gaithersburg city council and a proud supporter the gaithersburg book festival since it s inception if you joined us for the first 10 book festivals, well, welcome back and if this it s it is really great to be here in person this year after two years of virtual book festival, as you know, gaithersburg is a city that values and supports the arts and humanities and we re pleased to bring you this fabulous festival. thanks and part to the generous support of our sponsors and volunteers. our volunteers are wearing these bright orange shirts. so if you see them, make sure you say thank you and if you see our sponsors, they re the ones walking around with money falling out of their pockets say thank you to them, too. before i introduce our author michael dobbs, let me make a few announcements. please silence all of your electronic mobile devices for the latest updates about the book festival. make sure you re following the gaithersburg book festival on facebook and twitter and if
today we are talking january 6th, and maybe you are wondering why symone, maybe you are saying symone the capitol attack last today, sure it was, bad but everywhere they went home, right? that is just it, y all. because we see through that sparked the insurrection are very much alive, the people from the capitol day they went home our democracy is still in danger. that is why, at least 20 million people tuned into the january 6th committee s first primetime hearing this past thursday, where they heard the testimony of capitol police officer caroline edwards, and documentary filmmaker nick quest among others. now the first people to breach the line of officers outside the capitol, they pushed edwards onto the concrete steps, knocking her unconscious. when she woke up, edwards went right back to the funding the united states capitol, only to be attacked again with chemical agents. yes, chemical agents. here is what she told committee members about that day. never in my wildes
i m @annitabbc or you can use the hashtag #bbcyourquestions. borisjohnson s standards adviser says there is a legitimate question over whether the british pm broke the ministerial code after getting fined for partygate. but his colleagues still insist he won t need to resign. these are significant issues but we have had range of accountability and transparency around it. i don t think this ends in a leadership challenge. tech firms are urged to do more to make it safer for women and girls to be online. from fine china to fish and chips we go on a whistle stop tour to see what merchandise has been created hello and welcome, if you re watching in the uk or around the world. within the past 2a hours, both the us and germany have announced that they re to send new weapons systems to ukraine. germany has this morning promised kyiv an air defence system the iris t system which chancellor olaf scholz says will enable ukraine to defend an entire city against russian air attac
In global news, business and sport. Apple confirms what weve all suspected for years. Older iphones get slower each time you update their software. Today were asking, are tech firms too quick to make gadgets obsolete . Tell us what you think. Just use the hashtag bbcthebriefing. Catalans will go to the polls in a couple of hours to vote in a Regional Election amidst the worst political crisis in decades. The vote is intended to resolve a stand off between the Spanish Government and the campaigners who unilaterally declared Catalan Independence in october. All indications are that the result will be very close. Our correspondent James Reynolds reports from barcelona. Pro independence supporters are planning a revival. And a new strategy. Declaring unilateral independence in october simply got their leaders sacked, and even jailed. The deposed regional president , carles puigdemont, now campaigns from exile in belgium. So this time, if they win, they promise no more unilateral steps. If