The U.S. starts Jan. 6 hearings and Chinese pilots provoke U.S. allies.
President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the battle for Sievierodonetsk as a crucial moment in what is increasingly a war of attrition in eastern Ukraine. The fate of our Donbas is being decided there, he said. Ukrainian forces are outgunned by Russians. The city is burning as the sounds of gunfire echo from vicious street-by-street combat. Russia will control all of Luhansk, one of two provinces in the Donbas region if Sievierodonetsk and its sister city Lysychansk fall. Ukraine s defense minister said his country desperately needs heavy weapons and very fast. Both sides are still trying to control what Zelensky called dead cities as Russian bombardment destroys the metropolises in the east. The House panel investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold public hearings in Washington to discuss its findings from its nearly year-long investigation. The session will feature previously unreleased video testimony from people close to Donald Trump. They will also share footage revealing the role of the far-right group the Proud Boys in the riot on January 6, 2021.
The multi-pronged effort to overturn a presidential election, how one strategy to subvert the election led to another, culminating in a violent attack on our democracy, said Representative Adam Schiff of California, a Democrat and a member of the committee. Details: The first hearing begins at 8 p.m. Eastern Time that is 8 a.m. in Hong Kong. A total of six hearings are planned for this month. Resources: The Times has compiled an exhaustive timeline of the attack - the planning beforehand, the events at the Capitol and the preparation for the hearings. The lawyers of Trump plan to interview the former president under oath as part of a separate investigation into his business practices led by the New York State attorney general s office.
That was it for today's briefing. Tom Wright-Piersanti wrote today's Arts Ideas.