President Biden delivers remarks to State Department staff Thursday in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)
“President Biden, in an interview with the ‘CBS Evening News With Norah O’Donnell,’ said former president Donald Trump should not receive intelligence briefings, citing his ‘erratic behavior unrelated to the insurrection.’
‘I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings. What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?’ Biden said when questioned. The White House has been reviewing whether the former president, now out of office, should get the briefings.
Separately, Biden pledged Friday ‘to act fast’ on securing passage of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, making clear that he and Democrats in Congress are willing to move forward without Republican support. He pointed to a disappointing jobs report for January to argue that the cost of the legislation is justified.” Read more at Washington Post
“President Biden, in an interview broadcast Friday night, said he does not expect his economic relief package to include an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15, but vowed to push for it as a separate piece of legislation.
Some Democrats have pushed to include the federal minimum wage increase in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill. While Biden has backed that effort, the measure would need support from all 50 Democrats in the Senate to pass, and it does not appear to have the votes, raising the likelihood it will be dropped from the final version.” Read more at The Hill
A nurse drew the AstraZeneca vaccine.ANTHONY DEVLIN/BLOOMBERG “The COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford protected people against a new, more contagious coronavirus variant at similar levels to the protection it offered against other lineages of the virus, Oxford researchers said in a paper released on Friday.
The paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, said that the vaccine had 74.6 percent efficacy against the new variant, which was first detected in Britain and is known as B.1.1.7. That was similar to, though potentially slightly lower than, its efficacy against other lineages of the virus.
The encouraging, albeit preliminary, findings suggest that all five of the leading vaccines may offer at least some protection against new variants of the virus spreading around the globe. Still, the mounting evidence suggests that mutant viruses can diminish the efficacy of vaccines, increasing the pressure on countries to quickly vaccinate their populations and outrace the variants taking hold across the globe.
In clinical trials, the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine protected all participants against severe illness or death.” Read more at Boston Globe
“A trial of an experimental coronavirus vaccine detected the most sobering signal yet that people who have recovered from infections are not completely protected against a variant that originated in South Africa and is spreading rapidly, preliminary data presented this week suggests.
The finding, though far from conclusive, has potential implications for how the pandemic will be brought under control, underscoring the critical role of vaccination, including for people who have already recovered from infections. Reaching herd immunity — the threshold when enough people achieve protection and the virus can’t seed new outbreaks — will depend on a mass vaccination campaign that has been constrained by limited supply.
Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted that it appears a vaccine is better than natural infection in protecting people, calling it ‘a big, strong plug to get vaccinated’ and a reality check for people who may have assumed that because they have already been infected, they are immune.” Read more at Washington Post
“Claims by former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that his conduct around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is shielded by the First Amendment are ‘legally frivolous’ and should do nothing to stop the Senate from convicting him in his impeachment trial, 144 leading First Amendment lawyers and constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum wrote in a letter circulated on Friday.
Taking aim at one of the key planks of Mr. Trump’s defense, the lawyers argued that the constitutional protections do not apply to an impeachment proceeding, were never meant to protect conduct like Mr. Trump’s anyway and would most likely fail to shield him even in a criminal court.
‘Although we differ from one another in our politics, disagree on many questions of constitutional law, and take different approaches to understanding the Constitution’s text, history, and context, we all agree that any First Amendment defense raised by President Trump’s attorneys would be legally frivolous,’ the group wrote. ‘In other words, we all agree that the First Amendment does not prevent the Senate from convicting President Trump and disqualifying him from holding future office.’” Read more at New York Times
“One day after the House voted to banish her from congressional committees, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene sent a defiant message to both parties on Friday, warning that the punishment had only ‘freed’ her to press Republicans further to the right and insist on their allegiance to former President Donald J. Trump.
In a wide-ranging news conference in front of the Capitol, Ms. Greene, a first-term Republican from Georgia, said that although the House’s vote on Thursday to remove her from two panels had deprived her constituents of an important voice in Congress, it had personally benefited her.
‘Going forward, I’ve been freed,’ Ms. Greene said, adding, ‘I’m going to be holding the Republican Party accountable and pushing them to the right.’
Ms. Greene’s comments and determination to remain in the spotlight obliterated whatever hopes House Republican leaders may have had that she would quiet down in the name of party unity after her rebuke. And it underscored the influence the former president, who has effusively praised Ms. Greene, still has over some of the loudest voices in Congress.” Read more at New York Times
“Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, is set to introduce a new bill that could hold Facebook, Google, and other tech giants more directly accountable when viral online posts and videos result in real-world harm.
The measure is dubbed the SAFE TECH Act, and it marks the latest salvo from congressional lawmakers against Section 230. The decades-old federal rules help facilitate free expression online, but Democrats including Warner say they also allow the most profitable tech companies to skirt responsibility for hate speech, election disinformation, and other dangerous content spreading across the web.
The senator’s new proposal preserves the thrust of Section 230, which generally spares a wide array of website operators from being held liable for what their users say. Instead, it opens an easier legal pathway for Web users to seek court orders and file lawsuits if posts, photos, and videos — and the tech industry’s refusal to police them — threaten them personally with abuse, discrimination, harassment, the loss of life, or other irreparable harm….
Ultimately, it would be up to a judge to decide the merits of these claims; the bill mostly opens the door for web users to argue their cases without running as much risk of having them dismissed early. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other social-media sites stand to lose these highly coveted federal protections under Warner’s bill only in the case of abusive paid content, such as online advertisements, that seek to defraud or scam customers.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Two GOP lawmakers are now facing $5,000 fines for bypassing metal detectors while entering the House chamber after Democrats voted this week to impose the punitive measure to enforce compliance.
Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert (Texas) and Andrew Clyde (Ga.) were issued fines by the sergeant-at-arms over incidents that occurred Thursday, according to a senior Democratic aide.
The fines are being issued after House Democrats voted on Tuesday night to establish the fines, which are $5,000 for the first offense and $10,000 for the second.
Lawmakers can appeal the fines to the House Ethics Committee. But if the panel upholds the fines, they will be deducted out of lawmakers' paychecks and cannot be paid with campaign or congressional office budget funds.
Gohmert said that he had left the floor momentarily to use the restroom and was unaware that he needed to be wanded by a police officer again. He said he plans to appeal the fine.
‘Unlike in the movie The Godfather, there are no toilets with tanks where one could hide a gun, so my reentry onto the House floor should have been a non-issue,’ Gohmert said in a statement.
Clyde's office did not immediately return a request for comment.
The metal detectors were installed outside the House chamber last month, days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a violent mob of former President Trump's supporters who were trying to stop Congress from certifying President Biden's electoral victory.
But several Republicans immediately pushed back on the metal detectors and berated Capitol Police officers and sergeant-at-arms staff who asked them to comply. Some Republicans speed-walked past the metal detectors or pushed past security staff to enter the chamber without undergoing screenings.
The metal detectors were installed to enforce longstanding rules that expressly prohibit lawmakers from bringing guns into the House and Senate chambers or adjacent areas.
Members of Congress are typically allowed to skip security screenings that others entering the Capitol complex are required to undergo. Lawmakers are still allowed to bypass metal detectors elsewhere in the Capitol complex, aside from the ones now stationed outside entrances to the House chamber.
Under a 1967 Capitol Police Board regulation, members of Congress have limited exemptions from the prohibition on guns in the Capitol complex. Lawmakers can keep guns in their offices or transport them unloaded and securely wrapped.
But last month, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) nearly brought a concealed gun onto the House floor before being stopped by Capitol Police while undergoing a screening outside the chamber.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) acknowledged in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon published Friday that some lawmakers have been quietly flouting the rule banning guns in the House chamber.
‘The fact of the matter is that, historically speaking, a number of members that carried just kind of didn't really acknowledge or follow that rule but they didn't make a show out of it,’ Roy said. ‘No one said anything about it, no one asked.’
Roy also told the Free Beacon that he is considering taking legal action against the metal detectors and fines.
‘It's an outrage. I believe it deprives us of our Second Amendment right to defend ourselves,’ Roy said.
Harris's office said that the Maryland Republican has faced security threats recently and indicated that he carries a gun for self-defense. Read more at The Hill
“‘Lou Dobbs Tonight’ has been canceled by Fox News, a network spokesperson confirmed.
Dobbs, 75, was among the most ardent pro-Trump voices on air. He held influence over Trump administration policy — particularly on trade and immigration — and relentlessly promoted the former president’s false claims of election fraud late last year. His nightly program, which a person close to Dobbs said aired its final episode Friday, was by far the highest-rated on Fox Business.
The news was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, which reported that Dobbs will be unlikely to return to air, although he still has a contract with Fox News Media.
The announcement comes one day after the election technology company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, parent company Fox Corp. and several on-air commentators, including Dobbs.” Read more at Washington Post
“Two New York Times journalists who had recently attracted scrutiny for their past conduct — and, in one case, sparked an outcry from staff against management — have left the organization, according to notes sent to the newsroom by top Times editors Friday evening.
High-profile science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr.'s departure comes after the Daily Beast reported that he had repeated a racial slur during a 2019 trip to Peru for high school students. The Times also confirmed that McNeil, who has been a key reporter covering the coronavirus pandemic, ‘had used bad judgment by repeating a racist slur in the context of a conversation about racist language.’ McNeil initially responded to the report by telling The Washington Post, ‘don’t believe everything you read,’ without elaborating.
The other departure is Andy Mills, whose past behavior and employment status came under scrutiny by his colleagues and his peers in the podcasting world after the collapse of ‘Caliphate,’ which he helped produce and host along with star Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi.
Friday’s staff news is the latest example of controversy within the Times newsroom spilling into public view, including the summer resignation of editorial page editor James Bennet — once considered a possible successor to Executive Editor Dean Baquet — after the publication of a controversial op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). In December, the Times removed Callimachi from the terrorism beat and returned the prestigious Peabody award given to ‘Caliphate’ after the Times concluded that the account of the would-be Islamic State terrorist at the center of the podcast could not be substantiated.
This week, staffers sent a letter to management saying they were ‘outraged’ that the company’s previous investigation into McNeil’s comments had not resulted in a more severe punishment and that the company needed to do more. Managers signaled agreement. Read more at Washington Post
“A divided Supreme Court late Friday blocked enforcement of California's prohibition on indoor church services during the coronavirus pandemic, the latest case in which the justices have been asked to assess measures intended to slow the spread of the virus in light of religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.
South Bay United Pentecostal Church, a 600-seat congregation near San Diego, had filed an emergency request asking the high court to block enforcement of some COVID-19 provisions, including a prohibition against all indoor services in some parts of the state as well attendance limits in others. The 1,250-seat Harvest Rock Church had filed a similar challenge to the state's rules.
A 6-3 majority blocked the state from prohibiting indoor services in counties with the greatest spread of COVID-19, but it allowed attendance caps based on the size of the building to stand. The state may also continue to prohibit singing and chanting during those services, the court said.” Read more at USA Today
“Microsoft will suspend contributions for the 2022 election cycle to members of Congress who objected to the election results.” Read more at Axios
“The U.S. backed Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next director-general of the World Trade Organization, clearing a path for her to become the first woman to lead the global trade group.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Virginia lawmakers took key steps toward making Virginia the 16th state to legalize marijuana, as the House and Senate voted separately Friday to allow recreational use by adults, with retail sales by 2024.” Read more at Roanoke Times
“Public prosecutors in Germany have indicted a 95-year-old woman for her role supporting the Nazi killing machinery as a secretary in a concentration camp, charging her with 10,000 counts of being an accessory to murder, and complicity in attempted murders.
The indictment against the woman, identified only as Irmgard F. under German privacy laws, followed a five-year investigation, prosecutors said Friday. Because she was younger than 21 at the time of the offenses she is accused of, they said, she would be tried in a juvenile court, where she is likely to receive a milder sentence.
The woman worked between June 1943 and April 1945 as a secretary for the camp commander at the Stutthof camp, 20 miles from the Polish city of Gdansk, which was known as Danzig under German rule at the time.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Some of the world’s democracies are having a rough year. In Myanmar, where the legacy of half a century of military rule began to wane in 2010, a coup Monday saw the arrest of democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The next day, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was sentenced to 32 months in prison for alleged probation violations after he left the country to seek medical treatment following an assassination attempt that almost killed him.
In India, the world’s most populous democracy, a recent wave of protests by farmers have led to Internet shutdowns, social media restrictions and the intimidation of journalists. And the United States, long the self-proclaimed champion of democratic norms, is still sorting through the aftermath of former president Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn last year’s election and the subsequent violent attack on the Capitol.
Therearemanymoreexamples. Across the world, analysts and researchers are pointing to evidence that global democracy is backsliding, and the big picture is not pretty.
The Economist Intelligence Unit, the London-based research and analysis group, quantified the decline with a report released Wednesday. The annual survey, which rates the state of democracy across 167 countries based on measures including electoral processes and civil liberties, found that just 8.4 percent of the world lived in a full democracy last year, while more than a third lived under authoritarian rule. The global average score fell to 5.37 out of 10 on the democracy index — the lowest rating since the EIU began the index in 2006.
Others have come to similar conclusions. Freedom House, a nongovernmental, nonpartisan advocacy organization established in 1941, released a report in October that found that the state of democracy and human rights had worsened in at least 80 countries since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
There is no question that democracy is declining, but it’s harder to explain exactly why. One reason is the still-raging pandemic, a public health crisis that saw many nations impose unprecedented restrictions. ‘Confronted by a new, deadly disease to which humans had no natural immunity, most people concluded that preventing a catastrophic loss of life justified some temporary loss of freedom,’ the Economist wrote this week in a summary of its sister organization’s index.
But the threat to democracy did not emerge with the coronavirus. Data from Freedom House shows that more than 100 countries have seen their levels of freedom decline since 2016, while only a handful have seen gains. The EIU’s global democracy index, meanwhile, has been dipping each year since 2015. What’s happening to democracies right now looks like less of blip — and more of a trend.” Read more at Washington Post
Christopher Plummer died at 91.TINA FINEBERG/FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/FILE NEW YORK (AP) — “Christopher Plummer, the dashing award-winning actor who played Captain von Trapp in the film ‘The Sound of Music’ and at 82 became the oldest Academy Award acting winner in history, has died. He was 91.
Plummer died Friday morning at his home in Connecticut with his wife, Elaine Taylor, by his side, said Lou Pitt, his longtime friend and manager.
Over more than 50 years in the industry, Plummer enjoyed varied roles ranging from the film ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,’ to the voice of the villain in 2009′s ‘Up’ and as a canny lawyer in Broadway’s ‘Inherit the Wind.’ In 2019 he starred as murdered mystery novelist in Rian Johnson’s whodunnit ‘Knives Out.’” Read more at Boston Globe
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