Pompeo Defends Changes at USAGM Under Trump Appointee

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday defended the leadership of the U.S. Agency for Global Media against criticisms that its CEO is trying to turn the news network into a propaganda tool.     FILE – Michael Pack, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, is seen at his confirmation hearing, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Sept. 19, 2019. Pack’s nomination was confirmed June 4, 2020.He told the audience that faults should be acknowledged but, “This isn’t ‘Vice of America’ focusing on everything that’s wrong with our great nation. It certainly isn’t the place tomore

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Security Increased as Washington Mayor Discourages People from Attending Inauguration

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The Secret Service and National Guard have both pledged an increase of resources in securing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, as Washington’s mayor is urging people to stay home for the event. Less than a week after a violent mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters breached Capitol security as Congress was certifying Biden’s win, the Secret Service announced Monday it would begin special security operations on January 13, as opposed to January 19. The National Guard confirmed Monday it would send up to 15,000 troops to secure the inauguration — a stark increase from the roughly 8,000 who secured the 2016 inauguration. Responding tomore

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FBI Looking at Threats to Biden’s Inauguration 

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Concerns are growing that the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week by extremists supporting U.S. President Donald Trump may be the start of what could be a series of potentially armed and violent protests across the country leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday told VOA it is examining evidence suggesting groups or individuals may be looking to incite violence or engage in criminal activity in connection with the planned transfer of power. “While our standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, the FBI is supporting our state, local andmore

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US Homeland Security Acting Secretary Stepping Down, Department Says

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Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told his staff Monday he was stepping down, the department said Monday, the latest senior Trump administration official to resign following last week’s deadly mob attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Department of Homeland Security press office said Wolf would leave his post at 11:59 p.m. Monday. Pete Gaynor, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will take over as acting secretary, the office said. President Donald Trump withdrew Wolf’s nomination to be permanent Homeland Security secretary last week. Supporters of Trump stormed the Capitol last Wednesday in an assault that led to five deaths, dozens ofmore

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Washington Mayor Urges Americans to ‘Attend’ Biden Inauguration Virtually

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Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser is discouraging people from coming to the city for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and instead is urging them to participate virtually. The mayor is citing both coronavirus concerns as well as the attack on the U.S. Capitol building last week.Speaking to reporters at a briefing Monday, Bowser also said she sent a letter requesting that President Donald Trump declare a “pre-emergency disaster” for the District of Columbia ahead of Biden’s inauguration January 20.The mayor said this year’s inauguration poses “several unprecedented challenges that exceed the scope of our traditional planning processes,” including the pandemicmore

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Vast Majority of Americans See Their Democracy as Under Threat, Poll Finds

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Nearly three-quarters of U.S. voters say democracy is under threat in the wake of a deadly mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac University.The national poll of registered U.S. voters released Monday found that large numbers of both Republican and Democratic voters believed that democracy is under threat, at 77% and 76% respectively. Independents were slightly less inclined to agree at 70%.U.S. President Donald Trump gives an address a day after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington.A majority of voters, 56%, said they held U.S. President Donald Trump responsible for the stormingmore

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US House Moves to Impeach Trump, Again

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The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives moved Monday to impeach President Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency, accusing him of “incitement of insurrection” in last week’s storming of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters seeking to overturn his reelection defeat.   Even though Trump’s four-year term expires at noon January 20, the four-page impeachment resolution said Trump has “demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution if allowed to remain office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.” With the Democrats holdingmore

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Melania Trump: ‘Disappointed and Disheartened’ by Storming of US Capitol 

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U.S. first lady Melania Trump on Monday said she was “disappointed and disheartened” by the storming of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of supporters of her husband looking to overturn his loss for re-election, but also said it was “shameful” that she was the subject of what she characterized as “salacious gossip” and “unwarranted personal attacks.” In a statement from the White House, the first lady voiced her grief at the deaths of six people linked to last Wednesday’s mayhem at the Capitol, including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, and a second officer, Howard Liebengood, who had responded to themore

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Biden to Tap Veteran Diplomat William Burns as CIA Chief

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U.S. President-elect Joe Biden announced Monday he will nominate career diplomat William Burns to be his director of the Central Intelligence Agency.In a statement Monday, Biden’s transition team said Burns is a 33-year U.S. State Department veteran who has served under both Republican and Democratic presidents.Burns rose through the ranks of the diplomatic corps and served as ambassador to Jordan under former U.S President Bill Clinton and ambassador to Russia under former U.S. President George W. Bush. The 64-year old diplomat was named deputy secretary of state in 2011 by U.S. President Barack Obama before retiring in 2014 to runmore

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Parler Social Network Service Loses Web Hosting

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Parler, a social network service popular with conservatives, went offline Monday after its web hosting service Amazon suspended it for allowing posts that encourage violence.   Before the site went down, Parler CEO John Matze accused Amazon and other tech giants of a “war on free speech.”   Google banned Parler’s smartphone app from its app store on Friday, also citing Parler’s allowance of posts that seek to incite violence in the United States.   Apple instituted its own Parler ban on Saturday.   The two-year-old Parler saw an increase in users in recent months as social media giants Facebookmore

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Sets Out Plans to Call for Trump’s Removal

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U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House of Representatives will offer a resolution Monday calling on President Donald Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment, removing him from office.In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi said if Vice President Mike Pence does not respond within 24 hours, the House will proceed with impeachment.“In protecting our Constitution and our democracy, we will act with urgency, because this president represents an imminent threat to both. As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediatemore

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Schwarzenegger Invokes Post-Nazi Europe in Video Condemning Capitol Violence

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In an emotional video message with intimate references to his childhood in post-Nazi Austria, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger condemned the recent violence on Capitol Hill, and what he called President Donald’s Trump’s lies which incited the revolt.   “President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election, and of a fair election. He sought a coup by misleading people with lies,” Schwarzenegger, the 73-year-old former actor who most notably played the role of the Terminator during his Hollywood career, said in a seven-minute video posted on social media Sunday.   “My father and our neighbors were misled alsomore

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US Senate’s Top Democrat Warns of Possible Violence at Biden Inauguration

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U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer warned Sunday about the threat of violence at the January 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, especially in the aftermath of last week’s storming of the U.S. Capitol by thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump trying to block Biden’s ascension to power.Schumer, soon to be the Senate majority leader, said he spoke with FBI Director Christopher Wray on Saturday “to urge him to relentlessly pursue the mob of violent insurrectionists, incited by President Trump, who attacked the United States Capitol and killed a police officer, as well as guard against potential additional attacks.”Schumermore

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Major Corporations Suspend Donations to US Lawmakers Who Voted Against Biden Certification

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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK/BANGALORE — Marriott International, the world’s largest hotel company and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) said Sunday they will suspend donations to U.S. lawmakers who voted last week against certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.”We have taken the destructive events at the Capitol to undermine a legitimate and fair election into consideration and will be pausing political giving from our Political Action Committee to those who voted against certification of the election,” Marriott spokeswoman Connie Kim said, confirming a report in Popular Information, a political newsletter.BCBSA, the federation of 36 independent companies that provide health care coverage formore

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In Extraordinary Rebuke, US Diplomats Blast Trump for Capitol Riot

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In a highly unusual move, American diplomats have drafted two cables condemning President Donald Trump’s incitement of the deadly assault on the Capitol and calling for administration officials to support invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.  Using what is known as the State Department’s “dissent channel,” the career foreign service officers said they fear last Wednesday’s siege may badly undermine U.S. credibility to promote and defend democratic values abroad.  “Failing to publicly hold the president to account would further damage our democracy and our ability to effectively accomplish our foreign policy goals abroad,” according to the secondmore

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Arnold Schwarzenegger Invokes Post-Nazi Europe in Video Condemning Capitol Violence

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In an emotional video message with intimate references to his childhood in post-Nazi Austria, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger condemned the recent violence on Capitol Hill, and what he called President Donald’s Trump’s lies which incited the revolt.   “President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election, and of a fair election. He sought a coup by misleading people with lies,” Schwarzenegger, the 73-year-old former actor who most notably played the role of the Terminator during his Hollywood career, said in a seven-minute video posted on social media Sunday.   “My father and our neighbors were misled alsomore

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US Lawmakers Likely Exposed to Coronavirus During Riot Lockdown, Official Warns

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U.S. lawmakers who were in lockdown when a violent mob breached security at the Capitol last week likely have been exposed to the coronavirus, Congress’ attending physician warned Sunday.   “On Wednesday January 6, many members of the House community were in protective isolation in a room located in a large committee hearing space,” Dr. Brian Monahan wrote in an email to lawmakers.   “The time in this room was several hours for some and briefer for others. During this time, individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection.”Here’s the letter from Dr. Brian Monahan to allmore

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White House Pushed Top Federal Prosecutor in Atlanta to Resign, Paper Says

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The White House pushed the top federal prosecutor in Atlanta to resign before Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff because President Donald Trump was unhappy that he wasn’t doing enough to investigate Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.The Justice Department on Tuesday tapped a new federal prosecutor to lead the Atlanta office, a day after the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Byung J. “BJay” Pak, abruptly resigned.Pak’s resignation drew attention because Trump appeared to refer to him in a recent phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state in which the outgoing Republicanmore

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House Likely to Offer Articles of Impeachment Against Trump on Monday

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Efforts to hold President Donald Trump accountable for his role in inciting the mob that overran the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday gained momentum Saturday, with Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives announcing they will offer articles of impeachment as early as Monday.Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from the state of California, who helped draft the charges against Trump, tweeted Saturday afternoon that the articles had 180 co-sponsors, although no Republicans were among them.UPDATE to the update: We’ve just hit 180 cosponsors of the Article of Impeachment drafted by Rep District of Columbia National Guardsmen stand outside the Capitolmore

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Pro-Trump State Lawmaker Resigns After Riot; More Arrests Announced

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A pro-Trump state lawmaker who filmed himself storming the U.S. Capitol has resigned and more arrests were announced Saturday as part of an investigation into Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol.Derrick Evans, a Republican member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, announced his resignation Saturday in a one-sentence letter to West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice.Evans was charged with entering a restricted area on the Capitol grounds and disorderly conduct. If convicted, he faces a year and a half in federal prison. Evans broadcast a Facebook Live video of himself breaking into the building with a crowd of rioters, at onemore

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Twitter Bans Trump, Removes Tweet by Iran’s Khamenei on Same Day, Sparking ‘Double Standards’ Backlash

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U.S. tech giant Twitter took sharply different actions against the leaders of the U.S. and Iran on Friday, permanently banning President Donald Trump’s personal account while removing one tweet from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s apparent English account and suspending new posts on it.The greater severity of Twitter’s action against the @realdonaldtrump account, compared with the social media company’s treatment of Khamenei, prompted both critics and supporters of the U.S. president to post dozens of Twitter messages accusing the platform of double standards.Many of Twitter’s critics said the @Khamenei_IR account, which is not Twitter-verified but regularly shares his statements, has a historymore

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Americans Struggle to Process US Capitol Assault

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Politically motivated mob violence in Washington, D.C., has sent a shockwave through the country, where Americans continue to grapple with the assault on the U.S. Capitol, and what it means for the country moving forward. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from the Midwest state of Illinois. Camera: Kane Farabaugh     Producer: Kane Farabaugh …

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