Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican of Tennessee, announced last night that he would vote against allowing witnesses in President Trump’s Senate trial. Alexander was seen as a key swing vote on the issue after Senators Mitt Romney and Susan Collins said they would vote with Democrats to allow witnesses. Alexander’s decision appears to pave the way for a quick acquittal of the President, possibly as soon as this evening.
The UK will leave the European Union at 6:00 pm Eastern Time today after nearly half a century in the body and 1,317 days after a divisive referendum that has plunged the country into an angry three-year-long debate over its future. Very little will change immediately. A transition period will last until December 31, during which time London and Brussels will negotiate what a new relationship will look like. Mindia Gavasheli, editor-in-chief of the Sputnik News bureau in Washington, D.C., and Garland Nixon, co-host of the Sputnik radio show Fault Lines, on 105.5FM and 1390AM in the Washington, D.C. area Monday through Friday from 7am-10am, join the show.
In an unprecedented study American and British scientists have discovered warm ocean water underneath a massive glacier in western Antarctica. That warm water could speed its melt in a region with the potential to eventually unleash more than 10 feet of sea level rise. The scientists also found that the glacier is melting at a rate of about 50 billion tons of ice per year. Brian and John speak with Eric Rignot, a co-investigator for the organization that conducted this study, the MELT project at the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, and the Chair and Professor of Earth System Science at the University of California Irvine.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is in Kiev, met with President Volodymir Zelensky, but refused to speculate over whether the impeachment process at home had affected US-Ukraine relations. Pompeo called Ukraine “a bulwark between freedom and authoritarianism in eastern Europe”, but made no announcement related to US military aid to Ukraine. Mark Sleboda, an international affairs and security analyst, joins the show.
It’s Friday! So it’s time for the week’s worst and most misleading headlines. Brian and John speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his site Left I on the News and on twitter @leftiblog, and Sputnik producer Nicole Roussell.
Friday is Loud & Clear’s weekly hour-long segment The Week in Review, about the week in politics, policy, and international affairs. Today they focus on Jeff Bezos making $12 billion yesterday, the Trump administration’s move to kick people off of Medicaid, the coronavirus and anti-China rhetoric that’s coming with it, 2020 elections, impeachment, the Brexit deadline today, and more. Brian and John speak with Sputnik News analysts and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell.
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