Camped out in bare offices, President Joe Biden’s new White House team has spent its first three days scrambling for things like binder clips and IT support oh, and trying to save the country from multiple crises. They took over leadership of the world’s most powerful, wealthy and innovative nation …
Read More »Anti-fashion Bernie Sanders sparks inauguration meme storm
Standing out in a crowd of glamorously dressed guests, Bernie Sanders showed up for the US presidential inauguration in a heavy winter jacket and patterned mittens — with an AFP photo of the veteran leftist spawning the first viral meme of the Biden era. The senator from the northeastern state …
Read More »Biden orders masks, travel clampdown in new war on Covid
President Joe Biden on Thursday tightened mask-wearing rules and ordered quarantine for people flying into the United States, as he got to work on tackling the coronavirus pandemic on his first full day in power. Signing 10 executive orders in the White House, Biden told the nation that the Covid-19 …
Read More »Outrage after troops protecting US Capitol forced to sleep in parking garage
A decision to turn a chilly underground parking garage into an overnight billet for National Guard troops in Washington to protect President Joe Biden’s inauguration has stirred an uproar. A number of the 25,000 troops standing guard around the US Capitol in recent days in the wake of the January …
Read More »Biden signs raft of orders, including to rejoin Paris climate accord
US President Joe Biden signed a series of executive orders to launch his administration Wednesday, including a decision to rejoin the Paris climate accord and a mask mandate for all federal buildings. The orders included keeping the United States in the World Health Organization, ending the ban on entries from …
Read More »Biden arrives at the White House
US President Joe Biden arrived at the White House on Wednesday, walking the last block with members of his family through streets that were eerily empty because of the coronavirus pandemic. Under tight security, military bands and an escort of police motorcycles led the presidential motorcade to the White House …
Read More »No crowds, intense security mark scaled-down Biden inauguration
Two weeks after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, America reclaimed its citadel of democracy Wednesday with the latest transition of power — but Joe Biden’s inauguration, coming amid unprecedented security threats and pandemic woe, was unlike any other. For one, his twice-impeached predecessor Donald Trump was absent, having fled Washington …
Read More »Canada extends international traveller ban
Canada on Wednesday announced a one-month extension of a ban on non-essential international travel into the country, stretching the restrictions until February 21. Travellers allowed into Canada despite the ban, which has been in force since March, must still quarantine for 14 days. Since the beginning of January, they have …
Read More »Don’t panic, you’ll get vaccine, says WHO
Nobody should panic about getting access to a Covid-19 vaccine because everyone who wants one will get one, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. The WHO’s assistant director-general Mariangela Simao said the UN health agency was working towards ensuring access to coronavirus jabs all around the world. “No one needs …
Read More »Merkel’s party picks her ally as next leader
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party picked her ally Armin Laschet as its next leader on Saturday, in a vote for “continuity” as Europe’s biggest economy heads into a key election year with the deadly coronavirus pandemic still raging. In the close race, Laschet, the state premier of Germany’s most …
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