PoliticsYahoo NewsRepublican lawmaker to ask Justice Department to investigate Trump's response to attack on U.S. Capitol
A ranking House Republican is formally asking the Justice Department to broaden its investigation to include President Trump's conduct during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol when members of Congress and others were reportedly pleading for him to deploy the National Guard and take other steps to quell the riot. “I would go beyond the article filed by the Democrats and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi,” Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas said on the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” podcast. Once the president knew that the Capitol was under siege and really being invaded by domestic terrorists, what actions did the president specifically take to remedy what happened?
U.S.Associated PressAmid cacophony since Capitol siege, key officer stays silent
Yet amid all the noise, a Capitol Police officer hailed as a hero for confronting the insurrectionists and leading them away from Senate chambers has remained silent. Officer Eugene Goodman isn't saying whether he thinks he saved the Senate, as many of the millions who've viewed the video believe. In fact, Goodman isn't saying anything at all publicly — not to reporters, not on social media.
PoliticsThe IndependentNikki Haley launches push to support conservative candidates ahead of rumoured 2024 presidential bid
Former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Hale, has launched a political action committee (PAC) to support conservative candidates, amid speculation that she will run for president in 2024. The committee, named the Stand for America PAC, has been formed to help conservative candidates get elected to Congress in the 2022 midterm elections. In an email to supporters, Ms Haley, 48, said the PAC is “laser-focused on the 2022 midterms and electing a conservative force to the House of Representatives and US Senate to serve as a bulwark against the liberal agendas of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi”.
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12 Pakistani police fired for not protecting Hindu temple
Pakistani authorities sacked a local police chief and 11 other policemen for failing to protect a Hindu temple that was set on fire and demolished last month by a mob led by hundreds of supporters of a radical Islamist party, police said Friday. The punishments come amid government assurances to the Hindu community that the temple in Karak, a town in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, would be rebuilt. The attack took place after members of the Hindu community received permission from local authorities to renovate the temple.
EntertainmentArchitectural DigestMore Inside Artist Jorge Pardo's Transformed Bushwick Carriage House
When it came to the lighting in his home, Pardo drew inspiration from the insides of fruits, nuts, and seeds, as well as sea creatures and machine parts. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
U.S.Yahoo NewsBlack Americans react to the pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol
On the morning of Jan. 6, many Black Americans celebrated the news that the Rev. Raphael Warnock had defeated Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a runoff election to become the first African American U.S. senator from the state of Georgia. A Democrat and the senior pastor at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, Warnock talked in his victory speech about his rise from poverty. “My mother, who as a teenager in Waycross, Ga., used to pick somebody else's cotton,” Warnock said.
WorldThe TelegraphPhilippines' Duterte says women not fit to be president amid speculation his daughter could succeed him
Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday declared that the presidency was no job for a woman because of their emotional differences to men, and dismissed speculation that his daughter would succeed him next year. "My daughter is not running. I have told Inday not to run because I pity (her) knowing she will have to go through what I am going through," Mr Duterte said at the launch of a highway project, referring to his daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio by her nickname.
WorldAssociated PressChina strips license of lawyer for Hong Kong activist
A Chinese lawyer who represented a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist was stripped of his license amid efforts by Beijing to crush opposition to its tighter control over the territory. Lu Siwei, who represented one of 12 Hong Kong activists who tried to flee to Taiwan, had his license revoked by the Sichuan Provincial Justice Department in a formal notice given Friday. Ten of the 12 activists caught at sea in August were sentenced by a Shenzhen court in December to prison terms ranging from seven months to three years for illegally crossing the border and organizing illegal border crossings.
U.S.The WeekFBI says over 100 people arrested for Capitol siege, including 'liberal activist,' Confederate flag bearer
FBI Director Christopher Wray, in his first public comments since the Jan. 6 violent siege of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Trump, said Thursday that law enforcement has arrested more than 100 people in connection with the assault and is aware of "an extensive amount of concerning online chatter" ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's Jan. 20 inauguration. Most of those arrested so far have been far-right militants, off-duty police, retired military personnel, GOP officials, QAnon adherents, and white supremacists. For example, the man photographed carrying a Confederate battle flag through the Capitol, Kevin Seefried, and his son, Hunter Seefried, surrendered to the FBI in Delaware on Thursday, the Justice Department said.
ScienceAssociated PressRIP: Mars digger bites the dust after 2 years on red planet
NASA declared the Mars digger dead Thursday after failing to burrow deep into the red planet to take its temperature. "We've given it everything we've got, but Mars and our heroic mole remain incompatible,” said the German Space Agency's Tilman Spohn, the lead scientist for the experiment. Astronauts one day may need to dig into Mars, according to NASA, in search of frozen water for drinking or making fuel, or signs of past microscopic life.
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S.Korea court upholds jail for ex-president Park
South Korea's Supreme Court upheld a 20-year jail sentence on Thursday for former President Park Geun-hye. This brings an end to a legal process that began in 2017 when Park was removed from office and arrested on corruption charges. She was found guilty of colluding with a confidante to receive tens of billions of won from major conglomerates for her family and to fund non-profits she owned.
WorldAssociated PressSpain rejects virus confinement as most of Europe stays home
While most of Europe kicked off 2021 with earlier curfews or stay-at-home orders, authorities in Spain insist the new coronavirus variant causing havoc elsewhere is not to blame for a sharp resurgence of cases and that the country can avoid a full lockdown even as its hospitals fill up. The government has been tirelessly fending off drastic home confinement like the one that paralyzed the economy for nearly three months in the spring of 2020, the last time Spain could claim victory over the stubborn rising curve of cases. Infection rates ebbed in October but never completely flattened the surge from summer.
PoliticsThe TelegraphTrump's White House packs up as one of the least civil presidential handovers in history begins
For starters, Donald Trump only conceded last week - at the urging of White House lawyers - after his supporters stormed the US Capitol. The formal process finally began this week, with White House staff pictured removing its current occupants' belongings - everything from paintings to a taxidermy pheasant. An Abraham Lincoln bust was carried out by hand by removal men, who shifted boxes of old newspaper copies of the New York Post and New York Times from Mr Trump's first term.
WorldAssociated PressChina builds new quarantine center as virus cases rise
A city in northern China is building a 3,000-unit quarantine facility to deal with an anticipated overflow of patients as COVID-19 cases rise ahead of the annual Lunar New Year travel rush. State media on Friday showed crews leveling earth, pouring concrete and assembling prefabricated rooms in farmland in an outlying part of Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei province, which has seen the bulk of the new cases. That recalled scenes from last year, when China rapidly built field hospitals and turned gymnasiums into isolation centers to cope with a then-spiraling outbreak in Wuhan, where the virus was first detected in late 2019.
PoliticsThe Daily BeastPeyote-Loving ‘QAnon Shaman’ Vowed to Attend Inauguration, Left Chilling Note for Pence: Docs
The so-called QAnon Shaman who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week in Viking garb before sitting in Vice President Mike Pence's chair on the Senate dais admitted to federal agents he intended to return to D.C. to “protest” President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration. “I'll still go, you better believe it,” Jacob Chansley bragged in an interview with FBI agents the day after the violent insurrection. The admission by Chansley, also known as Jake Angeli, is one of several that prosecutors detailed in an 18-page detention memo arguing for the 33-year-old Arizona man to be held before trial.
PoliticsThe WeekMelania Trump is reportedly more than ready to leave the White House
First lady Melania Trump is spending her final days in the White House packing, making photo albums, and counting down the minutes until she can move out, CNN reports. Since November, she has been overseeing the Trump family's move, deciding what will go to Mar-a-Lago in Florida and what will go into storage. With the help of White House staffers, she has been doing this stealthily, as to not upset President Trump — the official told CNN he really didn't think they would be moving, and it's a sensitive subject.
WorldAssociated PressGerman lockdown loopholes criticized as deaths hit new high
Germany has too many loopholes in its coronavirus lockdown rules, the head of the country's disease control agency said as figures published Thursday showed the highest number of daily deaths since the start of the pandemic. The Robert Koch Institute said 1,244 deaths from COVID-19 were confirmed in one day up to Thursday, taking the total number to 43,881. There were also 25,164 newly confirmed cases, putting Germany's total known infections close to 2 million.
WorldAssociated PressPfizer temporarily reduces European deliveries of vaccine
U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer confirmed Friday it will temporarily reduce deliveries to Europe of its COVID-19 vaccine while it upgrades production capacity to 2 billion doses per year. “This temporary reduction will affect all European countries,” a spokeswoman for Pfizer Denmark said in a statement to The Associated Press. Line Fedders said that to meet the new 2 billion dose target, Pfizer is upscaling production at its plant in Puurs, Belgium, which “presupposes adaptation of facilities and processes at the factory which requires new quality tests and approvals from the authorities.”
PoliticsBusiness InsiderWhy Congress can't categorically reject and overturn presidential election results in the future
In 2021, a record number of congressional Republicans voted to object to and reject slates of electors for President-elect Joe Biden after the pro-Trump insurrection that overtook the US Capitol. The episode prompted concerns that if a Democrat also won in 2024, for example, a Republican-controlled Congress could go through with fully rejecting a state's electors and even overturn an election. "There are very limited grounds on which a member of Congress can object to a state's determination," Adav Noti, director of trial litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, told Insider.
WorldAssociated PressN.Korea holds huge military parade as Kim vows nuclear might
North Korea displayed new submarine-launched ballistic missiles under development and other military hardware in a parade that underlined leader Kim Jong Un's defiant calls to expand the country's nuclear weapons program. State media said Kim took center stage in Thursday night's parade celebrating a major ruling party meeting in which he vowed maximum efforts to bolster the nuclear and missile program that threatens Asian rivals and the American homeland to counter what he described as U.S. hostility. During an eight-day Workers' Party congress that ended Tuesday, Kim also revealed plans to salvage the nation's economy, hit by U.S.-led sanctions over his nuclear ambitions, pandemic-related border closures and natural disasters that wiped out crops.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderThe US government will spend $500,000 deep-cleaning the White House before Biden's inauguration
The White House will get a $500,000 deep-clean before President-elect Joe Biden moves in, CNN reported. "There's always been a deep clean between administrations, but we've never seen anything like this," presidential historian Kate Brower Andersen told ABC. The US government will spend almost $500,000 on a deep clean of the White House before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20, CNN reported, citing government contracts it had viewed.
EntertainmentArchitectural DigestIt's Playtime: 8 Beautiful Games for Grown-Ups
You'll love the twist these designers have put on old-school entertainment Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
WorldReutersU.S. commission says China possibly committed 'genocide' against Xinjiang Muslims
China has possibly committed "genocide" in its treatment of Uighurs and other minority Muslims in its western region of Xinjiang, a bipartisan commission of the U.S. Congress said in a report on Thursday. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) said new evidence had emerged in the past year that "crimes against humanity - and possibly genocide - are occurring" in Xinjiang. It also accused China of harassing Uighurs in the United States.
U.S.Business InsiderUS military has 'failed' to counter white nationalism in its ranks, lawmakers say
Democratic lawmakers are urging the Defense Department to "immediately" investigate extremist activity within the US military and implement a plan to prevent the ideology from further spreading within its ranks. "As you are aware, several insurrectionists who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 have been identified as active duty service members, reservists, retirees, and veterans," fourteen US Senators said in a letter to the acting inspector general of the Defense Department. The letter comes in the wake of the Capitol Hill siege that has so far claimed the lives of five people, including one police officer.
PoliticsAssociated PressPence calls VP-elect Kamala Harris to offer congratulations
Vice President Mike Pence has called his soon-to-be successor Kamala Harris to offer his congratulations, according to two people familiar with the conversation. President Donald Trump has not reached out to President-elect Joe Biden or invited him to the White House, and has instead spent the weeks since he lost the Nov. 3 election holed up at the White House, trying to undermine the legitimacy of Biden's win with baseless claims of mass voter fraud that culminated in last week's violent storming of the Capitol building. Pence, who didn't speak with Trump for days after the siege, has become an unexpected — albeit late — defender of Biden's win.
“If you’re looking to win elections, it is probably best not to urge your supporters not to vote.”
“Warnock’s portrayal of himself as a dog lover, a means of overcoming white suspicions of Black men, smacked of pure genius.”
“Trump has done damage to the Republican brand among suburban voters that goes well beyond just races where he is on the ballot.”
“Once more, Democrats must profusely thank activist Stacey Abrams.”
“Overall, demographic trends show that the state’s electorate is becoming younger and more diverse each year.”