 The second day of the Jan. 6 Congressional hearings began this morning. Former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien was set to testify about what the Trump campaign — and the former President himself — knew about the bogus claims of election fraud that circulated in the months following the 2020 election, but his testimony was canceled last-minute after his wife went into labor. A statement from Stepien will be read in lieu of his testimony. More: - In today's hearing, Committee members will aim to show that Trump refused to listen to advisors about the election results.
- They are also set to provide evidence that Trump's endorsement and promotion of the "stolen election" narrative caused problems for state-level officials who pushed back against it.
- Former U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak and fired Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt will testify today.
- Pak resigned on Jan. 4, 2021, after learning that the Trump campaign planned to fire him because he refused to say that widespread fraud had taken place in Georgia.
- Stirewalt was fired by Fox after the conservative news network called the 2020 election in Arizona for the Biden campaign.
- The panel also seeks to show that the "stolen election" narrative was used by the Trump campaign to raise millions of dollars from supporters.
- A fraudulent fund-raising campaign could provide the justification for a Department of Justice indictment against Trump.
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 The price of Bitcoin (BTC) plunged to below $24,000 over the weekend, its lowest point since late 2020. As BTC and other cryptocurrencies saw their prices plummet on Sunday night, crypto lender Celsius Network told users that it was blocking all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers due to "extreme market conditions." More: - BTC had not fallen below $26,000 since December 2020, before a bull run for cryptocurrencies in 2021.
- At its peak in November 2021, BTC was worth over $65,000.
- Ether, the token for the Ethereum blockchain and the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, saw its price drop by ~25% from Friday to Monday.
- The overall market capitalization of cryptocurrencies peaked at $2.9T in November 2021.
- On Monday morning it had dropped below $1T.
Celsius Network: - As of May 17, Celcius managed $11.8B in digital assets and claimed to have 1.7 million users.
- In April the exchange stopped offering interest-bearing accounts to nonaccredited investors in the U.S.
- The exchange said that it aimed to lift its suspension on withdrawals, swaps, and transfers as soon as possible but that it couldn't say when.
- The CEL token price is down more than 50% in the last 24 hours.
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 French President Emmanuel Macron may have to govern without a majority during his second Presidential term after a left-wing coalition performed well in the first round of a parliamentary election. The second round, which is set to take place on Sunday, will determine whether Macron will need to build a coalition to enact his legislative agenda. There are three possible outcomes: an outright majority for Macron's party, an unofficial coalition with the center-right, and a cohabitation government with the left. Majority: - Macron's party La République En Marche! would need to have 289 candidates elected to parliament to win a majority.
Hung Parliament Coalition: - If the party fails to reach that threshold, Macron could attempt to create an unofficial coalition with center-right Les Republicains.
- The French parliamentary system does not have official rules for forming coalitions, unlike other EU countries.
- Macron could poach individual lawmakers to form a majority, or he could try to pass his legislative agenda bill by bill without a governing majority.
- He could also use the "nuclear option" and call for a new election if some of his agenda is not approved.
Cohabitation: - If leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon's coalition wins a majority, Macron would need to form a "cohabitation" government that would seriously weaken his ability to enact his planned pension reforms.
- According to opinion polls, a hung parliament is the most likely outcome.
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 GOOD NEWS: A human runner beat an equine in the annual Man V. Horse race in Wales. Trail runner Ricky Lightfoot won the £3,500 ($4,300) prize on Saturday after beating the first horse by more than two minutes in the 22.5-mile race. Lightfoot, who works as a firefighter, is the third man to win the race since it began in 1980. More: - Lightfoot said he had been awake for 29 hours before the race, as he had to travel overnight from the Spanish island of Tenerife.
- He had to fly back to his home in North West England soon after the race because he was due back to work the next day.
- When the father of two finished first out of 1,000 runners and 50 horses, he didn't realize he had won the race as horses run the race on a slightly different route.
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 A message from AI4 Join 2,000+ AI Leaders at Ai4 2022 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas You’re invited to join us at Ai4 2022, the country’s leading artificial intelligence conference taking place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on August 16-18. Right now, complimentary passes are available for senior-level individuals and data practitioners at established companies. At the conference, you’ll experience key sessions from 200+ speakers discussing how AI is impacting each major industry including finance, healthcare, retail, energy, telecom, automotive, cybersecurity, government, marketing, supply chain, manufacturing, customer experience, and more. For our technical audience, we’ve built tracks around project-types including NLP, AI platforms, computer vision, recommender systems, robotics, AI research, and more. Don’t miss your opportunity to: - Network with 2000+ execs from Fortune 500 companies
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 Law enforcement in the city of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, arrested 31 men wearing riot gear who were found in the back of a U-Haul van near the location of a Pride parade. Police said the men were affiliated with the White nationalist hate group Patriot Front and that they planned to riot at the parade. More: - Coeur d'Alene Mayor Jim Hammond said that "hate and violence has no place in the city."
- The men were arrested after a tipster called law enforcement to report a "little army" of men with shields and masks piling into a U-Haul in a hotel parking lot.
- The men were detained and charged with conspiracy to riot. They all wore matching khaki pants, blue shirts, and masks.
- They also had "shields, shin guards, and other riot gear," and came from several states, including Idaho, Alabama, Oregon, Michigan, and Texas, police said.
Zoom Out: - Patriot Front is a White nationalist group that formed in 2017 following the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
- Patriot Front leader Thomas Ryan Rousseau was among those arrested on Saturday.
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 Hundreds of civilians have been killed and tens of thousands have been displaced in Mali as government forces and pro-government militias battle against Islamist insurgents. The escalation of violence followed the withdrawal of French troops from the country, where they had helped the Malian government in its fight against insurgents from 2013 to 2022. More: - Much of the fighting is taking place in the Menaka region, around the town of Anderamboukane. Two Tuareg militias claim to control the area, but other sources say that Islamist insurgents have also gained ground there.
- Fighters from the local Islamic State branch have targeted civilians for reprisal killings. They have also burned homes, markets, and vehicles, in addition to killing or stealing animals from locals.
- Aid workers estimated that at least 32,000 people in the region have been displaced by the violence, mostly women and children.
- France in February announced plans to gradually pull 4,300 troops in the Sahel region, including 2,400 in Mali. The EU later said that it planned to withdraw hundreds of special forces from Mali, sparking fears that Jihadi groups would take advantage of the power vacuum to gain ground in the country.
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- Much of the U.S. southwest experienced a brutal heatwave over the weekend, with Phoenix, Vegas, Denver, and California's Death Valley all seeing record temperatures in the triple digits.
- Philadelphia Eagles WR Devon Allen ran the third-fastest ever time in a 110-meter hurdle race, finishing in 12.84 seconds. The world record is 12.8 seconds.
- EV startup Electric Last Mile Solutions will file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy less than a year after it went public via SPAC merger.
- At Sunday night's Tony Awards, Jennifer Hudson became the 17th person to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and a Tony award.
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 Goldfish by Henri Matisse. 1911
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 |  | Daniel Smith is an Inside Analyst who currently resides in Miami, Florida. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Daniel spent the last four years as a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He is fascinated by tech, business, politics, venture capital, and everything in between. When he’s not writing for Inside he can be found kicking a ball on the nearest rugby pitch. Follow him on Twitter @DanSmithInside. |  | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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