FAA’s move comes after plane was grounded in March 2019 following two fatal crashes
US regulators have approved Boeing’s 737 Max to fly once more, 20 months after the manufacturer’s bestselling plane was grounded following two fatal crashes caused by design flaws.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rescinded an order that had grounded the aircraft, in a move that could allow the planes to fly again before the end of the year.
Continue reading...President’s daughter asked her ‘why would you tell me to read a book about poor people?’
Ivanka Trump shared her father’s craving for money and praise – and his apparent disdain for poor people – from a young age, according to a former schoolfriend who has written a tell-all essay.
Donald Trump’s daughter was obsessed with status and used to blame classmates for her infractions of school rules while projecting a refined persona, Lysandra Ohrstrom, who was a maid of honour at her wedding, claimed in Vanity Fair.
Continue reading...A barrage of voter fraud conspiracy theories reveal Trump supporters’ fundamental misunderstanding of the system
Late last week, Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier declared on social media that he had unearthed definitive proof of widespread voter fraud in Detroit. He pointed to an absentee ballot cast by “118-year-old William Bradley”, a man who had supposedly died in 1984.
“They’re trying to steal the election,” Fournier warned in a since-deleted Facebook post, though the election had already been called for Joe Biden by every major news network days before.
Continue reading...If they’re going to achieve anything the next two to four years, Democrats must not fall for the trap of ‘bipartisanship’
For four years, Donald Trump and the Republican party have been riding roughshod over long-established norms of American democracy. They have pushed to the legal limits of what they can do (and sometimes beyond). They have not so much ignored any opposition as declared it illegitimate. In response, and in the face of intense national polarization, politicians and pundits have appealed to moderation, civility and the common good. One of the biggest proponents of that attitude is President-elect Joe Biden, who, in his victory speech, said, “We must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.” Now that Trump has lost, the political survivors of the Republican party may rush to join that chorus.
Related: Obama scolds 'petulant' Trump but reveals conservative sympathies
Continue reading...Medical establishment says cooperation can save lives; UK pressed to open transatlantic travel corridors; South Australia locks down for 6 days
I am handing over the blog to my colleague Alexandra Topping in the UK.
Thanks for reading but if you’re just joining, here are the main developments of the past few hours:
Businesses in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, could be asked to shorten their opening hours in order to contain an outbreak of the virus that has seen cases in the city reach a record daily high of 472 on Wednesday.
Continue reading...When Jill Biden, 69, heads to the White House in January, she will be the first to continue her career while in the role
Jill Biden has gone to great lengths to keep her status as a political spouse under the radar from her students, to whom she is known simply as “Dr B”.
Continue reading...Spokesperson for the disgraced mogul would not ‘confirm or deny’ he has tested positive for Covid-19
Harvey Weinstein is unwell and is being “closely monitored” in prison, a representative for the disgraced Hollywood mogul said.
Continue reading...Termination of Christopher Krebs comes amid removals of high-level officials seen as insufficiently loyal to the president
Donald Trump has fired the director of the federal agency that vouched for the reliability of the 2020 election and pushed back on the president’s baseless claims of voter fraud.
Trump fired Christopher Krebs, who served as the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), in a tweet on Tuesday, saying Krebs “has been terminated” and that his recent statement defending the security of the election was “highly inaccurate”.
Continue reading...The outgoing president reportedly asked for options on bombing Iran as administration eyes last chance to achieve objectives
Fears that Donald Trump might try to wreak havoc on the world stage in his final, desperate, weeks in office appear to have been well-founded, after he reportedly asked for options on bombing Iran.
Continue reading...Attacks up since September amid fears Taliban biding their time until US forces leave
Donald Trump’s plan for a swift withdrawal of over half the US troops in Afghanistan comes at a dangerous time for a country officially in peace talks, but grappling with escalating bloodshed and shrinking financial support from foreign donors.
Attacks are up by 50% since negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban began in September, a recent US government report found, above average levels for this time of year.
Continue reading...As our maps and charts show, Trump not only lost to Joe Biden – he lost to other Republicans on the ballot
After four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, many voters who typically vote Republican turned against him.
For example, in Winnebago county, Wisconsin, about 72% of voters cast their ballot for the Republican House candidate – either Glenn Grothman or Mike Gallagher, depending on where they live. But just 52% cast their vote for Trump.
Continue reading...The country music icon’s $1m donation supported the latest breakthrough by Moderna and several research papers
It’s truly the greatest gift of all: a $1m donation by Dolly Parton to coronavirus vaccine research supported the development of the Moderna vaccine, which shows 95% protection from the virus.
In April, Parton donated £800,000 to research after her friend Dr Naji Abumrad of the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee told her that they were making “some exciting advancements” in the search for a cure for the virus. Abumrad and Parton became friends in 2014 after the singer was involved in a car accident and treated at Vanderbilt.
Continue reading...Live streams of the count aren’t a new phenomenon – but after Trump’s baseless vote fraud claims, some are wondering if this method of transparency is too vulnerable
At a vote-counting center in Montgomery county, Maryland, a man sat in a room with other election workers, wearing a grey hat and dark purple rubber gloves. He unfolded a ballot, looked around and leaned forward to mark it. The man appeared on a Yahoo Finance livestream of the center. The video went viral, one version ending up on YouTube, where the narrator said they found it on 4chan.
“Do you notice that, folks?” said the narrator. “How he looks around to see if anyone is watching him – as if he’s about to commit a crime?”
Continue reading...In an interview marking the launch of his memoir A Promised Land, Barack Obama tells Oprah Winfrey that the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will help lead the US back to the 'competent, caring government we so badly need'.
He lamented the standard of governance over the past four years, saying Biden and Harris will 'level set' and show that the presidency will not label journalists 'enemies of the state' or 'routinely lie'
Gary Younge writes for us today a typically eloquent long read on Donald Trump’s desperate fight to stop the minority vote in 2020 – and how he still lost.
According to Trump, votes were illegitimate by dint of where they were cast. “Detroit and Philadelphia are known as two of the most corrupt political places anywhere in our country – easily,” he said. “They cannot be responsible for engineering the outcome of a presidential race.”
This was a new twist in the racial logic of the American right, which has gone from blocking Black people from voting to allowing them to vote as long as their votes don’t all get counted.
Related: Counted out: Trump's desperate fight to stop the minority vote
In his report on the situation with Iran just now, Patrick Wintour mentioned those reports that Donald Trump is intending to make a significant troop withdrawal from Afghanistan before vacating the White House in January. Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has issued a warning about that this morning.
Associated Press report him saying “We now face a difficult decision. We have been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years, and no Nato ally wants to stay any longer than necessary. But at the same time, the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high,” in a statement.
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This blog is closing now but you can follow our continuing live coverage here. Thanks for reading.
Related: Coronavirus live news: senator Chuck Grassley tests positive; airlines offer Covid testing
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Researchers worry PFAS, commonly found in the bodies of Americans, will reduce the immunization’s effectiveness
The successful uptake of any vaccine for Covid-19, a crucial step in returning a sense of normalcy after a year ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, could be hindered by widespread contamination from a range of chemicals used in everyday products.
Small amounts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (or PFAS) chemicals are commonly found in the bodies of people in the US, as well as several other countries. These man-made chemicals, used in everything from non-stick pans to waterproof clothes to pizza boxes, have been linked to an elevated risk of liver damage, decreased fertility and even cancer.
Continue reading...Outgoing president reported to have looked at military options against Tehran and its allies
Iran has warned of a strong response if Donald Trump goes ahead with plans to use the twilight of his presidency to mount a strike on Iran or its allies in the region.
It was reported that Trump last week looked at options for striking Iran’s main nuclear site, but was dissuaded from taking action after his advisers warned it might lead to a larger conflict in the Middle East. The report was sourced to four US officials by the New York Times.
Continue reading...Senate hearing was called in response to how the companies’ platforms handled a New York Post article about Joe Biden
The chief executive officers of Twitter and Facebook are taking the stand Tuesday to testify, again, about allegations of anti-conservative bias on their platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey were subpoenaed in October to appear at Tuesday’s hearing with the Senate judiciary committee in order to “review the companies’ handling of the 2020 election”.
Continue reading...Despite the president’s anti-Muslim policies, the margin between Trump and Biden among Muslim voters was closer than experts predicted
Dr Khalid Khan is an internal medicine physician in Houston, Texas. Even in the face of a pandemic that has cost almost quarter of a million American lives and administration that often seemed to demonize Islam, the doctor and self-proclaimed devout Muslim cast his ballot for Donald Trump.
“When you eat a dish, you might not like every ingredient. But you like the whole dish. We should take the good and leave the bad,” Khan said, comparing the US president to a mediocre meal.
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