Text messages reveal new details of Biden family business dealings

Fox News senior political correspondent Mike Emanuel has the latest from Washington

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  • Exclusive: Fate Winslow, sentenced to life in prison for selling $20 worth of pot, is released after serving 12 years

    More than a decade into a life sentence for assisting in the sale of $20 worth of marijuana to an undercover cop in Louisiana, Fate Winslow is set to be released on Wednesday. "Today redemption has come," he told Yahoo News in an email.

  • ‘I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of f*****s’: Biden’s deputy chief of staff pick says of working with Republicans

    Jen O’Malley Dillon became first woman to manage successful Democratic presidential campaign this year

  • Pfizer says 'millions' of vaccine doses are waiting to be shipped — but the government hasn't told them where to go

    It's no secret that there aren't enough Pfizer vaccine doses for every American who wants one. But there are at least a few million more sitting in a warehouse, waiting for the government to decide where they're headed, Pfizer said.After receiving emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration last week, Pfizer said Thursday that it has since shipped out the 2.9 million vaccine doses the U.S. government told the company to distribute. But Pfizer "has millions more doses sitting in warehouses awaiting instructions for where to ship" Bloomberg reports. Pfizer also denied it was the cause of shipping delays some states complained about, saying it's the federal government causing the holdup.The vast majority of Americans have said they'll get the coronavirus vaccine, with many ready to take it as soon as possible. So far, there are only enough doses available to start vaccinating people in nursing homes and frontline health care workers, whom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed to prioritize.The U.S. bought 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine over the summer. But the Trump administration reportedly turned down Pfizer's offer to sell the U.S. more doses a few months later, meaning Pfizer may not be able to get another shipment to Americans until summer 2021. The U.S. did buy another another 100 million Moderna vaccine doses last week.More stories from theweek.com 5 insanely funny cartoons about Trump's election-fraud failure Trump has reportedly been convinced he actually won, tells advisers he may not vacate the White House Flynn suggests Trump deploy the military in 'swing states' to 'rerun' the election, soft-pedals martial law

  • Australian couple killed in 'terrorism incident' by 'known extremist'

    Australian detectives suspect the deaths of an elderly couple in their Brisbane home is a "terrorism incident" perpetrated by a knife-wielding man who was shot dead by police, officials said on Friday. Raghe Abdi, 22, threatened police with a knife before he was shot dead on a highway on the outskirts of Brisbane on Thursday morning, officers said. The bodies of an 87-year-old man and an 86-year-old woman were found in their home later on Thursday near where Abdi died, Queensland state Police Deputy Commissioner Tracy Linford said. Ms Linfold declined to detail how they had died but homicide detectives had found evidence that Abdi had been in the house, she said. Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said the known extremist had been acting alone. "We had no choice but to declare this as a terrorism incident," Ms Carroll told reporters. Australia Federal Police suspect Abdi had been influenced by the Islamic State group. He was arrested on suspicion that he was trying to join extremists when he attempted to depart Brisbane Airport for Somalia in May 2019. He was released without charge due to insufficient evidence, but his passport was cancelled. In June 2019, he was charged with further offences including refusing to give detectives the pass code for his phone. He was free on bail and had been forced to wear a GPS tracking device, which he had cut off before he was shot.

  • Analysis-U.S., Iran and inertia, an axis to dampen France's Lebanese dreams

    PARIS (Reuters) -During a private dinner in Paris last month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear that Washington was unhappy with France's strategy to include Iran-backed Hezbollah in efforts to resolve the economic and political crisis in Lebanon. French President Emmanuel Macron has been spearheading international efforts to rescue the former French protectorate from its deepest crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war. Macron is trying to use Paris' historical influence to persuade squabbling Lebanese politicians to adopt a road map and form a new government tasked with rooting out corruption, a prerequisite for international donors including the IMF to unlock billions of dollars in aid.

  • An inmate who is scheduled to be executed just 5 days before Biden takes office tested positive for COVID-19

    The federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where Dustin John Higgs is being held has over 300 confirmed cases among inmates.

  • 27 Best Coffee Table Books to Buy & Gift This Year

    Discover the top tomes for every interest—from fashion to design to travel–that our editors loved this yearOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Nigeria school attack: Hundreds of boys freed, local authorities say

    The authorities say more than 300 are on their way home but it is unclear if all have been freed.

  • Kansas sheriff’s deputy accused of deliberately running over Black former detective

    Graphic dashcam video captures horrific event which led to federal lawsuit

  • Ex-FBI Agent Strzok Acknowledged Steele Dossier Was ‘Intended to Influence’ Media

    In newly declassified messages, ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok, who oversaw the bureau’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia, touted the Steele dossier’s ability to “influence” media.Senate Republicans on Thursday released a number of internal FBI messages from Strzok that provide insight into Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation into the Trump campaign. The Justice Department declassified the records on December 1 after Senators Ron Johnson (R., Wisc.) and Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) asked Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray to declassify the documents in October as part of their investigation into Crossfire Hurricane.Strzok’s messages suggest that he was aware that former British spy Christopher Steele, whose dossier was used by the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants against Carter Page, was a source for a Yahoo! News story alleging that Page had a secret meeting in Moscow with two Kremlin insiders.“Looking at the Yahoo article, I would definitely say at a minimum Steele’s reports should be viewed as intended to influence as well as to inform,” Strzok, who was fired from the FBI in August 2018, wrote on Sept. 23, 2016.It was later uncovered that Steele was a source for the article and he had met with a number of journalists in Washington, D.C. as part of an opposition research campaign commissioned by the DNC and Clinton campaign.Though Strzok expressed his suspicion that Steele was the source for the article, the Bureau continued working with the ex-spy and did not disclose Steele’s contact with journalists to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).The FBI later ended its relationship with Steele after he spoke to Mother Jones for another dossier story on October 31, 2016.A number of the allegations included in the dossier have since been discredited and a December 2019 report by the Justice Department inspector general criticized the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team for failing to communicate key details about Steele and the dossier to the FISC.

  • Ethiopia offers reward for information on fugitive Tigrayan leaders

    Ethiopia is offering a 10 million birr ($260,000) reward to anyone with information on the location of fugitive leaders of the rebellious force in the northern region of Tigray, the government said on Friday. The reward to help capture leaders of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) was announced on state-run broadcaster EBC and later tweeted by the government's taskforce on the Tigray crisis. TPLF leaders, believed to be hiding in the mountains since the capital of the region was captured by federal forces on Nov 28, have said that they are fighting back.

  • Flynn suggests Trump deploy the military in 'swing states' to 'rerun' the election, soft-pedals martial law

    Former National Security Adviser Michal Flynn tiptoed once again toward urging President Trump to declare martial law to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's victory, citing discredited voter fraud claims. Trump "could immediately, on his order, seize every single one of these voting machines," Flynn told Newsmax host Greg Kelly Thursday night. "He could order the, within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities, and he could place those in states and basically rerun an election in each of those states."Using the U.S. military to force states to redo an election is "not unprecedented," Flynn added. "These people are out there talking about martial law like it's something that we've never done. Martial law has been instituted 64 times, Greg. So I'm not calling for that. We have a constitutional process," and "that has to be followed."> Here's Michael Flynn on Newsmax saying that Trump could order "military capabilities" to swing states and "rerun an election in each of those states."> > "People out there talk about martial law like it's something that we've never done. Martial law has been instituted 64 times." pic.twitter.com/KNmiAGGiPF> > — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 18, 2020The federal government hasn't implemented martial law since after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, and then only in the territory of Hawaii. "Flynn's insane rant" appears to rely on "the numerous invocations of martial law" before and during the Civil War, University of Texas law professor Steve Vladek said. Since then, Supreme Court precedents and several laws — notably the Posse Comitatus Act — have severely constrained the president's ability to declare martial law."Nothing to see here," Slate's Will Saletan tweeted. "Just a retired general and former undeclared foreign agent for an authoritarian regime, freshly pardoned by the president for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia, asserting precedents for martial law to overturn the president's electoral defeat."Former President Barack Obama fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, then "tried to warn Trump about him," New York Times reporter Maggie Haberbman noted. "Trump hired him, fired him, complained about him and his son during transition, and then has obviously changed course." The Bulwark's Tim Miller added: "Michael Flynn lying to the FBI was the biggest break the nation caught during the Trump years. The thought of the insane mad man in the room when Trump was making decisions is frightening."More stories from theweek.com 5 insanely funny cartoons about Trump's election-fraud failure Trump has reportedly been convinced he actually won, tells advisers he may not vacate the White House Pfizer says 'millions' of vaccine doses are waiting to be shipped — but the government hasn't told them where to go

  • Biden's incoming deputy chief of staff apologizes for calling Republicans 'a bunch of f---ers'

    "I used some words that I probably could have chosen better," O'Malley Dillon said on Thursday, per a Politico report.

  • Biodegradable plastic production in China outpacing ability to break down waste, says Greenpeace

    China has begun producing biodegradable plastic at such a rate that it can no longer break down the material at the same pace, according to a new report from Greenpeace. According to the report, companies in China have ramped up production of biodegradable plastic to a capacity of 4.4 million tonnes per year. That capacity is expected to reach five million tonnes in the e-commerce sector alone by 2025, when a nationwide ban on non-biodegradable plastics is set to come into effect. “Switching from one type of plastic to another cannot solve the plastics pollution crisis that we’re facing,” said Dr Molly Zhongnan Jia, a Greenpeace East Asia plastics researcher. “We need to take a cautious look at the effect and potential risks of mainstreaming these materials, and make sure we invest in solutions that actually reduce plastic waste." Non-biodegradable plastics take decades to decompose and release microplastics, which contaminates soil, water and the food chain.

  • Snowplow hits and kills Pennsylvania man, 63, during storm

    John Vichie was outside using a snowblower when just before 5 p.m. he was struck by a North Versailles Public Works plow, police said.

  • Iran’s president accuses Israel of killing nuclear scientist to provoke war

    Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Monday claimed that Israel was behind the killing of a scientist who founded the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program in the 2000s in an effort to start a war in the last days of President Trump's administration.

  • Trump has reportedly been convinced he actually won, tells advisers he may not vacate the White House

    President Trump was privately coming to terms with his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, but he "has now reversed and dug in deeper -- not only spreading misinformation about the election, but ingesting it himself," CNN reports, "egged on by advisers like Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis who are misleading Trump about the extent of voting irregularities and the prospects of a reversal." One adviser told CNN, "He's been fed so much misinformation that I think he actually thinks this thing was stolen from him."Even the Electoral College formalizing Biden's win "did not appear enough to shake Trump from his delusions of victory," CNN says, "but it is adding urgency to a push by several of his advisers to gently steer Trump toward reality." Discussions of Trump's post-presidency future tend to go nowhere because Trump "all but shuts down," CNN reports. "In his moments of deepest denial, Trump has told some advisers that he will refuse to leave the White House on Inauguration Day, only to be walked down from that ledge. The possibility has alarmed some aides, but few believe Trump will actually follow through.""To be perfectly clear about this, Trump 100 percent will leave the White House on Inauguration Day, if not well before," Jonathan Chait writes at New York. "Even the scholars who expressed the deepest fears of Trump's intentions to undermine the system did not put credence in the possibility he could defy the outcome by simply refusing to leave. Squatting is not one of the tools in his authoritarian tool kit." But the fact that Trump thinks that's even a viable option suggests he's "engaged in more than a scheme to grift his supporters," Chait says. He's "drinking his own poisoned Kool-Aid."If Trump does have to be forcibly removed from the White House, you can credit Bill Maher with the prediction. More stories from theweek.com 5 insanely funny cartoons about Trump's election-fraud failure Pfizer says 'millions' of vaccine doses are waiting to be shipped — but the government hasn't told them where to go Flynn suggests Trump deploy the military in 'swing states' to 'rerun' the election, soft-pedals martial law

  • Los Angeles mayor says turned down job in Biden administration

    LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Thursday that he turned down an offer to work in the administration of President-elect Joe Biden so he can focus on the city as it grapples with record-breaking surges in the coronavirus pandemic. Garcetti, a Democrat who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for Secretary of Transportation in a Biden administration, said that with infections, hospitalizations and deaths spiraling in America's second-largest city he felt he needed to stay on as mayor. "There were things on the table for me but I said to (the Biden administration) very clearly ... I need to be here now," Garcetti told reporters during a live-streamed news conference from his home.

  • British man sentenced over plans to smuggle generator from US to Iran

    Colin Fisher pleaded guilty on two counts, officials say

  • Bleeding Florida man walks home after shark attack

    The man was attacked by a shark while swimming off the coast of Siesta Key. It's unclear what his condition was or how severe the injuries were.