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With Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris, Republican and Democratic presidents will alternate control of the White House for the fourth straight term, a level of volatility between the parties not seen in the United States since the late 19th century.
Anti-incumbency fervour has swept not just the United States but other major democracies, battering both the left and the right.

Britain’s Labour swept out Conservative rule in July, self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei triumphed in Argentina last November, and incumbent parties, some long-dominant, lost ground this year in countries as diverse as India, Japan, South Africa and South Korea.

There are exceptions – with Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico’s ruling left-wing populists elected president in June – but the anti-incumbency wave has defied traditional political trends.Under outgoing President Joe Biden, US economic growth has topped the developed world, despite high inflation, and the country has no troops in active combat, factors that led respected political scientists to predict victory for Vice President Harris.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pointed to the global trend as she explained the defeat and pointed to the aftereffects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“What we saw two nights ago was not unusual to what we have seen from the incumbencies around the world on the global stage,” she said Thursday.
The whiplash has wide-ranging effects on US policy and diplomacy.

Trump is expected again to pull the United States out of international commitments on climate change and to take a harsher approach with European allies, and he may work to undo signature Democratic domestic measures including on health care and the environment.

Disapproval the new normal
Trump won despite never once topping 50 per cent approval in his 2017-2021 term – the first time in Gallup polling since it began such ratings after World War II.
Biden enjoyed majority support only at the start of his term, with approval tumbling after the chaotic August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, even as the pandemic eased.

Economic statistics, of course, do not mirror what ordinary voters feel, and every election also needs to factor in more abstract points such as candidates’ personal charisma.

John V. Kane, a political scientist at New York University, said there was an increasingly smaller share of persuadable voters than in the 20th century, when presidents sometimes would win by 10 or 20 percentage points.
Voters still “tend to think presidents should be afforded two terms so long as the economic, social and international conditions are fairly normal,” he said.

“And herein lies the challenge: the past five years have been anything but normal in these respects. The pandemic and subsequent shock to the economy in 2020 very likely turned incumbency from an asset into a liability,” Kane said.

“Swing voters may not know the best policies, if any, to fix the situation, but one thing they can be certain about is that they want the situation to change.”
Democracy ‘pendulum’
Todd Belt, a political scientist at George Washington University, pointed to Covid and inflation but also the fragmentation of media sources, with voters turning to partisan outlets that fuel animosity toward incumbents.

“There are a lot of things in the world that are beyond the control of the president, but the president has to take credit or blame for all of them, and that makes things difficult,” Belt said.

“We’ve reached sort of a pendulum aspect of democracy, because people are paying so much more attention to what’s going on now, and people’s patience is lessened for the incumbent party.”
Kane noted that incumbents still won overwhelmingly in the US Congress, and he expected future presidents to enjoy an incumbency advantage in more stable times.

“If, however, the ‘new normal’ for the US economy is lackluster growth, high prices, etc., then swing voters may very well just perpetually keep trying their luck with the other party every four years,” Kane said.

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Elon Musk had offered to buy Twitter for $43 billion earlier this month, after buying 9 per cent of its stake

California: Microblogging platform Twitter is in the last leg of selling itself to Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the deal is likely to be sealed soon, reports on the day suggested. As per sources quoted by the media, Twitter may announce the deal later on Monday, and the negotiations are still going on. Musk has offered $43 billion to buy all stake of Twitter, in what he described as his “best and final” offer.

The deal, if it goes away, will have Tesla CEO Elon Musk buying shares of Twitter at $54.20 apiece, Reuters reported. Twitter may announce the $43 billion deal later on Monday once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders, sources told the news agency.

The social media giant is “working to hammer out terms of a transaction and could reach an agreement as soon as Monday if negotiations go smoothly,” Bloomberg quoted a person with knowledge of the matter as saying.

According to sources, Twitter has not been able to execute a go-shop provision so far, under its agreement with Elon Musk that would allow the company to look at other bids from potential acquirers, after the deal is signed. “Still, Twitter would be allowed to accept an offer from another party by paying Musk a break-up fee,” Reuters reported quoting the sources. Twitter or Musk have not responded to comments regarding this.

Twitter Inc kicked off deal negotiations with Elon Musk  after he wooed many of the social media company’s shareholders with financing details on his $43 billion acquisition offer, Reuters had reported quoting sources earlier on Sunday.

Musk, chief executive of electric car giant Tesla Inc, has been meeting with Twitter shareholders in the last few days, seeking support for his bid. He has said Twitter needs to be taken private to grow and become a genuine platform for free speech.

Many Twitter shareholders reached out to the company after Musk outlined a detailed financing plan for his bid on Thursday and urged it not to let the opportunity for a deal slip away, Reuters reported earlier on Sunday.

On April 14, Elon Musk in a regulatory filing said he has offered to buy 100 per cent stake of Twitter, days after it was disclosed he had bought 9.2 per cent stake in the company. “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said.

However, Twitter was hostile to this offer and adopted a ‘poison pill’ to sell its stake to existing shareholders to thwart Musk’s approach. However, the Tesla CEO did not give up and said he has arranged USD 46.5 billion to buy out the social media company. The latest development comes at a time when Twitter is talking to its board to discuss the negotiations, but a collapse in the decision is always possible.

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Trailblazing Indian-American US Navy veteran Shanti Sethi has joined Vice President Kamala Harris’s office as her executive secretary and defence advisor

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A jury deliberated less than 11 hours before finding the 45-year-old Chauvin guilty of all three charges against him — second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Chauvin, who had been free on bail, was put in handcuffs after Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill read out the unanimous verdicts reached by the racially diverse seven-woman five-man jury.

Wearing a facemask and displaying no visible emotion, Chauvin was escorted out of the courtroom by a deputy as one of George Floyd’s brothers, Philonise Floyd, embraced prosecutors.

Chauvin faces up to 40 years in prison on the most serious charge — second-degree murder. Sentencing will be at a later date.

Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis police force, was seen on video kneeling on the neck of Floyd for more than nine minutes as he lay facedown and handcuffed on the ground saying repeatedly “I can’t breathe.”

The 46-year-old Floyd’s death during his May 25, 2020 arrest for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill sparked protests against racial injustice and police brutality around the world.

Ahead of the verdict, cities across the United States had been braced for potential unrest and National Guard troops have been deployed in Minneapolis.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called members of the Floyd family after the verdicts.

“Nothing is going to make it all better but at least God now there’s some justice,” Biden said. “We’re all so relieved — not just the one verdict but all three, guilty on all three counts.”

“This is a day of justice in America,” said Harris, America’s first Black vice president. “History will look back at this moment.”

Floyd family lawyer Ben Crump hailed the verdict as a landmark victory for civil rights and a springboard to legislation to reform police forces in their dealings with minorities.

“This verdict is a turning point in history and sends a clear message on the need for accountability of law enforcement,” Crump tweeted. “Justice for Black America is justice for all of America!”

Barack Obama, America’s first Black president, said “a jury did the right thing” but “true justice requires much more.”

Three other former police officers involved in Floyd’s arrest are to go on trial later this year.

Minneapolis has been tense awaiting the verdict in the Chauvin trial and the city has seen nightly protests since Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was shot dead in a suburb of the Minnesota city on April 11 by a white policewoman.

In Washington, the National Guard said some 250 troops were being deployed “to support local law enforcement” in response to potential demonstrations.

Prosecutors, in closing arguments on Monday, showed excerpts from the harrowing bystander video of Floyd’s death that was seen by millions around the world.

“This case is exactly what you thought when you saw it first, when you saw that video,” prosecutor Steve Schleicher told the jury.

“You can believe your eyes,” Schleicher said. “It’s exactly what you knew, it’s what you felt in your gut, it’s what you now know in your heart.”

“This wasn’t policing, this was murder,” Schleicher added. “Nine minutes and 29 seconds of shocking abuse of authority.”

Much of the evidence phase of the trial involved testimony from medical experts about Floyd’s cause of death.

A retired forensic pathologist called by the defence said Floyd died of cardiac arrest brought on by heart disease and the illegal drugs fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Medical experts for the prosecution said Floyd died from a lack of oxygen from Chauvin’s knee on his neck and that drugs were not a factor.

Among the 38 witnesses who testified for the prosecution were some of the bystanders who watched Floyd’s arrest and pleaded with Chauvin to get off him.

Darnella Frazier, the teenager who took the video that went viral, said Floyd was “scared” and “begging for his life.”

“It wasn’t right. He was suffering,” Frazier said.

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“Because of the current situation in India, even fully vaccinated travelers may be at the risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants and should avoid all travel to India,” the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said as part of its “Key Information for Travelers to India”.

India on Sunday recorded its highest ever spike in new COVID-19 cases at over 2.7 lakh, which has come as a part of the severe second wave of the pandemic sweeping the country. Several states, including Delhi, have announced curfew and lockdowns in the wake of the rapid spread of infections.

Besides the rapid spread of the disease, India is also struggling with an acute shortage of oxygen, hospital beds, and essential drugs. Some states are beginning to run out of even vaccines even as a nationwide vaccination drive is on.

“If you must travel to India, get fully vaccinated before travel. All travellers should wear a mask, stay 6 feet from others, avoid crowds, and wash their hands,” the CDC advisory said.

Among guidelines provided to travellers to India, including fully vaccinated persons, the CDC has asked for a maintenance of 6 feet distance with anyone who is not a co-traveller and regular washing or santisation of one’s hands. This is besides the use of masks in public places.

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Oman Air, the national carrier of the Sultanate of Oman, is pleased to announce that its expanded codeshare cooperation with Qatar Airways offers Oman Air guests the flexibility to fly to 10 destinations in the USA with the ease and convenience offered by connecting flights in Doha, Qatar. Now within easier reach from Muscat are New York (JFK), Houston (IAH), Chicago (ORD), Philadelphia (PHL), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), Dallas (DFW), Boston (BOS), San Francisco (SFO), and Washington, D.C. (IAD).

Oman Air Chief Executive Officer Eng. Abdulaziz Al Raisi commented on Oman Air’s growing commercial cooperation with Qatar Airways as a win-win for both carriers, offering greater flexibility and seamless connectivity for business and leisure travellers flying between Muscat and the USA, adding, “Our enhanced codeshare agreement with Qatar Airways, an airline with remarkable reach and reputation around the world, facilitates travel between Oman and some of the most celebrated cities in the US while at the same time offering travellers from North America an easy way to connect to Oman’s breathtaking beauty, rich and diverse culture, and authentic hospitality.”

Commercial cooperation between Oman Air and Qatar airways began in 2000 with the aim to significantly increase the number of destinations available to guests of both airlines. To date, Oman Air guests can fly to sixty six (66) additional points on the Qatar Airways’ network across Africa, the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, India, and the Middle East. Qatar Airways passengers will also benefit from additional connectivity, with the ability to book travel on eight (8) new destinations across Africa and Asia in Oman Air’s network.

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Goods entering the U.S. — ranging from Austrian grand pianos and British merry-go-rounds to Turkish Kilim rugs and Italian anchovies — could face tariffs of as much as 25% annually, documents published by the U.S. Trade Representative show. The duties are in response to countries that are imposing taxes on technology firms that operate internationally such as Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc.

In each of the six cases, the USTR proposes to impose tariffs that would roughly total the amount of tax revenue each country is expected to get from the U.S. companies. The cumulative annual value of the duties comes to $880 million, according to Bloomberg News calculations.

There have been efforts to replace each individual country’s digital taxes with one global standard — to be brokered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — but a deal has yet to be reached.

The U.S. says it’s committed to the OECD process, but will maintain its options, including tariffs, in the meantime, USTR Katherine Tai said in a statement on March 26.

The Internet Association — whose members include Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google — welcomed the USTR’s move.

The USTR’s action “is an important affirmation in pushing back on these discriminatory trade barriers as the U.S. continues to work to find a viable solution at the OECD,” the group said in a statement.

The USTR has invited public comment on its plans to go ahead with the tariffs, and will hold public hearings at the start of May.

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US District Court Judge in Los Angeles Jacqueline Chooljian has scheduled the extradition hearing for April 22.

“The United States respectfully requests that following the April 22, 2021, extradition hearing, the Court certify India’s request for Rana’s extradition for the Secretary of State’s surrender decision,” Mr Lulejian said in his 61-page court submission on Monday.

Rana was re-arrested on June 10 in Los Angeles on an extradition request by India for his involvement in the Mumbai terror attack in which 166 people, including six Americans, were killed. He has been declared a fugitive by India.

“Fugitive Tahawwur Hussain Rana is wanted in India to stand trial for offences related to his role in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, that resulted in the death of 166 people, the injury of 239 people, and the damage to property in excess of $1.5 billion,” Mr Lulejian said.

As per the India-US Extradition Treaty, the Indian government has requested the formal extradition of Rana, and the United States has initiated this extradition proceeding.

Mr Lulejian said the criteria warranting certification of extradition are satisfied in this case.

These are: the court has both personal and subject matter jurisdiction, there is an extradition treaty between the United States and India that is in full force and effect, and the crimes for which Rana”s extradition is sought are covered by the terms of the treaty.

India’s extradition request contains evidence to establish probable cause that the individual appearing in court is the fugitive who committed the offence for which extradition is requested, Mr Lulejian argued.

In his court submission on February 4, Rana’s attorney had argued that Rana’s extradition is barred under Article 6 of the United States-India extradition treaty because he had previously been acquitted of the offences for which his extradition is sought, and under Article 9 of the treaty because the government has not established probable cause to believe that Rana committed the alleged offences.

Mr Lulejian said that the court should find that Rana’s extradition is not barred under Article 6 of the India-US Extradition Treaty. Although there is ample evidence that Rana aided and abetted the Mumbai attack, he claims that he should not be extradited because probable cause is lacking. Rana’s claim is based on an improper attempt to attack the credibility of a key witness against him.

Rana also does not contest that he is the person who India alleges committed the charged crimes. Instead, he challenges only whether Article 6 of the treaty bars his extradition and whether probable cause exists to believe that he committed the offences for which India requests his extradition, the Assistant US Attorney said.

Mr Lulejian said Headley’s plea agreement is irrelevant because Rana cannot benefit from its terms. Not only is Rana in a different position than Headley because he did not plead guilty or cooperate with the United States, as is his right, but his inability to benefit from the negotiated terms of Headley’s plea agreement is confirmed by the text of the plea agreement itself.

He said Rana’s extradition proceedings are separate from Headley’s criminal proceedings and are being litigated by a different United States attorney’s office from the one who negotiated the plea agreement with Headley.

According to its very terms, Rana has no rights under Headley’s plea agreement and is therefore prohibited from relying on it in an attempt to undermine the United States” position on his extraditability under the treaty, he added.

“Rana has failed to demonstrate that he cannot be extradited to India as a result of his prior prosecution in the United States,” the attorney said.

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Among those dead was police officer Eric Talley, 51, who was the first to respond to the scene at a King Soopers supermarket, said police chief Maris Herold.

Live-streamed video earlier had showed a white middle-aged man — shirtless and seemingly covered in blood — detained by police and led from the supermarket.

The suspect in custody was the only person suffering “serious injuries at this point,” said police commander Kerry Yamaguchi, without confirming that the man in the video was the suspect, or any possible motive.

President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted.

Majority leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate “must and will move forward on legislation to help stop the epidemic of gun violence.”

“My heart is breaking as we watch this unspeakable event unfold in our Boulder community,” said Colorado governor Jared Polis, calling the incident a “senseless tragedy.”

Police responded to phone calls of shots fired in the area, and a possible person with a patrol rifle, around 2.30pm local time (1830 GMT), said Herold.

Eyewitnesses inside the supermarket said they heard multiple gunshots before fleeing through a back entrance.

Unverified early images livestreamed by an eyewitness showed at least three people lying prone on the ground both inside and outside the store, before multiple new gunshots rang out.

Dozens of armored vehicles, ambulances and armed personnel including FBI agents and SWAT teams were deployed to the scene.

Later, shoppers who had been led safely out of the store sat wrapped in blankets, talking to emergency workers in the snow-covered parking area.

The shooting follows another mass shooting last week at Asian-owned spas in the southeastern state of Georgia that left eight dead.

Colorado has previously suffered two of the most infamous mass shootings in US history.

In 1999, two teenage boys shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School before dying by suicide.

Then in 2012, a heavily armed man stormed a movie theater showing a Batman film in Aurora, Colorado, murdering 12. The gunman is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

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Beijing has demonstrated increased military competence and a willingness to take risks, and it has adopted a more coercive and aggressive approach to the Indo-Pacific region, Dr Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Secretary of Defence, said in her address to the National War College faculty and students on Friday, according to Press Trust of India.

In 2020 alone, Beijing escalated tensions over a host of issues with a number of its neighbours, including Australia, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, she said.

It was involved in an armed confrontation with India along the Line of Actual Control which resulted in the loss of life on both sides and further tightened its grip on Hong Kong, including by instituting an oppressive national security law, Dr Hicks added.

China’s actions constitute a threat to regional peace and stability, and to the rules-based international order on which the security and prosperity and those of American allies depend, she pointed out.

Against this backdrop, US President Joe Biden recently released his interim National Security Strategic Guidance that highlights China’s increasing assertiveness.

The interim guidance notes that Beijing is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system, she said.

To advance the interests of the American people and our democracy, the US must be able to compete for the future of our way of life across all these dimensions. For the US military, that will often mean serving as a supporting player to diplomatic, economic, and other soft power tools, Dr Hicks said.

But it will also require the US to demonstrate the will and capability to credibly deter Chinese aggression. As Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said earlier this week during his visit to Japan, the US military along with its allies and partners, must have the capability to outmatch the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the report said.

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After meeting with leaders of Georgia’s Asian-American community, Biden delivered a brief speech at Atlanta’s Emory University, where he branded hate and racism “the ugly poison that’s long haunted our nation.”

Such bigotry and violence has been “often met with silence” in the United States, he said.

“But that has to change because our silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit,” Biden stressed.

“We have to speak out, we have to act,” he added, as he called on Americans to “combat this resurgence of xenophobia.”

And he leveled a rebuke of previous president Donald Trump without mentioning his name, saying: “Words have consequences. It’s the coronavirus, full stop.”

Trump faced severe blowback last year for repeatedly calling COVID-19 — which has now killed 540,000 people in the United States — the “China virus” after the country where it was first detected.

Biden noted that attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been “skyrocketing,” a trend confirmed by the group Stop AAPI Hate which says nearly 3,800 cases have been reported since last year, including verbal and physical assaults, discrimination and civil rights abuses.

Biden’s pre-scheduled trip to the southern metropolis was originally intended to focus on his COVID-19 battle plan.

The president began with a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he received a briefing, and he also marked a key milestone in the US having administered 100 million vaccine doses.

“We did it in about 60 days,” Biden said. “We’re not stopping now.”

But this week’s carnage around Georgia’s largest city prompted Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris, to add a meeting with Asian-Americans.

Three massage parlors around Atlanta were targeted Tuesday, and a 21-year-old suspect was arrested.

Robert Aaron Long faces eight counts of murder and one charge of aggravated assault.

Of the eight fatalities, six were women of Asian descent.

Biden said it was “heart-wrenching” to listen to the grieving community members.

Among them was Stephanie Cho, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta.

“It was very emotional to hear” messages by the victims’ families read aloud to the president and vice president, Cho told CNN afterwards.

She said the Asian-American women in the room, including Harris whose mother was an Indian immigrant, “had a very somber moment” considering the issue centered around violence against women of Asian descent.

Long has admitted carrying out the attacks, according to law enforcement, but claims he was not motivated by racial hatred.

Officers said Long told police he was grappling with a sexual addiction and that he wanted to “eliminate” a temptation that put him in conflict with his strict religious beliefs.

Authorities have not confirmed the motive, but the killings were seen as laying bare the intersection of sexism and racism in the United States.

The four women killed in Atlanta itself — at two neighboring spas — were named Friday by the Fulton County medical examiner’s office as Hyun J. Grant, 51; Soon C. Park, 74; Yong A. Yue, 63; and Suncha Kim, 69.

Grant, who worked at the Gold Spa, left behind two sons — the eldest of whom, Randy Park, 23, set up a fundraising page which by Friday had attracted more than $1.9 million in donations.

The other four victims — targeted at Young’s Asian Massage in the Atlanta suburb of Acworth — included Xiaojie Tan, the spa’s 49-year-old owner described as “the sweetest, kindest, most giving person” by a longtime customer, Greg Hynson, speaking to The New York Times.

The attack also claimed the lives of Delaina Yaun, 33 — a mother of two who was at the spa for a couple’s massage with her husband — as well as 44-year-old employee Daoyou Feng, and Paul Andre Michels, 54, who was on site doing maintenance.

Biden ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and other public buildings until Monday as a mark of respect for the Atlanta victims. The House of Representatives held a moment of silence on Friday.

Also in Washington, an extraordinary House hearing Thursday heard testimony from four Asian-American congresswomen.

Democrat Grace Meng warned that Republican rhetoric that paints Asians as responsible for the virus has put “a bull’s eye on the back of Asian-Americans.”

Vigils have been held in several US cities, and police in New York, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere stepped up patrols in areas with large Asian-American populations.

Georgia is home to nearly 500,000 people of Asian origin, or just over four percent of its population.

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According to the yet-to-be peer-reviewed study, posted in the preprint server medRxiv, the mother had received a single dose of the Moderna mRNA vaccine at 36 weeks and three days of her gestation period.

Three weeks later, she gave birth to a vigorous, healthy, full-term girl, whose blood sample taken immediately after birth revealed the presence of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the study noted.

“Here, we report the first known case of an infant with SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies detectable in cord blood after maternal vaccination,” noted the co-authors, Paul Gilbert and Chad Rudnick from Florida Atlantic University in the US.

The woman, who has been breastfeeding the baby exclusively, received the second dose of the vaccine as per the normal 28-day vaccination protocol timeline, the doctors noted.

While earlier studies showed that the passage of antibodies from COVID-recovered mothers to their fetuses via the placenta was lower than expected, the current research suggests “potential for protection and infection risk reduction from SARS-CoV-2 with maternal vaccination.”

However, Gilber and Rudnick note that further long-term studies are needed to quantify the antibody response in babies born to vaccinated mothers.

“Protective efficacy in newborns and ideal timing of maternal vaccination remains unknown,” the pediatricians wrote in the study.

“We urge other investigators to create pregnancy and breastfeeding registries as well as conduct efficacy and safety studies of the COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant and breastfeeding woman and their offspring,” they added.

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In an interview with ABC News, Biden was asked about a US intelligence report that the Russian leader tried to harm his candidacy in the November 2020 election and promote that of Donald Trump.

“He will pay a price,” the 78-year-old Biden said.

Asked if he thought Putin, who has been accused of ordering the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and other rivals, is a “killer,” Biden said: “I do.”

The comments were aired as the US Commerce Department announced it was toughening export restrictions imposed on Russia as punishment for Navalny’s poisoning.

Russia responded by summoning its envoy home, but stressed that it wanted to prevent an “irreversible deterioration” in relations.

“The Russian ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has been invited to come to Moscow for consultations conducted with the aim of analyzing what should be done and where to go in the context of ties with the United States,” the Russian foreign ministry said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told RIA Novosti that “responsibility for further deterioration of Russian-American ties fully rests with the United States.”

In Washington, the State Department noted the Russian move and said the United States will “remain clear-eyed about the challenges that Russia poses.”

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked by reporters whether the president considers Putin literally or just metaphorically a killer.

“He does not hold back on his concerns about what we see as malign and problematic actions,” Psaki said, citing election interference, Navalny’s poisoning, cyberattacks and bounties on US troops in Afghanistan.

“He’s not going to hold back in his direct communications, nor is he going to hold back publicly,” she said. “We are not going to look the other way as we saw a little bit over the last four years.”

“From his first phone call with President Putin, President Biden has been clear that the United States will also respond to a number of destabilizing actions,” she said.

Asked about that phone call by ABC News, Biden said he had a “long talk” with Putin after taking office in January.

“The conversation started off, I said, ‘I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared’,” Biden said.

Biden’s assessment that Putin is a “killer” marked a stark contrast with Trump’s steadfast refusal to say anything negative about the Russian president.

In a 2017 interview with Fox News, Trump was asked about Putin being a “killer.” “There are a lot of killers,” he replied. “You think our country’s so innocent?”

Despite his thoughts about the Russian leader, Biden said “there are places where it’s in our mutual interest to work together.”

“That’s why I renewed the START agreement with him,” he said of the nuclear treaty. “That occurred while he’s doing this, but that’s overwhelmingly in the interest of humanity, that we diminish the prospect of a nuclear exchange.”

Biden said he had learned from dealing with “an awful lot” of leaders during a political career spanning almost five decades — including eight years as vice president — that the most important thing was to “just know the other guy.”

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, denounced Biden for agreeing with the description of Putin as a “killer.”

“Biden insulted the citizens of our country,” Volodin said. “Attacks on (Putin) are attacks on our country.”

The Kremlin on Wednesday also dismissed the US determination that Russia had targeted election infrastructure during the 2020 presidential election.

“It is absolutely groundless and unsubstantiated,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, and an “excuse” to impose new sanctions.

According to US intelligence, Putin and other senior officials “were aware of and probably directed” Russia’s influence operation to sway the vote in Trump’s favor.

It concluded, however, that the election results were not compromised.

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Lalitha Chittoor, the owner of Eco All Trading LLC, a small micro business involved in wholesale trading of sustainable products such as stainless steel, bamboo, birch wood attended the round table with Harris in Denver, Colorado on Tuesday along with her daughter.

Ms Harris brought up the administration’s climate change efforts and said a policy staffer would follow up with her. Ms Chittoor’s business, founded in 2019, is women-owned and imports goods from India and supports widowed women in India.

She told the round table that the small businesses were really part of the heartbeat of every community.

“Our small business leaders are not only business leaders, you are civic leaders, community leaders, role models,” she said.

“It is our small businesses that hire from the community, that uplift the community, that have regular customers who come in and you can recognize if they’re having a bad day and you already know what they want to they don’t even have to put in an order,” she said.

Ms Harris said those in need of assistance have been opening up their car trunks to pick up food boxes, but leave handwritten notes and sometimes a tip thanking the volunteers.

“These families who have nothing because they’ve lost so much, tipping the volunteers for their generosity and recognizing the dignity of their work,” she said.

Born in Chennai and a naturalised citizen of the US, Ms Chittoor started her business at the behest of her daughter. Her primary customers are restaurants, federal government, state government, school cafeterias, prison cafeterias, hospital cafeterias.

During the round table, Ms Chittoor asked Ms Harris to back a global plastic policy.

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Companies whose footage was exposed include carmaker Tesla Inc. and software provider Cloudflare Inc. In addition, hackers were able to view video from inside women’s health clinics, psychiatric hospitals and the offices of Verkada itself. Some of the cameras, including in hospitals, use facial-recognition technology to identify and categorize people captured on the footage. The hackers say they also have access to the full video archive of all Verkada customers.

In a video seen by Bloomberg, a Verkada camera inside Florida hospital Halifax Health showed what appeared to be eight hospital staffers tackling a man and pinning him to a bed. Halifax Health is featured on Verkada’s public-facing website in a case study entitled: “How a Florida Healthcare Provider Easily Updated and Deployed a Scalable HIPAA Compliant Security System.”

Another video, shot inside a Tesla warehouse in Shanghai, shows workers on an assembly line. The hackers said they obtained access to 222 cameras in Tesla factories and warehouses.

The data breach was carried out by an international hacker collective and intended to show the pervasiveness of video surveillance and the ease with which systems could be broken into, said Tillie Kottmann, one of the hackers who claimed credit for breaching San Mateo, California-based Verkada. Kottmann, who uses they/them pronouns, previously claimed credit for hacking chipmaker Intel Corp. and carmaker Nissan Motor Co. Kottmann said their reasons for hacking are “lots of curiosity, fighting for freedom of information and against intellectual property, a huge dose of anti-capitalism, a hint of anarchism — and it’s also just too much fun not to do it.”

“We have disabled all internal administrator accounts to prevent any unauthorized access,” a Verkada spokesperson said in a statement. “Our internal security team and external security firm are investigating the scale and scope of this issue, and we have notified law enforcement.”

A person with knowledge of the matter said Verkada’s chief information security officer, an internal team and an external security firm are investigating the incident. The company is working to notify customers and set up a support line to address questions, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

“This afternoon we were alerted that the Verkada security camera system that monitors main entry points and main thoroughfares in a handful of Cloudflare offices may have been compromised,” San Francisco-based Cloudflare said in a statement. “The cameras were located in a handful of offices that have been officially closed for several months.” The company said it disabled the cameras and disconnected them from office networks.

Representatives of Tesla and other companies identified in this story didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Representatives of the jails, hospitals and schools named in this article either declined to comment or didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

A video seen by Bloomberg shows officers in a police station in Stoughton, Massachusetts, questioning a man in handcuffs. The hackers say they also gained access to the security cameras of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed more than 20 people in 2012.

Also available to the hackers were 330 security cameras inside the Madison County Jail in Huntsville, Alabama. Verkada offers a feature called “People Analytics,” which lets a customer “search and filter based on many different attributes, including gender traits, clothing color, and even a person’s face,” according to a Verkada blog post. Images seen by Bloomberg show that the cameras inside the jail, some of which are hidden inside vents, thermostats and defibrillators, track inmates and correctional staff using the facial-recognition technology. The hackers say they were able to access live feeds and archived video, in some cases including audio, of interviews between police officers and criminal suspects, all in the high-definition resolution known as 4K.

Kottmann said their group was able to obtain “root” access on the cameras, meaning they could use the cameras to execute their own code. That access could, in some instances, allow them to pivot and obtain access to the broader corporate network of Verkada’s customers, or hijack the cameras and use them as a platform to launch future hacks. Obtaining this degree of access to the camera didn’t require any additional hacking, as it was a built-in feature, Kottmann said.

The hackers’ methods were unsophisticated: they gained access to Verkada through a “Super Admin” account, allowing them to peer into the cameras of all of its customers. Kottmann says they found a user name and password for an administrator account publicly exposed on the internet. After Bloomberg contacted Verkada, the hackers lost access to the video feeds and archives, Kottmann said.

The hackers say they were able to peer into multiple locations of the luxury gym chain Equinox. At Wadley Regional Medical Center, a hospital in Texarkana, Texas, hackers say they looked through Verkada cameras pointed at nine ICU beds. Hackers also say they watched cameras at Tempe St. Luke’s Hospital, in Arizona, and were also able to see a detailed record of who used Verkada access control cards to open certain doors, and when they did so. A representative of Wadley declined to comment.

The hack “exposes just how broadly we’re being surveilled, and how little care is put into at least securing the platforms used to do so, pursuing nothing but profit,” Kottmann said. “It’s just wild how I can just see the things we always knew are happening, but we never got to see.” Kottman said they gained access to Verkada’s system on Monday morning.

Verkada, founded in 2016, sells security cameras that customers can access and manage through the web. In January 2020, it raised $80 million in venture capital funding, valuing the company at $1.6 billion. Among the investors was Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s oldest firms.

Kottmann calls the hacking collective “Advanced Persistent Threat 69420,” a light-hearted reference to the designations cybersecurity firms give to state sponsored hacking groups and criminal cybergangs.

In October 2020, Verkada fired three employees after reports surfaced that workers had used its cameras to take pictures of female colleagues inside the Verkada office and make sexually explicit jokes about them. Verkada CEO Filip Kaliszan said in a statement to Vice at the time that the company “terminated the three individuals who instigated this incident, engaged in egregious behavior targeting coworkers, or neglected to report the behavior despite their obligations as managers.”

Jails, Homes, Offices

Kottmann said they were able to download the entire list of thousands of Verkada customers, as well as the company’s balance sheet, which lists assets and liabilities. As a closely held company, Verkada does not publish its financial statements. Kottman said hackers watched through the camera of a Verkada employee who had set one of the cameras up inside his home. One of the saved clips from the camera shows the employee completing a puzzle with his family.

“If you are a company who has purchased this network of cameras and you are putting them in sensitive places, you may not have the expectation that in addition to being watched by your security team that there is some admin at the camera company who is also watching,” said Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who was briefed on the breach by Bloomberg.

Inside Arizona’s Graham County detention facility, which has 17 cameras, videos are given titles by the center’s staff and saved to a Verkada account. One video, filmed in the “Commons Area,” is titled “ROUNDHOUSE KICK OOPSIE.” A video filed inside the “Rear Cell Block” is called “SELLERS SNIFFING/KISSING WILLARD???” Another video, filmed inside “Drunk Tank Exterior” is titled “AUTUMN BUMPS HIS OWN HEAD.” Two videos filmed from “Back Cell” are titled “STARE OFF – DONT BLINK!” and “LANCASTER LOSES BLANKET.”

The hackers also obtained access to Verkada cameras in Cloudflare offices in San Francisco, Austin, London and New York. The cameras at Cloudflare’s headquarters rely on facial recognition, according to images seen by Bloomberg. “While facial recognition is a beta feature that Verkada makes available to its customers, we have never actively used it nor do we plan to,” Cloudflare said in its statement.

Security cameras and facial-recognition technology are often used inside corporate offices and factories to protect proprietary information and guard against an insider threat, said the EFF’s Galperin.

“There are many legitimate reasons to have surveillance inside of a company,” Galperin added. “The most important part is to have the informed consent of your employees. Usually this is done inside the employee handbook, which no one reads.”

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“India, South Africa and other countries are presenting a proposal at the World Trade Organisation to waive all intellectual property rights for any innovation related to COVID-19,” the group of four Republican Senators wrote in a letter to Biden.

“The proponents of this scheme argue that if we just destroy the intellectual property developed by American companies, we will suddenly have more manufacturers producing COVID-19 vaccines,” they said.

In the letter, Senators Mike Lee, Tom Cotton, Joni Ernst and Todd Young urged Biden to reject the upcoming proposal at the WTO.

“But the opposite is true. By destroying the intellectual property of every American company that has worked on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, we would be ending the progress — started under Operation Warp Speed — that led to the fastest development of life-saving vaccines in history,” the Senators wrote.

They alleged that some countries believe that they would benefit from seizing America’s intellectual property.

“But this is a mistake,” they said.

“Waiving all rights to intellectual property would end the innovation pipeline and stop the development of new vaccines or boosters to address variants in the virus. It also wouldn”t increase the supply of vaccines because of the tremendous time and resources needed to build new manufacturing plants and acquire the knowhow to produce these complex medicines,” they said.

“Even if the waiver may temporarily result in a few copycats attempting to produce what American companies developed, it would introduce major quality control problems,” the Senators said.

“As a global leader and a force for good, we can do a lot to help other countries overcome the virus. But destroying our rights to intellectual property wouldn’t advance our mission of fighting the virus — it would make the problem worse, for America and for the world,” they wrote.

“The end of this pandemic is in sight. More than 50 million Americans have been vaccinated, and cases have declined by more than 75 percent from their recent high. We stand ready to work with you to bring an end to this deadly crisis and urge you to take a strong stand against this scheme that would halt our progress,” the Senators said.

In a statement, the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Centre (GIPC) senior Vice president Patrick Kilbride said the proposals to waive intellectual property rights are misguided and a distraction from the real work of reinforcing supply chains and assisting countries to procure, distribute and administer vaccines to billions of the world’s citizens.

“Diminishing intellectual property rights would make it more difficult to quickly develop and distribute vaccines or treatments in the future pandemics the world will face,” he said.

Early this week, hundreds of American civil society organizations and three top Congressmen urged Biden not to block the waiver to COVID-19 vaccines at World Trade Organisation, a move they said would boost the treatment of coronavirus patients worldwide.

“The COVID-19 pandemic knows no borders and the need for vaccine development and dissemination across the globe is critically important. The TRIPS waiver raised by India and South Africa at the WTO would help the global community move forward in defeating the scourge of COVID-19 by making diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines available in developing countries,” Congressman Rosa DeLauro, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee told reporters at a news conference.

The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) requires countries to provide lengthy monopoly protections for medicines, tests and technologies used to produce them.

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After a marathon voting session through the night on Friday and into Saturday afternoon, Democrats overcame unified Republican opposition to approve the sweeping stimulus package. The final tally was 50-49, with one Republican senator absent.

One of the largest emergency aid packages in US history now returns to the House for final approval before being signed into law by Biden. Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, has said she expects to approve the measure before 14 March, when tens of millions of Americans risk losing unemployment benefits if no action is taken.

The House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, said the Senate version of the American Rescue Plan would be considered “on Tuesday … so that we can send this bill to President Biden for his signature early next week”.

Biden and Democrats will look to move on to other priorities, including voting rights reform and an ambitious infrastructure package.

The bill aimed at combating the Covid-19 pandemic and reviving the US economy will provide direct payments of up to $1,400 to most Americans; extend federal unemployment benefits; rush money to state, local and tribal governments; and allot significant funding to vaccine distribution and testing.

Republicans attacked the bill as a “liberal wishlist” mismatched with an improving economic and public health outlook as more are vaccinated and infections plateau.

“Our country is already set for a roaring recovery,” said Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, on Friday, citing a jobs report that showed 379,000 jobs added in February. “Democrats inherited a tide that was already turning.”

But Democrats and the White House were quick to push back, pointing to more than 9 million Americans out of work and millions more struggling to pay for rent and food.

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The huge storm sweeping across the southern US has killed at least 21 people and left millions without power.

Texas has seen widespread blackouts. Homes in the state are not normally insulated for cold weather, meaning that indoor temperatures quickly dropped to freezing after heating systems failed.

Freezing temperatures have also caused water pipes to burst, despite attempts by some homeowners to insulate them from the cold using blankets.

The state’s energy grid has been overwhelmed by a surge in demand as people try to keep warm in some of the coldest temperatures there in more than 30 years – hitting 0F (-18C) earlier this week.

US President Joe Biden earlier approved a state of emergency for Texas, which has been blanketed by snow and ice since the storm swept in at the weekend.

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Pelosi said the commission will investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power.”

In a letter to Democratic colleagues, Pelosi said the House will also put forth supplemental spending to boost security at the Capitol.

After former President Donald Trump’s acquittal at his second Senate impeachment trial, bipartisan support appeared to be growing for an independent commission to examine the deadly insurrection.

Investigations into the riot were already planned, with Senate hearings scheduled later this month in the Senate Rules Committee. Pelosi, D-Calif., asked retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honor to lead an immediate review of the Capitol’s security process.

In her letter on Monday, Pelosi said, “It is clear from his findings and from the impeachment trial that we must get to the truth of how this happened.”

She added, “As we prepare for the Commission, it is also clear from General Honor ‘s interim reporting that we must put forth a supplemental appropriation to provide for the safety of Members and the security of the Capitol.”

Lawmakers from both parties, speaking on Sunday’s news shows, signalled that even more inquiries were likely. The Senate verdict Saturday, with its 57-43 majority falling 10 votes short of the two-thirds needed to convict Trump, hardly put to rest the debate about the Republican former president’s culpability for the Jan. 6 assault.

“There should be a complete investigation about what happened,” said Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump. “What was known, who knew it and when they knew, all that, because that builds the basis so this never happens again.”

Cassidy said he was attempting to hold President Trump accountable, and added that “as Americans hear all the facts, more folks will move to where I was.” He was censured by his state’s party after the vote.

An independent commission along the lines of the one that investigated the September 11 attacks would probably require legislation to create. That would elevate the investigation a step higher, offering a definitive government-backed accounting of events. Still, such a panel would pose risks of sharpening partisan divisions or overshadowing President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.

“There’s still more evidence that the American people need and deserve to hear and a 9/11 commission is a way to make sure that we secure the Capitol going forward,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a Biden ally. “And that we lay bare the record of just how responsible and how abjectly violating of his constitutional oath President Trump really was.”

House prosecutors who argued for Trump’s conviction of inciting the riot said on Sunday they had proved their case. They also railed against the Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and others who they said were trying to have it both ways in finding the former president not guilty but criticising him at the same time.

A close Trump ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., voted for acquittal but acknowledged that Trump had some culpability for the siege at the Capitol that killed five people, including a police officer, and disrupted lawmakers’ certification of Biden’s White House victory. Graham said he looked forward to campaigning with Trump in the 2022 election, when Republicans hope to regain the congressional majority.

“His behaviour after the election was over the top,” Graham said. “We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again.”
The Senate acquitted Trump of a charge of incitement of insurrection after House prosecutors laid out a case that he was an inciter in chief who unleashed a mob by stoking a monthslong campaign of spreading debunked conspiracy theories and false violent rhetoric that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Trump’s lawyers countered that Trump’s words were not intended to incite the violence and that impeachment was nothing but a witch hunt designed to prevent him from serving in office again.

The conviction tally was the most bipartisan in American history but left Trump to declare victory and signal a political revival while a bitterly divided GOP bickered over its direction and his place in the party.

The Republicans who joined Cassidy in voting to convict were Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania

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