Today’s news briefs include Musk moving headquarters to Texas, Lewd acts on Italian statue, Dem Platform on Israel; False claims about assassination.
NATO countries to ditch Russian power grid
Three NATO countries have announced they are leaving the electricity grid controlled by Russia. In February, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will shift their grid connections to the main continental European energy network in a move to end reliance. It comes as more European nations move to end all ties with Russia after its invasion on Ukraine.
Elon Musk to move Twitter and SpaceX from California
Billionaire Elon Musk is moving the headquarters of SpaceX and social media company X to Texas from California, the AP reports. SpaceX will move from Hawthorne, California to the company’s rocket launch site dubbed Starbase in Texas. X will move to Austin from San Francisco. He called a new law signed Monday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom that bars school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child’s gender identification change the “final straw.” “I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children,” Musk wrote.
Democrats include pro-Israel language in party platform
The Democratic Party on Tuesday advanced a platform that supports Israel, rejecting efforts by the far-left wing who pushed anti-semitic policies. It comes after progressive activists attempted to insert an unprecedented clause rejecting US aid to Israel. A senior Biden official told The Times of Israel that the effort would not succeed and that the platform would reflect the president’s stances on Israel, which include continued US security assistance, the Times of Israel reports. The move comes as polls indicate a record number of Jewish Democrat voters shifting to the GOP this year after months of pro-Hamas protests across the U.S.
Tourist performs lewd acts on Italian statue
Italian citizens are outraged after a Singaporean model and social media influencer performed lewd acts on a statue of the nude Roman fertility god Bacchus. Photos of the incident were shared on the social media account Welcome to Florence, reports the BBC. The images sparked angry reactions from social media users, some of whom called for the woman’s arrest. “This is the result of years of attempts at turning Florence into Disneyland,” said another. Patrizia Asproni, the president of Confcultura, an association that promotes Italy’s cultural heritage, told Italian media that these “repeated shows of rudeness and barbarity” take place “because everyone feels entitled to do whatever they want with impunity”.
Assassination attempt was staged, says college prof
A University of Virginia professor is discounting the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, posting to X that the Saturday shooting was “staged theatrics” performed by Secret Service to garner “idiots’ vote”. In a quote-tweet by University of Virginia Assistant Professor Sethunya Mokoko, he said that Trump’s secret service purposefully “ignored” eyewitnesses “because trump & secrete service staged theatrics to win idiots’ vote,” Mokoko wrote. Campus Reform reports that his biography at UVA states, “Mokoko’s work specializes in teaching students to appreciate and value social justice rhetorics across media; to become rhetorically listening writers, readers, and viewers; and to understand how global rhetorics shape and define agency and identification.”
–Dwight Widaman and wire services