10 things you need to know today: October 25, 2021

1. Sudan military detains prime minister in apparent coup

Sudan's military detained Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, along with cabinet members and other civilian leaders, in an apparent coup that threatened to derail the northeast African nation's fragile democratic transition. Military forces put Hamdok under house arrest, then moved him to "an unknown location" after he refused to "endorse the coup," the country's Ministry of Culture and Information said in a Facebook post. Internet services were disrupted in the capital Khartoum and other parts of the country. Protesters filled Khartoum's streets early Monday. Smoke from burning tires filled the air. The turmoil came days after the capital's biggest pro-democracy protests since the 2019 wave of popular anger that forced out longtime authoritarian ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Since then, the country has been ruled by a civilian-military council.

The New York Times The Washington Post

2. Pelosi says spending deal near as Biden meets with Manchin

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that Democrats were nearing a compromise on a major spending bill that will expand the social safety net and clear the way to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill. "We have 90 percent of the bill agreed to and written, we just have some of the last decisions to be made," Pelosi said on CNN's State of the Union. President Biden hosted moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) at his home in Delaware on Sunday as part of a push to get the deal done. Democrats need every vote in their caucus to pass the spending bill in the 50-50 Senate, and Manchin and fellow moderate Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have used that leverage to get the cost of the proposal slashed from $3.5 trillion to $2 trillion or less.

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CNBC CNN

3. Fauci: Coronavirus vaccines likely available to kids aged 5 to 11 in November

Coronavirus vaccines should be available for children aged 5 to 11 by mid-November, top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on ABC's This Week. Food and Drug Administration officials are reviewing an application from Pfizer and BioNTech to authorize their two-dose vaccine for children in the age group. The FDA's panel of outsiders is scheduled to consider the vaccine on Oct. 26, and the FDA usually follows their recommendations. After that, advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will weigh in, and the CDC is expected to quickly follow up with a final decision. "If all goes well, and we get the regulatory approval and the recommendation from the CDC, it's entirely possible if not very likely that vaccines will be available for children from 5 to 11 within the first week or two of November," Fauci said.

Reuters

4. Jan. 6 rally organizers implicate GOP lawmakers in planning

Two people who helped plan the Jan. 6 rally in Washington that preceded the Capitol insurgency are sharing their knowledge with the House Jan. 6 committee, and they have "explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both [former President Donald] Trump's efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent," Rolling Stone reported Sunday. "I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically," one organizer told Rolling Stone. Along with Greene (R-Ga.), both planners said GOP Reps. Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Madison Cawthorn (N.C.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), and Louie Gohmert (Texas), or their top staffers, participated in the conversations. Greene "had nothing to do with planning of any protest," a spokesman said.

Rolling Stone

5. Husband starts hunger strike on behalf of U.K. charity worker jailed in Iran

The husband of a U.K. charity worker detained in Iran started a hunger strike on Sunday after an Iranian court extended her prison term another year. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has already been detained for more than five years. She was arrested at Tehran's airport in April 2016 and later convicted on a charge of plotting to overthrow the country's government, which she and human rights groups deny. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, launched his hunger strike outside the British government's Foreign Office in central London. Two years ago, he fasted for 15 days outside the Iranian Embassy. He said that was what got Iran to release their 7-year-old daughter, Gabriella. "We are now giving the U.K. government the same treatment," he said, adding that Iran was the "primary abuser" in the case but that the "U.K. is also letting us down."

The Associated Press

6. Trial starts in lawsuit over Charlottesville rally violence

A long-delayed lawsuit gets underway in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Monday to determine whether the far-right organizers of the August 2017 "Unite the Right" rally plotted for the event to turn violent. The gathering started with a torch-lit march during which participants chanted racist and antisemitic slogans. The next day, a rally supporter drove into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens of others. The plaintiffs accuse the two dozen organizers of intentionally fomenting the violence that left them injured. The 24 defendants, including 10 far-right organizations, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Klan sympathizers, and other extremists, have argued that rally participants involved in clashes were acting in self-defense. The plaintiffs are asking for unspecified financial damages.

The New York Times

7. Film professionals hold vigil for Halyna Hutchins

Film industry professionals and Hollywood actors gathered Sunday for a vigil in Albuquerque honoring Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed when actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun mistakenly loaded with live ammunition. The accident occurred during the filming of a scene for the Western movie Rust near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The director, Joel Souza, was injured in the shoulder and treated in a nearby hospital. After his release, Souza said he was "gutted by the loss of my friend and colleague, Halyna." Baldwin was seen consoling Hutchins' husband, Matthew, and 9-year-old son, Andros, outside a hotel in New Mexico. Hutchins' father and sister said they blamed the prop crew, not Baldwin, for the tragedy.

The Guardian Business Insider

8. Yellen says inflation will improve by middle or end of 2022

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday she expects inflation to ease by "the middle to end of next year," but that rates could remain abnormally high for months. "The COVID shock to the economy has caused disruptions that we'll be working through over the next year," Yellen told CNN's State of the Union. "And, of course, Americans have not seen inflation like we have experienced recently in a long time." Yellen also pushed back on the idea that the U.S. is losing control of inflation. "As we get back to normal, expect that to end," she added of the high rates. The most recent Consumer Price Index indicated that consumer prices rose 5.4 percent in the past 12 months.

Politico CNN

9. Drought-plagued California slammed by major storm

A powerful "bomb cyclone" and an "atmospheric river" converged on Northern California on Sunday, downing trees and knocking out power to nearly 94,000 Pacific Gas & Electric customers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Evacuations were ordered in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties as some areas in the region got up to 10 inches of rain. Some of the areas hammered by the storm systems have been devastated by drought and wildfires in recent years. Those areas faced an elevated risk of mudslides that could sweep away buildings and people caught in their path. High winds overturned a tractor-trailer on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge across San Francisco Bay, forcing the closure of two lanes, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The Mercury News The New York Times

10. 'Friends' actor James Michael Tyler dies at 59

Actor James Michael Tyler, famous for playing Central Perk coffee shop manager Gunther on 150 episodes of Friends, died Sunday of prostate cancer, a diagnosis he made public in June. He was 59. "The world knew him as Gunther the seventh 'Friend,' but Michael's loved ones knew him as an actor, musician, cancer-awareness advocate, and loving husband," Tyler's longtime manager, Toni Benson, said in a statement. Tyler's character carried an unrequited love for Jennifer Aniston's Rachel. Tyler actually was a barista at a Los Angeles coffee shop before landing roles on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Just Shoot Me!, and finally Friends. During his cancer treatment, he starred in two award-winning short films: The Gesture and the Word and Processing.

USA Today