Joe Biden receives his first dose of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

Dr. Marc Siegel reacts to president-elect praising Operation Warp Speed on 'Bill Hemmer Reports'

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  • Fox News and Newsmax, facing lawsuits, walk back wild fraud claims about voting-machine companies

    Facing the threat of lawsuits for defamation, Fox News and the upstart right-wing network Newsmax have begun broadcasting segments walking back wild election fraud allegations against voting-machine and software manufacturers Smartmatic and Dominion.

  • Ivanka Trump campaigns in Georgia, but makes no mention of her father's election fraud claims

    Ivanka Trump campaigned in Georgia on Monday for Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, but didn't mention her father's claims that election fraud had cost him victory in the state.

  • After permit approved for whites-only church, small Minnesota town insists it isn't racist

    City leaders said if they had turned down Asatru Folk Assembly, they would have faced an expensive legal battle.

  • Texas veers away from national vaccination guidelines, will prioritize over 65 age group before essential workers

    Texas does not plan on following a federal advisory panel's recommendation that essential workers and people over age 75 should be next in line to receive COVID-19 vaccines after health care workers and long-term care facility residents, the state's health and human services department announced Monday.Instead, people in Texas who are over 65, as well as adults of any age with certain medical conditions considered coronavirus co-morbidities will receive priority. The department's announcement says the decision was reached after a state-level expert panel decided the "most vulnerable populations" should be protected as soon as possible, though it will likely be a few weeks before the state is done with the initial phase of vaccinations.> Texas breaks with CDC ACIP recommendations for next phase of covid19 vaccine prioritization; puts people 65+ and those with medical conditions that put them at high risk next in line after front-line health care workers and residents of long term care facilities pic.twitter.com/o3nDRaQpeZ> > — Meg Tirrell (@megtirrell) December 21, 2020There has been debate about who should receive shots next, with some arguing data clearly identifies age as one of the most significant factors in disease severity. But others believe the federal recommendation is the right call, since essential workers are at greater risk of coming into contact with the virus and don't have the luxury of working from home.More stories from theweek.com Televangelist Pat Robertson says Biden won, won't be president long, urges 'erratic' Trump to retire Are the worst days of the Trump presidency still ahead? Biden has reportedly landed on Miguel Cardona, Connecticut schools chief, for education secretary

  • 35 Outdoor Fire Pit Ideas That Are Lit

    Extend the outdoor season and get ready to smell the campfireOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Trump news – live: ‘Sociopathic’ president conducting ‘cash grab’ as Fox, Newsmax drop voting conspiracies

    Follow the latest updates

  • 5 Army Weapons Soldiers Might Actually Get Their Hands on Soon

    Army modernization officials have tested new, longer-range and more precise infantry weapon systems.

  • 25 Indian farmers die during protests as Modi visits temple in sop to angry Sikh farmers

    At least 25 Indian farmers have died during protests against controversial legislation, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi attempted to diffuse growing tensions by making a surprise visit to a Sikh temple in New Delhi on Sunday. Fourteen deaths have been attributed to exposure to the cold, as approximately 500,000 farmers - most of whom are Sikh - continue to sleep in their tractors and blockade roads outside Delhi, despite temperatures dropping to 3°C at night. Ten death occurred in road accidents as farmers travelled to Delhi from the surrounding states of Punjab and Haryana, while an eminent Sikh priest from Haryana shot himself in protest at the new legislation. The farmers say they will continue to occupy the streets, causing ongoing disruption to food supplies in India’s capital, until the proposed farm bills are repealed. On Monday, the protesting farmers are undergoing a day-long hunger strike, while union leaders announced plans to occupy toll booths surrounding Delhi from December 25.

  • "The Ripper" is just another example of how true and scripted crime shows fail sex workers

    Despite trying to center the serial killer's victims, it still reduces them to their profession

  • Biden has reportedly landed on Miguel Cardona, Connecticut schools chief, for education secretary

    President-elect Joe Biden is set to nominated Miguel Cardona, Connecticut's commissioner of public schools, as education secretary, The Washington Post reports, adding that the announcement could be made before Christmas on Friday. Cardona was named to his current position just last year, and before that he was assistant superintendent in Meriden, Connecticut, a district with about 9,000 students. He was born in Meriden to Puerto Rican parents, and he became Connecticut's youngest principal when he was only 28.Biden has not made a final offer, the Post reports, citing people close to the president-elect, but he met virtually with Cardona on Monday, alone with future first lady Jill Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Biden has pledged to pick someone with a background in public education to the Education Department, and Cardona is seen as more of a consensus candidate than Biden's other rumored finalist, Howard University's Leslie Fenwick, who is a sharp critic of testing-based accountability and other business-style education policies."Cardona's experience in public education represents a sharp contrast with President Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, who attended private schools and spent much of her energy advocating for alternatives to public education," the Post notes. "And while Cardona has lived in poverty, DeVos is a billionaire who has been wealthy all her life." Cardona butted heads a bit with teachers unions this fall when he pushed to open public schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He has been endorsed by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called him as a "very, very solid" candidate.More stories from theweek.com Televangelist Pat Robertson says Biden won, won't be president long, urges 'erratic' Trump to retire Are the worst days of the Trump presidency still ahead? Texas veers away from national vaccination guidelines, will prioritize over 65 age group before essential workers

  • Trump personally pressured more than 150 Republicans to overthrow election for him, report says

    Donald Trump launched an expansive campaign to convince more than 150 Republican officials to overturn election results in his favour, a new report claims. A Politico report outlined the unprecedented steps Mr Trump took to convince Republican lawmakers at various levels of power to use their authority to overturn election results in his favour. In one instance, Mr Trump contacted Monica Palmer, who sits on a board that confirms the election results for Wayne County, Michigan – the state's most populous county.

  • The US Navy appears to be sending Iran a message with a submarine packed with missiles

    Monday's statement marks the first time since 2012 the Navy has announced the presence of a guided-missile submarine in the Persian Gulf.

  • McCarthy Calls on FBI to Brief Full Intel Committee on Swalwell’s Ties to Alleged Chinese Spy

    House Leader Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that all members of the House Intelligence Committee should receive a classified FBI briefing on Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell’s relationship with a suspected Chinese spy.McCarthy received a closed-door FBI briefing on Swalwell's close ties to Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, on Friday and said afterwards that he thinks Swalwell should not be on the House Intelligence Committee."I’m going to request that every single member on the House Intelligence Committee gets the exact same briefing from the FBI that I did," McCarthy said Sunday on Fox News. "Because if this individual is sitting on this committee — Eric Swalwell — they’ve got to know the background of what has gone on. I can’t talk about the classified part, but you know what’s out there in the press.”“No one that was in that room could walk out and say Eric Swalwell should be on the intel committee," McCarthy said of the briefing. "I don’t know — they had a briefing before in 2015 and I don’t know what that briefing was like compared to this one, but it could not have been the same.”Between 2011 and 2015, Fang developed close relationships with Swalwell, bundling donations for the up and coming lawmaker and even placing an intern in his office.Since Swalwell's ties to Fang came to light earlier this month, Republicans on the intelligence committee have demanded answers, some even calling for an investigation and for him to be immediately removed from the committee in order to deprive him of the access to classified information that comes with membership on the high-profile panel.Fang, believed to have been acting at the behest of China’s Ministry of State Security, helped fundraise for Swalwell’s 2014 re-election campaign and helped place at least one intern in the California Democrat’s office.Fang also had romantic or sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors over a three-year period. Swalwell, who married shortly afterwards in 2016, declined this week to answer questions about whether his relationship with Fang was sexual or romantic in nature.In 2015, federal investigators briefed Swalwell on their concerns about Fang, at which point he says he severed all his ties with her. However, Swalwell’s brother and father remained connected with Fang on Facebook.Swalwell said Tuesday that he has committed no wrongdoing and expressed confidence that the controversy will not threaten his seat on the House Intelligence Committee.“The one answer that I got out of that briefing was there is no way Eric Swalwell should continue to serve on the intel committee,” McCarthy added, noting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have to remove Swalwell from the committee if he refuses to step down.

  • S. Korea scrambles jets after Chinese and Russian intrusion into air defense zone

    South Korea said on Tuesday it had scrambled fighter jets in response to an intrusion into South Korea's air defense identification zone by 19 Russian and Chinese military aircraft.

  • Grace Millane's murderer had raped another British tourist just months before attack

    The man who murdered British backpacker Grace Millane in New Zealand has been convicted of sex attacks on two more women, it was revealed on Monday. New Zealand’s Supreme Court removed an order keeping the killer’s name hidden, meaning his identity could be made public: Jesse Kempson. The previous convictions of the 28-year-old Kempson, who killed Millane in December 2018, also became known as his identity was made public. Kempson raped another British tourist eight months before his attack on Millane. He had taken the woman out on a Tinder date in April 2018 before bringing her back to his motel room in Auckland, a city on the country’s north island. The woman had initially kept the attack secret but after news coverage of the day Kempson was charged she went to the police to report what had happened. Kempson was eventually sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail for the rape last month. The case was not made public at the time. Shortly after Kempson was named on Monday the Guardian reported some of the remarks made in court when that previous conviction was handed down. The paper reported that Justice Geoffrey Venning in a New Zealand high court said: “Your mother rejected you; that may go some way towards explaining your attitude towards women.”

  • Former FDA chief thinks new mutation of COVID-19 found in the U.K. is 'already in the U.S.'

    Former FDA head Dr. Scott Gottlieb believes that the new variant of the coronavirus found in the United Kingdom is "already in the U.S." and a travel ban won't do anything to keep it from spreading in the country.The mutation is thought to be up to 70 percent more transmissible, and because of it, more than 40 countries have banned travel to and from the U.K. for at least 48 hours. Gottlieb told CNBC's Shepard Smith on Monday that at this point, he does not believe a travel ban "is going to prevent this mutated strain from coming into the United States. We're going to have an epidemic that continues to build over the course of the next three or four weeks, we'll reach a peak, and then we'll start to see infection rates decline as we see vaccinations get rolled out."So far, there is no sign that this is a deadlier strain, and Gottlieb told Smith "the question is, is this virus going to change the surface proteins in a way that can obviate either the vaccines or prior immunity, and there's no indication that it's doing that right now." However, Gottlieb cautioned that "over time, it will evolve in ways where it can probably obviate prior infection or vaccines to some degree, so we'll probably need to adapt our vaccines over time."As the virus continues to make its way around the world, Gottlieb said "we're going to start to see more of these variants, and that's why it's important to get the population vaccinated and snuff out these infections. The more infections you have, the more chances that these variants start to propagate."More stories from theweek.com Televangelist Pat Robertson says Biden won, won't be president long, urges 'erratic' Trump to retire Are the worst days of the Trump presidency still ahead? Texas veers away from national vaccination guidelines, will prioritize over 65 age group before essential workers

  • GOP activist's voter challenges raise questions in Georgia

    When a conservative organization announced plans this month to launch an election integrity operation in Georgia, the group’s news release included a high-profile name: the chairman of the state’s Republican Party. Less than a week later, the same group announced plans to challenge the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of Georgia voters. To Democrats in the state and voting rights advocates, it was verification of what they have long argued — that the Georgia GOP is supporting efforts to suppress voting in one of the nation’s newest political battlegrounds.

  • Stimulus checks: Mnuchin announces when Americans will get second payment

    $600 direct payments could be issued as soon as next week, Treasury Secretary says

  • Report: Federal prosecutors have discussed obtaining Rudy Giuliani's emails

    Federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York have been discussing with Justice Department officials in Washington whether to make a legal request for Rudy Giuliani's emails, two people with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, is President Trump's personal lawyer. Under Justice Department policy, prosecutors must get approval from Washington before asking a judge to sign a search warrant for items that might be protected by attorney-client privilege; NBC News notes that it is not known if the approval was granted.In October 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that SDNY prosecutors were investigating Giuliani and his business dealings in Ukraine, and as part of the probe, they examined Giuliani's bank records. That same month, two of Giuliani's associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested and charged with campaign finance fraud. Parnas and Fruman both helped Giuliani try to dig up dirt in Ukraine about President-elect Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.The Washington Post reported in February that prosecutors had started talking with witnesses in an attempt to gather more documents for the investigation, and two people familiar with the matter stressed to NBC News that the probe is ongoing, with one saying it is "very active."Giuliani's attorney, Robert Costello, told NBC News he has "no reason to believe there's any truth to the allegations that there is renewed interest in my client." Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that Trump has talked with advisers about granting Giuliani a preemptive pardon.More stories from theweek.com Televangelist Pat Robertson says Biden won, won't be president long, urges 'erratic' Trump to retire Are the worst days of the Trump presidency still ahead? Texas veers away from national vaccination guidelines, will prioritize over 65 age group before essential workers

  • Man charged with murder in 1988 disappearance of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht

    David Misch, 59, has been arrested and charged with murder in the 1988 disappearance of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht, who vanished from a supermarket parking lot more than three decades ago while trying to retrieve a friend’s scooter that authorities said the abductor had moved closer to his vehicle. Misch is already serving prison time for the murder of a Hayward woman and faces trial for the murders of two women in 1986. Michaela’s remains have still not been found.