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- [00:00]
Doctors Without Borders Announcer
Around the world, the need for humanitarian aid is rising. Doctors Without Borders is working around the clock to meet this challenging moment, but they can't do it without your support. In over 75 countries, doctors without Borders teams are responding to natural disasters, treating patients in war zones, helping stop disease outbreaks and more. This Giving Tuesday, you can help deliver life saving medical care wherever it's needed most. Donate today at doctorswithoutborders.org.
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Hannah Jewell
The FBI arrested a suspect in the January 6th pipe bomb case. President Donald Trump parted ways with his ballroom architect and teens in Australia are about to kiss their social media goodbye. That's some of what we'll get to on the Seven from the Washington Post, I'm Hannah Jewell. It's Friday, December 5th. Let's get you caught up with today's seven stories.
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Number one, the military showed lawmakers video from a controversial September boat strike. On Capitol Hill yesterday, lawmakers watched footage of a US Military attack on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea. They said they saw a second strike hitting before two survivors could flip their capsized vessel. That strike has been at the center of a controversy. The Post has reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given a spoken order to kill everyone on board the boat. Trump administration officials, including Hegseth, have been giving shifting explanations of the incident. The video was shown to lawmakers during a day of closed door meetings with Admiral Frank Bradley. That's the commander who oversaw the operation. The House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Jim Himes, said the video was one of the most troubling things he has seen in office. Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said he's awaiting more information about the strikes.
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Jeanine Pirro
I do continue to have concerns that this pattern from Secretary Hegseth of putting our uniform military in harm's way if I think it doesn't do the secretary or our armed forces.
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Any service by holding back and not being transparent.
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Hannah Jewell
Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, defended the strikes yesterday. He called them righteous and lawful.
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President Trump had a victory and a defeat in court yesterday. That's number two. The good news for Trump came from the Supreme Court. Justices cleared the way for a Texas congressional map that could flip up to five U.S. house seats to Republicans. Trump had pushed Texas Republicans to redraw the map to help the GOP maintain its narrow advantage in the House next year. The ruling marks the latest development in a redistricting battle between red and blue states seeking to gain an electoral advantage. Trump's legal setback yesterday came from Virginia. That's where a grand jury declined to re indict New York Attorney General Letitia James. It came after a judge dismissed fraud charges against her last week. Trump has made a priority of Prosecuting James. In 2022, she brought a civil fraud case against Trump and his real estate empire.
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Number three the FBI arrested a suspect in the January 6th pipe bomb case. On the night before the capitol riot in 2021, someone planted pipe bombs near the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. those bombs were discovered just as Trump's supporters were mobbing the US Capitol and added to the city's sense of panic. For almost five years, investigators repeatedly hit dead ends as they tried to identify a suspect. But after a fresh review of the evidence, federal agents made an arrest. U.S. attorney for D.C. jeanine Pirro made the announcement yesterday.
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Jeanine Pirro
Today, as a result of the cumulative efforts of the men and women in the FBI and the police department and the Department of Justice workers, we are finally able to make an arrest of an individual by the name of Brian Cole.
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Hannah Jewell
Cole is 30 years old from Virginia. His motive is still being investigated by law enforcement, but two people familiar with the matter described Cole as an extremist in his political beliefs.
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President Trump replaced the architect he picked for his White House ballroom. That's number four. For more than three months, James McCrary and his architecture firm led the effort to design Trump's $300 million ballroom project. In late October, he stopped working on it. That's according to a report published yesterday by the Post. It's unclear whether McCrary stepped back voluntarily, but he and Trump are said to have parted on good terms. The two men had clashed over the president's desire to keep increasing the size of the building. But it appears to have been McCrary's firm's small workforce and inability to hit deadlines that became the decisive factor in his leaving. Trump has picked Shalom Baranas, who's been designing and renovating government buildings in D.C. for decades, to take over.
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Number 5. A retracted study reignited a debate over a pesticide pesticides cancer risk. In 2000, a key study in the scientific journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology concluded that glyphosate does not pose a health risk to humans. That is the active ingredient in Roundup, one of the most widely used weed killers on the planet. The study underpinned federal regulations for the pesticide for decades. Last week, the journal retracted it. Roundup was produced by Monsanto until the company was acquired by Bayer in 2018, the retraction said. Evidence suggests that Monsanto employees may have contributed to the writing of the study without proper acknowledgment, and that the study's authors may have been paid by Monsanto without disclosing it. Among other problems, the EPA is set to announce an updated human health risk assessment for glyphosate next year. In a statement, Bayer defended the chemicals safety.
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Australia is set to ban social media for children under 16 that's number six. If everything goes as planned, Australia will make history on Wednesday as the first country to begin enforcing a social media ban for children. Platforms such as X, Snapchat, Facebook, Meta and TikTok are set to or have already started freezing and and deactivating young people's accounts. The policy is supposed to protect Australia's children from the dangers of social media. The rest of the world will be watching how it plays out. Other countries, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, are considering similar laws. In the US Senators tried to introduce a bill imposing a minimum age of 13 for social media apps earlier this year, but it didn't gain enough support. Critics of Australia's policy say it's hard to verify ages online and that doing so may risk the anonymity and data of adult users.
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And at number seven, volcanoes may have helped unleash the Black Death in Europe for centuries, biological warfare was the prevailing explanation of how the Black Death entered medieval Europe. A historical account described the Mongol army catapulting plague infested bodies over a city wall during a siege. But a new study published yesterday suggests a less simple story. Scientists studying ancient blue tree rings in the Pyrenees found that there was a volcanic eruption, or a series of them around the year 1345 that spewed sulfur into the atmosphere, causing crop failures and famine that led to the lifting of an embargo on Mongol grain. And the ships that brought that much needed food had a pretty unwelcome stowaway on board the plague. Another reason I will be heading into my weekend once again relieved not to be a medieval European peasant.
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That's the show for this week. If you thought you had missed all the Black Friday deals, think again. For a limited time, you can access the Washington Post for just 99 cents. That's unlimited access to all of the post for only 99 cents every four weeks. That's a great deal for the first year. After that it'll cost $12 every four weeks. You can cancel anytime, but this deal won't be here for long. Go to washingtonpost.com subscribe and grab it before it's gone.
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The associate producer of the seven is Taylor White. The staff writers are Jamie Ross, Izzan Acabao and me. John Taylor is our editor. Additional editing by Christina Quinn. Copy editing by Melissa Ngo and Thomas Haliba. Mixing and sound design is by Jim Briggs and Justin Garish. Our theme music is by Edith Mudge. I'm Hannah Jewell. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend. Meet you back here on Monday.
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Doctors Without Borders Announcer
Around the world, the need for humanitarian aid is rising. Doctors Without Borders is working around the clock to meet this challenging moment, but they can't do it without your support. In over 75 countries, doctors without Borders teams are responding to natural disasters, treating patients in war zones, helping stop disease outbreaks and more. This Giving Tuesday, you can help deliver life saving medical care wherever it's needed most. Donate today at doctors without borders.org giving.