The House launches new investigations; California braces for more rain and flooding; and all flights have been grounded by order of the FAA. These stories and more highlight the morning rundown for Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023.
Flights grounded following FAA outage
The FAA is fixing a nationwide technical outage and grounded all domestic flights in the U.S.
The failure reportedly affects an alert system for pilots to inform them of airborne issues.
If you’re traveling today, double check your flight status. There are more than 1,000 flights delayed and hundreds already canceled.
Bipartisan support for China committee
In a 365-65 vote, House lawmakers have launched their first committee, focused on all-things China.
Strategic competition between the U.S. and China will be looked at, like how to bring hundreds of thousands of jobs back, and bring large supply chains back. The committee will also look into what threat China poses to the U.S. security. And how to protect intellectual property.
This committee has one year to investigate.
House GOP begins Biden investigation
After a bipartisan vote for the committee on China, Republicans used the power of majority to launch an investigation into what they call the “weaponization of the federal government.”
It’s a broad investigation across many departments, including the White House, the Department of Justice, and the FBI.
Calls for an investigation ignited after the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property.
Cardinal George Pell dies
Cardinal George Pell has died at the age of 81.
He was the most senior Catholic official to be convicted of child-sex-abuse. He served 13 months in prison before the ruling was overturned two years ago. Pell always denied the charges.
Because of the allegations against him, he was a controversial figure in the Catholic church.
But at one time, he held the third most senior position within the church as the Vatican Treasurer for Pope Francis.
Pell died from cardiac arrest.
California saturated, more rain in forecast
Californians have a brief break this morning, after storms and flooding caused wide-spread damage.
More rain in the north is expected later today before another powerful weather system hits the state on Friday.
Already more than half of the counties in California have declared disasters; 17 people have died in the storms. Gov. Gavin Newsom said that figure is likely to rise.
“We expect these storms to continue at least through the 18th of this month. We expect a minimum of three more of these atmospheric rivers and different shapes and forms depending on different parts of the state. The magnitude of this is not isolated to smaller communities. it is scaled across the largest state in our union,” Newsom said.
Some parts of California have received rainfall totals 600% above average. And rain is still in the forecast over the next 10 days.
Golden Globe standouts
The Golden Globes returned to TV last night with some big time standouts.
“Abbott Elementary” and “The White Lotus” were some of TV’s biggest winners.
While in the film category, “The Banshees if Inisherin” and “The Fablemans” won the most awards in their categories.
“So, just shout out to our crew and our production and the kids. And we were at work today and we’re going to be at work tomorrow,” said “Abbott Elementary actor Quinta Brunson.
“I think in a way, I needed to find forgiveness. I needed to find, I think ‘The Fabelmans’ is an act of forgiveness. It is how I was able to forgive and I think how my parents were able to forgive each other,” said Steven Spielberg, director of “The Fabelmans:
“Elvis” actor Austin Butler won Best Actor in a Drama. Yellowstone’s Kevin Costner won Best Actor in a TV series. But Costner couldn’t make it to the ceremony because of the flooding in Southern California.
Hollywood’s 80th golden globes didn’t miss a beat after taking a hiatus last year.