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Two hours after the Capitol was breached, as supporters of Donald Trump pummelled police and vandalised the building, Vice-President Mike Pence tried to assert control. In an urgent phone call to the acting defense secretary, he issued a startling demand.“Clear the Capitol,” Pence said.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, were making a similarly desperate appeal, asking the army to deploy the national guard.“We need help,” Schumer said, more than an hour after the Senate chamber had been breached.At the Pentagon, officials were discussing reports that state capitals were facing violence in what had the makings of a national insurrection.“We must establish order,” said Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, in a call with Pentagon leaders. But order would not be restored for hours.

The Pentagon document was obtained by the Associated Press. It adds another layer of understanding about the fear and panic while the insurrection played out, lays bare the inaction by Trump, and shows how his refusal to call off his supporters contributed to a slowed response by the military and law enforcement.

With Trump not engaged, it fell to Pentagon officials, a handful of senior White House aides, the leaders of Congress and Pence, holed up in a secure bunker, to attempt to manage the chaos.

One Ethiopian journalist was taken away by police officers as his distraught 10-year-old daughter clung to him. Another fled the country after she said armed men ransacked her home and threatened to kill her.

Six months into the war in Tigray, where thousands have died amid reports of widespread human rights abuses, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia has sought to quell critical coverage of the conflict with a campaign of arrests, intimidation and obstruction targeting the independent news media, according to human rights campaigners and media freedom organizations.

“It’s a sharply disappointing state of affairs given the hope and optimism of early 2018 when Mr. Abiy became prime minister,” said Muthoki Mumo, representative for sub-Saharan Africa for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

I fact checked every word uttered by this President from his inauguration day in January 2017 until September 2020 -- when the daily number of lies got so unmanageably high that I had to start taking a pass on some of his remarks to preserve my health.

Trump got even worse after November 3. Since then, he has spent the final months of what has been a wildly dishonest presidency on a relentless and dangerous lying spree about the election he lost.

The most telling lie: It didn't rain on his inaugurationclose dialogSign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Sign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Please enter aboveSign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.bx-group bx-group-default bx-group-1245864-3DW

Immediately after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, all corners of the political spectrum repudiated the mob of President Trump’s supporters. Yet within days, prominent Republicans, party officials, conservative media voices and rank-and-file voters began making a rhetorical shift to try to downplay the group’s violent actions.

In one of the ultimate don’t-believe-your-eyes moments of the Trump era, these Republicans have retreated to the ranks of misinformation, claiming it was Black Lives Matter protesters and far-left groups like antifa who stormed the Capitol — in spite of the pro-Trump flags and QAnon symbology in the crowd

But any window of reflection now seems to be closing as Republicans try to pass blame and to compare last summer’s lawlessness, which was condemned by Democrats, to an attack on Congress, which was inspired by Mr. Trump.

At a pivotal moment on January 6, the veteran United States Capitol Police officer single-handedly prevented untold bloodshed. Staring down an angry, advancing mob, he retreated up a marble staircase, calmly wielding his baton to delay his pursuers while calling out their position to his fellow officers. At the top of the steps, still alone and standing just a few yards from the chamber where senators and Vice President Mike Pence had been certifying the Electoral College’s vote,

f the GOP is to have a future outside the fever dreams of internet trolls, we have to call out falsehoods and conspiracy theories unequivocally. We have to repudiate people who peddle those lies.

The anger being directed today at major internet platforms—Twitter, Facebook, and Google, especially—is, in part, a consequence of the fading of traditional political authority. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes inadvertently, Americans have outsourced key parts of political life to Silicon Valley behemoths that were not designed to, and are not competent to, execute functions traditionally in the province of the government. The failure of our traditional political institutions and our traditional media to function as spaces for genuine political conversation has created a vacuum now filled by the social-media giants—who are even worse at the job.

As Washington, D.C., and state capitals enact security measures, solo actors may pose a threat in coming weeks as extremist groups are advising followers to avoid large rallies but remain opposed to the incoming administration, according to people who track such groups.

Nonetheless, extremism watchdog groups and former law-enforcement officials say there is still a threat from lone-wolf extremists who are inspired by such groups. The far-right groups, which don’t accept the legitimacy of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over President Trump, could become more aggressive in the coming months after security is lowered, the watchdogs and ex-officials said.

“These are people that honestly are intent on doing what it is they’re going to do under the cover of darkness. They’re going to do it in a way that people are not going to see them coming.”

The deadly breach at the Capitol last week will be a “significant driver of violence” for armed militia groups and racist extremists who are targeting the presidential inauguration next week, according to a joint intelligence bulletin issued by federal authorities.

The “boogaloo,” a movement that seeks to start a second civil war, and extremists aiming to trigger a race war “may exploit the aftermath of the Capitol breach by conducting attacks to destabilize and force a climactic conflict in the United States,”

The federal officials wrote that extremist groups have viewed the breach of the Capitol as a success and have been galvanized by the death of Ashli Babbitt, a QAnon follower who was shot by the police as she tried to enter the heavily protected Speaker’s Lobby, just outside the House chamber. The extremists could perceive that death as “an act of martyrdom,” according to the bulletin.

As a young student activist in 1980s Communist Poland, Tomasz Siemoniak —like many pro-democracy campaigners world-wide—looked up to America as a beacon of freedom.

China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, has already drawn a parallel between the riot in Washington and Hong Kong’s protests in 2019, accusing the U.S. of double standards as she expressed her “hope that the people of America will enjoy peace, stability and safety soon.”

“These recent events have stunned everyone, and in particularly the Belarusians, who saw the U.S. as an example of a stable, orderly democracy where honest elections are followed by a lawful transfer of power,” said Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to Mr. Lukashenko’s opponent in the disputed election, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. “We hope it was an aberration rather than the trend.

Protesters defied an emergency decree and confronted police in Chile's capital Monday, continuing violent clashes, arson and looting that have left at least 11 dead and led the president to say the country is "at war."

The unrest was triggered by a relatively minor increase in subway fares of less than 4% — but analysts have said the protests are fed by frustration from a long-building sense among many Chileans

Officials said it could take weeks or months to fully restore service.

The commander paces in front of a line of troops, preparing them for the day's mission."We are in our country. We are in Mexico. We are enforcing our laws," he says, his voice getting louder with each point he makes."Nobody is going to come here to trample on our laws," he continues. "Nobody is going come here to trample on our country, on our land."

"I would like to thank President López Obrador of Mexico for the great cooperation we are receiving, and for right now putting 27,000 troops on our southern border," Trump told the United Nations General Assembly last month. "Mexico is showing us great respect, and I respect them in return."A few days later, Trump told reporters he was "using Mexico to protect our border" because Democrats weren't doing enough to fix the immigration system.

Yes, US taxpayers have been footing the bill for efforts to build new physical barriers at the US-Mexico border.But experts note that Mexico's massive deployment of National Guard troops over the past few months has played a major role in blocking migrants from reaching the US border in the first place. It's a point Trump himself has made at several recent events -- a dramatic change in tone from his sharp criticisms of Mexico earlier this year.

The “shock therapy” reforms that speedily pushed Poland and other countries in the region into capitalism have come in for criticism, but Leszek Balcerowicz, the architect of Poland’s reforms, still believes they were the best option for the country in the circumstances. “If you move fast from a bad system to a better one, you release new forces for growth,

While communism left the region an economic basket case, it did also provide some of the seeds for growth: well-educated societies with low levels of inequality

Particularly in Poland, the transition led to a class of entrepreneurs like Grabski, rather than a small group of oligarchs. “We had the Solidarity movement in the factories and they were like a watchdog. So directors couldn’t go into shabby deals like in Russia,”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted Thursday on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in a set of long-running corruption cases, throwing his political future into doubt and heightening the uncertainty and chaos surrounding Israel’s fitful, yearlong struggle to choose its next leader.

“The public interest requires that we live in a country where no one is above the law,” Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said in a televised evening news conference.

“Law enforcement is not a choice,” he added. “This is not a matter of left or right. This is not a matter of politics.”

Activists describe the crisis as a legacy of generations of government policies of forced removal, land seizures and violence inflicted on Indigenous people. Hundreds of the missing never return, and families said they have struggled to find counseling and treatment for those who do. Some are trying to cope with the trauma of being trafficked. Some are confronting addiction or grappling with violence they suffered on the streets. Some had fled abuse at home and do not have a safe place to welcome them back.

Her family rejoiced after relatives and tribal police found her, but Ms. Sohappy said she felt humiliated to suddenly be known as a Missing Person reading local newspaper articles about her family’s search. One day, she walked into a convenience store in Toppenish and saw her own “Missing” poster on the wall. But when she tried to enroll in a tribal substance-abuse clinic, she said, she was told there was a two-week wait.“I kind of stopped trying,” Ms. Sohappy said.

“While I was gone I felt like nobody loved me and nobody cared about me,” she said. “We’re overlooked as a people.”A lack of support or follow-up from social workers or victims’ advocates makes it more likely that women and girls will go missing repeatedly. Some are written off as habitual runaways, activists said. In Washington State, Ms. Lucchesi has collected data showing that 83 percent of missing girls had been reported missing more than once.

The FBI and local law enforcement are working together regarding "threats of violence" and Virginia clergy leaders are urging prayer and peace as the state's capital braces for a guns rights rally on Monday -- a date which coincides with the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr's legacy.

Seven men accused of belonging to a white supremacist group called The Base were arrested this week in separate raids in Delaware, Georgia, Maryland and Wisconsin, according to authorities.

Federal authorities arrested a number of suspected neo-Nazis around the country this week out of concern that they were planning violent acts at Monday's gun rights rally in Richmond, a senior FBI official said Friday.

The tapioca pearls at Fred Liu’s bubble teahouse are springy and fresh, just like the fish balls at Elaine Lau’s noodle shop. But that is not the only reason customers flock to these eateries in Hong Kong’s bustling Causeway Bay shopping district.Both are members of the so-called yellow economy, shops that openly support the democracy movement remaking Hong Kong as it strives to protect the freedoms differentiating the territory from the rest of China.

After seven months of street protests against Beijing’s assault on these liberties, Hong Kong is color-coded — and bitterly divided. The yellow economy refers to the hue of umbrellas once used to defend demonstrators against pepper spray and streams of tear gas. That is in contrast to blue businesses, which support the police.

A middle ground between the blue and yellow factions barely exists.“I’m yellow, but my parents are blue,” said Ms. Lau, the fish ball noodle seller. “A lot of families are like that.”

Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are resting their re-election hopes on a strategy that calls more attention to what they’re against than what they support.

When the crowd is most engaged, including Thursday morning at a community pavilion in suburban Atlanta, Ms. Loeffler invokes President Trump or attacks her Democratic opponents as socialists and Marxists. Her own policy platforms are rarely mentioned.

But the race is also emblematic of each party’s current political messages. Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic Senate candidates, have put forth an array of policy proposals that blend the shared priorities of the moderate center and the progressive left: passing a new Voting Rights Act, expanding Medicaid without backing a single payer system, investment in clean energy while stopping short of the Green New Deal, and criminal justice reform that does not include defunding the police.

On the app, which had become a top download on Apple’s App Store, discussions over politics had ramped up. But so had conspiracy theories that falsely said the election had been stolen from Mr. Trump, with users urging aggressive demonstrations last week when Congress met to certify the election of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“Republicans have no way to communicate”

Parler has now become a test case in a renewed national debate over free speech on the internet and whether tech giants such as Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon have too much power. That debate has intensified since Mr. Trump was barred from posting on Twitter and Facebook last week after a violent mob, urged on by the president and his social media posts, stormed the Capitol.

In Wall Street Journal/NBC News surveys throughout 2020, a majority of about 60% of Republicans described themselves as supporters of the president rather than supporters of the GOP itself, and Mr. Trump earned a near-100% approval rating among those voters.

Many GOP lawmakers and strategists said Mr. Trump had helped the party by cementing its relationship with working-class voters while promoting an agenda of low-tax, center-right policies that could help the GOP regain support among suburban voters turned off by the president’s personal style. They pointed to the many GOP House candidates who drew more support than the president in the 2020 elections as evidence that the two voter groups can be bridged and that candidates can build coalitions that don’t rely heavily on Mr. Trump.

“Some of the suburban voters have been turned off for four years by Donald Trump’s manner and style,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.). “But they don’t want their taxes raised. They don’t want the police defunded. They don’t want open borders. In the meantime, the same policies appeal to a lot of the new voters who have joined our party over the last five years.”

"We start our medical journey amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and a national civil rights movement reinvigorated by the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery,"

Increasingly, medical professionals are joining protests for racial justice and acknowledging racism's impact on public health. For example, Black residents of Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is the county seat, have been disproportionately hurt by the coronavirus, as have Blacks in other parts of the United States. Though 13% of Allegheny County is Black, Black residents make up nearly 19% of cases and 30% of COVID-19 hospitalizations.

The new oath asks physicians to eliminate their personal biases, combat disinformation to improve health literacy and be an ally to minorities and other underserved groups in society.

I gave them a warning that still feels foreign, even eight months into this pandemic. “Leave your masks on!” They both gave a nod of agreement and were off.

In the beforetime, rather than a mask reminder, I would have told them when I expected them home, and after that I would not have given the matter a thought until they walked back in the house minutes before dinner, sweaty and tired, but happy.

But in Covid times, the longer they are gone the more a nag begins to build in my mind. Are they really leaving those masks on? They are the only kids I’ve ever seen wearing them at that park. Are they going to be responsible, or will they bend to social pressure? Am I doing the right thing letting them go? Is this really safe? Am I going to catch Covid because I let them go skating?