President Biden signs gender identity executive order which allows transgender women to compete in women's athletics. Idaho State cross country runner Madison Kenyon and her attorney Christiana Holcomb discuss the fight for a fair and level playing field.
While the casual outerwear and mittens Sen. Bernie Sanders donned at Biden’s inauguration became a viral sensation, not everyone was cheering.
Donald Trump’s five-person legal team abruptly parted ways with the former president days before his Senate trial
A close ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Monday urged the West to hit President Vladimir Putin's inner circle with personal sanctions, predicting the move could trigger potentially destabilising infighting among Russia's elite. Leonid Volkov, who is wanted by Russian authorities on accusations he illegally encouraged minors to attend anti-Kremlin protests, made the call on the eve of a court hearing that could see Navalny jailed for three-and-a-half years. Navalny, one of Putin's most prominent critics, was arrested last month after returning to Russia from Germany for the first time since being poisoned with a nerve agent.
President Biden met with 10 Senate Republicans on Monday night to discuss coronavirus relief legislation, and while no deal was reached, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said they had "a very good exchange of views." "I wouldn't say we came together on a package tonight. No one expected that in a two-hour meeting," Collins told reporters after leaving the Oval Office. "But what we did agree to do is follow up and talk further, at the staff level and amongst ourselves and with the president and vice president, on how we can continue to work together on this very important issue." Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion relief package, and the group of Republican senators countered with a $618 billion plan. Their package matches Biden's $160 billion price tag to take care of COVID-19 vaccinations and increased testing, but calls for smaller direct aid payments to Americans and no money for state and local governments. Earlier Monday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) began the process of advancing a budget bill that will allow Democrats to pass Biden's relief package with a simple majority vote in the Senate, so no Republican votes will be necessary. "Congress has a responsibility to quickly deliver immediate comprehensive relief to the American people hurting from COVID-19," the Democratic leaders said in a statement. "The cost of inaction is high and growing, and the time for decisive action is now." More stories from theweek.comRise of the Barstool conservativesMerrick Garland still can't get a Senate hearingBiden has to choose whether to replace Trump's inspectors general, especially 1 pushed in by McConnell
A Louisiana man facing rape charges tried to have his accuser killed, but two hit men instead ended up killing his sister and her neighbor, authorities said Monday. Neither Hope Nettleton, 37, nor Brittany Cormier, 34, was the person that the hit men had been hired to kill on Jan. 13, the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office said. On Friday, authorities arrested Andrew Eskine, 25, of Carencro; Dalvin Wilson, 22, of Rayne; and Beaux Cormier, 35, of Kaplan on charges of first-degree murder.
The Biden administration wants to use the Agriculture Department money to tackle climate change, support restaurants and kickstart other programs without waiting for Congress; Fox Business Network's Charles Payne reacts.
An anti-Trump Republican group branded one of its co-founders "a predator, a liar, and an abuser" after he was accused of sexually harassing young men who aspired to a career in politics. The Lincoln Project, a high-profile group which formed during the election campaign to prevent Donald Trump's re-election, said it was "disgusted and outraged" by the alleged actions of co-founder John Weaver. Mr Weaver, a veteran Republican strategist who helped run the presidential campaigns of the late senator John McCain and the former Ohio governor John Kasich, has been accused of sending unsolicited and sexually charged messages to 21 young men online. In some instances, the men claimed Mr Weaver, 61, suggested that he could help them get work in politics while asking them to send lewd pictures. None of the men accused Mr Weaver of unlawful behaviour. One of the alleged victims, Cole Trickle Miele, said the Republican strategist began contacting him in 2015 - when he was just 14 years old.
Joe Manchin annoyed at vice president plugging Covid relief without his knowledge
President Biden may be willing to listen to the GOP when it comes to passing a COVID-19 stimulus bill, but the rest of his party is moving on without him. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) filed a joint budget resolution for the 2021 Fiscal Year. It's the first step toward Congress introducing a Budget Reconciliation bill, which will allow the party to pass Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan without any support from the GOP. Breaking: Schumer & Pelosi have filed a joint budget resolution, setting up the reconciliation process to streamline passage of Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID package with or without GOP support pic.twitter.com/yEK83L7sya — Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) February 1, 2021 The announcement came not long before Biden was set to meet with 10 Republican senators who have worked out a $618 billion stimulus plan of their own. It lacks local government funding and would distribute smaller, more targeted stimulus checks than the Democrats' proposal. Find a side-by-side comparison of the two bills at The Week. More stories from theweek.comRise of the Barstool conservativesMerrick Garland still can't get a Senate hearingBiden has to choose whether to replace Trump's inspectors general, especially 1 pushed in by McConnell
Canada said it regretted a "misunderstanding" after China lodged a formal complaint over a diplomat's order of a custom T-shirt displaying the word Wuhan, the city where the COVID-19 pandemic first emerged, over the emblem of hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan. Reports of the T-shirt order circulating on China's Twitter-like Weibo described it as depicting a bat, without mentioning Wu-Tang Clan. "We are very shocked by this and have lodged representations with Canada, asking for a thorough investigation and a clear explanation," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in response to a question at a daily briefing on Monday, adding that the virus should not be linked to specific countries or regions.
The chairperson of the Hawaii Republican Party has resigned after a senior party member used an official Twitter account to send tweets defending adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Shirlene Ostrov stepped down “to allow the party to recover from the controversy and focus on finding excellent candidates and fighting for policies that improve the quality of life for Hawaii’s hardworking families,” the party said in a statement. Ostrov said the party has been “redefining itself” since President Joe Biden was inaugurated.
Ursula von der Leyen on Monday pinned the blame for the vaccine fiasco that led Brussels to threaten a hard border on the island of Ireland on her trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis. The European Commission president threw her deputy, who leads DG Trade, under the bus amid rising anger from EU capitals at her “go it alone” tactics during last week’s battle with AstraZeneca. Jean-Claude Juncker, Mrs von der Leyen's predecessor, said he was "very much opposed" to her export restriction measures. In a speech in Stuttgart on Sunday, Mr Juncker also said of the EU’s vaccine procurement: "It all went too slow, it all should have been done more transparently, even though that would have been difficult." “This regulation falls under the responsibility of Mr Dombrovskis,” said Eric Marmer, the European Commission’s chief spokesman, referring to the former prime minister of Latvia, a Brussels veteran with a reputation for caution. “In my country we have a saying, ‘Only the Pope is infallible’. Mistakes can happen along the way the important thing is that you recognise them early on,” Mr Mamer said. Alexander Stubb, the former prime minister of Finland who campaigned to be appointed European Commission, president was scathing about Mrs Von der Leyen. He said "Number one rule of any leader: if your organisation screws up; never, ever blame your team publicly" Mrs von der Leyen was forced into a humiliating climbdown on Friday after announcing Brussels would trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, to prevent AstraZeneca vaccines being smuggled into Britain from Northern Ireland. The move, which was announced without notifying Ireland or Britain, would have created a “vaccine border” after years of Brexit talks to avoid a hard border on the island. After the Irish prime minister called Mrs von der Leyen, the regulation, which could have facilitated a vaccine export ban to non-EU countries including Britain, was amended. Mr Mamer said that the regulation to create an “export transparency mechanism”, which including the Article 16 measure, was passed provisionally and at speed by the entire College of Commissioners on Friday. Asked by the Telegraph if this was Ms Van der Leyen’s worst week, he said: “We believe that we are on the right track since the beginning of this pandemic in ensuring there is as cohesive and as effective a European response as possible. Mrs von der Leyen’s attempts to pass the buck cut no ice with EU diplomats, who suggested she had gone rogue, or German MPs in Berlin, who plan to summon Ursula von der Leyen for questioning. In a further blow to Mrs von der Leyen, the move was led by MPs from her own party, Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU). Mrs von der Leyen has refused calls for a public debate on the debacle in the European Parliament. Instead she will on Tuesday hold closed door meetings with MEPs with parties who approved her appointment. It is understood that Mrs von der Leyen took personal charge of the vaccine row and that DG Trade’s senior official is Sabine Weyand, whose objections to triggering Article 16 were reported to have been overruled. Ms Weyand is keenly aware of the political sensitivities around the Brexit divorce treaty’s Northern Ireland Protocol. She was Michel Barnier’s deputy Brexit negotiator and a key figure in the creation of the Irish border backstop.
Restricted duty means removal of the officer’s gun, badge and all police powers pending the outcome of the investigation.
By Nov. 12, former President Donald Trump's team of election lawyers knew he had lost his re-election bid, that despite Trump's tweets and public comments, "there was no substantial evidence of election fraud, and there were nowhere near enough 'irregularities' to reverse the outcome in the courts," The New York Times reports. But their protestations just made Trump turn to allies telling him what he wanted to hear, so Nov. 12 was also the day "Trump's flimsy, long-shot legal effort to reverse his loss turned into something else entirely — an extralegal campaign to subvert the election, rooted in a lie so convincing to some of his most devoted followers that it made the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol almost inevitable." Trump's experienced legal team either quietly faded away or was sidelined by Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, and other lawyers "ready to push forward with propagandistic suits that skated the lines of legal ethics and reason," the Times reports. That eventually included "the vast majority of Republican attorneys general, whose dead-on-arrival Supreme Court lawsuit seeking to discard 20 million votes was secretly drafted by lawyers close to the White House." Before Thanksgiving, Trump's allies — including Kris Kobach, a voting restrictions activist who previously led Trump's "election integrity" commission; former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin; and Lawrence Joseph, a lawyer who had worked to shield Trump's tax returns — started working on a new lawsuit that while "short on legal or factual merit" was "rich in the sort of sensational claims" sure to spread across conservative media, the Times reports. The argument was that Trump states could ask the Supreme Court to throw out 20 million votes in certain states President Biden won because, they claimed, those Biden states effectively cheated. "Only one type of lawyer can take a case filed by one state against another directly to the Supreme Court: a state attorney general," the Times reports. "The president's original election lawyers doubted that any attorney general would be willing to do so," but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton jumped at the chance. When the Texas solicitor general refused to be involved in the suit, Paxton hired Joseph as a special outside counsel, not disclosing to the court that Joseph and other outside Trump advisers had written the brief. Read more about Trump's extralegal campaign at The New York Times. More stories from theweek.comRise of the Barstool conservativesMerrick Garland still can't get a Senate hearingBiden has to choose whether to replace Trump's inspectors general, especially 1 pushed in by McConnell
As more Americans ready for their second COVID-19 vaccine shot, some patients are falling through the cracks of an increasingly complex web of providers and appointment systems. While many people are getting their required second doses, the process is taking a toll on some of the most vulnerable - older adults who in many cases rely on family members or friends to navigate complex sign-up systems and inconvenient locations. Available vaccines need to be given as two separate doses weeks apart, and confusion is further taxing an already challenged health care system.
West Virginia governor Jim Justice, a Republican, called for a large-scale economic relief bill on Monday in comments to CNN. Justice’s remarks came after Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.V.) called for targeted economic relief to tackle the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Manchin has dismissed the idea of sending out $2,000 stimulus checks to all Americans making less than $75,000 a year, calling instead for infrastructure projects “to put people back to work.” On Monday, however, Governor Justice indicated that he would not be overly concerned about the price tag of a new relief bill. “We need to understand that trying to be, per se, fiscally responsible at this point in time with what we’ve got going on in the country—if we actually throw away some money right now, so what?” Justice told CNN’s Poppy Harlow. “We have really got to move and get people taken care of, and get people back on balance.” Harlow pointed out that Senator Manchin has called for more targeted relief efforts, however Justice said he had not spoken to the senator regarding negotiations over the bill. “I don’t really know exactly what the thinking could possibly be there,” Justice said. “We got people who are really hurting, and that’s all there is to it.” **Republican** Governor of West Virginia @WVGovernor to me on Stimulus: “Trying to be per se fiscally responsible at this point in time with what we’ve got going on in the country, if we actually throw away some money right now, so what?” Has he talked to @Sen_JoeManchin? I ask. pic.twitter.com/s93QMWze3m — Poppy Harlow (@PoppyHarlowCNN) February 1, 2021 Justice’s remarks come several hours before President Biden is set to meet with ten Senate Republicans to discuss a compromise coronavirus relief bill. Senator Rob Portman (R., Ohio) told CNN that the compromise bill includes more targeted relief, with $1,000 checks to individuals making $50,000 or less, and would be less costly than the current $1.9 trillion bill proposed by Democrats. While Democrats could attempt to pass their proposal via budget reconciliation, allowing for a simple majority vote and eliminating the possibility of a GOP filibuster, the party would need all 50 of its senators to vote in favor of the measure. This means Manchin would need to agree to the proposal, as well as fellow moderate Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Authorities have given no word on the status of Chinese legal rights activist Guo Feixiong after he was blocked from leaving the country last week to join his family in the United States, his sister said Tuesday. Yang Maoping said they had no word from Guo or information from police since he was reportedly detained at Shanghai’s Pudong airport Thursday while attempting to board a flight to the U.S. Guo had messaged friends that he would go on hunger strike unless allowed to leave the country to be with his wife who is undergoing treatment for cancer.
Health officials told The New York Times that morale was at an ‘all-time low’ in the state’s Health Department
Last week, New York provided a worrisome breakdown of what's happening in the Brazilian city of Manaus, whose population had previously been thought to have built up widespread protection against the virus last year, only to find itself experiencing another major outbreak. There are theories as to how this happened — community immunity being overestimated, waning antibody protection, the variant becoming more transmissible, or, perhaps most concerning, the virus adapting to evade antibodies. Whatever the case, an increasing number of variants like the one in Brazil could theoretically push the end game back. Axios put it in slightly different terms — the current pandemic may be nearly over, but the variants could spark new ones. Several vaccines have been shown to work well against the main coronavirus strain, and the more transmissible U.K. variant appears quite susceptible to them, as well, but the South African variant looks more resistant. And, New York notes, even a slight dip in efficacy could prevent "population-scale protection through vaccination alone." The New York Times, however, explains that reports on vaccine efficacy often don't tell the whole story. Scientifically speaking, vaccine research considers any transmission a failure, but that may not be the most important thing. Novavax and Johnson & Johnson provided data that showed their vaccine candidates did not stop infections in South Africa as well as they did elsewhere, but they were still very successful at preventing severe disease, hospitalizations, and death. That suggests a possible scenario in which vaccines reduce the coronavirus to a much milder pathogen. But that still may not be enough globally, per New York. Even if vaccines significantly reduce the worst COVID-19 outcomes, the world's poorer countries are not estimated to reach mass immunization until 2024, so while the tide may turn more quickly in the United States, the global pandemic could still be ongoing for years to come, especially if variants impede natural herd immunity. Read more at New York, Axios, and The New York Times. More stories from theweek.comRise of the Barstool conservativesMerrick Garland still can't get a Senate hearingBiden has to choose whether to replace Trump's inspectors general, especially 1 pushed in by McConnell
U.S. Representative Jackie Speier sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to issue an executive order identifying white supremacy and violent extremism as a threat to national security. Speier, a top Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Military Personnel subcommittee, also pushed federal agencies to screen military recruits and those seeking government security clearances for ties to violent extremism on social media.
