Treating China as a "strategic rival" of the United States is a misjudgement that could lead to mistakes, China's ambassador to the United States said in a speech to an online forum. Since the Trump administration defined China as a strategic rival in 2018, Washington and Beijing have frequently clashed over issues ranging from trade to Beijing's handling of the coronavirus, and the new administration of President Joe Biden is expected to maintain pressure on China. In the first major speech by a Chinese official on relations between the world's two biggest economies since Biden took office, Ambassador Cui Tiankai reasserted China's long-standing position of seeking peaceful coexistence with the United States, while warning it not to cross China's red lines.
Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Joe Biden plans to reopen the HealthCare.gov insurance markets for a special sign-up opportunity geared to people needing coverage in the coronavirus pandemic. Biden is expected to sign an executive order Thursday, said two people familiar with the plan, whose details were still being finalized. Although the number of uninsured Americans has grown because of job losses due to the economic hit of COVID-19, the Trump administration resisted calls to authorize a “special enrollment period” for people uninsured in the pandemic.
Former Sen. Elizabeth Dole is founder and chair of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation. The military community rightly heralded first lady Jill Biden's recent announcement that she will re-launch Joining Forces -- the initiative she co-founded in 2011 with then-first lady Michelle Obama to unite the nation behind those who serve. The return of Joining Forces will not only strengthen a military community strained by the demands of maintaining national security during a global pandemic, it will serve as a reminder of what we can accomplish as a nation if we rediscover our ability to work together.
Cyprus announced on Wednesday a staggered easing of lockdown measures following a fall in the number of COVID-19 infections, including the reopening of primary schools and shopping malls on Feb. 8. The island has been in a strict lockdown since Jan. 10 after a spike in COVID-19 cases and the detection of a more contagious variant of the virus first identified in Britain. Bans on large gatherings and the closure of shopping centres and restaurants had already been announced in December.
At least two journalists tested positive for coronavirus after witnessing the Trump administration's final three federal executions, but the Bureau of Prisons knowingly withheld the diagnoses from other media witnesses and did not perform any contact tracing, The Associated Press has learned. The AP is not identifying the journalists, but has confirmed they both received positive coronavirus tests following the executions earlier this month at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Bureau of Prisons just completed a record number of executions under former President Donald Trump, more than any previous administration.
In his first week in office, U.S. President Joe Biden has rolled out a wave of executive orders to fulfill a roster of campaign promises, underscoring just how easy it is to reverse some of the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump. As of Wednesday morning, Biden had cranked out some 40 executive orders, nearly half of them overturning Trump mandates. With one stroke of the pen, the United States rejoined the Paris climate accord and with another, Biden blocked funds for a border wall with Mexico.
After 18 years of denial, the Pakistani suspect convicted and later acquitted in the 2002 beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl has told a court he played a “minor" role in the killing, the Pearl family lawyer said Wednesday. A letter handwritten by Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh in 2019, in which he admits limited involvement in the killing of the Wall Street Journal reporter, was submitted to Pakistan's Supreme Court nearly two weeks ago. It wasn't until Wednesday that Sheikh's lawyers confirmed their client wrote it.
A conservative activist who was widely mocked after she was called to testify by Rudy Giuliani during a hearing on election fraud in December says she is running for office. Melissa Carone, who was an IT contractor for Dominion Voting Systems on election day, testified before a Michigan House panel in December 2020 that she had witnessed electoral fraud take place in favour of the Democrats on 3 November's presidential election. In testimony that went viral, Ms Carone claimed that tens of thousands of votes had been counted twice, but offered no proof to back up her claims.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed a new raft of executive actions to combat climate change, including pausing new oil and gas leases on federal land and cutting fossil fuel subsidies, as he pursues green policies he billed as a boon for job creation. The orders map out the direction for the Democratic president's climate change and environmental agenda and reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who sought to maximize U.S. oil, gas and coal output by removing regulations and easing environmental reviews. "In my view, we've already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis," Biden told a White House ceremony, noting the threats the nation faces from intensifying storms, wildfires, floods and droughts linked to climate change as well as air pollution from burning fossil fuels.
In a video that was recorded before she was a member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene can be seen harassing David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland school shooting.
Indonesia's most active volcano erupted Wednesday with a river of lava and searing gas clouds flowing 3,000 meters (nearly 10,000 feet) down its slopes. It was Mount Merapi's biggest lava flow since authorities raised its danger level in November, said Hanik Humaida, the head of Yogyakarta's Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center.
Most of the protesters are farmers from northern Punjab and Haryana states, the two biggest agricultural producers. They are demanding the repeal of laws passed by Parliament in September that they say will favor large corporate farms, devastate the earnings of many farmers and leave those who hold small plots behind as big corporations win out. Modi has billed the laws as necessary to modernize Indian farming.
The U.S. State Department is reviewing a Trump administration determination that China has committed genocide by repressing Uighur Muslims in its Xinjiang region to make sure that it sticks, President Joe Biden's pick for U.N. ambassador said on Wednesday. "The State Department is reviewing that now because all of the procedures were not followed," Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the move last week, one day before Biden took office, "after careful examination of the available facts," accusing the Chinese Communist Party of crimes against humanity targeting the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.
South Africa has been seeking to source vaccines in three ways: via the World Health Organization-backed Covax scheme via arrangements made by the African Union through bilateral contracts with vaccine manufacturers Covax is a global initiative in which countries pool their resources to support the development of vaccines with a view to ensure that all countries receive a fair supply of effective vaccines. South Africa expects to acquire doses for around 10% of the population through Covax and has been told it will receive them from April through to June. The African Union established the African vaccine acquisition task team last year to source vaccine doses for the continent.
The Biden administration has put a temporary hold on several major foreign arms sales initiated by former President Donald Trump. Officials say that among the deals being paused is a massive $23 billion transfer of stealth F-35 fighters to the United Arab Emirates. The new administration is reviewing the sales but has not made any determination about whether they will actually go through, the State Department said.
China toughened its language towards Taiwan on Thursday, warning after recent stepped up military activities near the island that "independence means war" and that its armed forces were acting in response to provocation and foreign interference. Taiwan, claimed by China as its own territory, reported multiple Chinese fighter jets and bombers entering its southwestern air defence identification zone last weekend, prompting Washington to urge Beijing to stop pressuring Taiwan. China believes that Taiwan's democratically-elected government is moving the island towards a declaration of formal independence, though Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has repeatedly said it is already an independent country called the Republic of China, its formal name.
EL PASO, Texas – An El Paso teacher received a letter from President Joe Biden after her kindergarten class wrote to congratulate him for winning the 2020 election. Barron Elementary teacher Martha Tavarez and her class wrote to the then president-elect and Jill Biden after she gave a lesson to her students about the presidential election, including hosting a mock election, according to a news release on the El Paso Independent School District's website. The letter her class received in response bore the official seal of the Office of the President-Elect and some words of appreciation from the man elected as America's 46th president.
Let's get loud Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
The Philippines has protested a new Chinese law that authorizes its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels and destroy other countries' structures on islands it claims, Manila's top diplomat said Wednesday. Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said in a tweet that the new Chinese law “is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies” it. “While enacting law is a sovereign prerogative, this one — given the area involved, or for that matter the open South China Sea — is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies the law,” Locsin said.
A Jewish prayer for the souls of the people murdered in the Holocaust echoed Wednesday over where the Warsaw ghetto stood during World War II as a world paused by the coronavirus pandemic observed the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Most International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations were being held online this year due to the virus, including the annual ceremony at the site of the former Auschwitz death camp, where Nazi German forces killed 1.1 million people in occupied Poland. The memorial site is closed to visitors because of the pandemic.
As U.S. President Joe Biden took the oath of office last Wednesday, Felipe Ortega sat in a van handcuffed and chained at the waist and feet, headed toward Mexico and the end of his 30-year life in the United States. A day earlier, the 58-year-old grandfather of eight U.S. citizens was on his way to work when immigration agents surrounded his car in Midland, Texas, just blocks from his home. After one sleepless night in jail and a long ride to the border, Ortega, a Mexican national, was sent across the international bridge at El Paso in Texas around 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
The suspects in the Capitol riot are a varied group: they include a West Virginia lawmaker, a Florida firefighter and a left-wing activist from Utah. It's been over two weeks since the Capitol Hill riot - how much progress has law enforcement made bringing the perpetrators to justice? Michael Sherwin, US Attorney for the District of Columbia, says they have identified 400 suspects and arrested 135 to date in connection with the Capitol siege.
ROME— The development of COVID-19 vaccines was supposed to mark the end of the worst year in modern history, but less than a month into the rollout, European leaders are already panicking. Threats of trade wars and fierce infighting over short vaccine supplies are making the cure—or in this case, the vaccine—just as divisive as the finger-pointing that marked the beginning of this nightmare. German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a thinly veiled threat against the U.S. on how Europe should deal with American “vaccine nationalism” in her address to the World Economic Forum being held virtually instead of in Davos this year.
Speaking when the House returned to vote on the Electoral College results, Mr Gaetz spoke up to challenge the results from Arizona. Citing unsubstantiated allegations of electoral meddling on the left, he also condemned the violence of that day – explicitly denying Mr Trump played any role in inciting it while also raising the notion that it was at least in part a false flag attack by radical leftists. I don't know if the reports are true,” he said on the floor, “but the Washington Times has just reported some pretty compelling evidence from a facial recognition company showing that some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters, they were masquerading as Trump s...
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R.N.C., speaks as the House debates the objection to confirm the Electoral College vote from Pennsylvania, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. early on Jan. 7, 2021. As the Trump Administration drew to a close, Republican legislators and aides were forced to choose a side. Longtime Trump faithfuls, including Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Tom Rice have chosen Option 1, rebuffing their former leader, calling for rule of law and returning, at least rhetorically, to the storied principles of conservatism that once guided the Grand Old Party.
“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.”