Senate minority leader didn’t name Marjorie Taylor Greene, but the remarks were clearly directed at the QAnon supporter
Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the US Senate, has intensified pressure on the extremist Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling the “loony lies and conspiracy theories” that she endorses a “cancer for the Republican party”.
Continue reading...A powerful winter storm has engulfed the US north-east, blanketing much of the region in heavy snow. The storm is expected to bring nearly 2ft of snow to New York, Boston and several other cities. ’This is a dangerous, life-threatening situation,’ New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, said while declaring a state of emergency in 44 counties and New York City. Mayor Bill De Blasio also declared a local state of emergency - suspending in-person classes, restricting non-essential travel and putting coronavirus vaccination appointments on hold. ‘You're going to see two to four inches of snow per hour. That is extremely intense snow. That's blinding snow’
Single malt sales to US have fallen more than third since retaliatory regime was imposed, says industry body
Losses to Scotch whisky exports after tariffs were imposed by the US have reached £500m, according to an industry body.
New figures suggest exports of single malt Scotch whisky have fallen by more than a third – amounting to more than £500m – since a 25% tariff was imposed in October 2019.
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...Figure is lower than proportion of black people who live in long-term care homes or work in healthcare, but CDC warns data is incomplete
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found only 5.4% of coronavirus vaccine recipients were black, in its first analysis of how vaccines were given out among different demographic groups in the first month of US distribution.
Continue reading...The actor, who played Screech in the high-school sitcom, had recently been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer
Actor Dustin Diamond, best known for playing Screech on high school sitcom Saved by the Bell, has died at the age of 44.
Diamond had been diagnosed last month with stage 4 small cell carcinoma, or lung cancer, and been in treatment ever since. His representative Roger Paul confirmed the news of his death.
Continue reading...Giant pandas at the Smithsonian’s national zoo enjoyed the cold weather in the US capital by rolling and sliding around in the snow in their enclosure. In a clip shared by the zoo, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian took full advantage of the wintry conditions
Continue reading...Manson describes allegations as ‘horrible distortions of reality’ after record label drops him from their roster
Evan Rachel Wood has accused her former partner Marilyn Manson of years of “horrific” abuse.
In an Instagram post, the actor wrote:
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Neil Wilson of Markets.com suggests that large investors may also be driving the silver price rally, rather than it simply being caused by retail traders.
He also warns that such speculation is risky, and usually ends badly for some of those who get caught up:
The fact that such a large and liquid market as silver can be targeted by retail investors says much about the shift we are witnessing, though despite appearances this morning it’s going to a lot harder to squeeze silver shorts as the market is so much deeper and more liquid.
We should also note that some bigger smart money may have be front-running this trade to piggyback the rally and further fuelling the move up. (George Soros: “When I see a bubble forming, I rush in to buy, adding fuel to the fire.”)
Allianz’s Mohamed El-Erian has tweeted that GameStop and silver are not the same kind of short squeeze trade (as some WallStreetBets posts have also been pointing out).
El-Erian also cautions that the silver squeeze could undermine the squeeze on hedge funds who shorted GameStop’s shares, as the GME trade depends on keeping retail investors on board (rather than selling to the hedge funds).
.#GameStop and #silver are not the same for those pursuing the short squeeze trade
The silver market is much larger;
Existing shorts are smaller;
Some of the #HedgeFunds that are short #GME are said to be long silver
Bottom line: A dissimilar trade that eats away at #GME gains https://t.co/TMfpkr7QDE
The group of Senate Republicans who will meet with Joe Biden today have proposed their own $600 billion coronavirus relief package.
A package of that size would be about one-third as large as the relief legislation that Biden has proposed.
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.
Here’s what the blog is keeping an eye on today: The president and the vice-president will meet with a group of Republican senators to discuss a coronavirus relief bill.
Related: Biden promised bold action. Will his efforts to compromise get in the way?
Continue reading...Dina Nayeri was just a child when she fled Iran as an asylum seeker. But as she settled into life in the US and then Europe, she became suspicious of the idea that refugees should shed their old identities and be eternally thankful
• Read the text version here
A path forward for the GOP is unclear when the former president still holds power over many of its lawmakers
Donald Trump may have left the White House, but his shadow still looms large in Washington and the Republican party as the Senate prepares for his second impeachment trial.
Continue reading...He played a redemption-seeking redneck on TV, but lately the actor has found solace off-screen, travelling with his camera. He talks about slackers, the Mallrats sequel and breezing into one-horse towns
Jason Lee knew he was in trouble when he stepped on the set. The year was 1992, Sonic Youth were at their peak and he was starring as a doomed skateboarder in their latest video. As a music obsessed, pro skateboarder with acting aspirations, he felt he had a point to prove. To add more pressure, it was for the song 100% – the band’s classic ode to a murdered Black Flag roadie – and the video was being co-directed by one of his skateboarding friends (some guy called Spike Jonze).
“I was really trying my hardest to focus,” says Lee. “I was like pretending to be Robert De Niro on the set, really trying to get into it and make it count and make it real and believable.”
Continue reading...Kushner and his deputy Avi Berkowitz join Greta Thunberg and Alexei Navalny on the nominations list
Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and his deputy, Avi Berkowitz, have been nominated for the Nobel peace prize for their role in negotiating four normalisation deals between Israel and Arab nations known as the “Abraham Accords”.
Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law, and Berkowitz, who was the Middle East envoy, were key figures in negotiating deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
Continue reading...Butch Bowers clashed with Trump over strategy, according to reports, and leaves along with Deborah Barberi and three others
The ability of Republican senators who plan to acquit Donald Trump at his upcoming impeachment trial to pretend to have weighed the case on the merits has been endangered by the mass resignation of Trump’s legal team at the weekend.
The Senate has set a deadline of Tuesday for Trump’s lawyers to submit a preliminary memo laying out his defense. The House impeached Trump earlier this month on a single article charging “incitement of insurrection” – a historic second impeachment of a US president.
Continue reading...Leading infectious disease expert predicts that deadlier British strain will become dominant this spring
A leading infectious disease expert predicted on Sunday that the deadlier British variant of Covid-19 will become the dominant strain of the virus in the US and could hit the country like a hurricane.
The worrying forecast came as the total of confirmed infections in the US passed the 26m mark, with the death toll advancing steadily towards the grim milestone of half a million after on Sunday surpassing the total of 440,000, by far the highest in the world according to data gathered by the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus research center.
Continue reading...Jen Ellis, a Vermont elementary school teacher, joins forces with the Vermont Teddy Bear Company to meet demand
The teacher who created the recycled wool mittens that Bernie Sanders wore to the presidential inauguration and which triggered endless social media memes is now partnering with the Vermont Teddy Bear Company to meet soaring demand.
Some of the proceeds will go to the Make-A-Wish Vermont charity.
Continue reading...Federal law enforcement officials have arrested two members of the Proud Boys, a rightwing nationalist extremist group, for their role in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.
The riot is now the subject of a second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, who is accused of inciting the rightwing mob at a rally that immediately preceded the assault. Federal authorities have charged more than 150 people in the onslaught.
Continue reading...Officials work to pinpoint doses in pipeline between federal distribution and administration by states
The Biden administration has spent its first week in office attempting to manually track down 20m vaccine doses in the pipeline between federal distribution and administration at clinic sites, when a dose finally reaches a patient’s arm.
The Trump administration’s strategy pushed the response to the coronavirus pandemic to individual states and omitted pipeline tracking information between distribution and when the shot is actually administered, Biden administration officials told Politico.
Continue reading...Children in the US will ‘hopefully’ start to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by late spring or early summer, said Dr Anthony Fauci.
Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, the head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, was speaking at a White House coronavirus briefing, an event re-instituted by the new president after falling away during the last months of the Trump administration
Continue reading...