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Colombian officials on Monday authorized a plan to cull dozens of hippos roaming freely through a region in the center of the country, where they threaten villagers and displace native species years after notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar brought in the first ones.
Colombian officials on Monday authorized a plan to cull dozens of hippos roaming freely through a region in the center of the country, where they threaten villagers and displace native species years after notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar brought in the first ones.

Two US lawmakers stepped down Monday and two more faced possible expulsion over a series of scandals that have rattled both parties and thrown the House of Representatives into turmoil.
Democrat Eric Swalwell of California, who had already ended his bid to become governor, announced his resignation from Congress on Monday via X, after multiple women accused him of sexual assault or misconduct.
Hours later, Texas Republican Tony Gonzales announced plans to retire from office in an X post, amid mounting pressure after acknowledging an affair with a former aide who later died by self-immolation. House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican leaders had already urged him not to seek reelection.
Lawmakers are still zeroing in on separate controversies involving two Florida lawmakers — Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Republican Cory Mills — in an unusual push for disciplinary action.
“Congress should not tolerate representatives who abuse staff, betray public trust for personal gain, and generally violate their oath of office,” New York Democrat Nydia Velazquez posted on X, calling for all four to resign and adding “if they refuse, they should be expelled.”
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Threshold
Expulsion from the House requires a two-thirds majority, a threshold so high that Congress has wielded the sanction only in the gravest cases, removing just six members in its 237-year history.
Swalwell’s troubles escalated rapidly over the weekend as reports from the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN detailed allegations from four women, including a former staff member who said he sexually assaulted her twice while she was too intoxicated to consent.
Swalwell has apologized for what he called “mistakes in judgment” while insisting the accusations are false.
He suspended his campaign to become governor of California but this did little to calm the uproar in Washington, where calls for him to resign from the House spread across party lines. Late Monday afternoon he announced on X he was resigning his seat.
“I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make,” Swalwell said.
Republican Anna Paulina Luna had been set to introduce a resolution Tuesday to expel Swalwell, and support for votes to oust the other three, beginning as early as this week, has come from an ideologically wide group of lawmakers.
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‘Despicable’
“These allegations are despicable and they demean the integrity of Congress,” Florida Republican Byron Donalds told NBC, adding that both Swalwell and Gonzales “need to go home.”
The Swalwell and Gonzales cases in particular have fed talk on Capitol Hill of a politically symmetrical purge: one Democrat for one Republican, or perhaps two from each party.
“Gonzales and Swalwell exploited their staffers’ ideals and commitment to public service as a vulnerability. These staffers work incredibly hard and instead of being treated with respect, they were preyed upon,” Democratic New Mexico Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez said.
Cherfilus-McCormick is already facing a sanctions hearing after an Ethics Committee subpanel found she committed 25 violations tied to campaign finance and related conduct, and she is also due to face a federal criminal trial next year.
Cherfilus-McCormick has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in her criminal case.
The Ethics Committee, a bipartisan but notoriously slow-moving body that handles misconduct cases in the House, was investigating Gonzales and on Monday opened a new file, on Swalwell — but the committee’s jurisdiction only extends to sitting members.
Mills, meanwhile, is under investigation over allegations ranging from sexual misconduct and domestic violence to campaign finance and gift violations, all of which he denies.
Many lawmakers remain skeptical the chamber will act as soon as this week.
The House is already operating with an exceptionally thin Republican majority, and any vacancies would trigger special elections whose timing would depend on state governors.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
The equalities watchdog has updated its guidance on how to implement the supreme court ruling on gender after the government requested changes to the original proposals submitted last year.
In a statement, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said that after “feedback” from the government, as well as consultation responses and extra legal advice, it had made changes to what is officially known as the code of practice.
It follows concern from a number of MPs and groups representing transgender people that the original code, sent to ministers in September under the EHRC’s then-chair, Kishwer Falkner, created a legal minefield for organisations implementing it, and risked effectively excluding transgender people from much of the public realm.
The code sets out how businesses and other organisations should respond in practical terms to the supreme court ruling that sex in the Equality Act refers only to biological sex.
Interim advice from the EHRC under Falkner, which was subsequently withdrawn, said the ruling meant transgender people should not be allowed to use toilets meant for the gender they live as, and that in some cases they could not use toilets consistent with their birth sex.
In January, the Guardian reported that under its new chair, Mary-Ann Stephenson, the EHRC was looking at ways to adapt the formal code to lessen its impact on businesses and to ensure it tried to balance single-sex spaces with the lives of transgender people.
In a statement on Tuesday, Stephenson said ministers had “recently provided us with a narrow set of comments on the draft code of practice we submitted in September”.
She went on: “Having considered this feedback alongside consultation responses and further legal analysis, we have made adjustments where they help the code provide legally accurate, practical guidance that is useful to duty bearers.
“These aim to strengthen duty bearers’ understanding of the law and how it applies across a range of the scenarios they encounter day-to-day, so that all service users are treated with dignity and respect, in line with the Equality Act.”
The updated code is now with Bridget Phillipson, who as minister for equalities must approve it before it is put before parliament.
In a written statement today, Phillipson thanked the EHRC for its updates, adding: “This government has always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex”.
She confirmed that the government was unable to make further announcements because it was within the pre-election period for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, but Maya Forstater, CEO of sex-based rights campaigners Sex Matters, said this was “not a good excuse”.
Forstater raised concerns about “negotiations and horse-trading” between the government and the EHRC.
“It’s extraordinary that a year after the supreme court judgment, and seven months after the independent regulator first submitted its code of practice, the government has found another excuse for delaying the guidance,” she said.
“The past year’s delay has caused serious harm to countless women. The statement that the government has “always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex” is a slap in the face to these women and girls who have faced harassment and hounding from jobs and services for saying the same thing.”
Alex Parmar-Yee, director of the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance group, said: “We’re glad that the government has heard how cruel and unworkable the EHRC’s original proposals were. A national bathroom ban under the guise of equality law is not in line with Labour’s values, and we hope any new guidance scraps that idea for good.
“For trans people and inclusive organisations, the last year has been horrific – now we have to find out whether this government has taken its responsibilities seriously and fixed this mess or not.”
The equalities charity Stonewall welcomed the “constructive working” between the government and EHRC. “Following a year of complex judgments in the courts and the uncertainty this has created, it is essential that organisations can look to the code for practical, workable guidance and feel confident about their legal obligations,” said a spokesperson.

