Good morning.
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack will consider prosecuting Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon after he defied its subpoena.
Bannon refused to comply with a subpoena demanding documents and testimony, claiming he could not appear owing to executive privilege. Donald Trump had instructed his aides to defy the subpoenas on these grounds, which sources said were rejected partly because executive privilege exists to protect the interests of the country, not private interests.
What next? The select committee will meet on Tuesday to decide whether to recommend the full House authorize a criminal referral for Bannon to the justice department, its chair said. The decision is expected to be unanimous.
It comes after the committee subpoenaed a top Trump justice department official, Jeffrey Clark. It seeks to understand how Trump tried to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
Texas official says schools with books on Holocaust must offer ‘opposing’ views
A Texas school district official has told teachers they must offer “opposing” perspectives to the Holocaust if they keep books about the genocide in their classroom libraries.
Gina Peddy, the executive director of curriculum and instruction for Carroll independent school district in Southlake, made the statement while giving teacher training on which books classrooms can stock. The training came after the Carroll school board rebuked a fourth-grade teacher following complaints by parents about a book on anti-racism in her class.
What did Peddy say? “Make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives,” she can be heard saying on tape.
How did we get here? A new Texas law requires teachers who discuss “widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs” to examine the issues from diverse viewpoints without giving “deference to any one perspective”.
Texas governor Greg Abbott has said the law aims to abolish critical race theory in schools (an academic discipline not currently taught in US secondary schools).
Bill Clinton in hospital with non-Covid infection
Bill Clinton was admitted to a hospital in Los Angeles for treatment of a “non-Covid infection” on Tuesday, a spokesperson said.
Clinton, 75, was in the intensive care unit mainly to offer him privacy, CNN reported, and he was not on a breathing machine. His spokespersn said he was admitted to University of California, Irvine medical center two days ago and is “on the mend and in good spirits”.
The former president’s doctors said he is responding well to antibiotics and they “hope to have him go home soon”.
Why is he in hospital? We don’t know – but his condition is not related to his previous heart problems or Covid-19.
In other news …
Texas can continue to enforce its near-total abortion ban a federal appeals court has ruled, as it rejected the Biden administration’s attempt to reverse it. It means Senate bill 8 is one step closer to returning to the US supreme court.
A Boeing pilot has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of deceiving safety regulators who were evaluating the 737 Max jetliner, which was later involved in two deadly crashes. Mark Forkner, 49, was charged with six counts of fraud and could face up to 100 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
Facebook has lost the trust of parents and must take action to regain their confidence, a global alliance of child protection campaigners has said. They called on its co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to publish Facebook’s internal reports of the risks to young people.
Hollywood workers will strike on Monday unless a deal is reached with studios, union leaders have said. Up to 60,000 industry workers could walk off sets over long working hours, unsafe conditions and low pay from streaming companies.
Stat of the day: food packaging chemicals may contribute to 100,000 US deaths a year
Phthalates, a group of chemicals used in food packaging, could play a role in the early deaths of between 91,000 and 107,000 older Americans each year, a study has suggested. People aged 55 to 64 with the highest concentrations of phthalates in their urine were more likely to die of any cause, but particularly heart disease, than those with lower levels. The study’s author said it was “undeniably clear” that limiting exposure to toxic phthalates, which are already restricted in toys, “can help safeguard Americans’ wellbeing”.
Don’t miss this: Jamie Lee Curtis on Halloween, sexuality and survival
In Halloween Kills, 62-year-old Jamie Lee Curtis plays Laurie Strode for the sixth time since the original in 1978. In the latest movie in the franchise, killer Michael Myers is transformed into a “Trumpian provocateur” who “creates the chaos”, while scenes of mob violence feel like an eerie parallel of the Capitol attack. Curtis talks about the #MeToo movement and her career, saying: “My biggest roles were to do with my physicality, my body, my sexuality.”
Climate check: ‘we’ve got two big things on our side in the climate fight’
Despite serious setbacks since the Paris climate accords were agreed in 2015, there are reasons to be optimistic ahead of Cop26, Bill McKibben, the leader of the climate campaign group 350.org, argues. One reason is that the cost of renewable energy continues to fall at a remarkable pace; the other is the explosion in citizens’ movements demanding climate action. But to succeed, they must overcome the “bulwarks of the status quo: vested interest and inertia”.
Last Thing: could you be ‘sleep procrastinating’?
If you routinely find yourself delaying bedtime despite being exhausted, you could be a “sleep procrastinator”. The term comes from Chinese social media users, and refers to workers who “use their late-night, post-work hours to claw back some sense of self, even when they know they should be sleeping”. Rebecca Seal looks at the phenomenon and the consequences of not getting enough shut-eye.
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