5 Big News Stories Overnight - Wednesday, January 21, 2026

France: Will Not Give Into "Bullies"

"French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said Europe would not give in to "bullies" in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, as EU chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed that the bloc's response to US President Donald Trump's repeated threats on Greenland would be "unflinching", reports France24.

PHOTO: EU CC: 4.0

U.S.: House committee set to approve resolutions holding Clintons in contempt of Congress

ABC News Reports:

House Republicans are set to take the next steps on Wednesday to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with committee subpoenas related to the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

On Wednesday, Oversight Chairman James Comer is set to hold a markup of two resolutions finding the Clintons in contempt of Congress after they defied a subpoena for a deposition with the committee last week. 

"The Clintons are not above the law, and the House Oversight Committee will move to hold them in contempt of Congress," Comer, a Republican, said in a statement last week. "If Democrats refuse to hold the Clintons accountable, they will expose themselves as hypocrites."

Globe: Half of World’s CO2 Emissions Come from Just 32 Fossil Fuel Firms

The Guardian Reports: 

Just 32 fossil fuel companies were responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed.

Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of “sabotaging climate action” and “being on the wrong side of history” but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.

State-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters in the Carbon Majors report, which the authors said underscored the political barriers to tackling global heating. All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India. More than 80 other nations had backed the phaseout plan.

U.S.: New Hall of Famers

Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones, were elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Players are elected to the Hall provided they are named on at least 75 percent of ballots cast by eligible voting members of the BBWAA. With 425 ballots, including 11 blanks, cast in the 2026 election, candidates needed to receive 319 votes to be elected.

Beltrán, who was in his fourth year on the ballot, topped the lists of 27 candidates with 358 votes, which accounted for 84.2 percent of the electorate. Jones made the grade in his ninth year on the ballot with 333 votes (78.4). Jones was born April 23, 1977 in Willemstad, Curaçao, the day before Beltrán’s arrival in Manati, Puerto Rico.

Beltrán was the American League winner of the Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Award in 1999 with the Kansas City Royals and went on to bat .279 with 435 home runs and 1,587 runs batted in during 20 seasons with stops in New York for both the Mets and the Yankees, in Texas for both the Rangers and the Houston Astros as well as San Francisco and St. Louis.

The nine-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove Award winner batted .307 with a 1.021 on-base plus slugging percentage in 15 postseason series featuring 16 home runs and 42 RBI in 65 games. A member of the 2017 Astros World Series title team, Beltrán hit four home runs in the 2004 NL Division Series and NL Championship Series in becoming the only player with at least four home runs in two series in the same season and one of four players, along with Giancarlo Stanton and Hall of Famers Jim Thome and Duke Snider, with multiple postseason series of at least four home runs.

Jones burst onto the major league scene in 1996 with the Atlanta Braves and hit home runs in his first two at-bats in that year’s World Series against the Yankees, for whom he would finish out his career in 2011 and ‘12. In between he also played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox and slugged 434 home runs while batting .254 with 1,289 RBI and an .823 OPS.

Among the most graceful center fielders, Jones earned 10 Gold Glove Awards in leading the league in putouts six times and assists three times. In 2005, he led the National League in home runs (51) and RBI (128) and finished second to Albert Pujols for the NL Most Valuable Player Award. In 18 postseason series combined with the Braves and Yankees, Jones hit .273 with 43 runs, 10 home runs and 34 RBI in 76 games.

U.S.: Trump’s E.P.A. Has Put a Value on Human Life: Zero Dollars

The New York Times reports:

Government officials have long grappled with a question that seems like the purview of philosophers: What is the value of a human life?

Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the answer has been in the millions of dollars. The higher the value, the more the government has required businesses to spend on their operations to prevent a single death.

But for the first time ever, at the Environmental Protection Agency the answer is effectively zero dollars.

Last week, the E.P.A. stopped estimating the monetary value of lives saved when setting limits on two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone. Instead, the agency is calculating only the costs to companies of complying with pollution regulations.