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  • Analysis: Biden faces calls to jumpstart North Korea talks with more pragmatic goals

    With U.S. policy toward North Korea in limbo as the new administration in Washington conducts a months-long policy review, former officials and experts are sparring over whether to shift focus from seeking the North's full denuclearisation. The administration of President Joe Biden says its review of North Korea policy will be finished in coming months, before announcing its plans for handling a rolling crisis that has bedevilled generations of U.S. presidents.

  • IG faults Elaine Chao at Transportation over ethics concerns

    The Transportation Department’s watchdog asked the Justice Department to criminally investigate Elaine Chao late last year over concerns that she misused her office when she was transportation secretary under President Donald Trump but was rebuffed, according to a report released Wednesday. The report said the department’s inspector general found that Chao used her staff and office for personal tasks and to promote a shipping business owned by Chao’s father and sisters, in an apparent violation of federal ethics rules. Chao, the wife of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, stepped down from her job early this year in the last weeks of the Trump administration, citing her disapproval over the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by Trump’s supporters.

  • SpaceX Starship lands upright, then explodes in latest test

    SpaceX’s futuristic Starship looked like it aced a touchdown Wednesday, but then exploded on the landing pad with so much force that it was hurled into the air. The failure occurred just minutes after SpaceX declared success. The full-scale prototype of Elon Musk's envisioned Mars ship soared more than 6 miles (10 kilometers) after lifting off from the southern tip of Texas on Wednesday.

  • Israel accuses Iran of deliberately spilling oil to pollute its shores, calling it 'environmental terror'

    More than 90% of Israel's 120-mile Mediterranean coastline was covered in an estimated 1,000 tons of black tar due to the spill.

  • QAnon influencers are attacking their movement's hyped March 4 event, calling it a false flag conspiracy theory

    QAnon planned for March 4 as its next big date. The movement's influencers are already looking forward to the next goal post.

  • Palace to investigate after Meghan accused of bullying staff

    Buckingham Palace said Wednesday it was launching an investigation after a newspaper reported that a former aide had made a bullying allegation against the Duchess of Sussex. The Times of London reported allegations that the duchess drove out two personal assistants and left staff feeling “humiliated.” It said an official complaint was made by Jason Knauf, then the communications secretary to Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry.

  • Washington replacing cheerleading team with coed dance team

    Washington will not have cheerleaders for the first time since the NFL’s longest-running cheerleading team was founded in 1962, with a coed dance team taking its place. The move is part of the organization's rebranding effort and not related to a confidential settlement reached with members of the 2008 and 2010 cheerleading teams. Lawyers for the team and those cheerleaders told The Associated Press last month that “the matter has been resolved” but would not say when the settlement was reached.

  • Meghan Markle wore earrings from Mohammed bin Salman 3 weeks after Saudi agents murdered Jamal Khashoggi, report says

    Markle was unaware of the rumors that the Saudi crown prince could be connected to the killing when she wore the earrings, a source told Insider.

  • Turkey not necessarily seeking return to F-35 project: defence industry chief

    Turkey is not necessarily aiming to return to the U.S. F-35 fighter jet programme from which it was removed over its purchase of Russian defence systems, the Turkish defence industry chief said on Wednesday. He said the primary goal was for Turkey to get compensated for its losses. Ankara had ordered more than 100 F-35s and has been making parts for it but was removed from the programme in 2019 after it acquired Russian S-400 missile defence systems, which Washington says threaten the jets.

  • 3 Myanmar policemen cross into India seeking refuge

    Police in India’s northeastern Mizoram state said Thursday they have detained three Myanmar policemen who entered India seeking refuge a month after the country’s powerful military ousted the elected government of leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup. Police officer Lalnunzira, who uses one name, said the three men crossed into Indian territory near Lungkawlh village on Wednesday afternoon. The village is 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the border with Myanmar.

  • Eager to act, Biden and Democrats leave Republicans behind

    President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress are jamming their agenda forward with a sense of urgency, an unapologetically partisan approach based on the calculation that it’s better to advance the giant COVID-19 rescue package and other priorities than waste time courting Republicans who may never compromise. The pandemic is driving the crush of legislative action, but so are the still-raw emotions from the U.S. Capitol siege as well as the hard lessons of the last time Democrats had the sweep of party control of Washington. Republicans are mounting blockades of Biden’s agenda just as they did during the devastating 2009 financial crisis with Barack Obama.

  • Nearly 40 people killed in Myanmar's protests

    "Today was the bloodiest day since the coup happened on the 1st of February."Christine Schraner Burgener, The United Nation's special envoy for Myanmar, confirmed 38 people were killed in protests on Wednesday.It was the country's most violent day since demonstrations broke out against last month's military coup.Police and soldiers opened fire with live rounds in several towns and cities, witnesses said.Four children were among those killed, according to aid agency Save the Children and local media reported hundreds have been arrested.A 19-year-old woman, Kyal Sin, also known as 'Angel' was one of two shot in the second largest city Mandalay.Images showed her in the protests wearing a T-shirt that read 'Everything will be Ok.'One youth activist described in a message to Reuters that it was " horrific, it's a massacre."Wednesday's bloodletting more than doubled the death toll since protests began.A spokesman for the ruling military council did not respond to requests for comment.In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States was "appalled" by the increase in violence."We call on all countries to speak with one voice to condemn brutal violence by the Burmese military against its own people and to promote accountability for the military's actions that have led to the life loss of life of so many people in Burma."Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council is due on Friday to hold a closed session on Myanmar.

  • D.C. National Guard Chief: Trump Pentagon Screwed Up Riot Response

    Greg Nash/ReutersBureaucratic restrictions and public-relations concerns from the Army and top Trump administration Pentagon appointees unreasonably restrained the D.C. National Guard from responding to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, its commander testified to the Senate in a dramatic Wednesday session.The Guard commander, Major General William Walker, described receiving a “frantic” phone call from the then-head of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, shortly before 2 p.m., as the breach was underway.Yet because of the restrictions from Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, and the “best military advice” of senior Army officers, Walker and his 155 Guardsmen could not respond to the scene of the insurrection for another three hours and 19 minutes—restrictions Walker pointedly noted were not placed upon him during the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, D.C.Had Walker been able to deploy to the Capitol “immediately,” as he testified he wanted, around 2 p.m.—a process he said took less than 20 minutes—“that number could have made a difference,” Walker said. “We could have helped extend the perimeter and pushed back the crowd.”FBI Director Shoots Back, Insisting Bureau Shared Intel Ahead of Capitol InsurrectionIt was perhaps the most intense moment thus far in a series of Senate hearings on Jan. 6 that have prompted dueling claims of irresponsibility, recriminations that have focused overwhelmingly on security and intelligence failures, rather than the politicians who spread the inciting lie that the Democrats stole the presidential election and hailed the violent protest called for by President Donald Trump.Army and Pentagon officials have heard this critique from Walker in the press and pushed back on it. Yet it was clear at the hearing that even senior Republican senators considered the Pentagon’s restrictions on the D.C. National Guard unacceptable.Walker described pre-insurrection letters from McCarthy, relaying instructions from Miller—whom Trump installed atop the Pentagon shortly after losing the election—that withheld from Walker the issuance of “weapons, ammunition, batons, ballistic protection equipment, to include body armor.” He did not have preapproval to mobilize a quick-reaction force of 40 Guardsmen and found it “unusual” to be denied a typical commanders’ authority to protect his own forces.As well, Walker described an instruction that afternoon from McCarthy to provide a “concept of operations” for the Guard before getting approval to shift from backing up the D.C. police and relieving beleaguered Capitol Police officers. “In 19 years, I never had that before happen,” Walker told senators. In several instances that day, Walker acted on his own initiative to muster the quick-reaction force at the D.C. Armory and get his Guardsmen protective gear, ahead of the belated approval to deploy to the Capitol.Neither Miller nor McCarthy testified. Instead, a senior Pentagon civilian, Robert Salesses, was left to effectively testify that Walker was wrong.Walker testified that two Army three-star generals, Charles Flynn and Walter Piatt, told him on Jan. 6 afternoon phone calls that they advised against sending the Guard to the Capitol because it was a poor “optics” and “could incite the crowd.” Salesses stoically said that Piatt, who is not in the chain of command, told him he never “used the word ‘optics,’” which represents the second revision in Piatt’s story, as the Army general recently acknowledged he may have indeed used that word.Walker shot back: “There were people in the room with me on that call that heard what they heard.”But Salesses’ broader point was that the restrictions Miller placed on Walker were political. “There was a lot of things that happened in the spring the department was criticized for,” Salesses said, referring to the Pentagon’s use of the National Guard to suppress the Black Lives Matter protests in Washington.Yet Salesses, questioned by Republican senators, could not explain all the Pentagon restrictions on the National Guard.The National Guard was on the streets of D.C. on Jan. 6 to support the D.C. police, in an unarmed and unarmored fashion, at 30 city traffic-control points and six Metro stations. Walker said he had to seek approval from the Pentagon to accompany the police in moving a traffic point over by a single block. The quick-reaction force, stationed initially at Joint Base Andrews just outside the district, was “not [designed] to respond to the events of the Capitol,” Salesses pleaded. “I don’t know if that’s true,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) replied, quickly prompting Walker’s agreement.Salesses also had to concede that over a half-hour passed between his account of Miller finally authorizing the Guard deployment, at 4:32 p.m., and notifying Walker of that decision at 5:08 p.m. Asked what accounted for that delay by an incredulous Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Salesses said only, “Senator, it’s an issue.”“That’s a significant problem for the future,” Blunt said.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Former Pakistan PM wins Senate election in setback to gov't

    A former Pakistani prime minister Wednesday defeated a ruling party candidate in Senate elections in a major setback to the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, election authorities and opposition parties said. Yusuf Raza Gilani defeated the ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf party's Hafeez Sheikh, an adviser to Khan who was named finance minister in December 2020, Gilani received 169 votes to Sheikh's 164. Gilani's success suggested some ruling party lawmakers revolted and didn't vote for Sheikh for the key seat reserved for the capital Islamabad.

  • EU, under pressure over vaccine rollouts, considers switch to emergency approvals

    The European Commission said on Tuesday that it was considering emergency approvals for COVID-19 vaccines as a faster alternative to more rigorous conditional marketing authorisations which have been used so far. The move would mark a big shift in approach to vaccine approvals, as it would entail using a procedure that the EU had considered dangerous and that before the COVID-19 pandemic had been reserved for exceptional authorisation at national level of drugs for terminally ill patients, including cancer treatments. The potential change comes as the EU executive and the bloc's drug regulator come under increasing pressure for what some consider slow vaccine approvals, which have contributed to a slower rollout of COVID-19 shots in the 27-nation union, compared to the United States and former EU member Britain.

  • Angelina Jolie sells Winston Churchill painting for record £7m

    The Tower Of The Koutoubia Mosque, owned by the actress, is sold to an unidentified buyer.

  • Mitch McConnell on Donald Trump: We're looking to the 'future,' not 'the past'

    The back-and-forth between Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell underscores GOP turmoil as they look to regain control of Congress and the White House.

  • 16 times brides looked stunning in daring wedding dresses

    See-through fabric, cutouts, bright colors, and backless designs made for some of the best daring wedding dresses.

  • Photos show North Korea may be trying to extract plutonium

    North Korea may be trying to extract plutonium to make more nuclear weapons at its main atomic complex, recent satellite photos indicated, weeks after leader Kim Jong Un vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal. The 38 North website, which specializes in North Korea studies, cited the imagery as indicating that a coal-fired steam plant at the North’s Yongbyon nuclear complex is in operation after about a two-year hiatus. This suggests “preparations for spent fuel reprocessing could be underway to extract plutonium needed for North Korea’s nuclear weapon,” the website said Wednesday.

  • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasts Democrats' last-minute compromise on stimulus checks as an 'own-goal'

    Other progressives criticized "Senate silliness." Biden struck a deal with Senate Democrats pushing to lower income thresholds for direct payments.