🎧News Brief: Trump Inauguration Moved Indoors Due to Cold Weather; Israeli Cabinet Approves Cease-Fire Deal

Significant changes are made to the upcoming inauguration ceremony of President-elect Donald Trump...

The U.S. Capitol building five days ahead of the Presidential Inauguration in Washington on Jan. 15, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. I’m Bill Thomas, we have some pressing stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s going on.

Significant changes are made to the upcoming inauguration ceremony of President-elect Donald Trump, the Israeli Cabinet weighs in on a pending recent cease-fire agreement with Hamas, and President Joe Biden ratifies an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Also, the president commutes the prison sentences of thousands of Americans, and our nation’s highest court makes a critical decision regarding the future of a widely used social media app.

We have a lot to get to today, and we begin with this. On Monday morning, President-elect Donald Trump will take the oath of office and become our nation’s 47th president, but the ceremony will not be happening on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and for good reason. More on our top story.

Trump Inauguration Moved Indoors Due to Cold Weather

Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration has just been moved indoors to the Capitol Rotunda, due to the extremely cold weather forecast for Washington on that day. The congressional committee that organizes the event said they made the move at Trump’s request.

On Truth Social, Trump said that he didn’t want to see anyone get hurt by the dangerous weather conditions. He pointed out that tens of thousands of law enforcement personnel—along with hundreds of thousands of his supporters—would have been outside for many hours on Inauguration Day, when temperatures are expected to be about 25 degrees.

He went on to say that the dignitaries and guests who are in attendance will be brought inside the Capitol for the ceremony, and that it will be “a very beautiful experience” for everyone, especially the large TV audience.

Both Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will now take their oath of office inside the Rotunda, which connects the House and Senate. The area features a number of paintings that depict important moments in U.S. history, and is also where prominent figures lie in state.

By the way, the inaugural parade, which traditionally moves along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, will now take place at the nearby Capitol One Arena, which will also be used for people to watch the swearing-in of our nation’s 47th president.

Trump says that there will be no additional changes made to any other of the scheduled events, including the three inaugural balls, and that all else will all go on as planned.

Meanwhile, immediately following his inauguration, Trump is poised to issue a record-breaking number of executive actions, particularly regarding illegal immigration and border security. His incoming deputy chief of staff has said that Trump will sign more than 100 actions within the first 48 hours of his presidency, which would far outpace all of his recent predecessors.

We’ll move to the international stage now, where progress is being made in an effort to bring an end to the violent war between Israel and Hamas, and more now on what we’ve learned.

Israeli Cabinet Approves Cease-Fire Deal

Israel’s Cabinet has just approved a cease-fire deal with Hamas, shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed that a final agreement had been reached.

Netanyahu’s office said that with the approval of the deal, the release of the first group of hostages is expected to take place tomorrow. Under the first part of the three-phase agreement, 33 out of the remaining 98 Israeli hostages will be released during the initial six-week cease-fire, and eventually, all of them will be freed by the deal.

Netanyahu says that he has instructed a special task force to prepare to receive the returning hostages, and he has informed their families that a deal had been reached.

The cease-fire agreement—which also involves Israeli troops eventually withdrawing from the Gaza Strip—was negotiated over several months in Qatar, with representatives from that country’s government acting as mediators.

However, one of the most controversial aspects of the deal is the release of around 1,000 Palestinian prisoners at the same time as the hostages, and some Israeli cabinet members are calling the deal “disastrous.”

By the way, Israel and Hamas have now been at war for 15 months, after the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group mounted a cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage.

To Washington now, where in his last remaining hours as commander-in-chief, President Joe Biden has just done something that changes the U.S. Constitution, but not without some opposition. More now on the change he made and why.

Biden Ratifies Equal Rights Amendment

Biden just announced that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is now “the law of the land.”

In making the move, Biden said that it’s “long past time” to recognize the will of the American people, that he’s affirming what he believes and what three-quarters of the U.S. states have already approved, and that the 28th Amendment has now gone into effect.

He pointed out how in 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, and he said that the amendment now guarantees “all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.”

However, late last year, both the U.S. archivist and the U.S. deputy archivist said that the president could not ratify the amendment because it did not receive the required support by a Congress-imposed 1982 deadline. The Department of Justice also says that the amendment cannot be ratified unless either Congress or the courts extend that deadline.

Meanwhile, a number of organizations, including the American Bar Association (ABA), say that Virginia’s ratification was sufficient to meet the three-quarters requirement, and that the prior deadline is not relevant.

By the way, according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, there is no precedent for waiving such a deadline once it has passed, and experts at the center say that the matter could very well end up being decided in court.

More now from President Joe Biden, who’s leaving the White House in about 48 hours, and before he goes, he’s just taken consequential action regarding thousands of convicted criminals. More now on that story.

Biden Commutes Sentences for Nearly 2,500 Americans

Biden says that he’s commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people, marking the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.

He says that his latest pardons are being granted to people who were convicted of nonviolent drug offenses and who are serving “disproportionately long” sentences compared to those which they would receive today for a similar crime.

In making the move, Biden pointed to two pieces of relevant legislation, including one that reduced prison sentences related to crack cocaine and another aimed at lowering the size of the federal prison population while promoting rehabilitation instead.

Biden says his action provides relief for people who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine.

He went on to say that his move is an important step toward righting what he called “historic wrongs,” and that it will provide deserving individuals the opportunity to return home after spending far too long behind bars.

With this latest action, Biden has now issued more individual pardons and commutations than any president in U.S. history.

Finally today, an important ruling by our nation’s highest court regarding a highly popular social media app, and now, the incoming Trump administration will have to determine whether or not time is up for TikTok.

Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Forced Divestment Law

The U.S. Supreme Court has just denied a request by TikTok to stop a federal law that requires its indirect owner, ByteDance, to divest itself of the company by tomorrow, or to cease its U.S. operations entirely.

The court’s opinion was unanimous, and it determined that the previously passed TikTok law under consideration does not violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Supporters of the law, which was signed by President Joe Biden last year after it was passed by bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate, say the Chinese regime has too much sway over TikTok and could abuse the personal data of American users.

In its opinion, the Supreme Court said that Congress singled out TikTok and ByteDance due to national security concerns over their data collection practices, and because of the social media platform’s “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control.”

For its part, the White House says it will be up to the next administration to enforce the law. Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump says that right now, he’s weighing all of his options.

On Truth Social, Trump said that the Supreme Court’s decision was expected, that everyone must respect it, and that ultimately, his decision regarding TikTok will be made after he’s thoroughly reviewed the situation.

And now, it looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the Saturday edition (the weekend edition) of The Epoch Times News Brief.

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And finally, as we do each and every day on this program, we wrap everything up with a very notable quote, and this one comes to us from Ringo Starr, who said: “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

Ringo is a legendary drummer, he was 25 percent of the Beatles, and he’s still the leader of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band—a live rock supergroup founded in 1989.

For all of us here at The Epoch Times News Brief, I’m Bill Thomas.

The Epoch Times News Brief program is written each day by David Ross.

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For now, it’s imperative that we all continue to watch out for one another, and have an absolutely superb day today. Bye for now.