Inside Daily Brief

For December 29, 2023

Today's top news headlines are:

Maine became the second U.S. state to bar Donald Trump from appearing on its 2024 primary ballot.
Russia unleashed a major aerial assault against Ukraine as the ongoing war approaches its second anniversary.
A SpaceX rocket successfully launched a secretive X-37B spaceplane for the U.S. military.

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Maine's top election official disqualified Donald Trump on Thursday from appearing on the state's 2024 primary election ballot. Earlier this month, Colorado became the first state to ban the former president from its presidential primary ballot over his role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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Shenna Bellows, Maine's Democratic Secretary of State, ruled that Trump is ineligible to appear on the ballot because he used "a false narrative of election fraud" to "inflame his supporters" leading up to the events on Jan. 6.
Bellows' decision cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars people who have engaged in "insurrection or rebellion" from holding office.
The decision came after three lawmakers, including former Portland Mayor and Democratic state legislator Ethan Strimling, argued that Trump should be disqualified.
The lawmakers called Bellows' decision "judicious and correct," while Trump's campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said it was a "hostile assault on American democracy."
Trump will be able to appeal the decision to Maine's Superior Court within five days and Bellows suspended her decision until the court issues a ruling.
Trump's access to the Republican primary ballot has been challenged in over 30 states in recent weeks.

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Maine's ruling adds pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court, which was asked by Colorado's GOP to intervene in a state Supreme Court ruling that also barred Trump from the ballot
Efforts to bar Trump under the "insurrection clause" have failed in Minnesota, Michigan, and California.

What the numbers say: 174 orbital space launches took place worldwide in 2022, according to data published by the Aerospace Security Project. This is over double the 71 launches recorded in 2012.

The first surge in orbital launches occurred between 1957 and 1975, during the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Space competition between the two superpowers slowed down after they launched the joint Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.

The number of orbital space launches declined following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Launches started increasing again in 2005, two years after China launched its first astronaut into space. Orbital launches continued to increase in frequency in the 2010s, amid the rise of private space companies.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin have emerged as two major players in the private space launch industry. SpaceX has launched 98 rockets this year so far.

At least 12 people were killed and dozens injured on Friday after Russia launched one of its biggest missile and drone attacks against Ukraine. Ukaine's government warned for weeks that Russia may be stockpiling missiles in preparation for a major strike against the country's energy system.

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Russia launched 122 missiles and 36 drones at targets in six Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv.
The attacks, which also hit other areas, targeted critical infrastructure in addition to industrial and military facilities according to Ukraine's military.
Other buildings were damaged during the 18-hour assault, including apartment blocks, schools, and a maternity hospital.
Power outages occurred in Southern Odesa, northeastern Kharkiv, central Dnipropetrovsk, and central Kyiv, according to Ukraine's energy ministry.

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The attack comes after the war between Russia and Ukraine entered a stalemate.
The U.S. announced a $250M weapons package for Ukraine on Wednesday after Senate Republicans blocked a bill earlier this month that includes funding for the country's war effort.
The EU is also struggling to get funding to Ukraine after Hungary vetoed a $55B (€50B) aid package on Dec. 14.

GOOD NEWS: An Arkansas man found a 4.87-carat diamond at the Crater of Diamonds State Park. It was the largest diamond discovered at the park in three years.

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Jerry Evans said he found the diamond 10 minutes after arriving at the park last spring.
"It was so clear. I really didn't know," said Evans, who was visiting the park for the first time with his girlfriend.
After returning home, Evans sent the object to the Gemological Institute of America to have it identified.
A few weeks later, the institute confirmed that it was a near-colorless diamond.
It was the largest diamond found in the park since a 9.07-carat brown diamond was discovered in 2020.

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The Crater of Diamonds is part of a 100-million-year-old volcanic formation and was established as a state park in 1972.
Visitors find an average of one to two diamonds at the park per day.

The U.S. military carried out the seventh liftoff of its secretive X-37B spaceplane on Thursday night. The robotic vehicle was carried by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, which is expected to take the spacecraft to its highest-ever orbit.

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Liftoff took place at 8:07 p.m. EST on Thursday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The launch marks the X-37B's first trip on board a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful operational rocket after NASA's Space Launch System.
The mission, known as OTV-7, was delayed earlier this month by bad weather and a problem with ground equipment.
The U.S. military. revealed few details about OTV-7 but said it would establish "new orbital regimes" and experiment with "future space domain awareness technologies."
- OTV-7 includes a NASA experiment called Seeds-2, which will expose plant seeds to radiation in preparation for future crewed space missions.
SpaceX deactivated its launch live stream as the X-37B reached its final orbit, as requested by the military.

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The launch of the OTV-7 mission came two weeks after China launched its Shenlong "Divine Dragon" spaceplane into orbit.
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket may take the X-37B above low Earth orbit for the first time and could even place it in geosynchronous orbit.

Poland's new government declared that its state media group is insolvent. The country's new Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, is working to overhaul Poland's public media outlets, which he says favor the Law and Justice (PiS) party that was in power until a parliamentary election in October.

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The new government fired state media executives last week and adopted a resolution to restore "impartiality" to public media.
The government then attempted to pass a bill to fund its public media overhaul but President Andrzej Duda vetoed the proposed legislation.
Duda, an ally of the nationalist PiS party, accused Tusk of creating "anarchy" by ignoring media laws passed by the previous government.
Poland's culture minister, Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, said on Wednesday that he put state media companies into liquidation due to Duda's decision.
- The term "liquidation" is used in Poland to describe insolvency.
The companies, which employ about 4,000 people, will continue operating through the insolvency process.
The government said the move will allow the state-run television, radio, and news agency to be audited and reorganized.

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Tusk became Poland's prime minister earlier this month after leading a pro-EU coalition to a majority in parliament.
Tusk pledged ahead of Poland's parliamentary election in October to dismantle the country's public broadcaster, which he said had become a mouthpiece for the PiS.

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The U.S. called for G7 countries to explore ways to seize $300B in frozen Russian assets. G7 countries aim to develop a plan regarding the assets ahead of the second anniversary of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
House Republicans called for Biden family business associate Michael Lewitt to testify as part of their ongoing impeachment investigation into U.S. President Joe Biden.
Tony Chung, the former leader of a pro-independence group in Hong Kong, is seeking asylum in the U.K. Chung said Chinese authorities placed him under an "enormous amount of stress," following his release from prison on June 5.
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Thursday rejected calls to repeat its presidential and legislative elections. Independent observers flagged "numerous irregularities" that may bring the official results into question.
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Rokin Street, Amsterdam, by Carl Grossberg. 1925.

Gregory Bridgman

Writer / Editor

Gregory Bridgman is a politics and e-commerce researcher with a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He also holds a Master of Science from University College London and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Cape Town. Feel free to follow him on Twitter or drop him an email at gregory@inside.com.