| | | | | | | Hello. As US President Joe Biden speaks about the attack on the US Capitol, on the eve of its third anniversary, Kayla Epstein explains how the events of 6 January 2021 will affect this year’s election campaign. In the Middle East, our correspondent Wyre Davies is with Israelis returning to the site of the Nova Festival massacre. Scroll down to find out why the planet Neptune isn’t quite as blue as we may have thought, and to read about a lost wallet being found - seven decades on. Finally, get your weekend off to a good start by beating my score of 3/7 in this week’s quiz. |
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| | | | Get up to speed | | • | An American man suspected of faking his own death and hiding out in Scotland has been extradited back to the US to face rape charges. | | • | The chief executive of US gun lobby group the National Rifle Association (NRA) has resigned, the organisation has said. | | • | Starsky & Hutch actor David Soul, whose TV fame propelled his career as a singer, has died aged 80, his wife has said. |
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| | Questions Answered | | How Capitol riots will shape the US election | | | | The way Donald Trump and Joe Biden talk about 6 January reflects America’s deep partisan divide. Credit: Getty Images |
| | Millions of Americans watched the attack on the US Capitol unfold on 6 January 2021. Eyewitness testimony, thousands of hours of footage and extensive investigations established what happened that day. Yet Americans no longer agree on basic facts about the riot, due to partisanship and misinformation. President Joe Biden has been demanding the preservation of US democracy in the first major speech of his 2024 re-election campaign. Donald Trump, whose supporters carried out the riot, has attempted to downplay the event. | | | | What is Mr Biden’s approach? | | Focusing on Mr Trump as a threat to democracy helped Democrats deliver a surprisingly successful midterm election in 2022. “Politicians tend to use what worked for them in the past, and Biden is thinking, ‘Once we make Trump the centre of attention again, voters will come back and vote for me, even though I’m quite unpopular,’” Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, said. | | And what about Donald Trump? | | He has reframed the rioters as “patriots” and “peaceful people”. In a memorable moment, he even called 6 January a "beautiful day" during a CNN town hall in May. It appears the former president has almost created a bond between himself and his supporters amid four criminal indictments, saying at one August rally in New Hampshire: “They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom.” | | What does the electorate think? | | A majority of Americans - 55% - believe 6 January was "an attack on democracy that should never be forgotten", according to a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll this week. That includes majorities among Democrats and Independents. A large majority of Republicans have said it’s "time to move on”. And only 18% of Republicans believe the attack was violent, an eight-point slip from a 2021 survey. | | | | • | A fateful day: Remind yourself how the riots unfolded - in text, images, video and graphics. | | • | Harry Dunn: The former US Capitol Police officer who faced racial slurs as he fought off a mob during the 6 January attack has announced he is running for Congress. |
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| AT THE SCENE | Re'im, Israel | | Painful memories at massacre site | | | | Itay Regev was taken hostage at the Nova music festival and released after almost two months. Credit: Getty Images | | It’s three months this weekend since Hamas gunmen entered Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking another 240 hostage – many who had been attending the Nova Festival. Survivors and relatives of those killed or kidnapped have paid emotional visits to the festival site for a memorial event. | | | It was just after six o'clock in the morning when Eynav Levy, and her husband Or, arrived at the Nova Music Festival. Within a matter of hours, Eynav had been shot dead by Hamas gunmen, and Or was abducted and taken to Gaza. Now Or's brother, Michael, has come back to the Nova site for the first time. He says it's the hardest thing he's ever done, apart from explaining to his little nephew Almog, two, that "his mother won't come back and his father is missing". Michael says: "I feel we are living someone else's life. It's like a horror movie.”
More than 100 hostages, mainly women and children, were released by Hamas in November before a temporary halt in fighting broke down. Among them was 18-year-old Itay Regev, who was freed days after his wounded sister Maya was released. "It was important for me to be here and to speak out," says Itay, still visibly traumatised by his ordeal. “I was in captivity for 54 days and every day was like forever. The conditions are very, very hard to survive.” |
| | | | • | Nowhere to run: How distressing footage, examined by BBC Verify, showed joy turning to horror at the desert festival. | | • | ‘I want a normal life’: The Hamas-run health ministry says 22,400 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its retaliation for the attacks. Young Palestinians have told us of their hopes for peace. |
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| | The big picture | | Space oddity: Planet Neptune isn’t blue | | | | Astronomers say the image on the right is a more accurate representation of Neptune’s colour. Credit: University of Oxford |
| | If you’ve looked at the Solar System in a textbook, the chances are it will have featured Neptune in a rich blue colour. But it turns out the images from a 1980s space mission that inspired this depiction had something akin to an Instagram filter applied. A fresh study has shown the planet - and fellow ice giant Uranus - to have less striking, greenish-blue tinges. | | | | |
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| | | For your downtime | | Show the forest some love | | A family in Finland took tree-hugging literally - and turned it into a competitive event. | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | Tech Decoded Newsletter | | Decode the biggest developments in global technology with a twice-weekly email. | | |
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