Good morning.
Donald Trump appointed a new legal defense team for his accusation 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 inciting a deadly uprising at the Capitol, with Tuesday the deadline to submit a preliminary memorandum in which the defense of the former president set out. According to CNN, all five resigned from Trump’s previous team after disagreeing with him on 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 inquiry into Trump’s collusion with Russia, and also met convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as the financier prepares him for a trial on sexual exploitation. Castor is a former acting attorney general of Pennsylvania who has opposed reforms to victims of sexual abuse, and a decade before he is convicted, should not prosecute Bill Cosby.
But does it matter? While some have referred to last-minute team-changing as a crisis for Trump, others have suggested that it does not matter who defends him – Republicans are unlikely to blame Trump, regardless of the content of his case.
The most [Republicans] already have their answer. “Trump can offer no defense, or he can go to the floor to read rules from the Joker movie – they will still vote to speak out,” tweeted Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian.
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Jared Kushner nominated for a Nobel Prize peace price for its role in negotiating normalization agreements in the Middle East. Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior adviser, along with his deputy, Avi Berkowitz, were nominated by the Harvard law professor who defended Trump in his first indictment.
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Will the Republican party break away from Trump? The former president is the first to be charged twice, and his trial of the Senate is approaching. But Trump is also responsible for a strong portion of the party’s support base, prompting Joan E Greve to ask if Republicans can afford to drop him.
The US supports a more contagious Covid tribe than the fight for a stimulus package continues
A leading scientist on infectious diseases said yesterday that a British strain of coronavirus, which is considered more contagious and deadly, could hit the US like a “hurricane” in the spring. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, a member of Joe Biden’s Transitional Coronavirus Advisory Board, predicted that the variant could become the dominant strain of coronavirus in the US. This came when the US confirmed more than 26 million cases of coronavirus and the death toll was nearly half a million.
It seems increasingly likely that the White House will try to bypass Republicans over its coronavirus package. Republican senators on Sunday made a low-ball offer with a $ 600 billion aid plan – less than a third of the $ 1.9 tonne stimulus package unveiled by Biden’s team. The gap between Biden’s plan and the Republicans’ offer has raised questions about whether the GOP is serious about reaching an agreement.
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Thirteen states still do not have a state-wide mask that carries mandates, all led by Republican governors. Biden may be taking the coronavirus pandemic by storm, but there is still strong opposition to public health measures among conservatives. Lauren Arantani looks at how Republican leaders could hinder Biden’s approach to the pandemic, and what power the federal government has to act.
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The WHO investigation team visited the market where coronavirus was first detected, while doing their research on the origin of the virus. The team arrived at the Huanan market amid heavy security and left in a convoy after about one hour.
Military coup in Myanmar
The army seized power in Myanmar, with leader Aung San Suu Kyi detained and shut down telephone services, banks and state media in the country’s largest city, Yangon. Aung San Suu Kyi called on the public to protest against the coup and said the army was trying to re-establish a dictatorship.
On Monday morning, military television said the army had taken over the country for a year and handed over power to General Min Aung Hlaing. According to the report, the military has declared a state of emergency and detained senior members of the government for ‘fraud’ during last year’s general election. The US has threatened to ‘take action against those responsible’ if the coup is not reversed, joining the international condemnation of world leaders and human rights activists.
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The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi: It was a decade ago that she was released from house arrest, with world leaders viewing her freedom as a beginning of democracy in Myanmar, but her the de facto leadership of the country did not live up to expectations. Ben Doherty and Rebecca Ratcliffe chart the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi.
In other news …
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Moscow has been shut down as supporters of Alexei Nalvany protest against his detention, the most important protests in Russia in a decade. Authorities closed subway stations in the capital and blocked streets because at least 5,100 people were detained.
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A major storm threatens to devastate the New York area today, with more than 110 million people in the Middle and Northeast under winter weather warnings. The storm can cause more than a foot of snow and cause blizzard-like conditions.
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The CEOs of the American oil companies ExxonMobil and Chevron discussed merger early in 2020, in what would be the biggest merger of all time. Legal documents have been drawn up, but the talks are no longer ongoing.
State of the day: The Yemeni conflict has cost more lives than coronavirus has in most countries
The conflict in Yemen has now spread to 47 borders and cost 233,000 lives. With the exception of the US, this is more than the individual mortality rate in each country. Brazil lost the second highest number of lives, at 224,500, followed by Mexico with 158,000. Bethan McKernan looks at the impact of the conflict on the country, which is plagued by war, cholera and coronavirus and has experienced the world’s worst famine in decades.
Do not miss it: who is Merrick Garland?
Biden’s choice of attorney general was the chief prosecutor in the case against the perpetrator of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which a white opposition to the government dropped a truck bomb that killed 168 people – the deadliest incident of domestic terrorism in the American history. While the US again sees an increase in the ideology that motivated the incident, Tom McCarthy asks those who knew him during the case, how it prepared Merrick Garland for the office and why he is the right man for the 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 in the hit American sitcom. But he recently found comfort in traveling with his camera, which documented ‘America’s Strange Beauty’. In this interview, he discusses the work on the hit program, Trump, and why he fell in love with photography.
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