Three things for January 27
1. GOP votes on Trump impeachment trial
On Tuesday, the majority of Senate Republicans voted to determine if the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump was constitutional. For the impeachment to succeed, there would have to be a two-thirds majority vote, meaning 17 republicans would have to vote against their party. So far, only five have.
The test vote means the trial on Trump’s impeachment will begin as scheduled during the week of Feb. 8. The House impeached him on Jan. 13, just a week after the Capitol breach in which five people died. It is unclear if any Senate Republicans will vote to convict Trump on the actual charge of incitement.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told AP News, “It makes no sense whatsoever that a president, or any official, could commit a heinous crime against our country and then defeat Congress’ impeachment powers — and avoid a vote on disqualification — by simply resigning, or by waiting to commit that offense until their last few weeks in office.”
2. Northeast US experiences major internet loss
Verizon network issues caused cities such as Boston, New York City, Washington, DC and more to experienced loss of internet for multiple hours yesterday, Jan. 26. The problem was narrowed down to their Fio service, which includes 6.5 million users.
The area affected a dense location filled with corporations, schools and government services. The outage affected internet and cloud providers as well as major sites such as Google and Facebook.
Verizon users contacted support over Twitter, resulting in a public spread of information. Verizon was soon able to pinpoint the problem and fix it though many suffered from losing their at-home internet when most work from home.
“An internet issue impacting the quality of our Fios service throughout the Northeast has been resolved,” spokesman Rich Young said in an email. Young said service levels “are returning to normal,” and the company is investigating what happened, according to AP News.
3. Lady Flames set records this weekend
At the Samford Open last weekend, the Lee University women’s track and field team accomplished “three Lee records and three NCAA Division II provisional qualifying performances.”
Celine Ritter won both the mile and 800-meter run events. She set a Lee meet record with a time of 4:44.95 in the mile, according to Lee University Athletics.
Hannah Wright set a new Lee record of 9.06 seconds in the preliminaries of the 60-meter hurdles and finished first in the finals with an improved time of 8.92 seconds.
For more information on the track team and their various placements, visit the Lee University Athletics website.
