Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen interviewed porn star Stormy Daniels and apologized for his role in attempting to cover up her claims on behalf of former President Donald Trump.
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Despite all the jokes about galactic warfare, the Space Force's Earth-bound national security mission is no laughing matter.
A man sustained a gunshot wound and a laceration to his head after a brutal encounter with robbers in downtown Los Angeles last week. The incident, which was caught on surveillance video, occurred near 7th and Hill Streets after 3 p.m. on Feb. 4. In the surveillance video, one of the suspects grapples with the father and slams his body on the hood of the suspects' vehicle.
Twitter users advised that he should turn off his TV if he was 'triggered'
Democrats will introduce a proposal attached to the next stimulus package that would provide $3,000-per-child direct payments in certain households.Why it matters: The new legislation, led by Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), comes shortly after Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) introduced a similar proposal, lending bipartisan support to expanding cash benefits for families with children.Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here.The Biden Administration has reviewed and supports the proposal, according to the Washington Post who first reported the plan. The legislative proposal, reviewed by Axios, will be revealed Monday along with other Ways and Means provisions. The IRS would begin depositing payments into bank accounts July 1.The payments would come in monthly installments.Qualifying household incomes would be based on the previous year with lower payouts for individuals making $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for those filing jointly.Eligible households with children 17 to 6 could receive payments of $3,000 for each child and $3,600 for children under 6.What they're saying: “The pandemic is driving families deeper and deeper into poverty, and it’s devastating, Rep. Ritchie Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement. "We are making the Child Tax Credit more generous, more accessible, and by paying it out monthly, this money is going to be the difference in a roof over someone’s head or food on their table," he said.Be smart: sign up FREE for the most influential newsletter in America.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday she was not aware of any request from Donald Trump for an intelligence breifing, but reaffirmed that President Joe Biden would allow intelligence officials to make the decision on whether to grant access to them for the former Republican President. "If at any point the former president requests a briefing, so that is not currently applicable, but if he should request a briefing, (President Joe Biden) leaves it to (his intelligence team) to make a determination," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in a briefing on Monday.
Syrian authorities believe they have found the remains of a famed archaeologist who was beheaded by Islamic State militants in Palmyra in 2015, reportedly after refusing to divulge the location of the site’s hidden treasures. One of three bodies recently recovered from an area outside the Palmyra was thought to be that of Khaled al-Asaad, the longtime director of antiquities in the ancient city, state news outlet Sana reported on Sunday. In August 2015 Asaad was publicly executed in a local square in Palmyra, months after IS militants overran the strategic oasis city in Syria’s eastern desert. The crime made global headlines as the urbane Asaad had served as the custodian of the Unesco world heritage site for over half a century, receiving numerous awards and accolades in Syria and abroad. The octogenarian antiquities scholar was born in Palmyra and had remained in the city after the IS takeover to attempt to preserve its heritage. IS militants detained Asaad for over a month before his murder, his family said. The group was earning millions from looting and smuggling artefacts at the time and Syria’s antiquities minister said they had killed him after trying to extract information about the whereabouts of the city’s hidden treasure. The fate of Asaad’s own mortal remains has been something of a mystery since then. Following his death, unverified images circulated online showing a dismembered corpse supposedly belonging to Asaad hanging from a traffic light, with a handwritten sign accusing him of being director of Palmyra’s “idols”. But other sources later suggested his body was found tied to one of an ancient pillar in the ruins of Palmyra’s central square. Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra until March 2016 with the help of Russian air strikes. But that December IS fighters managed to recapture the strategic oasis city in a surprise assault and it was not finally liberated until March 2017. The Sana report did not give further information about the recently recovered bodies but said their identity would be confirmed by DNA analysis.
A woman who killed a Vietnamese nail salon manager in Las Vegas in 2018 has been sentenced to a prison term of 10 to 25 years. The verdict: On Friday, Clark County District Court Judge Tierra Jones sentenced Krystal Whipple to prison for the death of 51-year-old Nhu "Annie" Ngoc Nguyen, the Associated Press reports. With the plea, she effectively avoided trials of felony murder, burglary, robbery and stolen vehicle charges, which she initially faced.
An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released Monday found that the $15 federal minimum wage bill proposed by Democrats would cut jobs for 1.4 million workers by 2025, but lift 900,000 people out of poverty. Why it matters: President Biden included a proposal to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour in his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan, but it's facing resistance from moderate Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Biden said over the weekend that he does not expect the provision to survive negotiations, but that he'll push for it in a separate bill. Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here."No one should work 40 hours a week and live below the poverty wage. And if you’re making less than $15 an hour, you’re living below the poverty wage," Biden said.Details... The CBO report found that a $15 minimum wage phase in by June 2025, as proposed by Democrats, would have the following effects:Increase the cumulative budget deficit over the 2021–2031 period by $54 billion.Drive prices higher for goods and services — "stemming from the higher wages of workers paid at or near the minimum wage."Increase wages for 17 million workers who currently make under $15 an hour, as well as 10 million workers whose wages would otherwise be slightly above that wage rate.The cumulative pay of affected people would "increase, on net, by $333 billion."That net increase would come from "higher pay ($509 billion) for people who were employed at higher hourly wages under the bill, offset by lower pay ($175 billion) because of reduced employment under the bill," the report adds. Context: The Congressional Budget Office is a non-partisan federal agency that analyzes the effects of proposed fiscal policies. What they're saying: Senate Budget Committee chairman Bernie Sanders wrote in response on Monday, "I find it hard to understand how the CBO concluded that raising the minimum wage would increase the deficit by $54 billion. Two years ago, CBO concluded that a $15 minimum wage would increase the deficit by less than $1 million over ten years.""The good news, however, is that from a Byrd Rule perspective, the CBO has demonstrated that increasing the minimum wage would have a direct and substantial impact on the federal budget," he added."What that means is that we can clearly raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour under the rules of reconciliation."Be smart: sign up FREE for the most influential newsletter in America.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday said he would not wear a face mask after his recovery from COVID-19, in spite of widespread support from top officials and the public for the measure. In his first news conference since testing positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 24, Lopez Obrador brushed aside repeated questions from reporters about whether he would wear a mask to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. Unlike many of his top officials, Lopez Obrador has shunned face masks throughout the pandemic.
Three young Saudi men who faced death sentences for acts they were accused of committing as minors have been handed a 10-year prison sentence instead, the Saudi Human Rights Commission said. Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoun and Abdullah al-Zaher, youth from Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority, were detained separately on charges stemming from their participation in anti-government Shiite protests over discrimination that rocked the country’s eastern province in 2011-2012. Al-Nimr, the nephew of prominent opposition cleric Shiekh Nimr al-Nimr, whose execution sparked Shiite demonstrations from Bahrain to Pakistan, was arrested in 2012 at age 17, according to Human Rights Watch.
An Asian American graduate student from Yale University was killed in a shooting in New Haven, Connecticut over the weekend. The incident, which is under investigation as a homicide, occurred near the intersection of Nash and Lawrence Streets at around 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 6. BREAKING: Fatal shooting Nash & Lawrence Streets #NewHaven .@WTNH pic.twitter.com/k7qMkF6gtk — CTLaSalle Blanks (@CTLaSalleBlanks) February 7, 2021 Kevin Jiang, 26, was a graduate student at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE).
In what is seen as the latest example of President Biden's efforts to roll back former President Donald Trump's restrictive immigration policiues, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday said the Biden administration has notified El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras that the United States has suspended, with immediate effect, the Asylum Cooperative Agreements and will begin the process of terminating them. Under the pacts, which were struck by the Trump administration in 2019, the U.S. could send people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border to the three Central American countries to "share the distribution of asylum claims." Critics argued the policy put asylum-seekers at risk, since the three countries could not credibly provide refuge, meaning the U.S. was not meeting its obligations under international law to help people fleeing persecution. Blinken said while the move does not mean the U.S. border is "open" and laws "must be enforced," the "Biden administration believes there are more suitable ways to work with our partner governments to manage migration across the region," including addressing "the root causes of forced displacement and irregular migration." Transfers under the agreements were already on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic — in fact, the pacts with El Salvador and Honduras were never implemented, the State Department said. Read more at NPR and ABC News. More stories from theweek.comWhat's the point of Trump's second impeachment trial?5 brutally funny cartoons about America's bungled vaccine rolloutTrump's impeachment lawyer specializes in medical malpractice and 'people falsely accused in Me Too cases'
Alex Salmond has offered to appear in front of a Holyrood committee at a date of its choosing - but only if it publishes his explosive claims against Nicola Sturgeon first. The former First Minister’s lawyers are understood to have told MSPs that he is prepared to testify under oath on any day before Ms Sturgeon’s appearance on Tuesday next week. However, he has made clear that he will only do so if a dossier detailing the multiple ways in which he believes Ms Sturgeon has broken the ministerial code is released by the inquiry. The committee is investigating the circumstances around an unlawful civil service probe into sexual misconduct complaints against Mr Salmond. While it remains Mr Salmond’s preference to appear at Holyrood, he plans to hold a televised press conference instead, should the committee refuse to back down.
A former campus police officer convicted of manslaughter in the death of his wife, an adult model who posted racy photos online, was sentenced to 16 years in prison Monday by a judge who said the man still hadn't taken responsibility for the death. William Jeffrey West, 47, will get credit for the three years he has spent in jail since his arrest in the death of Kathleen Dawn West, 42, news outlets reported. Kat West was found dead in January 2018 along the street in front of the couple’s suburban home in Calera, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Birmingham.
The court rejected similar restrictions in New York
Britain called on Monday for a reset in relations with the European Union and a refinement of a Brexit deal covering trade with Northern Ireland, saying trust was eroded when Brussels attempted to restrict COVID-19 vaccine supplies. Relations between Brussels and London strained by years of bruising Brexit talks took a turn for the worse last month when the EU threatened to use emergency measures to stop coronavirus vaccines going from the bloc into Northern Ireland. To avoid creating a hard border on the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland remained within the EU's single market for goods under the Brexit deal, effectively creating a frontier within the United Kingdom.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday that American workers who earn $60,000 per year should receive stimulus checks as part of the White House's proposed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.
One of the major challenges the United States is facing in its COVID-19 vaccine drive is the fact that demand is outstripping supply, but Former Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb thinks that will flip suddenly and "sooner than we think." In an appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box on Monday, Gottlieb noted that vaccine production is ramping up — about 220 million doses will be put into the market by the end of March, and another 100 million will be made available in April. Those numbers will be higher if the FDA soon authorizes Johnson & Johnson's candidate for emergency use, as Gottlieb expects. By that point, he said, states will likely have to make the shots "generally available" because a shrinking, but still significant reluctance to get vaccinated among the American public means there won't be enough takers if only specific groups of people have access. "If we continue to ration it based on more and more narrow slices of the population, it's going to get harder to administer. So, I think we're just going to have to open this up to general availability, which is good news," he said, pinpointing the end of March and "certainly" April as target dates. Gottlieb cautioned that doesn't mean everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one by April 1, but he does think most people will be able to schedule an appointment. "We're going to run out of demand sooner than we think. At some point in March and certainly by the end of March we're going to have to make this generally available ... everyone is going to be able to go online and get an appointment sooner than we think," says @ScottGottliebMD. pic.twitter.com/0mnWAUJN9J — Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) February 8, 2021 More stories from theweek.comWhat's the point of Trump's second impeachment trial?5 brutally funny cartoons about America's bungled vaccine rolloutTrump's impeachment lawyer specializes in medical malpractice and 'people falsely accused in Me Too cases'
Two children kidnapped during a carjacking while their father was on a DoorDash delivery run in San Francisco are now safe in their home on Sunday, authorities said. An officer found the 1-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl inside their father’s Honda Odyssey minivan that was stolen on Jackson Street in Pacific Heights, San Francisco, around 1 a.m. on Sunday, ABC7 News reported. “Every minute was excruciating,” says Jeffrey Fang. He was reunited with his two young children overnight after his van was stolen in San Francisco with his 4-year-old and 1-year-old inside.
California's plan to ban gas-powered cars in 15 years could become a model for the U.S. under Biden. But consumers aren't clamoring for electric vehicles.
