PoliticsYahoo NewsAt CPAC, Cruz and Hawley remain defiant about Capitol riot
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri took to the stage today at the Conservative Political Action Conference and gave what amounted to their most extensive public remarks since Jan. 6, when both were seen by critics as having helped incite a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Cruz spoke on Friday morning, while Hawley addressed the audience in a less enviable afternoon spot. As they have in appearances on Fox News and other outlets in recent weeks, they cast themselves as victims of Democratic “cancel culture” — an ill-defined concept that encompasses social and corporate disapproval — while taking no responsibility for inciting the white supremacists and other supporters of former President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol in hopes of keeping Joe Biden from assuming the Oval Office.
HealthYahoo NewsWhy experts like Dr. Fauci think 'there's a really good chance' the worst of the U.S. pandemic is behind us
According to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, two-thirds of Americans are either somewhat or very worried about the “newer, potentially more contagious” COVID-19 variants that have triggered huge overseas outbreaks and are now spreading in the United States. To be clear, worrying less about variants doesn't mean abandoning precautions; nothing will suppress cases and shorten the U.S. pandemic like wearing a mask, avoiding indoor gatherings, staying 6 feet apart and getting vaccinated. Asked if the worst of the pandemic was behind the U.S., Fauci told Yahoo News Tuesday that “it might be.”
PoliticsYahoo NewsBiden, facing backlash over reopening shelter for migrant children, is left with few options
When the Biden administration began transporting migrant children to a Trump-era emergency influx shelter in Texas this week, it faced fierce criticism from some on the left, particularly Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who tweeted: “This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay — no matter the administration or party.” “From our perspective, influx facilities are certainly not ideal, but it is so much better than a child sitting in a camp in Matamoros or a child being cramped in a Border Patrol facility,” said Jennifer Podkul, vice president of policy and advocacy at Kids in Need of Defense, a pro bono legal service provider for migrant and refugee children.
U.S.Business Insider'Oath Keeper' Jessica Watkins denounced the extremist group but will stay in jail before her trial, judge says
On Friday, a federal judge ruled that a member of a far-right militia group who stormed the US Capitol building will remain in jail after she petitioned to be released over safety concerns. Jessica Watkins, an alleged 'Oath Keeper' charged with conspiring to attack the US Capitol building on January 6, made her first public comments since her arrest last month in a court hearing on Friday, where she denounced the extremist organization and said she was "humbled" and "humiliated" by the charges against her according to CNN.
U.S.Architectural DigestMore Inside A New Safari Lodge Treehouse Tucked Away in Botswana’s Okavango Delta
Only reachable by canoe, this Xigera hideaway is centered along lush riverbeds and a rich concentration of wildlife. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
WorldReutersFrance needs a lockdown as COVID-19 cases rise: hospital official
France should impose a national lockdown given the increase in COVID-19 cases and the longer it waits, the higher the death toll will be, the head of the emergencies unit at a hospital in Paris said on Friday. The government said on Thursday that a new lockdown was not on the agenda and it would see next week if local weekend lockdowns would be needed in 20 areas considered very worrying, including Paris and the surrounding region. "I do not understand what we are waiting for," Philippe Juvin from the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in the capital told BFM TV, adding that the situation at hospitals in the Paris area was very tense.
PoliticsAssociated PressDurham remains special counsel overseeing Trump-Russia probe
U.S. Attorney John Durham said Friday that he will resign from his position as the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut but is remaining as a special counsel to oversee the Justice Department's investigation into the origins of the Russia probe that shadowed Donald Trump's presidency. Durham will resign from his post as U.S. attorney for Connecticut on Monday. But Durham, who was appointed in October by then-Attorney General William Barr as a special counsel to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, will remain in that capacity.
PoliticsThe Telegraph'It's not as nice as Cancun': Ted Cruz jokes about controversial holiday in CPAC culture wars speech
Ted Cruz railed against "cancel culture" and mocked criticism of his trip to Mexico while his home state of Texas endured freezing conditions and power blackouts as he addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday. The Texas senator was widely criticised last week for taking a family trip to Cancun, Mexico while millions in his state went without heat or water after severe winter weather crippled power supplies. Here is @tedcruz out of state again—not doing his job again—joking about leaving Texans behind.
- WorldYahoo News Video
Mobster Peter Gotti from notorious Gambino crime family dies in prison
Mobster Peter Gotti, the brother of notorious Gambino crime boss John Gotti, has died while serving a federal prison sentence, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press Thursday.
WorldReutersU.S. air strikes in Syria target Iranian-backed militia: Pentagon
The United States carried out air strikes authorised by President Joe Biden against facilities belonging to Iranian-backed militia in eastern Syria on Thursday, in response to rocket attacks against U.S. targets in Iraq, the Pentagon said. Syria did not immediately comment, but state-owned Ekhbariya TV said the strikes were conducted at dawn against several targets near the Syrian-Iraqi border. Biden's decision to strike only in Syria and not in Iraq, at least for now, gives Iraq's government some breathing room as it investigates a Feb. 15 attack that wounded Americans.
WorldAssociated PressBangladeshis protest prison death of commentator
Protesters blocked a busy intersection in Bangladesh's capital Friday to protest the death in prison of a writer and commentator who was arrested on charges of violating a sweeping digital security law that critics say stifles freedom of expression. Mushtaq Ahmed, 53, was arrested in Dhaka in May last year for making comments on social media that criticized the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. It was not immediately clear how Ahmed died on Thursday.
PoliticsReutersBiden White House asks 'Trump who?' ahead of speech to conservatives
President Joe Biden's White House has made it clear it plans to ignore Donald Trump's speech on Sunday to a conservative conference in Florida, where the former president is expected to go on the attack against his successor. "Our focus is certainly not on what President Trump is saying" at the Conservative Political Action Conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. "Biden is obeying an old political rule, which is 'Never get in the way of a train wreck'," said Bob Shrum, former Democratic strategist and director of the Center for Political Future at University of Southern California.
- WorldAssociated Press
Explosion strikes Israeli-owned ship in Mideast amid tension
An explosion struck an Israeli-owned cargo ship sailing out of the Middle East on Friday, an unexplained blast renewing concerns about ship security in the region amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The crew and vessel were safe, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which is run by the British navy. The explosion in the Gulf of Oman forced the vessel to head to the nearest port.
PoliticsUSA TODAYSen. John Cornyn, Gov. Greg Abbott — but not Ted Cruz — to meet with Joe Biden in Texas
Two out of Texas' top three Republican officials will meet with President Joe Biden during his Friday trip to Houston following the state's winter storm and power outages last week. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, plan to join Biden and first lady Jill Biden as they survey storm and power grid damage, visit an emergency operations center and food bank and stop by NRG Stadium, a mass vaccination site. The state's other senator, Ted Cruz, won't be joining them.
WorldAssociated PressDefense head Austin weighs warship needs in Pacific, Mideast
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told sailors on the USS Nimitz Thursday that he hopes to avoid long ship deployments like the more than 10 months they just spent at sea. But as he made his first aircraft carrier visit as Pentagon chief, he acknowledged the demand for American warships around the globe as he wrestles with security threats from China in the Pacific and Iran in the Middle East. Standing in the ship's hangar bay, Austin said he will make a decision soon on whether to send a carrier back to the Middle East, where the Nimitz had been.
WorldReutersMyanmar police launch most extensive crackdown; one woman shot and wounded
The violence came after Myanmar's U.N. envoy, saying he was speaking for the ousted civilian government, urged the United Nations to use "any means necessary" to reverse the Feb. 1 coup. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and much of her party leadership, alleging fraud in a November election her party won in a landslide. The coup, which stalled Myanmar's progress toward democracy, has brought hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets and drawn condemnation from Western countries, with some imposing limited sanctions.
BusinessBBCHow Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble
President Biden's top economic adviser described Bitcoin as "an extremely inefficient way to conduct transactions," saying "the amount of energy consumed in processing those transactions is staggering". From buying a Bentley to losing it all Bitcoin keeps hitting new highs after Tesla backing Bitcoin hits new record of $50,000 It's unclear exactly how much energy Bitcoin uses. Cryptocurrencies are - by design - hard to track.
U.S.Business InsiderSouth Dakota's legislature is moving to impeach its attorney general after investigators uncovered a hit-and-run victim's glasses in his car
AG Jason Ravnsborg was charged with three misdemeanors in connection to a fatal car crash. New details have since emerged with the victim's glasses found in Ravnsborg's car. Ravnsborg was charged with three misdemeanors last week after initially saying he thought he hit a deer, not a person.
WorldAssociated PressPakistan expert: Religiosity aiding spike in militancy
Militant attacks are on the rise in Pakistan amid a growing religiosity that has brought greater intolerance, prompting one expert to voice concern the country could be overwhelmed by religious extremism. Pakistani authorities are embracing strengthening religious belief among the population to bring the country closer together. But it's doing just the opposite, creating intolerance and opening up space for a creeping resurgence in militancy, said Mohammad Amir Rana, executive director of the independent Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies.
PoliticsThe IndependentCPAC is promoting Donald Trump’s big lie of election fraud
The nation's largest right-wing summit has devoted at least seven panels to relitigating or amplifying false claims about the 2020 presidential election, not counting the speeches from high-profile Republicans and right-wing figures raising questions about “election integrity” after Donald Trump's loss and a persistent lie that the election was “stolen” from his supporters. Matt Schlapp, chair of the CPAC-hosting American Conservative Union, told CNN ahead of the conference that “we're going to spend a lot of time going through what happened in the states” despite the Trump campaign's spurious legal big and admission from his own Justice Department and nationwide election officials that no such fraud occurred. Speakers have said their concerns are about “protecting elections” and ensuring “election integrity” but they have promoted the same baseless, legally dubious complaints that the former president and his campaign have argued for months leading up to the deadly riot at the Capitol on 6 January, as his supporters stormed into the halls of Congress to stop the certification of the votes.
WorldINSIDERResidents of an Indian slum thought they were getting vaccinated like everyone else but were unknowingly part of a clinical trial
A white van drove through the slums of Bhopal in central India advertising a COVID-19 vaccine. The van reportedly said that anyone who got one would receive 750 rupees. It seemed like a win-win for residents in the slums of Bhopal in central India when a white van drove through the streets advertising, "Come and take the coronavirus vaccine and get 750 rupees!" from its speaker system.
PoliticsThe Daily BeastHouse Passes Biden’s $1.9T Stimulus Plan—Without a Single GOP Vote in Favor
Democrats are one big step closer to achieving their first major goal of the Joe Biden era. Early Saturday morning, the U.S. House approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill on a nearly party-line vote. The 219-212 vote allows the U.S. Senate to formally take up the legislation, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) intends to do immediately.
PoliticsUSA TODAYRepublicans sued over proxy voting in the pandemic. Now they're using it to speak at CPAC.
House Republicans were furious over the summer when the House made unpresented changes allowing lawmakers to designate a proxy and vote on their behalf amid traveling concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Thursday, when CPAC began its annual conference, nearly two dozen House Republicans have written letters to the House clerk to notify they would be absent due to the COVID-19 pandemic and designated a proxy to vote on their behalf. Others, including several CPAC speakers, designated proxies to cast their vote before Thursday.
HealthMiami HeraldFlorida COVID update for Friday: 5,922 new cases, 146 deaths as positivity dips
COVID-19 in South Florida ▪ Miami-Dade County reported 1,109 new cases and 27 deaths, putting its pandemic totals at 408,096 cases and 5,396 deaths. In Miami-Dade, 128,424 people have received the first vaccine dose and 172,447 people have completed the two-dose series. Percent positivity decreased from 5.70% to 5.36%.
PoliticsUSA TODAY OpinionTrump lost because 'character counts.' That's why his CPAC speech won't change anything.
Many dispirited Republicans, still struggling to accept Donald Trump's decisive and legitimate defeat in last November's election, have begun pondering what they might have done differently to have produced a different result. After all, their nominee needed to draw only an additional 65,013 votes, distributed strategically in four close races — Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and the second Congressional district of Nebraska — to have eked out another Electoral College victory (270-268) while still losing the popular vote by a margin of 7,000,000. — that would have all-but-guaranteed a comfortable GOP victory.
“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.”