Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a fiery fit as Republicans prepared to remove Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Ocasio-Cortez made the comments Thursday as lawmakers debated the question prior to the vote that removed Omar. The New York Democrat angrily described Omar’s removal as an “attack on women of color.” Read More

Al-Qaida courier turned informant Majid Khan to be permanently resettled after being held in US custody for nearly 20 years. The US has released Majid Khan, an al-Qaida courier turned informant who was tortured in secret CIA prisons and held in custody for nearly 20 years, marking the first time a “high-value detainee” has been freed from Guantánamo Bay. Khan, a 42 year-old Pakistani born in Saudi Arabia, completed his jail term last March and landed in Belize on Thursday, where he is to be permanently resettled. Read More

Australia’s currency will replace its portraits honoring the royal family in favor of representing aboriginal culture, the country’s central bank announced Thursday. The government and central bank made the decision not to put King Charles III’s portrait on the $5 banknote after the death of Queen Elizabeth II reportedly sparked debate over how connected Australia sitll is with the commonwealth. Although Australians decided to keep the monarchy as their head of state, the bank will pass over Charles, who leads the commonwealth, for something that will represent indigenous culture on its currency, Reuters reported. (RELATED: GOP Rep Introduces Bill That Would Protect National Monument From Being Demolished) Read More

National cabinet is due to meet on Friday with the reform of primary healthcare on the agenda. Follow the day’s news live.Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of everything newsworthy in Australia today. I’m Martin Farrer, bringing you some of the headlines before my colleague Natasha May takes the helm. It’s been another busy night with Penny Wong and Richard Marles discussing the Aukus defence pact with their UK counterparts. James Cleverley, the British foreign secretary, also responded to Wong’s criticism of what she said was Britain’s failure to recognise its colonial sins by pointing out the diversity of his government. Back home, Malcolm Turnbull says the government must answer questions about whether it will have control over the planned new nuclear submarines or whether the agreement with the UK and US compromises Australian sovereign capability, as claimed by others including Paul Keating. Read More

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images The contours of divided government in Washington are now clear: The main point of contention is the looming debt ceiling deadline, and the main area of agreement is addressing systemic competition with Communist China. While they can seem like different issues, they are closely related. Read More

"This is about targeting women of color in the United States of America," she says of the vote to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee. Read More

Donald Trump just offered voters another reason why they shouldn’t send him back to Washington in the next election: the possibility of a “revenge tour.” The former president made the suggestion Thursday during an interview with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt, after a question about how he might use the powers of the White House to “punish people who punished you.” Read More

Eunice K. Dwumfour, 30, was found shot multiple times Wednesday evening in a Sayreville neighborhood, authorities said. Read More

Estee Lauder (EL) reported a stronger-than-expected second quarter for its fiscal 2023 on Thursday. But shares are down on a weaker view of the next quarter, as sellers focus too much on the near term and not enough on the nascent post-lockdown recovery in China. Revenue fell about 16.5% year-over-year, to $4.621 billion, beating analysts' expectations for $4.58 billion, according to estimates compiled by Refinitiv. Earnings-per-share (EPS) fell 44% on an annual basis, to $1.69, handily beating analysts' forecasts for $1.29 a share and management's original guidance of $1.19 to $1.29 thanks to control on expenses and easing pressures from foreign exchange. Shares of Estee Lauder dropped about 3% mid-day Thursday but remain up around 10% for 2023. Bottom line We can't blame anyone who wants to take profits with the stock up nearly 50% from the last time the company reported , especially after learning about a one quarter delay in the return to growth. However, those sellers are missing the bigger picture and pullbacks still represent buying opportunities. There is going to be some noise in the supply chain as Estee Lauder deals with its last quarter of pain related to Covid. But as long as there are no more lockdowns, these issues will truly be transitory, putting it back on track for strong growth in the fiscal fourth quarter and through fiscal 2024, driven by travel retail, sales in China, and skin care. And as volumes recover, we expect more margin expansion from the company. Skin care is a high-margin category and represents the biggest percentage of the beauty business in China. We are increasing our price target to $300 from $265. Quarterly commentary Skin care sales were held back by Covid-related impacts such as limited retail traffic in mainland China and tightening of inventory by some... Read More

Say goodbye to some of your favorite Twitter apps, automated accounts, tools, and services. Twitter will now force everyone who makes the creative things that make the platform fun and enjoyable to pay up or go away. Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) In the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, Twitter's official account for developers, @TwitterDev, announced that the company will no longer provide a free access tier to its API. Instead, there will soon be a paid subscription to Twitter's basic API tier. And how soon will this happen? Next week. Feb. 9. SEE ALSO: Elon Musk locked his Twitter account and went private. Here's why. An API is a software interface that allows two applications to communicate with each other, and this particular one allows developers to access Twitter's data and services through official channels. In turn, many developers have been able to create an array of both free and paid products that enhance the Twitter experience. Requiring payment will certainly kill many of the free services and accounts. The response has already been heavily criticized by users across the board. Some developers have already announced their intention to end their Twitter projects.  Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) For example, the creator of the Possum Every Hour Twitter account, which auto-tweets out a photo of a possum every hour, posted that the account will stop tweeting next week when the free API tier ends. The account has more than half a million Twitter followers.  Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) The decision to remove any free access to its API shows just how much Twitter is flailing to make money. The company has lost roughly 50 percent of its advertisers, which are its main revenue source, after Musk took over and started implementing his vision of the Twitter platform. In order to make up for losses in revenue, Musk rolled out new paid products such as its $8 Twitter Blue premium plan. The ability to buy a verified badge with Twitter Blue turned off even more brands from the platform. And, thus far, Twitter hasn't even been able to convert an abysmal 0.1 percent of its monthly active users into paying subscribers. Removal of the free API tier is a questionable path to greater revenue, because it could stifle creativity from developers who aren't looking to monetize their projects. These creators often create services that promote and encourage more usage of Twitter. Small indie developers who are just starting out will be able to implement their ideas on platforms that still provide free API access, such as Facebook or YouTube. It's important to note that Twitter already has a paid tier of service for its API. This existing premium tier, which lifts access limits implemented on the basic tier, serves those social media companies that make revenue from offering Twitter data. And what about the scammers and spam bots? Won't this decision kill them off? Not likely.  Access to Twitter's API required a user to apply and be approved for an official developer account. Thus, Twitter was able to monitor its usage and suss out bad actors. For this reason, many scammers and spammers who utilize automation never used the API in the first place, instead operating with workarounds such as web scrapers. Elon Musk already killed off third-party Twitter clients like Twitterific and Tweetbot earlier this month. Just this week, users have complained about Musk's recent algorithm changes making their feeds unusable. Now, he's coming for everything else. He's given developers no details regarding the cost of keeping their projects and services alive. And, oh yeah, don't forget, those developers have just one week to figure it all out. Read More

The Bank of England governor on Thursday talked down expectations that it is readying to pause or pivot rate hikes, noting that there is still some way to go in taming inflation. Read More

The Department of Defense expressed doubt over whether Ukraine could retake Crimea in a classified briefing to Congress on Wednesday, Politico reported, citing four people with firsthand knowledge of the briefing. Ukraine’s leaders have repeatedly communicated that their war aims include recapturing the entirety of Ukraine, including Crimea, a territory in the east under Russian occupation since 2014. However, Pentagon briefers conveyed to the House Armed Services Committee an assessment that Ukraine likely lacks the capabilities necessary to push the Russians out of Crimea, three of the individuals with knowledge of the briefing told Politico on condition of anonymity. Read More

“If Senator Feinstein decides to seek re-election, she has my whole-hearted support," Pelosi said in an email. "If she decides not to run, I will be supporting House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, who knows well the nexus between a strong Democracy and a strong economy." Read More

A video shared on Facebook claims the U.S. and Israel sunk Russian warships in Crimea during its conflict with Ukraine. Verdict: False There is no evidence that Russian warships have been sunk by the U.S. and Israel. Ukraine has not claimed any Russian warship lost in the past week. Read More

Budrul Chukrut | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Meta — The tech giant's shares jumped 25% by the middle of the trading day, on track for its strongest day in nearly a decade. Late Wednesday, Meta reported revenue that topped analysts' expectations and announced a $40 billion stock buyback plan. Firms also responded positively to Meta's earnings report, with Bank of America and Goldman Sachs rating the stock a buy. Meta shares sit at their highest point since September 2022. Read More

"You see there was this mix, he's done something on the battlefield, he commands the troops, he goes back to studying, he gets promoted, he does a little bit of everything," Marina Miron, a research fellow in the Defence Studies Department at Kings College London, told Insider. Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 became a pivotal moment for Zaluzhnyi, who commanded several Ukrainian military units there. During his post in Crimea, Zaluzhnyi started making some tactical changes to the military that moved away from the old Soviet mentality and paved the way for new fighting tactics. Read More

A photo shared on Facebook purports Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stated deaths caused by COVID-19 are due to “natural selection.” Verdict: False The claim is fabricated. The tweet originates from a Twitter account that regularly posts parody. Read More

EU to train an extra 15,000 soldiers and prepare new sanctions against Russia.Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates The EU has pledged to double a military aid programme for Ukraine by training an extra 15,000 soldiers as part of a blizzard of announcements aimed at showing that it will “stand by Ukraine for the long-haul”. Speaking at the start of a two-day trip to Kyiv, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, reiterated that the EU aimed to have a tenth package of sanctions against Russia in place by 24 February, the first anniversary of the invasion ordered by Vladimir Putin. Read More

DETROIT – Ford Motor's new U.S. vehicle sales started 2023 on stronger footing than a year earlier, but were down 18.4% from December. January is historically one of the weakest months of the year, while December is one of the strongest. Still, the month-over-month decline is notable, as the worst for the automaker since a 28% drop between May and June of last year. Between December 2021 and January 2022, sales declined 17.4%. Read More

Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters said she had little hope for police reform ahead of Democrats’ meeting with President Joe Biden on Thursday. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are slated to meet with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to push police reform in the wake of the death of Tyre Nichols. Read More

Possible charges against Nathan Chasing Horse, who is believed to be a cult leader, include sex trafficking and sexual assault. A former Dances with Wolves actor who faces at least five felony charges for allegedly sexually abusing Indigenous girls was scheduled to face a judge on Thursday. Possible charges against Nathan Chasing Horse, 46, include sex trafficking and sexual assault, according to court records. Clark county prosecutors have not said when they will formally charge him or if more charges will be filed. Read More

Former Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta attacked Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina Thursday over police reform during an MSNBC appearance. “What really strikes me when you talk about Sen. Tim Scott is that this is an African American man who knows the statistics,” Bottoms, who serves as Director of the Office of Public Engagement for President Joe Biden, told MSNBC host Chris Jansing. “African Americans are more than twice as likely to be killed than white Americans in these deadly encounters with police officers.” (RELATED: ‘Why Was He Chosen?’: Sunny Hostin Says Republicans Only Wanted Tim Scott ‘Out Front’ Because He Is Black) Read More

If you’re like most people, you’ve been affected by stress-related sleep problems at some point or another, lying awake at night filled with anxiety about your career and the future. You may feel exhausted during the day but wired at night, desperate to shut off your racing mind so you can finally rest. It may be hard to believe, but your brain wants (and knows how) to sleep well. You simply need to reset your relationship with sleep, so that instead of it feeling like a battle or a chore, it becomes the easy and enjoyable experience it should be. Read More

Former Grand Prix driver Jean-Pierre Jabouille, the man who took Renault's first Formula 1 win, has died aged 80. The Frenchman was a key part of Renault's 1977 entry into Formula 1 - and they were the first manufacturer to use a turbocharged engine. Read More

Shares of Starbucks have risen more than 12% over the last year, fueled by optimism around China's reopening and the persistence of U.S. coffee habits. Read More

Victor Zubriski, 74, is leaving the Boca Raton area after 20 years and moving to Portugal. He said rising housing costs, overcrowding, and pollution have decreased the quality of life. Zubriski is part of a vocal movement of residents leaving Florida as the state's population grows. Victor Zubriski has lived in Boca Raton, Florida, and its surrounding towns for the last 20 years. He said it's far from the paradise everyone's made it out to be. Read More

Punxatawney, Pennsylvania, is home to America's most famous groundhog, but towns across the country have their own versions of the fabled rodent. Read More

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post) Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, where insanity is smashin' up against my soul. We begin in Florida, where we could pitch a nice tent and stay to produce this semi-regular feature from now until Gov. Ronald DeSantis finishes his effort to turn the state into a re-education camp for white people. His muscling of public education is well established at this point, but the clamor surrounding it has obscured his hunger for the state to kill more people. Read More

AUSTIN, Texas ― On Jan. 11, the second day of the Texas legislative session, Rep. Tony Tinderholt took the microphone to offer an amendment to a procedural resolution laying out the House of Representatives’ rules. “Members, this amendment simply says if you want to be a committee chairman in the Texas House, you should be able to affirm the obvious fact that there are two genders,” Tinderholt said on the House floor. “It’s sad to even say this these days, but the push from the radical left has shifted reality.” Read More

Sudan's foreign ministry said Mr Cohen and Lt-Gen Burhan had "discussed means for establishing fruitful relations with Israel" and strengthening cooperation in "agricultural, energy, health, water, education fields with special emphasis on security and military fields". Read More

Comedian Roy Wood Jr. poses for photographers as he arrives to the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on April 30, 2022. | Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo Roy Wood Jr., the stand-up comedian known for his work on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” will be the featured entertainer at the 2023 annual White House Correspondents’ dinner, the Correspondents’ Association announced on Thursday. Read More

Israel’s attorney general said to PM it would amount to a conflict of interest over his corruption trial, according to letter. Israel’s attorney general has told Benjamin Netanyahu that he must not be involved in an overhaul to the country’s judicial system proposed by his government because it would amount to a conflict of interest over the prime minister’s corruption trial, according to a letter made public Thursday. Netanyahu’s new far-right government has made changing the legal system a centrepiece of its legislative agenda and despite mounting public criticism, has charged ahead with steps to weaken the supreme court and grant politicians less judicial oversight in their policymaking. Read More

Even on the company’s broader metric, the greener stuff came out at only one-third of total expenditure. The chief executive has changed at Shell but the song remains the same. The energy transition will be “balanced” and “we intend to remain disciplined while delivering compelling shareholder returns,” declared Wael Sawan. Translation: the company will not use the sudden arrival of spectacular financial riches to boost spending on renewables. Being “disciplined” is, of course, an admirable ambition when presented starkly and without context. No chief executive of any company is ever likely to tell investors that the plan is to take wild punts on projects with little prospect of a decent return. But there is a world of nuance between the extremes. Read More

The plaintiffs who brought legal challenges against the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness plan have filed their briefs with the Supreme Court. Read More

The notice set a broad topic — the subcommittee's name — and didn't include who will testify. Read More

Rafael Henrique | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images Bitcoin briefly touched the $24,000 level on Thursday, reaching a key technical level and building on its January rally. Read More

Three years following the emergence of COVID-19, authorities at state and federal levels are preparing to lift emergency declarations originally issued to marshal pandemic responses. While the moves will undoubtedly be cheered in some circles — particularly those eager to see the end of COVID restrictions or who have viewed the health measures as government overreach — such steps aren’t merely symbolic. Transitioning out of the emergency phase could eventually spell the end of universal access to free vaccines, treatments and tests. Read More

Feb.2, 2023 – Add this to the list of social media’s potential health risks: unintended pregnancy. That’s for women who take birth control advice from influencers, particularly on YouTube, where many talk about stopping hormonal contraception and may give incomplete or inaccurate sexual health information. Read More

An American tourist was arrested in Jerusalem Thursday after he allegedly vandalized a statue of Jesus in the Old City, Israeli police say. The incident occurred at the Church of the Flagellation along the famed Via Dolorosa when an unnamed man, believed to be in his 40s, knocked over a statue of the Scourged Savior, damaging it, the Times of Israel reported.  Video shared on social media shows security grappling with the suspect who can be heard saying, “you can’t have idols in Jerusalem, this is the holy city,” CBS News reported. Read More

Ready the spicy tots and thunder sticks. Game Day is Feb. 12 and, if you’re like us, you’re thrilled to don the jersey and spend the day noshing, screaming at the TV, and high-fiving with your pals. Hosting a big Game Day party at your place this year? No sweat. These rad party favors from Walmart will score serious points from your home team. Read More

Thirty-four officers were shot while on duty in Jan. 2023, a 113% increase from this time in 2020, the National Fraternal Order of Police reported on Monday. Last year, 331 police officers were shot and 62 killed on duty, according to the report, a substantial increase from 2020 where 312 were shot and 47 killed, and four years prior when 237 officers were shot and 53 killed. (RELATED: Arizona Officer Shot And Killed During Traffic Stop) Read More

Promise Li. Recent massacres have made anti-Asian violence seem more entrenched than ever. But there are concrete steps we can take right now to make our communities safer. The post What We Can Do Right Now to Stop Anti-Asian Violence appeared first on The Nation. Read More

It's Groundhog Day! The odd little annual tradition where Americans and Canadians look to a furry little woodchuck to predict the weather. While there's no real harm in our silly Groundhog Day tradition (unless of course it's the year 2014 and you're Staten Island Chuck meeting then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio), it's astonishing just how wrong the day's most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, has been in his predictions over the years. According to the Stormfax Weather Almanac, which tracks Phil's predictions, the groundhog has only been right 39 percent of the time over the past 136 years. 39 percent. That's abysmal! This is your god, western Pennsylvania?  First, a simple overview of the Groundhog Day rules: If Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow when he first emerges from his burrow, we get six more weeks of winter. If he doesn't, we're in for an early Spring. So, Phil's got two choices. A 50 percent chance of guessing it right. Yet his record of correctly forecasting the weather has been terrible. We're better off going with whatever the opposite of Punxsutawney Phil's predictions are. Phil has been doing this since 1887 (as a side note: damn, he's old). As of 2023, Phil has 137 predictions under his belt. Unfortunately, 9 of those predictions have been lost to history. But, that means we have 128 predictions to look at here. Phil has seen his shadow and predicted 6 more weeks of winter a total of 108 times. He's predicted an early Spring only 20 times.  What about this year? For 2023, Phil has gone with his comfortable 6 more weeks of winter prediction after seeing his shadow. On the flip side, his biggest competitor, Staten Island Chuck, just predicted an early Spring for a whopping 8th year in a row. Punxsutawney Phil vs Staten Island Chuck Who will be right this time? If I was a betting man, I would not go with the Nate Silver of Punxsutawney, PA. I'd go with Chuck who has an incredible 80 percent accuracy rate since he's been in the game starting in 1981. Not bad for a rodent who was dropped by NYC Mayor de Blasio in 2014 and passed away a few days later.  Regardless of who is right this time around, I think we can all agree that Phil and Chuck are already having a better year than Quebec’s groundhog Fred la Marmotte. The Canadians who put together that Groundhog Day event brought everyone out this morning and waited right before Fred was to come out and make his prediction to drop the ultimate surprise: Fred's dead. Happy Groundhog Day! Read More

In the saga of Hunter's Laptop In The Conservative Mind, things took a turn Wednesday. Which is significant because that happens to be the only place where this pseudo-scandal is real. The accused in this weird shadow play is punching back. From the Washington Post: The string of letters, which included criminal referrals and cease-and-desist missives aimed at critics and detractors, marked the start of a new and far more hard-hitting phase for the president’s son just as House Republicans prepare their own investigations into him. Read More

Like any other part of your body, your brain needs daily exercise. Neglecting your brain health can make you vulnerable to degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. As a neuroscientist, I've spent decades guiding patients with memory problems through brain-enhancing habits and exercises — many of which I practice, too. Read More

Feb. 2, 2023 – It’s easy these days to take an at-home COVID test when you have symptoms like a fever and sore throat. But when the test is negative, the next step toward diagnosis usually means leaving the comforts of home. But that could soon change. The FDA says it is confident that at-home rapid tests like those for COVID-19 are forthcoming for the flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. Read More

Glioblastoma is one of the most deadly and recalcitrant cancers to impact the brain. The cancer forms masses of tumors on the surface of the brain while concurrently migrating and rooting itself in the neural pathways. Patients with glioblastoma—children and adults alike—are plagued with headaches, nausea, seizures and more. Worse still, the few immune therapies that exist are ineffective, harshly impact the brain, and create spillover effects on cognition, mood, behavior and bodily functions. The average survival rate has hovered, unchanged, at around eight months for many years. A study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine begins to build on an alternative which may invigorate the field. Read More

Tennessee decided to scrap $8.3 million in federal grants to combat HIV after Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro took aim at gender dysphoria treatment for minors. Read More

Social media influencer and former kickboxing champion Andrew Tate has been accused of raping a Moldovan woman and using deception and intimidation to “transform [other women] into slaves,” according to a Thursday report from Reuters. Romanian prosecutors allege Andrew Tate lured a Moldovan woman to Romania in February 2022 via a series of WhatsApp messages, Reuters reported, citing the 61-page court filing. She was promised a new life in exchange for her loyalty, according to the outlet. Reuters reviewed the WhatsApp messages and translated them from Romanian back into their original language of English. Reuters noted the prosecutors’ Romanian translations may not have been exactly the same as the original English versions. Read More

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who is now an independent, is considering a 2024 reelection bid after Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego jumped into the race. Read More