Friday morning news: December 30, 2022

FOR WORLD Radio, I'm Kristen Flavin.

Santos »

SOUND: Hey hey, ho ho, San-tos has got to go

Protesters in Long Island, New York, demanding the man they elected to Congress last month step down before he’s sworn in next month.

Republican Congressman-elect George Santos is facing a voter backlash after admitting to having lied about his heritage, work experience, and education.

MOS: Why would anyone want a representative who doesn’t want to represent us because he falsified everything in order to get the vote.

Santos lied about having Jewish ancestry, lied about working on Wall Street, and lied about his college pedigree.

So far, he’s hanging in. But he’s facing fraud investigations, a possible probe by the House ethics committee, and embarrassed colleagues in Congress.

Pele » Soccer fans are mourning the death of one of the best-known names in the game: Pele. He had been fighting colon cancer since 2021.

Pele retired from the game in 1977.

PELE: Everybody knows I passed a most important, and most saddening moment in my life. And I feel very, very sorry, because I'm going to stop to do what I like more in life, to play soccer.

Pele would receive the nickname “the King” for his dominance on the pitch.

MOS: Portugese

This fan remembering how the nation of Nigeria held a three-day ceasefire in the middle of a civil war in 1967 just so that Pele could play in an exhibition match.

Pele died at age 82.

Netanyahu » Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is back in power after being out of power for a year-and-a-half.

NETANYAHU: Hebrew

Netanyahu said in his first cabinet meeting yesterday that his government has four main priorities: keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons, restore security, defeat the cost-of-living crisis, and expand peace in the Arab world.

His new government is a coalition cobbled together with nationalist and orthodox parties and said to be the most right-leaning government Israel’s ever had.

Southwest » Southwest Airlines says that it will resume normal flight operations today.

The airline slashed 2,400 flights yesterday. That’s six out of every 10 scheduled.

The airline’s canceled more than 13,000 flights in the past week.

The federal government has begun investigating some of the flight cancellations, but a representative for Southwest pilots, Michael Santoro, says the government should stay away.

SANTORO: Deregulation was the best thing that happened to the aviation industry and I would not want to see the government come back into it. We like it the way it is.

Southwest has made promises to improve.

Jan 6. » Former President Donald Trump will not be forced to appear before the Jan. 6 House Committee. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Committee chairman Bennie Thompson wrote a letter to Donald Trump’s lawyer saying that he is formally withdrawing the subpoena for the former president.

The letter comes as the Committee’s work winds down.

The committee had issued the subpoena in October and Trump sued in November.

He argued that no former president has ever been forced to provide documents via Congressional subpoena. Some have done so voluntarily.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Pope » The health of Pope Emeritus Benedict the 16th continues to worsen.

The 95-year-old former pontiff is being monitored by doctors at a monastery within Vatican City. Vatican journalist Massimo Franco.

FRANCO: I don't know if he's in his death bed. He's in his bed, but we don't know actually what his real conditions are because there was a lot of alarm after the words of Pope Francis.

Ordained a Roman Catholic priest in Germany in 1951 as Joseph Ratzinger, he’d become Pope Benedict in 2005 and serve until 2013.

I'm Kristen Flavin. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org.

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