News headlines for Wednesday Dec 20th: The U.S. is responding to the escalating crisis in the Red Sea by announcing the launch of an international task force for maritime security. However, only nine other politically similar nations have confirmed joining so far.
Doubts arise about the coalition’s ability to end militia attacks on vessels in the region and calm anxious shipping companies. State Department officials stated that the Biden administration’s initial goal was to bring together a broad array of international powers to rein in the Houthis, an armed group backed by Iran controlling a significant amount of territory in Yemen.
The Israeli army has raided and detained staff at two of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza’s north, where the defense minister said troops were working to completely clear out Hamas militants.
Israel bombarded towns across southern Gaza with airstrikes, killing at least 45 Palestinians and pressing ahead with its offensive with renewed backing from the United States, despite rising international alarm. Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant warned that the campaign in Gaza’s south will persist for months.
A volcano that began erupting on Monday in Iceland continued to spew lava and was accompanied by hundreds of earthquakes across the magma flow on the country’s southwestern coast.
The volcanic activity in Sundhnúksgígar on the Reykjanes peninsula appeared to be diminishing, according to Iceland’s Meteorological Office. New aerial images analyzed showed that there are now three vents belching lava southeast of Stóra-Skógfell, down from five at the start of the eruption in the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system.
A federal judge in New York has ordered a vast unsealing of court documents in early 2024 that will make public the names of scores of Jeffrey Epstein’s associates.
The documents are part of a settled civil lawsuit alleging Epstein’s one-time paramour Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre. Terms of the 2017 settlement were not disclosed. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted of sex trafficking and procuring girls for Epstein.
The IRS is waiving penalty fees for people who failed to pay back taxes totaling less than $100,000 per year for tax years 2020 and 2021. The relief measure will waive $1 billion in fees for tax returns filed for those years, the IRS said.
The tax agency is nixing the fees due to the disruption caused by the pandemic, which threw the IRS into operational turmoil and led to a massive backlog in unprocessed tax returns. The relief is aimed at resolving a quandary caused by the tax agency’s decision to suspend notices that taxpayers owed money.
About 60 protesters were arrested Tuesday inside the U.S. Capitol rotunda, as they called for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, according to Capitol Police, who said the group entered the building as a tour group.
“Not another nickel! Not another dime! No more money for Israel’s crimes!” the group of approximately 60 protesters chanted as they unfurled a “Stop Funding Violence” sign.
A former leader of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced to more than three years behind bars for joining a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol nearly three years ago.
Charles Donohoe was the second Proud Boy to plead guilty to conspiring with other group members to obstruct the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. His sentence could be a bellwether for other Proud Boys conspirators who agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors.
Google will pay millions of U.S. consumers a combined $700 million as part of a settlement with state attorneys general over fees the tech giant charges for use of its app store.
The company will shell out $630 million to a fund that will go directly to more than 100 million consumers nationwide, according to details of a settlement made public late Monday. An additional $70 million will be paid into a fund for states to disburse to consumers for similar claims. The settlement resolves a 2021 lawsuit brought against Google over the alleged abuse of its market dominance by charging exorbitant fees for app creators.
