Joe Biden: America's second Catholic president

Joe Biden has been back in Washington for six days, and already he has attended Catholic Mass twice. Then, on the first Sunday of his presidency, he took in morning services at Holy Trinity Church, in the Georgetown neighbourhood of northwest DC. The Jesuit-affiliated Holy Trinity is the same church to which John F Kennedy, the nation's first Catholic president, belonged.

• 
  Biden attends Mass at DC church where he worshipped as VP

  Associated Press
• 
  Biden attends Mass at DC church he went to as VP

  Associated Press Videos

The Senate is effectively deadlocked over McConnell's filibuster demand

Senate Democrats are drawing a line at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) demand that a power-sharing agreement in the 50-50 Senate include a pledge to retain the legislative filibuster. "If we gave him that, then the filibuster would be on everything, every day," Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) told NBC's Chuck Todd on Sunday's Meet the Press.

• 
  Mitch McConnell Backs Down In Fight Over Filibuster

  HuffPost
• 
  McConnell backs off Senate filibuster fight with Schumer

  Associated Press

China pushes conspiracy theories on COVID origin, vaccines

Chinese state media have stoked concerns about Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, despite rigorous trials indicating it is safe. A government spokesperson has raised the unsubstantiated theory that the coronavirus could have emerged from a U.S. military lab, giving it more credence in China. As the ruling Communist Party faces growing questioning about China's vaccines and renewed criticism of its early COVID-19 response, it is hitting back by encouraging conspiracy theories that some experts say could cause harm.

EU states no longer recognise Guaido as Venezuela's interim president

Venezuela's Juan Guaido is a "privileged interlocutor" but no longer considered interim president, European Union states said in a statement on Monday, sticking by their decision to downgrade his status. The EU's 27 states had said on Jan. 6 they could no longer legally recognise Guaido as after he lost his position as head of parliament following legislative elections in Venezuela in December, despite the EU not recognising that vote. Following the disputed re-election of President Nicolas Maduro in 2018, Guaido, as head of parliament, became interim president.

Biden replaces White House doctor with longtime physician

President Joe Biden has brought back Dr. Kevin O'Connor as his physician, replacing President Donald Trump's doctor with the one who oversaw his care when he was vice president. The White House confirmed that Dr. Sean Conley, the Navy commander who served as the head of the White House Medical Unit under Trump and oversaw his treatment when he was hospitalized with COVID-19, will assume a teaching role at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. O'Connor, a retired Army colonel, was Biden's doctor during his entire tenure as vice president, having remained in the role at Biden's request.

Indian and Chinese troops involved in new border clash in eastern Himalayas

Indian and Chinese soldiers armed with sticks and stones have brawled again along their disputed frontier, Delhi said, as the neighbours' months-long border stand-off continued. Indian security officials said there were clashes after at least 18 Chinese soldiers tried to cross into Indian-claimed territory at Naku La in Sikkim on January 20. A senior Indian Army official told the Telegraph that four Indian soldiers were wounded after they challenged the Chinese PLA soldiers.

• 
  India, China soldiers brawl again along disputed frontier

  Associated Press
• 
  India says troops had 'minor face-off' with China in Sikkim border area

  Reuters

Factbox: Latest on worldwide spread of the coronavirus

* British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was looking at toughening border quarantine rules because of the risk of "vaccine-busting" new variants. * China reported a fall in new COVID-19 infections as the number of cases in two of the provinces particularly hard hit by the latest coronavirus wave fell to single digits. * Indonesia is set to officially surpass one million coronavirus cases on Tuesday.

Biden more bullish on vaccines, open to 1.5M daily shot goal

President Joe Biden appeared to boost his goal for coronavirus vaccinations in his first 100 days in office, suggesting the nation could soon be injecting 1.5 million shots on an average per day. Biden signaled on Monday his increasing bullishness on the pace of vaccinations after signing an executive order to boost government purchases from U.S. manufacturers. It was among a flurry of moves by Biden during his first full week to show he's taking swift action to heal an ailing economy as talks with Congress over a $1.9 trillion stimulus package showed few signs of progress.

Ivanka Trump stays silent on social media as Rubio warns she’ll have ‘tough’ fight if she goes for his seat

Over the weekend Republican senator for Florida Marco Rubio shrugged off rumours that Ms Trump could challenge him to a primary in the 2022 midterm elections. Ms Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, who was also an adviser to the 45th president, recently acquired a $30m (£22m) lot of land on Indian Creek Island in Miami. They are planning to build a new home for themselves there, indicating their intention to stay on in the Sunshine State, where Mr Trump himself now resides at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

EXPLAINER: How Taiwan figures in US-China ties under Biden

It didn't take long for relations with China to become an issue for new U.S. President Joe Biden. A show of force by the Chinese air force off Taiwan last weekend prompted a U.S. response, even as Biden and his administration focus on the COVID-19 pandemic and other pressing issues at home in what is still their first week in office. Taiwan's Defense Ministry reported that China sent a dozen bombers and fighter jets into Taiwan's air defense identification zone on Saturday.

California reverses stay-at-home order as conditions improve

Business owners hailed Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision to lift stay-at-home orders across California in response to improving coronavirus conditions, but local health officials expressed concern that it may cause residents to let down their guard. California is experiencing a “flattening of the curve,” Newsom said during a virtual news conference on Monday. The metrics are markedly improved since last month, when some Southern California hospitals overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients were crafting emergency plans for rationing care.

• 
  California lifts stay-at-home orders on Monday

  Yahoo News Video
• 
  California lifts virus stay-at-home order and curfew

  Associated Press

Asia Today: Taiwan quarantines 5,000 after hospital cluster

Health authorities in Taiwan are quarantining 5,000 people while looking for the source of two new coronavirus cases linked to a hospital. Officials said on Monday that they have not been able to identify how the husband and wife became infected after a brief hospital stay in the Taoyuan General Hospital, located in the city of Taoyuan just outside Taiwan's capital city. The man had stayed at the hospital for three days for health problems unrelated to COVID-19, while his wife looked after him.

Shyamala Gopalan: The woman who inspired Kamala Harris

What Kamala Harris did on her first day Howard students' joy as Kamala Harris makes history The oldest of the four children of a civil servant father and a homemaker mother, Ms Gopalan wanted to study biochemistry. But hard sciences were not on offer at Delhi's Lady Irwin College for women, founded by India's British colonial rulers, and she had to settle for an undergraduate degree in home science, where she would have studied subjects like nutrition and homemaking skills. "My father and I would tease her about it," Gopalan Balachandran, her brother, told the BBC.

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.

• 
  DAVOS 2021: China's Xi Jinping fires warning shot about 'cold wars, hot wars, tech wars, trade wars'

  Yahoo Finance UK
• 
  Chinese leader Xi Jinping warns against the consequences of a 'new cold war' in first speech since Biden's inauguration

  Business Insider

China tackles pandemic with mass construction once again

A sprawling quarantine center with more than 4,000 rooms is being thrown up in northern China in response to a COVID-19 outbreak in Shijiazhuang, a city of more than 10 million people in Hebei province. Satellite images from the European Space Agency show dramatic changes over 10 days in an area where there had been only flat land before construction started on Jan. 13. It's common practice for China to mobilize resources nationwide to tackle natural disasters and other crises.

‘Don’t let him off the hook’: Beto O’Rourke says Ted Cruz is guilty of sedition

Former Congressman Beto O'Rourke accused Sen. Ted Cruz - who he challenged in a Senate race in 2018 - of being "guilty of sedition." Mr O'Rourke made the statement on Twitter while imploring citizens not to "let him off the hook" for his involvement in the US Capitol riots. "Don't let him off the hook.

A New York Times editor lost her job after she tweeted about having 'chills' about Biden's inauguration

New York Times editor Lauren Wolfe tweeted about having "chills" seeing Biden arrive for his inauguration. Many criticized her for appearing to show political bias, and The Times later fired Wolfe. A New York Times editor lost her job after receiving criticism for tweeting about her excitement for President Joe Biden's inauguration.

• 
  New York Times fires editor targeted by rightwing critics over Biden tweet

  The Guardian
• 
  NY Times Under Fire for Terminating Editor Lauren Wolfe After Pro-Biden Tweets

  The Wrap

Former Marine Charged in Riots Hurled ‘Sharpened Pole’ at Capitol Police: Feds

A former Marine charged with assaulting police officers during the Capitol riots with a hockey stick also launched a massive, “sharpened pole” at cops during his attack, authorities revealed. Michael Joseph Foy, a 30-year-old from Westland, Michigan, was charged Friday with several crimes, including obstruction of law enforcement and forcibly assaulting an officer, after striking cops with a hockey stick “at least 10 times” during the Jan. 6 riots. In a detention memo filed Sunday evening, federal prosecutors also revealed that at one point during the melee, Foy “threw what appears to be a sharpened pole at the officers.”

China is spreading conspiracy theories that the coronavirus was created in an American lab and that a US-created vaccine is killing the elderly

Chinese state media is spreading a conspiracy theory that a US Army base created the coronavirus. The disinformation push comes as WHO scientists arrive in Wuhan to study the virus' origins. Chinese state media is playing up a conspiracy theory about the novel coronavirus' origins while also questioning the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine's safety in older people.

A Kevin McCarthy aide says 'we're eating s--- for breakfast, lunch and dinner' over fallout from Trump's 2nd impeachment and the Capitol riot

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is facing a rocky start to this term in Congress. One aide told Axios that "we're eating sh*t for breakfast, lunch and dinner right now." McCarthy is facing criticism for the shifting stances he's taken on what responsibility Trump holds for the deadly insurrection on the US Capitol.

Scowling Bernie Sanders happy his mittened meme may raise millions for charity

Lifting spirits around the world since it went viral, the meme depicts everything from Sanders' mittens touching Michelangelo's Hand of God in the Sistine Chapel, to the Vermont Democrat helping actor Demi Moore mold clay at the pottery wheel from the film "Ghost," to Sanders joining the World War Two Yalta Conference in 1945, seated next https://tinyurl.com/y5exklqe to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Asked by CNN on Sunday whether he was enjoying the meme as much as the rest of the world, the 79-year-old gave an uncharacteristic grin and said he was overjoyed that his handwoven mittens, blue facemask and trademark glower could be turned into gold for needy Americans.

Poisoner who targeted a gifted dancer on Grindr sentenced to life for killing him with a date-rape drug called 'devil's breath'

A Grindr predator killed a talented Irish dancer with a date-rape drug scopolamine, known as 'devil's breath.' Joel Osei, 26, of Seven Sisters, north London, poisoned Adrian Murphy, 43, to rob him. Osei was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 32 years' imprisonment.