Despite winning the Electoral College in 2016, Trump couldn't admit he had actually lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, instead claiming without evidence that she had received millions of illegal votes. Trump made his baseless election fraud accusations again going into the 2020 election and escalated them after Joe Biden was declared the winner, with Trump and many of his supporters refusing to acknowledge his defeat. The widespread belief among Republicans that the election was illegitimate culminated in a “Stop the Steal” rally headlined by Trump on Jan. 6, the day Congress met to officially certify Biden as the winner of the election.
The penal colony where Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been sent to serve his two-year sentence is "one of the worst" in Russia, former inmates and prisoners rights groups have said. Mr Navalny was reported to have arrived at penal colony No. 2 in the town of Pokrov, three hours outside Moscow, on Sunday. Transfers of inmates within Russia's penitentiary system can take days or weeks and relatives often only discover the whereabouts of a prisoner after he or she has arrived at a prison.
Since December, more than 600 students have been abducted from schools in north-west Nigeria, highlighting a worrying development in the country's kidnap-for-ransom crisis. Friday's kidnapping of nearly 300 students from the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Jangebe, Zamfara state, which ended with their release, was the second mass kidnap from schools in less than 10 days. The authorities say recent attacks on schools in the north-west have been carried out by "bandits", a loose term for kidnappers, armed robbers, cattle rustlers, Fulani herdsmen and other armed militia operating in the region who are largely motivated by money.
The leader of Taiwan's main opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT) said on Tuesday he is in no rush to travel to China to meet President Xi Jinping, and that Beijing's proposals to get Taiwan to accept Communist rule had "no market" on the island. The KMT ruled China before retreating to Taiwan at the end of a civil war with the Communists in 1949. While ties across the Taiwan Strait have improved dramatically in the last three decades, Beijing continues to claim Taiwan as its own territory.
Police in Sri Lanka said Monday they have arrested two people in connection with the death of a 9-year-old girl who was repeatedly beaten during a ritual they believed would drive away an evil spirit. The two suspects — the woman performing the exorcism and the girl's mother — appeared in court on Monday to hear charges over the girl's death, which occurred over the weekend in Delgoda, a small town about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo. According to police spokesperson Ajith Rohana, the mother believed her daughter had been possessed by a demon and took her to the home of the exorcist so a ritual could be performed to drive the spirit away.
MyPillow's outspoken Trump-supporting chief executive was censored during an interview at CPAC – an event branded “America Uncanceled” – after he launched into conspiracy theories linking the coronavirus vaccine with the devil. Mike Lindell was speaking on Sunday to Liz Willis, the host of conservative YouTube channel Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), when he delivered a somewhat meandering set of conspiracy theories relating to the pandemic, the presidential election and Israel. “In Israel right now, from the prime minister on down, we don't know what happened, but obviously, he congratulated Biden, but after that, we got a little suspect,” Mr Lindell said during the segment that was edited out by RSBN on their YouTube channel.
FBI Director Chris Wray bluntly labeled the January riot at the U.S. Capitol as “domestic terrorism” Tuesday and warned of a rapidly growing threat of homegrown violent extremism that law enforcement is scrambling to confront through thousands of investigations. Wray also defended to lawmakers his own agency's handling of an intelligence report that warned of the prospect for violence on Jan. 6. And he firmly rejected false claims advanced by some Republicans that anti-Trump groups had organized the deadly riot that began when a violent mob stormed the building as Congress was gathering to certify results of the presidential election.
China's plan to dramatically reform Hong Kong's electoral system, expected to be unveiled in a parliamentary session in Beijing starting this week, will upend the territory's political scene, according to more than a dozen politicians from across the spectrum. The proposed reform will put further pressure on pro-democracy activists, who are already the subject of a crackdown on dissent, and has ruffled the feathers of some pro-Beijing loyalists, some of whom may find themselves swept aside by a new and ambitious crop of loyalists, the people said. The measures will be introduced at the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's rubber-stamp parliament, which starts on Friday, according to media reports.
South Carolina senators Tuesday added a firing squad to the electric chair as alternatives if the state can't execute condemned inmates by way of lethal injection. The Senate then approved the bill on a key 32-11 vote with several Democrats joining Republicans in the proposal which would allow South Carolina to restart executions after nearly 10 years. The state can't put anyone to death now because its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and it has not been able to buy any more.
A criminal case against Mohammed bin Salman and others in the Saudi hierarchy has been filed in a German court for the brutal 2018 murder, dismemberment and disappearance of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi despite the Kingdom's denial of MBS's direct involvement and the Biden administration's flaccid response to the killing. The 500-page complaint filed by the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is the first time a criminal case has been lodged outside of what was largely considered a show trial in Saudi Arabia. That trial saw the conviction of eight people who were later pardoned after the Khashoggi family was said to have forgiven them.
The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions to punish Russia for what it described as Moscow's attempt to poison opposition leader Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent last year, in President Joe Biden's most direct challenge yet to the Kremlin. The sanctions against seven senior Russian officials, among them the head of its FSB security service, and on 14 entities marked a sharp departure from former President Donald Trump's reluctance to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden stopped short, however, of putting sanctions on Putin himself.
Abuse allegations against New Hampshire's state-run youth detention center now span six decades, with 150 staffers during that time accused of physically or sexually harming 230 children at a facility the victims' attorney calls a “magnet for predators.
The plane laden with vaccines had just rolled to a stop at Santiago's airport in late January, and Chile's president, Sebastián Piñera, was beaming. The source of that hope: China – a country that Chile and dozens of other nations are depending on to help rescue them from the COVID-19 pandemic. China's vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccine to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press.
The Palestinian Authority has acquired only a few thousand doses — not even enough for front-line health workers — and reported nearly 2,000 new cases on Tuesday alone. It's a stark illustration of the disparity at the heart of the Middle East conflict — one of the few aspects of life here that haven't changed over the past year. Israel cites past agreements that say the PA is responsible for health care in areas it administers.
More than 75 former U.S. attorneys are throwing their support behind President Joe Biden's nominee for associate attorney general and urging congressional leaders to quickly confirm her to the post. Vanita Gupta has been nominated for the No. 3 position in the Justice Department, a position in which she would be responsible for overseeing the department's civil, antitrust and civil rights litigation, but also for helping to implement policy decisions on a host of nationwide issues. The Senate has scheduled the confirmation hearing for Gupta and Lisa Monaco, Biden's nominee for deputy attorney general, for March 9.
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Volvo says it will make only electric vehicles by 2030. The Swedish automaker said Tuesday that it is phasing out the production of all cars with internal combustion engines — including hybrids. “There is no long-term future for cars with an internal combustion engine,” said Henrik Green, Volvo's chief technology officer.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit back at Sen. Ted Cruz after he mocked her during his CPAC speech. Ocasio-Cortez again criticized Cruz for fleeing Texas during the recent electrical-grid collapse. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit back at Sen. Ted Cruz after the Texas Republican mocked her in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, on Friday.
Duterte, whose six-year term ends next year, has been reading the names of government employees and officers implicated in graft and corruption in his TV appearances to highlight his campaign against abuses and irregularities. But Duterte, a former government prosecutor who has threatened drug suspects with death and is known for his expletives-laden outbursts, has faced criticisms for abusive behavior himself. In his televised remarks Monday night, Duterte lashed out at Vice President Leni Robredo for criticizing the government's handling of the coronavirus outbreak and vaccination campaign.
Republican lawmakers in Georgia muscled legislation through the state House on Monday that would roll back voting access, over the objection of Democrats and civil rights groups gathered at the Capitol to protest. The bill comes after record turnout led to Democratic wins in Georgia's presidential election and two U.S. Senate runoffs. House Bill 531 passed the lower legislative chamber by a vote of 97-72.
For years, Boston city leaders have vowed to diversify the police department so it looks more like the community it serves. The percentage of officers of color is up slightly compared to 2018, but the racial makeup of the overall force is largely the same as 10 years ago and only slightly more diverse than 20 years ago, according to data compiled in a 2015 audit of the department.
Three women who worked for a local radio and TV station in eastern Afghanistan were gunned down Tuesday in separate attacks, the news editor of the privately owned station said. Shokrullah Pasoon, of Enikass Radio and TV in Jalalabad, said one of the women, Mursal Wahidi, was walking home when gunmen opened fire, according to eyewitnesses. The other two, whom Pasoon identified only as Shahnaz and Sadia, were shot and killed in a separate incident, also walking home from work.
China's vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccine to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press. With just four of China's many vaccine makers able to produce at least 2.6 billion doses this year, a large part of the world's population will end up inoculated not with the fancy Western vaccines boasting headline-grabbing efficacy rates, but with China's humble, traditionally made shots.
The chief European Union diplomat in Venezuela left the country on Tuesday, a week after the government of Nicolás Maduro ordered her expulsion following the EU's decision to impose sanctions on several Venezuelan officials accused of undermining democracy or violating human rights. Isabel Brilhante Pedrosa tweeted a photograph of Caracas showing the mountain range that flanks the Venezuelan capital to the north and the message “infinite thanks to all Venezuelans for their affection.” The Venezuelan government's action against Brilhante Pedrosa came after the European Union's foreign ministers sanctioned 19 Venezuelan officials, freezing their assets and banning them from traveling to the bloc, citing the deteriorating situation Venezuela faces after December 2020 elections.
Two of the largest US pharmaceutical companies are said to be partnering to speed up COVID-19 vaccine production. President Joe Biden on Tuesday will announce a partnership between Merck and Johnson & Johnson, senior administration officials told The Washington Post. Merck will dedicate two US facilities to make doses of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine, the officials said.
“How about we skip ‘he won’t win’ cycle and not do 2016 all over again. Trump can absolutely win another presidential election.”
“With independents deserting him, there is simply no path for Trump to get back into the White House — except as a tourist.”
“They might as well cancel the 2024 primaries...because there is no way he can lose.”
“The next Republican presidential primary will be heavily shaped by Trump — whether or not he decides to run again.”
“Donald Trump will not be running for president again. He will, however, continue to tease the possibility of a 2024 run.”