Breaking news in the media since the start of the new year

We are a little over a week into the year 2023, and it has already been a hectic and eventful year. Within the past 10 days, we have seen newly elected political leaders, history made in the National football league, a grizzly murder case, and even a new strain of covid after three years battling the coronavirus.

Let’s take a look at some of the major stories of this year so far.

In a game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin (24) was tackled by Josh Allen (23) in the first quarter of the game on January 2nd. It is suspected that the impact of the tackle on Hamlin’s heart caused the player to go into cardiac arrest on the field. For nine minutes, paramedics performed CPR on Hamlin before bringing out a defibrillator which re-started his heart.  Damar was rushed to the hospital while in critical condition and spent almost two days in a medically induced coma.

Today, Damar is expected to make a full recovery. Doctors say that his progress is remarkable, neurologically and physically. Hamlin’s future as an NFL player is still being discussed as he recovers.

The thoughts and prayers of all of Bills Mafia are supporting you, Damar. ? pic.twitter.com/lDWNAOEPX4

— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) January 3, 2023

Andrew Tate, a notoriously misogynistic social-media personality, was taken into custody in Romania after being arrested for multiple counts of sexual assault and human trafficking.

Tate’s location was discovered after he replied to a tweet sent by Greta Thunberg, a climate change activist while holding a pizza box from a store near a warehouse that Andrew had previously purchased. Tate’s warehouse was raided by police forces, and both he and his brother Tristan are now in custody for a set period of 30 days.

In the past few days, the two brothers have been admitted to a hospital for unconfirmed reasons. Most media sites believe that a routine check-up triggered the hospital visit after the doctor was informed about one of the brother’s prior health conditions.

On January 7, Kevin McCarthy was elected as the Speaker of the House. The voting period lasted four days, making this period the longest that the chamber has gone without a leader. There was a total of fifteen votes throughout the four days before the House came to a conclusion.

On the fifteenth and last vote, McCarthy gained 216 votes out of 428 voters in total, securing his spot as the Speaker of the House.

McCarthy was congratulated by President Biden, and both his determination and stamina were shown to the government and the public throughout the four-day election.

McCarthy’s first job as speaker will be to swear in the 433 other House Representatives.

It has now been about three years since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and we have seen more than three different variants rise since 2020. Going into 2023, a new strain called XBB.1.5 has dominated parts of the United States.

The new XBB.1.5 variant has been established by the World Health Organization as “the most transmissible” of all the ones we have seen. The variant went from being two percent of the cases in the U.S. to twenty-seven percent in the first week of January. Currently, over seventy percent of cases in the Northeast areas of the U.S. are that of the new variant.

Experts believe that this variant sparked from patients being infected by multiple covid variants at once. Fortunately, this variant does not seem to be more dangerous than previous strains and will not make covid patients’ symptoms worse.

Pope Benedict XVI was elected as Pope in 2005. He was head of the church for eight years before resigning in 2013. For the past six centuries, the church has not had a Pope resign until the end of Pope Benedict’s term. Benedict was 78 when he was elected Pope, and 95 when he passed.

It was said that Pope Benedict resigned as Pope due to the fact that he was getting older, and his mental health was too deteriorated to lead the people of the Church.

Benedict died of natural causes due to old age, and spent the last few years of his life dedicating himself to prayer. His funeral was held in St. Peter’s square on January fifth. The service was provided by the current Pope, Pope Francis.

Clearly 2023 has a lot in store for us, and this is only the beginning. Hopefully this new year will bring positive change to society.