Hard Numbers: Ethiopia is starving, US allies killed, Earth’s near miss, Paris parking drama, Myorkas impeachment vote
3,000,000: At least three million Ethiopians are at acute risk of hunger in the north of the country, where the federal government and ethnic Tigrayan separatists fought a grinding war from 2020 to 2022. The UK government says it is setting aside £100 million ($125.4 million) to aid people at risk of starvation in the region.
6: A drone attack early Monday killed six Kurdish fighters allied to the US on a military base housing US troops in Syria. No US deaths or injuries were reported, and the Biden administration says it will continue to target Iranian proxies in the region.
1,700,000: Did you feel that impending sense of doom over the weekend? It wasn’t (only) the Sunday Scaries. A skyscraper-sized meteorite is hurtling toward Earth and will come within just 1.7 million miles of our little blue marble on Friday. Scientists say we’ll be fine … but the asteroid is swinging back around in 2032.
18: The good people of Paris have voted to triple parking fees for SUVs, which will now run you €18 ($19.50) an hour in the city center and €12 further out. Mayor Anne Hidalgo celebrated the measure as an environmentalist victory – but at least one woman in the fashionable 8th arrondissement told Voice of America she’s sick of the mayor’s “diktats.”
2: The House will vote on whether to impeach Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, on charges that he has willfully refused to enforce border laws and breached the public trust. The vote marks an escalation of Republicans’ efforts to attack President Joe Biden and Democrats over immigration. Because of the GOP's thin majority, they can only afford to lose 2 lawmakers, but If they succeed, Mayorkas would become the only sitting cabinet member to be impeached in American history.