Las Notis is a daily news column that gets you up to speed on the political, media + other goings-on in the United States, Latin America, and the diaspora—all in one quick digest.
Here’s your glimpse at what’s going on today:
- After a months-long standoff across partisan lines, a group of Republican and Democratic senators have unveiled a new $908 billion stimulus plan to get Coronavirus relief to Americans in need. The plan reportedly offers $300 a week in unemployment benefits, a reduction from the $600 per week Democrats have proposed. [NYT]
- In an interview with the Associated Press, Attorney General William P. Barr said that the Justice Department has not uncovered voting fraud at the scale Donald Trump has falsely claimed changed the outcome of the election. [WaPo]
- U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan has ruled that newly detained immigrants must appear before a judge within 10 days. In recent years, many immigrants have had to wait weeks or months to see a judge. The ruling is the first of its kind. [AP]
- Less than a month after the National Science Foundation decided to close the iconic Arecibo Observatory radio telescope because of severe damage it had undergone recently, the telescope fully collapsed on Tuesday (Dec. 1). Scientists and Puerto Ricans have mourned the loss of the instrument. [CBS News]
- Puerto Rican poet and writer Miguel Algarin, who is known as one of the co-founders of the Lower East Side’s famed Nuyorican Poets Cafe, died this week at the age of 79. He has won three American Book Awards as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award and also taught at Rutgers for three decades. [Spectrum News]
- Bad Bunny collected more than 8.3 billion Spotify streams in 2020, which makes him the most streamed artist on the platform this year. Billie Eilish was Spotify’s most-streamed female artist for the second consecutive year. [CNN]