January 26, 2021 4:11 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden appears to be boosting his goal for coronavirus vaccinations in his first 100 days in office, suggesting the nation could soon be vaccinating 1.5 million Americans on average per day. Biden made the comments Monday as talks with Congress over a $1.9 trillion stimulus package showed few signs of progress. He signaled his increasing bullishness on the pace of vaccinations after signing an executive order to boost government purchases from U.S. manufacturers. It was among a flurry of moves by Biden during his first full week to publicly show he’s taking swift action to heal an ailing economy.
January 26, 2021 4:09 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The House impeachment case against Donald Trump has been delivered to the Senate for his upcoming trial. House Democratic prosecutors made the ceremonial walk across the Capitol late Monday to deliver the charge of incitement of insurrection, but Republican senators are easing off their criticism of the former president. It’s an early sign of Trump’s enduring sway over the party, even out of office. Instead Republicans are presenting a tangle of legal arguments against the legitimacy of the trial and questioning whether Trump’s repeated demands to overturn the Joe Biden’s election really amounted to incitement. The trial is to begin in two weeks.
January 26, 2021 2:40 am
Washington & Jefferson College supports the Presidents’ Athletic Conference decision to limit spectators at athletic competition during the spring 2021 semester. W&J home athletic event venues will be limited to student-athletes, coaches, support staff and essential game personnel only. We will continue to discuss and monitor our plan with our campus Covid-19 advisory groups as we navigate through the spring 2021 semester. The PAC’s decision to begin the semester with either no fans or limited fans (on-campus students only) in attendance was reached by the PAC Presidents Council during their most recent meeting earlier in January. Officials say that both the PAC and W&J share and appreciate the frustration we all feel regarding these limitations on fan attendance, but we must keep our initial focus on our top priority, which is a successful “return to competition” for our student-athletes. W&J says it and fellow PAC members plan to video stream as many athletic contests as possible through the PAC Digital Network, which can be downloaded as an app for Roku and Apple TV devices in addition to streaming on PCs and mobile devices.
January 26, 2021 2:24 am
Twitter has permanently banned My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell’s account after he continually perpetuated the baseless claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election. áA Twitter spokesperson said in a statement that it decided to ban Lindell, who founded bedding company My Pillow, due to “repeated violations” of its civic integrity policy. The policy was implemented last September and is targeted at fighting disinformation. It was not immediately clear which posts by Lindell on Twitter triggered the suspension of his account. Lindell, a Trump supporter, has continued to insist the presidential election was rigged even after U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has begun.
January 25, 2021 12:36 pm
NEW YORK (AP) – For the first time since 1983, when Anheuser-Busch used all of its ad time to introduce a beer called Bud Light, the beer giant isn’t advertising its iconic Budweiser brand during the Super Bowl. Instead, it’s donating the money it would have spent on the ad to coronavirus vaccination awareness efforts. The decision to not do an anthemic Budweiser ad – which over nearly four decades have made American icons of frogs chirping “Budweiser,” guys screaming “Whassup!”, and of course the Budweiser Clydesdales – showcases the caution with which some advertisers are approaching the Super Bowl with during the pandemic.
January 25, 2021 10:16 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Dominion Voting Systems has filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who led the former president’s efforts to spread baseless claims about the 2020 election. The lawsuit filed Monday seeks more than $1.3 billion in damages for the voting machine company, a target for conservatives who made up wild claims about the company, blaming it for Trump’s loss, alleging without evidence that its systems were easily manipulated. The suit is based on statements Giuliani made on Twitter, in conservative media and during legislative hearings where the former mayor of New York claimed the voting machine company conspired to flip votes to Democrat Joe Biden.
January 25, 2021 4:26 am
(AP) – Coronavirus deaths and cases in the U.S. have dropped markedly over the past couple of weeks but are still running at alarmingly high levels. And the effort to snuff out COVID-19 is becoming an ever more urgent race between the vaccine and the mutating virus. Deaths are running at an average of just under 3,100 a day, down from more than 3,350 less than two weeks ago. New cases are averaging about 170,000 a day, after peaking at around 250,000. The country’s top infectious-disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says the improvements appear to be the result of a natural plateau after the holiday surge – not the effect of the vaccine. And he urges continued vigilance.
January 25, 2021 4:25 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The House impeachment case against Donald Trump is heading to the Senate for his upcoming trial. But as House Democratic prosecutors make the ceremonial walk across the Capitol late Monday to deliver the charge of incitement of insurrection, Republican senators are easing off their criticism of the former president. It’s an early sign of Trump’s enduring sway over the party, even out of office. Instead Democratic prosecutors are being confronted by a tangle of Republican legal arguments against the legitimacy of the trial and questions whether Trump’s repeated demands to overturn the Joe Biden’s election really amounted to incitement. The trial is to begin in two weeks.
January 25, 2021 4:23 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Top aides to President Joe Biden have begun talks with a group of moderate Senate Republicans and Democrats on Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. The talks come as Biden faces increasing headwinds in his effort to win bipartisan backing for the initial legislative effort of his presidency. Lawmakers on the right question the wisdom of racking up bigger deficits. Those on the left are urging Biden not to spend too much time on bipartisanship when the pandemic is killing thousands each day and costing more jobs. One key Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said afterward she would reconvene a bipartisan group to focus on “a more targeted package.”
January 25, 2021 4:20 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The Republican-controlled Legislature is taking another step in the drive to strip future governors of some of their constitutional authority under emergency declarations, and give lawmakers more control over the declarations. The Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee approved it Friday on a party-line basis, 7-4. Passage by both the House and Senate before Feb. 18 can ensure that it gets on Pennsylvania’s May 18 primary ballot when it can go to voters for a final decision in a statewide referendum. The measure arises from Republican lawmakers’ strident disagreement with how Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has handled the coronavirus pandemic in Pennsylvania.
