Monday morning news - November 15, 2021

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Biden to sign infrastructure bill today at White House » President Biden will sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill today. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle will join him for a signing ceremony at the White House.

Brain Deese is director of the National Economic Security Council. He told ABC’s This Week that it won't take long for Americans to feel the impact.

DEESE: While a number of those pieces will be longer term, there are things that will go into effect right away to try to get money out to help, for example, upgrade our ports, upgrade our airports, upgrade our roads. We’re going to work without delay to get that money working for the American people.

The Senate passed the $1.2 trillion bill back in August with bipartisan support. The House approved the bill last week—also with some GOP backing.

But plenty of Republicans opposed it, including Congressman Jim Jordan. He will not be celebrating today’s signing. He worries the spending will only fuel more inflation.

JORDAN: You want to buy a home, it’s going to cost more. You want to rent an apartment, it’s going to cost more. To put food on the table it costs more. To put gas in your car it costs more. A Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas presents are going to cost more.

Democrats are now turning their attention to passing a near-$2 trillion social spending bill. The Biden administration claims the spending will actually help to curb inflation.

Nations compromise on coal to strike UN climate agreement » Leaders from almost 200 nations accepted a compromise deal over the weekend aimed at keeping a key global warming target alive. But it contained a last-minute change that watered down language about coal.

Several countries said they were deeply disappointed by the change promoted by India to “phase down,” rather than “phase out” coal power.

Still, the summit broke new ground by singling out coal, setting rules for international trading of carbon credits. The pact also says big polluting nations must come back to the table next year with stronger pledges for cutting emissions.

After two weeks of U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “We haven’t beaten climate change …

JOHNSON: Because there is so much more that still needs to be done. But what we do have now is a viable roadmap.

And U.S. special envoy for climate John Kerry said while the deal isn’t perfect, it’s definitely a win.

KERRY: We all know the old adage of negotiation. You can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and this is good. This is a powerful statement.

Kerry said governments had no choice but to accept India’s coal language change. He said “If we hadn’t done that we wouldn’t have had an agreement.”

FBI says no sensitive information compromised in email hack » Hackers broke into the FBI’s email system over the weekend and sent thousands of emails warning of a possible cyberattack.

The messages appeared with the subject line “Urgent: Threat actor in systems.”

The bureau on Sunday confirmed that hackers were able to send fake emails appearing to be from the FBI.

In a statement, the bureau said it quickly took the system offline and that the hackers did not access any personal identifiable information. It also said the FBI has fixed the software vulnerability that allowed hackers to send the emails.

Biden, Xi Jinping set to hold virtual summit this evening » President Biden and China's Xi Jinping will hold their much-anticipated virtual summit this evening. Both sides say they’re hoping to dial back tensions between the two countries.

But the White House is tamping down expectations for the meeting. Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters not to expect any big news to come from it.

PSAKI: I wouldn’t set the expectation that this is intended to have major deliverables or outcomes.

She said the leaders will discuss how to manage the countries' competition and cooperate in areas where interests align.

President Biden is expected to stress that the two nations need to set guardrails in deepening areas of conflict.

Beijing over the weekend warned against the dangers of the United States supporting Taiwan’s independence and warned that such support “would only boomerang in the end.”

For decades, the United States has been careful not to formally recognize Taiwan as an independent state, but it does provide weapons to the island for self-defense.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

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