Category Archives: US News

Coronavirus live news: 90-year-old Briton becomes first to receive Covid-19 vaccination; South Korea orders vaccines for 44 million people

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UK prioritising over-80s, frontline healthcare workers and care home staff and residents; France unlikely to end lockdown on 15 December; Brazil to make vaccines free

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC Good Morning Scotland the next doses of the vaccine will arrive next week. He said:

The next scheduled arrival will be next week and the numbers depend on how quickly Pfizer can manufacture it.

It is being manufactured in Belgium and obviously right across the UK the job is to be able to get the vaccinations done as quickly as the manufacturer can create it, so we’ve been all working together really closely, the UK Government, which has been buying the vaccine and getting it delivered into the country, and then the NHS in the four nations of the UK.

We’ve got a broad schedule, there will be several million for the UK as a whole, so several hundred thousand for Scotland over the remainder of this month.

We’ve got that as a broad delivery schedule but obviously the manufacturing process itself is complicated, so we’ve got to get the stuff in the country and then once it’s in the country we can be confident that we’re able to deliver it, and I’m sure the NHS across Scotland and across the whole of the UK is up to the challenge.

We are not proposing to have a sort of immunity certificate that allows you to do different things.

Got a bit of a lump in the throat watching this. Feels like such a milestone moment after a tough year for everyone.
The first vaccines in Scotland will be administered today too. https://t.co/KKaEhf19Jo

NHS nurse Mrs Parsons said it was a “huge honour” to be the first in the country to deliver the vaccine to a patient.

She said:

It’s a huge honour to be the first person in the country to deliver a Covid-19 jab to a patient, I’m just glad that I’m able to play a part in this historic day.

The last few months have been tough for all of us working in the NHS, but now it feels like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

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‘A nightmare’: why were an elderly black couple targeted in a shocking Texas police raid?

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Forth Worth police have still not said why Nelda Price and her husband John, who died weeks later, were restrained in their pajamas

While the police in Fort Worth, Texas, ransacked Nelda Price’s home, an officer directed her to put her hands together – as if she were praying – so he could restrain her with zip ties.

“I told him, ‘I am praying. Because I don’t understand why you’re here, and I don’t know what this is about,’” Nelda told the Guardian.

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Chuck Yeager, pilot who was first to break sound barrier, dies at 97

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Yeager’s postwar exploits took humankind to the brink of space exploration and were immortalised in celebrated book and film The Right Stuff

Chuck Yeager, the American pilot who became the first person to break the sound barrier and was later immortalised in The Right Stuff, has died at the age of 97.

“It is [with] profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET,” Victoria Yeager said in a tweet announcing his death on Monday night.

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Trump fails to disrupt ‘panda diplomacy’ as China’s famed bears remain at US zoo

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The Smithsonian national zoo’s three giant pandas will stay in Washington for another three years, upholding a decades-long tradition

Donald Trump may have done his best to disrupt Washington’s relations with Beijing, but at least Americans will still be able to enjoy the original bonus of more open links with China: giant pandas.

Ever since Richard Nixon welcomed the gift of the animals when he “opened up” China in the early 70s, panda diplomacy has loomed large in relations between the two countries.

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Armed police raid home of Florida scientist fired over Covid-19 data

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Rebekah Jones claims Governor Ron DeSantis, with whom she has clashed repeatedly since her dismissal in May, was involved

Rebekah Jones, the Florida data scientist embroiled in a dispute with the state’s Republican governor over the handling of coronavirus figures, had her home raided on Monday by armed police who confiscated her computers.

In a stream of posts on Twitter, Jones posted a video of the raid that showed state police carrying handguns escorting her out of her Tallahassee home. She can be heard saying: “He just pointed a gun at my children,” with her husband and two children apparently upstairs at the time.

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Trump administration refused offer to buy millions more Pfizer vaccine doses

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Decision could delay the delivery of a second batch until the manufacturer meets its orders for other countries

The Trump administration passed up a chance last summer to buy millions of additional doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, a decision that could delay the delivery of a second batch of doses until the manufacturer fulfills other international contracts.

The revelation, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed to the Associated Press on Monday, came a day before Donald Trump aimed to take credit for the speedy development of forthcoming vaccines at a White House summit.

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Lloyd Austin: Biden to nominate retired army general to be defense secretary

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Austin, who would need a congressional waiver due to his recent military service, would be the Pentagon’s first Black leader

Joe Biden will nominate Lloyd Austin, a retired four-star army general, to be secretary of defense, according to four people familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first Black leader of the Pentagon.

Biden selected Austin over the longtime frontrunner for the position, Michele Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official and Biden supporter who would have been the first woman to serve as defense secretary. Biden also had considered Jeh Johnson, a former Pentagon general counsel and former secretary of homeland security.

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Trump election fraud claims are hurting our state, says Georgia official – video

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Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, warned that Donald Trump's repeated claims the election had been stolen were causing damage, after two separate recounts confirmed Joe Biden had won the state. 'We have now counted legally-cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged,' Raffensperger said. 'Disinformation regarding election administration should be rejected. Integrity matters. Truth matters.'

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Melania Trump faces backlash after revealing new White House tennis pavilion

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First lady’s announcement sparked a slew of Twitter responses including a terse ‘282,345’ from Washington DC journalist David Corn

Melania Trump drew backlash on Monday after announcing that a new tennis pavilion is set to be unveiled on the south grounds of the White House, as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continue to surge across the country.

“It is my hope that this private space will function as both a place of leisure and gathering for future first families,” the first lady said in a written statement on Monday, which came just weeks before the Trump family turns the White House over to his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, who handily won the 2020 presidential election.

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The assassination of an Iranian scientist will make Joe Biden’s job harder | Mohamad Bazzi

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The killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was designed to undermine the possibility of a quick US-Iran detente come January 2021

The assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, on 27 November, which is likely to have been carried out by Israel, was intended to undermine the possibility of a quick US-Iran detente once the president-elect, Joe Biden, takes office in January. It’s part of a scorched earth campaign by Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump to make it as difficult as possible for Iran to resume negotiations with the Biden administration and return to the 2015 nuclear agreement.

But the brazen killing is also designed to exploit rifts within Iran’s factional political structure: between conservative politicians and hardline factions aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and the reformist camp led by the president, Hassan Rouhani. In January, the US assassinated Iran’s most powerful general, Qassem Suleimani, in a drone strike outside Baghdad’s airport. That attack exposed weaknesses in Iran’s security apparatus and the regime was unable to follow through on threats to avenge the targeting of its top officials. Iran did fire missiles at US bases in Iraq in retaliation for Donald Trump ordering – and later boasting about – Suleimani’s killing. But that was a largely symbolic act and Tehran has not targeted a US official of equal stature, as it threatened to. Since Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, hardliners have been calling for tougher action in order to restore some deterrence with Israel and, by extension, the US.

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Out in the wild: how Ken Layne created an alternative to clickbait in the desert

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The Desert Oracle, the former Wonkette owner’s pocket-sized magazine, has proven a cult hit while refusing to establish an online presence

UFOs, doomed hikers, William Burroughs, singing sand dunes, Elvis, ghosts, roadrunners and rattlesnakes – the Desert Oracle packs a lot of weird, dark matter between its bright yellow covers.

The pocket-sized magazine, which looks like a cross between a guide book and a punk zine, explores the stranger side of desert life. Created in the arid beauty of Joshua Tree in California, it has proven a cult hit devoured by readers from Los Angeles to London.

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Coronavirus live news: Giuliani tests positive for Covid; South Korea deploys military to expand testing

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California confirmed record new cases on Sunday; South Korea expands testing amid case surge; Biden picks California Attorney General Becerra to lead pandemic response

The number of new Covid-19 infections per day in France is unlikely to fall to a 5,000 target by 15 December as the population is not sufficiently respecting social distancing measures, one of France*s top coronavirus experts said today.

Eric Caumes, head of infectious diseases at Paris hospital La Pitié-Salpêtrière, told LCI television that if the French are not cautious enough over Christmas and year-end holidays, it will lead to a third wave of the virus in mid-January.

It’s back to school today for some New York City schoolchildren, weeks after the schools were closed to in-person learning because of rising Covid-19 infections.

The city’s public school system, which shut down in-person learning earlier this month, will bring back preschool students and children in kindergarten through fifth grade, whose parents chose a mix of in-school and remote learning. Special education students in all grades who have particularly complex needs will be welcomed back starting Thursday.

We have facts now for two straight months of extraordinarily low levels of transmission in our schools, our schools are clearly safer. This is what our health care leaders say. Our schools are safer than pretty much any place else in New York City. So, I really think everyone in the school community can feel secure because so many measures are in place to protect everyone.

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Joe Biden to nominate California attorney general Xavier Becerra as health secretary – reports

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If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra will be the first Latino to head the federal health department

President-elect Joe Biden has reportedly picked California attorney general Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response.

If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, 62, will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1-trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.

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Texas man found dead in woods ‘could have been killed by mountain lion’

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Residents warned to be watchful after sheriff’s office says 28-year-old died from wild animal attack, possibly a mountain lion

A 28-year-old man found dead in a wooded area in rural Texas was killed by a wild animal, possibly a mountain lion, according to local county officials.

The Hood county sheriff’s office said on Saturday that deputies found Christopher Allen Whiteley’s body on Thursday, a day after he went missing near Lipan, located 50 miles (80km) south-west of Fort Worth.

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Jerrold Post, CIA psychiatrist who profiled Trump, dies of Covid aged 86

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  • Family salutes ‘insatiable, roving curiosity, probing empathy’
  • Pioneer in field predicted Trump would not concede defeat

Jerrold M Post, a psychiatrist who profiled dictators for the CIA and who declared Donald Trump a “dangerous, destructive charismatic leader”, has died of Covid-19. He was 86.

Related: 'Saddam, tell me about your mum'

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Rudy Giuliani has coronavirus, Donald Trump says

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Multiple US media reports say the lawyer is in hospital, as Arizona closes state legislature for a week in wake of his recent visit

Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has tested positive for Covid-19, the president tweeted on Sunday, prompting Arizona to close its legislature after the lawyer visited the state last week.

Related: Trump's attacks on election integrity 'disgust me', says senior Georgia Republican

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Millions of Californians put under strict Covid lockdown

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Stay-at-home order will stay in place through Christmas after hospital intensive care beds filled almost to capacity

More than 23 million people in Southern California have been placed under the harshest lockdowns in the United States, as Covid-19 cases hit record levels in the country’s most populous state.

The restrictions require people to stay at home and minimise contact with other households. They came into effect at 11.59pm on Sunday (02:59 ET/06:59 GMT) and will remain in place for at least three weeks, covering the Christmas holiday.

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Van Jones: ‘Joe Biden is a romantic idealist in the age of cynicism and snark’

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The CNN commentator tells how, too tearful to read his notes, he spoke from the heart – and for millions of Americans – after Biden’s win

When the US presidential election was finally called for Joe Biden on 7 November, the CNN commentator Van Jones made a tearful speech live on air that captured in two minutes the frayed emotions of a contest that had dragged on for days. A regular on CNN over the past decade, Jones trained as a lawyer at Yale and has spent more than 25 years fighting for criminal justice reform. A special adviser for green jobs in the early days of the Obama administration, he crossed party lines to work with the Trump administration in 2018, helping to draft the First Step Act and drawing criticism from fellow progressives in the process. Jones, who is 52 and was born in Tennessee, lives in Los Angeles and has two sons with his ex-wife Jana Carter.

Tell me about the lead-up to that CNN speech and the state of your nerves.
We were all just exhausted. We had been doing 17-hour days, for five days. We knew that it was going to be a long, slow count, but that doesn’t mean that your body and heart and soul can endure it with perfect equipoise. When it was finally called, my phone started blowing up with text messages from Muslim friends, friends from immigrant communities. One guy said, “I’m not crying, you’re crying,” just as a little a joke about how emotional everybody was. And it just hit me what a burden we’ve all been carrying, especially people who are in harm’s way of the president’s rhetoric. When they switched over to our panel, and Anderson [Cooper] asked me how I was doing, I couldn’t see my notes – you see me looking down trying to read them but my eyes are full of tears. So I just started free associating. I just had to speak from the heart.

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Trump’s attacks on election integrity ‘disgust me’, says senior Georgia Republican

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Donald Trump’s attacks on Republican officials in Georgia and insistence his defeat by Joe Biden must be overturned are disgusting, the Republican lieutenant governor of the southern state said on Sunday.

Related: Just 27 of 249 Republicans in Congress willing to say Trump lost, survey finds

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Nazi art dispute goes to US supreme court in landmark case

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Heirs of Jewish art dealers bring case over Guelph Treasure that defence lawyers say could open floodgates

A 12-year wrangle over a rare collection of medieval ecclesiastical art sold by Jewish art dealers to the Nazis in 1935 will arrive in front of the highest court in the US on Monday, in a landmark case defence lawyers say could open the floodgates for restitution battles from all over the world to be fought via the US.

The supreme court will hear oral arguments on whether the dealers’ heirs can sue in US courts to retrieve the church reliquaries, known as the Guelph Treasure or Welfenschatz, from Germany.

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