Morning Wire XX
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[6] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor -in -Chief John Bickley.
[7] It's Friday, December 23rd, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update.
[8] The life expectancy of the average U .S. citizen has reached a 25 -year low due to COVID and drug overdoses, the CDC announced Thursday.
[9] The average life expectancy fell for the second year in a row from 77 years to 76 .4 in 2021.
[10] The drop was attributed predominantly to COVID and synthetic drug overdoses.
[11] The three leading causes of death were heart disease, cancer, and COVID.
[12] Spain's Lower House of Parliament passed a sweeping LGBT law Thursday, that allows people over age 16 to change their legally registered gender without, quote, medical supervision.
[13] Under the law drawn up by the center -left coalition government, minors aged 12 or 13 will need a judge's authorization to make the change, while those between 14 and 16 will have to be accompanied by their parents or legal guardians.
[14] And the law also bans so -called conversion therapies related to sexual preference or gender identity.
[15] It establishes fines and punishments for attacks on LGBT people and overturns a ban that previously prevented lesbian couples from registering their children under both parents' names.
[16] Just in time for Christmas, New York legislators returned to the state capital Thursday to give themselves a nice holiday gift, a pay raise that would make them the nation's best -paid state lawmakers.
[17] Members of the State Assembly and Senate voted to raise their base salaries by 29 percent up to 142 ,000 per year.
[18] The bill does, however, restrict the amount New York legislators can make from other jobs.
[19] Before Thursday's vote, Republican State Senator George Bruello said he thinks that they should prioritize other things.
[20] The whole idea of giving a 30 % raise to legislators just unconscionable.
[21] Right now, skyrocketing prices for everything are what people are concerned about.
[22] And this is just not only is a bad timing, but it's too much and certainly not something I believe the average person in New York would support.
[23] After a 6 .4 magnitude earthquake caused damages and deaths in Northern California on Tuesday, a series of aftershocks have continued to impact the region, including a 3 .3 magnitude earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area.
[24] The 6 .4 magnitude earthquake Tuesday left two people dead, a dozen injured, and thousands of people without power.
[25] Uganda's government says it's received more than 5 ,000 doses of Ebola vaccines for a clinical trial to assess their protection against the Sudanese.
[26] strain of the virus that caused an outbreak with over 50 deaths.
[27] The country's health minister said on Thursday that a global expert consultation will be held on January 12th to determine when the trials should start.
[28] That's a day after the World Health Organization is expected to declare the Uganda outbreak over if no new cases are reported.
[29] A new report commissioned by the Marine Corps suggested that the Corps dropped the use of Sir and Ma 'am in boot camp in order to be more gender -inclusive.
[30] The 738 -page report completed by the University of Pittsburgh also notes that the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard have already de -emphasized gender and now use last names or ranks of their seniors to address them.
[31] The senior leadership of the Marine Corps will now consider the proposal.
[32] The Phoenix Suns have a new owner, billionaire mortgage lender Matt Ishbia.
[33] Ishbia purchased the majority stake for $4 billion, the highest purchase price in the league's history.
[34] He bought the shares from Robert Sarver, who announced he would sell the franchise after an NBA investigation into allegations of misogyny and racism resulted in Sarver being fined $10 million and given a one -year suspension.
[35] Those are your drive -home updates this afternoon.
[36] To learn more about these stories, go to Dailywire .com.
[37] And for more in -depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to the latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.