Donald Trump opposes a bipartisan government funding bill with less than two days until a shutdown deadline. U.S. life expectancy has risen to its highest level since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. And a new study suggests the moon is millions of years older than previously thought.
Here’s what to know today.
Trump opposes funding bill as shutdown deadline inches closer
The fate of a bipartisan government funding bill is up in the air after President-elect Donald Trump criticized it yesterday, encouraging Congress to find another path forward. A government shutdown will occur at 12:01 a.m. Saturday without action from Congress. There is currently no fallback plan.
This is Morning Rundown, a weekday newsletter to start your day. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
“Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH,” Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance said in a joint statement. “If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF. It is [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer and [President Joe] Biden who are holding up aid to our farmers and disaster relief.”
Trump also demanded that the legislation include a debt ceiling increase, which neither party had even been considering, making clear he wanted it to happen on Biden’s watch.
Later, Trump threatened the political futures of Republicans who didn’t heed his warnings about the bill. “Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be Primaried,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Trump and Vance’s opposition came hours after the heads of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, tech billionaire Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, both criticized the bill. In a torrent of posts on X, Musk repeatedly called it “criminal,” posted memes, and spread falsehoods. For example, Musk claimed a proposed congressional pay raise would be 40% — but the maximum potential pay increase for next year had already been set at 3.8%.
The proposed continuing resolution would keep the government open until March 14. It includes disaster relief for communities affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton and economic assistance for farmers, among other provisions.
More politics news
- Lawyers and pro-democracy advocates are in the early stages of building a nationwide network of specialists — accountants, employment experts, public relations professionals and even psychologists — aimed at defending and protecting people who may be targeted for retribution once Trump takes office, according to multiple people involved in the effort.
- ICE is dealing with a $230 million budget shortfall, which could delay Trump’s plans for mass deportations.
- Robert F. Kennedy’s biggest hurdle to secure his confirmation as secretary of health and human services is convincing Republicans that he doesn’t hold extreme views on vaccines. His decades of anti-vaccine rhetoric could work against him.
- An $895 million defense spending package, which includes a ban on coverage for gender-affirming care for transgender children of military service members, passed in the Senate and is now headed to President Biden’s desk.
Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband and 46 men found guilty of raping her
Dozens of men including the ex-husband of Gisèle Pelicot were found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting her in a historic trial that shocked France.
Dominique Pelicot, 72, who pled guilty to drugging her and inviting dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious over the span of a decade, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by Roger Arata, the lead judge in the court in the southern town of Avignon.
Another 46 other men were found guilty of rape, two of attempted rape and two guilty of sexual assault in the high profile case, according to NBC News’ British broadcasting partner Sky News. They ranged from 26 to 74 in age and were handed sentences from three to eight years.
Pelicot listened on in the courtroom as her ex-husband’s verdict was read out, with a number of other defendants also present in the room, surrounded by police officers.
The case has incensed France and triggered what some see as the second wave of the #MeToo movement in France. While the nation has a history of defending men, women said the climate feels different this time.
After a young woman was shot dead in Texas, a medical school harvested her body parts
Aurimar Iturriago Villegas left Venezuela hoping to lift her family out of poverty. But within two months of her arrival in Texas in 2022, she was dead, shot in a road rage incident near Dallas as she sat in the back seat of a car.
Without her family’s knowledge, county authorities donated Aurimar’s body to a local medical school, where officials cut it up and assigned dollar figures to parts that hadn’t been damaged by the bullet that struck her head — $900 for her torso, $703 for her legs.
Remnants of Aurimar’s body were cremated and buried in a field among strangers in a Dallas cemetery, all while her mother desperately sought to have her murdered daughter returned to Venezuela, unaware her body had become a commodity in the name of science.
Aurimar’s mother, Arelis Coromoto Villegas, only learned her daughter had been used for research two years after her death, when NBC News and Noticias Telemundo — as part of a broader investigation of the U.S. body industry — published the names of hundreds of people whose unclaimed bodies were sent to Fort Worth-based University of North Texas Health Science Center.
“It’s a very painful thing,” Arelis said in Spanish, in an interview from her home in a small town in western Venezuela. “She’s not a little animal to be butchered, to be cut up.”
Read more from NBC News’ Dealing the Dead series:
- How did unclaimed bodies end up in the hands of a major biotech company? Boston Scientific’s Relievant Medsystems used at least 25 unclaimed bodies for training, including that of a murdered 21-year-old woman whose family was fighting to bring her home. The company said it didn’t know. Read the full story.
Putin says he will ask Assad about the missing U.S. journalist Austin Tice
Vladimir Putin has promised to ask Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad about missing American journalist Austin Tice in response to a question from NBC News’ Keir Simmons at his annual end-of-year press conference.
“I promise to ask this question,” the Russian leader said when asked about U.S. journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in the country 12 years ago.
Assad fled to Russia earlier this month after being ousted by a rapid rebel advance that ended the country’s 13-year-long civil war. Even so, despite harboring Assad, Putin said he has yet to catch up with his ally in person.
Follow live updates from his press conference here.
U.S. life expectancy rises by nearly a full year
U.S. life expectancy rose to 78.4 years in 2023, the highest level since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, according to a new CDC report. That’s a significant rise — nearly a full year — from the life expectancy of 77.5 years in 2022.
The biggest change in 2023? The number of Covid deaths, which fell significantly. Whereas the virus was the fourth leading cause of death in 2022, it was the 10th in 2023, the report said. However, that doesn’t mean the threat from Covid is gone completely, said Ken Kochanek, a co-author of the report, adding that it’s not yet known whether deaths will continue to fall before leveling off at a more predictable annual rate.
The top five causes of death in the U.S. last year were heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries (which includes drug overdoses), stroke and chronic lower respiratory diseases. Read more about the report.
Read All About It
- The two victims who died in Monday’s shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin have been named as 42-year-old teacher Erin M. West and 14-year-old student Rubi P. Vergara.
- A person in Louisiana was hospitalized with bird flu, marking the country’s first severe human infection.
- A mother of newborn twins was deported after she missed an immigration hearing while recovering from an emergency C-section, ICE said.
- So-called “murder hornets” have been eradicated from the U.S., five years after the invasive species was first identified in Washington state.
- The College Football Playoffs are back — but with an expanded 12-team bracket. Here are the games to watch tomorrow and Saturday.
- Cookie the Ty gingerbread plushie might seem “ugly” to some, but his big blue eyes and earnest smile have won him viral fame and a cult following.
Staff Pick: A ‘re-melting’ masked the moon’s true age, study suggests
The moon may be more than 100 million years older than most scientists thought. That’s the takeaway from a new study that found a dramatic “re-melting” event early in the moon’s history could have masked its true age. The study found that the moon is likely 4.51 billion years old — not 4.35 billion years old, as many scientists previously thought. Though the difference may seem relatively small, nailing down what occurred in those chaotic early days of the solar system is key to understanding how the planets in our celestial neighborhood came to be. — Denise Chow, science reporter
NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified
Your nails can get more brittle and grow slower as you age, but a few products can help keep them looking strong. Here’s what to get. Plus, here are the 18 best treatments for dark under-eye circles, as recommended by dermatologists.
Sign up to The Selection newsletter for hands-on product reviews, expert shopping tips and a look at the best deals and sales each week.
Thanks for reading today’s Morning Rundown. Today’s newsletter was curated for you by Elizabeth Robinson and Nick . If you’re a fan, please send a link to your family and friends. They can sign up here.
The post Trump opposes funding bill and 47 guilty of rape in French trial: Morning Rundown appeared first on NBC News.
