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Happening Today: Theresa May, Shutdown, Food Inspections, Hospital Price List, Rihanna, ‘Family Guy'

What to Know

  • British Prime Minister Theresa May faces a no-confidence vote, a day after Parliament rejected her Brexit deal by an historic margin
  • The Food and Drug Administration said it will resume inspections of some of the riskiest foods such as cheeses, produce and infant formula
  • Rihanna is suing her father over his use of their last name for a business

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UK Government Faces No-Confidence Vote After Brexit Defeat

British Prime Minister Theresa May faces a no-confidence vote, a day after Parliament rejected her Brexit deal by an historic margin. May is battling to save her job after staking her political reputation on a last-ditch effort to win support for the divorce agreement she negotiated with the European Union. Though defeat was widely expected, the scale of the rout — 432-202 — was devastating for May's leadership. Immediately after the vote, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a no-confidence motion, saying it will give Parliament a chance to give its verdict "on the sheer incompetence of this government." Still, most analysts predict May will survive because her Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionist Party, which supports it, are expected to vote against the motion.

Congress Prepares to Skip Planned Recess if Shutdown Goes on

Staring down the next deadline to pay federal workers, the White House shifted tactics, trying to bypass House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to negotiate with rank-and-file lawmakers even as President Trump dug in for a prolonged shutdown. The House and Senate announced they would stay in session, canceling an upcoming recess week at home if the shutdown continued, which seemed likely. On the shutdown's 25th day, Trump did not move off his demand to have Congress provide $5.7 billion to build his promised border wall with Mexico. Democrats say they will discuss border security once the government has reopened, but Pelosi is refusing money for the wall they view as ineffective and immoral. The president, on a conference call with supporters, showed no signs of backing down. With some 800,000 federal employees furloughed or working without pay, Trump suggested the partial shutdown that has clogged airport security lines and shuttered federal agencies was going smoothly.

FDA Resuming Inspections of Riskiest Foods Halted by Shutdown

The Food and Drug Administration said it will resume inspections of some of the riskiest foods such as cheeses, produce and infant formula. The routine inspections had been briefly halted as a result of the partial government shutdown. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the agency is bringing back about 150 unpaid employees for the inspections. Riskier foods account for about a third of the agency's roughly 8,400 routine inspections each year. Gottlieb told NBC News his staff put calls out to furloughed workers to gauge whether they would come back to work despite not getting paychecks. The FDA oversees packaged foods and produce.

Good Luck Making Sense of Your Hospital's Price List

Hospitals have posted the prices of their services, NBC News reported. Good luck making sense of them. Since Jan. 1, hospitals across the country have been publishing price lists online to comply with a new Trump administration rule. But the resulting documents, which can include as many as 60,000 items, are hard to decipher, with descriptions like “ABBOTT TECNIS TORIC ASPHERIC IOL ZCT300 21.0D SE 3.00 CYL.” and “FILL, PULL, VOID.” And if you're not a data analyst or a programmer, you might have trouble reading the files at all.

Rihanna Sues Father Over Use of Their Last Name for Business

Rihanna is suing her father over his use of their last name for a business. In the lawsuit filed in federal court, Rihanna, whose full name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, says her father, Ronald Fenty, and his partner have violated her trademark and falsely suggested that their business, Fenty Entertainment, is affiliated with her. The 30-year-old singer says in the lawsuit that she has used the name for her cosmetics brand and other businesses since 2012. Fenty Entertainment, which advertises itself as a talent and production company, was founded in 2017. The lawsuit asks the court to order Ronald Fenty to stop using the brand name, and it seeks damages to be determined later. An email sent to Fenty Entertainment seeking comment was not immediately returned.

'Family Guy' to Phase Out Homophobic Jokes, Executive Producers Say

"Family Guy" executive producers Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin revealed they're phasing out gay jokes from the animated Fox comedy. While speaking with TVLine about a recent episode that featured Peter Griffin in a bloody battle President Trump the duo confirmed what Peter told the animated Trump, they are indeed phasing out gay jokes. "If you look at a show from 2005 or 2006 and put it side by side with a show from 2018 or 2019, they're going to have a few differences. Some of the things we felt comfortable saying and joking about back then, we now understand is not acceptable," Sulkin said. The climate has changed in terms of what was once acceptable.

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