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Actor Jeremy Renner in Intensive Care After Snow Plow Accident

RENO, Nevada — Jeremy Renner suffered blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries in a snow plow accident in Reno, Nevada, on Sunday, a representative for the actor said Monday, and remains in critical but stable condition after undergoing surgery.

A publicist for Renner said in a statement that the 51-year-old “Avengers” star is in an intensive care unit following surgery on Monday.

“Jeremy’s family would like to express their gratitude to the incredible doctors and nurses looking after him, Truckee Meadows Fire and Rescue, Washoe County Sheriff, Reno City Mayor Hillary Schieve” and others, read the statement. “They are also tremendously overwhelmed and appreciative of the outpouring of love and support from his fans.”

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Authorities and Renner’s representative haven’t said how the accident occurred. The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office said late Sunday that Renner had to be flown by helicopter to a hospital for treatment.

Renner was injured in an area near Mt. Rose Highway, a road linking Lake Tahoe, which straddles the Nevada-California border, and south Reno. Renner owns a home in Washoe County, which includes Reno, and told the Reno Gazette Journal in 2019 that he chose the area because Reno was the right-sized city for him, it has majestic scenery and it allowed him and his family to ski frequently.

Renner was the only person involved in Sunday’s accident, and the sheriff’s office said in a news release that it is investigating.

Renner plays Hawkeye, a sharp-shooting member of the superhero Avengers squad in Marvel’s sprawling movie and television universe.

He is a two-time acting Oscar nominee, scoring back-to-back nods for “The Hurt Locker” and “The Town.” Renner’s portrayal of a bomb disposal specialist in Iraq in 2009’s “The Hurt Locker” helped turn him into a household name.

“The Avengers” in 2012 cemented him as part of Marvel’s grand storytelling ambitions, with his character appearing in several sequels and getting its own Disney+ series, “Hawkeye.”

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McCarthy Proposes Gutting Office of Congressional Ethics in Bid for Speaker

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy spent the first two days of the new year trying to shore up GOP support for his bid to be Speaker by releasing a series of proposals aimed at winning over hard-right detractors who stand to torpedo his ascension.

The part of his proposed changes to House rules that drew the most attention was allowing just five House members to call for a vote at any time on ousting the Speaker; that would render McCarthy beholden to the most extreme members of his caucus, should he get on their wrong side. But buried in the text was another provision that could be highly consequential for the new Congress being sworn in on Tuesday: language that would effectively gut the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), as the independent panel faces pressure to investigate lawmakers who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

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Most significantly, McCarthy’s proposal would require OCE to hire its staff for the 118th Congress within 30 days of the resolution’s adoption, a requirement that sources familiar with the process tell TIME would make it exceedingly difficult for the office to have the resources it needs to conduct its investigations, given how long it takes to hire candidates for roles in the federal government. The proposal would also block OCE from hiring new employees over the next two years if someone leaves their position, sources say.

“Republicans get to take control of the House, and on their first day in Congress, they are not trying to take a hammer to the OCE—they’re being a little smarter about it—but they’re taking a scalpel to it,” a Hill source familiar with the ethics process tells TIME.

The resolution would also impose eight-year term limits for members of OCE’s eight-member board, which is composed of four Democrats and four Republicans. The move would result in three of the four Democrats being forced to vacate their seats effective immediately. While the new Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, would be able to appoint replacements, the changes could still significantly slow down the panel’s work and zap it of valuable institutional knowledge.

“This could easily kill the only body that’s investigating ethical issues in Congress,” says Kedric Payne with the Campaign Legal Center. “There’s no investigations in the Senate. And the only investigations that happen in the House of any significance are done by the OCE.”

“This is a very smart way to do it,” adds Payne, a former OCE deputy chief counsel. “Because it looks as though the office still lives, but, in fact, it doesn’t.”

This isn’t the first time Republicans have tried to dismantle the Congress’s independent ethics panel. In 2017, the House Republican Conference took steps to curtail the power of the OCE, but the proposal was opposed by then-Speaker Paul Ryan and even McCarthy.

This time around, circumstances have changed. A handful of ultra-conservative lawmakers, including Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, have vowed to vote against McCarthy for speaker. With the Republicans’ slim majority, the California legislator can only afford four defections.

Some of the defectors also happen to be among the lawmakers who stand to benefit the most from a castrated OCE. Last month, more than 30 former members of Congress of both parties requested the ethics panel to investigate the lawmakers who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a move that increases the spotlight on OCE and which investigations it chooses to pursue in the new Congress.

The OCE was also expected to investigate George Santos, the Republican Congressman-elect from New York who appears to have fabricated large swaths of his biography, including his employment history, his educational credentials, and even the circumstances of his mother’s death.

On Monday, as details of McCarthy’s proposal drew more attention, the good-government watchdog group Public Citizen called on him and the next Congress to get rid of the provisions that would weaken the OCE, saying in a statement Monday that the panel “has a proven track record of enhancing transparency and enforcement of ethics rules and has gained widespread support among the American public.”

McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment.

The Office of Congressional Ethics was established in 2008 by then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi after a wave of Democratic victories in the 2006 midterms and after corruption scandals that sent multiple members of Congress to jail. The panel was intended to be an independent body separate from the House Ethics Committee, which advocates have long criticized as ineffectual and lacking in transparency.

But the two work hand-in-hand. When the OCE finds evidence of misconduct, it sends a report of its findings to the House Ethics Committee, which then chooses whether to censure a member for a violation.

While the OCE lacks the subpoena power of full House committees, it has been effective at probing wrongdoing by lawmakers of both parties. Shortly after its inception, it found that then-Rep. Charlie Rangel, a New York Democrat, improperly accepted trips to Caribbean islands as gifts from a nonprofit group. The entire House later sanctioned Rangel for violating 11 House ethics rules. In 2017, it was the first entity to investigate then-Rep. Chris Collins, a New York Republican, of insider trading. He later pleaded guilty to insider trading and lying to federal investigators. (Trump pardoned Collins in 2020.)

The OCE was poised to have a full plate over the next two years, with a heavy emphasis on the members who participated in the Jan. 6 attack. It’s a scenario that leads Congressional watchdogs to suspect that McCarthy is offering to debilitate the agency of resources and institutional knowledge to shield his members from scrutiny in order to hold onto power.

“Today’s Republican Party is rife with ethical transgressions,” says Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist with Public Citizen. “And it is now trying to make it much harder to hold members of Congress accountable to the standards of decency we expect.”

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As Chinese Tourists Prepare to Travel Again, Some Countries Close Their Doors

As COVID-19 infections in China continue to rise, and as concerns grow over the reliability of the country’s reporting and sequencing of cases, more than a dozen countries have announced new entry restrictions on travelers arriving from China at a time when they’re largely on the way out.

Some countries, including the United States and Britain, are reintroducing compulsory pre-flight COVID-19 tests for people flying from China. Others, such as Japan and Italy, are requiring testing upon arrival and quarantine for those who test positive. One country, Morocco, has even decided to ban entry to all travelers coming from China outright in a measure that will go into force on Tuesday.

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Read More: China’s Stunning U-Turn on Zero-COVID Takes Xi Jinping From Suffocating Control to Callous Inaction

The new restrictions haven’t gone down well in Beijing, which in a stunning reversal began dismantling its draconian zero-COVID policies last month following rare public protest. Chinese state media labeled the new testing requirements “discriminatory” and a politically-motivated effort to undermine the Chinese government. Meanwhile, some public health experts have cast doubt on the effectiveness of these measures. “Trying to ban a virus by adjusting what we do with travel has already been shown not to work very well,” Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told the BBC.

As China prepares to lift its own border restrictions on Jan. 8, here are the countries that have announced their own restrictions on travelers from the country so far.

Italy

Italy was among the first to announce new entry requirements for travelers arriving from China, with its health minister announcing on Dec. 28 that all airline passengers would be subject to mandatory testing upon arrival. Italy is the first and only European country to require such testing so far. Among one of the first flights subjected to testing, more than a third of all its passengers tested positive for COVID-19. On another flight, half of the passengers tested positive.

The United States

On Dec. 28, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the U.S. will require travelers arriving from China, Hong Kong, and Macau to present a negative COVID-19 test taken no more than two days before their departure. The new restrictions, which go into effect on Jan. 3, come amid rising concerns over China’s lack of transparency over its outbreak as well as its failure to adequately track and sequence variants within the country.

“Variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus continue to emerge in countries around the world,” the CDC said in its announcement. “However, reduced testing and case reporting in the [People’s Republic of China] and minimal sharing of viral genomic sequence data could delay the identification of new variants of concern if they arise.”

France

From Jan. 5, the French government announced that it will require travelers from China to present a negative COVID-19 test no less than 48 hours before departure. Passengers will also be required to wear a mask in flight and commit to undergo random testing on arrival.

The United Kingdom

From Jan. 5, travelers from China to the U.K. will be required to show a negative COVID-19 test taken no more than two days prior to departure. In addition, a sample of passengers will also be subject to testing upon arrival.

“The decision has been taken to introduce these measures specifically for China arrivals due to a lack of comprehensive health information shared by China,” the country’s health department said in a statement. “If there are improvements in information sharing and greater transparency then temporary measures will be reviewed.”

Spain

From Jan. 3, the Spanish government will require travelers arriving from China to provide a negative COVID-19 test or proof of vaccination. For the latter, Madrid said that it would accept any vaccine recognized by the World Health Organization, which includes Chinese-made Sinovac and Sinopharm.

Around one-third of China’s population—over 250 million people—have not received a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The figure climbs to 60% for those aged 80 and up.

Australia

From Jan. 5, people traveling from China, Hong Kong, and Macau to Australia will be required to show a negative COVID-19 test taken within 48 hours prior to travel. “This is a temporary measure reflecting the lack of comprehensive information right now about the situation in China,” said Mark Butler, Australia’s health minister.

Canada

From Jan. 5, all air travelers over the age of two arriving from China, Hong Kong, and Macau will be required to provide a negative COVID-19 test no more than two days before their departure or proof of a recent COVID-19 infection. The measures will be reassessed after 30 days, according to Canada’s public health agency. Masking in-flight will be strongly recommended, but not required.

Japan

Japan, which was among the first countries to impose new entry requirements, has from Dec. 30 required that all travelers from China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau) submit to testing on arrival. Those who test positive will be required to quarantine for seven days.

South Korea

From Jan. 5, travelers from China will be required to undergo a COVID-19 test before and after arriving in the country, the government announced on Dec. 30. South Korea also said that it would also restrict issuing short-term visas for Chinese nationals until the end of the month and temporarily halt increasing flights between the neighboring countries.

India

As of Jan. 1, India announced that it will require travelers arriving China and Hong Kong, as well as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand, to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test no more than 72 hours prior to departure. The Indian government previously announced that it would also begin testing 2% of international arrivals for COVID-19 at random.

Malaysia

On Dec. 30, the Malaysian government announced that it will begin screening all inbound travelers from China and elsewhere for fever, and will administer those who are detected to have a fever or other symptoms with a COVID-19 test. The government said it would also test wastewater on aircrafts arriving from China in a bid to detect new variants.

Israel

Israel announced on Dec. 30 that all non-Israeli travelers arriving from China would be subject to pre-flight PCR tests taken within 72 hours before departure.

Qatar

From Jan. 3, all travelers from China must submit a negative COVID-19 test within 48 hours of departure, regardless of their vaccination status.

Morocco

From Jan. 3, all travelers from China regardless of nationality will be banned from entering Morocco. The announcement, which came just days before the ban was due to be imposed, is the strictest measure yet taken by any country in response to China’s surge in cases.

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California keeps wary eye on flooding after powerful storm

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Flood warnings and watches were in effect Monday in parts of Northern California in the aftermath of a powerful “atmospheric river” storm that drenched the state over New Year’s weekend.

A new weather system was predicted by afternoon or evening, but the National Weather Service said the rain would be modest until the arrival late Tuesday of another strong atmospheric river, a long plume of Pacific Ocean moisture.

Even with the respite from drenching rains and heavy snowfall, flood warnings and watches remained in effect in the Sacramento County area, where widespread flooding and levee breaches in the agricultural region inundated roads and highways.

Emergency crews rescued motorists on New Year’s Eve into Sunday morning. Crews on Sunday found one person dead inside a submerged vehicle near Highway 99, Dan Quiggle, deputy fire chief for operations for Cosumnes Community Service District Fire Department, told The Sacramento Bee.

Sacramento County authorities issued an evacuation order late Sunday for residents of the low-lying community of Point Pleasant near Interstate 5, citing imminent and dangerous flooding. Residents of the nearby communities of Glanville Tract and Franklin Pond were told to prepare to leave before more roadways were cut off by rising water and evacuation becomes impossible.

“It is expected that the flooding from the Cosumnes River and the Mokelumne River is moving southwest toward I-5 and could reach these areas in the middle of the night,” the Sacramento County Office of Emergency Services tweeted Sunday afternoon. “Livestock in the affected areas should be moved to higher ground.”

To the north in the state’s capital, crews cleared toppled trees from roads and sidewalks, and at least 6,300 customers still lacked power early Monday, down from more than 150,000 two days earlier, according to a Sacramento Municipal Utility District online map.

State highway workers spent the holiday weekend clearing traffic-stopping heavy snow from major highways through the Sierra Nevada.

Near Lake Tahoe, dozens of drivers were rescued on New Year’s Eve along Interstate 80 after cars spun out in the snow during the blizzard, the California Department of Transportation said.

Rainfall in downtown San Francisco hit 5.46 inches (13.87 cm) on New Year’s Eve, making it the second-wettest day on record, behind a November 1994 deluge, the National Weather Service said.

In Southern California, several people were rescued after floodwaters inundated cars in San Bernardino and Orange counties. No major injuries were reported.

With no rainfall expected during Monday’s Rose Parade in Pasadena, spectators staked out their spots along the city’s main boulevard for the 134th edition of the floral spectacle.

The rain was welcomed in drought-parched California. The past three years have been the state’s driest on record, but much more precipitation is needed to make a significant difference.

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Russia“s war on Ukraine latest: Russian anger grows over deadly strike

2023-01-03T05:11:54Z

Russia acknowledged on Monday (January 2) that scores of its troops were killed in one of the Ukraine war’s deadliest strikes, drawing demands from nationalist bloggers for commanders to be punished for housing soldiers alongside an ammunition dump. Sarah Charlton reports.

Ukrainian servicemen ride an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in the village of Torske, Donetsk region, Ukraine December 30, 2022. REUTERS/Yevhen Titov

Russian nationalists and some lawmakers have demanded punishment for commanders they accused of ignoring dangers as anger grew over the killing of dozens of Russian soldiers in one of the Ukraine war’s deadliest strikes.

* In a rare disclosure, Russia said 63 Russian soldiers had been killed in a Ukrainian New Year’s Eve attack on their quarters in the town of Makiivka when four rockets fired from U.S.-made HIMARS launchers hit the site. Ukraine said the Russian death toll was in the hundreds, though pro-Russian officials called that an exaggeration.

* Russian military bloggers said the huge destruction was a result of storing ammunition in the same building as a barracks, despite commanders knowing it was within range of Ukrainian rockets.

* Ukraine said on Monday it had shot down all 39 drones Russia had fired in a third straight night of air strikes against civilian targets in the capital Kyiv and other cities.

* Russia is planning a protracted campaign of attacks with Iranian drones to “exhaust” Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

* Ukrainian officials said Russia had on Monday struck Ukraine-controlled parts of the Donetsk region, hitting the village of Yakovlivka, the city of Kramatorsk and destroying an ice rink in the town of Druzhkivka.

* A Russian-backed military information centre in the Donetsk region said there had been 69 Ukrainian attacks on the region, including Makiivka, on Monday.

* Zelenskiy said Ukraine awaiting 2023’s first tranche of European Union (EU) macrofinancial aid in January, after speaking to European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.


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Masters invitation goes to the wrong Scott Stallings

KAPALUA, Hawaii (AP) — Scott Stallings received an invitation to the Masters, and the Georgia resident most likely will be there — as a guest of the PGA Tour player by the same name for whom the coveted invitation was intended.

Stallings, who qualified for the Masters by reaching the Tour Championship last year, didn’t realize what had happened until the other Scott Stallings sent him a series of messages on Instagram alerting him to the mail mix-up.

“Hi Scott. My name is Scott Stallings as well and I’m from GA. My wife’s name is Jennifer too!” the man wrote. “I received a FedEx today from the Masters inviting me to play in the Masters Tournament April 6-9, 2023. I’m (100 percent) sure this is NOT for me.”

Invitations were sent to eligible players the week before Christmas, when club chairman Fred Ridley announced the criteria would be unchanged from the previous year. Stallings said he checked his mail every day and began to wonder where his was.

“Honestly, I thought my wife had it and was doing something for Christmas,” Stallings said Monday at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. “But then nothing came, and we left two days after Christmas. I didn’t even think about.”

And then Instagram solved the mystery of the two Stallings, one of them from St. Simons Island, Georgia, the other a three-time PGA Tour winner from Knoxville, Tennessee, who is going to the Masters for the third time.

He still hasn’t seen the actual invitation.

“Just saw a picture of it from the other Scott Stallings, with his wife with the same name as mine,” Stallings said with a laugh.

Stallings said he previously had a sports management company that had an office in St. Simons Island. The other man’s condo is next to the office building, and Stallings can only assume the delivery person figured that’s where the invitation belonged.

“The guy said, ’I saw my name and never considered it, but I opened it up and like, ’This is not for me,’” Stallings said. “He sent me a bunch of messages saying, ‘This is not fake, I promise, I have it.’”

Stallings was runner-up in the BMW Championship during the FedEx Cup playoffs that enabled him to finishing in the top 30 for the Tour Championship, which comes with a spot in the Masters.

Turns out the other Scott Stallings can plan on a trip to Augusta National, too.

“We’re going to give him some practice-round tickets and take him to dinner on Monday night for doing the right thing,” Stallings said.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports