Domestic
The first votes of the Presidential Election of 2024 were cast within the last week in two crucial primary states: Iowa and New Hampshire. On the Republican side, many candidates looked to take the Hawkeye State last Monday, but former President Donald Trump won the caucus in a landslide, causing the race to narrow to two people. Trump vied with his former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on Tuesday night for the votes of Granite Staters and won in ways the polls were predicting. On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden won in a landslide in New Hampshire, even as the DNC did not sponsor the race and his name was not on the ballot. The primary will shift itself to states like Nevada and South Carolina for both parties within the next couple of weeks, before Super Tuesday, which comes at the beginning of March. And while most polls show the general election in November will be a tale of two presidencies, with many of those polls being very tight, neither nominee will be chosen until every vote in each state has been counted, and the primary season has just begun.
On Tuesday, the Academy announced their nominations for the 2024 Oscars. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” led with 13 nominations, including best picture, best directing, and acting nominations for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt. “Barbie,” 2023’s biggest box office hit with more than $1.4 billion in ticket sales, was nominated for best picture, two best song candidates with “What Was I Made For” and “I’m Just Ken,” and an acting nomination for Ryan Gosling. The other best picture nominees are “Poor Things” (which received a total of 11 nominations, just behind “Oppenheimer,”) “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “The Holdovers,” “Maestro,” “American Fiction,” “Past Lives,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest.”
International
The United Kingdom and Ireland braced for more strong winds and heavy rainfall as Storm Jocelyn approaches, just hours after deadly storm Isha swept the region on Sunday and Monday, leaving tens of thousands without power and leading to at least four deaths. Jocelyn marks the first time on record that the UK and Ireland have reached “J” in the alphabet so early in the season. But while Jocelyn is expected to be less extreme, it comes as the UK is still grappling with the extensive damage Isha caused and as the ground in some places is already saturated from rainfall. Many scientists argue that climate change is the result of these more intense and frequent storms throughout the world.
The death toll from a landslide in southwest China has risen to 31, state media reported Tuesday, as rescue workers comb mud, snow and rubble in search of survivors. The landslide hit the mountain village of Liangshui in Yunnan province shortly before dawn Monday, burying 18 homes and dozens of people. More than 1,000 rescue workers, with the help of dogs, drones and other devices, were searching through mounds of rubble in freezing temperatures for 13 people still unaccounted for as of Tuesday night. The landslide was triggered by the collapse of a steep cliff at the top of the mountain slope, with the collapsed mass measuring about 100 meters wide, 60 meters high and six meters thick. The collapsed area was about 150 meters above the village, officials said, without explaining what caused the cliff to crumble.
