Those with pre-existing conditions hunt for vaccine appointment

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  • Trump State Department appointee Federico Klein arrested in connection with Capitol riots

    Federico Klein is believed to be the first Trump appointee to be charged in connection to the January 6 insurrection.

  • Netanyahu says SNL joke about Israel vaccine discrimination is ‘so outrageous’

    Israel lead the world in vaccinations per capita, but isn’t vaccinating Palestinians

  • It is hard to overstate just how unusual Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's media war with Buckingham Palace is

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  • Boris Johnson fails to replace adviser on ministerial standards amid growing cronyism allegations

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  • Italy blocks export of AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia as tensions rise over jab access

    Italy became the first country to impose an EU export ban on coronavirus vaccines on Thursday after blocking a shipment of 250,000 AstraZeneca jabs to Australia. Brussels introduced the export transparency regime during its row over supply shortfalls with the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company at the end of January. Under the new rules, manufacturers in the EU must ask national authorities in the country of production and the European Commission for permission to export vaccines outside the EU. EU allies including Britain, have raised concerns about the regime, which was a response to fears that vaccines bought by Brussels were being shipped elsewhere. Italy blocked the export of the vaccines and the commission did not raise any objections, the Financial Times reported. Rome notified Brussels of its decision at the end of last week. Mario Draghi, the Italian prime minister who took office in February, called for stricter export controls at an EU summit last month. He urged EU leaders to speed up vaccinations in the bloc in his first meeting of the bloc’s heads of state and government. AstraZeneca in January cut its supplies to the EU in the first quarter to 40 million doses from 90 million foreseen in the contract, and later said it would cut deliveries by another 50% in the second quarter.

  • Trump advisors are telling him to drop Pence for a Black or female VP in a potential 2024 run, report says

    Two advisors specifically singled out South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as a potential running mate in 2024.

  • Italy has blocked a shipment of COVID-19 vaccines for Australia as the EU escalates its row with AstraZeneca

    Italy has stopped Astrazeneca from exporting coronavirus vaccines to Australia as Europe struggles to secure supplies.

  • EU mulls retaliation against British exports and City over UK unilateral action in Northern Ireland

    Brussels could hit Britain with legal action, suspend the trade deal with the UK and block the City of London from the Single Market in retaliation for Boris Johnson's unilateral delaying of the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Mairead McGuinness, the EU financial services commissioner, said it was important to “send a message” to Britain about Brexit, as the fall-out from yesterday’s announcement that Britain would delay grace periods on checks on GB food imports to Northern Ireland continued. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, said the EU was negotiating with a “frustrating” partner “it simply couldn’t trust” and was being forced to resort to legal action becuase Britain had violated the terms of the Brexit agreement. “If the UK cannot simply be trusted because they take unilateral action in an unexpected way without negotiation, well then the British government leaves the EU with no option and that is not where we want to be," he told the RTE broadcaster. EU officials are mulling bringing lawsuits against the UK in the European Court of Justice, which retains jurisdiction over the Protocol. The commission last night accused the UK of threatening to break international law for the second time, referring to earlier threats to override the Withdrawal Agreement. The European Commission is considering triggering enforcement measures in the Withdrawal Agreement and the UK-EU trade deal. If Britain ignores the ruling of an arbitration panel, Brussels could suspend parts of the newly minted trade agreement, leaving British exports to the EU potentially facing tariffs. Such retaliation must be proportionate to the offence, which in the case of supermarket supplies to Northern Ireland, is likely to be limited. Ms McGuinness warned the unilateral move could have ramifications for ongoing “equivalence” negotiations aimed at granting UK financial services access to the EU’s Single Market. "Things like that don't help build trust," the Irish politician said at a Politico event in Brussels. Brussels has so far only granted equivalence to central securities depositories and clearing houses, which it sees as vital for EU financial stability. The UK granted EU firms equivalence in a slew of sectors in November last year. Britain has applied for 28 sectors to be granted equivalence but the commission has said it will only grant it once it has details of the UK’s future plans to diverge from EU rules. The commission has used equivalence as a political weapon in the past; freezing Swiss stock exchanges out of the Single Market in a bid to force Bern to the negotiating table over a new treaty. MEPs warned that they could refuse to ratify the provisionally applied trade deal with London, which will be subject to a European Parliament vote by the end of April. Christophe Hansen, a lead MEP on Brexit and the trade deal, tweeted, “if this is David Frost’s idea of showing that he is back to his old games, he should be mindful of the fact that the European Parliament has not ratified the [trade deal] yet.” That would be a nuclear option because it would force a damaging no deal Brexit, which would also hurt European businesses. In Northern Ireland, loyalist paramilitary organisations told Boris Johnson they are withdrawing support for the Good Friday Agreement in protest over the arrangements for post-Brexit trade in Northern Ireland. The outlawed groups said they were temporarily withdrawing their backing of the peace agreement amid mounting concerns about Northern Ireland Protocol.

  • Georgia governor says he would ‘absolutely’ back Trump as 2024 nominee despite former president’s calls for his resignation

    Brian Kemp says ‘the president deserves a lot of credit and he’s not going away’

  • Jeanine Pirro Accuses Immigrants of Bringing ‘All Kinds of Diseases’ Into U.S.

    Fox NewsDuring a shouting match with Geraldo Rivera on Fox News on Thursday night, Judge Jeanine Pirro went on a tirade that was shocking in its blatant racism—even for her. “We’ve got people being released at the border right now who’ve got COVID,” Pirro screamed at Rivera, who was attempting to push back on her argument. “Wait a minute, I listened to you, you listen to me! They’ve got COVID! They’ve got all kinds of diseases! They are being released into the United States!”“Now, you’re not going to tell me that a governor is going to shut me down and not allow me to do my job and let in illegals because we’ve got a heart? Mexico ought to have a heart!”Maybe only drink half of the box of wine next time pic.twitter.com/n9IC7UCw7D— Acyn (@Acyn) March 5, 2021 The host’s comments were reminiscent of ones made by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that set off a major firestorm and advertiser boycott in late 2018. “It’s indefensible, so nobody even tries to defend it,” Carlson said at the time of policies that would allow immigrants into the country. “Instead, our leaders demand that you shut up and accept this. We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poor and dirtier and more divided.”A few months after that, Pirro was suspended by Fox News for questioning the patriotism of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). “Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Shariah law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?” Pirro asked on her Saturday night show. After an outcry from advertisers, Fox temporarily took her off the schedule. Drunk Fox News Host Jeanine Pirro Chugs Bleach on SNL 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.

  • Pelosi: National Guard should stay long as needed

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the National Guard troops protecting the Capitol should stay as long as they are needed amid a new threat of another mob attack. (March 4)

  • Clergy leads rare Christian revival in Iraqi town

    Mazen Shemes's nine-year-old son was killed by a mortar as Islamic State advanced across northern Iraq in 2014.That night, the family buried him and fled Qaraqosh, a Christian enclave near Mosul, along with thousands of others.Five years later, the farmer is back on his land, replanting trees and coaxing it back to life.His community is growing back too, encouraged by an active local clergy, which helped Shemes and others rebuild."When we came back, we filed an application at the church, we went to Father Georges, and they finished our house."Pope Francis will visit Qaraqosh on Sunday (March 7), as part of a four-day tour of Iraq, the first ever by a pope.About half the town's Christians have returned, a rare ray of hope for a community devastated by years of Islamist violence.That's down to church leaders, who hatched a plan to encourage families back to the town of 50,000 people, by rebuilding houses first, then churches.Funds came mainly from Christian organisations abroad. Father Georges Jahola was put in charge."We have this piece of land. We have inherited this small patch of land from our ancestors. If we lose it, we lose our identity."Qaraqosh boasts the Grand Immaculate Church, Iraq's biggest, restored now after it was damaged and burned.Pope Francis's visit is a source of pride for a community that remains vulnerable.And morale was high for the volunteers who danced and sang as they cleaned and decorated it in preparation.

  • FBI: Trump appointee arrested in connection with Capitol riot

    Federico Klein, a former State Department aide who worked on former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, was arrested Thursday on charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the FBI announced Thursday night. This is the first known instance of a Trump appointee facing prosecution in connection with the attack, Politico reports. An FBI Washington Field Office spokeswoman told Politico that Klein, 42, was taken into custody in Virginia, but did not release any information on the charges against him. Federal Election Commission records show Klein worked as a tech analyst for the 2016 Trump campaign, Politico says, and after the election he was hired at the State Department. A federal directory from last summer lists Klein as a special assistant in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, making him a "Schedule C" political appointee, Politico reports. On Jan. 6, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Biden's victory. Klein's mother, Cecilia, told Politico on Thursday night that he told her he was in Washington, D.C., on the day of the riot, and "as far as I know, he was on the Mall." She is a retired economist and trade official, and told Politico because of their different views, she rarely spoke about Trump or politics with her son. "Fred's politics burn a little hot," she said. "But I've never known him to violate the law." More stories from theweek.comWhy the Dr. Seuss 'cancellation' is chilling7 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's CPAC appearanceThe Republican grievance perpetual motion machine

  • Alicia Vikander ate 1,900 calories a day on the keto diet to lose weight for 'Tomb Raider'

    Alicia Vikander followed the keto diet because she was traveling so was unable to track her meals, and ate 1,900 calories a day to lose fat.

  • Witness debunks Democrat myth of 'armed insurrection' at Capitol

    Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald joins Laura Ingraham to discuss rising concern over FBI's tracking of Americans

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  • 16 of the most controversial celebrity interviews of all time

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  • U.S. blacklists key Myanmar military businesses

    The United States unveiled new measures on Thursday to punish Myanmar's army for its coup.The action includes blocking top military conglomerates and the ministries of defense and home affairs from certain types of trade.Sources told Reuters the U.S. has also indefinitely frozen $1 billion in funds, which Myanmar's military rulers attempted to withdraw from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.Washington is also introducing export restrictions, requiring U.S. suppliers to seek hard-to-obtain licenses to ship Myanmar's military certain items.The new measures come as the military intensifies its crackdown on peaceful protesters, who have taken to the streets almost every day since Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government was overthrown on February 1.More than 1,700 people have been arrested, including 29 journalists, and at least 54 people have been killed, according to the United Nations.President Joe Biden slapped sanctions on Myanmar last month, including the defense minister and three companies in the jade and gems sector.In a statement on Thursday, the U.S. Commerce Department said that it will not continue allowing Myanmar's military to benefit from access to many items.Advocacy group Justice For Myanmar said on Tuesday that the Ministry of Home Affairs, which commands the police, had purchased American technology that was being used for social media surveillance.The two conglomerates being targeted, Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited, are also used by the military to control vast swathes of the country's economy, with holdings ranging from beer and cigarettes to tires, mining and real estate.But the new measures are expected to have limited impact, as the U.S. ships little to Myanmar annually, and the targeted entities are not major importers.

  • 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.

  • The Same Hate That Targeted Muslims Is Turning on Asian Americans Now

    Ron Adar / SOPA Images / APEarlier this week, House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy used the House floor to falsely blame Democrats for trying to cancel and “outlaw” Dr. Seuss, a dead author whose best-selling children’s books are still available to read. The decision to stop publishing six of his old, racist books was in fact made by the publisher and his estate, which admitted the books “portray people”—including Asians—"in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”Still, the rage of frenzied masses who are still mourning the loss of Potato Head’s pronouns but are fine canceling democratic elections had to be satiated with another straw man to shoot.Unfortunately, some of them are aiming at Asian American communities across the country, who are enduring a stunning spike in violent attacks. I didn’t hear McCarthy rage about more than 3,000 incidents that have been reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a California-based reporting center for Asian American Pacific Islanders, or the 150 percent increase over the previous year in anti-Asian American hate crimes in 16 of the country’s most populous cities in 2020.Sen. Tom Cotton promised to “take a very hard look” as to why we are giving visas to Chinese students. I haven’t heard Cotton plan to “take a very hard look” at what compelled a man to almost stab to death a father and his two young boys a year ago in a grocery store in Midland, Texas after he falsely accused them of being from China. The man, who is now visibly scarred, is from Myanmar.You might be wondering why I, a Muslim son of Pakistani immigrants, am using my column to discuss hate against another ethnic community. It’s because I’ve been through it. In 2021, my Muslim and South Asian communities are still told to “go back to our country.” We just endured a Trump administration that ran on and enacted a “Muslim Ban.” Twenty years after 9/11, our acceptance is still conditional and under permanent surveillance. To some, we are perpetual suspects and villains, “invaders” on a caravan along with undocumented immigrants, who will “replace” and cancel real American culture, which apparently includes racist children’s books. Hate doesn’t require logic, it feeds on fear, misinformation, and anger.When I read about the elderly Thai man recently killed in San Francisco, I remembered Balbir Singh Sodhi, the first victim of a post-9/11 hate crime. He was a bearded Sikh man who wore a turban and ran a gas station in Arizona, whose murderer boasted that he was “going to go out and shoot some towel-heads.” Bigots and white supremacists are not nuanced in their hate, and all of us who will never achieve whiteness will always be in their target sights.“After 9/11, Muslims in America knew what it felt like to wear an Away jersey in their Home country. Now in the aftermath of COVID-19, we are seeing racial discrimination, targeting, bullying, and a rise in hate crimes towards our Asian American brothers and sisters,” comedian and actor Hasan Minhaj told me. He believes Muslim communities have a responsibility to look out for and protect Asian Americans who currently “feel terrified, scared, and vulnerable to go out in public.”President Trump and his federal officials repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus” or the “Kung Flu.” Since then, Asian Americans have been spit on, yelled at, pushed, and attacked since the beginning of COVID-19. They’ve been made scapegoats for a virus that has no ethnicity, gender, religion, or political ideology.However, graphic novelist Thi Bui, who came to America with her family as a refugee from Vietnam, said what’s being lost in the current conversation is that this hate isn’t a new phenomenon. “I guess I’d like to remind people who are newly sensitized to anti-Asian violence and want to do something about it that there is a long and documented history of anti-Asian violence in the U.S., going back to the angry mobs and exclusionary immigration policies of the 1800s,” she told me.In fact, one of the first immigration laws to be passed in this country was the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited all legal immigration of Chinese laborers due to the “economic anxiety” of white workers at the time and the promotion of dangerous myths and stereotypes that portrayed Chinese and Asian immigrants as a “Yellow Peril” who would replace and conquer Western civilization.Bigots aren’t original thinkers and often recycle the same material in the 21st century. These same gross stereotypes and fears persisted and were used to imprison nearly 120,000 innocent American citizens of Japanese descent in “relocation centers” across the Western states under the pretext of national security. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, these fellow Americans without whiteness became “them” overnight. “Jap hunting licenses” began circulating around the country, and in a 1944 opinion poll, 13 percent of the public was fine with exterminating all Japanese people.Actor Kumail Nanjiani, originally an immigrant, empathizes with what’s happening to Asian American communities. He said Trump’s hateful “rhetoric does not happen in a vacuum. It affects the lives of actual people,” mentioning his Pakistani family members are viewed as suspects by neighbors who’ve known them for 20 years. He’s also critical of Hollywood's representation of Asians and South Asians in general that has mainstreamed these villainous stereotypes. Historically, he told me, “we are either sexless/non-threatening nerds or murderous terrorists with nothing in between. We either play the model minority or the worst of humanity.” In If I Ran the Zoo, one of the six Dr. Seuss books that will no longer be published, an illustration depicts a white boy holding a large gun while standing on the head of three Asian Men. Subtle.The model minority myth that Nanjiani mentioned has been one of the enduring and harmful tools used by white supremacy as a wedge to divide communities of color. It flattens the ethnic diversity and economic challenges faced by Asian and South Americans, in particular, and instead elevates us as the ideal immigrant and American minority that should be emulated by all others. We allegedly work hard, don't complain, succeed through grit, pursue academic and economic excellence, and never complain, all while being politically neutered and smiling through the pain. We are used to systemic racism and discrimination against Blacks and Latinos. America asks, “why can’t they be ‘models’ like us?”It should come as no surprise that the corrupted Department of Justice under Bill Barr used Asian American candidates to attack affirmative action in their case against Yale University, which has since been dropped by the Biden DOJ.Megan Black, who heads the Common Good program at the Western States Center, told me it’s “heartbreaking but unsurprising” to see that some of the assailants of Asian Americans have been Black and people of color. She told me the recent spike in anti-Asian violence tracks a similar rise in anti-Semitic violence. “Blame the Jew,” she said, becomes a “disturbingly effective decoy tactic that has a track record of successfully distracting and dismantling racial solidarity efforts, leaving the actual perpetrators of white supremacist power untouched while putting Jews and Jewish communities at risk.” She says “Blame China” rhetoric, which has become so prominent in our political discourse over the past few years, is simply following the same playbook with the same results.Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is not having any of the divide and conquer tactics, and instead urges communities of color to stand in solidarity with Asian Americans. Omar is a Black Muslim woman who wears a hijab and is a former refugee, and as such has emerged as the ideal bogeyman for the right-wing and a frequent target of their hate. She was also told by President Trump to go back to where she came from. “There is a concerted effort by white nationalists to target and divide minority communities by pitting us against each other,” she told me. “We must remember that our destinies are tied. An attack on one community is an attack on all.”Bui agrees, but she believes that in order to truly address the violence, we have to speak out about root causes and name them. For her, this includes white supremacy, “the common foe” of all our communities, but also chaotic political leadership, income inequality, and a meager social safety net that creates conditions where people of color, who should be allies, turn on each other. With this divided Congress that can barely pass a stimulus package during a crippling pandemic, that’s a tall order. Still, in a welcomed relief compared to Trump’s persistent racism, President Biden in late January signed an executive action asking the Justice Department to combat xenophobia and hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.But in the end, as always, it’s up to us. All of us. At the very least, we have to do our part to stand up and speak out against this rising, organized hate, which has Republican champions in Congress and on Fox News, and work towards creating an America where an Asian American child and senior citizen can walk the streets and be fully seen and embraced as “us.”Don’t take my word for it. Since America is currently obsessed with Dr. Seuss, maybe it’ll be more helpful if you just listen to the Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”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.