PoliticsYahoo NewsProbe begins into thwarted Justice Department 'coup' to keep Trump in power
The Justice Department's inspector general announced Monday that he had started an investigation into whether current or former officials in the department had engaged in an “improper attempt” to overturn the 2020 presidential election to keep Donald Trump in power. Michael Horowitz, the DOJ inspector general, released a statement announcing the decision. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is initiating an investigation into whether any former or current DOJ official engaged in an improper attempt to have DOJ seek to alter the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election.
PoliticsThe TelegraphUS Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell drops objection to power-sharing deal with Democrats
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.
PoliticsReutersBiden extends Europe, Brazil travel restrictions, adds South Africa
U.S. President Joe Biden signed an order on Monday barring most non-U.S. citizens who have recently been in South Africa from entering the United States, effective Saturday. Biden's order also reimposes an entry ban, set to expire on Tuesday, on nearly all non-U.S. travelers who have been in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland and 26 countries in Europe that allow travel across open borders. Last week, then-U.S. President Donald Trump revoked those restrictions which were imposed last year effective Tuesday.
WorldAssociated PressLawmakers say North Korean diplomat defected to South Korea
A North Korean diplomat who served as the country's acting ambassador to Kuwait has defected to South Korea, according to South Korean lawmakers who were briefed by Seoul's spy agency. Ha Tae-keung, a conservative opposition lawmaker and an executive secretary of the National Assembly's intelligence committee, said Tuesday he was told by officials from the National Intelligence Service that the diplomat arrived in South Korea in September 2019 with his wife and at least one child. That would make him one of the most senior North Koreans to defect in recent years.
WorldReutersEU countries could band to sue AstraZeneca for breach of contract: Latvia
European Union member states could take AstraZeneca to court for a breach of supply contracts if the company does not honour the COVID-19 vaccine delivery schedule, Latvian foreign affairs minister Edgars Rinkevics said on Tuesday. "The possibility should be evaluated, and it should be coordinated among the EU countries," the minister told Reuters, via his spokesman. Each EU member state has a separate supply contract with the company.
HealthThe WeekInadequate immune responses force Merck to abandon COVID-19 vaccines
Merck, one of the world's most storied vaccine makers, is abandoning the development of its two COVID-19 vaccines after initial trials resulted in inadequate immune responses, Stat News reports. Both vaccines produced lower levels of coronavirus antibodies than have been found in the blood of individuals who recovered from natural COVID-19 infections. For reference, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines produced antibody levels several times higher than natural infections.
PoliticsAssociated PressSenate confirms Antony Blinken as 71st secretary of state
Blinken, 58, served as deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration. He has pledged to be a leading force in the administration's bid to reframe the U.S. relationship with the rest of the world after four years in which President Donald Trump questioned longtime alliances. He is expected to start work on Wednesday after being sworn in, according to State Department officials.
WorldReuters'Wear a mask': Mexicans urge president to follow rules after COVID-19 setback
Mexicans hope President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador makes a speedy recovery from COVID-19, though many believe he could have avoided infection if he had more strictly followed the government's own health advice - and worn a face mask. Lopez Obrador's diagnosis on Sunday capped the deadliest week of the coronavirus pandemic in the country with the world's fourth-highest death toll https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi. "He wasn't looking after himself, always walking around without a mask, and not respecting social distancing," said Mexico City rubbish collector Luis Enrique Flores, wheeling his cart past a wall plastered with government posters urging people to wear masks.
ScienceThe WeekSurging global ice melt suggests sea level rise predictions are far too conservative
The world's ice is melting so fast that sea level rise predictions can't keep up. Climate change is largely responsible for the huge ice melt surge, the Cryosphere study reports. In fact, about three percent of all the energy trapped within the Earth's systems because of climate change has gone toward that ice melt, the study estimates.
WorldAssociated PressUS exploring new bases in Saudi Arabia amid Iran tensions
The U.S. military is exploring the possibility of using a Red Sea port in Saudi Arabia and an additional two airfields in the kingdom amid heightened tensions with Iran, the military said Tuesday. While describing the work as "contingency" planning, the U.S. military said it already has tested unloading and shipping cargo overland from Saudi Arabia's port at Yanbu, a crucial terminal for oil pipelines in the kingdom. Using Yanbu, as well as air bases at Tabuk and Taif along the Red Sea, would give the American military more options along a crucial waterway that has come under increased attack from suspected mine and drone boat attacks by Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
WorldReutersChina to conduct military drills in South China Sea amid tensions with U.S.
China said on Tuesday it will conduct military exercises in the South China Sea this week, just days after Beijing bristled at a U.S. aircraft carrier group's entry into the disputed waters. A notice issued by the country's Maritime Safety Administration prohibited entry into a portion of waters in the Gulf of Tonkin to the west of the Leizhou peninsula in southwestern China from Jan. 27 to Jan. 30, but it did not offer details on when the drills would take place or at what scale. A U.S. carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt entered the South China Sea on Saturday to promote "freedom of the seas," the U.S. military said, days after Joe Biden began his term as president.
PoliticsArchitectural DigestAll About Kamala Harris’s Temporary D.C. Home
Kamala Harris is starting her term as vice president in an impressive, though temporary, residence. After Harris was sworn in, she and her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, relocated from California to Blair House, otherwise known as the president's guest house. Typically, the vice president resides in the U.S. Naval Observatory, but CBS News reports that the historic structure is currently undergoing renovations, and that “repairs to the residence … are more easily conducted with the home unoccupied.”
WorldAssociated PressIran sentences brother of senior vice president to 2 years
Iran has sentenced the brother of the country's senior vice president to two years in prison on corruption charges, the website of the Iranian judiciary reported Tuesday. According to the judiciary's spokesman, Gholamhossein Esmaili, the verdict for Mahdi Jahangiri, the brother of Eshaq Jahangiri, is final and cannot be appealed. Mahdi Jahangiri was on the board of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce and was also the founder of the private Gardeshgari Bank.
BusinessReutersU.S. consumer confidence edges higher; house prices accelerate
U.S. consumer confidence rose moderately in January while lingering concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic led to a further deterioration in households' perceptions of the labor market, raising the risk of a second straight month of job losses. But the survey from the Conference Board on Tuesday showed consumers more than willing to buy homes and automobiles in the next six months, indicating that the housing market and manufacturing industry will continue to underpin the economy. "The slow rollout of the vaccines and the still-raging pandemic continue to depress consumer confidence despite the prospect of further fiscal aid and a brighter health situation," said Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics in New York.
WorldAssociated PressOfficials say Israeli minister visited Sudan to discuss ties
An Israeli delegation headed by the country's intelligence minister quietly visited Sudan and met with the African nation's leaders, officials from both countries said Tuesday. The visit Monday was the first by an Israeli minister to Sudan less than three weeks after Khartoum inked an agreement to normalize ties with Israel. Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen, head of the Israeli delegation, met with Sudanese Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of the ruling sovereign council, Defense Minister Yassin Ibrahim and other military and government officials.
PoliticsUSA TODAYFact check: National Guard members didn't turn away from Biden's Inauguration Day motorcade in dissent
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.
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Biden administration has system in place where reporters will not ask president tough questions: Media critic
Steve Krakauer, editor at Fourth Watch, says 'it shouldn't be contingent' on one reporter to ask Biden tough questions.
U.S.Associated PressMossimo Giannulli loses bid to finish prison term at home
Fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli's request to serve the remaining three months of his prison term in the college admissions bribery scheme at home was denied Tuesday by a federal judge. Giannulli argued he should be released to home confinement for the rest of his five-month sentence because he spent eight weeks under “extreme” conditions in solitary confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic after reporting to prison in November. But U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton said Giannulli failed to demonstrate an "'extraordinary and compelling' reason warranting his release," though he noted that the quarantine was “longer than anticipated.
PoliticsINSIDERFilibuster drama explained: McConnell will organize the new Senate now that he's confident Democrats won't gut the filibuster
McConnell wanted a promise that Democrats would not eliminate the filibuster. Two Democratic Senators signaled their support for keeping the filibuster in place Monday. With those assurances, McConnell said he was ready to move forward with an organizing resolution.
PoliticsThe IndependentIvanka Trump would face ‘tough race’ for Florida Senate, says Republican incumbent Marco Rubio
Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio has shrugged off rumours that Ivanka Trump could challenge him to a primary in the 2022 midterm elections. The daughter of recently deposed president, Donald Trump, has made no secret of her own political ambitions after serving as a senior adviser in her father's White House and recently relocated her family to a luxury condominium in Miami. Ms Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, likewise an adviser to the 45th president, have also recently acquired a $30m (£22m) lot on nearby Indian Creek Island with a view to building 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 mansion.
U.S.Business InsiderA 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.
U.S.The Daily BeastFormer 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.”
PoliticsThe Independent‘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.
WorldINSIDERChina 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.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderRudy Giuliani admits Biden is president hours after being sued for $1.3 billion by voting-machine company
Rudy Giuliani on Monday acknowledged Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president. The statement came hours after Dominion Voting Systems sued Giuliani for $1.3 billion. Giuliani spent months peddling conspiracy theories about the company's role in the 2020 election.
“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.”