Contests will decide control of Senate and how far Biden can reach on issues such as pandemic, healthcare, taxation and environment
Campaigning continued in Georgia on Saturday in two Senate runoff elections which will define much of Joe Biden’s first term in office.
Related: Biden wants to fill federal court seats – but he needs to win the Senate first
Continue reading...John M Patarini says in letter to New York Times he is ‘disgusted with the president’s actions’ after Trump pardons
The mass shooting in Baghdad for which Donald Trump pardoned four American mercenaries was “a massacre along the lines of My Lai in Vietnam”, the lead FBI investigator in the case said, pronouncing himself “disgusted with the president’s actions”.
Related: 'Our blood is cheaper than water': anger in Iraq over Trump pardons
Continue reading...Motorcycle bomber targets Turkish construction company, killed at least five people and injuring 14
A suicide bombing in Mogadishu has killed at least five people, the Turkish health minister has said.
The al-Shabaab group, which is linked to al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday in the Somali capital in a post from its Shahada news agency. The group often targets Mogadishu with suicide bombings and other attacks.
Continue reading...Lisa Montgomery, who strangled a pregnant woman and cut her baby out of her belly, is set to be executed by lethal injection on 12 January
A US appeals court has cleared the way for the only woman on federal death row to be executed before president-elect Joe Biden takes office.
The ruling, handed down on Friday by a three-judge panel on the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, concluded that a lower court judge erred when he vacated Lisa Montgomery’s execution date in an order last week.
Continue reading...Lawsuit aimed at allowing vice president to reject electoral college votes is latest in a long line of cases to be thrown out
A US judge has rejected a lawsuit from a Republican congressman that sought to allow vice president Mike Pence to reject electoral college votes for Joe Biden when Congress meets on Wednesday to certify his victory over president Donald Trump.
The latest long-shot attempt by Trump’s Republican allies to overturn the November election result was dismissed by one of Trump’s own appointees to the federal bench, Jeremy Kernodle.
Continue reading...Dozens more died in large commercial plane crashes despite 42% drop in flights worldwide
The number of people killed in large commercial airplane crashes rose in 2020 to 299 worldwide despite a sharp decline in flights due to the coronavirus pandemic, a Dutch consulting firm has found.
In 2020 there were 40 accidents involving large commercial passenger planes, five of which were fatal, resulting in 299 fatalities. In 2019 there were nearly double the number of accidents – 86 – eight of which were fatal, resulting in 257 fatalities, said aviation consulting firm To70.
Continue reading...Latest move was flagged in law passed last month after the assassination of country’s top nuclear scientist
Iran has told the United Nations nuclear watchdog it plans to enrich uranium to up to 20% purity, a level it achieved before its 2015 accord, at its Fordow site buried inside a mountain, the agency has said.
The move is the latest of several recent announcements by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to further breach the deal, which it started violating in 2019 in retaliation for Washington’s withdrawal from the agreement and the reimposition of US sanctions against Tehran.
Continue reading...American infectious disease expert disagrees with UK’s plans to prioritise first doses
The American infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has said he does not agree with the UK’s approach of delaying the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
On Friday, Dr Fauci told CNN that the United States would not be following in the UK’s footsteps and would follow Pfizer and BioNTech’s guidance to administer the second dose of its vaccine three weeks after the first.
Continue reading...Visitors from UK and North America tell of finding themselves with a pass to one of the best-rated pandemic responses in the world
For Christmas 2019 Efrain Vega de Varona gave his partner plane tickets to New Zealand – her dream holiday destination. It has proved a gift that keeps on giving.
A year later they are still in New Zealand, having decided to stay put at the end of their two-week holiday in mid-March rather than return to Los Angeles. “We’ve been living out of two suitcases for 10 months,” says Vega de Varona from their latest Airbnb rental (number 50-something this year) in Island Bay, Wellington.
Continue reading...Violence increases amid stalled Taliban peace talks, with Isis claiming it was behind earlier journalist killing
An Afghan journalist and human rights activist has been shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in western Afghanistan, the fifth journalist to be killed in the war-ravaged country in the past two months, a provincial spokesman said.
Bismillah Adil Aimaq was on the road near Feroz Koh, the provincial capital of Ghor, returning home to the city after visiting his family in a village nearby, when gunmen opened fire at the vehicle.
Continue reading...Firm races to fill potential gap left by bloc’s gamble on several vaccines being approved
BioNtech has criticised the EU’s failure to order more doses of its coronavirus vaccine, saying it is now racing with its US partner, Pfizer, to boost production amid fears of a European “gap” left by the lack of other approved vaccines.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was the first to be approved by the bloc late last month, after being accepted by the UK, Canada and the US. They and other countries have also since approved the Moderna or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, leaving the EU trailing behind.
Continue reading...Gallery puts seldom-seen Divine Comedy sketches on display online to mark 700 years since poet’s death
Eighty-eight rarely seen drawings of Dante’s The Divine Comedy have been put on virtual display as Italy begins a year-long calendar of events to mark the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death.
The drawings, by the 16th-century Renaissance artist Federico Zuccari, are being exhibited online, for free, by the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Reggae singer turned opposition leader tells of how he fears for his life
Bobi Wine, the former reggae singer turned Ugandan opposition leader, has spoken about his country’s bitter and violent presidential election campaign as it moves into its final two weeks.
“The campaign is crazy. It’s like a war and a battlefield,” Wine said in an interview conducted before he was detained for a third time in two months on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Latest updates: German biotech startup warns of ‘gaps’ in vaccine supply; re-analysis Covid tests in US raises questions about origin of B117 ‘UK strain’
India has asked China to allow two Indian cargo ships which have been stranded for months near two Chinese ports because of the pandemic to rapidly unload their cargoes or replace their 39 crew members.
“There is growing stress on the crew members on account of the long delay,” Indian external affairs ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said. “We expect that this assistance will be provided in an urgent, practical and time-bound manner, given the grave humanitarian situation that is developing onboard the ships.”
The UK economy begins 2021 on the back foot as record numbers of coronavirus infections and tougher restrictions cloud the outlook for growth and limit the chances of a rapid recovery from the country’s worst recession in 300 years.
There had been hopes that the arrival of successful Covid vaccines could prompt a rebound in activity. But with new government controls to combat the rising infection rate, the outlook is deteriorating.
Related: UK economic outlook for 2021: Covid surge deepens the gloom
Continue reading...The pandemic created new barriers to the ballot box and strengthened existing ones – aided by the president and his Republican allies
The fight over access to the ballot was one of the most important stories in America in 2020.
The country faced a pandemic that both offered new barriers to the ballot box and exacerbated existing ones. After election day, America faced an unprecedented effort to undermine faith in the election results as Donald Trump and Republican allies baselessly claimed fraud and brought a flurry of unsuccessful lawsuits seeking to get election results overturned.
Continue reading...As Brexit’s tangible effects kick in, we look at the impact the EU’s most far-reaching project has had on British society
Historians of the future will judge the politics of the half century before the Brexit transition ended on 1 January 2021. What, though, of social and cultural historians, those who study how we live?
Perhaps the most symbolic cultural artefacts of the last 50 years will turn out not to be a blue flag but a bottle of Blue Nun, a block of mozzarella, a Ryanair boarding printout or a ticket to a Bayern Munich v Manchester City football game.
Continue reading...Find is chance for species’ survival say scientists as DNA results confirm turtle found in Hanoi district is a Swinhoe’s softshell
The last known male giant Swinhoe’s softshell turtle is no longer alone on the planet after the discovery of a female of his species in Vietnam.
The female 86kg (13 stone) turtle was found in Dong Mo lake, in Hanoi’s Son Tay district, and captured for genetic testing in October.
Continue reading...Global humanitarian figures and NGOs call for rollout to take in all people for the global public good
Global humanitarian figures and NGOs have urged world leaders to urgently make Covid-19 vaccinations available to millions of refugees and others displaced by war, as the pandemic continues to overwhelm some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.
The impact of the contagion has sharply intensified across the Middle East in recent weeks, matching soaring global numbers. However, it has been further amplified by drastically underresourced medical responses that cannot cope with the numbers of dying or seriously ill.
Continue reading...Escargots are traditional hors d’oeuvre at end-of-year celebrations that account for 70% of business
For France’s heliciculteurs, or snail farmers, 2020 was a desperately sluggish year.
With seasonal festivities all but cancelled, Christmas markets called off, a lack of tourists and restaurants shut down because of the coronavirus crisis, business has slowed to, well, a snail’s pace.
Continue reading...British Columbia resigned to a ‘long fight’ after 2020’s efforts to track and kill the invasive insects ended in frustration
The year 2020 is not one that beekeepers in Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia are likely to forget in a hurry. Since the spring, experts in both states have been gripped by fears of Vespa mandarinia, a hulking insect whose voracious appetite for honeybees and stealthy spread could pose a threat to the region’s vulnerable ecosystem.
I squeezed [the queen] on her thorax ... and this huge stinger came out. And the giant mandibles moved, trying to bite me. It was really quite beautiful
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