Evening Forecast - 2/20/21

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  • Minneapolis approved funding to hire social media influencers to spread information about ex cop Derek Chauvin's trial

    Minneapolis is hiring social media influencers to spread information about the trial of the cop, Derek Chauvin, who knelt on George Floyd's neck.

  • Saudi Arabia says it intercepts missile attack over capital

    Saudi Arabia said Saturday it intercepted a missile attack over its capital and bomb-laden drones targeting a southern province, the latest in a series of airborne assaults it has blamed on Yemen’s rebel Houthis. The Saudi-led military coalition fighting in Yemen’s yearslong war announced the Iran-allied Houthis had launched a ballistic missile toward Riyadh and three booby-trapped drones toward the province of Jizan, with a fourth toward another southwestern city and other drones being monitored.

  • 'We're done with that lifestyle': Jessica Watkins, Ohio woman charged in Capitol riot, renounces Oath Keepers

    Jessica Watkins, 38, says she has disbanded her local armed group and is canceling her Oath Keeper membership after her arrest.

  • CPAC stage is shaped like a Nordic rune used on some Nazi uniforms

    After Twitter users noted the similarities, the CPAC organizer said the "stage design conspiracies are outrageous and slanderous."

  • Sweden has U-turned on several of its coronavirus measures and is now facing its first lockdown, warns PM

    Sweden, which has famously relied on more voluntary measures during the pandemic, continues to struggle in the face of rising coronavirus cases.

  • Princess Diana wasn't allowed to call Prince Charles by his first name until they were engaged

    It's been 40 years since Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer announced their engagement with a televised interview.

  • Republican congressman appears at white nationalist conference whose founder called Capitol riot ‘awesome’

    Only elected GOP official to attend alternative far-right conference said afterwards: ‘I denounce when we talk about white racism’

  • Israeli-owned ship docked in Dubai after mysterious blast

    An Israeli-owned cargo ship that suffered a mysterious explosion in the Gulf of Oman came to Dubai's port for repairs Sunday, days after the blast that revived security concerns in Mideast waterways amid heightened tensions with Iran. Associated Press journalists saw the hulking Israeli-owned MV Helios Ray sitting at dry dock facilities at Dubai's Port Rashid. Although the crew was unharmed in the blast, the vessel sustained two holes on its port side and two on its starboard side just above the waterline, according to American defense officials.

  • Biden is on the verge of making the same dangerous mistakes as the presidents before him

    Opinion: The costs of a foreign policy that emphasizes US global preeminence are now inescapable clear, and US leaders need to change course.

  • The 'larger-than-life' statue of Donald Trump at CPAC was made in Mexico

    "We are going to defend our workers, protect our jobs and finally put America first," Trump said in April 2020.

  • Burton family battles continue in NASCAR’s next generation of drivers

    You know brothers Jeff and Ward. Their NASCAR legacy continues with their sons in full-time Xfinity rides.

  • Ted Cruz said the Republican Party is 'not just the party of country clubs' but CPAC is fixated on Donald Trump - a man who literally lives at one

    Trump, who lives at his private Mar-a-Lago club, has already stolen the show at CPAC and will deliver his own speech on the last day of the conference.

  • Dollars flood Venezuela as Maduro abandons 'socialismo' in favour of Chinese system

    Perched on the mountain range that divides the sprawling city of Caracas from the Caribbean Sea, Venezuela’s Hotel Humboldt can be seen from nearly all corners of the capital. The 65-year-old, 14-floor structure can only be reached by cable car from the city below. It currently boasts 69 rooms, six dining areas, a casino, a night club, and a swimming pool and spa. “It will be the first seven star hotel in Venezuela,” President Nicolas Maduro once proudly proclaimed as the 1956 symbol of oil wealth was being lavishly renovated. Now, the hotel is open again as a symbol of an impending economic recovery and tourism boom in a country that has suffered the worst economic crisis in modern Latin American history. But the so-called Socialist president’s touting of the luxurious, $300 per night hotel in a country where most live in poverty represents something else to others - an abandonment of a political project promising a socialist utopia in favor of an 'anything goes', capitalist kleptocracy.

  • A former Air Force contractor pleaded guilty to illegally taking 2,500 pages of classified documents home despite going through safeguard training

    Fairborn police found the classified documents during a search for a "marijuana growing facility," local news reported.

  • Far-right Proud Boys leader condemns Capitol rioters but says he 'won't cry' about politicians

    ‘I'm not going to worry about people that their only worry in life is to be re-elected,’ says Enrique Tarrio

  • Chinese investment in Australia hits new low

    As tensions between Beijing and Canberra continue to simmer, Chinese investment in Australia has slumped to its lowest level in six years.The annual tracking study from the Australian National University recorded A$1 billion Australian dollars of Chinese investment in 2020, consisting of real estate, mining and manufacturing deals.That's a 61% fall, larger than the 42% decrease in foreign direct investment globally measured by the United Nations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That's according to Shiro Armstrong, the director of the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.Australia announced a shakeup of its foreign investment laws in 2020 to give the government the power to veto, or force the sale of a business if it creates a national security risk.Chinese company Mengniu abandoned a deal to buy the Australia dairy firm Lion Dairy and Drinks from Japanese company Kirin in August, after the Australian government indicated it would block the sale.The Chinese embassy said in November that 10 Chinese investments had been blocked in Australia on national security grounds, among a list of 14 grievances Beijing had about Australian government policy.China has since imposed dumping tariffs on Australian wine and barley, and restricted the unloading of Australian coal at Chinese ports.Chinese investment in Australia peaked at A$16.5 billion Australian dollars in 2016.

  • Supreme Court could put new limits on voting rights lawsuits

    Eight years after carving the heart out of a landmark voting rights law, the Supreme Court is looking at putting new limits on efforts to combat racial discrimination in voting. The justices are taking up a case about Arizona restrictions on ballot collection and another policy that penalizes voters who cast ballots in the wrong precinct. The high court's consideration comes as Republican officials in the state and around the country have proposed more than 150 measures, following last year’s elections, to restrict voting access that civil rights groups say would disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic voters.

  • How does Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine stack up against shots from Pfizer and Moderna?

    Johnson & Jonhson's coronavirus vaccine is the only one that's been tested out in the US as just one shot.

  • Lady Gaga's bulldogs returned

    Lady Gaga's two bulldogs, stolen in a violent abduction that wounded the dog walker, were safely returned on Friday. Koji and Gustav were reunited with the singers' representatives, the Los Angeles Police Department said. They were turned over by a woman, unharmed, hours after the Oscar-winning singer issued a plea on social media to bring them home. On Twitter, Gaga said, quote, "My heart is sick and I am praying my family will be whole again with an act of kindness," and offered to pay US$500,000 for their safe return. A woman who authorities have not publicly identified brought the dogs to the station.It was not immediately clear how she obtained the dogs, or whether she will collect the reward. On Wednesday, Gaga's pet caretaker Ryan Fisher was shot in a residential area in Hollywood, when he was walking the celebrity's three bulldogs. Two were kidnapped, while the third escaped, and was later found by the police. Gaga praised Fisher for risking his life and called him "a hero." Fisher is expected to make a full recovery, his family told celebrity website TMZ on Friday.

  • This County’s Vaccine Rollout Has Been a Total Fiasco

    Sarah Meyssonnier/ReutersFederal authorities rolled into Shelby County, Tennessee, this week as the mismanagement disasters plaguing the local coronavirus vaccine rollout reached a boiling point.The county health department allowed more than 2,000 doses to spoil, two children were vaccinated against Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, and a volunteer allegedly made off with doses from one site. The Tennessee Health Department, the FBI, and the CDC are now investigating. The head of the Shelby health department, Alisa Haushalter, resigned Friday. Now residents are left questioning whether the doses they received were expired doses.“You begin to feel like you were safe to go out and do things, but now you don’t know if you’re covered or not. You don’t know if the shot you got is effective or not,” said Gayle Jones, 80, who was born and raised in Cordova, Tennessee. She received her second shot of the Pfizer vaccine Wednesday. “We’ve missed a whole year by staying at home. We finally felt like we could get out and maybe be OK.”Hundreds of people are echoing her statements on Facebook in comments on bulletins from the county health department.Ingrid Chilton, 68, vented her frustration below one post, “Let’s talk about the thousands of Memphians who don’t know whether they have been properly vaccinated since the thawing of the vaccines was not done in accordance with CDC guidelines!”Chilton and her 75-year-old husband flew from their home in Tiburon, California, to visit their son in downtown Memphis for two weeks in late February 2020. They have stayed for a year, living in the same two weeks’ worth of clothing. Saturday would be the day they reached full immunity, two weeks from their second Pfizer shots. She and her husband had begun discussing when they would return to Tiburon.“Today was the day I was supposed to be celebrating, like ‘We’re free!’ and instead we get this. I feel like we’re in limbo again,” she told The Daily Beast.The state began investigating the county health department last week after an announcement that the county had permitted 1,300 doses to expire in February. State investigators found that in actuality, 2,400 doses had gone bad this month and were trashed, with 840 wasted in one day, Feb. 15. Though the vaccines require ultra-cold storage to remain viable, some syringes felt warm to the investigator’s touch, the Tennessean reported.Adding to residents’ fears, some doses have gone missing. State Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey said in a press conference Friday that 12 syringes had expired during a Feb. 23 vaccination event, but no one had returned them to the distributing pharmacy. The doses remain unaccounted for.“There does appear to be a lack of accountability and in some sense leadership, which has undoubtedly potentially harmed some folks and withheld vaccine from people who needed it,” Piercey said.Jones had hoped to feel safe attending the births of two great-grandchildren due soon. She thinks she will still go, albeit now with feelings of uncertainty and risk. Her daughter, her son, and two of her grandchildren have all had COVID-19. A granddaughter and a granddaughter-in-law are both pregnant and work in health care.“We’ll have to take it as it is. I don’t know if they’ll be able to prove if the vaccine we got was real and effective or not,” she said.Chilton will postpone her travel until the investigation into the vaccination effort concludes.“I don’t know if we’ll ever know accurately whether we’re protected or not,” she said.Memphis’ city health department has taken over vaccination efforts for the entire county.In addition to its procedural woes, the vaccination effort has suffered an alleged robbery. The state notified the FBI Thursday that a volunteer allegedly stole vaccine doses on Feb. 3, according to Piercey. The state health commissioner said the city had not been forthcoming with information on the disappearance of the doses, leading to a delay of nearly a month in reporting it. Shelby County Chief Administrative Officer Dwan Gilliom said Piercey was incorrect and that law enforcement had been made aware but that no arrests had been made.Two children were vaccinated in Shelby County on Feb. 3 as well, according to Piercey. Neither the Moderna nor Pfizer vaccine is approved for anyone under the age of 16, as the medicine has only been tested on adults.The mess has further eroded Jones’ already cratering trust in the local government, which has struggled with picking up garbage and supplying water to residents in recent weeks.“They just need to get their act together in the Memphis government. They’re totally unreliable,” said Jones. “We just had the water boil for 8 days because all the mains broke. It just has you thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, can’t you do anything?’”Chilton feels similarly.“I don’t think my feelings toward the county and state health department would be fit to print, frankly,” she said.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.