president donald trump

Trump Pushes Executive Order to Ban Alipay, WeChat Pay and other Chinese Platforms

Image sourced from Al Jazeera US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that aims to prohibit transactions with eight digital Chinese payment platforms, including Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s QQ and WeChat Pay. “Additional steps must be taken to deal with the national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain,” reads the order. “The pace and pervasiveness of the spread in the United States of certain connected mobile and desktop applications and other software developed or controlled by persons in the People’s Republic of China… continue to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” US Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross confirmed that the Commerce Department will “begin imple...

FBI probing threat to crash airplane into U.S. Capitol to avenge Iranian general’s assassination – reports

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the crashing by unknown persons, of radio frequencies used by U.S. air traffic controllers, to broadcast a threat to fly an airplane into U.S. Capitol in revenge for the assassination of prominent Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. U.S. broadcaster CBS news reported this on Wednesday. Congress is due to convene for a meeting later in the day to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. “We are flying a plane into the Capitol Wednesday. “Soleimani will be avenged,” what sounded like an electronically generated male voice said on the audio recording, published by CBS. According to the broadcaster, citing sources, while the threat is not treated as credible by the U.S. government, it is being investigated as a breach of ...

Millions of Americans risk losing jobless benefits as Donald Trump refuses to sign aid bill

Millions of Americans are about to see their jobless benefits expire on Saturday as U.S. President Donald Trump has so far refused to sign into law a $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package, insisting that it did not do enough to help everyday people. Trump stunned Republicans and Democrats alike when he said this week he was unhappy with the massive bill, which provides $892 billion in badly needed coronavirus relief, including extending special unemployment benefits expiring on Dec. 26, and $1.4 trillion for normal government spending. Without Trump’s signature, about 14 million people could lose those extra benefits, according to Labor Department data. A partial government shutdown will begin on Tuesday unless Congress can agree a stop-gap government funding bill before then. Af...

U.S. agents search Nashville blast site, seeking clues behind Christmas explosion

Police and federal agents were scouring the charred site of a Christmas Day explosion in Nashville on Saturday, trying to determine how and why a motor home blew up and injured three people in the heart of America’s country music capital. The fiery blast, heard from miles away, destroyed several vehicles, damaged more than 40 businesses and left a trail of glass shards around the area. The motor home, parked on a downtown street of Tennessee’s largest city, exploded at dawn on Friday moments after police responding to reports of gunfire noticed the recreational vehicle and heard an automated message emanating from it warning of a bomb. The means of detonation and whether anyone was inside the RV when it blew up were not immediately known, but investigators were examining what they believed...

U.S. sanctions Turkey over purchase of Russian defense system

The United States imposed long-anticipated sanctions on Turkey on Monday over Ankara’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 air defense systems, further complicating already strained ties between the two NATO allies. Turkey condemned the sanctions as a “grave mistake” and urged Washington to revise its “unjust decision.” Senior U.S. officials said in a call with reporters that Ankara’s purchase of the S-400s and its refusal to reverse its decision left the United States with no other choice. The sanctions, first reported by Reuters last week, target Turkey’s top defence procurement and development body Presidency of Defence Industries, its chairman Ismail Demir and three other employees. While limited to one company, they are still likely to weigh on the Turkish economy, analysts said, at a ti...

First Americans vaccinated as U.S. death toll passes 300,000

An intensive care unit nurse became the first person in the United States to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, calling it a sign that “healing is coming,” as the U.S. coronavirus death toll crossed a staggering 300,000 lives lost. Sandra Lindsay, who has treated some of the sickest COVID-19 patients for months, was given the vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in the New York City borough of Queens, an early epicenter of the country’s COVID-19 outbreak, receiving applause on a livestream with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. “It didn’t feel any different from taking any other vaccine,” Lindsay said. “I feel hopeful today, relieved. I feel like healing is coming. I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history. “I want to instil...

Pope commits Vatican to net zero carbon emissions by 2050

Pope Francis urged countries on Saturday to work towards net zero carbon emissions and committed Vatican City – the world’s smallest state – to reaching the target by 2050. Francis, who has championed environmental causes since his election in 2013, told a U.N. climate summit the 108-acre (44-hectare) city-state surrounded by Rome would be doing its bit to fight climate change. “The current pandemic and climate change, which are not only environmentally relevant, but also ethically, socially, economically and politically, affect, above all, the lives of the poorest and most fragile,” he said in a video message to the summit. “In addition to adopting some measures that cannot be postponed any longer, a strategy is needed to reduce net emissions to zero,” Francis said. He committed the Vatic...

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris jointly named TIME’s ‘Person of the Year’

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were jointly named Time magazine’s 2020 “Person of the Year” on Thursday, chosen from a list of finalists that included the man Biden vanquished at the polls – President Donald Trump. The Democratic former vice president and his running mate, a California senator whose election broke gender and racial barriers, together “offered restoration and renewal in a single ticket,” Time said in a profile of the pair, published online with its announcement. Following the most tumultuous U.S. presidential campaign in modern times, waged in the throes of a deadly pandemic, economic devastation and a strife-torn national reckoning with racism, Biden and Harris prevailed in an election that drew the highest voter turnout in a century....

Donald Trump’s bias hawk FCC nominee one step closer to confirmation

On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee voted to advance the nomination of Nathan Simington, a Republican in favor of greater government oversight of speech on the internet, to the Federal Communications Commission. Simington’s nomination now awaits a floor vote for final approval. President Donald Trump nominated Simington to be the next Republican FCC Commissioner in September. If approved, Simington would fill Republican Commissioner Mike O’Reilly’s seat, leaving the agency at 2-2 deadlock when Chairman Ajit Pai steps down on January 20th. Without a Democratic majority at the FCC, the Biden administration will likely have difficulties rolling through any major policy measures until another nominee is vetted and approved. In August, Trump abruptly withdrew O’Reilly’s renomination for...

US sanctions Chinese, Russian firms over Iran dealings

The US on Friday announced economic sanctions on Chinese and Russian companies that Washington said had supported the development of Iran’s missile program. The four firms, accused of “transferring sensitive technology and items to Iran’s missile program,” will be subject to restrictions on US government aid and on their exports for two years, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. The sanctions, imposed Wednesday, were against two Chinese-based companies, Chengdu Best New Materials and Zibo Elim Trade, as well as Russia-based Nilco Group and Joint Stock Company Elecon. “We will continue to work to impede Iran’s missile development efforts and use our sanctions authorities to spotlight the foreign suppliers, such as these entities in the PRC (China) and Russia, that provide mi...

Carl Bernstein Says 21 GOP Senators Believe Trump Unfit To Lead

Source: Oscar Gonzalez/WENN.com / WENN As President Donald Trump continues his longshot hopes at retaining his seat in the White House, there have been rumblings of Washington regarding his behavior. Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein shared in a series of tweets that nearly two dozen GOP senators have had their fill of Trump and essentially declared him unfit to lead. Bernstein, who gained fame alongside Bob Woodward due to their reporting on the Watergate scandal, shared his recent appearance on CNN in a Twitter thread and explicitly named the senators who blasted Trump in private. I’m not violating any pledge of journalistic confidentially in reporting this: 21 Republican Sens–in convos w/ colleagues, staff members, lobbyists, W. House aides–have repeatedly expressed extreme contem...

Saudi Arabia says it seeks a way to end dispute with Qatar

Commenting on the dispute on Saturday, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said Saudi Arabia is continuing to find a way to end the blockade on Qatar, but he added it remains conditional on addressing security concerns. The post Saudi Arabia says it seeks a way to end dispute with Qatar appeared first on TODAY. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.