Mitch McConnell, the US Senate Republican leader, said on Monday he would agree to a power-sharing agreement with Democrats, dropping demands that had held up the basic organisation and daily work of the 50-50 chamber for days. Democrat Chuck Schumer, now the majority leader thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote, and Mr McConnell had been at odds over the Republican's request that Democrats promise to protect the filibuster, which requires a 60-vote supermajority to advance most legislation. Mr Schumer has refused to guarantee the filibuster would stay.
Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has described a $1.3bn (£1.15bn) defamation lawsuit filed against him by Dominion Voting Systems as “intimidation by the hate-filled left-wing”. Dominion filed a defamation lawsuit against Mr Giuliani on Monday, following months of baseless claims from the former mayor of New York City that the company's systems were rigged in favour of the Democrats in 3 November's presidential election. The 107-page lawsuit, which was filed by the company in the Federal District Court in Washington, DC, on Monday, accused Mr Giuliani of carrying out “a viral disinformation campaign about Dominion” that was made up of “demonstrably false” allegations, according to The New York Times.
President Joe Biden will continue his flurry of executive orders on Monday, signing a new directive to require the federal government to “buy American” for products and services. Why it matters: The executive action is yet another attempt by Biden to accomplish goals administratively without waiting for the backing of Congress. The new order echoes Biden's $400 billion campaign pledge to increase government purchases of American goods.
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.
Merck was late to join the race to develop a vaccine to protect against the coronavirus, which has so far killed more than 2 million people and continues to surge in many parts of the world including the United States. The company will record a pre-tax discontinuation charge in the fourth quarter for vaccine candidate V591, which it acquired with the purchase of Austrian vaccine maker Themis Bioscience, and V590, developed with nonprofit research organization IAVI, Merck said in a statement. In early trials, both vaccines generated immune responses that were inferior to those seen in people who had recovered from COVID-19 as well as those reported for other COVID-19 vaccines, the company said.
Donald Trump has established his “Office of the Former President” in Palm Beach, Florida, where he has opened a headquarters for his post-presidential public affairs. A statement on executive letterhead from the office said Mr Trump “will always and forever be a champion for the American people.” Prohibited from most social media networks following his supporters' deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January inspired by his dangerously false election fraud claims, the former president has largely been silent after the inauguration of Joe Biden on 20 January.
In response to Biden re-entering the US into the Paris climate agreement, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz has launched a "Pittsburgh over Paris" campaign. Cruz says that Biden rejoining the Paris agreement will cost the citizens of Pittsburgh jobs, but the idea makes no sense and is just another bad faith attempt at scoring political points. This is the norm for Republicans, and a sign of what's to come.
It's been over two weeks since a California mother vanished from her Chula Vista home without a trace, and her family is worried. “It was odd -- she was always the first to answer, and this trip was for her daughter's birthday,” Maricris said. Throughout the day, the family tried to get in touch with May, her husband Larry, and even the couple's three children, but were unsuccessful.
Donald Trump opened an office in Florida on Monday that will handle his duties as a former US president and seek to further his administration's agenda. "The Office will be responsible for managing President Trump's correspondence, public statements, appearances, and official activities to advance the interests of the United States and to carry on the agenda of the Trump Administration through advocacy, organising, and public activism," a statement said. The announcement came on the same day the House of Representatives delivered to the Senate an impeachment article charging MR Trump with inciting insurrection in a speech to supporters before the deadly attack on the Capitol on Ja.
Chinese air force planes including 12 fighter jets entered Taiwan's air defence identification zone for a second day on Sunday, Taiwan said, as tensions rise near the island just days into U.S. President Joe Biden's new administration. China views democratically ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and has in the past few months increased military activity near the island. But China's activities over the weekend mark a ratcheting up with fighters and bombers being dispatched rather than reconnaissance aircraft as had generally been the case in recent weeks.
Jackson Health System doesn't know how many COVID-19 vaccine appointment slots it will have available each day. And it's common sense that Jackson's online sign-up system or any online sign-up system can be a well of vexation for some senior citizens. But if you're a Miami-Dade resident 65 or over and want to make a COVID vaccine appointment that's not a week or two in the future (and seems even longer), circling like a hawk on Jackson's appointments offers two advantages: You have a general idea of when the slots will open up and, if you get one, it will be for the same day or the next day.
A Michigan couple is being forced to adopt their biological babies after they were born through surrogacy because of a decades-old anti-surrogacy law in the state. Jordan and Tammy Myers' twins were born two weeks ago, but two judges denied them the legal rights to the infants, citing the law. Jordan and Tammy hoped for a sibling for their 2-year-old daughter when Tammy was diagnosed with breast cancer nearly six years ago.
The White House has responded to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' criticism of President Joe Biden's plan to have the federal government open mass vaccination sites across the country. "I would use all that energy and I would put that towards more supply of the vaccine," Mr DeSantis said at a news conference over the weekend. His answer was in response to reports that Mr Biden directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to open 100 government vaccination sides nationwide.
Straining to handle record numbers of COVID-19 patients, hundreds of the nation's intensive care units are running out of space and supplies and competing to hire temporary traveling nurses at soaring rates. An Associated Press analysis of federal hospital data shows that since November, the share of U.S. hospitals nearing the breaking point has doubled. Intensive care units are the final defense for the sickest of the sick, patients who are nearly suffocating or facing organ failure.
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 that he misdiagnosed.
Rudy Giuliani has been hit with a $1.3 billion lawsuit over his false claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Dominion Voting Systems on Monday filed a defamation lawsuit against Giuliani, personal attorney to former President Donald Trump, after he baselessly alleged the voting machine company was involved in a conspiracy to change votes from Trump to President Biden in 2020, The New York Times reports. The lawsuit was filed in the Federal District Court in Washington and charges Giuliani with making "demonstrably false" claims about the company as part of a "viral disinformation campaign," according to the Times.
Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced her candidacy for governor of Arkansas on Monday. In a campaign announcement video released on Twitter, Ms Sanders, 38, says that “our freedom and the rule of law are under attack”. She claims she was the first White House Press Secretary to require Secret Service protection “because of a credible, violent threat against me”.
A U.S. Coast Guard crew over the weekend rescued a man who was floating on a makeshift raft off Key West. The small boat crew found the 41-year-old man near Fort Zachary Taylor State Park at about 3 p.m. Saturday. The Coast Guard said they didn't take a formal report and released what they had on the incident on Saturday via Twitter and Facebook.
The claim: Video shows National Guard members turned away from Biden's motorcade History will remember President Joe Biden's inauguration for its many irregularities, including the 26,000 National Guard members who descended upon Washington to provide additional security after pro-Trump rioters breached the U.S. Capitol two weeks earlier. While tensions were high on Inauguration Day, a viral video does not show guard members insulting Biden, as online opponents claim. A 21-second video titled “Troops Turn Backs on Biden as Motorcade Drives By” shows guard members standing along a road, with some backs turned from the presidential motorcade.
A Capitol rioter has apologised for threatening Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and says he was following ex-president Donald Trump's instructions when he stormed Congress. Garret Miller said he was “ashamed of his comments” after writing “Assassinate AOC” on Twitter and for also threatening to hang the Capitol Police officer who shot a female rioter Miller, 34, spoke as a federal judge in Dallas, Texas, detained him without bail after the US attorney for the Northern District of Texas labelled him a danger to the community and a flight risk.
The spokesperson was most likely referring to a clip from the HBO documentary The Swamp in which Mr Gaetz puts on makeup before TV interviews at the capitol. The spat comes after Rep Cheney, the House Republican Conference Chair and number 3 in the House Republican leadership, voted to impeach former President Donald Trump along with nine other Republicans and all 222 House Democrats.
President Joe Biden's press secretary said Monday that Florida has used only half of its COVID-19 vaccines from the federal government, noting that the state — where over-65 residents have been struggling to get appointments for the shots — has “a good deal of the vaccine. The comments from press secretary Jen Psaki came after she was asked during a White House briefing about criticism last week from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Biden's vaccine distribution plan. Biden plans to use the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard to help with distributing COVID-19 vaccines, an idea DeSantis called a “big mistake.
Marissa Suarez took an 'emergency holiday' from work to go to the Trump's "Stop the Steal" protest that descended into a riot at the Capitol on January 6, according to a criminal affidavit. The criminal affidavit says Suarez works as a probationary corrections officer at a jail in New Jersey. Court documents show she texted someone"Sooo we've stormed Capitol Hill lol" during the insurrection.
Israeli authorities on Monday extradited a former teacher accused of sexually abusing her former students in Australia, capping a six-year legal battle that had strained relations between the two governments and antagonized Australia's Jewish community.
Larsa Pippen can't seem to stay away from controversy these days. After posting a picture last week with tigers at Doc Antle's Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina, Pippen now has PETA on her back, TMZ first reported. The animal rights organization sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture requesting an investigation into the wildlife preserve owned by Mahamayavi Bhagavan, one of the stars of the Netflix pandemic fave “Tiger King.”
“By encouraging this act of terror on our capital, Trump’s legacy is destroyed.”
“Both backers and critics of Trump agreed that he remade the federal judiciary — a change that will impact America for decades.”
“He was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans who did not need to die.”
“I do know what the future should hold for this country. That is to say, a policy of Trumpism without Trump.”
“It will be decades before the consequences of his tenure are fully known.”