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A fiercely divided House removed the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from both her committees Thursday, an unprecedented punishment that Democrats said she’d earned by spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories.

Vote largely along party lines serves as rebuke over congresswoman’s incendiary and racist statementsThe US House of Representatives has voted to strip the extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia of her committee assignments, in a stark rebuke over her incendiary and racist statements.Related: Republicans take no action against Cheney or extremist Greene after vote Continue reading...

Joe Biden outlined his vision for America’s foreign policy agenda in a speech at the state department. The president reiterated the need for America to strengthen its global alliances after four years of Donald Trump belittling those relationships.‘We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again - not to meet yesterday’s challenges but today’s and tomorrow’s,’ Biden said. ‘We can’t do it alone.’

Democrats had challenged Trump to explain in next week’s proceedings why he disputed factual allegationsDonald Trump’s legal team has said the former president will not voluntarily testify under oath at his impeachment trial in the Senate next week, where he faces the charge from House Democrats that he incited the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January.The lead House impeachment manager, Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, wrote to Trump asking him to testify under oath before or during the trial, challenging the former president to explain why he and his lawyers have disputed key factual allegations at the center of their charge that he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol. Continue reading...

House speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House of Representatives would vote to remove Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee positions after House Republican leaders declined to proactively discipline her. Pelosi said she was ‘profoundly concerned about House Republican leadership’s acceptance of an extreme conspiracy theorist’

Company expresses ‘deep regret’ for consulting businesses on how to sell more prescription painkillers amid a nationwide crisisThe McKinsey business consultancy has agreed to pay nearly $600m for its role in consulting businesses on how to sell more prescription opioid painkillers amid a nationwide overdose crisis.“We deeply regret that we did not adequately acknowledge the tragic consequences of the epidemic unfolding in our communities,” McKinsey global managing partner Kevin Sneader said in a statement on Thursday, adding “with this agreement, we hope to be part of the solution to the opioid crisis in the US.” Continue reading...

Smartmatic lawsuit charges that the defendants conspired to spread false claims that the company helped ‘steal’ the US electionA voting technology company is suing Fox News, three of its top hosts and two former lawyers for Donald Trump – Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell – for $2.7bn.The lawsuit charges that the defendants conspired to spread false claims that the company helped “steal” the US presidential election, which was in fact fairly won by Joe Biden. Continue reading...

Fresno county, a region in the state’s central valley made up of 999,000 people, is recording 450 new coronavirus cases per dayCalifornia officials have signaled optimism that the latest, most deadly wave of the pandemic is starting to abate as the most populous US state doles out vaccinations. But healthcare workers in Fresno county said their emergency rooms and intensive care departments are still inundated with patients.“Sure, if your hospital goes from 200% capacity to 150%, of course they’ll say it’s looking better,” said Amy Arlund, an ICU nurse at the Kaiser Fresno hospital. “But in my entire 20-year career, I’ve not seen this many people, this sick.” Continue reading...

Letters on display at Nixon and Kennedy libraries show how former first lady requested to ‘slip in unobtrusively’ in 1971Fifty years ago, Jacqueline Onassis entered the White House for her first visit since her husband, John F Kennedy, was assassinated.By 1971, it had been almost eight years since Onassis had been in her former home, but she had written to the then first lady, Pat Nixon, to request a private visit ahead of the unveiling of Kennedy’s official portrait. Continue reading...

A 2019 parliamentary resolution has had a chilling effect on critics of Israeli policy. Now the cultural sector is speaking upI am just one of many artists who have been affected by a new McCarthyism that has taken hold amid a rising climate of intolerance in Germany. Novelist Kamila Shamsie, poet Kae Tempest, musicians Young Fathers and rapper Talib Kwelli, visual artist Walid Raad and the philosopher Achille Mbembe are among the artists, academics, curators and others who have been caught up in a system of political interrogation, blacklisting and exclusion that is now widespread in Germany thanks to the passing of a 2019 parliamentary resolution. Ultimately this is about targeting critics of Israeli policy towards Palestinians.Recently, an exhibition of my artwork was cancelled in its early stages because I support the nonviolent, Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The cancellation was never publicly declared, but I understand it to have been the consequence of cultural workers in Germany fearing that they and their institution would be punished for promoting someone labelled as “antisemitic”. This is the work of tyranny: create a situation where people are frightened enough to keep their mouths shut, and self-censorship will do the rest. Continue reading...

If government officials do not carefully place vaccination sites, people without cars could find it very difficult to obtain a Covid-19 vaccine

UK under renewed pressure to impose sanctions in wake of ‘clearly evil acts’ against Uighur and Muslim womenThe United States has said it is “deeply disturbed” and the UK government has come under further pressure to impose sanctions following reports of systematic rape and sexual torture of women detained in China’s Xinjiang camps.A BBC report on Wednesday detailed allegations of rape, sexual abuse and torture of ethnic Uighur and other Muslim women, based on interviews with several former detainees and a guard. The interviewees told the BBC “they experienced or saw evidence of an organised system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture”. Continue reading...

Portland man sped away with van while keys were in ignition, but group of dog lovers worked to get the dogs home safeA community of dog enthusiasts in Portland has been hailed after they tracked down a stolen van containing 12 dogs.The van was stolen on Tuesday as Sunni Liston, the owner of the Coopers Dogpatch dog daycare business, unloaded a client’s dog. Continue reading...

Civil rights activists and ex-officials said they expected more aggressive enforcement on policing and voting rights – but don’t expect a quick changeHappy Thursday,For the four years that Donald Trump was president, the Department of Justice (DoJ) did little to enforce America’s federal voting rights laws – though it’s the federal agency with the most power to do so. The department’s voting section, which is well-staffed with some of the best voting rights attorneys in the country, got involved in almost no cases. And when they did get involved in major cases in Texas and Ohio, the department chose to defend voting restrictions. Continue reading...

Adam Coy, a 19-year police veteran who was fired in December, charged over shooting death of Hill, a 47-year-old Black manA white Ohio police officer has been charged with murder in the latest fallout following the December shooting death of 47-year-old Andre Hill, a Black man, the state’s attorney general said.Former Columbus police officer Adam Coy was indicted on a murder charge by a Franklin county grand jury following an investigation by the Ohio attorney general’s office. Continue reading...

Treasury secretary urges Congress to ‘act forcefully’ on relief and says she plans talks with regulators about GameStop affairTreasury secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday warned of “tough months ahead” before the US economy gets to the other side if the coronavirus-related crisis.She also said that she and financial market regulators needed to “understand deeply” what happened in the trading frenzy involving GameStop and other retail stocks in recent days before taking any action. Continue reading...

If white Americans took the time to learn white people’s role in US history, then equality and justice would be more attainableLast week, I was talking to one of my closest Black friends. Why is it, I wondered with frustration, that Black people must constantly educate white people about racism? He replied: “The problem isn’t that white people have trouble grasping racism, the problem is that they know very little about themselves. Everyone else in America knows more about them than they do.” I had yet to fully grasp the truth of that realization – until now.This past summer, I found myself explaining white history to my white peers in ways that they could never do. They had little understanding of how systemic racism works, despite benefiting from it; had no idea that white slave owners regularly raped young Black boys or cut off the toes and feet of runaways. Their understanding of the full horrors of slavery is shallow. They could not tell you what Malcom X was known for, while simultaneously singing the praises of Martin Luther King Jr. And few of them were familiar with the term Jim Crow, yet also had ancestors who lived through that same era. Continue reading...

Patricia Lockwood and Lauren Oyler’s books examine the effect of grief on our real and online presencesThese days, when I log on to Twitter, I increasingly find myself at a loss for words. I’m a writer and I’ve never been one to fear the tyranny of the white page. But that little blank box at the top of my news feed, the one that asks: “What’s happening?” – it gives me writer’s block. In other forms, the words are pouring out of me because what isn’t happening at the moment? But online, I’m paralysed. What is the point? I think. What is the fucking point?This month, two novels confronting that question are released: Fake Accounts, by the critic Lauren Oyler, and No One Is Talking About This, by the writer and poet Patricia Lockwood. Both women are of broadly the same age as me, meaning they can also remember life before the internet. “If we value authenticity it’s because we’ve been bombarded since our impressionable preteen years with fakery but at the same time are uniquely able to recognise, because of the unspoiled period that stretched from our birth to the moment our parents had the screeching dial-up installed, the ways in which we casually commit fakery ourselves,” Oyler’s protagonist says. Continue reading...

It is long past time for policymakers to fight corporate concentration. Fortunately, there is good reason to think they will soon do soThis week, Amazon announced that Jeff Bezos will no longer be chief executive of the corporation but will instead take the position of “executive chairman”. Andy Jassy, who runs the highly profitable Amazon Web Services cloud computing division, will take the title.Related: What will Amazon founder Jeff Bezos do next? Continue reading...

House Republicans met amid calls for punishment of Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene, but decide not to take action. Plus, Canada brands the Proud Boys a terrorist organisation

This Sunday’s Super Bowl has been shaped by black coordinators. But the top jobs are usually offered to young, white coachesThere was no saucer-eyed staring, no hemming and hawing, no fevered talk about biting off anyone’s kneecaps. But then again Eric Bieniemy has always looked at ease in the spotlight for a man who never seeks it. Beaming in from Kansas City for his Super Bowl media day news conference earlier this week, the Chiefs offensive coordinator was the usual vision of cool, by turns relating his overarching strategies and philosophies on the game with an intense but understated passion that would make any listener want to run through a wall for him – whether they play football or not. Really, he looked for all the world like NFL head coach material. That he isn’t one yet is a travesty.After a hiring cycle that saw black coaches left on the sideline, this was supposed to be a crowning season for Bieniemy, the NFL’s hottest assistant for three seasons running now. But this year eight head coaching vacancies came and went with the 51-year-old New Orleans native getting a few interviews, but no offers. Not that he’s bitter or even disappointed. Continue reading...

Instead of discreetly returning to private life the ex-president is focused on punishing Republicans he feels betrayed himEvery former American president picks up hobbies after leaving office (books, painting, skinny dipping, boxing). For the early days of Donald Trump’s post-presidency he has picked something a little different: revenge.It’s early and presidents usually intentionally recede from public view dramatically after leaving office. But Trump appears uninterested in following that practice. Continue reading...

One in every 475 Native Americans has died since the pandemic began: ‘Families have been decimated’Covid is killing Native Americans at a faster rate than any other community in the United States, shocking new figures reveal.American Indians and Alaskan Natives are dying at almost twice the rate of white Americans, according to analysis by APM Research Lab shared exclusively with the Guardian. Continue reading...

Some areas had more than 300mm of rain in three days and one person killed in floodsWhen you think of California, you usually conjure up images of a pleasant, comfortable climate. However, last Thursday, it was anything but comfortable. A storm system brought flooding to parts of the Golden State, with some areas having in excess of 300mm of rain in three days. As a result, Highway 1 along the Pacific coast was washed away in places, with one person killed in floods. In the Sierra Nevada mountains, this fell as snow, bringing depths of 2 metres at some ski resorts. A 14-year-old boy was rescued after being buried in snow that fell off the roof of his home.On the other side of the US, severe thunderstorms have brought some of the first tornadoes of the year to Florida. A tornado touched down in the state capital of Tallahassee, flipping a light aircraft at the city’s airport, as well as causing damage to a hangar. Fortunately, no injuries or fatalities were reported. Continue reading...

Doctors at New York University’s Langone Health have successfully completed the world’s first face and double hand transplant. Twenty-two-year-old Joe DiMeo underwent the 23-hour procedure two years after he suffered third-degree burns to 80% of his body in a car accident. The procedure is a world first and has allowed Joe to dress and feed himself as well as use weights as part of his recovery

Republicans met to consider fate of two prominent congresswoman in a divided partyHouse Republicans faced a reckoning on Wednesday as leaders in the US House of Representatives confronted calls to punish two prominent congresswomen who represent clashing visions for a party struggling to chart a path forward since Donald Trump left the White House.Related: House to vote on removing rightwing extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene from committees – live Continue reading...

Bipartisan nomination praises protesters’ ‘bravery and determination that have inspired the world’US lawmakers have nominated Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement for the Nobel peace prize, calling the campaigners a global inspiration in the face of a crackdown by Beijing.In a letter to the Nobel committee released on Wednesday, nine lawmakers across party lines cited the estimate that more than two million people took to the streets on 16 June 2019. Continue reading...

Prosecutors say teen, who fatally shot two people at a protest against police violence, failed to inform the court that he movedProsecutors are seeking a new arrest warrant for Kyle Rittenhouse – the Illinois teen charged with shooting three people, killing two of them, during a protest over police brutality in Wisconsin – after he apparently violated his bail conditions. Continue reading...

While the Netflix comedy was rewarded, Michaela Coel’s bold series was snubbed, an oversight that symbolises a larger issueEarly Wednesday morning, as I was trying to decide whether to do a Yoga with Adrienne video or eat the leftover whipped cream, my mother called to tell me the news. “Emily in Paris just got nominated for a Golden Globe!” she said.“What? For which category?” I said. I’m a writer on the show. I tried to avoid reading its criticism, but I don’t live under a rock. It never occurred to me that our show would be nominated. Continue reading...

Lawsuit had claimed university discriminates against Asian American and white applicantsThe Biden administration announced on Wednesday it had dropped a discrimination lawsuit against Yale University, which alleged that the institution was illegally discriminating against Asian American and white applicants.While a judge must still sign off on the decision, justice department officials noted in the two-sentence filing in the US district court in Connecticut that it would voluntarily dismiss the action that had been filed by Donald Trump’s administration in October. Continue reading...

Joe DiMeo underwent a 23-hour surgery in August after suffering third-degree burns over 80% of his body in a 2018 car accidentDoctors at New York University’s Langone Health have completed the very first successful face and double hand transplant, a historic first.“We’ve succeeded in a tremendous undertaking that shows we can continue to take on new challenges and advance the field of transplantation,” Dr Eduardo D Rodriguez, who has led at least four face transplant surgeries, told NBC’s The Today Show. Continue reading...

Biden’s coronavirus czar points out that vaccinations are ramping up as Anthony Fauci supports double-maskingThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asserted on Wednesday that US schools can safely reopen even if teachers have not received the coronavirus vaccine, while the top US infections expert supported the idea of wearing two face masks.As some teachers’ unions balk at resuming in-person instruction before teachers are inoculated, the CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, said: “Vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for safe reopening of schools.” Continue reading...

The Amazon founder gains time for other projects, such as space and newspapers, while still making the big decisionsJeff Bezos is stepping aside at Amazon – sort of. In fact, he is merely dropping one of his three job titles at thee online retailer. He will no longer be chief executive but will still be executive chairman. And, since he didn’t mention his status as “president” (whatever that involves), one assumes Bezos is keeping that bauble.This “transition”, including the promotion of its web services boss Andy Jassy to be chief executive from the autumn, has been greeted as a very big deal. Let’s see. Its significance depends on how Bezos plays things. He gets formal leave to spend more time on other interests – everything from the Washington Post to rockets – but he was probably doing so informally anyway. Real change at Amazon may be hard to detect. Continue reading...

Schumer says $618bn Republican offer too small and warns crisis could drag on for years unless large-scale relief is passedJoe Biden and his new treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, are encouraging Democrats in Congress to go big and bold on the Covid-19 relief package and have effectively panned a Republican alternative that is less than a third the size of the president’s $1.9tn rescue plan.Related: Republicans clash over futures of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney – live Continue reading...

Confrontations between basketball players and the crowd can turn ugly. The NBA needs to clamp down on such incidents for everyone’s benefitWhen it comes to the case of Courtside Karen, LeBron James is obviously taking on Michele Obama’s philosophy: when they go low, we go high.But first a quick recap. The Lakers star was confronted by a fan, Juliana Carlos, during his team’s victory over the Hawks in Atlanta on Monday night (some NBA teams are allowing spectators back into arenas in a limited capacity). Her husband had been heckling James and that ended with Carlos pulling down her facemask – during a pandemic, mind you – and verbally abusing James before being escorted out by security, along with three others in her party. She then took to social media to tell James that: “I will [expletive] you up”. There were many more words in the video, mainly beginning with F. She also appeared to think she was entitled to abuse James because she had “courtside seats that I … paid for”. Continue reading...

Two officers have been placed on administrative leave and another suspended after video footage emergedThe mother of a nine-year-old girl has accused police of “excessive use of force” after her daughter was handcuffed and pepper-sprayed in Rochester, New York.Two were placed on administrative leave and another suspended on Tuesday, after police released video footage of the incident, which showed the nine-year-old being pepper-sprayed as she sat in the back of a squad car. Continue reading...

There are no clear-cut heroes or villains, only some investors who will weather losses betterIn the last week of January, the price of stock in GameStop – an ailing brick-and-mortar video game retailer – soared 323% for the week and 1,700% for the month. Nothing happened within the company to drive the increase; its fundamentals remain unchanged. It was a speculative bubble – but with a twist.With any bubble, investors who get in and out at the right moment make a lot of money, while those who get in too late or stay too long suffer large losses. Participating in a speculative bubble is thus like playing roulette in a casino, with the financial services companies (such as Charles Schwab) and retail investment platforms (such as Robinhood) acting as the “house”. Continue reading...

President and first lady attend memorial for Brian Sicknick, who died following injuries in the Capitol riot, days before start of trialJoe Biden paid his respects at the US Capitol on Tuesday night to the police officer killed by the violent mob of Donald Trump supporters who staged the insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January.The remains of Brian Sicknick, 42, are lying in honor in the Capitol’s towering central rotunda where rioters had rampaged on the day. A ceremony was held for Sicknick on Wednesday morning, with Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, honoring the officer. Continue reading...

Biden tells People magazine in first White House interview ‘we have such an incredible opportunity as a country now’Joe Biden has described his swearing-in as president as “one of the most consequential inaugurations in a long, long time” in his first White House interview.The new president marked two weeks in office on Wednesday and speaking to People magazine, Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, discussed a range of topics, including their marriage, faith and the scale of the challenges he will face. Continue reading...

Officials apologize for test malfunction after message asking citizens to keep an eye out for film villain was sent three timesThe Texas public safety department raised a few eyebrows in the Lone Star state by reportedly sending out an emergency alert asking its citizens to keep an eye out for Chucky – the evil possessed doll from the horror movie series Child’s Play – whom it said was a suspect in a kidnapping.The message went out over the state’s Amber Alert system, which is blasted to people’s mobile phones, usually to help find a missing child. It was sent three times. Continue reading...

At Trump’s impeachment trial, Republicans have one more chance to turn their backs on the extremists. Will they take it?In 2001, nine days after terrorists attacked the United States and its federal government, a Republican president stood before Congress with the overwhelming support of a terrified nation, as he presented a stark choice to the world.Related: Impeachment trial: Trump lawyers claim 'fight like hell' speech didn't incite riot Continue reading...

Prosecutors present memo accusing Trump of building a ‘powder keg’ while Trump’s team denied he incited violence. Plus, how a California prison transfer led to dozens of deaths

Civil rights lawyers Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke are poised for key roles in the Biden administrationOn her last day at the justice department in 2017, Vanita Gupta considered taking a picture as she left the agency’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. But she decided against it. Gupta, the outgoing head of the department’s civil rights division, once described as the “crown jewel” of the agency, didn’t really want to remember the moment, she told a reporter who was shadowing her for the day.Jeff Sessions, then the incoming attorney general, was poised to unwind much of the painstaking progress Gupta, 46, and her colleagues had spent the last four years building. It was no secret that Sessions opposed the kind of court agreements the justice department used to fix unconstitutional policing policies across the country (“dangerous” and an “exercise of raw power” in Sessions’ eyes). Nor were there any illusions that Sessions would try very hard to enforce the Voting Rights Act, already on its last legs after the supreme court gutted a key provision in 2013 (Sessions described the landmark civil rights law as “intrusive”). Continue reading...

Native American progressive Democrat has been working for years to address crisis levels of homelessness in SeattleColleen Echohawk, a Native American woman and key advocate in Seattle’s homelessness crisis, is running for mayor of the Pacific Northwest city and laying the groundwork for it to potentially elect its first indigenous mayor.Echohawk, an enrolled member of the Kithehaki Band of the Pawnee Nation and a member of the Upper Athabascan people of Mentasta Lake, is a progressive Democrat, but one, she said, “with strong roots in pragmatism”. Continue reading...

Tom Brady is a ruthless and brilliant winner. But his opposing number in Sunday’s Super Bowl is on track to redefine the sportHere is a list of all the quarterbacks who have led their teams to back-to-back Super Bowl wins within their first three years as an NFL starter:Tom Brady. Continue reading...