Former California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro reacts to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s coronavirus response on ‘America Reports.’
Now that a huge share of Israelis have been vaccinated, experts are looking at the country’s experience as a kind of real-world, real-time experiment, with unique data that could start to answer some of our most pressing questions about the power of vaccines to curb the pandemic.
Republican senators have also proposed $1,000 checks instead of $1,400.
Prosecutors asked a judge Wednesday for a new arrest warrant for an Illinois teen charged with shooting three people, killing two of them, during a protest over police brutality in Wisconsin after he apparently violated his bail conditions. Kyle Rittenhouse failed to inform the court of his change of address within 48 hours of moving, Kenosha County prosecutors alleged in a motion filed with Judge Bruce Schroeder. The motion asks Schroeder to issue an arrest warrant and increase Rittenhouse's bail by $200,000.
Uighur women held at internment camps in China’s Xinjiang province have been subject to systematic mass rape, former prisoners and staff have claimed. Two former prisoners and two teachers who had worked at what the Chinese government calls “vocational and educational training centres” described a "culture" of gang rape and sexual torture in interviews with the BBC. The UN estimates more than one million ethnic Uighur and Kazakh men and women have been detained in a network of camps China built in its far-western Xinjiang Province since 2014. Chinese officials deny allegations of mistreatment and say camps are educational facilities designed to combat religious extremism and terrorism among the predominantly Muslim Uighur minority. In March 2019, the Telegraph spoke to eight former detainees who described a regime of systematic torture and forced labour. There have also been reports of forced sterilisations.
White House climate czar John Kerry traveled to Iceland by private jet in 2019 to accept an environmental award and defended his transportation choice to a reporter at the time by calling it, “the only choice for somebody like me.” Kerry flew to Iceland in October, 2019 to receive the Arctic Circle award, an iceberg sculpture, for his leadership on climate issues and being “a consistent voice pressuring the American authorities to commit to tackle environmental matters,” according to Icelandic outlet RUV. During the trip, Kerry was confronted by Icelandic reporter Jóhann Bjarni Kolbeinsson on whether his use of a private jet was an “environmental way to travel.” “If you offset your carbon, it’s the only choice for somebody like me, who is traveling the world to win this battle,” Kerry responded. The former secretary of state went on to emphasize his climate accomplishments, including negotiating the Paris accord for the U.S. and bringing Chinese President Xi to the table. “I’ve been involved in this fight for years,” Kerry said. “I believe the time it takes me to get somewhere, I can’t sail across the ocean, I have to fly to meet with people and get things done,” he continued. “But what I’m doing almost full-time is working to win the battle of climate change. And in the end, if I offset and contribute my life to do this, I’m not going to be put on the defensive.” Last week, Kerry recommended that oil and gas workers should pivot to manufacturing solar panels if their jobs are eliminated as a consequence of the Biden administration’s environmental policies. Biden signed several executive orders on climate change last week aimed at achieving the goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. During his first week in office, the president reentered the Paris climate accord, from which the Trump administration withdrew the U.S. in 2017. Biden also canceled the permit on the Keystone pipeline, a project that would have created about 11,000 U.S. jobs this year, according to the Keystone XL website. Many of the workers are temporary, but 8,000 are union workers.
Task Force One Navy was directed to identify and dismantle barriers of inequality.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and 13 other Republican senators introduced a bill Tuesday to authorize the continuation of Keystone XL Pipeline construction.
"I'm a survivor of sexual assault, and I haven't told many people that in my life..."In an emotional video release, U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed that she was sexually assaulted in the past.Ocasia-Cortez did not elaborate on the alleged incident in her Instagram broadcast, or say when it occurred. But she also described in the video the terror she felt during the storming of the U.S. Capitol last month."Whether you had someone who was verbally abusive to you, whether you are a survivor of abuse, whether you experienced any sort of trauma in your life, small to large, these episodes can compound on one another.""These folks who are just trying to tell us to move on are just like pulling the page, they're using the same tactics of every other abuser who just tells you to move on - of that man who touched you inappropriately at work, telling you to move on.""This is not about a difference of political opinion. This is about just like basic humanity. "In her Instagram broadcast, the Democrat describes her fear. She is demanding that Republican politicians be held to account for the siege.She says she was harassed by former President Donald Trump supporters before the storming and was warned by other members of Congress to be "careful" that day.Ocasio-Cortez recounted hiding behind a bathroom door in her office, before fleeing and hiding for hours in a neighboring building."I felt that and if this was the journey that my life was taking, that I felt that things were going to be OK, and that, you know, I had fulfilled my purpose."Several Congressional committees are investigating the security failures behind the attacks, in which five people died and dozens of police officers were injured.
A Minnesota man who was bailed out twice by the Minnesota Freedom Fund has been arrested again and is now facing charges for alleged possession of firearms and a controlled substance. New charges: Thomas Moseley, 29, was arrested for the third time on Jan. 27 and is facing three new felony counts of fifth-degree possession of a controlled substance while in possession of a firearm, according to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office via Fox News. The basis of his arrest was related to the damage of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct in August 2020.
A billionaire businessman who praised the Trump administration's efforts to help minority business owners and cleared black students' debt was reportedly spared prosecution for tax evasion in a deal to co-operate on another massive tax case. Robert Smith, America's wealthiest black businessman, made headlines when he pledged to pay the student debt for students graduating from Morehouse College, an all-male historically black college in Atlanta, in 2019. Mr Smith, who runs a private equity firm and is estimated to be worth $7 billion, was also a vocal advocate of the Trump administration’s financial relief efforts for minority business owners during the pandemic and spoke regularly with the former president's daughter Ivanka Trump. But according to Bloomberg, at the same time, Mr Smith was being investigated by prosecutors and the US taxman who believed he had failed to declare more than $200 million in income. According to the outlet, Donald Trump's attorney general, William Barr, signed off on a non-prosecution agreement which allowed him to avoid a potential jail term and losing control of his company Vista Equity Partners.
The 8th Marine Regiment's history dates to 1917, with its most recent activation lasting more than 70 years.
The Monday night White House statement that appeared to take some air out of bipartisan COVID-19 relief bill negotiations didn't sound like President Biden, an anonymous longtime adviser to the commander-in-chief told Politico. "I think it sounded like more like [White House Chief of Staff] Ron Klain," the adviser said. "The GOP plan wasn't a joke. I looked at it and said, 'OK the midpoint between $600 billion and $1.9 trillion is about 1.2 or 1.3.' I was a little surprised we hit back that hard. It's not like our plan is perfect and there's nothing we can approve. Vintage Biden would not have been that harsh." The adviser suggested that while Biden has a penchant for bipartisan deal-making, Klain, an Obama-era holdover, doesn't have fond memories of working with Republicans after unsuccessful talks with GOP lawmakers about the stimulus in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the Affordable Care Act. "Ron has this whole thing: 'Remember how they rat-f---ed us on the ACA!," the adviser told Politico. It's worth noting, however, the White House statement did say Biden wants to keep talking with the group of senators going forward, so the idea of a bipartisan resolution hasn't been completely shot down, even if the possibility is shrinking. Read more at Politico. More stories from theweek.comMarjorie Taylor Greene is getting exactly what she wantsDemocrats may only have one chance to stop America from becoming a one-party stateStephen Bannon, pardoned by Trump, may now be charged over the same scheme in New York
Waitress said ‘business plunged’ as Obama officials left town and that as Trump supporters started visiting DC eateries, ‘experience was painful for all’
The daughter of a Tennessee man executed 14 years ago for murder wants to test DNA evidence to prove his innocence. Attorneys for April Alley presented arguments before the state appeals court on Wednesday. Alley confessed to the crime, but later said the confession was coerced.
Some U.S. community health centers say they are doling out COVID-19 shots far faster than government data suggests, likely accounting for some of a gap between how states and the federal government describe the availability of vaccine doses. The federal government said only about 60% of nearly 56 million doses of vaccines from Pfizer Inc or Moderna Inc that have shipped have been used. Community health centers, which often serve people of color and those with low incomes, are an important piece of the Biden Administration's plan for equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution, which also includes pharmacies, mass vaccination sites, and hospitals.
Furniture made from waste materials just keeps getting better—and easier to buyOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest
A number of women have reportedly exposed details of their “toxic” experience while working in Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign, which had been dominated by male leadership. In an interview with Business Insider, nine former staffers and volunteers reported being sidelined, ignored or belittled by male managers on several occasions, causing some of them to seek mental therapy. In one incident, Groves reportedly complained about having to drive a field organizer around.
President Joe Biden’s recent executive order to expand food assistance to U.S. households, while well-intentioned, represents a substantial overreach of the executive branch and a blatant attempt to override the intent of Congress. If successful, this dangerous precedent would open the door to major expansions of the social safety net without congressional approval. Congress must resist the president’s attempts to subvert the intent of existing law. Less than one week into the Biden presidency, the new administration issued a series of executive orders focused on COVID-19 economic relief. One such order seeks to expand food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps. In it, President Biden instructed the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to take “immediate steps to make it easier for the hardest-hit families to enroll and claim more generous benefits in the critical food and nutrition assistance area.” In reality, the executive order asks a federal agency — the USDA — to intentionally misinterpret the Families First Act and subvert the constitutional authority of Congress over the legislative process. The Families First Act, which passed in March 2020, clearly outlined that states could request waivers from the Agriculture Department to provide emergency allotments to SNAP households “not greater than the applicable maximum monthly allotment for the household size.” In normal times, 60 percent of households enrolled in SNAP do not receive the maximum benefit because they have income from other sources — such as earnings — that they can use for purchasing food. The emergency allotments recognized that millions of people lost jobs or faced other employment disruptions when the pandemic hit, and that those enrolled in SNAP were at particular risk for job loss in the early aftermath of the pandemic. Rather than requiring SNAP households to report a job or income change to their state agency and wait for bureaucrats to recalculate their benefits, the emergency allotments gave every SNAP recipient the maximum allowed. This was, admittedly, not a very targeted effort. Some families received a boost in SNAP dollars without a change in household income or financial circumstances. But the immediacy of the economic shock brought on by the pandemic, and the employment instability that persists today, necessitated an equally expedient policy response. The Agriculture Department, under President Trump, had approved emergency allotment plans for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands — but only in accordance with the law. The department extended these emergency-allotment waivers numerous times, most recently extending them through January 2021. The USDA — and Congress itself — also offered states flexibility in the aftermath of the pandemic. According to federal government spending data, all of the efforts outlined above have caused SNAP benefits to rise more than 40 percent in the last fiscal year, with more than $31 billion in added spending compared to FY 2019. Class-action suits have been filed in Pennsylvania and California by people who disagree with the USDA’s interpretation of the law: that regular SNAP plus emergency allotments cannot extend benefits beyond the maximum benefit level. Lawyers for the lawsuits argue that the law allows the USDA to approve emergency allotments in the amount of the maximum benefit, which if true, would mean that households could receive the maximum SNAP benefit plus the maximum emergency allotment — essentially doubling benefit amounts. A federal judge in California agreed with the USDA, while the Pennsylvania case is ongoing. The Biden administration’s executive order is encouraging its USDA to misinterpret the 2020 law in a similar way. The legislative text is not ambiguous. It is hard to imagine Congress being any clearer than, “to address temporary food needs not greater than the applicable maximum monthly allotment for the household size.” If Congress had wanted to give people more than the SNAP maximum, it would have done so. In fact, Congress eventually did just that — expanding benefits by 15 percent in the COVID-19 relief package passed last month. If the Biden administration is successful in this attempt, it will open the door to a number of executive actions aimed at expanding the safety net without congressional action. If political appointees in the Biden administration feel unconstrained by the law, we will see larger benefits directed to an increasing number of people. Such action not only undermines the integrity of the social safety net by going around Congress, it disregards the separation of powers ensconced in the founding documents of our republic. The American public has been largely supportive of efforts by Congress to provide economic relief to struggling households. Let’s keep that authority in its proper place.
Police used a county lines drug dealer's phone to message "middle-class" cocaine “users” and warn them they risk being arrested for fuelling the abuse of children. Officers in the West Midlands seized the device during a crackdown on criminals supplying Class A drugs worth £3,000-a-day to people across Birmingham and Worcestershire in November last year. The phone contained the mobile numbers of more than 2,000 customers who received SMS marketing updates from drug gangs. Police said they believe many of the customers will be "middle-class professionals" with "social" cocaine habits. On Tuesday all the contacts on the phone received messages telling them their phone numbers had been identified in the investigation.
The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. The new coronavirus directly targets the pancreas, infecting and damaging its insulin producing cells, according to a new study. The pancreas has two jobs: production of enzymes important to digestion, and creation and release of the hormones insulin and glucagon that regulate blood sugar levels.
