PoliticsYahoo NewsTrump White House begins packing up
One day after President Trump was impeached for the second time and with less than a week to go before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, the Trump White House began cleaning out its desks on Thursday. While 20,000 National Guard troops have descended upon Washington in order to protect the capital from pro-Trump protests expected in the coming days, White House staffers were spotted removing a bust of President Abraham Lincoln from the West Wing. Staffers did not immediately clarify if the bust belongs to the White House permanent collection, or where it was headed.
- WorldAssociated Press
12 Pakistani police fired for not protecting Hindu temple
Pakistani authorities sacked a local police chief and 11 other policemen for failing to protect a Hindu temple that was set on fire and demolished last month by a mob led by hundreds of supporters of a radical Islamist party, police said Friday. The punishments come amid government assurances to the Hindu community that the temple in Karak, a town in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, would be rebuilt. The attack took place after members of the Hindu community received permission from local authorities to renovate the temple.
WorldBBCUganda elections 2021: Bobi Wine takes on Yoweri Museveni
Earlier, the police said they intended to deploy officers on rooftops of Kampala during the election period, saying that opposition activists commanded protests from high-rise building in November, when more than 50 people were killed after Bobi Wine was arrested. Dressed in military fatigues, Mr Museveni gave a stark warning during a televised speech on Tuesday evening: "If you try to disturb peace, you will have yourself to blame. The security forces, following the law, are ready to deal with any troublemaker."
U.S.Associated PressAmid cacophony since Capitol siege, key officer stays silent
Yet amid all the noise, a Capitol Police officer hailed as a hero for confronting the insurrectionists and leading them away from Senate chambers has remained silent. Officer Eugene Goodman isn't saying whether he thinks he saved the Senate, as many of the millions who've viewed the video believe. In fact, Goodman isn't saying anything at all publicly — not to reporters, not on social media.
EntertainmentArchitectural DigestMore Inside Artist Jorge Pardo's Transformed Bushwick Carriage House
When it came to the lighting in his home, Pardo drew inspiration from the insides of fruits, nuts, and seeds, as well as sea creatures and machine parts. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
PoliticsThe WeekTrump's team is reportedly trying to assemble a crowd for a 'major send-off' hours before Biden's inauguration
President Trump is planning to exit the White House on the morning of Jan. 20, a few hours before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in a short distance away, CNN reports. "Eager for a final taste of the pomp of being president, Trump has asked for a major send-off," and "as one of their final acts, Trump's team is working to organize a crowd to see him off on the morning of Biden's inauguration, when he plans to depart Washington while still president" for a flight to Palm Beach, Florida, where his term will officially end at noon. There are 20,000 National Guard troops currently deployed or en route to Washington, D.C., ahead of Biden's inauguration, because the last crowd Trump drew to the White House morphed into an insurrectionist mob that stormed the Capitol.
U.S.INSIDERAt least 6 pro-Trump rioters charged in the Capitol insurrection have already been released from custody
Josiah Colt is charged in federal court with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. He is one of at least five pro-Trump rioters charged with federal crimes who have already been allowed to go home pending trial. Dozens of people who were at or around the violent siege of the Capitol building last week have been charged - some of them also indicted - with crimes in DC or federal courts, and that list is growing by the hour.
- WorldChristian Science Monitor
Talk or fight? In Afghanistan, signs Taliban now prefer victory.
But an unprecedented surge in targeted assassinations in Kabul and other urban centers – which have left dozens of journalists, civil society activists, and officials dead, in almost daily killings since autumn – combined with sluggish peace talks and an accelerating U.S. troop withdrawal, is deflating her hope of a peaceful future. The killings are one more signal to analysts, too, that any initial Taliban strategy to negotiate peace with the Western-backed government – whose freedoms and existence the Taliban reject as un-Islamic – has been replaced by renewed determination to achieve military victory and seize full control of the country after American troops withdraw this spring.
WorldAssociated PressSpain rejects virus confinement as most of Europe stays home
While most of Europe kicked off 2021 with earlier curfews or stay-at-home orders, authorities in Spain insist the new coronavirus variant causing havoc elsewhere is not to blame for a sharp resurgence of cases and that the country can avoid a full lockdown even as its hospitals fill up. The government has been tirelessly fending off drastic home confinement like the one that paralyzed the economy for nearly three months in the spring of 2020, the last time Spain could claim victory over the stubborn rising curve of cases. Infection rates ebbed in October but never completely flattened the surge from summer.
PoliticsThe IndependentLindsey Graham urges Biden to get Democrats to end impeachment
One of President Trump's closest confidants is asking President-elect Joe Biden to pressure Congressional Democrats to end the impeachment proceedings. In a string of tweets, Senator Lindsey Graham called on Mr Biden to "to rise to the occasion and instruct his party to call off post-presidential impeachment proceedings". Mr Biden has so far been doing his best to avoid giving his opinion publicly regarding impeachment, only indicating that he wants the Senate to deal with cabinet confirmations and new legislation at the same time as an impeachment trial.
BusinessReutersU.S. weekly jobless claims jump on COVID-19, renewed supplementary payments
The number of Americans filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits surged last week, confirming a weakening in labor market conditions as a worsening COVID-19 pandemic disrupts operations at restaurants and other businesses. The larger-than-expected increase in weekly unemployment claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday was seen by some economists as driven by the recent renewal of supplemental jobless benefits, but nonetheless raised the risk of further job losses in January after nonfarm payrolls slumped in December for the first time in eight months. A stalling labor market recovery could put pressure on the incoming Biden administration for a bigger relief package.
PoliticsAssociated PressFate of Biden agenda rests with Schumer in 50-50 Senate
Chuck Schumer is used to drinking from a firehose. But the incoming Senate majority leader has never taken on such a torrent of challenges, with the opening days of both the Biden administration and Democratic control of the Senate coming at the very moment an impeachment trial gets underway. A 38-year veteran of Congress who first came to the Senate during President Bill Clinton's impeachment, Schumer is a 70-year-old bundle of energy with one overriding mandate: Help Joe Biden become a successful president.
ScienceAssociated PressRIP: Mars digger bites the dust after 2 years on red planet
NASA declared the Mars digger dead Thursday after failing to burrow deep into the red planet to take its temperature. "We've given it everything we've got, but Mars and our heroic mole remain incompatible,” said the German Space Agency's Tilman Spohn, the lead scientist for the experiment. Astronauts one day may need to dig into Mars, according to NASA, in search of frozen water for drinking or making fuel, or signs of past microscopic life.
WorldThe TelegraphBoris Johnson considers post-Brexit changes to rules on 48-hour working week
Boris Johnson is considering a post-Brexit overhaul of labour laws to free businesses from regulations originally imposed by the EU. The 48-hour working week is one of the regulations being targeted by the Government, it was reported on Thursday night, in a move that is likely to meet with resistance from trade unions. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), has asked business leaders for their views on the ideas, which are understood to be at an early stage.
U.S.INSIDERA Florida teacher was filmed falsely telling students 'Antifa' was behind the Capitol riots
A Florida teacher was filmed falsely telling students "Antifa" was responsible for the January 6 Capitol riots. The substitute teacher is "no longer with" Edward W. Bok Academy South or Lake Wales Charter Schools (LWCS), the HR director at LWCS confirmed to Insider. There's no evidence "Antifa" was responsible for violence during the Capitol riots; about 100 pro-Trump supporters have been charged so far.
- ScienceReuters Videos
Stranded animals rescued after record snow in Spain
Spanish emergency services led rescue operations for stranded animals left with no food amid extreme weather conditions and a historic snowfall across the country. Storm Filomena brought the heaviest snowfall in decades across central Spain, wreaking havoc as temperatures hit record lows. TV footage showed a helicopter delivering bales of hay for stranded cattle in the outskirts of the Madrid region and civil guard members rescuing a horse in a snowed valley in Vega de Soñin, in the northern region of Asturias.
U.S.Associated PressMan convicted in 3 killings to be last executed under Trump
The last federal inmate facing execution before President Donald Trump leaves office was sentenced to death for the killings of three women in a Maryland wildlife refuge, a crime that led to a life sentence for the man who fired the fatal shots. Dustin Higgs, 48, who is scheduled to be executed on Friday at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, says nobody alleges he pulled the trigger. His lawyers have argued it is “arbitrary and inequitable” to execute Higgs while Willis Haynes, the man who fatally shot the women in 1996, was spared a death sentence.
WorldAssociated PressChina builds new quarantine center as virus cases rise
A city in northern China is building a 3,000-unit quarantine facility to deal with an anticipated overflow of patients as COVID-19 cases rise ahead of the annual Lunar New Year travel rush. State media on Friday showed crews leveling earth, pouring concrete and assembling prefabricated rooms in farmland in an outlying part of Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei province, which has seen the bulk of the new cases. That recalled scenes from last year, when China rapidly built field hospitals and turned gymnasiums into isolation centers to cope with a then-spiraling outbreak in Wuhan, where the virus was first detected in late 2019.
WorldReutersLand of wine and honey? Israeli settlers export to UAE, to Palestinian chagrin
Wine produced in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank and labelled "from the land of Israel" will soon be available for sale in the United Arab Emirates, settler business leaders said. Palestinians have condemned the export deal, saying settlements are illegal under international law, a view shared by many countries but disputed by Israel. After forging official relations with the UAE last year under a U.S.-brokered deal that enraged Palestinians, bottles from Tura Winery in the Rehelim settlement are now in stock in the UAE, an alcohol retailer there said, although they did not appear to be on shelves yet.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderA member of Congress says she chose to risk running into Capitol rioters over sheltering with maskless colleagues during the insurrection
Rep. Stacey Plaskett, who serves as a House delegate representing the Virgin Islands, told Buzzfeed News that she opted to shelter in her office instead of with colleagues during the Capitol insurrection last week. In the days since the insurrection, Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Brad Schneider, and Adriano Espaillat have tested positive for COVID-19.
LifestyleArchitectural DigestJessie Schuster Transforms a Spacious SoHo Loft Inside an Old Factory Building
The Manhattan-based interior designer preserved the element of gritty New York through a “raw but elevated” renovation Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
WorldBBCCovid-19: Brazil hospitals 'run out of oxygen' for virus patients
Hospitals in the Brazilian city of Manaus have reached breaking point while treating Covid-19 patients, amid reports of severe oxygen shortages and desperate staff. The city, in Amazonas state, has seen a surge of deaths and infections. Health professionals, quoted by local media, warned "many people" could die due to lack of supplies and assistance.
WorldAssociated PressGerman lockdown loopholes criticized as deaths hit new high
Germany has too many loopholes in its coronavirus lockdown rules, the head of the country's disease control agency said as figures published Thursday showed the highest number of daily deaths since the start of the pandemic. The Robert Koch Institute said 1,244 deaths from COVID-19 were confirmed in one day up to Thursday, taking the total number to 43,881. There were also 25,164 newly confirmed cases, putting Germany's total known infections close to 2 million.
BusinessReutersAnalysis: Investors resigned to Trump's China ban, with Biden seen changing little
Financial executives are settling in for the long haul over the Trump administration's investment ban on Chinese securities, expecting the rules to be lasting but hoping to have more clarity after President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Trump's executive order requires U.S. investors to completely divest from the securities of 44 companies deemed to be linked to the Chinese military. Confusion over the order, which has been amended and interpreted via different guidance from separate agencies, has roiled Asian markets, led financial institutions to purge potentially affected companies from funds and asset managers to sell positions at depressed prices.
- PoliticsAssociated Press
Arizona Republicans figure prominently in election turmoil
Several Arizona lawmakers figure prominently in the controversy over the Republican effort to overturn President Donald Trump's election loss and the ensuing chaos after a mob stormed the Capitol. From raising objections to the state's election results to attending or potentially helping to organize the violent rally, Arizonans are playing an outsized role in the recriminations that have marked the final weeks of Trump's presidency. Arizona was a hotbed for GOP election denialism long before Trump supporters broke into the Capitol and halted the formal certification of Biden's victory.
“Governors are being WAY too precious about who gets this vaccine.”
“The federal government needs to give states strict parameters for when their vaccine allocation must be administered.”
“While public health leaders know what must be done, their critical work could be supported by a national COVID-19 Vaccine Corps.”
“The US vaccine campaign is not a disaster. Rather, I think it is predictably mediocre.”
“The best option may be to rely more on private industry.”