
Republicans on the Joint Congressional Committee on the Inaugural Ceremonies voted on Tuesday against a resolution stating that the committee was preparing for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., all voted against the resolution.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Wednesday slapped sanctions on Wan Kuok Koi, a leader of China's 14K Triad organized crime group and a member of the Chinese Communist Party's Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the U.S. Treasury said. The sanctions also apply to three entities headed by Wan, who is also known as "Broken Tooth," the agency said in a statement. The United States also blacklisted one Liberian individual and one Kyrgyz individual under Executive Order 13818, which targets corruption and serious human rights abuse.

The Army on Tuesday said it has fired or suspended 14 officers and enlisted soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, and ordered policy changes to address chronic failures of leadership that contributed to a widespread pattern of violence, including murder, sexual assault and harassment. In a sweeping condemnation of Fort Hood's command hierarchy, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy fired three top commanders and suspended two others pending a further investigation. He also ordered a separate probe into staffing and procedures at the base's Criminal Investigation Command unit, which is responsible for investigating crimes on Fort Hood.
A review of last year's mosque massacre in New Zealand found the country's security agencies were "almost exclusively" focused on the threat from Islamist terrorism rather than other threats, including white supremacists. Brenton Tarrant, the man who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch last year is a white supremacist. On Tuesday (December 8), New Zealand's Royal Commission of Inquiry gave the results of its investigation into what was the country's worst-ever killings.

Democratic Rep. Katie Porter attacked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Twitter for holding up COVID-19 stimulus negotiations over corporate liability protections. Republicans have backed protections for businesses from litigation from employees who get COVID-19. Porter said those enabled "the worst of the worst examples of disregard for human life."

In the wake of the presidential election, an alternate reality has taken hold among many Americans in which Joe Biden did not really defeat Donald Trump. While not shared by judges who have turned down over 50 cases brought by Trump and his supporters seeking to overturn vote counts in several states, it has been relentlessly promoted by the man who helped popularize the term “fake news,” and whose close aide Kellyanne Conway put forth the idea of “alternative facts.” On Wednesday morning, for example, Trump posted evidence-free tweets accusing Democrats of cheating in what he regularly calls a “rigged” election, demanding that the results be overturned to allow him to stay in office.

AstraZeneca's did not disclose that it had paused trials of the Oxford vaccine trial during a call with US regulators, undermining officials' confidence in the jab and delaying its development, according to the New York Times. The pharmaceutical company held a call with the US Food and Drug Administration on September 8 to discuss how they could secure the regulator's approval for a Covid-19 vaccine it was developing with the University of Oxford. However, according to the New York Times, during the call AstraZeneca officials did not disclose that two days earlier the company had suspended its global vaccine trials after a participant in the UK had a suspected adverse reaction.

Some of those involved in the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist last month have been arrested, an adviser to the Iranian parliament speaker said on Tuesday, according to the semi-official news agency ISNA. Iran has blamed Israel for the Nov. 27 killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was seen by Western intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian nuclear weapons programme. Tehran has long denied any such ambition.

The Senate fell short Wednesday in trying to halt the Trump administration's proposed $23 billion arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, despite bipartisan objections to the package of F-35 fighter jets and drones stemming from a broader Middle East peace agreement. Senators argued the sale of the defense equipment, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally authorized last month after the Abraham Accords normalizing relations with Israel, was unfolding too quickly and with too many questions. The administration has billed it as a way to deter Iran, but UAE would become the first Arab nation — and only the second country in the Middle East, after Israel — to possess the stealth warplanes.

Kristen Choi, a nurse who participated in a trial of Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, reported a high fever, nausea, and fatigue after her second shot. Choi said getting the shot was worth it despite the unpleasant reaction. A couple of hours after getting her second shot in a trial of Pfizer and BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine in September, Kristen Choi felt chilled, nauseous, and light-headed.

Explore the most unique properties the Big Easy has to offer Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

When lawsuits began flooding state and federal courts after Election Day, the legal team for President Trump's reelection campaign, and his supporters, said that as a candidate he was merely exercising his right to explore every legal remedy at his disposal. More than four weeks and 40 losses later, observers in the legal community are aghast at how the campaign is using the judicial system to push baseless allegations of systemic voter fraud, and they want the lawyers leading the effort to be held accountable. “I would like my right to practice law to mean something,” Laurence Tribe, a Harvard University law professor and leading constitutional scholar, told Yahoo News.

Veteran Palestinian negotiator and women's rights advocate Hanan Ashrawi resigned on Wednesday from her senior post in the Palestine Liberation Organization, and called for political reforms. Ashrawi, 74, did not give a reason for her resignation in a statement announcing the move. But she said that the PLO's Executive Committee, on which she served, had been marginalised "and [excluded] from decision-making".

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's lawyer has asked a U.S. court to dismiss a case filed by a former top-ranking Saudi intelligence official, claiming it has no jurisdiction over the prince, according to court documents viewed by Reuters. The filing rejects claims that Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MbS, sent a hit squad to kill former spy chief Saad al-Jabri, and says the crown prince is immune from prosecution in the United States. Jabri, who currently lives in exile in Canada, in August filed a 107-page lawsuit in a U.S. court alleging the crown prince dispatched a hit squad to kill him in October 2018, but Canadian authorities foiled the attempt.

Lethal injection is no longer an option for Ohio executions, and lawmakers must choose a different method of capital punishment before any inmates can be put to death in the future, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday. It's “pretty clear” there won't be any executions next year, DeWine told The Associated Press during a year-end interview, adding he doesn't see support in the Legislature for making a switch in execution method a priority. Ohio has an “unofficial moratorium” on capital punishment, he said.

While the salary of the president is capped at $400,000, the salary of the vice president is more fluid, possibly due to the fact that the Constitution said nothing about the vice president's earnings. Vice President Mike Pence earned $230,700 in 2019, but it was set to increase to $243,500 due to the position's pay freeze expiring, according to USA Today. However, instead of the freeze lifting entirely, Pence received a 1.9% salary raise, the same pay raise amount allotted for all federal workers.

WASHINGTON – Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who altered an email used to justify wiretapping a former Trump campaign aide, is asking to be spared from a prison sentence, acknowledging he had committed a crime but did not mean to mislead investigators. "Kevin Clinesmith made a grievous mistake. By altering a colleague's email, he cut a corner in a job that required far better of him.

France's next-generation aircraft carrier will be nuclear-powered and replace the national fleet's flagship warship, the Charles de Gaulle, in 2038, President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday. The 11th carrier-vessel in the French Navy's history will be built by French defence contractor Naval Group and equipped with the new electromagnetic aircraft launch system developed by U.S. company General Atomics, French officials said. The carrier will be 300 metres (984 ft) long and have a deadweight of 75,000 tons.

As the global race to produce a Covid-19 vaccine continues, China appears to have made huge strides, with one of its vaccine front-runners, Sinovac, already making its way abroad. Shipments of Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company Sinovac's Covid-19 vaccine CoronaVac have arrived in Indonesia in preparation for a mass vaccination campaign, with another 1.8m doses due to arrive by January. CoronaVac is an inactivated vaccine, which works by using killed viral particles to expose the body's immune system to the virus without risking a serious disease response.

Americans who don't wish to get caught up in the nitty gritty of Trump's attempts to undermine the election can take their cue from one of the many judges who have dismissed the complaints of his team or his allies that the voting or counting was corrupt. This ship has sailed,” said U.S. District Judge Linda Parker in throwing out a lawsuit challenging Biden's win in Michigan this week. Not only has the ship sailed but it has reached safe harbor and dropped anchor.

The United States imposed terrorism sanctions on Iran's envoy to the Houthis on Tuesday, a step possibly aimed at pressuring the group to reach an accord to end the five-year war in Yemen. The U.S. Treasury described Hasan Irlu as an official of Iran's elite Quds Force, the overseas arm of the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a pillar of Iranian efforts to project its power in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere. Confirming a Reuters report, the Treasury also blacklisted Iran's Al-Mustafa International University, alleging it uses its foreign branches as a Quds Force recruitment platform for intelligence collection and operations.

The claim: China recovered from the coronavirus without a vaccine. After months of research, coronavirus vaccines are on the horizon in the United States. Pfizer and Moderna have applied for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.

US entrepreneur Elon Musk has launched the latest prototype of his Starship vehicle from Texas. Codenamed SN8, the uncrewed rocket lifted away from the Boca Chica R&D facility on what had been billed as a brief flight to 12.5km (41,000ft). The 50m-tall vehicle crashed on touchdown but Mr Musk was delighted with how much the test outing achieved.
Fox and Friends' co-host Brian Kilmeade reacts to Trump remarks at White House Vaccine Summit.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to let him join an improbable lawsuit challenging election results in Pennsylvania and other states that he lost, a day after the justices rejected a last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania's certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory. Out of the roughly 50 lawsuits filed around the country contesting the Nov. 3 vote, Trump has lost more than 35 and the others are pending, according to an Associated Press tally. The suit from the Texas attorney general, Republican Ken Paxton, demands that the 62 total Electoral College votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin be invalidated.


“The prospect of a 2024 run is politically significant. It’s also a complete fiction.”
“His flirtation with a 2024 bid ensures he’ll remain the dominant force in the Republican Party.”
“He shouldn’t run for president again. There’s a better job and life for him on the horizon.”
“Trump is in for years of scandals and humiliations…He’ll have to devote much of his energy to trying to stay out of prison.”
“If Trump himself passes on the opportunity, his two very political children could also potentially pick up the mantle.”