As thousands of Honduran migrants make their way to the U.S. border, the incoming Biden administration, just days from taking office, has a message: Don't come now. President-elect Joe Biden has promised an end to the strict immigration policies of the Trump administration, which focused on building a border wall and restricting eligibility for asylum. If would-be emigrants from Central America perceive that now is the time to travel to the U.S., the southern border could quickly be overwhelmed before systems are put in place to handle the influx.
A New Mexico county official and founder of the group Cowboys for Trump who had vowed to return to Washington after last week's riot at the U.S. Capitol to place a flag on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk has been arrested Sunday by the FBI. Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin was arrested on charges of illegally entering the U.S. Capitol. According to court documents, Griffin told investigators that he was โcaught upโ in the crowd, which pushed its way through the barricades and entered the restricted area of the U.S. Capitol, but he said he did not enter the building and instead remained on the U.S. Capitol steps.
Members of the House Republican Conference ignored leader Kevin McCarthy last week when he warned them against criticizing colleagues by name based on intelligence that doing so could trigger more political violence. Why it matters: McCarthy made clear that name-dropping opponents, instead of spelling out complaints in more general terms, can put a literal target on a politician, especially with tensions so high following the events of Jan. 6. That's what happened to Rep. Liz Cheney, the GOP conference chairperson, after she said she would support impeaching President Trump.
A woman pretending to be "part of the presidential Cabinet" was arrested at an inauguration checkpoint in Washington, D.C., on Saturday morning. The woman, Linda Magovern, 63, was charged with impersonation of a law enforcement officer, failure to obey and fleeing a law enforcement officer after she presented herself at the checkpoint while in a car, NBC Washington reports. Magovern displayed "a round metallic object later identified as a Military Police Challenge Coin" and said she was part of law enforcement, according to a police report.
U.S. President Donald Trump at this point is opting not to issue a pardon for himself as he prepares an expansive list of more than 100 pardons and commutations for release on Tuesday, a source familiar with the effort said. White House advisers have said Trump has privately debated with advisers whether to take the extraordinary step of issuing a pardon for himself but some administration officials have cautioned Trump against a self-pardon because it would make him look guilty. Many scholars have said a self-pardon would be unconstitutional because it violates the basic principle that nobody should be the judge in his or her own case.
Two more Covid vaccine candidates are likely just around the corner, a development that would provide a much-needed boost to the US programme to vaccinate millions of its citizens, Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, has said. A pair of vaccines from the drugmakers AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have wrapped up their clinical trials and could be cleared for use in the US within โa few weeksโ pending the government review process, Dr Fauci said in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday. The drug companies' own safety monitoring boards will first need to ensure the data from their clinical trials is sound and proves they have a safe, effective vaccine.
Scientists forecast that the number of hippos will swell to almost 1,500 by 2040. They conclude, that at that point, environmental impacts will be irreversible and numbers impossible to control. Nobody likes the idea of shooting a hippo, but we have to accept that no other strategy is going to work,โ ecologist Nataly Castelblanco-Martรญnez told The Telegraph.
A man who did prison time for aggravated stalking and has convictions for domestic violence and violating a restraining order has an 18-year-old girl he has kidnapped at gunpoint, Pembroke Pines police said. West Palm Beach resident Jaddier Sanchez, 37, took the mother and father of Nicole Martinez at gunpoint as well as Martinez when Martinez's parents came back to their Pines home around 12:30 a.m. Sunday.
elected officials from Colorado have sent a letter to lawmakers requesting a probe into Rep. Lauren Boebert's actions before and during the day of the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to multiple reports. The letter was addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Kevin McCarthy. In the letter published by KUSA, Colorado officials of the 3rd Congressional District, expressed โdeep concern about Boebert's actions leading up to and during the protests that turned into a violent deadly mob.
Donald Trump's press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has packed up her office at the White House, days before president-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office, though she is expected to remain in the role until the president's term ends on 20 January. The press secretary took no questions from the reporters in the room. Following a career in right-wing cable news commentary, Ms McEnany was named the Republican National Committee's national spokesperson in August 2017 before joining the Trump campaign as its national press secretary in 2019.
Almost a third of recovered Covid patients will end up back in hospital within five months and one in eight will die, alarming new figures have shown. Research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found there is a devastating long-term toll on survivors of severe coronavirus, with many people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions. Out of 47,780 people who were discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent were readmitted to hospital within 140 days, and 12.3 per cent of the total died.
A woman has become the second known person to be arrested at a Washington DC checkpoint put in place for Joe Biden's inauguration, after telling officers she was one of them. Authorities said 63 year-old Linda Magovern was arrested on Saturday near Union Station after she showed police a military challenge coin โ used by service members to prove they had been on active duty. According to NBC News, she went on to say that she was โa part of the presidential cabinetโ as well as a member of the police.
All passengers on board two Air Transat flights from Haiti to Montreal have potentially been exposed to COVID-19, the Toronto Sun reported. Passengers seated in "all rows" have been notified by the Canadian government's exposure tracking system that they need to monitor their symptoms. The Canadian government announced on January 7 that a negative coronavirus test is required to fly.
Two Capitol rioters claim an officer told them "It's your house now" as hundreds stormed the Capitol on January 6. Bobby Bauer and a relative were identified as among those who breached the US Capitol after an unknown caller tipped the FBI's National Threat Operations Center. Bauer told authorities an officer "grabbed his hand, shook it, and said, 'It's your house now."
Joe Scarborough has considered legal action against Donald Trump, who wrongly accused the MSNBC host of murder last year. Mr Scarborough said on Sunday that he had lost patience with Mr Trump since the storming of the US Capitol by his supporters, many of whom alleged the 2020 election was โstolenโ, and that he could sue the US President over allegations levelled against him. Mr Trump, whose presidency ends on Wednesday, will no longer be protected against legal action.
The spokesman for Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert has quit less than two weeks after she was sworn into office, saying he felt like he need to due to the insurrection at the nation's Capitol.
Rebekah Jones, the Florida data scientist, last year fired by the Department of Health, said Saturday she would turn herself in to authorities Sunday after they last week issued a warrant for her arrest. Jones, who worked on the state's COVID-19 dashboard, was fired in May after she said she refused to alter data related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the state. Florida authorities in December executed a warrant on her property, seizing computers, phones, and external storage drives after she continued to publish Florida's COVID-19 data through her own dashboard.
A California man who police said claimed to be too afraid to fly due to COVID-19 hid out for three months in a secured area of O'Hare International Airport until his weekend arrest, prosecutors said Sunday. Aditya Singh, 36, is charged with felony criminal trespass to a restricted area of an airport and misdemeanor theft. In bond court Sunday, prosecutors said Singh arrived at O'Hare on a flight from Los Angeles on Oct. 19 and allegedly has lived in the airport's security zone ever since, without detection.
GOP Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan said on Sunday that he might have ended his political future by voting to impeach President Donald Trump. During an appearance on ABC's "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos asked Meijer if he potentially damaged his career beyond repair in joining nine of his Republican colleagues in voting to remove Trump from office. "I may very well have," Meijer said.
The spiritual advisor for both Barack Obama and George W. Bush during their time as President has been sentenced to six years for his role in a multi-million dollar investment fraud scheme. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, 67, was sentenced by US District Judge S. Maurice Hicks on Wednesday in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he and his co-defendant, Gregory Alan Smith, were indicted in 2018. He spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention, delivered the benediction at Bush's 2005 inauguration, and officiated his daughter Jenna's 2008 wedding, the New York Times reported Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
The US Postal Service will remove some mailboxes and halt collection in several major cities as a safety measure ahead of next week's presidential inauguration. States and cities across the country are expecting unrest in the days leading up to January 20. The US Postal Services said it will remove mailboxes in several major cities as a security measure ahead of Joe Biden's Inauguration next week.
A carjacker in Beaverton, Oregon returned a child to their mother after realizing they were in the backseat of the car he was stealing. "He actually lectured the mother for leaving the child in the car and threatened to call the police on her," Beaverton police spokesman Officer Matt Henderson told the Oregonian. The carjacking took place outside of a grocery store in Beaverton, Oregon on Saturday when the mom left the car running with the child in the backseat, local authorities said.
Luminar CEO Austin Russell is the youngest self-made billionaire after taking his company public via a special-purpose acquisition company merger last month. It's a Silicon Valley tale: Russell has built inventions since his childhood and dropped out of Stanford when he got the Thiel Fellowship to work on Luminar. Luminar's future looks promising, but it still has a few obstacles to overcome.
Since the deadly siege on the US Capitol, lawmakers have reported various items stolen from their offices. A laptop that belonged to an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was one of the items reported stolen. When US Capitol staff returned to work following the violent insurrection by pro-Trump extremists, they found broken windows and their offices pillaged.
First lady Melania Trump has apparently not yet contacted future first lady Jill Biden, according to CNN. Trump could break tradition if she doesn't invite Biden to the White House for a "tea and tour" visit. The gesture has been customary since at least 1952 when former first lady Bess Truman invited Mamie Eisenhower on a tour of the White House.
โIf youโre looking to win elections, it is probably best not to urge your supporters not to vote.โ
โWarnockโs portrayal of himself as a dog lover, a means of overcoming white suspicions of Black men, smacked of pure genius.โ
โTrump has done damage to the Republican brand among suburban voters that goes well beyond just races where he is on the ballot.โ
โOnce more, Democrats must profusely thank activist Stacey Abrams.โ
โOverall, demographic trends show that the stateโs electorate is becoming younger and more diverse each year.โ