WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders in Congress and a pair of Republicans on Tuesday condemned President Trump for his response to protests around the country and in the capital, the day after peaceful demonstrators were gassed in front of the White House so he could pose for a photograph with a Bible.The rare bipartisan rebukes reflected a broad sense of alarm at the president’s behavior as protests of police violence and racial discrimination reach a boiling point throughout the country. They followed a remarkable spectacle that unfolded Monday evening, when the police fired flash-bang explosions and tear gas and used officers on horseback to drive away peaceful protesters as Mr. Trump appeared in the Rose Garden and threatened to send the United States military into states where governors could not bring protests under control.He then left the White House and, with Attorney General William P. Barr and other aides, crossed a park that had been cleared of demonstrators to have his picture taken holding the Bible outside a historic church that had been vandalized in the unrest.“After the president’s reality show ended last night, while the nation nervously watched the chaos that engulfs us, President Trump probably laid in bed pleased with himself for descending another rung on the dictatorial ladder,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor on Tuesday morning. “He probably wore out his remote control watching the clips of General Barr’s victory over the unarmed in the battle of Lafayette Square.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyHe added: “It’s all so sad, so pathetic, so weak.”On the other side of the Capitol, wielding her own Bible and quoting from the Book of Ecclesiastes, Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the president to focus on “a time to heal,” adding that the aggressive scene that played out in Washington on Monday had “no place” in the nation’s capital.

An area near Yellowstone National Park has been struck by nearly a dozen earthquakes on Friday, according to the US Geological Survey.West Yellowstone in Montana reported around eleven earthquakes on Friday, with the strongest one measuring a magnitude of 3.1. The area has been hit by an additional 34 quakes in the past month, according to Idaho Statesman.

The other quakes ranged between 1.6 to 3.1 magnitudes and were about three miles (4.8 km) deep.A swarm of earthquakes is not unusual for the area. Yellowstone is one of the most seismically active places in the US, experiencing around 700 to 3,000 earthquakes every year, according to the national park's website.The earthquakes tend to occur in clusters. The largest occurred in 1985 when more than 3,000 earthquakes were recorded in three months on the northwest side of the park.

cientists don't think Yellowstone's supervolcano would be erupting soon (at least not in the next thousand years). Despite it being the subject of many apocalypse fantasies, the odds of it erupting within a given year are one in 730,000, according to the US Geological Survey. It last erupted 174,000 years ago.However, in the unlikely case, the supervolcano was to erupt – with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs – it would cause massive destruction in the US, along with other devastating natural phenomenons, including acid rain.

The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced today that a new outbreak of Ebola virus disease is occurring in Wangata health zone, Mbandaka, in Équateur province. The announcement comes as a long, difficult and complex Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is in its final phase, while the country also battles COVID-19 and the world’s largest measles outbreak. Initial information from the Ministry of Health is that six Ebola cases have so far been detected in Wangata, of which four have died and two are alive and under care. Three of these six cases have been confirmed with laboratory testing. It is likely more people will be identified with the disease as surveillance activities increase. “This is a reminder that COVID-19 is not the only health threat people face,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “Although much of our attention is on the pandemic, WHO is continuing to monitor and respond to many other health emergencies.”This is the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 11th outbreak of Ebola since the virus was first discovered in the country in 1976. The city of Mbandaka and its surrounding area were the site of Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 9th Ebola outbreak, which took place from May to July 2018. “It’s happening at a challenging time, but WHO has worked over the last two years with health authorities, Africa CDC and other partners to strengthen national capacity to respond to outbreaks,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “To reinforce local leadership, WHO plans to send a team to support scaling up the response. Given the proximity of this new outbreak to busy transport routes and vulnerable neighbouring countries we must act quickly.”WHO is already on the ground in Mbandaka supporting the response to this outbreak, as part of capacity built during the 2018 outbreak. The team supported the collection and testing of samples, and reference to the national laboratory for confirmation. Contact tracing is underway. Work is ongoing to send additional supplies from North Kivu and from Kinshasa to support the government-led response. A further 25 people are expected to arrive in Mbandaka tomorrow. WHO is also working to ensure that essential health services are provided to communities despite these emergency events.The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 10th outbreak of Ebola, in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces, is in its final stages. On 14 May 2020, the Ministry of Health began the 42-day countdown to the declaration of the end of that outbreak. New outbreaks of Ebola are expected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo given the existence of the virus in an animal reservoir in many parts of the country. 

WASHINGTON - Already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression, cities across the United States smoldered on Tuesday after a seventh consecutive night of protests and civil unrest related to the death of African American George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police last week.   As business owners and residents yet again clean up the debris, there is growing concern that the economic damage to many of the communities where violence is taking place will persist long after the last window pane is replaced and the last burned out car is towed away. Businesses and neighborhoods where protests have turned violent will have to contend not just with the aftermath of the protests, but with multiple aggravating factors that will make recovery even more difficult. 

Many businesses had already been pushed to the edge of solvency by months of lockdown related to the coronavirus, and the slow and careful re-openings envisioned by many state and local leaders were not designed to allow commerce to rebound to pre-pandemic levels immediately.  Layered on top of that is the Depression-level unemployment currently afflicting the nation and the prospect of an economy that will, at the very least, be in recession for the foreseeable future. On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office delivered an analysis to Congress warning that the virus will adversely impact the economy through much of the next decade, cutting some $8 trillion from Gross Domestic Product over that period. Another distinct possibility is a second wave of the coronavirus, either arising naturally or helped along by massive protests in which people have been gathering in close proximity. The understandable rage at the death of Floyd, who was handcuffed by police and died  after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, sparked protests in well over 100 cities across the country. His death has become the most potent recent symbol of a system in which black Americans are, with disturbing regularity, abused and even killed by law enforcement officers, frequently on camera. And while the vast majority of the protesters have been non-violent, in many cases there have been incidents of property destruction and looting, as well as attacks on police officers.

Demonstrators from Australia to Europe identified with the cause of US protests and urged their own governments to address racism and police violence. Opponents of the United States's foreign policy under President Donald Trump, meanwhile, took the opportunity to pour scorn on the violence that has engulfed the country after the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by police officers in the city of Minneapolis last week.  

Thousands of protesters marched through downtown Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday, voicing their solidarity with Americans demonstrating against Floyd's killing.

Protesters in Australia's largest city chanted, "I can’t breathe" - some of the final words of both Floyd and David Dungay, a 26-year-old Aboriginal man who died in a Sydney prison in 2015 while being restrained by five guards. Demonstrators carried placards reading, "Black Lives Matter", "Aboriginal Lives Matter", and "White Silence is Violence."

The latest polling data from the company YouGov show Vietnam to lead the list of countries most supportive of their governments’ efforts to combat COVID-19. To be exact, 95% of Vietnamese people think their government is handling the pandemic “very” or “somewhat” well. But this doesn’t mean the Vietnamese people are letting down their guard. Of the 26 countries measured by the YouGov researchers, Vietnam also exhibits the highest level of COVID-19 fear; 89% of the Vietnamese population are “very” or “somewhat” concerned they will contract the disease. This finding is interesting, as one might assume that fear should drop to the extent that citizens believe their government has things under control. Then again, unprecedented events often produce unexpected results.

Other countries that are handling the crisis well, at least in the eyes of its citizens, include India, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Canada, and Finland. Where does the United States stand? Toward the bottom of the pack. According to the most recent YouGov polling data, less than half (49%) of Americans think the government is handling the pandemic “very” or “somewhat” well. This squares with other polling data in the United States. A recent Pew Research poll, for instance, found that 65% of Americans felt that the federal government was too slow to take major steps to address the threat posed by COVID-19.

The three countries where citizens show the weakest support of their governments’ handling of the pandemic are Spain, France, and Japan. In each of these countries, less than 40% of people are supportive of their governments’ handling of the crisis. And then there’s the case of Sweden. Interestingly, the data show a significant increase in Swedish citizens’ support of the way their government has handled the crisis. Currently, 57% of Swedes think their government is handling the pandemic “very” or “somewhat” well compared to 41% a month ago. This may have to do with the fact that more Swedes are buying into the government’s contrarian approach to managing the crisis. Unlike most of the developed world, Sweden decided not to close businesses and schools. A recent article in Bloomberg suggests that COVID-19 infections and fatalities are beginning to plateau in Sweden and the popularity of Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has soared.

Donald Trump wants his impeachment trial to end before his state of the union address in just two weeks’ time, Lindsey Graham said on Sunday.

“His mood is, to go to the state of the union [on 4 February] with this behind him and talk about what he wants to do for the rest of 2020 and what he wants to do for the next four years,” the South Carolina senator and close Trump ally told Fox News Sunday.

That timeline is ambitious, given overwhelming public support for a fair airing of the charges against Trump at his Senate trial, in which opening arguments will be heard on Tuesday. Graham conceded that a swift dismissal of the charges, which he had hoped for, will not be possible.

Record global greenhouse gas emissions are putting the world on a path toward unacceptable warming, with serious implications for development prospects in Africa.

But IPCC, the world’s foremost authority for assessing the science of climate change, says it is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5° C—if, and only if, there are “rapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities.” For sub-Saharan Africa, which has experienced more frequent and more intense climate extremes over the past decades, the ramifications of the world’s warming by more than 1.5° C would be profound. Temperature increases in the region are projected to be higher than the global mean temperature increase; regions in Africa within 15 degrees of the equator are projected to experience an increase in hot nights as well as longer and more frequent heat waves.

As part of the Paris Agreement, countries made national commitments to take steps to reduce emissions and build resilience. The treaty also called for increased financial support from developed countries to assist the climate action efforts of developing countries. But even at the time that the Paris Agreement was adopted, it was recognized that the commitments on the table would not be enough. Even if the countries did everything they promised, global temperatures would rise by 3° C this century. According to the IPCC, projections show that the western Sahel region will experience the strongest drying, with a significant increase in the maximum length of dry spells. The IPCC expects Central Africa to see a decrease in the length of wet spells and a slight increase in heavy rainfall.

At least 80 Yemeni soldiers attending prayers at a mosque were killed and 130 others injured in ballistic missile and drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen reported Sunday

Yemen has been embroiled in a yearslong civil war that has pitted a coalition backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Yemen's Ministry of Defense said the attack was "to avenge the killing of the Iranian terrorist Qasem Soleimani," who died in a US drone strike in Iraq on January 3. The ministry offered no evidence to show how it might know the rebels' motive.Read MoreThe attack does come, however, as several nations in the Middle East ready themselves for retaliatory attacks by Iranian-backed militias.Yemen's Defense Ministry said "the armed forces will remain the solid rock that breaks the ambitions" of Iran's goal of destabilizing security in Yemen and the wider region, according to a statement carried by Yemeni state news agency Saba.The Houthis did not make any immediate claim of responsibility.