552,000 coronavirus tests have been performed in the US
Vice President Mike Pence announced that COVID-19 testing is available in all 50 states at a White House briefing on Thursday.
Fresh off his inauguration Wednesday, President Biden began his term with executive orders on measures ranging from curbing the coronavirus pandemic to addressing racial inequality, many of which roll back measures enacted by former President Donald Trump’s administration.
Vice presidents since Vice President Walter Mondale have been living in the residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
A county official in northern Michigan displayed a rifle during an online meeting in response to a citizen's comments about a far-right extremist group, drawing outrage from some local residents. Ron Clous, an elected member of the Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners, was at home during the livestreamed meeting Wednesday, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported. During a public comment period, a local woman, Kelli MacIntash, criticized the board for allowing self-described members of the Proud Boys to speak at a commission meeting last year and urged commission Chairman Rob Hentschel to denounce them.
Already facing allegations of stealing more than $600,000 in federal funds from a health care school she directed, a Tennessee state senator has been charged in a new fraud case, the U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said Tuesday.
Capt. Scott Moss, who led the NOSC in Knoxville, was relieved of command by Capt. Dale Maxey.
Donald Trump spent his first hours as a private citizen scrambling to find lawyers to represent him in his upcoming impeachment trial, as he settled into his new home at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. One of Mr Trump’s first calls after leaving office was to Lindsey Graham, South Carolina senator and staunch ally, telling him he was now “looking for some lawyers” for the imminent Senate hearing. "[Trump] said, 'I really don't know the lay of the land here,' and he's looking for some lawyers," Mr Graham told Punchbowl News. "I'm trying to help him there, and he's just trying to put together a team." Mr Trump will not be drawing on his usual litigators: Rudy Giuliani, his longtime personal lawyer, is likely to step aside as he could be called as a witness, while attorneys who represented him at the first impeachment hearing have declined.
Tam Dinh Pham of the Houston police department was part of the deadly mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. A veteran Houston police officer is in trouble after attending the U.S. Capitol riots in Washington, D.C., then lying about it. Officer Tam Dinh Pham joined the deadly mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Marine F-35B Joint Strike Fighter aircraft and the Navy destroyer The Sullivans will deploy as part of the strike group.
The inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris was splashed across the front pages of newspapers in the United States and around the world on Thursday, a day after they were sworn into office.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is genuinely undecided on how he will vote in former President Donald Trump's second Senate impeachment trial, his close allies say, but a faction of Senate Republicans are warning him if he votes to convict, the backlash will be swift and severe, CNN reports. "If he does, I don't know if he can stay as leader," one senior GOP senator told CNN, portraying that as a sentiment shared by several of his colleagues. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he could not support McConnell if he voted against Trump.McConnell has publicly shifted against Trump since a pro-Trump mob ransacked Congress on Jan. 6. "The mob was fed lies," McConnell said Tuesday. "They were provoked by the president and other powerful people." McConnell is part of "a small but notable faction of high-profile Republicans are taking a stronger stance against Trump or distancing themselves from him," The Associated Press notes, but "Trump is expected to remain politically active, including trying to exact revenge by backing primary challenges against Republicans he believed scorned him in his final days," especially the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him."In the House, a group of Trump loyalists are seeking to strip Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney of her GOP leadership post for supporting impeachment," CNN reports, "a predicament some Republican senators privately believe could hound McConnell if he seeks to end Trump's political career."The logistics and timing of Trump's impeachment trial are up in the air, though multiple Capitol Hill sources tell Politico's Playbook team it could end up being as short as three days, barring Trump calling witnesses. In the end, CNN reports, "Republicans who know McConnell well believe he will take the temperature of the Senate GOP conference and ultimately make a decision based in part on the views of his colleagues and the mood of the country when it comes time to cast the key vote."More stories from theweek.com 7 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's White House exit Eli Lilly antibody drug 'significantly' reduces risk of COVID-19 in nursing homes, study shows Biden's team reportedly realized after inauguration that Trump really had no vaccine distribution plan
China imposed sanctions on nearly 30 former Trump administration officials moments after they left office on Wednesday. In a statement released just minutes after President Joe Biden was inaugurated, Beijing slapped travel bans and business restrictions on Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and U.N. ambassador, Kelly Craft. Others covered by the sanctions include Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro; his top diplomat for Asia, David Stilwell; health and human services secretary, Alex Azar; along with former national security adviser John Bolton and strategist Stephen Bannon.
Ms Harris is expected to move into the 128-year-old residence once a number of repairs have been made
One of former President Donald Trump's last acts in office was issuing a directive extending free Secret Service protection to his four adult children and two of their spouses for the next six months, three people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post.It's not just his adult children benefiting — Trump also directed that former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and former National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien continue to receive Secret Service protection for six months, two people familiar with the matter told the Post. This 24-hour security, funded by taxpayer money, is expected to cost millions.Under federal law, only Trump, former first lady Melania Trump, and their 14-year-old son, Barron, are entitled to Secret Service protection now that they have left the White House; while Donald and Melania can receive protection for the rest of their lives, Barron is only entitled to it up until his 16th birthday.The Post notes that presidents have the ability to order Secret Service protection for anyone they want, but it is extremely unusual for an outgoing president to order this type of security for their children who are well into adulthood. It is also unclear if there is precedent for ordering security for former aides. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush requested security extensions for their daughters, who were in college when their presidencies ended. Once former President Barack Obama was out of office, his daughters — one in high school, the other on a gap year from college — received a short extension of security.During Trump's presidency, his adult children took more than 4,500 trips, including vacations and business travel for the Trump Organization, the Post reports. Taxpayers paid millions of dollars for Secret Service agents to accompany them on those jaunts.More stories from theweek.com 7 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's White House exit Eli Lilly antibody drug 'significantly' reduces risk of COVID-19 in nursing homes, study shows Biden's team reportedly realized after inauguration that Trump really had no vaccine distribution plan
Four shipwrecks, including one dating back to Roman times, have been discovered by marine archeologists off the Greek island of Kasos in the Aegean. Lying between Rhodes and Crete, the Dodecanese island was on a crucial trade route in antiquity. Inside the Roman-era shipwreck, divers found amphorae which originated from Spain and what is now Tunisia, the Greek culture ministry said. They would have been used to transport wine, olive oil and possibly garum – a pungent fish sauce that was much prized by the Romans. The ship has been lying on the seabed for nearly 2,000 years - it is believed to date back to the 2nd or 3rd century AD.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said 1 million additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine would be administered in California over the course of 10 days. But due to the state's data collection issues, it is unclear whether he met that goal.
President Donald Trump renewed his grievance over the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election by pardoning Paul Erickson, a former conservative operative once romantically linked to Russian agent Maria Butina. Erickson received the pardon even though he had pleaded guilty to fraudulent investment schemes that had nothing to do with Russia or the agent. It was part of a flurry of clemency action by Trump just before his term ended, with the White House characterizing his conviction as “based off the Russian collusion hoax” and saying his pardon “helps right the wrongs of what has been revealed to be perhaps the greatest witch hunt in American History.”
Investigators in Indonesia are probing whether a malfunctioning automatic throttle could have brought down the Sriwijaya Airlines flight that nosedived into the Java Sea on January 9. A person familiar with the investigation told Bloomberg that the autothrottle was producing more thrust in one of the Boeing 737-500’s two engines than the other after the plane took off from Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport carrying 62 people. Unequal thrust can cause a plane to roll onto its side and descend abruptly and autothrottle malfunctions have previously caused incidents on the 737 and led to the Tarom airlines crash in Romania in 1995, which killed 60 people. The source said the device had been having problems on previous flights made by the aircraft. Nurcahyo Utomo, the lead investigator at Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee, confirmed that a malfunctioning throttle was “one of the factors that we are looking at, but I can’t say at this point that it’s a factor for the crash or there was a problem with it." Earlier this month, officials investigating the tragedy were reported to be looking at a possible link to the 27-year-old plane’s prolonged grounding because of travel restrictions and reduced timetables during the Covid-19 pandemic.
800 feet up in the sky, the Dreamy 6,000 square foot space offers panoramic views from the East River to the HudsonOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest
Apparent U-turn by Pentagon officials could pose questions about police response
At least 32 people were killed and 110 injured on Thursday when suspected Islamic State suicide bombers targeted a busy market in central Baghdad, in the deadliest such attack in the city for three years. The Iraqi interior ministry said the explosions near Tayaran Square, the scene of a previous IS suicide attack, had been designed to cause maximum casualties, and the bombers had appealed to passers-by for assistance before detonating their vests. "The first suicide bomber said he was sick, asked for help, gathered people around him and detonated the bomb," the ministry said in a statement on Thursday morning’s attack. "The second suicide bomb detonated as soon as others gathered to help the victims of the first bomb." Police sources said many of the victims had died instantly while others were missing or seriously injured in hospital. They included shoppers, stall-holders and day labourers who had come to the square to look for work. Iraqi security sources described the incident as the latest terrorist attack carried out by IS, although there was no confirmation from the group. Yehia Rahool, a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, said that security forces had received information about an imminent attack from an IS commander who was arrested last week in Baghdad. He added that they had been pursuing the two suspects, but were unable to prevent the bombings.