Even with acquittal, GOP sees trial ending Trump’s shot at future office

Even with acquittal, GOP sees trial ending Trump’s shot at future office

The Hill reports: Senate Republicans, including those who do not plan to vote to convict former President Trump, say this week’s impeachment trial has effectively ended any chance of him becoming the GOP presidential nominee in 2024. From the viewpoint of some Republican senators, the compelling case presented by House prosecutors carries a silver lining: It means they likely won’t have to worry about Trump running for president again in three years, while at the same time eroding his influence…

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Nikki Haley criticizes Trump and says he has no future in the GOP

Nikki Haley criticizes Trump and says he has no future in the GOP

CNN reports: Former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley directly criticized former President Donald Trump for his involvement stoking the US Capitol riot in a new interview, a notable condemnation from someone who is widely viewed as harboring presidential hopes in a party that is still in thrall to Trump. “We need to acknowledge he let us down,” she told Politico magazine in an interview published Friday. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t…

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House managers are treating Trump’s enablers as his victims

House managers are treating Trump’s enablers as his victims

Michelle Goldberg writes: Because of the unlikelihood of Trump being convicted, it often seems as if this second impeachment trial is being conducted for the public, and for history. The managers took a chaotic, traumatic day and turned it into a coherent narrative, crosscutting between the rampage and the actions of the president who inspired it. The most powerful moments of their presentation were the temporal juxtapositions, like Trump tweeting, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should…

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Riot squad cops open up about disastrous response to Capitol insurrection

Riot squad cops open up about disastrous response to Capitol insurrection

ProPublica reports: The riot squad defending the embattled entrance to the west side of the U.S. Capitol was surrounded by violence. Rioters had clambered up the scaffolding by the stage erected for the inauguration of President Joseph Biden. They hurled everything they could get their hands on at the cops beneath: rebar, plywood, power tools, even cans of food they had frozen for extra damage. In front of the cops, a mob was mounting a frontal assault. Its members hit…

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Black, Hispanic and female police use force less often than white male officers

Black, Hispanic and female police use force less often than white male officers

Science News reports: Black and Hispanic police officers tend to stop, arrest and use force against civilians less often than white officers do, and female officers of all races use less force than their male colleagues, a new case study of the Chicago Police Department suggests. Information on the demographics and behavior of thousands of Chicago police officers revealed how officers of different races and genders acted while on similar patrol assignments. While the results do not shed light on…

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The body is far from helpless against Coronavirus variants

The body is far from helpless against Coronavirus variants

Katherine J. Wu writes: To locate some of the world’s most superpowered cells, look no further than the human immune system. The mission of these hometown heroes is threefold: Memorize the features of dangerous microbes that breach the body’s barriers. Launch an attack to bring them to heel. Then squirrel away intel to quash future assaults. The immune system is comprehensive, capable of dueling with just about every microbe it meets. It’s archival, ace at memorizing the details of its…

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A lone infection may have changed the course of the pandemic

A lone infection may have changed the course of the pandemic

Matt Reynolds writes: In each warm body it infects, the virus behind Covid-19 has the potential to change. It can become more deadly, more transmissible or more resistant to the vaccines on which we are all pinning so much hope. Mercifully, the biology of Sars-CoV-2 means that such changes happen slowly and almost always fail to catch on. But mutations, like pandemics, are a numbers game. Every new person infected provides another opportunity for the virus to adopt a new…

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Member of Oath Keepers conspiracy was ‘awaiting direction’ from Trump before Capitol attack, prosecutors say

Member of Oath Keepers conspiracy was ‘awaiting direction’ from Trump before Capitol attack, prosecutors say

BuzzFeed News reports: Hours before day three of former president Donald Trump’s impeachment trial was set to begin on Thursday, federal prosecutors offered new evidence that a member of the alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy charged with planning an assault on the US Capitol on Jan. 6 was “awaiting direction” from Trump. Jessica Watkins, an Army veteran and, according to court papers, a member of the Oath Keepers militia group, is accused of participating in a conspiracy to assault the Capitol…

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Tuberville says he informed Trump of Pence’s evacuation before rioters reached Senate

Tuberville says he informed Trump of Pence’s evacuation before rioters reached Senate

Politico reports: Sen. Tommy Tuberville revealed late Wednesday that he spoke to Donald Trump on Jan. 6, just as a violent mob closed in on the the Senate, and informed the then-president directly that Vice President Mike Pence had just been evacuated from the chamber. “I said ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Tuberville (R-Ala.) told POLITICO on Capitol Hill on Wednesday night, saying he cut the phone call short amid the chaos….

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Military officials were unaware of potential danger to Pence’s ‘nuclear football’ during Capitol riot

Military officials were unaware of potential danger to Pence’s ‘nuclear football’ during Capitol riot

CNN reports: Military officials overseeing the authorization process to launch nuclear weapons were unaware on January 6 that then-Vice President Mike Pence’s military aide carrying the “nuclear football” was potentially in danger as rioters got close during the violent Capitol insurrection, according to a defense official. The vice president is always accompanied by a backup of the “football,” which contains the equipment to carry out orders to launch a nuclear strike. It must be ready at all times and is…

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Republicans warned about Trump and violence … five years ago

Republicans warned about Trump and violence … five years ago

Steve Benen writes: As a Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump went to unusual lengths to express his comfort with violence. Indeed, as House impeachment managers were eager to remind senators today, the Republican at times seemed to encourage violence toward protesters before he became president, and echoed the rhetoric while in office. But what’s easy to forget is that Trump’s GOP rivals in the 2016 race recognized the dangers posed by his style of politics. The Washington Post‘s Dave Weigel…

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Trump was sicker than acknowledged with Covid-19

Trump was sicker than acknowledged with Covid-19

The New York Times reports: President Donald J. Trump was sicker with Covid-19 in October than publicly acknowledged at the time, with extremely depressed blood oxygen levels at one point and a lung problem associated with pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, according to four people familiar with his condition. His prognosis became so worrisome before he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that officials believed he would need to be put on a ventilator, two of the…

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Why thousands of Republicans are leaving the party

Why thousands of Republicans are leaving the party

The New York Times reports: In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations. In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000…

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Impeachment video reveals a true American horror story

Impeachment video reveals a true American horror story

James Poniewozik writes: Impeachment trials of American presidents are rare. They are almost by definition grave and serious. But the proceeding against former President Donald J. Trump was likely the first to include a parental advisory for graphic violence. Beginning Wednesday’s presentation, which included never-before-seen video of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Representative Jamie Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager, began with a warning: “We do urge parents and teachers to exercise close review of what young people…

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