Pete Buttigieg thanked Joe Biden as he was formally announced as his nominee for transportation secretary. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and Democratic presidential candidate, will be the first openly LGBTQ+ cabinet member in American history to be confirmed into post by the Senate, assuming he wins confirmation.
Continue reading...Category Archives: US News
Trump’s Twitter account was hacked, Dutch ministry confirms
Public prosecutor states Victor Gevers did access US president’s site but as ethical hacker faces no charges
Dutch prosecutors have confirmed that Donald Trump’s Twitter account was hacked in October despite denials from Washington and the company, but said the “ethical hacker” would not face charges.
The hacker, named as Victor Gevers, broke into Trump’s account @realDonaldTrump on 16 October by guessing the US president’s password, Dutch media reports said.
Continue reading...British American Tobacco wins approval to test Covid vaccine on humans
Treatment grown on tobacco plants gets US backing for clinical study
British American Tobacco has moved a step closer to producing a vaccine for coronavirus using tobacco plants, as it won approval in the US to begin testing on humans.
The company behind cigarette brands including Lucky Strike, Rothmans and Benson & Hedges said the US Food & Drug Administration had given it clearance to begin a clinical study with adult volunteers.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: London enters tier 3 restrictions; Trump will ‘absolutely’ encourage vaccine use
One in four people globally may not get vaccines until 2022; EU likely to approve vaccine within days; Canada signs deal to accelerate Moderna vaccine deliveries
- UK medical journals call for tighter Christmas rules
- How Covid changed science forever
- South Korea: how early Covid competence gave way to second wave
A little more on the new community transmission case in Sydney. The positive case was detected in van driver transporting international airline crew to and from Sydney airport. Matilda Boseley and Melissa Davey report.
Related: NSW records new local Covid case, raising questions over airline crew quarantine
It’s been described as “very un-Australian” - one of the fiercest, but most flexible, criticisms you can make in this part of the world.
Australian department of foreign affairs and trade officials are being allowed to skip government-mandated hotel quarantine when returning from abroad, instead spending two weeks at home.
Related: Foreign affairs officials allowed to skip hotel quarantine when returning to Australia
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: UK death toll rises by 612; Denmark to impose hard lockdown over Christmas
‘We have to act now,’ says Danish PM; 11,214 new cases in the Netherlands; no vaccines for poorer countries until 2024, report claims
- Wear masks when you see family for Christmas, WHO urges Europeans
- Scheme to get Covid vaccine to poorer countries at ‘high risk’ of failure
- ‘On the brink’: Covid pressure mounts at hospitals in Northern Ireland
- Germany reports record Covid death toll
- Swedish PM says officials misjudged power of Covid resurgence
Peru’s government told people in the country not to invite friends and family who live outside the home to Christmas and New Year celebrations, a measure aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
Coronavirus cases in Peru totalled 987,675 as of Tuesday with 36,817 deaths so far, according to official figures. Health authorities are warning of a possible second wave of infections early next year.
Brazil has registered more than 70,000 additional cases of Covid-19, pushing the country’s total confirmed cases over 7 million.
The country has now registered 7,040,608 total confirmed cases, behind only the US and India.
Continue reading...Kayleigh McEnany refuses to follow McConnell admitting Trump election defeat – video
Kayleigh McEnany has described Monday's electoral college vote confirming Joe Biden as the nation's next president as just 'one step in the constitutional process'. The White House press secretary's assessment is the latest example of White House officials declining to accept Biden's victory, even after Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday broke his silence on the winner of the presidency, saying: 'The electoral college has spoken.'
Continue reading...Biden campaigns for Georgia Senate Democrats following electoral college victory
Biden supports Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who face Republican senators in January runoff elections
Joe Biden was in Georgia on Tuesday campaigning for the Democrats in crucial Senate runoff elections, a day after addressing the American public for the first time as its official president-elect.
Related: Biden should get Covid vaccine soon as possible for ‘security reasons’, Fauci says
Continue reading...Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygård arrested after US sex trafficking charges
Designer facing class action lawsuit in US alleging the sexual assault of dozens of women
The fashion mogul Peter Nygård has been arrested in Canada after US authorities charged him with with racketeering and sex trafficking, alleging decades of crimes that left dozens of victims in the United States, the Bahamas and Canada.
Nygård, 79, was arrested in Winnipeg under the Extradition Act on Monday and made an initial appearance in court on Tuesday. He wore a white face mask, a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, with his long white hair pulled back in a bun. He has denied wrongdoing.
Continue reading...Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell acknowledges Biden/Harris victory – video
Republican Mitch McConnell on Tuesday congratulated the Democratic president-elect, Joe Biden, and vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, on their election victories, ending his long silence on the outcome of the presidential race. In remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday morning, the Senate majority leader acknowledged the Democrats' winning the White House following Monday's formal result issued by the electoral college
Continue reading...Florida Grim Reaper lawyer sues ‘mini-Trump’ governor over Covid response
Daniel Uhlfelder sprung to fame earlier this year as he stalked Florida beaches in hood-and-scythe to warn about coronavirus
“This is not about me,” the Grim Reaper said on Tuesday, about his decision to take Florida governor and “mini-Trump” Ron DeSantis to court over the state’s coronavirus response. “It’s about citizens having the right to challenge government when they’re not doing the right thing.”
Related: Armed police raid home of Florida scientist fired over Covid-19 data
Continue reading...Top bun: Tom Cruise’s cake-mailing habit proves he’s a real Christmas miracle | Stuart Heritage
Rosie O’Donnell, Jimmy Fallon and Graham Norton are just a few of the famous recipients of the ‘Cruise cake’, a white chocolate coconut ring which might as well be a halo
Tom Cruise follows me on Twitter. Until now, I have been relatively proud of this fact, even though he follows tens of thousands of people, and only tweets three times a year, and his account is probably run by his staff, and he wouldn’t actually be able to tell you what Twitter was if you held a gun to his head. Regardless, I was proud.
But now I feel like a failure, because Tom Cruise has never sent me a cake. And it turns out that all Tom Cruise does is send cakes to people. According to Yahoo, every year he orders more than 100 white chocolate coconut bundt cakes from Doan’s Bakery in Woodland Hills, California, and sends them to his famous friends. Rosie O’Donnell gets one. Kirsten Dunst gets one. Jimmy Fallon gets one. James Corden gets one. Graham Norton gets one, and his staff eat it without telling him. Henry Cavill called it “the most decadent, the most amazing cake”. Barbara Walters once ate hers live on television, in a power move as yet unmatched by any mortal human.
Continue reading...Is she hiding in a submarine? In a bunker? The hunt for Ghislaine Maxwell
The death of Jeffrey Epstein sparked a worldwide search for his former associate. How did the woman now known as Inmate 02879-509 keep such a low profile for so long?
This time last year, Ghislaine Maxwell was off the grid. The Oxford-educated socialite was lying low as the focus of a frenzied media hunt pivoted to her after the suicide of her erstwhile lover Jeffrey Epstein.
“For Ghislaine-watchers, the autumn of 2019 through to the summer of 2020 was a mystery,” says Mark Seal, the Vanity Fair special correspondent who followed her story. “She was said to be hiding in a submarine, lying low in Israel, in the FBI witness protection programme, in a luxurious villa in the south of France, sunning herself on the coast of Spain, or in some high-security doomsday bunker owned by rich and powerful friends – all seemingly possible, but all, thus far at least, wrong,” he adds.
Continue reading...As Biden won the presidency, Republicans cemented their grip on power for the next decade
Democrats lost big in state elections which could cost them when new political maps are drawn
While the world focused on the election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in November, some of the most consequential contests were in state legislative races between candidates many have never heard of.
State lawmakers have the authority to redraw electoral districts in most US states every 10 years. In 2010, Republicans undertook an unprecedented effort – called Project Redmap – to win control of state legislatures across the country and drew congressional and state legislative districts that gave them a significant advantage for the next decade. In 2020, Democrats sought to avoid a repeat of 2010 and poured millions of dollars and other resources into winning key races.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: Germany pressures EU for speedy vaccine approval; Italian PM says new restrictions needed
Germany keen to begin vaccinations amid surge in cases; Guiseppe Conte says third wave in Italy to be avoided at all cost
- UK medical journals call for tighter Christmas rules
- How Covid changed science forever
- South Korea: how early Covid competence gave way to second wave
- Vaccines roll out of Pfizer plant in US but Trump not taking it yet
- UK coronavirus updates - live
The Danish government will extend current lockdown measures to the entire country, the broadcaster TV2 has reported, citing unnamed sources. The measures, which were implemented last week in parts of Denmark after signs of a rapid rise in infections, include shutting bars, restaurants and museums.
Plans to relax Covid restrictions at Christmas must be reversed or many lives risk being lost, according to a rare joint editorial from two of the UK’s most eminent medical journals.
The government can no longer claim to be protecting the NHS if it goes ahead with “rash” plans to allow households to mix indoors over Christmas, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal have said.
Related: UK medical journals call for Christmas Covid rules to be reversed
Continue reading...More Biden cabinet picks emerge as McConnell acknowledges victory – as it happened
- Biden reportedly selects Jennifer Granholm and others for administration
- Mitch McConnell: ‘The electoral college has spoken’
- White House still refuses to accept Biden’s win
- Biden taps Pete Buttigieg for transportation chief
- Biden rebukes Trump after electoral college victory
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That’s all from me. Thanks for sticking with us.
Can the Radical Left “steal” an election you haven’t conceded?
This seems notable… A Trump fundraising email that implicitly concedes that he may not serve two continuous terms pic.twitter.com/WX9T01EjHo
Continue reading...Revealed: China suspected of spying on Americans via Caribbean phone networks
Security expert claims Chinese surveillance may have affected tens of thousands of Americans
China appears to have used mobile phone networks in the Caribbean to surveil US mobile phone subscribers as part of its espionage campaign against Americans, according to a mobile network security expert who has analysed sensitive signals data.
The findings paint an alarming picture of how China has allegedly exploited decades-old vulnerabilities in the global telecommunications network to route “active” surveillance attacks through telecoms operators.
Continue reading...Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers ask judge to free her on $28m bail
Bail package would include armed guards to ensure her safety and to make sure she does not flee New York
Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell are urging a judge to free her to await trial under a $28.5m (£21.4m) bail package that would include armed guards to ensure she remains safe and does not flee her New York City residence.
The bail arguments on behalf of the British former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, first filed under seal last Tuesday, were publicly released late on Monday in Manhattan federal court with redactions that were approved by Judge Alison J Nathan.
Continue reading...Barr couldn’t pass Trump’s loyalty test: shredding the US constitution | David Smith’s sketch
The attorney general, who acted as Trump’s enforcer with apparent relish, ultimately wouldn’t help him steal an election
If Dick Cheney gained notoriety as George W Bush’s “Darth Vader”, William Barr, the US attorney general, appeared a worthy successor as Donald Trump’s Lord of the Sith.
Continue reading...‘Huge sense of relief’: nurse one of first in US to get Covid vaccine – video
An intensive care unit nurse is believed to have become the first person in the US to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Monday. Sandra Lindsay, who has treated some of the sickest coronavirus patients for months, was given the vaccine at Long Island Jewish medical centre in New York City, receiving applause on a livestream with the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo
Continue reading...Covid-19 vaccine: first US doses given to frontline workers – live
- New York ICU nurse one of the first to get coronavirus vaccine
- Wisconsin court rejects Trump’s attempt to overturn Biden’s victory
- Electors meet in four states to cast votes for president
- Trump reverses plan to give White House officials vaccine
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The US has for the first time formally blamed Iran for the presumed death of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing more than a decade ago.
As world affairs editor Julian Borger reported for the Guardian in March, when Levinson’s family said they believed he was dead:
Levinson disappeared 13 years ago on Iran’s Kish island. The US initially claimed he was there on his own initiative, but in 2013 the Associated Press revealed he had been sent on a mission there by CIA analysts who had no authority to run espionage operations. Levinson was a specialist on Russian organised crime and had not had much previous involvement in Iran.
Tehran denied knowledge of Levinson’s whereabouts until November last year, when it acknowledged that there was an ongoing case involving him before its revolutionary court.
Related: Iran says it will comply with nuclear deal if Biden lifts all sanctions
Here’s where the day stands so far:
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