Good morning.
Donald Trump has hired a new legal defense team for his impeachment trial in the Senate next week, a day after his previous team resigned en masse. The new team will have very little time to prepare for the trial, in which Trump is accused of instigating a deadly uprising in the Capitol, with Tuesday being the deadline to file a preliminary memo defending the former president is explained. According to CNN, all five of Trump’s previous teams resigned after disagreeing with him on the strategy.
Trial lawyers David Schoen and Bruce L Castor will now lead Trump’s team. Schoen previously represented Roger Stone, who was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia, and also met convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while the financier prepared for a sexual exploitation trial. Castor is a former acting Attorney General of Pennsylvania who opposed reforms to support sexual abuse victims and refused to prosecute Bill Cosby ten years before his conviction.
But does it matter? While some have referred to the last-minute team change as a crisis for Trump, others have suggested that it doesn’t matter who defends him – Republicans are unlikely to impeach Trump, regardless of the substance of his case.
Most [Republicans] already have their answer. Trump could not defend himself or go over to read lines from the Joker movie – they would still vote for acquittal, ”tweeted Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer.
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Jared Kushner has been nominated for a Nobel Prize peace price for his role in negotiating standardization agreements in the Middle East. Trump’s son-in-law and former senior White House adviser, along with his deputy, Avi Berkowitz, was nominated by the Harvard law professor who defended Trump in his first impeachment trial.
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Will the Republican party away from Trump? The former president is the first to be impeached twice, approaching his senate trial. But Trump is also responsible for much of the party’s support base, leading Joan E Greve to ask if the Republicans can afford to dump him.
The US is bracing for a more contagious Covid strain, like battle for a stimulus package continues
A leading infectious disease scientist said yesterday that a UK strain of coronavirus, believed to be more contagious and deadly, could hit the US like a ‘hurricane’ in the spring. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, a member of Joe Biden’s Transition Coronavirus Advisory Board, predicted that the variant could become the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the US. It came as the US confirmed more than 26 million coronavirus cases and the death toll was approaching half a million.
It is increasingly likely that the White House will try to bypass the Republicans through its coronavirus aid package. Republican senators on Sunday made a lowball bid and drafted a contingency plan totaling $ 600 billion – less than a third of the $ 1.9 billion stimulus package that Biden’s team revealed. The chasm between Biden’s plan and the Republicans’ offer has led to questions about whether the GOP is serious about reaching a deal.
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Thirteen states still do not have a statewide mandate to wear masks, all headed by Republican governors. Biden may be taking the coronavirus pandemic by the horns, but there is still strong resistance to public health measures among conservatives. Lauren Arantani looks at how Republican state leaders could hinder Biden’s approach to the pandemic, and what power the federal government has to act.
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The WHO research team has visited the market where the coronavirus was first discoveredwhile they are researching the origin of the virus. The team arrived at Huanan Market under heavy security and left in a convoy after about an hour.
Military coup in Myanmar
The military has seized power in Myanmar, leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained, and telephone services, banks and state media have been shut down in the country’s largest city, Yangon. Aung San Suu Kyi has urged the public to protest the coup, saying the military was trying to reintroduce a dictatorship.
On Monday morning, military television said the military had taken control of the country for a year and transferred power to commander-in-chief General Min Aung Hlaing. According to the report, the military declared a state of emergency and detained senior government members in last year’s general election for “fraud.” The US has threatened to “take action against those responsible” if the coup is not reversed, by joining international condemnation by world leaders and human rights experts.
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The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi: It has been a decade since she was released from house arrest, as world leaders hailed her freedom as the beginning of democracy in Myanmar, but her de facto the leadership of the country did not live up to expectations. Ben Doherty and Rebecca Ratcliffe map out Aung San Suu Kyi’s leadership.
In other news …
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Moscow has been locked up as supporters of Alexei Nalvany’s protest against his detention, the main protests in Russia in ten years. Authorities closed metro stations in the capital and blocked the streets, as at least 5,100 people were detained.
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A big storm threatens to hit the New York area today, with more than 110 million people in the Midwest and Northeast under winter weather warnings. The storm can bring more than a foot of snow and cause blizzards.
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The CEOs of the American oil companies ExxonMobil and Chevron discussed the merger early 2020, in what would have been the greatest merger of all time. Legal documents have been prepared, but talks are no longer ongoing.
Stat of the day: The conflict in Yemen has cost more lives than coronavirus has in most countries
The conflict in Yemen has now spread across 47 borders and claimed 233,000 lives. With the exception of the US, that’s more than each country’s individual coronavirus death toll. Brazil has the second highest number of lives lost with 224,500, followed by Mexico with 158,000. Bethan McKernan looks at the impact of the conflict on the country, which is ravaged by war, cholera and coronavirus and is facing the world’s worst famine in decades.
Don’t Miss This: Who Is Merrick Garland?
Biden’s choice of attorney general was the lead prosecutor in the case against the perpetrator of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which a white anti-government force detonated a truck bomb that killed 168 people – the deadliest incident of domestic terrorism in US history. . As the US sees a resurgence of the ideology that motivated the incident, Tom McCarthy asks those who knew him on the case how it prepared Merrick Garland for office and why he is the right man for the job of Attorney General .
Last Thing: My Name is Earl star is now a successful photographer
Jason Lee, star of My Name is Earl, made a name for himself on the popular American sitcom. But recently, he found comfort traveling with his camera and documenting “America’s Strange Beauty.” In this interview, he discusses work on the hit show Trump and why he fell in love with photography.
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