Foreign News
US House votes to expel George Santos from Congress
After a damning ethics report, fraud charges and lies about his past, the US House of Representatives has expelled Congressman George Santos.
Lawmakers voted 311 to 114 to oust the disgraced lawmaker.
He has been accused of using campaign money for luxury expenses such as Botox and stealing charity money for a veteran’s dying service dog. The 35-year-old from Queens is only the sixth lawmaker in history to be expelled from Congress.
His ouster comes after the House ethics committee released a report that found he “blatantly stole from his campaign” and exploited “every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit”.
Among the many allegations in its final report, the panel accused him of spending campaign money on OnlyFans – a platform where users pay for content, including pornography – and holidays in the Hamptons, an elite seaside enclave in New York state.
Expulsion votes are rare in Congress and require a two-thirds super majority.
Santos made a quick exit as the votes against him started to pour in, jumping straight into a waiting SUV without answering any questions. After the resolution to expel Santos was adopted on Friday, there was scattered applause from both sides of the aisle.
A group of four New York Republicans who were elected alongside George Santos and who have long sought to give him the boot said they can now finally “stop talking about him”. They also dispute it sets bad precedent to remove him.
“The precedent that is set is that we hold members of Congress to a higher standard,” said New York Republican lawmaker Anthony D’Esposito. “The people of New York’s third congressional district need representation.” D’Esposito added that “it shouldn’t have come to this”.”He should have held himself accountable. He should have resigned,” he said.
Others, however, have defended Santos. Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called the vote “shameful”, adding that it will erode the Republican majority in the House.
Santos faces troubles outside of Washington DC as well. The 35-year-old has been charged with 23 federal felony counts, including wire fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds, as well as separate allegations of campaign finance violations.
His trouble started shortly after winning an election in November 2022 to represent New York’s 3rd congressional district. The New York Times published an investigation in December that revealed Santos had lied about a Wall Street career, a college degree and having Jewish ancestry. Since then, allegations against the lawmaker have continued to pile up. He has been accused of a range of fabrications and fraud schemes, including scamming Amish dog breeders in Pennsylvania and claiming his mother died in the 9/11 terror attacks.
The scandals swirling around the lawmaker have pulled off the rare feat of uniting lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as they came together to have him removed. Santos had remained defiant, refusing to resign despite many calls from both sides of the aisle to step down.
“This place is run on hypocrisy,” he told reporters earlier this week. “If they want me to leave Congress, they’re going to have to take that tough vote.”
Santos has said he would leave the Capitol right away if expelled.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has 10 days to call for an election, which would take place 70 to 80 days later.
The ouster and special election could further pare down Republicans’ narrow nine-seat House majority. There is no guarantee another Republican will win the congressional seat he holds, which was easily won by Joe Biden in the 2020 general election.
Santos loses the ability to vote on legislation immediately. Workers will also quickly remove his nameplate from his office in the Longworth building across the street from the Capitol. In the meanwhile, House clerk staff will continue running daily operations for the district until Santos’ replacement is elected. Santos will also lose his health insurance, the officials said.
He can still dine, however, in the exclusive House restaurant, exercise in Capitol gym and borrow books from the Library of Congress – all privileges afforded to former members of Congress.
But he is not eligible for a congressional legislative pension.
Foreign News
Meta blocks 550,000 accounts under Australia’s social media ban
About 550,000 accounts were blocked by Meta during the first days of Australia’s landmark social media ban for kids.
In December, a new law began requiring that the world’s most popular social media sites – including Instagram and Facebook – stop Australians aged under 16 from having accounts on their platforms.
The ban, which is being watched closely around the world, was justified by campaigners and the government as necessary to protect children from harmful content and algorithms.
Companies including Meta have said they agree more is needed to keep young people safe online. However they continue to argue for other measures, with some experts raising similar concerns.
“We call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,” Meta said in a blog update.
The company said it blocked 330,639 accounts on Instagram, 173,497 on Facebook, and 39,916 on Threads during it’s first week of compliance with the new law.
They again put the argument that age verification should happen at an app store level – something they suggested lowers the burden of compliance on both regulators and the apps themselves – and that exemptions for parental approval should be created.
“This is the only way to guarantee consistent, industry-wide protections for young people, no matter which apps they use, and to avoid the whack-a-mole effect of catching up with new apps that teens will migrate to in order to circumvent the social media ban law.”
Various governments, from the US state of Florida to the European Union, have been experimenting with limiting children’s use of social media. But, along with a higher age limit of 16, Australia is the first jurisdiction to deny an exemption for parental approval in a policy like this – making its laws the world’s strictest.
The policy is wildly popular with parents and envied by world leader, with the Tories this week pledging to follow suit if they win power at the next election, due before 2029.
However some experts have raised concerns that Australian kids can circumvent the ban with relative ease – either by tricking the technology that’s performing the age checks, or by finding other, potentially less safe, places on the net to gather.
And backed by some mental health advocates, many children have argued it robs young people of connection – particularly those from LGBTQ+, neurodivergent or rural communities – and will leave them less equipped to tackle the realities of life on the web.
(BBC)
Foreign News
Bride and groom killed by gas explosion day after Pakistan wedding
A newly married couple were killed when a gas cylinder exploded at a house in Islamabad where they were sleeping after their wedding party, police have said.
A further six people – including wedding guests and family members – who were staying there also died in the blast. More than a dozen people were injured.
The explosion took place at 07:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Sunday, causing the roof to collapse.
Parts of the walls were blown away, leaving piles of bricks, large concrete slabs and furniture strewn across the floor. Injured people were trapped under the rubble and had to be carried out on stretchers by rescue workers.
(BBC)
Foreign News
Rescuers race to find dozens missing in deadly Philippines landfill collapse
Rescue workers are racing to find dozens of people still missing following a landslide at a landfill site in the central Philippines that occurred earlier this week, an official has said.
Mayor Nestor Archival said on Saturday that signs of life had been detected at the site in Cebu City, two days after the incident.
Four people have been confirmed dead so far, Archival said, while 12 others have been taken to hospital.
Conditions for emergency services working at the site were challenging, the mayor added, with unstable debris posing a hazard and crew waiting for better equipment to arrive.
The privately-owned Binaliw landfill collapsed on Thursday while 110 workers were on site, officials said.
Archival said in a Facebook post on Saturday morning: “Authorities confirmed the presence of detected signs of life in specific areas, requiring continued careful excavation and the deployment of a more advanced 50-ton crane.”
Relatives of those missing have been waiting anxiously for any news of their whereabouts. More than 30 people, all workers at the landfill, are thought to be missing.
“We are just hoping that we can get someone alive… We are racing against time, that’s why our deployment is 24/7,” Cebu City councillor Dave Tumulak, chairman of the city’s disaster council, told news agency AFP.

Jerahmey Espinoza, whose husband is missing, told news agency Reuters at the site on Saturday: “They haven’t seen him or located him ever since the disaster happened. We’re still hopeful that he’s alive.”
The cause of the collapse remains unclear, but Cebu City councillor Joel Garganera previously said it was likely the result of poor waste management practices.
Operators had been cutting into the mountain, digging the soil out and then piling garbage to form another mountain of waste, Garganera told local newspaper The Freeman on Friday.
The Binaliw landfill covers an area of about 15 hectares (37 acres).
Landfills are common in major Philippine cities like Cebu, which is the trading centre and transportation gateway of the Visayas, the archipelago nation’s central islands.

[BBC]
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