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The US logged its highest ever daily death toll from the coronavirus Wednesday as the world prepares to turn the page on a grim year defined by the pandemic, with much of the globe united in one hope for 2021: that a slew of new vaccines will stamp out Covid-19. New Year's Eve marks one year since the World Health Organization first mentioned a mysterious pneumonia in China later identified as Covid-19, which went on in 2020 to kill more than 1.79 million people and devastate the global economy in unprecedented ways. In the world's worst-hit country, the US, the numbers keep climbing: On Wednesday more than 3,900 people died of Covid-19, a new record, bringing the toll since the pandemic began to more than 19.7 million infections and 341,000 lives lost. And experts believe the worst is yet to come, as US healthcare workers brace for a surge in cases after major holiday gatherings. But international efforts helped develop vaccines in record time. On Wednesday Britain approved a ...

(Getty) Can Vice President Mike Pence unilaterally reverse Donald Trump’s election loss at a joint session of Congress next week as a Republican congressman is claiming in an 11th-hour lawsuit? Depends on whom you ask. The answer is an emphatic no, one Democratic presidential elector from Colorado told a judge. On the flip side, GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert argues Pence can hand Trump a second term by simply rejecting swing states’ slates of Democratic electors and instead choosing competing GOP electors when the Senate and House meet jointly on Jan. 6 to open and count certificates of electoral votes. But in a Thursday filing, Colorado elector Alan Kennedy argues that competing slates of electors cannot be chosen because they don’t exist. States can only choose one slate -- and the swing states at issue already did so -- for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, he said. “If an incumbent vice president could keep his or her job that way, then votes ...

SAN FRANCISCO – MARCH 5: Shannon Minter, standing, speaks to the California Supreme Court Justices inside the California Supreme Courtroom. (Photo by Paul Sakuma-Pool/Getty Images) The   California Supreme Court   ruled to uphold a new law that allows for the early release of non-violent sex offenders. On Monday, the court voted unanimously to uphold part of a  ballot measure  that gives any “non-violent” inmates a chance at early parole. Proponents of the measure, however, argue they never intended for it to apply to inmates convicted of sex crimes. On the other hand, the court argues that because of the “plain language” the law was written in, non-violent sex offenders cannot be excluded. Critics of the decision questioned how this benefits the victims. “We need to protect the public,” Elk Grove Assembly Member  Jim Cooper  (D) said. “There’s been a lot of legislation from the past 3 or 4 years–and some needed reforms, I’ll agree with you, but we’ve gone ...

Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images 3:00 Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA), two GOP incumbents who face tight runoffs in the Peach State in one week, suggested on Tuesday they will support increasing direct coronavirus relief payments to the American people, joining Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who recently indicated the same. “I’ve stood by the president 100 percent of the time. I’m proud to do that and I’ve said, absolutely, we need to get relief to Americans now and I will support that,” Loeffler  said  when asked about the measure during a Tuesday interview on Fox News. Similarly, Perdue said he is “delighted to support the President in this $2,000,”  telling  Fox News’s Sandra Smith that it is “the right thing to do for people in Georgia.” The House passed the CASH Act on Monday, which increases direct payments from $600 to $2,000, per President Trump’s request, 275-134. Only 44 Republicans supported the measure, with two Democrats objecting to it as wel...

Video Will Warnock domestic dispute footage impact Georgia Senate race? Fox News contributor Karl Rove joins 'Hannity' to discuss the state of the runoffs. Georgia Senate candidate  Raphael Warnock , in a 2018 sermon, tore into the British vote to leave the European Union -- calling  Brexit  part of the "same problem" as "Trumpism" and was an example of "ethnocentrism and hate." "Hate has gone viral," he said in a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church. "Nativism and ethnocentrism and bigotry in high places on both sides of the Atlantic. Before there was Trumpism over here, there was Brexit over there."  Britain voted in 2016 to leave the European Union after long-standing concerns. It was widely seen as the first big victory for populists in the West, ahead of President Trump’s victory a few months later in the U.S. presidential election. "Different contexts, same problem," Warnock said. "Nativism and ethnocentrism an...

President Donald Trump (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) President Donald Trump blasted Republican leaders as “weak” and “tired” for allowing a vote to override his veto of the $740.5 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). His comments came Tuesday in tweets. He  wrote : “Weak and tired Republican ‘leadership’ will allow the bad Defense Bill to pass. Say goodbye to VITAL Section 230 termination, your National Monuments, Forts (names!) and Treasures (inserted by Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren), 5G, and our great soldiers being removed and brought home from foreign lands who do NOTHING for us. A disgraceful act of cowardice and total submission by weak people to Big Tech. Negotiate a better Bill, or get better leaders, NOW! Senate should  not approve NDAA  until fixed!!!” Trump had vetoed the bill on Wednesday. But the House voted 322-87 to override his veto. A  similar motion  will be introduced in the Republican-majority Senate, where it will also have...

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist (Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images) If Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock win Georgia's Senate runoff races, their party's control of the Senate will result in the approval of Joe Biden's planned tax increases, including the repeal of President Donald Trump's tax cuts, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist warned Tuesday.  "For a median-income family of four, that's a $2,000 increase in your taxes every year," Norquist told  Fox News' "Fox & Friends" about the repeal. "To add to that, [Biden] wants to bring back the Obamacare penalty tax, which affects 100,000 people in Georgia alone and 5 million across the country, to punish you for not buying Obamacare; it's a $700 tax." Democrats also want to raise the corporate income tax, said Norquist. "Right now our corporate income tax is 21%," he said. "Communist China's is 25%. We have a lower tax no...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday blocked an attempt by Democrats to force quick action on increasing direct stimulus payments to $2,000 despite President Donald Trump’s demands for the change. McConnell objected to a motion by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to approve by unanimous consent a stimulus-checks bill that passed the House on Monday. He also blocked a motion by Senator Bernie Sanders to vote on the stimulus checks immediately after the Senate votes on overriding Trump’s veto of a key defense policy bill. Floor requests to immediately pass legislation are frequently criticized as stunts, but this episode highlights how unlikely it is that the Senate will pass a bill increasing the payments before Congress adjourns Sunday. Just before Schumer made his motion, McConnell said the Senate will consider higher stimulus checks in conjunction with two other Trump complaints unrelated to the pandemic relief bill he signed into law: an investigation into alleged e...

(Getty) President-elect Joe Biden said Monday that Donald Trump's appointees at the Pentagon were stalling on the transition and warned that the United States faces security risks as a result. After he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were briefed by their transition teams on national security, Biden said that political appointees at the Pentagon as well as the Office of Management and Budget had put up "roadblocks." "Right now, we just aren't getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security area(s)," Biden said after the briefing. "It is nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility." Biden said he was seeking a "clear picture" from the outgoing administration on the force posture of US troops around the world. "We need full visibility into the budget planning underway at the Defense Department and other agencies in order to avoid any window of confusion or catch-up that our a...

No fewer than seven houses and several vehicles were razed by protesting youths of Oruku community in the Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State on Sunday following the killing of the traditional ruler, Igwe Emmanuel Mba, by suspected operatives of the newly-formed police Special Weapons and Tactics Team. PUNCH Metro  learnt that a combined team of soldiers, policemen, and personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps had been deployed in the community to restore peace. Our correspondent gathered that the suspected SWAT operatives, led by one Inspector Danladi, shot the monarch while he was addressing members of his community at the town hall on Saturday and he bled to death before he could get medical attention. The policemen were said to have arrested one Mr Agozie Ani, who was also at the meeting. Community sources told our correspondent that the policemen, who were in mufti and wielding AK-47 rifles, invaded the venue of the meeting in an SUV and a Sienna a...

(Dreamstime) Monday, 28 December 2020 03:51 PM Short URL | Email Article | Comment | Contact | Print |      A     A Democrats in the U.S. Congress on Monday will try to push through pandemic relief payments of $2,000, in an effort to increase aid for Americans that has put the lawmakers in a rare alignment with President Donald Trump. The Republican president last week threatened to block a $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package if Congress did not boost stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000 and cut other spending. Trump backed down from his demands on Sunday as a possible government shutdown brought on by the fight with lawmakers loomed. But Democratic lawmakers who have a majority in the House of Representatives and have long wanted $2,000 relief checks hope to use the point of agreement with Trump to advance the proposal - or at least put Republicans on record against it - in a vote on Monday. It was unclear why Trump, who leaves office on ...