January 14, 2021 4:10 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. officials say Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy has approved bringing in 21,000 National Guard members to Washington, D.C., to assist with security surrounding the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. Army officials have been grappling with requests for assistance from a number of law enforcement agencies who will be providing security across the city and surrounding the U.S. Capitol. Officials said Thursday that in the ongoing discussions with law enforcement, it has been determined that 21,000 Guard members should be enough. Others said requests for assistance at one point totaled as many as 26,000, but officials said those were not formal, official requests. Officials had initially said up to 15,000 would be needed, but law enforcement had asked for more help locking down the Capitol and the city. Officials also said that the total still may grow. The U.S. officials weren’t authorized to discuss security details publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. As of Thursday, there are roughly 7,000 Guard members in Washington, with thousands more on the way.
January 14, 2021 4:09 am
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended his company’s ban of President Donald Trump as the “right decision,” his first public comment on the subject. In a philosophical Twitter thread, he warned that such actions could set a dangerous precedent. Banning an account, he said, revealed Twitter’s “failure” to avoid such situations in the first place. But the executive had little specific to say about how Twitter or other Big Tech companies could do so beyond extolling a long-term project to decentralize social networks, which would theoretically limit the ability of big corporations to decide who stays and who goes on their networks.
January 14, 2021 4:08 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial could begin at 1 p.m. on Inauguration Day. That would be just as Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office, which is typically held a bit after 12 noon. The trial timing is not yet set for the Senate, but it is linked to when the House delivers the article of impeachment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not yet said when that will be. Whatever the schedule for Jan. 20, it will mark an extraordinary end to the defeated president’s tenure as his successor takes over the White House. Trump was impeached Wednesday by the House over the violent siege of the Capitol and faces a single charge of “incitement of insurrection.”
January 14, 2021 4:06 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is not ruling out that he might vote to convict the now twice-impeached President Donald Trump. The Kentucky Republican is blocking a quick Senate trial of Trump. But he’s told colleagues he’s not made up his mind about how he’ll vote whenever that trial begins. McConnell is Washington’s most influential Republican. The trial probably won’t begin till around Jan. 20. That’s around when Democrats will take majority control of the chamber and the day of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration.
January 14, 2021 4:02 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Like they did in 2019, Pennsylvania’s members of the U.S. House again split down party lines on impeaching President Donald Trump. All nine Democrats voted a second time Wednesday to impeach Trump, while all nine Republicans voted against impeaching Trump. Eight of those Republicans fell in line with Trump in trying in Congress and in court to overturn Trump’s loss in Pennsylvania to President-elect Joe Biden. The ninth, Brian Fitzpatrick, of suburban Philadelphia, accused Trump of “unconscionable” efforts to overturn the election, and fomenting a false information campaign and inflammatory rhetoric that led to the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week. However, Fitzpatrick instead pushed for passage of a bicameral resolution to condemn Trump.
January 13, 2021 4:59 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is blocking a quick Senate trial of Donald Trump. But with the House voting on Wednesday to impeach Trump for a second time, McConnell isn’t ruling out he might eventually vote to convict him. A spokesman for McConnell says McConnell informed Democrats that he would block an effort by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to quickly call the chamber back into emergency session to put Trump on trial. That means Trump’s Senate trial, if he’s impeached by the House, is all but certain to be delayed until after Joe Biden’s inauguration as president on Jan. 20.
January 13, 2021 4:15 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Republicans who control Pennsylvania’s state Senate say they’ll stop blocking a Democrat from taking his seat in the chamber. The change of heart came Tuesday after Jim Brewster’s unsuccessful Republican challenger lost another bid in court Tuesday to overturn the results of the close race. U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan was under pressure to settle a fight that spilled onto the floor of the state Senate last week when majority Republicans refused to let Brewster, of Allegheny County, be sworn in. Ranjan on Tuesday rejected the argument by Republican challenger Nicole Ziccarelli that Allegheny County wasn’t justified in counting mail-in ballots that lacked a handwritten date. Those ballots helped deliver a 69-vote victory to Brewster.
January 13, 2021 4:12 am
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Divers looking for a crashed plane’s cockpit voice recorder are searching in mud and plane debris on the seabed between Indonesian islands. They’re looking to retrieve information key to learning why the Sriwijaya Air jet nosedived into the water over the weekend. The divers earlier recovered the flight data recorder from the jet with 62 people aboard. The 26-year-old Boeing plane had resumed commercial flights last month after almost nine months out of service during the coronavirus pandemic. Indonesian transportation officials say an inspection for engine corrosion was done in December before it returned to service.
January 13, 2021 4:11 am
HONG KONG (AP) – YouTube has suspended U.S. President Donald Trump’s channel for at least a week amid concerns around “ongoing potential for violence,” making it the latest platform to limit the president’s online activities. The Google-owned platform removed content that was uploaded on January 12 from the Donald J. Trump channel for inciting violence, although it was not immediately clear which videos in question were in violation. The move to curtail Trump comes after a mob of his supporters, urged on by his rhetoric, stormed the Capitol last week trying to stop Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s win. YouTube said that the channel had its “1st strike”, adding it indefinitely disabled comments on the channel.
January 13, 2021 4:09 am
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) – The U.S. government has carried out its first execution of a female inmate in nearly seven decades. Authorities executed a Kansas woman who strangled an expectant mother in Missouri and cut the baby from her womb. Lisa Montgomery was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m. Wednesday after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Montgomery killed 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in Skidmore, Missouri. She was the 11th prisoner executed since July, when President Donald Trump resumed federal executions following 17 years without one. President-elect Joe Biden, a death penalty opponent, will be sworn-in next week. áA federal judge on Tuesday halted two other executions scheduled for this week after the inmates tested positive for COVID-19.
