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  • Trump inadvertently boosts Biden's stimulus messaging with another statement raging against McConnell

    Former President Donald Trump has released a new post-presidency statement, and Democrats might just be glad he did. The former president, who remains permanently banned from Twitter, released a statement Thursday once again raging against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), blasting him as the "most unpopular politician in the country" while blaming him for Republicans' Senate losses in Georgia — losses for which Trump himself has been blamed by other Republicans. One of the reasons Republicans lost the two Georgia Senate runoffs in January, Trump argues, was "Mitch McConnell's refusal to go above $600 per person on the stimulus check payments when the two Democrat opponents were touting $2,000 per person in ad after ad." The statement offered "quite the pre-stimulus political gift to Democrats," wrote National Journal's Josh Kraushaar, while The Washington Post's Dave Weigel noted that Trump "remarkably" used this opportunity to "validate Biden's messaging on the $1,400 checks instead of whacking him and Democrats for curtailing them." Remarkably, Trump also uses this statement to validate Biden's messaging on the $1400 checks instead of whacking him and Democrats for curtailing them. "The $2000 will be approved anyway by the Democrats." https://t.co/M9dXoX13VS — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 4, 2021 Indeed, Trump writes that "the $2,000 will be approved anyway by the Democrats," while offering no comment on the fact that the new checks are actually for $1,400, nor on Biden's recent compromise that narrows the eligibility. Politico's Gabby Orr observed that Trump "could have put out a statement saying the income phase-outs in the Biden stimulus bill are going to mean he gave checks to more Americans," but "instead he's still targeting his own party with stuff like this." This was just Trump's latest statement in this vein after he released another one last month describing McConnell as an "unsmiling political hack." He also mentioned McConnell in a recent Conservative Political Action Conference speech, in which he took credit for McConnell's recent re-election. McConnell told Fox News he "didn't watch" the speech and that "we're dealing with the present and the future, not looking back to the past." More stories from theweek.com7 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's CPAC appearanceThe Republican grievance perpetual motion machineTrump wants revenge on Alaska's Sen. Murkowski. His advisers think he won't follow through because the flight is too long.

  • Porsche just debuted a taller, more rugged Taycan EV with matching e-bikes - tour the $91,000 Cross Turismo

    Porsche calls it a crossover, but we all know the 2021 Taycan Cross Turismo for what it is: an all-electric wagon. It also has matching e-bikes.

  • Trump served with lawsuit accusing him of breaking ‘Ku Klux Klan’ laws on day of Capitol riot

    NAACP accuses Trump of disenfranchising Black voters and trying to ‘destroy democracy’

  • Pakistani PM to seek vote of trust from parliament this week

    Pakistan’s prime minister said Thursday he will seek a vote of confidence from the National Assembly this weekend to prove that he still has the support of majority lawmakers in the house despite the surprising and politically embarrassing defeat of his ruling party’s key candidate in Senate elections. Prime Minister Imran Khan made the announcement in a televised address to the nation, alleging that some lawmakers from his ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf party had been bribed by the opposition to vote for former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in the Senate elections on Wednesday. Gilani defeated Hafeez Sheikh, the finance minister in Khan's Cabinet, in the vote, which was seen as a test for Khan who came to power in the 2018 parliamentary elections.

  • Philippine journalist Ressa takes stand to rebut gov't tax evasion lawsuits

    Veteran Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, who runs a website known for its tough scrutiny of President Rodrigo Duterte, took the witness stand for the first time on Thursday to counter tax evasion charges that she maintains were politically motivated. Ressa, a Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2018 for fighting media intimidation, is facing several government lawsuits that have stoked international concern about harassment of journalists in the Philippines, a country once seen as a standard bearer for press freedom in Asia. Speaking to reporters after testifying for two and a half hours in Manila, Ressa asked the government to allow journalists to work freely and independently.

  • Hundreds of fake COVID-19 vaccines seized in South Africa, Interpol says

    South African police have seized hundreds of fake COVID-19 vaccines and arrested four suspects in connection with the haul, the Interpol global police co-ordination agency said. This comes after Interpol, which is headquartered in France, issued a global alert in December to law enforcement across its 194 member countries, warning them to prepare for organised crime networks targeting COVID-19 vaccines, both physically and online. Some 400 ampoules - equivalent to about 2,400 doses - containing the fake vaccine were found at a warehouse in Germiston, east of Johannesburg, where officers also recovered a large quantity of fake 3M masks, the agency said on Wednesday on its website.

  • New Zealand man charged over threats to Christchurch mosques

    A New Zealand man is facing criminal charges after allegedly posting online threats against two Christchurch mosques that were the sites of a terrorist attack that left 51 people dead. Police on Thursday arrested the 27-year-old man and charged him with threatening to kill. Police Superintendent John Price told reporters the threats were made earlier this week on the website 4chan, which has been used as a forum in the past by white supremacists.

  • Republicans Won Blue-Collar Votes. They're Not Offering Much in Return.

    As the election returns rolled in showing President Donald Trump winning strong support from blue-collar voters in November while suffering historic losses in suburbs across the country, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican, declared on Twitter: “We are a working class party now. That’s the future.” And with further results revealing that Trump had carried 40% of union households and made unexpected inroads with Latinos, other Republican leaders, including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, trumpeted a political realignment. Republicans, they said, were accelerating their transformation into the party of Sam’s Club rather than the country club. But since then, Republicans have offered very little to advance the economic interests of blue-collar workers. Two major opportunities for party leaders to showcase their priorities have unfolded recently without a nod to working Americans. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times In Washington, as Democrats advance a nearly $2 trillion economic stimulus bill, they are facing universal opposition from congressional Republicans to the package, which is chock-full of measures to benefit struggling workers a full year into the coronavirus pandemic. The bill includes $1,400 checks to middle-income Americans and extended unemployment benefits, which are set to lapse on March 14. And at a high-profile, high-decibel gathering of conservatives in Florida last weekend, potential 2024 presidential candidates, including Hawley and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, scarcely mentioned a blue-collar agenda. They used their turns in the national spotlight to fan grievances about “cancel culture,” to bash the tech industry and to reinforce Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. Inside and outside the party, critics see a familiar pattern: Republican officials, following Trump’s own example, are exploiting the cultural anger and racial resentment of a sizable segment of the white working class, but have not made a concerted effort to help these Americans economically. “This is the identity conundrum that Republicans have,” said Carlos Curbelo, a Republican former congressman from Florida, pointing to the universal opposition by House Republicans to the stimulus bill drawn up by President Biden and congressional Democrats. “This is a package that Donald Trump would have very likely supported as president.” “Here is the question for the Rubios and the Hawleys and the Cruzes and anyone else who wants to capitalize on this potential new Republican coalition,” Curbelo added. “Eventually, if you don’t take action to improve people’s quality of life, they will abandon you.” Some Republicans have sought to address the strategic problem. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah put forward one of the most ambitious GOP initiatives aimed at struggling Americans, a measure to fight child poverty by sending parents up to $350 a month per child. But fellow Republicans rebuffed the plan as “welfare.” Hawley has matched a Democratic proposal for a $15 minimum wage, but with the caveat that it applies only to businesses with annual revenues above $1 billion. Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster whose clients have included Rubio, was critical of Democrats for not seeking a compromise on the stimulus after a group of GOP senators offered a smaller package. “Seven Republican senators voted to convict a president of their own party,” he said, referring to Trump’s impeachment. “If you can’t get any of them on a COVID program, you’re not trying real hard.” As the COVID-19 relief package, which every House Republican voted down, makes its way through the Senate this week, Republicans are expected to offer further proposals aimed at struggling Americans. Ayres said that the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, last weekend, the first major party gathering since Trump left office, had been a spectacularly missed opportunity in its failure to include meaningful discussion of policies for blue-collar voters. Instead, the former president advanced an intraparty civil war by naming in his speech on Sunday a hit list of every Republican who voted to impeach him. “You’d better be spending a lot more time developing an economic agenda that benefits working people than re-litigating a lost presidential election,” Ayres said. “The question is, how long will it take the Republicans to figure out that driving out heretics rather than winning new converts is a losing strategy right now?” Separately, one of the highest-profile efforts to lift blue-collar workers in the country was underway this week in Alabama, where nearly 6,000 workers at an Amazon warehouse are voting on whether to unionize. On Sunday, the pro-union workers got a boost in a video from Biden. Representatives for Hawley — who has been one of the leading Republican champions of a working-class realignment — did not respond to a request for comment about where he stands on the issue. The 2020 election continued a long-term trend in which the parties have essentially swapped voters, with Republicans gaining with blue-collar workers, while white-collar suburbanites moved toward the Democrats. The idea of “Sam’s Club conservatives,” which was floated about 15 years ago by former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, recognized a constituency of populist Republicans who favored a higher minimum wage and government help for struggling families. Trump turned out historic levels of support for a Republican among white working-class voters. But once in office, his biggest legislative achievement was a tax cut in which most benefits went to corporations and the wealthy. Oceans of ink have been spilled over whether the white working class’ devotion to Trump had more to do with economic anxiety or with anger toward “elites” and racial minorities, especially immigrants. For many analysts, the answer is that it had to do with both. His advancement of policies to benefit working-class Americans was frequently chaotic and left unresolved. Manufacturing jobs, which had continued their slow recovery since the 2009 financial crisis, flatlined under Trump in the year before the pandemic hit. The former president’s bellicose trade war with China hit American farmers so hard economically that they received large bailouts from taxpayers. “There was never a program to deal with the types of displacements going on,” said John Russo, a former co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University in Ohio. He projects that once the economy snaps back to pre-pandemic levels, blue-collar Americans will be worse off, because employers will have accelerated automation and will continue workforce reductions adopted during the pandemic. “Neither party is talking about that,” Russo said. “I think that by 2024, that’s going to be a key issue.” It’s possible that Republicans who are not prioritizing economic issues are accurately reading their base. A survey last month by the GOP pollster Echelon Insights found that the top concerns of Republican voters were mainly cultural ones: illegal immigration, lack of support for the police, high taxes and “liberal bias in mainstream media.” Despite Biden’s campaign framing him as “middle-class Joe” from Scranton, Pennsylvania, as a candidate he made only slight inroads into Trump’s support with white voters without college degrees, which disappointed Democratic strategists and party activists. In exit polls, these voters preferred Trump over Biden by 35 percentage points. Among voters of color without a college degree, Trump won one out of four votes, an improvement from 2016, when he won one in five of their votes. His inroads with Latinos in South Florida and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas especially shocked many Democrats, and it spurred Rubio to tweet that the future of the GOP was “a party built on a multi-ethnic multi-racial coalition of working AMERICANS.” After the Trump presidency, it is an open question whether any other Republican candidates can win the same intensity of blue-collar support. “Whatever your criticisms are of Trump — and I have a lot — clearly he was able to connect to those people and they voted for him,” said Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, a Democrat from the Youngstown area. Ryan is gearing up to run in 2022 for an open Senate seat in Ohio. He agrees with Trump about taking on China, but faults him for not following up his tough language with sustained policies. “I think there’s an opportunity to have a similar message but a real agenda,” he said. As for Republican presidential candidates aspiring to inherit Trump’s working-class followers, Ryan saw only dim prospects for them, especially if they continued to reject the Biden stimulus package, which passed the House and is now before the Senate. “The COVID-19 relief bill was directly aimed at the struggles of working-class people,” Ryan said, adding that Republicans voting against the package were “in for a rude awakening.” Perhaps. A Monmouth University poll on Wednesday found that 6 in 10 Americans supported the $1.9 trillion package in its current form, especially the $1,400 checks to people at certain income levels. But Republicans who vote it down may not pay a political price, said Patrick Murray, the poll’s director. “They know that the checks will reach their base regardless, and they can continue to rail against Democratic excesses,” he said. “There would only be a problem if they somehow managed to sink the bill,” he added. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company

  • 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.

  • Scottish leader fights back in row with ex-mentor that threatens independence drive

    Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon on Wednesday defended her handling of sexual harassment complaints against her predecessor Alex Salmond in high-stakes testimony on an issue that threatens to scupper her dream of leading Scotland to independence. Describing the feud with Salmond as "one of the most invidious political and personal situations" she had ever faced, Sturgeon denied Salmond's accusations that she had plotted against him and misled the Scottish parliament. The feud between the pair, once close friends and powerful allies in the cause of Scottish independence, has reached fever pitch in recent weeks, threatening the electoral prospects of the Scottish National Party (SNP) at a crucial time.

  • Ryan Thomas quits acting after 'losing the bug for it'

    The former Coronation Street star says he was tired of being rejected for roles and of online trolls.

  • Northern Irish loyalist paramilitaries withdraw support for 1998 peace deal

    Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary groups have told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson they are temporarily withdrawing support for the 1998 peace agreement due to concerns over the Brexit deal. While the groups pledged "peaceful and democratic" opposition to the deal, such a stark warning increases the pressure on Johnson, his Irish counterpart Micheál Martin and the European Union over Brexit. Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace deal, known as the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement, ended three decades of violence between mostly Catholic nationalists fighting for a united Ireland and mostly Protestant unionists, or loyalists, who want Northern Ireland to stay part of the United Kingdom.

  • Rudy Giuliani, who helped lead Trump's bogus election-fraud conspiracy theory, is being mocked after warning of the dangers of misinformation

    After spending months pushing Trump's election fraud conspiracy theory, Giuliani unexpectedly warned of the dangers of misinformation.

  • Ex-Fox News Women Slam Jesse Watters for Victim-Blaming Cuomo Harassment Accusers

    John Lamparski/GettyFox News’ resident macho man Jesse Watters—who built his professional reputation, such as it is, by stalking liberals on camera, many of them women, on behalf of his predatory boss Bill O’Reilly—received a rhetorical slap in the face Thursday for his recommendation that women solve the problem of workplace sexual harassment simply by slapping their male harassers.“I would suggest that women—and I’ve gotten in trouble for saying this before—you slap the man in the face. And you do it immediately,” Watters opined on Wednesday’s episode of The Five during a discussion of the sexual harassment and unwanted touching allegations against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “Because if you wait too long, the politician feels like he can keep doing this, and it doesn’t matter if it comes out a year or three years later. Do it immediately. When he’s fresh.”Several former Fox News women, who received monetary settlements and left the company after being targeted by harassers at the Donald Trump-friendly channel, reacted to Watters’ prescription with withering disgust.“Women all across America are very pleased to have Jesse Watters mansplain to them,” former Fox News political analyst Julie Roginsky told The Daily Beast, “but Jesse Watters might have observed while working for two harassers [late Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes and O’Reilly] that women are already facing the risk of professional retaliation by not going along with the harasser’s wishes.”Roginsky—who left Fox News in 2017 after settling a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against the company, Ailes, and his deputy Bill Shine—added, “If the women got violent with the harasser their career would be over. Many are bound by forced arbitrations and NDAs at the start of their jobs. They couldn’t tell their stories. The better suggestion from Jesse is to put the onus on his fellow men to not harass women.”Ed Henry’s Accusers Say His Behavior Was an Open Secret at Fox NewsFormer Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, whose July 2016 sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes resulted in his being ousted in disgrace, agreed.“Suggesting that women should slap their perpetrator is re-victimizing the victim in the sense they should fix the problem they have nothing to do with,” Carlson told The Daily Beast. “The responsibility to stop harassment, primarily a man’s issue, should not fall on a woman to fix it. It’s similar to other excuses that women should leave their jobs or move to another department rather than looking at the real problem. It’s another cover-your-ass reaction rather than working to fix the problem.”In a tweet, she added, “Not to mention how idiotic it is to assume slapping a predator would somehow change them. And that it should be up to the woman to slap instead of predatory to just not harass.”In an emailed response to The Daily Beast, Watters said he had been misunderstood: “This kind of predatory behavior needs to stop immediately and it’s 100% the harasser’s responsibility to stop it. My intention was to defend victims and hold inappropriate politicians accountable—any suggestion otherwise is a misinterpretation of what I said.”Other women who spoke to The Daily Beast about Watters’ remark—several of whom signed non-disclosure agreements as part of cash settlements of lawsuits—asked to remain anonymous in order to avoid potential retaliation by Fox News Media or its parent company Fox Corp.“It is simple to say ‘just slap him in the face,’ and while that might garner the woman short-term cheers, it would almost inevitably condemn her professional career, especially in broadcasting,” said one former Fox on-air personality. “If every man at Fox who made inappropriate comments was slapped at that moment, you would have a lot of red-faced men walking around the network. And, sadly, the women would never be allowed past security again to see.”This woman added, “It is odd to see Fox take such an aggressive position regarding Gov. Cuomo, rallying for him to resign. This, as Fox continues to put multiple hosts and contributors on air who have been proven to do the same if not worse than the accusations against Cuomo.”A second woman cited the 42-year-old Watters’ reported history of divorcing his then-wife Noelle in March 2019 after engaging in an extramarital affair with his 26-year-old associate producer, now-wife Emma DiGiovine. The officiant at their December 2019 wedding was then-Fox News anchor Ed Henry, who was fired last year as a Fox Business producer filed a graphic lawsuit accusing Henry of sexual abuse.“A man [Jesse Watters] who had an affair with a much younger woman at work really has no place to tell women how they should react professionally when abused at work,” this person said. “Violence is not an answer. It's usually the one thing women fear the most when their abusers are much larger, heavier, and stronger than they are.”Fox News Airs Openly Racist Segment on Asian PeopleAttorney Douglas Wigdor, who has represented several Fox News accusers, told The Daily Beast, “It’s a classic rape myth that women should somehow use their physical power to ward off men who attack them, when the reality is that most women panic and freeze when sexually assaulted.”Wednesday evening was not the first time Watters has drawn widespread criticism for piggish comments about women. In April 2017, the Fox host delivered some not-so-subtle sexual innuendo about Ivanka Trump, remarking upon video of her speaking at a women’s rights conference, “I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone,” while gesturing towards his mouth and smirking. The next day, Watters denied the sexual undertones before announcing an abrupt “family vacation.”Meanwhile, a former Fox News staffer said, “I’d buy tickets to watch Jesse Watters slap his former boss Bill O’Reilly. What say you, anchorman? Are you hiding under your desk? Bill used to always say ‘what say you?’ and ‘are you hiding under your desk’ when guests wouldn’t come on after his on-air challenge to duke it out with him. Jesse Watters has lacked the moral fortitude to stand with any of the courageous women of Fox News, all who lost their jobs after being sexually harassed where he is currently employed.”This woman added: “Now, in an incredible twist, he fancies himself the arbiter of sexual harassment. Only at Fox News could it get this perverse. But what else can we expect when the founder of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, diminished decades-long sexual harassment coverup as nothing more than a 'little bit of flirting.’”—Diana Falzone was an on-camera and digital reporter for FoxNews.com from 2012 to 2018. In May 2017, she filed a gender discrimination and disability lawsuit against the network and settled, and left the company in March 2018. Along with Roginsky and Carlson, she co-founded Lift Our Voices, a nonprofit seeking to eradicate NDAs in the workplace used to conceal toxic workplace behavior.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.

  • Iran to meet with UN technical experts over uranium find

    Iran has agreed to sit down with international technical experts investigating the discovery of uranium particles at three former undeclared sites in the country, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog said Thursday, after months of frustration at Tehran's lack of a credible explanation. The agreement came as three of the remaining signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran — France, Germany and Britain — backed off the idea of a resolution criticizing Iran for its decision to start limiting access by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to current facilities. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters in Vienna it was not up to him to say whether Iran's move to hold talks with his technical experts was linked to the decision of the so-called E3 group, but suggested it was difficult to separate the political side of Iran's nuclear program from the technical side.

  • 19 stars who auditioned for popular movie roles but didn't get them

    Actors, like Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro, are known for some seriously iconic characters, but they also missed out on these popular roles.

  • How old the stars of 'High School Musical' were compared to their characters' ages

    Monique Coleman was 25 when she played high school student Taylor McKessie in the hit movie.

  • At least 7 Myanmar policemen cross into India seeking refuge

    Police in India’s northeastern Mizoram state have detained at least seven Myanmar policemen who entered India seeking refuge a month after the country’s powerful military ousted the elected government in a coup, officials said Thursday. Magistrate Maria Zuali said four policemen arrived in the state's Champai area on Feb. 28, and local villagers handed them over to state authorities on March 1. Police officer Lalnunzira, who uses one name, said three other policemen crossed into Indian territory near Lungkawlh village on Wednesday afternoon.

  • Dolphins cut $51 million player after just one season in which he played through a painful hip injury

    NFL linebacker Kyle Van Noy revealed details about what he went through in a recovery process with the Miami Dolphins after the team cut him on Tuesday.

  • The Latest: Board reportedly wants Capitol fencing removed

    The acting chief of the U.S. Capitol Police says its oversight board is suggesting the razorwire-topped fencing that has surrounded the Capitol since the insurrection in January should come down next week. The letter to the leaders of the House and Senate was obtained by The Associated Press. Pittman says the board suggested some temporary fencing would be removed starting Friday, and the fencing around the outer perimeter of the Capitol complex would be removed starting March 12.