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The Week
Former Nixon Library director suggests Biden ignores Trump’s impeachment trial at America’s peril
President Biden and his aides have made it very clear he has no intention of commenting on, or even paying much attention to, former President Donald Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial, which begins Tuesday. When reporters asked Biden how and whether Trump should be held accountable for his role in the Jan. 6 violent siege of the U.S. Capitol, he replied, “We’ll let the Senate work that out.” Politico summed up Biden’s Trump impeachment strategy as: “Sit back and STFU.” Biden allies explained to Politico and The Washington Post that the White House sees no upside, political or practical, in weighing in on Trump’s impeachment. Biden is focused — and wants to be seen focusing — on taming the COVID-19 pandemic, notably pushing through his $1.9 billion coronavirus stimulus bill. Ignoring the Senate trial also echoes how Biden’s team dealt with what Politico calls “Trumpian distractions” on the campaign trail, and, the Post notes, it “creates contrast with Trump, who at times appeared to weigh in on every controversy facing the country” and frequently watched TV during work hours. Besides, it’s unlikely anything Biden says would tip the scales toward conviction, which requires 17 Senate Republicans to break with the former president. More broadly, Biden has indicated he wants to move past the Trump era. Still, “it is unclear if the White House will, or even can, be as removed from this political drama, as Biden and his aides suggest,” the Post reports. “No sitting president has ever had to contend with the impeachment trial of his predecessor unfolding during his own presidency, let alone in the crucial opening weeks that often present the best opening for getting things done.” The closest any president has come to that quandary is Gerald Ford, who replaced President Richard Nixon after he resigned rather than face impeachment and likely removal from office, Timothy Naftali, a historian who has written about impeachment and served as director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Museum and Library, told the Post. “Ford needed to find a way to turn the page.” “I understand why Gerald Ford did what he did. But I think there was a cost to turning the corner as quickly as he did,” Naftali added. “And I worry that, through an understandable concern about the pandemic, Joe Biden may be turning the corner too quickly.” More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about America’s bungled vaccine rolloutRep. Adam Kinzinger tells his fellow Republicans convicting Trump is ‘necessary to save America’The Daily Show surveys Joe Biden’s 3 weeks of presidential scandals, says farewell to Lou Dobbs
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Reuters
‘No, no.’: Mexican president rejects mask-wearing after COVID-19 recovery
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday said he would not wear a face mask after his recovery from COVID-19, in spite of widespread support from top officials and the public for the measure. In his first news conference since testing positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 24, Lopez Obrador brushed aside repeated questions from reporters about whether he would wear a mask to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. Unlike many of his top officials, Lopez Obrador has shunned face masks throughout the pandemic.
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Associated Press
Senate confirms former Obama chief of staff to oversee VA
The Senate has overwhelmingly voted to confirm President Joe Biden’s pick to oversee the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Senate confirmed Denis McDonough as VA secretary by a vote of 87-7 on Monday. McDonough was President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.
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NextShark
Woman Gets 10 Years in Prison for Killing Nail Salon Manager After Skipping on Bill in Las Vegas
A woman who killed a Vietnamese nail salon manager in Las Vegas in 2018 has been sentenced to a prison term of 10 to 25 years. The verdict: On Friday, Clark County District Court Judge Tierra Jones sentenced Krystal Whipple to prison for the death of 51-year-old Nhu “Annie” Ngoc Nguyen, the Associated Press reports. With the plea, she effectively avoided trials of felony murder, burglary, robbery and stolen vehicle charges, which she initially faced.
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The Week
The Daily Show surveys Joe Biden’s 3 weeks of presidential scandals, says farewell to Lou Dobbs
No president is immune from scandal, President Biden included, Trevor Noah said on Monday’s Daily Show. But maybe not all scandals are created equal. “Over the weekend, Biden took a short break from his day-to-day presidenting to catch the Super Bowl from his home in Delaware — and if you aren’t immediately outraged about that, well, you obviously haven’t been watching the last 48 hours of conservative news media,” Noah said. “But it’s not surprising that Biden bent the travel rules for himself, because he’s been president for less that three weeks and already he’s had more scandals than we can keep track of — although, my friends, we are going to try in our brand-new segment: ‘Joe Biden, The Worst President in History That We Can Remember.'” Noah covered White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s Space Force brouhaha, Biden’s comments about honorable FBI agents, Hunter Biden’s memoir deal, and the three scandals Biden chalked up even before becoming president. “That’s right, Joe Biden stole 10 minutes of Donald Trump’s presidency, or as Fox News calls it, Tenghazi,” Noah deadpanned. “Who knows what Trump could have accomplished in those 10 minutes? I mean, maybe that’s when he was finally going to release his health care plan. He could have used that time to walk down half a ramp! And do you have any idea how much Fox News Trump could have watched in that 10 minutes? Like, 10 minutes! So those are they many Joe Biden scandals by the muckraking journalists of conservative media in just his first three weeks in office.” He predicted some Biden scandals that could come next. One of those conservative would-be Biden muckrakers lost his platform over the weekend, and The Daily Show also took a moment to say farewell to Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, “the most North Korean broadcaster America has ever seen.” Watch his highlight reel below. More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about America’s bungled vaccine rolloutRep. Adam Kinzinger tells his fellow Republicans convicting Trump is ‘necessary to save America’Former Nixon Library director Suggests Biden Ignores Trump’s impeachment trial at America’s peril
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The Telegraph
Syria ‘finds’ body of famed archaeologist beheaded by Islamic State
Syrian authorities believe they have found the remains of a famed archaeologist who was beheaded by Islamic State militants in Palmyra in 2015, reportedly after refusing to divulge the location of the site’s hidden treasures. One of three bodies recently recovered from an area outside the Palmyra was thought to be that of Khaled al-Asaad, the longtime director of antiquities in the ancient city, state news outlet Sana reported on Sunday. In August 2015 Asaad was publicly executed in a local square in Palmyra, months after IS militants overran the strategic oasis city in Syria’s eastern desert. The crime made global headlines as the urbane Asaad had served as the custodian of the Unesco world heritage site for over half a century, receiving numerous awards and accolades in Syria and abroad. The octogenarian antiquities scholar was born in Palmyra and had remained in the city after the IS takeover to attempt to preserve its heritage. IS militants detained Asaad for over a month before his murder, his family said. The group was earning millions from looting and smuggling artefacts at the time and Syria’s antiquities minister said they had killed him after trying to extract information about the whereabouts of the city’s hidden treasure. The fate of Asaad’s own mortal remains has been something of a mystery since then. Following his death, unverified images circulated online showing a dismembered corpse supposedly belonging to Asaad hanging from a traffic light, with a handwritten sign accusing him of being director of Palmyra’s “idols”. But other sources later suggested his body was found tied to one of an ancient pillar in the ruins of Palmyra’s central square. Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra until March 2016 with the help of Russian air strikes. But that December IS fighters managed to recapture the strategic oasis city in a surprise assault and it was not finally liberated until March 2017. The Sana report did not give further information about the recently recovered bodies but said their identity would be confirmed by DNA analysis.
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Associated Press
South Dakota judge rejects amendment legalizing marijuana
A South Dakota judge on Monday struck down a voter-approved constitutional amendment that legalized recreational marijuana after Gov. Kristi Noem’s administration challenged it. Circuit Judge Christina Klinger ruled the measure approved by voters in November violated the state’s requirement that constitutional amendments deal with just one subject and would have created broad changes to state government. “Amendment A is a revision as it has far-reaching effects on the basic nature of South Dakota’s governmental system,” she wrote in her ruling.
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The Week
Democrats’ coronavirus relief plan would raise minimum wage to $9.50 this year
House Democrats are working on details of their graduated plan to raise the U.S. federal minimum wage to $15/hour. Democrats are looking to include the first hike to the federal minimum wage since 2009 in President Biden’s coronavirus relief bill. They plan to revise the proposal Tuesday, but it so far includes a quick increase from the current minimum wage of $7.25 to $9.50 within the year. It will then grow annually until hitting $15 in 2025. Meanwhile the tipped minimum wage of $2.50 will rise to $4.95 this year, and again increase until it matches the federal wage. The youth subminimum wage paid to people under 20 will also end up matching the regular minimum wage by 2027, and permits to pay subminimum wage will no longer be distributed. Here’s the details on the federal min wage increase Democrats are going to try to include in their covid relief bill: Raised to $9.50 w/in 3 months; $15 by 2025, indexed thereafter. Tipped wage disappears by 2027.Via House @EdLaborCmte, which is marking up tomorrow: pic.twitter.com/aNMnTdgJf0 — Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) February 8, 2021 A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released Monday found that raising the minimum wage to $15/hour by 2024 would increase paychecks for 17 million Americans, or 10 percent of the workforce. It would also lift 900,000 people out of poverty, but cost 1.4 million jobs, particularly for “younger, less educated people.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a top proponent of the $15 minimum wage, quickly disputed some of the report’s findings. The CBO has demonstrated that increasing the minimum wage would have a direct and substantial impact on the federal budget. What that means is that we can clearly raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour under the rules of budget reconciliation. pic.twitter.com/YyTEYkOugX — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 8, 2021 More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about America’s bungled vaccine rolloutRep. Adam Kinzinger tells his fellow Republicans convicting Trump is ‘necessary to save America’Former Nixon Library director suggests Biden ignores Trump’s impeachment trial at America’s peril
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Reuters
Taiwan wishes China happy new year, but says won’t yield to pressure
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen wished China a happy Lunar New Year on Tuesday, but said she will not yield to Chinese pressure and reiterated a call for dialogue to resume with Beijing. China, which claims democratic Taiwan as its own territory, has increased its military activity around the island in recent months, responding to what Beijing calls “collusion” between Taipei and Washington, Taiwan’s most important international backer. Speaking after a meeting with senior security officials, Tsai said Taiwan was in close contact with “relevant countries” about the situation in the Taiwan Strait, which separates the island from its huge neighbour.
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The Week
Rep. Adam Kinzinger tells his fellow Republicans convicting Trump is ‘necessary to save America’
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) was one of the few House Republicans to vote to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection, and in a new op-ed for The Washington Post, he explains to his fellow Republicans why it is so important to hold Trump accountable for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Holding an impeachment trial is not “political theater” or a “waste of time,” Kinzinger wrote. “If the GOP doesn’t take a stand, the chaos of the past few months, and the past few years, could quickly return. The future of our party and our country depends on confronting what happened — so it doesn’t happen again.” Impeaching Trump shows that “enough is enough,” Kinzinger said, and he warned that “the situation could get much, much worse — with more violence and more division that cannot be overcome. The further down this road we go, the closer we come to the end of America as we know it.” Kinzinger called out Republicans who “encouraged” Trump’s “dangerous lie” that the presidential election was stolen, and said the GOP of his youth “would never take that road.” Trump “changed that dynamic,” he argued, making the Republican Party one that runs on “outrage and the fear of a darker future.” Kinzinger said he thinks more Republican voters “reject” this shift, but many have gone silent because “they assume the party’s leaders no longer represent them.” Since voting to impeach, Kinzinger said he has heard from “tens of thousands of my constituents,” and their reaction has been “overwhelmingly supportive.” He said he “firmly” believes that the majority of Americans “reject the madness of the past four years,” but the country won’t be able to move forward “by ignoring what happened or refusing to hold accountable those responsible.” That’s a recipe for “chaos in the years ahead,” he said, which is why convicting Trump is “necessary to save America from going further down a sad, dangerous road.” Read the entire op-ed at The Washington Post. More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about America’s bungled vaccine rolloutFormer Nixon Library director suggests Biden ignores Trump’s impeachment trial at America’s perilThe Daily Show surveys Joe Biden’s 3 weeks of presidential scandals, says farewell to Lou Dobbs
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Associated Press
Man charged in US Capitol riot worked for FBI, lawyer says
A man who authorities say is a leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group and helped to organize a ring of other extremists and led them in the attack last month at the U.S. Capitol has held a top-secret security clearance for decades and previously worked for the FBI, his attorney said Monday. Thomas Caldwell, who authorities believe holds a leadership role in the extremist group, worked as a section chief for the FBI from 2009 to 2010 after retiring from the Navy, his lawyer, Thomas Plofchan, wrote in a motion urging the judge to release him from jail while he awaits trial.
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NextShark
Yale Grad Student and U.S. Army Veteran Gunned Down in the Street Near University
An Asian American graduate student from Yale University was killed in a shooting in New Haven, Connecticut over the weekend. The incident, which is under investigation as a homicide, occurred near the intersection of Nash and Lawrence Streets at around 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 6. BREAKING: Fatal shooting Nash & Lawrence Streets #NewHaven .@WTNH pic.twitter.com/k7qMkF6gtk — CTLaSalle Blanks (@CTLaSalleBlanks) February 7, 2021 Kevin Jiang, 26, was a graduate student at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE).
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The Week
New York can’t prosecute Paul Manafort after Trump pardon, court rules
Former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort won’t face a second round of prosecution in New York state after a court affirmed the state and federal charges against him constituted double jeopardy. Manafort was sentenced to more than seven years in prison in early 2019 after being charged with financial crimes, as well as witness tampering and unregistered lobbying, as a result of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance charged Manafort with pretty much the same financial crimes shortly after his second sentence in what was seemingly an insurance policy against Trump’s likely pardon of Manafort. After all, a president cannot pardon someone charged with state crimes. But the overlap turned out to work against Vance. In December 2019, New York state Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley threw out the state’s charges, saying that “the law of double jeopardy in New York State provides a very narrow window for prosecution.” Vance took the case to the New York Court of Appeals — the state’s highest court — but it said last week that it had declined to review the case. As a result, Wiley’s ruling will stand. Trump did end up pardoning Manafort in December, though he was already serving his sentence at home due to COVID-19 concerns. Manafort had pleaded not guilty to the New York charges, and his lawyer told The New York Times he is pleased with the result. Manafort could still be charged with other federal or state crimes. More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about America’s bungled vaccine rolloutRep. Adam Kinzinger tells his fellow Republicans convicting Trump is ‘necessary to save America’Former Nixon Library director suggests Biden ignores Trump’s impeachment trial at America’s peril
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Reuters
Two U.S. carrier groups conduct exercises in South China Sea
Two U.S. carrier groups conducted joint exercises in the South China Sea on Tuesday, days after a U.S. warship sailed near Chinese-controlled islands in the disputed waters, as China denounced the United States for damaging peace and stability. The Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group and the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group “conducted a multitude of exercises aimed at increasing interoperability between assets as well as command and control capabilities”, the U.S. Navy said, marking the first dual carrier operations in the busy waterway since July 2020. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the frequent moves by U.S. warships and aircraft into the South China Sea in a “show of force” was not conducive to regional peace and stability.
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Reuters Videos
Indonesia’s ‘silver people’ perform to make ends meet
Meet Indonesia’s ‘silver people’Location: Depok, IndonesiaSingle mother Raffi Puryanti and her five-year-old sonperform as ‘manusia silver’ to appeal to passersby for an occasional coin(SOUNDBITE) (Bahasa Indonesia) 29-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MOTHER AND SILVER WOMAN, PURYANTI SAYING:”My name is Puryanti, I am 29 years old. I have been working like this for three months to support my two children. It is difficult to find a job, and I’m not ashamed to work like this, even though many people insult me. What is important is to find food for my children. I’m very grateful to God for this blessing and keeping us healthy.”The family coat themselves in a homemade paintmade of screen-printing powder and cooking oil(SOUNDBITE) (Bahasa Indonesia) 29-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MOTHER AND SILVER WOMAN, PURYANTI SAYING:”Some give, some don’t. Sometimes people give enough, thank God. I’m here as often as I can be. Sometimes after a whole day, from day to night, I only get 50,000 Indonesian rupiah ($3.58), and some days I can get up to 70,000 rupiah ($5), thank God.”
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