TheNewsGuru

Tag: US

  • Wizkid’s ‘Come Closer’ certified platinum in UK, gold in Australia

    Wizkid’s ‘Come Closer’ certified platinum in UK, gold in Australia

    Afro-pop star, Wizkid, has achieved another landmark with his 2017 song, Come Closer, which features Canadian superstar, Drake. The song has been certified platinum in the UK and gold in Australia. His new achievement comes shortly after the iconic singer bagged a Grammy Award.

    TheNewsGuru reports that Wizkid won the Best Music Video for his song with Beyoncé; Brown Skin Girl, from Lion King: The Gift album.

    According to the BRITS Certified Awards website, songs are awarded platinum status when they achieve 600,000 units of sales. The records are awarded the gold status for 400,000 units and silver for 200,000 units, but this would be based on Official Charts Company data.

    Leandro Hidalgo, who is the mixing engineer for the song, Come Closer, took to his Instagram account to show off a plaque for the achievement.

    In the same vein, a tweet from Africa Facts Zone revealed the latest feat achieved by Wizkid.

    The tweet read, “Wizkid’s Come Closer ft. Drake has gone Platinum (600,000 sales) in the UK and Gold (35,000 sales) in Australia.”

  • Teenager kills eight persons in US mass shooting

    Teenager kills eight persons in US mass shooting

    A 19-year-old has shot and killed eight people, injuring several others at a FedEx Corp. facility in Indianapolis, United States.

    The incident happened on Thursday night, in which the gunman also shot himself dead, the city’s police said.

    The Indianapolis incident is the third shooting of this scale in recent weeks.

    The shooting suspect has been identified as Brandon Hole, according to law-enforcement officials. Mr. Hole is a former employee of the company, a person familiar with the matter said.

    Around 11 pm Thursday, the suspect arrived at the FedEx Ground facility’s parking lot, got out of his car and started shooting at people, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Deputy Chief Craig McCartt said at a news conference Friday morning. The man then entered the building, shooting at more people before killing himself.

    When police arrived, they found “an active and chaotic crime scene,” Deputy Chief McCartt said. The incident lasted only a few minutes, and by the time police went inside the facility, “the situation was over,” he said.

    FedEx declined to name the suspect, but spokesperson Jim Masilak told CNN, “We can confirm that the perpetrator was a former employee at the facility.”

    “Further questions about the perpetrator should be direct to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department,” he added.

    According to authorities, the gunman opened fire outside, wounding several others and sending witnesses running before taking his own life.

    The suspect in the Indianapolis mass shooting was known to federal and local authorities prior to the attack. A family member of the suspected shooter reached out to authorities warning about the suspect’s potential for violence, according to three law enforcement sources briefed on the matter.

    It was not clear when the warning was given but the outreach was followed up by both local authorities and FBI, which opened a preliminary investigation into any possible threat, the sources said.

    The FBI eventually closed their inquiry after concluding there wasn’t sufficient evidence to continue it, according to the sources who did not specify why federal investigators dropped the matter.

    The suspect has not been publicly identified.

    The FBI is helping Indianapolis Metro Police Department “on the search of the suspect’s home,” the FBI special agent in charge Paul Keenan said at a Friday morning news conference.

    Asked whether authorities had any indication this attack would occur, police said no.

  • U.S. economy recession worst performance since 1946 -Report

    U.S. economy recession worst performance since 1946 -Report

    The U.S. economy contracted at its sharpest pace since World War 11 in 2020, as COVID-19 ravaged services businesses like restaurants and airlines, throwing millions of Americans out of work and into poverty.

    The economy contracted 3.5 per cent in 2020, the worst performance since 1946.

    That followed 2.2 per cent growth in 2019 and was the first annual decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since the 2007-09 Great Recession. The economy plunged into recession last February.

    A report on Thursday from the Commerce Department’s snapshot of fourth-quarter GDP showed the recovery from the pandemic losing steam.

    This comes as the year wound down amid a resurgence in coronavirus infections and exhaustion of nearly three trillion dollars in relief money from the government.

    The Federal Reserve on Wednesday left its benchmark overnight interest rate near zero and pledged to continue injecting money into the economy through bond purchases.

    It showed “the pace of the recovery in economic activity and employment has moderated in recent months.”

    President Joe Biden has unveiled a recovery plan worth 1.9 trillion dollars, and could use the GDP report, the survey said.

    Biden is expected to lean on some lawmakers who have balked at the price tag soon after the government provided nearly 900 billion dollars in additional stimulus at the end of December.

    In the fourth quarter, GDP increased at a 4.0 per cent annualised rate as the virus and lack of another spending package curtailed consumer spending.

    The pandemic partially overshadowed robust manufacturing and the housing market. GDP growth for the last quarter was in line with forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists.

    The big step-back after a historic 33.4 per cent growth pace in the July-September period left GDP well below its level at the end of 2019.

    With the virus not yet under control, economists are expecting growth to further slowdown in the first quarter of 2021, before regaining speed by summer as the additional stimulus kicks in and more Americans get vaccinated.

    The services sector has borne the brunt of the coronavirus recession, disproportionately impacting lower-wage earners, who tend to be women and minorities.

    That has led to a so-called K-shaped recovery, where better-paid workers are doing well while lower-paid workers are losing out.

    The stars of the recovery have been the housing market and manufacturing as those who are still employed seek larger homes away from city centres.

    The stars of the recovery also have been the buying of electronics for home offices and schooling. Manufacturing’s share of GDP has increased to 11.9 per cent from 11.6 per cent at the end of 2019.

    A survey last week by professors at the Universities of Chicago and Notre Dame showed poverty increased by 2.4 per cent points to 11.8 per cent in the second half of 2020, boosting the ranks of the poor by 8.1 million people.

    Rising poverty was underscored by persistent labour market weakness. In a separate report on Thursday, the Labour Department said 847,000 more people filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week.

    The economy shed jobs in December for the first time in eight months. Only 12.4 million of the 22.2 million jobs lost in March and April have been recovered.

  • UNWatch to Museveni: Congratulations on winning re-election after murdering, silencing opponents, committing widespread voter fraud

    UNWatch to Museveni: Congratulations on winning re-election after murdering, silencing opponents, committing widespread voter fraud

    The United Nations Watch, a human rights organisation, has accused Uganda President Yoweri Museveni of silencing his opponents to be re-elected in office.

    The organisation alleged that Museveni committed “widespread voter fraud” to win the just-concluded presidential election.

    UN Watch is a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) “dedicated to holding the United Nations accountable to its founding principles.”

    Writing via its Twitter handle on Monday, it tackled the 76-year-old for shutting down the country’s internet ahead of an election which his challenger described as a “joke.”

    “Congratulations to Uganda President Yoweri Museveni on winning re-election after .murdering, imprisoning and silencing opponents, shutting down the internet, and committing widespread voter fraud,” it wrote.

    Museveni polled 5.85 million votes to defeat Bobi Wine, main opposition candidate, who secured 3.48 million.

    But Wine whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi rejected the election results, saying he has evidence of widespread voting fraud.

    “We secured a comfortable victory. I am very confident that we defeated the dictator by far,” he had said.

    “The people of Uganda voted massively for change of leadership from a dictatorship to a democratic government. But Mr. Museveni is trying to paint a picture that he is in the lead. What a joke!”

    Museveni has so far spent 35 years as president of the East African country. He was first elected in 1986.

  • US, UK, France made COVID-19 Vaccines completely untrustworthy – Iran

    US, UK, France made COVID-19 Vaccines completely untrustworthy – Iran

    Iran’s supreme leader on Friday banned the import of American and British-produced vaccines against COVID-19, saying they were “completely untrustworthy”.

    “Importing vaccines made in the US or the UK is prohibited,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a tweet, accompanied by the hashtag #CoronaVaccine.

    “It’s not unlikely they would want to contaminate other nations,” he added.

    The Islamic republic has reported more than 1.2 million cases of the novel coronavirus, which have caused over 56,000 deaths.

    Iran has accused arch-enemy the US of hampering its access to vaccines through a tough sanctions regime.

    While food and medicine are technically exempt from the measures, international banks tend to refuse transactions involving Iran.

    Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said last month that Washington had demanded that Tehran pay for the drugs through US banks, adding that he feared the United States would seize the money.

    Khamenei also tweeted that “given our experience with France’s HIV-tainted blood supplies, French vaccines aren’t trustworthy either.”

    That was a reference to a scandal in the 1980s in which blood infected with HIV was distributed in France, and later abroad, even after the government became aware of the problem.

    Hundreds of people in Iran were among those infected.

    France’s then-prime minister Laurent Fabius was charged with manslaughter, but acquitted in 1999, while his health minister was convicted but never punished.

    Iran last month launched clinical trials of a vaccine developed in the Islamic republic, the Middle Eastern country hardest hit by the pandemic.

  • US: Leaders must not cling to power-Jonathan

    US: Leaders must not cling to power-Jonathan

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan has averred that nobody’s political ambition is worth the blood of any citizen anywhere in the world.

    He stated that there was a need for leaders to resist the urge to hold on to power.

    He made this known in a Facebook post moments after the United States Congress came under attack by supporters of President Donald Trump.

    TheNewsGuru recalls that Jonathan had congratulated his opponent, Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, even before the election results were fully announced.

    Jonathan wrote, “I have repeatedly said nobody’s political ambition is worth the blood of any citizen, in any part of the world. Absolutely nobody. Again, I reiterate that it is better to lose power at the cost of gaining peace than to gain power at the price of losing the peace.

    “As a leader, one must not just look unto one’s own interest, but the interest and the good of society. It is never too late to reject the venom and inject the serum of peace.

    “It is necessary to state that the highest purpose of leadership is to bring people together, even those that do not share in your philosophy. And you do not need an office to do that. All you need to achieve that height of leadership is conscience. Let us be men of conscience at this hour.”

     

  • US Congress set to seal Biden’s electoral win over Trump

    US Congress set to seal Biden’s electoral win over Trump

    President Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn the presidential election is going before Congress as lawmakers convene for a joint session to confirm the Electoral College vote won by Joe Biden.

    The typically routine proceeding Wednesday will be anything but, a political confrontation unseen since the aftermath of the Civil War as Trump mounts a desperate effort to stay in office. The president’s Republican allies in the House and Senate plan to object to the election results, heeding supporters’ plea to “fight for Trump” as he stages a rally outside the White House. It’s tearing the party apart.

    The longshot effort is all but certain to fail, defeated by bipartisan majorities in Congress prepared to accept the results. Biden, who won the Electoral College 306-232, is set to be inaugurated Jan. 20.

    “The most important part is that, in the end, democracy will prevail here,” Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, among those managing the proceedings, said in an interview.

    The joint session of Congress, required by law, will convene at 1 p.m. EST under a watchful, restless nation — months after the the Nov. 3 election, two weeks before the inauguration’s traditional peaceful transfer of power and against the backdrop of a surging COVID-19 pandemic.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who warned his party off this challenge, is expected to deliver early remarks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, set to gavel proceedings on her side of the Capitol, called it a day of “enormous historic significance.” It is about “guaranteeing trust in our democratic system,” she said in a letter to colleagues.

    But it is Vice President Mike Pence who will be closely watched as he presides over the session.

    Despite Trump’s repeated claims of voter fraud, election officials and his own former attorney general have said there were no problems on a scale that would change the outcome. All the states have certified their results as fair and accurate, by Republican and Democratic officials alike.

  • No politician can seize power in America – Biden

    No politician can seize power in America – Biden

    US President-elect, Joe Biden has said no politician can seize power in America, as the will of the people will always prevail.

    Biden won the presidential election in November, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump.

    But Trump has refused to accept defeat and has been trying to discredit the poll overwhelmingly given to Biden by over 75 million Americans.

    Trump has lost several court bids to discredit the poll and claim victory through the back door and he is not giving up yet.

    The president-elect, in a tweet, said the American people would never allow politicians to seize power as their will must always prevail.

    “In America, politicians can’t assert, take, or seize power. It has to be given by the American people.

    “We can’t ever give that up. The will of the people must always prevail,” he tweeted.

  • U.S. county where COVID-19 infects 9 to 10 people every minute

    U.S. county where COVID-19 infects 9 to 10 people every minute

    An average of nine to 10 people in Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the United States (U.S.), currently test positive for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) every minute, local health officials said.

    The county’s Department of Public Health reported 13,661 new COVID-19 infections and 73 more deaths in a daily release, pushing its cumulative cases up to 733,325 with 9,555 related deaths.

    Officials estimated there were delayed reports of 432 additional deaths due to outages and the holiday weekend.

    Los Angeles County has been recording its caseload of over 13,000 a day, with some days over 15,000, while it just saw an average of about 1,200 cases some days before the current surge which began 58 days ago, said the department.

    There are 6,914 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in the county, 20 percent of whom are in intensive care.

    Since Nov. 9, average daily hospitalisations for COVID-19 patients have increased by more than 670 per cent, and the average daily deaths have increased 600 per cent, from 12 a day in early-November to 84 a day in mid-December, according to the department.

    Officials have urged people who traveled outside of the county to quarantine for 10 days upon return.

    The department said that a total of 66,628 frontline healthcare workers at acute care hospitals across the county have received their first doses as of last Saturday,.

    It added that county, city, and curative teams were working together to accelerate vaccinations at skilled nursing facilities over the next two weeks.

    Vaccinations at other long-term care facilities will happen through the federal pharmacy partnership with Walgreens and CVS and are likely to begin in early January.

    “Let’s give our hospitals a fighting chance to handle the flood of COVID-19 patients who are arriving every day.

    “We thank everyone who has done and continues to do the right thing to help slow this surge,” Barbara Ferrer, the public health director in Los Angeles County, said in the daily release.

    “Reducing the number of new cases is the only way to stop this surge.

    “The urgency to take every preventative measure possible is upon us, otherwise the coronavirus transmission trajectory we see here continues, with its devastating impact on hospitals and people,” she added.

    A regional stay-at-home order for Southern California, which was due to expire on Monday, will likely be extended due to the worsening pandemic.

    The remaining ICU capacity in Southern California region is still zero as of Monday.

    According to the state government, the stay-at-home order will be in place for at least three weeks, and regions will be eligible to exit from the order on Dec. 28 if ICU capacity projections for the following month are above or equal to 15 per cent.

    The new stay-at-home order took effect on Dec. 6 in Southern California after the region’s ICU capacity dropped below 15 per cent.

  • US places Nigeria on religious freedom blacklist with Saudi Arabia, China, others

    US places Nigeria on religious freedom blacklist with Saudi Arabia, China, others

    The United States on Monday placed Nigeria for the first time on a religious freedom blacklist, paving the way for potential sanctions if it does not improve its record.

    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated the US ally as a “Country of Particular Concern” for religious freedom, alongside nations that include China, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

    Pompeo did not elaborate on the reasons for including Nigeria, which has a delicate balance between Muslims and Christians.

    But US law requires such designations for nations that either engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom.”

    Pompeo notably did not include India, which has a growing relationship with Washington, and was infuriated by a recommendation from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to include the secular but Hindu-majority nation over what it called a sharp downward turn under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    Other nations on the blacklist are Eritrea, Myanmar, North Korea, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

    – Improve or face sanctions –
    Pompeo removed from a second-tier watchlist both Uzbekistan and Sudan, whose relations with the United States have rapidly warmed after the ousting of dictator Omar al-Bashir and its recent agreement to recognize Israel.

    On Nigeria, an annual State Department report published earlier this year took note of concerns both at the federal and state levels.

    It pointed to the mass detention of members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, a Shiite Muslim group that has been at loggerheads with the government for decades and was banned by a court.

    The group has taken inspiration from Iran, ordinarily a major target of President Donald Trump’s administration.

    However, Nigeria has been widely criticized for its treatment of the movement, including in a 2015 clash in which hundreds were said to have died.