight for the place of women in our society,”
Borne said. The first woman to serve in the post was Édith Cresson, who was prime minister from 1991 to 1992 under Socialist President François Mitterand. Borne, a centrist, is expected to use her deep experience in how the state works to try to push through retirement reform and climate change measures Macron promised in his re-election campaign. [ABC News, France24]
North Korean health officials announced Tuesday thatthe country’s first acknowledged COVID-19 outbreak has continued to expand, with another six deaths and 269,510 people with fevers. The country, which until recently claimed it had no COVID cases, has now recorded 56 deaths and more than 1.48 million people ill with fever since late April. North Korea lacks tests to confirm how many of the fever cases were COVID-19. Some experts fear the outbreak is much larger than the government has reported, due to a lack of test kits, medicines, and vaccines. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday ordered the military to keep pharmacies open 24 hours a day and help distribute medicine. [ABC News, New York Post]
President Biden visited Buffalo, New York, on Tuesday and called last weekend’s deadly mass shooting there an act of “domestic terrorism.” Biden remembered each of the 10 people killed and three who were wounded in the attack at a grocery store in the predominantly Black neighborhood, and condemned the racist ideology the heavily armed 18-year-old white man arrested in the store espoused in an online manifesto. “White supremacy is a poison,” Biden said. He called on Americans to reject the“great replacement” theory being pushed by some pundits and politicians. The theory, which reportedly motivated the 18-year-old gunman, imagines a conspiracy to supplant white people with people of color. “In America,” Biden added, “evil will not win.” [The Buffalo News, Los Angeles Times]
Iran-aligned Hezbollah and allied parties have lost their majority in Lebanon’s parliament, according to election results released Tuesday. Neither Hezbollah’s bloc nor its rivals in a Saudi-aligned coalition led by the Lebanese Forces, a right-wing Christian party calling for disarming Hezbollah militants, were able to secure a majority, both sides said. Hezbollah’s alliance appears likely to secure at least 61 seats, slightly more than the Lebanese Forces bloc but down from the 70 it won in the last election in 2018. The division could hamper efforts to form a government as Lebanon contends with a devastating economic crisis, although Hezbollah still might be able to pull together a majority if it can win over some independent legislators. [The Washington Post]
A Michigan judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction barring the state from enforcing a dormant 1931 state law that would ban abortion except to save the life of the mother. The decision was in response to the U.S. Supreme Court potentially overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion rights nationwide. Judge Elizabeth Gleicher said Planned Parenthood was likely to win its lawsuit because the abortion ban probably violates the Michigan Constitution. Since
“it is unknown whether the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade,”
Gleicher wrote, suspending the 1931 law
“furthers the public interest, allowing the court to make a full ruling on the merits of the case without subjecting plaintiff and their patients to the impact of a total ban.”
A joint effort of several authors who do find that nobody can keep standing at the side and that “Everyone" must care about what is going on in today’s world.
We are a bunch of people who do not mind that somebody has a totally different idea but is willing to share the ideas with others and to be Active and willing to let others understand how "today’s decisions will influence the future”. Therefore we would love to see many others to "Act today".
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3 thoughts on “Stories to read in the week of 2022 May 12 – 18”
Some View on the World 
3 thoughts on “Stories to read in the week of 2022 May 12 – 18”