The US Justice Department has unraveled its biggest cryptocurrency theft, it seized more than $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin stolen in a 2016 hack from the Bitfinex currency exchange.

US makes largest financial seizure ever, seizes $3.6 bn in Bitcoin stolen in 2016

To boost Taiwan’s defences against an increasingly aggressive China, the Biden administration has approved a $100 million support contract with the government of the island. It includes the sale of equipment and services. &nbsp;

On Monday, the State Department announced the engineering and maintenance agreement. &nbsp;&nbsp;

As per the agreement, the US will help Taiwan in maintaining its existing air-defence missiles and advanced US-made Patriot missiles, which the country is acquiring. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/will-find-compromises-no-nord-stream-2-if-russia-invades-ukraine-says-biden-451357" hreflang="en">'Find compromises': No Nord Stream 2 if Russia invades Ukraine, says Biden</a>

On Twitter, Taiwan's defence ministry also conveyed its thanks to the US for the approval to the agreement. &nbsp;&nbsp;

US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, in a statement, said that it had delivered the required certification notifying Congress following State Department’s approval for the sale, which was urged by Taiwan's de facto embassy in Washington. &nbsp;

In a statement, the DSCA said that upgrades to the Patriot Air Defense System would "help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, economic and progress in the region." &nbsp;&nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/before-crucial-trip-to-russia-french-president-emmanuel-macron-talks-to-us-president-joe-biden-451105" hreflang="en">Before crucial trip to Russia, Macron talks to Biden</a>

"This proposed sale serves US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient's continuing efforts to modernise its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability," the agency added. &nbsp;&nbsp;

The main contractors in the deal would be Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin, it said. &nbsp;&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

To boost Taiwan’s defences against an increasingly aggressive China, the Biden administration has approved a $100 million support contract with the government of the island.

To boost Taiwan’s defences against an increasingly aggressive China, the Biden administration has approved a $100 million support contract with the government of the island. It includes the sale of equipment and services. On Monday, the State Department announced the engineering and maintenance agreement. As per the agreement, the US will help Taiwan in maintaining its existing air-defence missiles and advanced US-made Patriot missiles, which the country is acquiring. Also Read: 'Find compromises': No Nord Stream 2 if Russia invades Ukraine, says Biden On Twitter, Taiwan's defence ministry also conveyed its thanks to the US for the approval to the agreement. US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, in a statement, said that it had delivered the required certification notifying Congress following State Department’s approval for the sale, which was urged by Taiwan's de facto embassy in Washington. In a statement, the DSCA said that upgrades to the Patriot Air Defense System would "help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, economic and progress in the region." Also Read: Before crucial trip to Russia, Macron talks to Biden "This proposed sale serves US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient's continuing efforts to modernise its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability," the agency added. The main contractors in the deal would be Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin, it said. (With inputs from agencies)

To boost defences against aggressive China, US approves $100 million support deal with Taiwan

Ahead of resumption of indirect talks between the US and Iran, oil prices have eased today morning which may revive a nuclear deal, it could lead to removal of sanctions on oil sales and it can increase global supplies.

Oil slips from seven-year highs ahead of US-Iran talks

Amid Russia's troop build up near Ukraine and the west deployment in eastern Europe, an intense week of diplomacy to ease the conflict has begun. Meanwhile, the United States and the European Union held talks to discuss Europe's energy supply as tensions mount.

US-EU talks on energy supply amid Russia-Ukraine conflict

American-born Chinese athlete&nbsp;Zhu Yi has been facing intense criticism of Chinese social media platform Weibo after her disappointing show at the ongoing Winter Olympics 2022 in Beijing, China. Zhu Yi had given up her US citizenship and changed her name from Beverly Zu to Zhu Yi, in order to compete for the host nation at the Beijing Winter Games.

In what was a forgetful debut for the 19-year-old, Zhu Yi fell twice during the women's short program team event at the Beijing Winter Games. The figure skater had started her performance amidst cheers at the Beijing Indoor Stadium, however, she was reduced to tears on the ice court by the end of it.

Zhu failed to land a jump and fell down in the opening combination before messing up another jump in the short program. After falling twice, she managed a score o only 47.03 as China suffered a jolt in the team event. China slipped from the third spot to the fifth spot after Zhu's disappointing show.

The 19-year-old was seen in tears after her debut performance but she was not spared by the Chinese public on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. 'Zhu Yi has fallen'&nbsp;started trending on the social media platform soon after her disappointing show as the US-born figure skater was subjected to intense criticism with some even questioning her loyalty towards China.

"Please let her learn Chinese first, before she talks about patriotism," wrote a Weibo user, as per Dailymail.UK.

"Zhu Yi, how ridiculous your performance is! How dare you skate for China? You cannot even hold a candle to an amateur," said another.

While there was immense&nbsp;backlash from all corners, some also offered support to the US-born Chinese figure skater and condemned the criticism directed towards her.

<img alt="Zhu Yi" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="91daed00-c403-4abd-aa63-9a020e2e8130" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Zhu.png" />

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/my-bones-are-sticking-out-i-cry-every-day-russian-athlete-claims-food-at-beijing-winter-olympics-inedible-451017">'My bones are sticking out, I cry every day': Russian athlete claims food at Beijing Winter Olympics inedible</a>

Zhu was born in Los Angeles to Chinese parents and was named Beverly. She started figure skating at the tender age of seven and decided to change her name and give up her American citizenship after winning the novice division Figure Skating Championships in California, US.

She started a new life in China with the name Zhu Yi and subsequently secured a spot in the Chinese figure skating team for the ongoing Beijing Winter Olympics 2022. She was clearly under pressure ahead of her debut at the Winter Games and said she was 'upset and embarrassed' with her performance.

"I'm upset and a little embarrassed, I counted over and over again last night to see how many points I need to collect today to help my team advance," Zhu told the media, as per Dailymail.UK.

"I guess I felt a lot of pressure because I know everybody in China was pretty surprised with the selection for ladies' singles and I just really wanted to show them what I was able to do but unfortunately I didn't,"&nbsp;she added.&nbsp;

American-born Chinese athlete Zhu Yi has been facing intense criticism of Chinese social media platform Weibo after her disappointing show at the ongoing Winter Olympics 2022 in Beijing, China.

American-born Chinese athlete Zhu Yi has been facing intense criticism of Chinese social media platform Weibo after her disappointing show at the ongoing Winter Olympics 2022 in Beijing, China. Zhu Yi had given up her US citizenship and changed her name from Beverly Zu to Zhu Yi, in order to compete for the host nation at the Beijing Winter Games. In what was a forgetful debut for the 19-year-old, Zhu Yi fell twice during the women's short program team event at the Beijing Winter Games. The figure skater had started her performance amidst cheers at the Beijing Indoor Stadium, however, she was reduced to tears on the ice court by the end of it. Zhu failed to land a jump and fell down in the opening combination before messing up another jump in the short program. After falling twice, she managed a score o only 47.03 as China suffered a jolt in the team event. China slipped from the third spot to the fifth spot after Zhu's disappointing show. The 19-year-old was seen in tears after her debut performance but she was not spared by the Chinese public on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. 'Zhu Yi has fallen' started trending on the social media platform soon after her disappointing show as the US-born figure skater was subjected to intense criticism with some even questioning her loyalty towards China. "Please let her learn Chinese first, before she talks about patriotism," wrote a Weibo user, as per Dailymail.UK. "Zhu Yi, how ridiculous your performance is! How dare you skate for China? You cannot even hold a candle to an amateur," said another. While there was immense backlash from all corners, some also offered support to the US-born Chinese figure skater and condemned the criticism directed towards her. Also Read: 'My bones are sticking out, I cry every day': Russian athlete claims food at Beijing Winter Olympics inedible Zhu was born in Los Angeles to Chinese parents and was named Beverly. She started figure skating at the tender age of seven and decided to change her name and give up her American citizenship after winning the novice division Figure Skating Championships in California, US. She started a new life in China with the name Zhu Yi and subsequently secured a spot in the Chinese figure skating team for the ongoing Beijing Winter Olympics 2022. She was clearly under pressure ahead of her debut at the Winter Games and said she was 'upset and embarrassed' with her performance. "I'm upset and a little embarrassed, I counted over and over again last night to see how many points I need to collect today to help my team advance," Zhu told the media, as per Dailymail.UK. "I guess I felt a lot of pressure because I know everybody in China was pretty surprised with the selection for ladies' singles and I just really wanted to show them what I was able to do but unfortunately I didn't," she added.

Zhu Yi, who gave up US citizenship to compete for China, slammed after poor show at Beijing Winter Olympics

San Francisco-born Eileen Gu, who lifted the host country to the top of the medals table at the Beijing Olympics with a Freeski Big Air gold on Tuesday, remained evasive on whether she was still holding an American passport.

China does not allow dual nationality, and state media have previously reported that the 18-year-old renounced her U.S. citizenship after she became a Chinese national at the age of 15.

Gu would not confirm that on Tuesday.

"So I grew up spending 25-30% (of my time) in China. I`m fluent in Mandarin and English and fluent culturally in both," she answered when asked if she was still an American citizen.

"So coming here, I really feel there was a sense of coming home. I feel just as American as Chinese. I don`t feel I`m taking advantage of one or another. They understand that my mission is to foster a connection between countries and not a divisive force."

When the reporter asked again, the news conference moderator interjected: "Next question, please."

The fashion model and incoming Stanford University student whose Weibo following has ballooned to almost three million from just under two million on Monday says she feels at home in China.

"There`s like a tower here you can see from the top of the course. And I`m also seeing it from my house in Beijing," she explained, where her face is ubiquitous in advertising.

ALSO READ:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/beijing-winter-olympics-tennis-star-peng-shuai-watches-as-eileen-gu-puts-china-atop-medals-table-451392">Beijing Winter Olympics: Tennis star Peng Shuai watches as Eileen Gu puts China atop medals table</a>

In 2019, China relaxed rules that had been in force for more than a decade barring national team athletes from taking part in commercial activities without approval, paving the way for Gu to become the face of Chinese brands from the Bank of China and China Mobile to Mengniu Dairy and Luckin Coffee.

Hugely popular in China, Gu has had a better Olympics so far than Zhu Yi, the figure skater who gave up American citizenship in 2018 to compete for China and was blasted on Weibo when she fell during her short programme in the team event on Sunday.

The hashtag "Zhu Yi has fallen" later disappeared from Weibo. Gu offered her support.

"I just met Zhu a few days ago. I went to see her training. She`s such a nice person. She`s amazing. Whoever qualifies the Olympics is already amazing," she said.

"Making mistakes under huge pressure is part of sports. We should have sportsmanship and we can`t always do our best on the platform, but the most important thing is she`s safe and she enjoys the process.

"Of course, everyone hopes she can do better, but she is the one who hopes she could do better the most. I hope people can understand her more."

San Francisco-born Eileen Gu, who lifted the host country to the top of the medals table at the Beijing Olympics with a Freeski Big Air gold on Tuesday, remained evasive on whether she was still holding an American passport.

San Francisco-born Eileen Gu, who lifted the host country to the top of the medals table at the Beijing Olympics with a Freeski Big Air gold on Tuesday, remained evasive on whether she was still holding an American passport. China does not allow dual nationality, and state media have previously reported that the 18-year-old renounced her U.S. citizenship after she became a Chinese national at the age of 15. Gu would not confirm that on Tuesday. "So I grew up spending 25-30% (of my time) in China. I`m fluent in Mandarin and English and fluent culturally in both," she answered when asked if she was still an American citizen. "So coming here, I really feel there was a sense of coming home. I feel just as American as Chinese. I don`t feel I`m taking advantage of one or another. They understand that my mission is to foster a connection between countries and not a divisive force." When the reporter asked again, the news conference moderator interjected: "Next question, please." The fashion model and incoming Stanford University student whose Weibo following has ballooned to almost three million from just under two million on Monday says she feels at home in China. "There`s like a tower here you can see from the top of the course. And I`m also seeing it from my house in Beijing," she explained, where her face is ubiquitous in advertising. ALSO READ: Beijing Winter Olympics: Tennis star Peng Shuai watches as Eileen Gu puts China atop medals table In 2019, China relaxed rules that had been in force for more than a decade barring national team athletes from taking part in commercial activities without approval, paving the way for Gu to become the face of Chinese brands from the Bank of China and China Mobile to Mengniu Dairy and Luckin Coffee. Hugely popular in China, Gu has had a better Olympics so far than Zhu Yi, the figure skater who gave up American citizenship in 2018 to compete for China and was blasted on Weibo when she fell during her short programme in the team event on Sunday. The hashtag "Zhu Yi has fallen" later disappeared from Weibo. Gu offered her support. "I just met Zhu a few days ago. I went to see her training. She`s such a nice person. She`s amazing. Whoever qualifies the Olympics is already amazing," she said. "Making mistakes under huge pressure is part of sports. We should have sportsmanship and we can`t always do our best on the platform, but the most important thing is she`s safe and she enjoys the process. "Of course, everyone hopes she can do better, but she is the one who hopes she could do better the most. I hope people can understand her more."

Eileen Gu dodges US passport question after lifting China to top of the medals table at Beijing Games

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are the new talk of the town. It may also be entering a new market recently as a house in the US could be the first house sold as an NFT. &nbsp;

This four-bedroom house is located in Tampa Bay, Florida. It will be put on the market as an NFT by a local realtor on Tuesday. &nbsp;&nbsp;

The house’s property rights will be minted as a digital token. It may get sold for a minimum bid of $650,000. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/after-year-long-absence-iconic-tapestry-of-pablo-picassos-guernica-returns-to-un-450891" hreflang="en">After year-long absence, iconic tapestry of Pablo Picasso's 'Guernica’ returns to UN</a>

A local real estate investor, Leslie Alessandra, is selling the home in partnership with a real estate tech company, Propy, as per the listing. &nbsp;

The property rights of the house will also be accompanied by an NFT of an indoor mural, which has been designed by a local artist, Derek Donnelly. &nbsp;

Alessandra, who is also the founder of cryptocurrency company, DeFi Unlimited, said that she transformed the home's certificate of authenticity into an NFT. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/after-winter-storm-over-150000-us-homes-witness-chilly-conditions-sans-power-450849" hreflang="en">After winter storm, over 150,000 US homes witness chilly conditions sans power</a>

It was achieved by turning the ownership into a limited liability corporation. By doing this, one can simplify the property sale process, according to Alessandra. &nbsp;

It could help people to theoretically sell a house with just a Venmo transaction, she added. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Christopher Vasilakis, a local real estate and virtual reality expert, told the Tampa Bay Times, "You're essentially just selling a company, and the company owns that house." &nbsp;

Amy Heckler, president, Heckler Realty Group, told WTSP, "It's an exciting venture into what possibly could be the future of real estate." &nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are the new talk of the town. It may also be entering a new market recently as a house in the US could be the first house sold as an NFT.

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are the new talk of the town. It may also be entering a new market recently as a house in the US could be the first house sold as an NFT. This four-bedroom house is located in Tampa Bay, Florida. It will be put on the market as an NFT by a local realtor on Tuesday. The house’s property rights will be minted as a digital token. It may get sold for a minimum bid of $650,000. Also Read: After year-long absence, iconic tapestry of Pablo Picasso's 'Guernica’ returns to UN A local real estate investor, Leslie Alessandra, is selling the home in partnership with a real estate tech company, Propy, as per the listing. The property rights of the house will also be accompanied by an NFT of an indoor mural, which has been designed by a local artist, Derek Donnelly. Alessandra, who is also the founder of cryptocurrency company, DeFi Unlimited, said that she transformed the home's certificate of authenticity into an NFT. Also Read: After winter storm, over 150,000 US homes witness chilly conditions sans power It was achieved by turning the ownership into a limited liability corporation. By doing this, one can simplify the property sale process, according to Alessandra. It could help people to theoretically sell a house with just a Venmo transaction, she added. Christopher Vasilakis, a local real estate and virtual reality expert, told the Tampa Bay Times, "You're essentially just selling a company, and the company owns that house." Amy Heckler, president, Heckler Realty Group, told WTSP, "It's an exciting venture into what possibly could be the future of real estate." (With inputs from agencies)

In a first, US realtor puts four-bedroom house on sale as NFT

US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett over the phone discussing nuclear talks, the Russia-Ukraine crisis and a visit to Israel later this year.

US President Joe Biden to visit Israel later this year

The United States of America has given Nepal a deadline of February 28 to secure parliamentary ratification of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) deal. The compact was signed between Nepal and the US in 2017 and still, Nepal has failed to reach a census to ratify it in the parliament.

US sets deadline of Feb 28 to secure parliamentary ratification of MCC deal

The United States has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could order for an attack on Ukraine within days or even weeks, as Washington and its European allies continues their efforts to try and de-escalate the situation.

US warns Russian invasion of Ukraine could happen 'any day'

Amidst the American warnings of an 'imminent invasion' into Ukraine, interestingly, Ukraine has pushed back against the apocalyptic assessment and played down the fears of Russian invasion. Palki Sharma gets you the ground report.

Ukraine plays down apocalyptic warnings amidst US' warnings of an 'imminent invasion'

If the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recommended better masks from the beginning, how many people would have worn them and for how long? If the Biden administration had flooded stores with cheap rapid tests, would people have used them? If boosters had been pushed earlier, and more loudly, would the United States no longer trail peer nations in vaccinations?

Put differently: How much would getting our pandemic policies right have mattered?

It’s easy to speak as if policy smoothly reshapes reality. I’m more guilty of that than most. But policy lies downstream of society. Mandates are not self-executing; to work, policies need to be followed, guidance needs to be believed. Public health is rooted in the soil of trust. That soil has thinned in America.

That isn’t to absolve policymakers of responsibility for their mistakes, but it is to wonder about the power they actually wield, in a country that led the world in vaccine development but lags Chile, Vietnam and Brazil in vaccine deployment. A recent interview with Michael Bang Petersen, a Danish political scientist, drove that point home for me. “In Denmark, people are in favor of vaccines, with more than 81% of adults doubly vaccinated, but also very opposed to vaccine mandates,” he told The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson. “There are no political parties in Parliament that are loudly advocating for vaccine mandates.”

You know what’s better than a vaccine mandate? A society that doesn’t need one.

We began this pandemic by asking the wrong questions, and thus we got the wrong answers. Rewind to October 2019. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Nuclear Threat Initiative release the Global Health Security Index. It ranks 195 countries on their pandemic preparedness. Each country is judged on prevention policy, on detection capabilities, on response infrastructure, on health system capacity, on international cooperation and on underlying risk. The news is reassuring, at least if you live in the United States: We’re No. 1!

Then, only months later, we get an actual, once-in-a-century pandemic. The United States fails the test. We have more infections, more deaths, more pain and suffering and division and grief. Our performance doesn’t just fall short of rich countries like Germany and Denmark. It falls short of far poorer countries, too. The Global Health Security Index was measuring the wrong things. The researchers later noted that tucked inside the report was a finding about the United States that would prove more predictive of our response: “It had the lowest possible score on public confidence in the government.”

But that leaves the question: What &lt;em&gt;were&lt;/em&gt; the right questions? What did we miss?

A paper published Tuesday in The Lancet tries to unravel the mystery — and not just for the United States. It’s built atop new data that tries to adjust for differences in testing and gaps in reporting to paint a clearer picture of case numbers and fatality rates across 177 countries from Jan. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021. (I do want to note that the data here remains far from perfect, and there is inevitably noise, randomness and distortion in these comparisons. We live in a fallen world, and yet still we try and understand.)

Looked at in an international context, the magnitude of America’s failure comes clear. So too do the successes of other countries.

Over the first 21 months of the pandemic, the United States had 545 coronavirus cases per 1,000 residents. Uruguay had 472. The United Kingdom 374. Canada 346. Germany 188, Switzerland 164. But it’s our peers in Asia that really put us to shame. Japan had 67 cases per 1,000. Singapore 59. South Korea 28. Taiwan seven. These numbers are so low as to be baffling.

The United States does better when you measure the ratio of cases that lead to death. There, our performance is at least middling. Our infection fatality rate was 4.55 per 1,000 cases. That’s lower than Germany (6.34) and Switzerland (5.56) but higher than South Korea (3.24) or Singapore (0.68). Still, our far larger number of cases mean we’ve grieved far more loss. And we’re not the only ones.

“One reason this pandemic is an epidemiological mystery is because you see a surprising amount of variation among nations in close geographic proximity,” Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations, and one of the paper’s authors, told me. “Bulgaria, Namibia and Bolivia have fatality rates twice as high as their neighbors, Turkey, Angola and Colombia.”

The researchers tested everything they could think of for predictive power. They looked at gross domestic product, population density, altitude, age, obesity, smoking, air pollution, cancer rates, exposure to previous beta-coronaviruses like severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome, health insurance coverage, pandemic preparedness ratings, trust in government, trust in fellow citizens, hospital beds per capita and more. It’s a dizzying suite of possibilities, and they run the numbers one by one.

When it comes to deaths caused by infections, no single variable explains everything or even all that much, with the exception of age. The coronavirus strikes the old with particular viciousness, and so the age of a population explains 47% of the variation in fatality ratios between countries. This helps explain why richer countries have seen a disproportionate number of deaths: Richer countries are older.

But age was alone in its ability to predict fatality rates. Nothing else — not body mass index, not smoking, not air pollution, not cancer prevalence, not universal health care, not hospital beds — explained very much.

More unexpected was what the researchers found when they looked at the factors that predicted how many people got infected. Some of the obvious candidates — population density, GDP per capita and exposure to past coronaviruses — failed to predict much in the way of outcomes. But both trust in government and trust in fellow citizens proved potent.

This yields the paper’s most striking finding: Moving every country up to the 75th percentile in trust in government — that’s where Denmark sits — would have prevented 13% of global infections. Moving every country to the 75th percentile of trust in their fellow citizens — roughly South Korea’s level — would have prevented 40% of global infections.

“When confronted with a novel, contagious virus the best way for governments to protect their citizens is to convince them to take the measures to protect themselves,” Bollyky said. “Especially in free societies the success of that effort depends on trust — trust between citizens and their government, and trusts between citizens themselves.”

When Bollyky told me that, I thought back to an essay I’d read in The New York Times by Hitoshi Oshitani, a key adviser to Japan’s government, that had been nagging at me.

The Japanese government, he said, understood that the virus was airborne, and they made sure their citizenry knew it. The message became that “People should avoid the three C’s, which are closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings. The Japanese government shared this advice with the public in early March, and it became omnipresent. The message to avoid the three C’s was on the news, variety shows, social media and posters. ‘Three C’s’ was even declared the buzzword of the year in Japan in 2020.”

What struck me about this, when I first read it, was what it left unsaid. Japan was much quicker to understand airborne transmission than the United States, but we knew it soon enough. We certainly knew it by the time of the delta surge, when Japan again performed far better than we did. We know it now, and Japan is still performing better than we are. It is what we do with what we know that matters.

Trust is regularly polled in international surveys, and so the researchers had access to those numbers. But I suspect trust is only a cousin of what we’re really trying to measure here. Solidarity is perhaps closer to the social sentiment the pandemic demanded. Poring over this data left me thinking about something my colleague Zeynep Tufekci told me:

"If you’re in the 19th century, and you’re just puzzling over yellow fever, and you don’t even have germ theory, and you don’t understand mosquito vectors — it’s hard. It’s really hard. I read those histories, and I want to give them clues. But right now, we have everything in place. And it’s our dysfunction that’s holding us back. It’s the global, political dysfunction; our U.S.-specific dysfunction."

There are lots of policy recommendations that work to curb the coronavirus: Masking, social distancing, vaccinations, testing, quarantining and so on. But for any of them to work, they need to be followed. This has been, certainly, the Biden administration’s insuperable challenge. It can make vaccines available, but it can’t make people take them. It can make masks available, but it can’t make people wear them. The context for the Biden administration’s entire response was a Republican Party divided over the legitimacy of the 2020 election and aware that the road to 2024 ran through opposition to Biden’s coronavirus policies.

So what if you assume political polarization and media disinformation are here to stay, and you need to work around them, rather than ignoring them?

When you reframe the question, other possibilities reveal themselves. As an example: Only 36% of Republicans trust Anthony Fauci. I think the Republican campaign against him has been largely unfair, but that he is particularly polarizing among the people the Biden administration most needs to reach is simply a fact, and one it has chosen to ignore. Perhaps new voices were needed, including high-profile ones chosen for their appeal to those most inclined to doubt Biden and avoid vaccination.

I asked Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, about the absence of messengers with credibility among Republicans, and his response struck me as understandably but depressingly fatalistic. “I think this question of polarization around vaccinations is very, very complicated,” he replied. “I mean, you saw President Trump get booed when he himself advocated people getting booster shots. So this isn’t as simple as ‘Can you put more conservatives out there talking about vaccinations?’ ”

That’s certainly true. And I don’t mean to single out Fauci or overestimate the value of replacing him. Any Republican who joined the Biden administration would be seen as a traitor by much of the conservative base. But improvements are made on the margins.

That our political and social problems are maddeningly difficult to solve doesn’t make them any less necessary to at least try and ease. Whatever basket of pandemic policies the Biden administration tries — be they the vaccine mandates the Supreme Court just gutted, or new testing infrastructure, or variant-specific boosters — will not work if the social context in which those policies play out continues to deteriorate. And it is deteriorating: 88% of Americans say the pandemic has left us more divided, which is higher than in any of the other 16 countries Pew surveyed.

We erred this time by believing ourselves not just more capable, but also more united, than ultimately proved true. Now that we know the truth about ourselves, and the havoc our divisions will wreak on any pandemic response, the problem we need to solve becomes clearer.

What does good pandemic policy look like for a low-trust, high-dysfunction society?

If the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recommended better masks from the beginning, how many people would have worn them and for how long? If the Biden administration had flooded stores with cheap rapid tests, would people have used them?

If the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recommended better masks from the beginning, how many people would have worn them and for how long? If the Biden administration had flooded stores with cheap rapid tests, would people have used them? If boosters had been pushed earlier, and more loudly, would the United States no longer trail peer nations in vaccinations? Put differently: How much would getting our pandemic policies right have mattered? It’s easy to speak as if policy smoothly reshapes reality. I’m more guilty of that than most. But policy lies downstream of society. Mandates are not self-executing; to work, policies need to be followed, guidance needs to be believed. Public health is rooted in the soil of trust. That soil has thinned in America. That isn’t to absolve policymakers of responsibility for their mistakes, but it is to wonder about the power they actually wield, in a country that led the world in vaccine development but lags Chile, Vietnam and Brazil in vaccine deployment. A recent interview with Michael Bang Petersen, a Danish political scientist, drove that point home for me. “In Denmark, people are in favor of vaccines, with more than 81% of adults doubly vaccinated, but also very opposed to vaccine mandates,” he told The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson. “There are no political parties in Parliament that are loudly advocating for vaccine mandates.” You know what’s better than a vaccine mandate? A society that doesn’t need one. We began this pandemic by asking the wrong questions, and thus we got the wrong answers. Rewind to October 2019. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Nuclear Threat Initiative release the Global Health Security Index. It ranks 195 countries on their pandemic preparedness. Each country is judged on prevention policy, on detection capabilities, on response infrastructure, on health system capacity, on international cooperation and on underlying risk. The news is reassuring, at least if you live in the United States: We’re No. 1! Then, only months later, we get an actual, once-in-a-century pandemic. The United States fails the test. We have more infections, more deaths, more pain and suffering and division and grief. Our performance doesn’t just fall short of rich countries like Germany and Denmark. It falls short of far poorer countries, too. The Global Health Security Index was measuring the wrong things. The researchers later noted that tucked inside the report was a finding about the United States that would prove more predictive of our response: “It had the lowest possible score on public confidence in the government.” But that leaves the question: What were the right questions? What did we miss? A paper published Tuesday in The Lancet tries to unravel the mystery — and not just for the United States. It’s built atop new data that tries to adjust for differences in testing and gaps in reporting to paint a clearer picture of case numbers and fatality rates across 177 countries from Jan. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021. (I do want to note that the data here remains far from perfect, and there is inevitably noise, randomness and distortion in these comparisons. We live in a fallen world, and yet still we try and understand.) Looked at in an international context, the magnitude of America’s failure comes clear. So too do the successes of other countries. Over the first 21 months of the pandemic, the United States had 545 coronavirus cases per 1,000 residents. Uruguay had 472. The United Kingdom 374. Canada 346. Germany 188, Switzerland 164. But it’s our peers in Asia that really put us to shame. Japan had 67 cases per 1,000. Singapore 59. South Korea 28. Taiwan seven. These numbers are so low as to be baffling. The United States does better when you measure the ratio of cases that lead to death. There, our performance is at least middling. Our infection fatality rate was 4.55 per 1,000 cases. That’s lower than Germany (6.34) and Switzerland (5.56) but higher than South Korea (3.24) or Singapore (0.68). Still, our far larger number of cases mean we’ve grieved far more loss. And we’re not the only ones. “One reason this pandemic is an epidemiological mystery is because you see a surprising amount of variation among nations in close geographic proximity,” Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations, and one of the paper’s authors, told me. “Bulgaria, Namibia and Bolivia have fatality rates twice as high as their neighbors, Turkey, Angola and Colombia.” The researchers tested everything they could think of for predictive power. They looked at gross domestic product, population density, altitude, age, obesity, smoking, air pollution, cancer rates, exposure to previous beta-coronaviruses like severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome, health insurance coverage, pandemic preparedness ratings, trust in government, trust in fellow citizens, hospital beds per capita and more. It’s a dizzying suite of possibilities, and they run the numbers one by one. When it comes to deaths caused by infections, no single variable explains everything or even all that much, with the exception of age. The coronavirus strikes the old with particular viciousness, and so the age of a population explains 47% of the variation in fatality ratios between countries. This helps explain why richer countries have seen a disproportionate number of deaths: Richer countries are older. But age was alone in its ability to predict fatality rates. Nothing else — not body mass index, not smoking, not air pollution, not cancer prevalence, not universal health care, not hospital beds — explained very much. More unexpected was what the researchers found when they looked at the factors that predicted how many people got infected. Some of the obvious candidates — population density, GDP per capita and exposure to past coronaviruses — failed to predict much in the way of outcomes. But both trust in government and trust in fellow citizens proved potent. This yields the paper’s most striking finding: Moving every country up to the 75th percentile in trust in government — that’s where Denmark sits — would have prevented 13% of global infections. Moving every country to the 75th percentile of trust in their fellow citizens — roughly South Korea’s level — would have prevented 40% of global infections. “When confronted with a novel, contagious virus the best way for governments to protect their citizens is to convince them to take the measures to protect themselves,” Bollyky said. “Especially in free societies the success of that effort depends on trust — trust between citizens and their government, and trusts between citizens themselves.” When Bollyky told me that, I thought back to an essay I’d read in The New York Times by Hitoshi Oshitani, a key adviser to Japan’s government, that had been nagging at me. The Japanese government, he said, understood that the virus was airborne, and they made sure their citizenry knew it. The message became that “People should avoid the three C’s, which are closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings. The Japanese government shared this advice with the public in early March, and it became omnipresent. The message to avoid the three C’s was on the news, variety shows, social media and posters. ‘Three C’s’ was even declared the buzzword of the year in Japan in 2020.” What struck me about this, when I first read it, was what it left unsaid. Japan was much quicker to understand airborne transmission than the United States, but we knew it soon enough. We certainly knew it by the time of the delta surge, when Japan again performed far better than we did. We know it now, and Japan is still performing better than we are. It is what we do with what we know that matters. Trust is regularly polled in international surveys, and so the researchers had access to those numbers. But I suspect trust is only a cousin of what we’re really trying to measure here. Solidarity is perhaps closer to the social sentiment the pandemic demanded. Poring over this data left me thinking about something my colleague Zeynep Tufekci told me: "If you’re in the 19th century, and you’re just puzzling over yellow fever, and you don’t even have germ theory, and you don’t understand mosquito vectors — it’s hard. It’s really hard. I read those histories, and I want to give them clues. But right now, we have everything in place. And it’s our dysfunction that’s holding us back. It’s the global, political dysfunction; our U.S.-specific dysfunction." There are lots of policy recommendations that work to curb the coronavirus: Masking, social distancing, vaccinations, testing, quarantining and so on. But for any of them to work, they need to be followed. This has been, certainly, the Biden administration’s insuperable challenge. It can make vaccines available, but it can’t make people take them. It can make masks available, but it can’t make people wear them. The context for the Biden administration’s entire response was a Republican Party divided over the legitimacy of the 2020 election and aware that the road to 2024 ran through opposition to Biden’s coronavirus policies. So what if you assume political polarization and media disinformation are here to stay, and you need to work around them, rather than ignoring them? When you reframe the question, other possibilities reveal themselves. As an example: Only 36% of Republicans trust Anthony Fauci. I think the Republican campaign against him has been largely unfair, but that he is particularly polarizing among the people the Biden administration most needs to reach is simply a fact, and one it has chosen to ignore. Perhaps new voices were needed, including high-profile ones chosen for their appeal to those most inclined to doubt Biden and avoid vaccination. I asked Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, about the absence of messengers with credibility among Republicans, and his response struck me as understandably but depressingly fatalistic. “I think this question of polarization around vaccinations is very, very complicated,” he replied. “I mean, you saw President Trump get booed when he himself advocated people getting booster shots. So this isn’t as simple as ‘Can you put more conservatives out there talking about vaccinations?’ ” That’s certainly true. And I don’t mean to single out Fauci or overestimate the value of replacing him. Any Republican who joined the Biden administration would be seen as a traitor by much of the conservative base. But improvements are made on the margins. That our political and social problems are maddeningly difficult to solve doesn’t make them any less necessary to at least try and ease. Whatever basket of pandemic policies the Biden administration tries — be they the vaccine mandates the Supreme Court just gutted, or new testing infrastructure, or variant-specific boosters — will not work if the social context in which those policies play out continues to deteriorate. And it is deteriorating: 88% of Americans say the pandemic has left us more divided, which is higher than in any of the other 16 countries Pew surveyed. We erred this time by believing ourselves not just more capable, but also more united, than ultimately proved true. Now that we know the truth about ourselves, and the havoc our divisions will wreak on any pandemic response, the problem we need to solve becomes clearer. What does good pandemic policy look like for a low-trust, high-dysfunction society?

Opinion: The Covid policy that really mattered wasn’t a policy

Asian share markets mostly eased on Monday after stunningly strong US jobs data soothed concerns about the global economy but also added to the risk of an aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve.

Asia shares slip as US jobs data fears over global recovery

A winter storm has wreaked havoc in the US. Over 150,000 homes have been reeling without power due to the storm.&nbsp;It was followed by freezing temperatures creating icy conditions. &nbsp;

More than 100,000 homes got power back on Saturday after outages on Friday. Some states are still experiencing service interruptions. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Most of the outages occurred in Tennessee.&nbsp;Over 93,000 homes were experiencing power failure, as per PowerOutage.us.

In New York, around 43,000 homes and in Ohio, 30,000 houses have been left without power. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/republican-party-in-us-terms-capitol-attack-as-legitimate-political-discourse-450602" hreflang="en">Republican party in US terms Capitol attack as 'legitimate political discourse'</a>

Around 95% customers should have power restored by Thursday next week, said Memphis Light, Gas and Water, which is a major utility company in Tennessee. &nbsp;&nbsp;

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Here’s a look at the icy conditions and debris <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLGW?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MLGW</a> crews are dealing with out in the field. This is work that was done in South Memphis yesterday. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ServingYouIsWhatWeDo?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ServingYouIsWhatWeDo</a> <a href="https://t.co/60kuNtciP6">pic.twitter.com/60kuNtciP6</a>
— MLGW (@MLGW) <a href="https://twitter.com/MLGW/status/1489935614799753220?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 5, 2022</a></blockquote>
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On Twitter, the company said that crews are working hard despite icy conditions and debris. &nbsp;

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Our patrols have been responding to numerous crashes and spin outs caused by the flash freeze conditions. Stay off the roads if possible, and take it slow if not. Here’s an update from the road from Troop H Patrol Supervisor Sgt. Michael Murphy. <a href="https://t.co/Z5sMXSXyq2">pic.twitter.com/Z5sMXSXyq2</a>
— Mass State Police (@MassStatePolice) <a href="https://twitter.com/MassStatePolice/status/1489624908061675525?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2022</a></blockquote>
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According to the National Weather Service, the storm spanned 2,000 miles and dumped up to 17-inch snow from Indiana to Vermont on Friday and early Saturday. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/covid-19-death-toll-crosses-900000-mark-in-us-450593" hreflang="en">COVID-19: Death toll crosses 9,00,000 mark in US</a>

States, such as Ohio, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Maine, witnessed over 10-inch snow. Arctic cold brought freezing temperatures in the Northeast. It caused slippery hazards on the road. &nbsp;&nbsp;

On Saturday, roads remained icy in Texas as water on the roadways froze overnight. &nbsp;&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

A winter storm has wreaked havoc in the US. Over 150,000 homes have been reeling without power due to the storm. It was followed by freezing temperatures creating icy conditions.

A winter storm has wreaked havoc in the US. Over 150,000 homes have been reeling without power due to the storm. It was followed by freezing temperatures creating icy conditions. More than 100,000 homes got power back on Saturday after outages on Friday. Some states are still experiencing service interruptions. Most of the outages occurred in Tennessee. Over 93,000 homes were experiencing power failure, as per PowerOutage.us. In New York, around 43,000 homes and in Ohio, 30,000 houses have been left without power. Also Read: Republican party in US terms Capitol attack as 'legitimate political discourse' Around 95% customers should have power restored by Thursday next week, said Memphis Light, Gas and Water, which is a major utility company in Tennessee. Here’s a look at the icy conditions and debris #MLGW crews are dealing with out in the field. This is work that was done in South Memphis yesterday. #ServingYouIsWhatWeDo pic.twitter.com/60kuNtciP6 — MLGW (@MLGW) February 5, 2022 × On Twitter, the company said that crews are working hard despite icy conditions and debris. Our patrols have been responding to numerous crashes and spin outs caused by the flash freeze conditions. Stay off the roads if possible, and take it slow if not. Here’s an update from the road from Troop H Patrol Supervisor Sgt. Michael Murphy. pic.twitter.com/Z5sMXSXyq2 — Mass State Police (@MassStatePolice) February 4, 2022 × According to the National Weather Service, the storm spanned 2,000 miles and dumped up to 17-inch snow from Indiana to Vermont on Friday and early Saturday. Also Read: COVID-19: Death toll crosses 9,00,000 mark in US States, such as Ohio, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Maine, witnessed over 10-inch snow. Arctic cold brought freezing temperatures in the Northeast. It caused slippery hazards on the road. On Saturday, roads remained icy in Texas as water on the roadways froze overnight. (With inputs from agencies)

After winter storm, over 150,000 US homes witness chilly conditions sans power

For a man who sought to disappear, the leader of the Islamic State group seemed to have done everything right.

He hid out far from where his enemies expected. He never left the house, relying on trusted couriers to communicate with his far-flung underlings. He was the group’s only leader to never issue a video or voice address, for fear it would make him easier to track. Most of his most fervent followers would not have recognized him on the street.

But American commandos came for him anyway, and on Thursday, the leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, blew himself up during a raid on his hideout in northwestern Syria, U.S. officials said.

American leaders hailed al-Qurayshi’s death as a fresh wound to a fearsome organization whose reach and power had already been greatly diminished. But terrorism analysts warned that killing yet another leader would not erase a group whose members have continued to seek refuge and plan attacks in chaotic parts of the globe.

“It is another painful blow to an organization that just a few years ago cast a broad shadow across the entire region,” said Pratibha Thaker, editorial director for the Middle East and Africa at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “But I think everyone is wondering deep down how much taking down the top leader really matters since the organization is very decentralized.”

The United States has invested great resources in killing leaders of terrorist organizations. U.S. forces took out Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaida, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led al-Qaida in Iraq, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-Qurayshi’s predecessor at the helm of the Islamic State group.

While such attacks generate dramatic headlines, the groups they sought to undermine have often resurfaced in new and more powerful forms or simply replaced old heads with new ones, Hydra-style.

The killing of al-Qurayshi deprived the Islamic State of a key religious and military authority at a time when the group had already been routed from its territory and lost a huge number of fighters. Now it faces a potential leadership vacuum.

But terrorism experts said the group had become more diffuse and decentralized, allowing it to carry on. Even if it no longer has the power to hold territory as it once did, diminishing its ability to market itself as a “state,” it has proved that it can still carry out devastating, coordinated military attacks.

In recent weeks, its fighters in Iraq killed 10 Iraqi soldiers and an officer in a nighttime attack on an army post and beheaded a police officer on camera. In Syria, the jihadis attacked a prison in an attempt to free thousands of their former comrades and occupied the compound for more than a week before a Kurdish-led militia supported by the United States drove them out.

Still, the group is a shadow of its former self.

At its height around 2015, the Islamic State controlled a territory the size of Britain in Syria and Iraq and displaced al-Qaida as the world’s richest and most dangerous terrorist organization. It controlled large cities, collected taxes, provided public services and built a war machine.

Its propagandists attracted aspiring jihadis from around the world. Its operatives directed and inspired deadly attacks in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

The loss of its last patch of territory in 2019, after 4 1/2 years of war, was a major defeat. Now, it is a caliphate in name only. And persistent attacks by the United States and its partners in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere have disrupted its financing networks and led to the deaths of many of its cadres.

Al-Qurayshi was anointed the group’s leader, or caliph, in 2019 after his predecessor, al-Baghdadi, similarly blew himself up during a raid by U.S. Special Forces on his hideout in northwestern Syria.

From the start, al-Qurayshi lacked his predecessor’s public profile, and even his followers knew little about his background. The United States filled in some gaps by releasing notes of interrogation sessions from when he was detained by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2008.

But the revelations that he said he had served in the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein and earned a master’s degree in Islamic studies in 2007 were overshadowed by what appeared to be his willingness to inform on his fellow jihadis.

After al-Qurayshi took control, the United States put a bounty of up to $10 million on his head and said he “helped drive and justify the abduction, slaughter and trafficking of members of Yazidi religious minority groups” in Iraq and oversaw “the group’s global operations.”

As it searches for a replacement, the militant group no longer has a large pool to draw from because years of concerted counterterrorism operations by the United States and its partners have killed so much of the group’s inner circle, an expert on the Islamic State, Hassan Hassan, wrote Thursday in New Lines, an online magazine.

“The leaders it can trust are a dying breed — quite literally,” Hassan wrote.

That leadership vacuum, the waning attractiveness of international jihadism and the increasing strength of enemy governments and competing militant groups could hinder the group’s ability to bounce back, he wrote. “The death of its leader under these circumstances will further disorient the group and weaken its ability to focus on international terrorism.”

The group already appears to be less dangerous in Iraq, according to a recent analysis of attack data by Michael Knights, the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and his colleague, Alex Almeida.

They found that Islamic State attacks increased in 2019 and 2020, but have declined since, in both quantity and quality.

“For now, at the outset of 2022, the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq is at a very low ebb, with recorded attack numbers that rival the lowest ever recorded,” they wrote.

They said increased Iraqi security deployments in rural areas, frequent counterterrorism raids and “decapitation strikes” against Islamic State leaders had contributed to the decline.

But terrorism analysts hesitate to write off the group, noting that it was regarded as a spent force just a few years before it came roaring back and solidified its control over entire cities in Syria and Iraq in 2014.

The group has long found it easiest to operate in failed states, conflict zones and poorly governed places, and its fighters still have many such territories to choose from, including in Afghanistan and parts of Africa.

In Syria, it remains most active in the east, which was badly battered in the country’s 10-year civil war and is only loosely controlled by a Kurdish-led militia whose administration is not internationally recognized and is short on resources.

The draw of chaotic places likely explains why al-Qurayshi sought refuge in Idlib province, in Syria’s northwest, miles from his organization’s past strongholds.

The area is one of the last territories still controlled by the rebels who set out to topple President Bashar Assad, and it is packed with millions of people who fled from elsewhere during the war, making it easier for strangers to blend in.

The Islamic State’s future could depend less on who its leaders are than on the opportunities for expansion that present themselves, and the group’s ability to take advantage of them.

“What we have seen in the jihadi movement on the whole over the last two decades is that it is highly pragmatic in the pursuit of its goals,” said Shiraz Maher, author of a book on the history of the global jihadi movement. “Their next move is to continue to hold out and bide their time and react to the realities as they pan out.”

For a man who sought to disappear, the leader of the Islamic State group seemed to have done everything right. He hid out far from where his enemies expected. He never left the house, relying on trusted couriers to communicate with his far-flung underlings.

For a man who sought to disappear, the leader of the Islamic State group seemed to have done everything right. He hid out far from where his enemies expected. He never left the house, relying on trusted couriers to communicate with his far-flung underlings. He was the group’s only leader to never issue a video or voice address, for fear it would make him easier to track. Most of his most fervent followers would not have recognized him on the street. But American commandos came for him anyway, and on Thursday, the leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, blew himself up during a raid on his hideout in northwestern Syria, U.S. officials said. American leaders hailed al-Qurayshi’s death as a fresh wound to a fearsome organization whose reach and power had already been greatly diminished. But terrorism analysts warned that killing yet another leader would not erase a group whose members have continued to seek refuge and plan attacks in chaotic parts of the globe. “It is another painful blow to an organization that just a few years ago cast a broad shadow across the entire region,” said Pratibha Thaker, editorial director for the Middle East and Africa at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “But I think everyone is wondering deep down how much taking down the top leader really matters since the organization is very decentralized.” The United States has invested great resources in killing leaders of terrorist organizations. U.S. forces took out Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaida, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led al-Qaida in Iraq, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-Qurayshi’s predecessor at the helm of the Islamic State group. While such attacks generate dramatic headlines, the groups they sought to undermine have often resurfaced in new and more powerful forms or simply replaced old heads with new ones, Hydra-style. The killing of al-Qurayshi deprived the Islamic State of a key religious and military authority at a time when the group had already been routed from its territory and lost a huge number of fighters. Now it faces a potential leadership vacuum. But terrorism experts said the group had become more diffuse and decentralized, allowing it to carry on. Even if it no longer has the power to hold territory as it once did, diminishing its ability to market itself as a “state,” it has proved that it can still carry out devastating, coordinated military attacks. In recent weeks, its fighters in Iraq killed 10 Iraqi soldiers and an officer in a nighttime attack on an army post and beheaded a police officer on camera. In Syria, the jihadis attacked a prison in an attempt to free thousands of their former comrades and occupied the compound for more than a week before a Kurdish-led militia supported by the United States drove them out. Still, the group is a shadow of its former self. At its height around 2015, the Islamic State controlled a territory the size of Britain in Syria and Iraq and displaced al-Qaida as the world’s richest and most dangerous terrorist organization. It controlled large cities, collected taxes, provided public services and built a war machine. Its propagandists attracted aspiring jihadis from around the world. Its operatives directed and inspired deadly attacks in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. The loss of its last patch of territory in 2019, after 4 1/2 years of war, was a major defeat. Now, it is a caliphate in name only. And persistent attacks by the United States and its partners in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere have disrupted its financing networks and led to the deaths of many of its cadres. Al-Qurayshi was anointed the group’s leader, or caliph, in 2019 after his predecessor, al-Baghdadi, similarly blew himself up during a raid by U.S. Special Forces on his hideout in northwestern Syria. From the start, al-Qurayshi lacked his predecessor’s public profile, and even his followers knew little about his background. The United States filled in some gaps by releasing notes of interrogation sessions from when he was detained by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2008. But the revelations that he said he had served in the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein and earned a master’s degree in Islamic studies in 2007 were overshadowed by what appeared to be his willingness to inform on his fellow jihadis. After al-Qurayshi took control, the United States put a bounty of up to $10 million on his head and said he “helped drive and justify the abduction, slaughter and trafficking of members of Yazidi religious minority groups” in Iraq and oversaw “the group’s global operations.” As it searches for a replacement, the militant group no longer has a large pool to draw from because years of concerted counterterrorism operations by the United States and its partners have killed so much of the group’s inner circle, an expert on the Islamic State, Hassan Hassan, wrote Thursday in New Lines, an online magazine. “The leaders it can trust are a dying breed — quite literally,” Hassan wrote. That leadership vacuum, the waning attractiveness of international jihadism and the increasing strength of enemy governments and competing militant groups could hinder the group’s ability to bounce back, he wrote. “The death of its leader under these circumstances will further disorient the group and weaken its ability to focus on international terrorism.” The group already appears to be less dangerous in Iraq, according to a recent analysis of attack data by Michael Knights, the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and his colleague, Alex Almeida. They found that Islamic State attacks increased in 2019 and 2020, but have declined since, in both quantity and quality. “For now, at the outset of 2022, the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq is at a very low ebb, with recorded attack numbers that rival the lowest ever recorded,” they wrote. They said increased Iraqi security deployments in rural areas, frequent counterterrorism raids and “decapitation strikes” against Islamic State leaders had contributed to the decline. But terrorism analysts hesitate to write off the group, noting that it was regarded as a spent force just a few years before it came roaring back and solidified its control over entire cities in Syria and Iraq in 2014. The group has long found it easiest to operate in failed states, conflict zones and poorly governed places, and its fighters still have many such territories to choose from, including in Afghanistan and parts of Africa. In Syria, it remains most active in the east, which was badly battered in the country’s 10-year civil war and is only loosely controlled by a Kurdish-led militia whose administration is not internationally recognized and is short on resources. The draw of chaotic places likely explains why al-Qurayshi sought refuge in Idlib province, in Syria’s northwest, miles from his organization’s past strongholds. The area is one of the last territories still controlled by the rebels who set out to topple President Bashar Assad, and it is packed with millions of people who fled from elsewhere during the war, making it easier for strangers to blend in. The Islamic State’s future could depend less on who its leaders are than on the opportunities for expansion that present themselves, and the group’s ability to take advantage of them. “What we have seen in the jihadi movement on the whole over the last two decades is that it is highly pragmatic in the pursuit of its goals,” said Shiraz Maher, author of a book on the history of the global jihadi movement. “Their next move is to continue to hold out and bide their time and react to the realities as they pan out.”

Leader’s death is another blow for the Islamic State, but it’s hardly the end

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis on Friday announced a moratorium on no-knock warrants one day after the Police Department released body camera footage of its SWAT team fatally shooting a man who was lying on a couch under a blanket during an early-morning raid.

The man who was killed, Amir Locke, 22, had a gun in his hand, but it is unclear whether he was aware that police officers had entered the apartment shortly before 7 a.m.

Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, who led the prosecutions of former police officers in the killings of George Floyd and Daunte Wright, said his office would join a review of the police shooting. The mayor said no-knock warrants could not be requested or conducted while the city evaluated its current policy.

The graphic and brief video released by the Police Department on Thursday night shows the encounter from Wednesday morning, when its SWAT team had been carrying out a warrant for the St. Paul Police Department’s homicide unit.

In the video, an officer is seen quietly turning a key in the apartment door before officers file in and begin to yell.

“Police! Search warrant!” several officers are heard shouting.

“Hands, hands!” one officer says.

“Get on the ground!” another yells.

One officer kicked the back of the couch, jarring Locke and making a gun visible. The police fired at least three times in response.

The entire encounter took less than 10 seconds.

In a news release published the day of the shooting, the Police Department said officers had performed emergency aid on Locke, who died at a nearby hospital.

“I’m under no illusion that processing this video will be easy,” Amelia Huffman, the city’s interim police chief, said at a news conference Thursday. “It won’t be. It shouldn’t be. These are wrenching videos to watch. They’re painful, but it’s necessary.”

Huffman said that officers had a warrant for three locations in the apartment complex, and that Locke was not named in the original warrant.

Ellison, the state attorney general, said Friday that his office would partner with the Hennepin County attorney’s office to review the shooting.

“Amir Locke’s life mattered,” Ellison said in a statement, promising the Locke family “a fair and thorough review.”

Ellison led the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who pleaded guilty to federal crimes for the killing of Floyd, and Kimberly Potter, a former Minnesota police officer who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Wright.

The Minneapolis Police Department said in a statement that one officer fired shots at Locke, and it released the personnel file of Officer Mark Hanneman.

Ben Crump, a lawyer representing Locke’s family, compared the shooting of Locke, who was Black, to the killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker who was fatally shot by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers in March 2020 during a botched raid on her apartment.

“If we learned anything from Breonna Taylor it is that no-knock warrants have deadly consequences for innocent, law-abiding Black citizens,” Crump said at a news conference Friday.

No-knock warrants allow police to enter property without first announcing their presence and are primarily used when there is concern that evidence will be destroyed or officers will be put in danger.

Tony Romanucci, another lawyer representing Locke’s family, said Locke had “no idea” who was in his apartment. “Had they announced who they were and why they were there, this tragedy could have been averted,” Romanucci said.

Frey said in a statement Friday that no-knock warrants would not be allowed while the city reviewed its policy with experts who helped create “Breonna’s Law,” an ordinance passed after Taylor’s death that bans no-knock warrants in Louisville.

During the moratorium, which the mayor said was “to ensure safety of both the public and officers,” the police must knock, announce their presence and wait a reasonable amount of time before entering with a warrant.

Locke’s father, Andre Locke, said at the news conference that his son was the third oldest of eight siblings. He said his son had been working for the food delivery service DoorDash and was “a week away” from moving to Dallas, where his mother, Karen Wells, lives. Andre Locke said that several of his cousins worked in law enforcement and that one of them was a mentor to Amir.

“It was hurtful, it hurt deep to see my son executed, to see our son executed,” Andre Locke said. “But the part that struck me the most was that he never got a chance to see or to know who killed him.”

Wells said she and her son would frequently talk on the FaceTime app when they were apart.

“I am going to miss just being able to see my son grow into a man, that’s what I am going to miss,” Wells said. “I am going to miss the fact that he didn’t, he won’t even get the chance to become a father and give us grandchildren.”

The Minneapolis Police Department has been under scrutiny since Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest in May 2020.

Floyd’s death generated widespread outrage, and protests across the country that summer called for social justice and police reform. An attempt to change policing in Minneapolis failed in November, when 56% of voters rejected a ballot measure that would have replaced the city’s Police Department with a public safety agency.

The release of the footage of Locke’s death came more quickly than in past cases, and after pressure from Rep. Ilhan Omar and state officials.

Ten members of the Minneapolis delegation of the state House of Representatives had called for the footage to be released immediately in a letter to Frey and Huffman.

“Minneapolis has a long path before us in establishing a trusting, effective and professional relationship between its Police Department and community,” the representatives wrote.

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis on Friday announced a moratorium on no-knock warrants one day after the Police Department released body camera footage of its SWAT team fatally shooting a man who was lying on a couch under a blanket during an early-morning raid.

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis on Friday announced a moratorium on no-knock warrants one day after the Police Department released body camera footage of its SWAT team fatally shooting a man who was lying on a couch under a blanket during an early-morning raid. The man who was killed, Amir Locke, 22, had a gun in his hand, but it is unclear whether he was aware that police officers had entered the apartment shortly before 7 a.m. Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, who led the prosecutions of former police officers in the killings of George Floyd and Daunte Wright, said his office would join a review of the police shooting. The mayor said no-knock warrants could not be requested or conducted while the city evaluated its current policy. The graphic and brief video released by the Police Department on Thursday night shows the encounter from Wednesday morning, when its SWAT team had been carrying out a warrant for the St. Paul Police Department’s homicide unit. In the video, an officer is seen quietly turning a key in the apartment door before officers file in and begin to yell. “Police! Search warrant!” several officers are heard shouting. “Hands, hands!” one officer says. “Get on the ground!” another yells. One officer kicked the back of the couch, jarring Locke and making a gun visible. The police fired at least three times in response. The entire encounter took less than 10 seconds. In a news release published the day of the shooting, the Police Department said officers had performed emergency aid on Locke, who died at a nearby hospital. “I’m under no illusion that processing this video will be easy,” Amelia Huffman, the city’s interim police chief, said at a news conference Thursday. “It won’t be. It shouldn’t be. These are wrenching videos to watch. They’re painful, but it’s necessary.” Huffman said that officers had a warrant for three locations in the apartment complex, and that Locke was not named in the original warrant. Ellison, the state attorney general, said Friday that his office would partner with the Hennepin County attorney’s office to review the shooting. “Amir Locke’s life mattered,” Ellison said in a statement, promising the Locke family “a fair and thorough review.” Ellison led the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who pleaded guilty to federal crimes for the killing of Floyd, and Kimberly Potter, a former Minnesota police officer who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Wright. The Minneapolis Police Department said in a statement that one officer fired shots at Locke, and it released the personnel file of Officer Mark Hanneman. Ben Crump, a lawyer representing Locke’s family, compared the shooting of Locke, who was Black, to the killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker who was fatally shot by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers in March 2020 during a botched raid on her apartment. “If we learned anything from Breonna Taylor it is that no-knock warrants have deadly consequences for innocent, law-abiding Black citizens,” Crump said at a news conference Friday. No-knock warrants allow police to enter property without first announcing their presence and are primarily used when there is concern that evidence will be destroyed or officers will be put in danger. Tony Romanucci, another lawyer representing Locke’s family, said Locke had “no idea” who was in his apartment. “Had they announced who they were and why they were there, this tragedy could have been averted,” Romanucci said. Frey said in a statement Friday that no-knock warrants would not be allowed while the city reviewed its policy with experts who helped create “Breonna’s Law,” an ordinance passed after Taylor’s death that bans no-knock warrants in Louisville. During the moratorium, which the mayor said was “to ensure safety of both the public and officers,” the police must knock, announce their presence and wait a reasonable amount of time before entering with a warrant. Locke’s father, Andre Locke, said at the news conference that his son was the third oldest of eight siblings. He said his son had been working for the food delivery service DoorDash and was “a week away” from moving to Dallas, where his mother, Karen Wells, lives. Andre Locke said that several of his cousins worked in law enforcement and that one of them was a mentor to Amir. “It was hurtful, it hurt deep to see my son executed, to see our son executed,” Andre Locke said. “But the part that struck me the most was that he never got a chance to see or to know who killed him.” Wells said she and her son would frequently talk on the FaceTime app when they were apart. “I am going to miss just being able to see my son grow into a man, that’s what I am going to miss,” Wells said. “I am going to miss the fact that he didn’t, he won’t even get the chance to become a father and give us grandchildren.” The Minneapolis Police Department has been under scrutiny since Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest in May 2020. Floyd’s death generated widespread outrage, and protests across the country that summer called for social justice and police reform. An attempt to change policing in Minneapolis failed in November, when 56% of voters rejected a ballot measure that would have replaced the city’s Police Department with a public safety agency. The release of the footage of Locke’s death came more quickly than in past cases, and after pressure from Rep. Ilhan Omar and state officials. Ten members of the Minneapolis delegation of the state House of Representatives had called for the footage to be released immediately in a letter to Frey and Huffman. “Minneapolis has a long path before us in establishing a trusting, effective and professional relationship between its Police Department and community,” the representatives wrote.

Minneapolis suspends no-knock warrants after police killing

According to the gun violence archive, there have been 147 incidents of mass shootings since the beginning of this year in the US.

The US records a rise in gun violence cases

A massive personal collection of black history memorabilia is set to go under the hammer. The collection is owned by a member of the oldest black family in New York's Staten Island.

Black history memorabilia in New York: Over 20,000 items to go under the hammer

Record surge in gun violence in the US with 147 incidents of mass shootings so far in 2022

The United States has urged the UN security council to act following North Korea's recent ballistic missile test.

The US urges the UN security council to act against North Korea's recent ballistic missile test

The United States has restored sanctions waiver to Iran as efforts are on to salvage 2015 Iran Nuclear deal.

The US restores sanctions waiver to Iran amid efforts to salvage 2015 Nuclear deal

At least one person was killed and four others were injured after a shooting near Virginia Tech. The shooting took place at a hookah lounge in Virginia just before midnight on Friday night.&nbsp;

The Blacksburg Police Department in a statement described the incident as complex. "There were five individuals that were injured in the shooting, four were transported to local hospitals and one is deceased. The severity of the injuries of those who were transported is unknown at this time," read the statement.

No further information has been made available, including details on potential suspects or the motive.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/at-least-one-dead-4-injured-after-shooting-in-washington-hotel-448257">Also read |&nbsp;At least one dead, 4 injured after shooting in Washington hotel</a>

Virginia Tech issued a 'secure in place' order around midnight. It was, however, lifted around 3:15 am. Virginia Tech President Tim Sands, in a memo, wrote, "Our condolences go out to the family and friends of the deceased and we extend our support to those who were injured. Events like this are difficult and unsettling to all of us. Please care for yourself and seek assistance if you need it.”

The investigation is still ongoing.

Not even a month before, one person was killed and four were injured after a shooting at a hotel in Northwest Washington. The incident took place during a party in a room. Shots were fired around 3:30 am at Days Inn hotel, which is located on 4400 Connecticut Avenue NW, in the Van Ness neighbourhood. The area was sealed for police investigation and it opened at 7 am.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

At least one person was killed and four others were injured after a shooting near Virginia Tech. The shooting took place at a hookah lounge in Virginia just before midnight on Friday night.

At least one person was killed and four others were injured after a shooting near Virginia Tech. The shooting took place at a hookah lounge in Virginia just before midnight on Friday night. The Blacksburg Police Department in a statement described the incident as complex. "There were five individuals that were injured in the shooting, four were transported to local hospitals and one is deceased. The severity of the injuries of those who were transported is unknown at this time," read the statement. No further information has been made available, including details on potential suspects or the motive. Also read | At least one dead, 4 injured after shooting in Washington hotel Virginia Tech issued a 'secure in place' order around midnight. It was, however, lifted around 3:15 am. Virginia Tech President Tim Sands, in a memo, wrote, "Our condolences go out to the family and friends of the deceased and we extend our support to those who were injured. Events like this are difficult and unsettling to all of us. Please care for yourself and seek assistance if you need it.” The investigation is still ongoing. Not even a month before, one person was killed and four were injured after a shooting at a hotel in Northwest Washington. The incident took place during a party in a room. Shots were fired around 3:30 am at Days Inn hotel, which is located on 4400 Connecticut Avenue NW, in the Van Ness neighbourhood. The area was sealed for police investigation and it opened at 7 am. (With inputs from agencies)

At least one dead, 4 injured after a shooting near Virginia Tech

In a shocking move, the Republican party of the United States has officially termed former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and the attack on the Capitol as “legitimate political discourse”. &nbsp;

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is holding its winter meetings in Salt Lake City as part of the formal censure of Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who are the only Republicans on the January 6 committee. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/covid-19-death-toll-crosses-900000-mark-in-us-450593">COVID-19: Death toll crosses 9,00,000 mark in US</a>

The resolution, which was approved unanimously, said that Cheney and Kinzinger were engaged in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”. &nbsp;

The historians would be “aghast”, said a leading Democrat on the House committee investigating the January 6 incident. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/security-breach-reported-near-pentagon-in-us-but-no-need-to-worry-450329" hreflang="en">Security breach reported near Pentagon in US. But no need to worry</a>

Some Republicans have also stood up to Trump. At a Florida event staged by the conservative Federalist Society, former vice president Mike Pence, who faced a difficult time in doing the balancing act, said on Friday, “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.” &nbsp;

Pence added, “The truth is there’s more at stake than our party or our political fortunes. If we lose faith in the constitution, we won’t just lose elections – we’ll lose our country.” &nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

In a shocking move, the Republican party of the United States has officially termed former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and the attack on the Capitol as “legitimate political discourse”.

In a shocking move, the Republican party of the United States has officially termed former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and the attack on the Capitol as “legitimate political discourse”. The Republican National Committee (RNC) is holding its winter meetings in Salt Lake City as part of the formal censure of Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who are the only Republicans on the January 6 committee. Also Read: COVID-19: Death toll crosses 9,00,000 mark in US The resolution, which was approved unanimously, said that Cheney and Kinzinger were engaged in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”. The historians would be “aghast”, said a leading Democrat on the House committee investigating the January 6 incident. Also Read: Security breach reported near Pentagon in US. But no need to worry Some Republicans have also stood up to Trump. At a Florida event staged by the conservative Federalist Society, former vice president Mike Pence, who faced a difficult time in doing the balancing act, said on Friday, “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.” Pence added, “The truth is there’s more at stake than our party or our political fortunes. If we lose faith in the constitution, we won’t just lose elections – we’ll lose our country.” (With inputs from agencies)

Republican party in US terms Capitol attack as 'legitimate political discourse'

The leader of the Islamic State, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi blew himself and his family members up during a US military raid in Syria in 2022. A look at America's war on Terror over past few years.

America's war on Terror: Looking back at US special operations

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