California gets generational change at the top

New California Governor Gavin Newsom. Photo / AP file

United States: California Governor Gavin Newsom was sworn in and immediately drew sharp battle lines with President Donald Trump, pledging to enact "progressive, principled" policies as the antidote to the White House's "corruption and incompetence". Newsom, 51, said: "People's lives, freedom, security, the water we drink, the air we breathe — they all hang in the balance". Newsom took the helm as California's 40th governor after 80-year-old predecessor, Jerry Brown.

Ryan Gosling goes behind the camera for DR Congo book https://t.co/6AOSEjMZme by @kamouni_sara pic.twitter.com/dT5AEBW0dm

— AFP Entertainment (@AFPceleb) December 17, 2018

Congo: As tensions build in Congo over the delay in announcing the election results, actor Ryan Gosling urged equitable trade in the country's strategic minerals. Gosling collaborated on a book about the Central African country with activists and experts on Congo who have urged officials to announce a credible winner. Congo's electoral commission delayed indefinitely the announcement of the results of the December 30 vote. However, the influential Catholic Church said it can see a clear winner from the 40,000 observers it posted across the country and it urged the electoral commission to publish the true results in "respect of truth and justice." Gosling took photos in Congo that illustrate the book Congo Stories, published last month with text written by activist John Prendergast and other Congo analysts. Gosling wrote by email: "I've learned that if Congo was the beneficiary of its own natural resources it would be one of the richest countries in the world as opposed to one of the poorest".

Britain: Like a military operation, the project to test how traffic might flow around South East England in the event of a no-deal Brexit started before dawn. The Department for Transport had asked for between 100 and 150 trucks to assemble at a disused airfield in Kent. In the event, 89 turned up. The vehicles moved in convoys back and forth to the port of Dover in tests that Britain's Road Haulage Association said were too limited in scope to replicate the chaotic scenes that could play out if traffic is held up by customs delays after March 29. The exercise is designed to test the UK's readiness in case Prime Minister Theresa May fails to get her Brexit deal through Parliament and the country crashes out of the bloc without an agreement to smooth the split. Trucks are currently carried between Dover and Calais with minimal delay. But customs checks, if required, could take up to 45 minutes per vehicle, risking road back-ups as long as 27km.

$1 trillion is leaving Britain because of Brexit https://t.co/G301bJQj9H pic.twitter.com/S8vKeKiAPz

— CNN (@CNN) January 7, 2019

Israel: In what was billed as a "dramatic announcement," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a prime-time address to again dismiss a series of corruption allegations against him. Netanyahu said that it would be "unjust" for him to be indicted ahead of early elections called for April 9 without a chance to respond to the claims against him. He said authorities had denied his requests to confront state witnesses in person, and he offered to do so on live television. "What are they afraid of? What do they have to hide?" he said. Police have recommended indicting Netanyahu on an array of charges stemming from three corruption investigations, but it falls to Netanyahu's hand-picked attorney-general, Avichai Mandelblit, to decide whether to bring charges. It's unclear whether he will do so before early elections scheduled for April 9. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and branded the investigations a "witch hunt" orchestrated by his political opponents and a hostile media. He has said he will not give up his re-election campaign or resign from office if indicted.

Gabon thwarts military coup attempt in President's absence https://t.co/ahQuOPlQiJ pic.twitter.com/b25rmQpRVO

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 7, 2019

Gabon: The Government has retained control of the West African country after an attempted military coup in which two plotters were killed. Five army officers who took over state radio in the coup attempt have been arrested, government spokesman Guy-Betrand Mapangou, told Radio France International. Authorities regained control of state broadcasting offices and a major thoroughfare in the capital, Libreville, which were the only areas taken over by the officers, the spokesman said. Security forces took over and freed some hostages. A curfew has been imposed over the capital, Libreville, and the internet was cut. President Ali Bongo, in power since 2009, has been out of the country since October amid reports that he had a stroke. He has been receiving medical treatment in Morocco.

United States: A New York City firefighter fell to his death when he slipped through a narrow gap between lanes of a newly built bridge while trying to reach the victims of a car crash. Steven Pollard, a 30-year-old firefighter who had followed his father and brother into the FDNY just a year and a half ago, fell 15m as he tried to climb between a pair of low concrete barriers separating travel on Brooklyn's Belt Parkway. The eastbound and westbound lanes of the bridge are separated by a few metres of empty space.

It is with deep regret that @NYCMayor Bill de Blasio and FDNY Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro announce the death of Probationary Firefighter Steven H. Pollard. Read more: https://t.co/zed7Wc4rvi pic.twitter.com/K71VacIigp

— FDNY (@FDNY) January 7, 2019

China: South Korean media reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be on his way to Beijing for his fourth summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. North Korea rarely reports such visits until they are over. The reports said a train like the one often used by Kim was seen crossing into China amid heavy security. Yonhap said the train was expected to reach Beijing this afternoon. Today is also Kim's birthday.

Europe: Authorities in Austria and southern Germany warned that the risk for avalanches in the northern Alps remains high after several people died in weather-related incidents. A 28-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman who went missing while snowshoeing were found dead near Salzburg in central Austria, while about 40 rescuers with dogs were still searching for two others who went missing while snowshoeing near Hohenberg in Lower Austria, the Austrian news agency APA reported. In Germany, 44-year-old man died in Wackersberg in Bavaria when he was hit by tree branches brought down by heavy snow, police said.

Heavy snowfalls have left large areas of the Austrian and Bavarian Alps paralysed, with more than 2,000 people trapped in villages and ski resorts cut off from the outside world. https://t.co/Gsk5sWGQKJ

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 7, 2019

Poland: Amnesty International is calling on Poland not to deport a Chechen video blogger and critic of Chechen authorities who is being sought by Russia. The human rights group says that if Tumso Abdurakhmanov is returned to Russia he will be "at a very real risk of torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment." That appeal was made in a letter sent last week to the Polish Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski. Abdurakhmanov, 33, was informed on Dec. 20 by the Polish Border Guards that a process of administrative deportation had been started against him, Amnesty said.

- AP, Bloomberg