“The U.S. economy shrank by 3.5 percent last year as the novel coronavirus upended American business and households, making 2020 the worst year for U.S. economic growth since the depths of the Great Recession.” Read more at Washington Post
People without appointments wait in line this week in Los Angeles for the chance to get a Covid-19 vaccine dose that would otherwise have been discarded.
“Only half of Covid-19 vaccines delivered to US states have been used, but Biden administration officials say some of that is being reserved for the all-important second dose that completes the vaccine process. And FEMA is close to finishing a request for up to 10,000 service members to help administer vaccines. Meanwhile, Oklahoma is trying to return the state's $2 million stockpile of hydroxychloroquine, which had been touted by some as a treatment for Covid-19. In Peru, things are getting so bad that the country has instituted widespread lockdowns and is racing to secure more ICU beds. In India, a decline in cases has led to some easing of public activity restrictions. Cases are trending lower in the US as well, but estimates claim another 80,000 people could die of the virus in the next few weeks.” Read more at CNN
“The Department of Homeland Security has issued a threat bulletin due to the ongoing potential for violence after the inauguration, including concerns that domestic extremists may be emboldened by the attack on the US Capitol. Indictments and investigations against alleged insurrectionists have revealed members of some paramilitary groups discussed training camps and tactical preparations for the siege. At least two cases open right now include defendants with alleged ties to military-style training. Members of Congress are still reporting threats, and concern is growing about the safety of some lawmakers when they travel outside Washington. As former President Trump’s impeachment trial looms, some Democratic House staffers are drafting a message to the Senate, urging the body to seriously consider the impact and trauma the Capitol insurrection had on them.” Read more at CNN
“The prospect of likely acquittal for Donald Trump at his Senate trial has some Democrats contemplating an off-ramp that would condemn the former president but stop short of impeachment and a ban from future office.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said Wednesday that he has been exploring drafting a bipartisan censure of Trump that would short-circuit a potentially lengthy trial that could impede progress on other Democratic priorities.
‘It could be an alternative,’ he told reporters, saying he wanted the Senate to focus on responding to the coronavirus pandemic and confirming President Biden’s Cabinet. ‘To do a trial knowing you’ll get 55 votes at the max seems to me to be not the right prioritization of our time.’
Kaine’s focus on an alternative, which has been brewing since the House voted to impeach Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, came a day after the vast majority of Republican senators signaled doubts about the constitutional basis for trying an ex-president on impeachment charges.
Nearly all GOP senators vote against impeachment trial for Trump, signaling likely acquittal
Forty-five of 50 Republican senators voted to back Trump on Tuesday. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who pushed the vote, said it showed that impeachment was ‘dead on arrival’ in the Senate. Convicting Trump would require the support of 67 of 100 senators.” Read more at Washington Post
“Individual investors rout hedge funds in GameStop mania. A group on chat forum Reddit has been trading forgotten stocks like GameStop and BlackBerry, and turned Wall Street upside down. Long-held strategies such as evaluating company fundamentals have gone out the window in favor of momentum.
A bubble in its purest form. A combination of easy money, a real improvement in GameStop’s prospects, technical support from a short squeeze and a mad rush to get rich pushed the retailer's stock up 64-fold from late August to Wednesday’s close. Anyone who held on for 10 days made gains of more than 10 times their money.
Stocks closed sharply lower. U.S. stock futures dropped today, after being pushed to their steepest one-day falls since October on Wednesday, as traders were concerned over Covid-19 vaccine distribution and captivated by frenzied trading in GameStop and heavily shorted stocks.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Joe Biden had long promised to become the climate president, and on Wednesday he detailed far-ranging plans to shift the U.S. away from fossil fuels, create millions of jobs in renewable energy, and conserve vast swaths of public lands and water.
‘This is not a time for small measures,’ Biden said at the White House, adding that the nation had already wasted precious years as it delayed in dealing with the climate crisis.
But as he detailed his plans, the gas, oil and coal industries were already mobilizing on all fronts. From an oil patch in Alaska to state capitals to the halls of Congress, the industries and their allies are aiming to slow Biden’s unprecedented push for climate action and keep profits from fossil fuels flowing. Republican attorneys general from six states wrote to the new president, warning him not to overstep his authority. GOP lawmakers attacked his executive orders as ‘job killers.’ And the petroleum industry revived television ads promoting drilling on federal lands.
Industry executives expressed dismay at the scope, speed and direction in which Biden is heading, saying he is going much further than President Barack Obama ever did, while environmentalists said the danger that Earth faces is far more dire now than it appeared during Obama’s tenure and requires an extraordinary response. Last year essentially tied with 2016 as the hottest year ever recorded, and scientists say the planet is speeding toward irreversible damage.
In barely a week in office, Biden has moved to rejoin the Paris climate accord, halt the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, impose new limits on oil and gas production, and mandate climate change as a priority across every federal agency.” Read more at Washington Post
“Former President Donald Trump is expected to meet privately Thursday with prominent congressional lawmaker, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. An aide to Trump, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss his schedule, confirmed the meeting will take place in South Florida. The meeting will come as Trump and his attorneys prepare his defense at a Senate impeachment trial next month. McCarthy criticized Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol – ‘the president bears responsibility,’ he said a week after the insurrection. Last week on Inauguration Day, McCarthy congratulated President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as he presented them with framed photographs of the moment each was sworn in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. However, McCarthy also voted against the second impeachment of the former president and he has taken a softer tone toward Trump in more recent days.” Read more at USA Today
“Wisconsin will become one of only 10 states without statewide mask mandates if the Assembly votes as scheduled Thursday to overturn an order by Gov. Tony Evers. However, masks will still be required in some of its largest cities thanks to local ordinances. More than two dozen public health organizations, as well as state and local health officials, have urged the Republican-controlled Legislature to reconsider the vote. The plan to eliminate the mask requirement will likely cut off nearly $50 million in food assistance to low-income people and those thrown out of work during the pandemic, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The move comes as Wisconsin lags in distribution of coronavirus vaccines and health officials warn about the spread of contagious new variants. Republican lawmakers contend that Evers exceeded his authority by issuing multiple health emergencies, and mask orders, rather than coming to the Legislature for approval every 60 days. The issue is also being argued before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.” Read more at USA Today
“Biden pauses arms sales to Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. A review of billions of dollars in weapons transactions approved by former President Donald Trump is under way, according to U.S. officials. It isn’t unusual for a new administration to review arms sales approved by a predecessor, and many of the transactions are likely to ultimately go forward.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“A man accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan last year pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against those accused of being his co-conspirators.” Read more at New York Times
“Pakistan's Supreme Court has freed the four men convicted of kidnapping and murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. Pearl was working as the South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal when he was kidnapped and killed in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Four men were arrested later that year and convicted, but a high court last year overturned the convictions of three of the four men and reduced the other's sentence. The court last month ordered all of them to be set free, eliciting shock from Pearl family’s lawyers and concern over the future safety of journalists in the country.” Read more at CNN
“In an unexpected move, the Polish government has abruptly imposed a near-total ban on abortions, delivering a major blow to abortion-rights advocates and sparking nationwide protests. “ Read more at CNN
“President Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration provided a grand platform for poet Amanda Gorman. She will receive an even wider audience next Sunday, when another of her poems will be broadcast ahead of Super Bowl LV.
The poem will recognize Trimaine Davis, Suzie Dorner and James Martin for ‘their tremendous impact during an unprecedented year,’ the NFL announced.
Davis is a Los Angeles educator who secured hotspots, laptops and tablets during the coronavirus pandemic to help curb the digital divide experienced by his students, according to the league. Dorner, the ICU nurse manger at Tampa General Hospital in Florida, lost two grandparents to covid-19 and was chosen to represent health care workers. Martin is a Marine Corps veteran who connected fellow veterans to their families through the Wounded Warrior Project in addition to other local initiatives.” Read more at Washington Post
“Federal officials repeatedly raided a fund earmarked for biomedical research in the years leading up to the covid-19 pandemic, spending millions of dollars on unrelated salaries, administrative expenses and even the cost of removing office furniture, according to the findings of an investigation into a whistleblower complaint shared with The Washington Post.
The investigation, conducted by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services and overseen by the Office of Special Counsel, centered on hundreds of millions of dollars intended for the development of vaccines, drugs and therapies by theBiomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority or BARDA, an arm of the federal health department.
The unidentified whistleblower alleged that officials in the office of the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, which oversaw the biomedical agency, wrongly dipped into the money set aside by Congress for development of lifesaving medicines, beginning in fiscal 2010 and continuing through at least fiscal 2019, spanning both the Obama and Trump administrations.” Read more at Washington Post
“The controversy over GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) isn’t going away, and it’s a problem for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and the rest of the GOP leadership, especially in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Greene ‘repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019,’ CNN reported, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), former President Barack Obama, and others. Last week, the liberal group Media Matters disclosed Facebook posts where Greene agreed with comments that the horrific 2018 Parkland school shooting was a ‘false flag’ operation and the 9/11 attack was an ‘inside job.’
Most recently, a TV crew was kicked out of a Greene event and threatened with arrest after trying to ask her a question Wednesday night.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) plans to offer a motion to expel Greene, although whether it ever comes up for a vote is still unclear. ‘Her very presence in office represents a direct threat against elected officials and staff who serve our country, and it is with their safety in mind, as well as the security of our institutions and public servants across our country, that I call on my House colleagues to support my resolution and immediately remove Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from this legislative body,’ Gomez said in a statement.
Expulsion almost certainly isn’t going to happen, since it’d require the support of two-thirds of the House. That would mean dozens of Republicans would have to vote to expel Greene for behavior -- while terrible, especially in the light of what happened on Jan. 6 and the growing public concern over domestic extremism -- occurred before she came to Congress. And voters knew Greene had a history of racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic comments long before she was elected; Politico reported that last June.
McCarthy’s dilemma, though, is that he’s not going to be able to just move past this incident -- especially not after the deadly Capitol incident. McCarthy’s office said he wants to meet with Greene and discuss the situation, which is the same technique he used following the original Politico report on her hate-filled past and support for the QAnon conspiracy. McCarthy has urged Democrats and the media to give Greene ‘an opportunity’ to serve before condemning her, but the uproar surrounding her only seems to grow.
Other House GOP lawmakers are also causing controversy. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) infuriated Democrats by tweeting that Pelosi had left the House chamber during the Jan. 6 attack. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) reportedly tried to bring a gun on the House floor, an incident under investigation by the U.S. Capitol Police. Harris, Boebert and some other Republicans have refused to comply with the new screening requirement for members and staff before they go on the floor. Democrats will push through a rule next week setting up automatic fines for members who violate the protocol.
When Republicans won the House majority in 2010, they promised to be sober stewards of the government. John Boehner was eager to push people out of the House when they were problems. Can you make the argument that you should be entrusted with power when you are behaving like this?” Read more at Punchbowl
Enrique Tarrio, leader of the far-right group the Proud Boys leader during a march into Freedom Plaza, in Washington DC on 12 December 2020. Photograph: Gamal Diab/EPA
“Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters.
In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling.
Tarrio, in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, denied working undercover or cooperating in cases against others. ‘I don’t know any of this,’ he said, when asked about the transcript. ‘I don’t recall any of this.’
Law enforcement officials and the court transcript contradict Tarrio’s denial. In a statement to Reuters, the former federal prosecutor in Tarrio’s case, Vanessa Singh Johannes, confirmed that ‘he cooperated with local and federal law enforcement, to aid in the prosecution of those running other, separate criminal enterprises, ranging from running marijuana grow houses in Miami to operating pharmaceutical fraud schemes.’
Tarrio, 36, is a high-profile figure who organizes and leads the rightwing Proud Boys in their confrontations with those they believe to be antifa, short for “anti-fascism”, an amorphous leftist movement. The Proud Boys were involved in the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January.
The records uncovered by Reuters are startling because they show that a leader of a far-right group now under intense scrutiny by law enforcement was previously an active collaborator with criminal investigators.” Read more at The Guardian
“A Moscow judge denied Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's appeal for release from a detention center Thursday, after the opposition leader slammed the court process as ‘one big demonstrative violation of the law’ and thanked protesters for their support.
Navalny spoke via a video link from a bare room with a single chair in his Moscow pretrial detention center at an appeal hearing against his imprisonment. Navalny was detained Jan. 17 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he recovered from a near-fatal nerve agent poisoning in August during a trip to Siberia.
Tens of thousands of Russian protesters across more than 100 Russian cities and towns demonstrated in Navalny's support last Saturday, and more than 3,000 people were reported arrested. More protests have been called for Sunday.” Read more at Washington Post
“On Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida , killing all seven crew members and leaving the nation in shock. The crew that included Ronald McNair, the second Black American in space, and Christa McAuliffe, the first school teacher to fly in space, received much publicity before the launch which made the explosion much more personal for the country. After a lengthy investigation, it was determined that an O-ring seal in the joint of the right solid rocket booster failed which resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the spacecraft. But as USA TODAY Network journalist Tim Walters pointed out, he ‘still can envision that day as clear as when it happened’ and that his ‘heart still aches for the families of those astronauts 35 years later.’” Read more at USA Today
“Cloris Leachman, the actress most famous for playing Mary Richard’s quirky landlady Phyllis Lindstrom in ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ died Tuesday of natural causes at her home in Encinitas, California, TMZ reports. ‘She had the best life beginning to end that you could wish for someone,’ Leachman’s son told the outlet, adding that, ‘she left everyone with a lot of love.’
Leachman had 22 Emmy nominations in total—more than any other actress in history—and tied with actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus for the most Emmy wins. Leachman won two Emmys and a Golden Globe for her memorable role on ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ and went on to star in a spin-off. She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in ‘The Last Picture Show,’ and was also well-known for her performance in ‘Young Frankenstein.’ Leachman was 94 years old. Cloris Leachman, the actress most famous for playing Mary Richard’s quirky landlady Phyllis Lindstrom in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” died Tuesday of natural causes at her home in Encinitas, California, TMZ reports. “She had the best life beginning to end that you could wish for someone,” Leachman’s son told the outlet, adding that, “she left everyone with a lot of love.”
Leachman had 22 Emmy nominations in total—more than any other actress in history—and tied with actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus for the most Emmy wins. Leachman won two Emmys and a Golden Globe for her memorable role on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” and went on to star in a spin-off. She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “The Last Picture Show,” and was also well-known for her performance in “Young Frankenstein.” Leachman was 94 years old.” Read more at Daily Beast