PoliticsYahoo NewsJournalist who criticized FBI for handling of Russia probe says Trump's refusal to concede is 'dangerous BS'
A common defense of President Trump's refusal to concede the 2020 election is that he's simply taking revenge on his liberal opponents, in particular those who doubted the legitimacy of the 2016 election because of Russian interference. The media gave Russia Collusion 3.5 years. We can give Team Trump three and a half weeks,” tweeted Jenna Ellis, a member of the Trump campaign's legal team that has failed to provide any evidence in court of cheating in the 2020 election.
HealthYahoo NewsRapid testing could 'drive the epidemic toward extinction'
Cheap coronavirus tests that ordinary Americans can administer at home, without either a prescription or any medical expertise, could significantly drive down infection rates, say researchers from the University of Colorado and Harvard. “The critical finding of our work is that when it comes to screening tests for COVID, turnaround time is absolutely critical,” said Daniel Larremore, a computer scientist at Colorado. Another of the study's authors, Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina, told a Boston-area radio station that if “we could have 10 to 20 million of these tests every single day across all of America, that would be enough to stop the outbreaks across the United States” in just a few weeks' time, without the need for onerous statewide and citywide lockdowns.
PoliticsThe IndependentAOC and Ilhan Omar sign petition calling on Biden not to give Bruce Reed administration role
Progressive lawmakers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar have signed a petition calling on president-elect Joe Biden not to appoint Bruce Reed to his administration. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, and Rep. Omar, of Minnesota, are supporting efforts to have Mr Reed, Mr Biden's former chief of staff, frozen out of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Reports emerged earlier this week suggesting that Mr Reed, who also served in the Obama administration, was top of the president-elect's list to head up the OMB.
WorldAssociated PressTrudeau: Canadians won't be among the first to get vaccine
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday Canada will have to wait for a vaccine because the very first ones that roll off assembly lines are likely to be given to citizens of the country they are made in. Trudeau noted Canada does not have vaccine-production facilities. Trudeau said it is understandable that an American pharmaceutical company will distribute first in the U.S. before they distribute internationally.
PoliticsYahoo NewsTrump campaign sued for attempting to disenfranchise Black voters
The Trump campaign has repeatedly attempted to use the judicial system to overturn the president's defeat to President-elect Joe Biden, filing more than two dozen unsuccessful lawsuits since Election Day. “It's not even about the success of President Trump and the Trump campaign's attempts to overturn the election,” Monique Lin-Luse, assistant counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, which filed the lawsuit, told Yahoo News. “The very attempt ... to overturn it by disenfranchising and de-legitimizing Black voters is what we believe is unlawful, and it's also dangerous and corrosive to our democracy.”
PoliticsYahoo NewsDemocratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock bet big on 'record-shattering turnout' in Georgia
But Democrats say they've figured out how to win in Georgia, a state that had voted Republican in six straight presidential elections between 1996 and 2016 and hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in 20 years. And Republicans have won all but one of the statewide general election runoffs in Georgia since 1988. What we are focusing on when we go and talk to voters in these communities, something that we learned from Stacey Abrams, is we go and ask them what they need, and when they answer … we let them know Rev.
U.S.USA TODAYComputer repairman who claimed he gave Hunter Biden data to Giuliani closes shop as laptop saga gets stranger
Weeks before the Nov. 3 presidential election, the world's political intrigue turned to a Wilmington computer repair shop after the New York Post revealed that its owner gave a copy of a laptop hard drive he believed belonged to Hunter Biden to a lawyer representing Rudy Giuliani. A slew of new information has surfaced in the weeks since, including details about the laptop's journey from the repair shop to Giuliani's office. The story claimed that President-elect Joe Biden, while vice president in 2015, held a meeting with an executive from Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company that employed his son, Hunter Biden.
TechnologyArchitectural DigestThe Top 6 Black Friday Deals for Vacuums
We have you covered with all the best vacuum deals that you need to know about Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
WorldAssociated PressMine explodes, damaging oil tanker off Saudi Arabia
A mine in the Red Sea off Saudi Arabia's coast near Yemen exploded and damaged an oil tanker Wednesday, authorities said, the latest incident targeting the kingdom amid its long war against Yemen's Houthi rebels. The blast happened before dawn and struck the MT Agrari, a Maltese-flagged, Greek-managed oil tanker near Shuqaiq, Saudi Arabia. “Their vessel was attacked by an unknown source,” a statement from the Agrari's operator, TMS Tankers Ltd., said.
WorldReutersUnified ASEAN can avert South China Sea conflict - Philippine minister
Tensions in the South China Sea will increase due to a U.S.-China rivalry that could be kept in check, if only Southeast Asian countries took a united stand to influence the status quo, a top Philippine security official said on Wednesday. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was caught up in the battle for regional influence but it could do more to ensure stability and should take a common approach, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told a security forum. "ASEAN would exert considerable influence on issues and events in the South China Sea if only it could act as one."
U.S.The TelegraphWhite House considers lifting European travel restrictions
The White House is considering rescinding entry bans for most non-US citizens who recently were in Brazil, Britain, Ireland and 26 other European countries, five US and airline officials told Reuters. It is not considering lifting separate entry bans on most non-US citizens who have recently been in China or Iran, the officials said. The plan has won the backing of White House coronavirus task-force members, public health and other federal agencies, the people briefed on the matter said, but President Donald Trump has not made a final decision and the timing remains uncertain.
WorldAssociated PressUN agency: Israel's Gaza blockade has devastated economy
Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and sent poverty and unemployment skyrocketing, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the closure. The report by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development echoed calls by numerous international bodies over the years criticizing the blockade. Israel imposed the blockade in 2007 after Hamas, an Islamic militant group that opposes Israel's existence, violently seized control of Gaza from the forces of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority.
PoliticsThe IndependentBiden says his team has spoken to Fauci: ‘He’s been very, very helpful’
Joe Biden's team has been in contact with Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, the president-elect said shortly after the Trump administration agreed to participate in the transition process. Mr Biden said he has not yet had a chance to meet with the expert himself, but praised Dr Fauci's efforts to tackle the coronavirus crisis in the US, which has seen more than 12 million cases and nearly 260,000 fatalities. “I haven't had a chance to speak to Dr Fauci,” he said, adding “he's been very, very helpful.”
WorldAssociated PressIran says British-Australian academic freed for 3 Iranians
Iran has freed a British-Australian academic who had been detained in the country for over two years in exchange for three Iranians held abroad, state TV announced. The television report Wednesday was scant on detail, saying only that the three Iranians freed in the swap had been imprisoned for trying to bypass sanctions on Iran. Kylie Moore-Gilbert, 33, was a Melbourne University lecturer on Middle Eastern studies when she was picked up at the Tehran airport as she tried to leave the country after attending an academic conference in 2018.
PoliticsThe Daily BeastTrump Calls Into Rudy Giuliani’s Latest Election Fraud Pantomime
President Donald Trump called into a bizarre “hearing” on voter fraud organized by Rudy Giuliani and Pennsylvania Republicans on Thursday—part of a doomed attempt to overturn an election result that has been certified by the state. After canceling an in-person appearance, Trump called campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis' phone, which was held up to a microphone as people in the Gettysburg hotel room cheered. “We have to turn the election over because there's no doubt we have all the evidence, we have all the affidavits, we just need some judge to listen to it properly,” Trump said, after weeks of not producing any evidence of mass fraud in court.
PoliticsThe IndependentKash Patel: Biden conspiracy theorist put in charge of Pentagon transition
A Trump loyalist who has been involved in Republican attempts to discredit the Russian investigation and spreading conspiracy theories about Joe Biden has been put in charge of the Pentagon's transition to an upcoming Biden-Harris administration, the US Defense Department confirmed on Tuesday. Kashyap Pramod Patel, known as Kash Patel, who currently serves as the chief of staff to the acting secretary of defence Christopher Miller, was only installed in the Pentagon a couple of weeks ago after Donald Trump fired defence secretary Mark Esper and his chief of staff Jen Stewart resigned.
WorldAssociated PressAzerbaijani leader vows to revive region ceded by Armenia
Azerbaijan's president vowed Wednesday to rebuild and revive the Kalbajar region, the latest territory that Armenian forces have ceded in a truce that ended six weeks of intense fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. “We will restore Kalbajar, let no one have doubts about that, and life will return there,” President Ilham Aliyev said in an address to the nation soon after Azerbaijani troops entered the region. “I gave an order to prepare a general layout of the reconstruction of the town, and not just the town of Kalbajar, but of all of the towns" in the region, also known as Kalbajar.
- PoliticsReuters Videos
Pyongyang cheers returning typhoon workers
Footage filmed by North Korea's state media KCNA, which could not be verified by Reuters, showed the residents waving and cheering as trains carrying party members arriving Pyongyang railway station and buses drove past the streets. The footage also showed a large number of members attending a welcome ceremony in front of Kumsusan Palace of the Sun where the embalmed bodies of former North Korean leaders lie. In September, leader Kim Jong Un sent an open letter to party members in the capital noting that this year has witnessed "uncommon difficulties due to the protracted worldwide public health crisis" and natural disasters.
U.S.Business InsiderDOJ has agreed to temporarily halt deportations for some migrant detainees and whistleblowers who alleged medical and sexual abuse at a Georgia detention center — until at least a Biden-Harris administration
A new court motion in Georgia temporarily suspends deportation proceedings for at least four of the women who alleged suffering medical and sexual abuse at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, according to VICE News. Today's court order follows months of scrutiny and investigations surrounding the Irwin County Detention Center and Dr. Mahendra Amin, who former and current detainees accuse of forced hysterectomies, as well as other incidents of medical and sexual abuse. Prior to Tuesday's motion of consent, DHS had initiated deportation proceedings against several of the women, according to the Los Angeles Times.
PoliticsAssociated PressBiden win over Trump in Nevada made official by court
The Nevada Supreme Court made Joe Biden's win in the state official on Tuesday, approving the state's final canvass of the Nov. 3 election. The unanimous action by the seven nonpartisan justices sends to Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak results that will deliver six electoral votes from the western U.S. battleground state to Biden. The court action drew extra scrutiny amid legal efforts by the state GOP and Trump campaign to prevent sending vote-by-mail ballots to all 1.82 million active registered voters and then to stop the counting of the 1.4 million votes that were cast.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderIvanka Trump and Jared Kushner are expanding their New Jersey estate after hostile signals from New York high society about their post-presidency life
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have drawn up plans to expand their property at President Donald Trump's New Jersey golf club, The New York Times reported. The plans include extensions to their existing property as well as five new "cottages," a recreation and spa complex, and a "general store," according to The Times. It's not clear whether the couple will primarily live there, and questions loom about their future after the president leaves office.
WorldAssociated PressJapan, China agree on economic ties, split over islands
China's top diplomat told Japan's leader on Wednesday that Beijing wants the two Asian powers to have good relations and cooperate in fighting the coronavirus and reviving their pandemic-hit economies, but the two sides remained at odds over an island dispute. Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a message from Chinese President Xi Jinping expressing his hope of developing positive relations with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and "strengthen cooperation with Japan in pandemic measures and for the economic recovery," Wang told reporters after meeting with Suga. Wang told Suga that ties between the two countries have improved through high-level dialogue and mutual efforts and that China wants to cooperate further in a range of areas.
WorldAssociated PressIndian state outlaws religious conversion by marriage
India's ruling Hindu nationalist party has approved legislation in the country's most populous state that lays out a prison term of up to 10 years for anyone found guilty of using marriage to force someone to change religion. The decree for the state of Uttar Pradesh was passed Tuesday and follows a campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party against interfaith marriages. The party describes such marriages as “love jihad,” an unproven conspiracy theory used by its leaders and Hindu hard-line groups to accuse Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderBiden says the White House is cooperating fully with his transition but Trump still won't speak with him
President-elect Joe Biden praised the smoothness of his delayed presidential transition on Tuesday, saying efforts from the White House to hand over to him were "sincere." The transition was authorized Monday after an unprecedented two-week standoff while President Donald Trump groundlessly disputed the outcome of the election. Speaking with NBC News, Biden said that he had been authorized to receive the Presidential Daily Briefing and that agencies had been forthcoming with information.
U.S.Associated PressMysterious shiny monolith found in otherworldly Utah desert
Deep in the Mars-like landscape of Utah's red-rock desert lies a mystery: A gleaming metal monolith in one of the most remote parts of the state. The smooth, tall structure was found during a helicopter survey of bighorn sheep in southeastern Utah, officials said Monday. A crew from the Utah Department of Public Safety and Division of Wildlife Resources spotted the gleaming object from the air Nov. 18 and landed to check it out during a break from their work.
“Donald Trump defeated Donald Trump.”
“The victory was a vindication of a style of American politics that many feared was gone forever.”
“Mr. Biden’s victory — and Mr. Trump’s defeat — is a testament to the resilience of American democracy.”
“Trump’s 2020 reelection bid was doomed by his boorish behavior. Time and again, he refused to act like a president.”
“Biden took the opportunity to unite the Democratic Party.”