President decries Trump administration that ‘literally ripped children from the arms of their families’ as he signs executive orders
Joe Biden plans to create a taskforce to reunify families separated at the US-Mexico border by the Trump administration, as part of a new series of immigration executive actions signed at an Oval Office ceremony on Tuesday.
Biden condemned Donald Trump’s immigration policies as a “stain on the reputation” of the US.
Continue reading...Trump-appointed judge ruled against president’s 100-day suspension, raising questions over whether Ice will resist reform
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is preparing to resume deportations of asylum seekers after a Trump-appointed Texas judge ruled against a 100-day suspension ordered by Joe Biden.
The ruling, in response to a challenge from a leading figure in the Republican effort to overturn the election result, marks the first shot in a legal rearguard action by Trump loyalists intended to stymie the Biden administration’s agenda.
Continue reading...Analysis: Pompeo’s replacement, Antony Blinken, has pledged to put experts at the center of diplomacy and listen dissenting views
No statues were toppled at the state department after Mike Pompeo’s departure. It was a changing of the guard, rather than regime change. But in one case at least, his legacy was brought down quickly and visibly.
On the day of the inauguration, workmen brought down a giant placard about “professional ethos” that the former secretary of state had erected at the main entrance to mark his first year in office.
Continue reading...Republican divisions over Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial came into clearer focus on Sunday, as the former president spent his first weekend out of office plotting revenge against those he says betrayed him.
Related: Can Trump do a Nixon and re-enter polite society? Elizabeth Drew doubts it
Continue reading...Dr Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator under Donald Trump, “always” considered quitting as the US lurched into disaster under the 45th president – but didn’t.
Related: A doctor wanted to make a difference. Now he’s a top Covid adviser to Biden
Continue reading...The former first lady Melania Trump apparently spurned the conventions of her role by leaving Donald Trump alone in front of the cameras at Palm Beach airport after the couple left the White House for the final time ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration.
Trump himself paused to wave at photographers, but his wife continued walking until she was firmly offscreen, leaving her husband alone and triggering speculation about the state of her marriage to the now former president
Continue reading...Anthony Levandowski’s pardon had the support of billionaire Peter Thiel, who donated to Trump’s 2016 campaign
In his final hours of office, Donald Trump pardoned a former Google engineer who was convicted of stealing trade secrets from the company before taking up a new role with competitor Uber.
Continue reading...Chinese foreign ministry announced sanctions against Mike Pompeo and 27 others as Biden was taking presidential oath
China has said it wants to cooperate with Joe Biden’s new US administration, while announcing sanctions against the “lying and cheating” outgoing secretary of state Mike Pompeo and 27 other top officials under Donald Trump.
The move was a sign of China’s anger, especially at an accusation Pompeo made on his final full day in office that China had committed genocide against its Uighur Muslims, an assessment that Biden’s choice to succeed Pompeo, Anthony Blinken, said he shared.
Continue reading...Donald Trump said it had been his ‘greatest honour and privilege’ to have served as US president in a speech to supporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. ‘Goodbye, we love you, we’ll be back in some form,’ Trump said, before boarding Air Force One to the sound of the Village People’s 'YMCA'. Trump is the first president in more than 150 years not to attend the inauguration ceremony of his successor.
Donald Trump has left the White House for the last time as president, saying it had been ‘the honour of a lifetime’ to serve. He boarded Marine One with the first lady and was flown to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland for a ‘sending off’ ceremony. Trump will not be attending Joe Biden’s inauguration
Continue reading...Outgoing president has issued invites for event taking place in Maryland at 8am on Wednesday
Donald Trump is planning an early morning sendoff event for himself at a military airfield in Maryland on Wednesday several hours before his successor, Joe Biden, is inaugurated as the 46th US president at the Capitol in Washington DC.
For his last presidential ceremony, Trump reportedly wants an ostentatious military parade and an official armed forces farewell as the commander-in-chief, as well as a large crowd of supporters, selected backers and current and former officials in his administration and their guests at a huge red-carpet affair.
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The FBI announced that authorities had arrested the guitarist of heavy metal band Iced Earth in connection to the Capitol riot.
Jon Schaffer was allegedly among those who sprayed Capitol police with bear spray.
Jon Schaffer, Columbus, IN, has been arrested in connection to Jan 6 incident at the U.S. Capitol. Schaffer faces 6 charges including engaging in an act of physical violence in a Capitol building. Schaffer was allegedly among rioters who sprayed Capitol police with "bear spray."
Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta, Canada, has responded to the report that President-elect Joe Biden will cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit via executive action on his first day in office.
“The Keystone XL pipeline represents tens of thousands of good paying jobs that the American economy needs right now,” he writes.
I am deeply concerned by reports that the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden may repeal the Presidential permit for the Keystone XL border crossing next week.
My full statement: pic.twitter.com/vZjun1IdMH
Joe Biden will deliver a message of national unity when he assumes the presidency on Wednesday, seeking to begin healing a country fractured by the acrimony of Donald Trump’s administration and ongoing threats of violence by his supporters.
Related: America is broken – can Biden and Harris put it back together?
Continue reading...The US is riven with stark inequalities, rising white supremacist terror and large numbers who believe the election was stolen. The new administration faces a truly daunting challenge
In another age, Joe Biden’s promise to heal the nation might have been regarded as the kind of blandishment expected from any new leader taking power after the divisive cut and thrust of an American election.
Related: Biden must find words for a wounded nation in inauguration like no other
Continue reading...The supreme court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer have excoriated the Trump administration for carrying out its 13th and final federal execution days before the president leaves office.
Related: Dustin Higgs becomes 13th and final federal prisoner executed under Trump
Continue reading...In his final months in office, Donald Trump has ramped up construction on his promised physical border between the US and Mexico – devastating wildlife habitats and increasing the migrant death toll
At Sierra Vista Ranch in Arizona near the Mexican border, Troy McDaniel is warming up his helicopter. McDaniel, tall and slim in a tan jumpsuit, began taking flying lessons in the 80s, and has since logged 2,000 miles in the air. The helicopter, a cosy, two-seater Robinson R22 Alpha is considered a work vehicle and used to monitor the 640-acre ranch, but it’s clear he relishes any opportunity to fly. “We will have no fun at all,” he deadpans.
McDaniel and his wife, Melissa Owen, bought their ranch and the 100-year-old adobe house that came with it in 2003. Years before, Owen began volunteering at the nearby Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, and fell in love with the beauty and natural diversity of the area, as well as the quiet of their tiny town. That all changed last July when construction vehicles and large machinery started “barrelling down the two-lane state road”, says Owen.
Continue reading...Azar calls attack ‘assault on our democracy’ and urges peaceful transfer of power in formal resignation letter
The US health secretary, Alex Azar, warned Donald Trump in a letter that last week’s attack on the Capitol threatened the administration’s legacy, and he urged the president to support a peaceful transfer of power.
In the two-page, formal resignation letter, dated 12 January, Azar recited what he saw as the administration’s key accomplishments but voiced concern that last week’s siege in Washington and Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud “threaten to tarnish these and other historic legacies of this administration”.
Continue reading...Secret Service detail were forced to use porta-potties or neighbors’ bathrooms until government rented them an apartment
The dying days of the Trump administration have been plagued by yet more scandal in the form of riots, Twitter bans and impeachment. Now the Washington Post has added another: water closet gate.
In a multi-bylined article one of America’s top investigative news outlets has chronicled in leg-crossing detail the apparently extreme difficulty that the Secret Service detail assigned to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have had in finding a place to go to the bathroom.
Continue reading...Mike Pompeo’s designation of Houthis as foreign terror group will block food and other aid, senior humanitarian says
The US designation of the Houthi movement in Yemen as a terrorist organisation is likely to lead to a famine on a scale not seen for 40 years, the UN’s most senior humanitarian official has said.
Mark Lowcock, the director general of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, called for the decision to be reversed, saying the cost of food was likely to rise by as much as 400%, way beyond the reach of many aid agencies.
Continue reading...Vice-president’s refusal paves the way for the House to move forward with impeachment
The US House of Representatives has voted to formally call on the vice-president, Mike Pence, to invoke the 25th amendment and strip Donald Trump of his presidential authority after Trump incited a mob that led a deadly assault on the US Capitol last week.
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