China key topic at G7 meeting of world leaders

Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell discusses the Biden administration's foreign policy and the future of Donald Trump on 'Your World.'

Recommended Stories

  • MWC Shanghai: Gadget companies gather for rare pandemic tech expo

    New products include a phone that fully charges in 20 minutes and an under-screen selfie camera.

  • China Is Leader in 5G Transformation: GSMA’s Chen

    Feb.22 -- Sihan Bo Chen, head of Greater China and head of Asia at GSMA, discusses 5G technology, the rollout of the technology in China and the potential for 6G. She speaks exclusively on “Bloomberg Markets: China Open” from the Mobile World Congress Shanghai.

  • Sweden steps up pandemic restrictions in bid to avoid third wave

    The Swedish government said on Wednesday it would reduce opening hours for all restaurants, bars and cafes as well as tighten limits on the number of people allowed in shops as it seeks to ward off a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. "The situation in Sweden is serious, we have a high spread of infection and it is increasing," Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told a news conference. Concerns about a possible third wave of the pandemic have been growing in Sweden in recent weeks as the number of new infections has risen, although deaths have come down significantly.

  • Emotional Merrick Garland says he wants to pay US back for taking in his grandparents when they fled persecution

    ‘This is the highest, best use of my own set of skills to pay back,’ says Judge Garland in testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee

  • Mother whose 11-year-old son died in Texas freeze sues for $100 million

    The mother of an 11-year-old boy who died after they lost electricity and heat in their Texas mobile home during last week's freeze has filed a $100 million lawsuit against two power companies for gross negligence. Maria Pineda said the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Entergy Corp are responsible for the death of her son Cristian, who was found unresponsive on the morning of Feb. 16 at home, where he shared a bed with his 3-year-old brother. More than 4 million people in Texas lost power and at least two dozen people died after a snowstorm blanketed the state last week and sent temperatures plunging well below freezing.

  • Sri Lanka human rights: UK seeks new UN resolution on abuses

    The resolution calls for human rights abusers in the bloody civil war to be held to account.

  • Body of swimmer pulled from icy pond

    Officials said they recovered the body of a man Monday who disappeared while swimming in an icy Wareham pond.

  • Family of 11-year-old boy who died in Texas cold snap file $100m lawsuit against power companies

    The family of an 11-year-old boy who died during a cold weather snap in Texas have filed a $100m lawsuit against power companies who were “wholly unprepared to deal with the crisis at hand.” Cristian Pineda went to sleep in the mobile home where he lived with his mother, stepfather and two young brothers on February 15, but did not wake up the next day. The thin-walled, poorly insulated home in Conroe, just north of Houston, lost power in the freezing temperatures and the lawsuit accuses utility firms of putting "profits over the welfare of people" by failing to prepare properly. It was -12 degrees on the night that Christian died, the family says. "Despite having knowledge of the dire weather forecast for at least a week in advance, and the knowledge that the system was not prepared for more than a decade, Ercot and Entergy failed to take any peremptory action that could have averted the crisis and were wholly unprepared to deal with the crisis at hand," the lawsuit alleges.

  • A tribal nurse’s mission to making sure her community gets vaccinated

    ABC News’ Trevor Ault traveled to South Dakota where a tribal nurse travels dozens of miles to vaccinate her community.

  • 6 royal baby traditions Meghan Markle and Prince Harry won't be expected to follow

    Since the couple recently announced they wouldn't be returning to royal duties, they will have more freedom this time around.

  • Analysis: Fed's Powell set table for Biden economy, but will he stay for dessert?

    Over the past year Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has engineered the largest economic rescue in U.S. history, thrown a controversial lifeline to companies hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and steered a sweeping labor-friendly revamp of monetary policy that any presidential administration would welcome. Is it enough to earn the 68-year-old former investment banker four more years as the head of the U.S. central bank?That question will get increased attention during this, the final year of Powell's term, and the conversation may start as early as this week when the Fed chief delivers his semi-annual update on the economy in two hearings before Congress. The testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday and House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on Wednesday will be Powell's first since President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats took control of the White House and Capitol Hill.

  • GOP congressman from Texas slams Ted Cruz as it emerges he took his college roommate on Cancun trip

    "Look, when a crisis hits my state, I'm there. I'm not going to go on some vacation," GOP Rep. Michael McCaul said on CNN's "State of the Union."

  • Duke basketball keeps NCAA Tournament hopes alive by beating Syracuse

    Blue Devils match season high with 13 3-pointers

  • 70-year-old kayaker drowns trying to save dogs in icy pond, Pennsylvania cops say

    “Any person that would risk their life to save his pets is a small glimpse of what an incredible person this was,” one woman said.

  • U.S. voices outrage over rocket attacks in Iraq but will not 'lash out'

    The United States said on Monday it was outraged by rocket attacks on coalition forces and others in Iraq but stressed it would not "lash out" and would respond at a time and place of its choosing. "We have seen the reports of the rocket fire today ... as you heard us say in the aftermath of the tragic attack in Erbil, we are outraged by the recent attacks," U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. Most attacks cause no casualties but the latest rocket attack, on Monday, was the third in Iraq in just over a week to target Green Zone areas that host U.S. troops, diplomats or contractors.

  • 5 ways Biden just tweaked the PPP to help the smallest businesses survive

    Biden's changes to the PPP help businesses with less than 20 workers (or none at all) and those with student debt or unrelated felonies, among others.

  • Cruz and Cuomo Face Scandal. Trump Can't Save Them.

    Even by Washington standards, this has been a particularly shameless week. With millions of Texans freezing in their homes, Sen. Ted Cruz fled to a Mexican beach, offering his constituents little more than the political cliché of wanting to be a “good dad.” (Apparently, flying your daughters to Cancún is just like carpooling — if your minivan were the Ritz-Carlton resort.) Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas blamed the complete meltdown of state infrastructure not on a lack of preparation from leaders in the state but the Green New Deal — a liberal policy proposal that is not even close to becoming law. His predecessor, former Gov. Rick Perry, suggested that Texans would willingly endure days of blackouts to keep the “federal government out of their business.” It seems hard to believe that any Texan — or really any human — would choose to have to melt snow for water. The outrageous behavior extended beyond the Lone Star State. In New York, a state lawmaker said that Gov. Andrew Cuomo had vowed to “destroy” him for criticizing Cuomo’s handling of the deaths of nursing home residents in the past year — an issue that is under investigation by the Justice Department. And Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin senator, said the armed attack on the Capitol did not seem all that well armed. Apparently, he missed the many, many videos of attackers carrying guns, bats and other weapons. And yet, beneath all this noise was the sound of something even more unusual: silence. For much of the past six years, former President Donald Trump has dominated the political conversation, prompting days of outrage, finger-pointing and general news cycle havoc with nearly every tweet. The audacious behavior of other politicians was often lost amid Trump’s obsessive desire to dominate the coverage. Well, the former president has now gone nearly silent, leaving a Trump-size void in our national conversation that President Joe Biden has little desire to fill. That has been a rude awakening for some other politicians, who find themselves suddenly enmeshed in controversy that is not quickly subsumed in a deluge of Trump news. It is unclear whether any will pay a significant political price for their actions. The last administration delivered a constant stream of chaos that may have fundamentally reshaped the kind of fact-based rhetoric and norm-abiding behavior we expect from our political leaders. Already, some politicians have adopted Trump’s playbook for surviving controversy: Blame liberals, double down and never admit any mistake. Biden, at least, seems determined to set a different tone. T.J. Ducklo, a deputy press secretary who reportedly used abusive and sexist language with a female reporter, resigned last Saturday — reflecting Biden’s Inauguration Day promise that he would fire anyone he heard being disrespectful. And in his first presidential town hall Tuesday, Biden repeatedly used two words that many in Washington have not heard in a while: “I’m sorry.” Democrats in Disarray. Kind Of? After a few weeks of party unity, Democrats are showing some fresh signs of division. Over the past week, Biden indicated that he was not fully sold on two proposals backed by his progressive base: forgiving $50,000 of student debt for each borrower and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Both plans have some high-profile champions. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have called on Biden to use his executive authority to cancel about 80% of the student loan debt run up by about 36 million borrowers. And the party is fairly united over a $15 minimum wage, with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont committed to including it in the COVID-19 relief package currently making its way through Congress. The issue for Democrats is how quickly to move. Biden favors a more gradual phase-in of the $15 minimum wage, in part to assuage concerns from business owners. And on student debt, Biden is not convinced that he can erase so much with a stroke of his executive pen. He has also signaled that the proposals should include income caps. “My daughter went to Tulane University and then got a master’s at Penn; she graduated $103,000 in debt,” he said at a CNN town hall Tuesday. “I don’t think anybody should have to pay for that, but I do think you should be able to work it off.” Biden may simply be looking at some political realities. Polls indicate that both proposals are popular, though support for a $15 wage drops when voters are told of potential economic effects — like a Congressional Budget Office forecast that it could cost more than 1 million jobs. As for student debt, majorities back the $50,000 in relief, but support rises when the plan is targeted at lower-income families. By the Number: 16 That was the number of crossover districts — congressional districts where the two parties split results between the presidency and Congress — in 2020, according to a new analysis by Daily Kos. That is the lowest number in a century. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company

  • Biden administration suggests it will add 'X' gender markers to federal documents

    The ACLU has been in talks with the Biden White House about the change, which would allow nonbinary and intersex people to get passports that reflect who they are.

  • Tiger Woods feeling stiff coming off back surgery, hopes to play in Masters

    Tiger Woods remains optimistic he'll be able to play at the Masters in April as he continues to recover from back surgery.

  • Explainer: U.S. Treasury's cash drawdown - and why markets care

    The U.S. Treasury is due to run down a $1.6 trillion bank account at the Federal Reserve as government spending ramps up in the months ahead - a move some analysts warn may crush short-term money rates further and flood financial markets with cash. The Treasury said recently it would halve its extraordinarily large balance at the so-called Treasury General Account (TGA) by April and cut it to $500 billion by the end of June. The U.S. government runs most of its day-to-day business through the TGA - managed by the New York Fed and into which flow tax receipts and proceeds from the sale of Treasury debt.