Growing number of Americans going hungry during Covid pandemic

NBC News' Jacob Ward reports from a food bank in San Francisco on the growing number of Americans facing economic and food hardships.

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  • Joe Biden stops motorcade on return from church to buy bagels from trendy bakery

    First family orders sesame bagels with cream cheese

  • Republican split widens as Donald Trump intervenes in party elections in Arizona

    The acrimonious split within Republican ranks widened over the weekend as Donald Trump made his foray back into politics, backing the re-election of a hard-line supporter as chair of the party in Arizona. His wholehearted support for Kelli Ward was seen by allies as the former president firing a warning shot across the bows of any Republican senators considering backing his impeachment. Underlining Mr Trump’s grip on the Republican grassroots, the Arizona party also voted to censure John McCain’s widow, Cindy, former senator Jeff Flake and governor Doug Ducey, who refused to back the former president’s claims of election fraud. Mr Trump’s intervention came amid reports that he is considering setting up a “Patriot Party” which would spearhead primary challenges to his opponents in the 2022 mid-term elections. The former president has already amassed a massive war chest with his Save America political action committee declaring last month that it had raked in $207.5 million in donations.

  • Guyana says Venezuela detained two fishing vessels in its waters

    Guyana said late on Saturday that a Venezuelan navy vessel detained two vessels that were fishing in Guyana's exclusive economic zone, the latest dispute in a long-running border conflict between the two South American nations. Caracas says much of eastern Guyana is its own territory, a claim that is rejected by Georgetown. The conflict has flared up in recent years as Guyana has started developing oil reserves near the disputed area.

  • Teen held in Indiana killings of 5, including pregnant woman

    Indianapolis police arrested a 17-year-old boy Monday in the killings of five people, including a pregnant woman, who were shot to death inside a home in what the city's mayor called a “devastating act of violence.” The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement that the name of the suspect in Sunday's killings was “not being released at this time since the suspect is a juvenile." As officers were investigating, police received information about 4:40 a.m. that led them to a nearby home, where they found multiple adults dead inside from apparent gunshot wounds, Sgt. Shane Foley said Sunday.

  • DC Guard Chief 'Deeply Troubled' After Nearly 200 Troops Test Positive for COVID-19

    All Guard members who test positive are quarantined and won't return to their home states until they're fully recovered.

  • Agent Orange trial opens as woman seeks 'historic' ruling as first Vietnamese civilian victim

    Fourteen multinationals went on trial on Monday accused of causing grievous harm to a French-Vietnamese woman by selling Agent Orange to the US whose military used millions of tons of the toxic chemical in the Vietnam War. Lawyers for the plaintiff and NGOs have hailed the trial in France as potentially “historic” as a guilty verdict would be the first time a Vietnamese civilian was deemed a victim of the defoliant, which contains harmful dioxins. As part of American’s Ranch Hand military campaign to halt the advance of Communist North Vietnamese troops, the US military sprayed an estimated 76 million litres (20 million gallons) of Agent Orange between 1961 and 1971. The stated aim was to deprive enemy combatants of cover and destroy crops. But NGOs say that as well as destroying plants, polluting the soil and poisoning animals, it also caused health problems such as cancer and malformations in up to three million humans in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The US officially ended the use of defoliant chemicals in the war in 1971, and withdrew from Vietnam in 1975, defeated by the Viet Cong after 20 years of conflict. To date, only military veterans - from the US, Australia and Korea - have won compensation for the after-effects of the chemical whose toxicity is estimated to be around 13 times that of herbicides in civilian use such as glyphosate. In 1984, seven chemical companies settled with US veteran plaintiffs to the tune of $250 million after 16,000 complained exposure had caused rare forms of cancers, nerve damage, liver disorders and skin problems. They also claimed it resulted in miscarriages by their spouses and birth defects in their children. However, civilian lawsuits have so far failed.

  • Trump opens his ‘Office of the Former President’ in Florida

    45th president sets up headquarters in Florida

  • Farmers mass in Indian capital ahead of Republic Day protests

    Growers, angry at what they see as laws that help large, private buyers at the expense of producers, have been camped outside Delhi for almost two months. Thousands more, on tractors decorated with the flags of India and farm unions, have been streaming into the capital from neighbouring states for several days ahead of the rally that coincides with India's Republic Day. Around half of India's population works in agriculture, and unrest among the estimated 150 million land-owning farmers represents one of the biggest challenges to the authority of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he came to power in 2014.

  • Supreme Court drops Trump emoluments lawsuits over whether he illegally profited from presidency

    The Supreme Court on Monday brought an end to lawsuits over whether Donald Trump illegally profited off his presidency.

  • Black family handcuffed at gunpoint by police sues Aurora, Colorado

    Brittney Gilliam had taken her family for a "Sunday funday" when officers with guns drawn ordered her and the four underage girls with her to exit the car.

  • Hawaii GOP official resigns after posting pro-QAnon tweets

    A high-ranking official with the Hawaii Republican Party confirmed Monday that he resigned after posting a series of tweets about the QAnon conspiracy theory on the official party account, saying its adherents shouldn't be mocked. The tweets have since been deleted from the party’s account. QAnon followers advocate a conspiracy theory rooted in the baseless belief that former President Donald Trump was fighting deep state enemies and a cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibals operating a child sex trafficking ring.

  • Man 'recovering well' after world-first double shoulder and arm transplant

    An Icelandic man who got the world's first double shoulder and arm transplant is recovering well after the operation, two decades after the accident that cost him both limbs, doctors said Friday. They said it was still uncertain how much mobility Felix Gretarsson, 48, will eventually recover following the operation earlier this month in the French southeastern city of Lyon. But "giving a little to somebody who was missing so much, that's already a lot" Aram Gazarian, the lead surgeon in the operation, told a news conference. "If he can recover the possibility to actively bend his elbow, that would be a life-changer," he said.

  • MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell moves the goalposts on a run for Minnesota governor — again

    The will-he-or-won't-he speculation surrounding a possible gubernatorial run by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is destined to continue at least a bit longer.What he's saying: Lindell told Axios that his focus is currently on proving his (baseless) claims of election fraud. He won't make a decision until that fight is resolved.Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here. * "Why would anybody want to run if they had the same machines with the election fraud?" Lindell said Friday. * "It will all get out there, and when it does, we'll see what elections are going to have to be done with paper ballots and no machines. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to put in everybody's resources and time."Between the lines: While he's leaving the door open, Lindell's comments create a path for bowing out.Why it matters: If Lindell runs, name recognition and his ties to Trump could give him an edge among GOP voters. * Many top Republican officials and consultants think having the unpredictable pillow salesman at the top of the ticket would spell disaster for their efforts to win statewide in 2022.How we got here: Lindell has been flirting with a bid for months, but his commitment to promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election — including a much-covered White House visit — has triggered legal backlash and trouble for his business. * Last fall, Lindell said he'd run if Trump won another term. Then, in early January, he told the Star Tribune he was "90-95%" sure he'd jump in and would decide "once we know Donald Trump is our president."Support safe, smart, sane journalism. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here.

  • Police car in Tacoma, Washington, smashes through crowd watching street racers

    Tacoma Police spokeswoman Wendy Haddow said police were alerted to the street racers and a 100-person crowd blocking area streets, according to the News Tribune. When the patrol car responded, the crowd began pounding on the vehicle's windows, she told local media. “He was afraid they would break his glass,” Haddow told the News Tribune, saying the officer sped away from the scene for his own safety.

  • 9 Houston officers charged, including 1 with murder, in probe of deadly 2019 raid

    The eight other current and former police officers were indicted in what authorities described as a long-term scheme to steal overtime money.

  • California lifts virus stay-at-home order and curfew

    Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted stay-at-home orders across the state Monday in response to improving coronavirus conditions, a surprising move hailed by beleaguered businesses but that prompted caution from local health officials concerned the public may let down its guard. “We’re seeing a flattening of the curve — everything that should be up is up, everything that should be down is down — case rates, positivity rates, hospitalizations, ICUs," Newsom said at a virtual news conference. The turnaround puts California in a starkly different place than it was last month, when some Southern California hospitals overwhelmed by virus patients were crafting emergency plans for rationing care.

  • China warns Joe Biden to drop Trump-era 'Cold War' against Beijing

    The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has called on Joe Biden to end America's trade war against Beijing, warning against "a new Cold War". In his first speech since Mr Biden entered the White House five days ago, Mr Xi gave a thinly-veiled message to the new US leader to abandon the bellicose stance of his predecessor, Donald Trump. Mr Xi made his comments at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, in a speech that could set the tone for relations between Washington and Beijing for the next four years. "To build small cliques or start a new Cold War, to reject, threaten or intimidate others... will only push the world into division," Mr Xi said. While Mr Xi did not mention either Mr Biden or Mr Trump by name, his comments were clearly addressing the hostile relationship that developed between America and Washington during Trump years. In that time, Mr Trump slapped hefty import tariffs on Chinese goods, claiming that unfair trading practices were to blame for the loss of millions of US manufacturing jobs. While Mr Biden has pledged to end Mr Trump's "isolationist" approach to Beijing, he too has said that the US must remain "tough with China", and has accused Beijing of intellectual property theft and giving unfair subsidies to state-owned exporters. Instead, he wants a more unified diplomatic strategy, roping in European nations to pile pressure on Beijing. He also intends to step up criticism of China over its treatment of Uighur Muslims and its new security laws imposed on Hong Kong. Mr Xi, however, said China would not take kindly to either lecturing or sanctions over its human rights record or trade policies. "We should respect and accommodate differences, avoid meddling in other countries' internal affairs and resolve disagreements through consultation and dialogue," he said. "The misguided approach of antagonism and confrontation, be it in the form of cold war, hot war, trade war or tech war, will eventually hurt all countries' interests." Mr Xi expressed confidence that the world would eventually recover from the Covid 19 crisis, which had plunged it into its worst recession since World War II. But in an apparent signal of his view of China's new place in the global order, he stressed: "The world will not go back to the way it was in the past." While he said that Beijing was a supporter of multilateralism - a policy Donald Trump conspicuously abandoned - he envisaged it as a partnership of equals rather than one in which any nation was "superior" to another. Mr Biden is not due to speak at Davos, which is being held as an online summit because of the Covid outbreak. His US climate envoy, John Kerry, is due to address the event instead.

  • Possibility of Iran conflict spurred U.S. military to try to expand access in Saudi Arabia

    The possibility of conflict with Iran prompted the United States military to begin using several extra ports and bases in Saudi Arabia for the first time over the course of the last year, The Wall Street Journal reports.The decision is seemingly all about expanding the ability to operate militarily and complicating Iran's options in Saudi Arabia should tensions with Tehran, which is at odds with both Washington and Riyadh, boil over in the future. "What it does is to give us options, and options are always a good thing for a commander to have," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command told the Journal.McKenzie explained that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are negotiating infrastructure plans for the coastal port of Yanbu as well as two air bases to make them more usual for the U.S. military, and additional sites that have not been revealed are under consideration.As the Journal notes, the Biden administration has promised to take a tougher stance on human rights issues within Saudi Arabia, but the military base expansion effort — which began under the Trump administration — does suggest Washington will continue to count Saudi Arabia as a key ally. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.More stories from theweek.com Josh Hawley knows exactly what he's doing Trump must be prosecuted 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Biden's COVID-19 push

  • Search intensifies for missing California woman as police serve search warrant at her Chula Vista home

    May “Maya” Millete, 39, was last seen by her family at her home in Chula Vista, California on January 7, 2021. There has been no activity on her bank account and calls to her phone go straight to voicemail. Her car was found still parked at home. On January 23, Chula Vista police served a search warrant at her home, but details from the search have not been released. The Chula Vista Police Department is investigating.

  • Ex-VA doctor who misdiagnosed patient sentenced to prison

    A former pathologist at an Arkansas veterans hospital has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty last year to involuntary manslaughter in the death of a patient he misdiagnosed. Robert Morris Levy, 54, of Fayetteville was sentenced Friday in federal court. Prosecutors said Levy diagnosed a patient with lymphoma when the patient actually had a small-cell carcinoma.