Russia will be forced to take necessary measures to eliminate unacceptable threats if the United States and NATO don’t respond to Moscow’s security proposals, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

“If a constructive response does not follow within a reasonable time and the West continues its aggressive line, then Russia will be forced to take all necessary measures to ensure a strategic balance and eliminate unacceptable threats to our security,” Lavrov told news agency Sputnik.

The remarks came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Joe Biden spoke over phone, where the two focused on the security guarantee talks set for early January 2022 amid simmering tensions over Ukraine.

The security guarantees talks will be held in three formats: between Russia and the US in Geneva on 10 January, followed by a Russia-NATO Council meeting on 12 January, and Russia-OSCE consultations on 13 January.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-russia-talks-biden-affirms-sanctions-threat-putin-says-that-would-be-colossal-mistake-441294">US-Russia talks: Biden affirms sanctions threat; Putin says that would be colossal mistake</a>

Lavrov said that Washington and its allies are currently reviewing Russia’s proposals.

Russia had recently sent a draft agreement to&nbsp;NATO&nbsp;and a draft treaty to the United States both on&nbsp;security&nbsp;guarantees in Europe for the Western countries to consider.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/amid-tensions-with-ukraine-russia-inducts-s-550-air-defence-system-report-440960">Also Read:&nbsp;Amid tensions with Ukraine, Russia inducts S-550 air defence system</a>

The security guarantee documents demand that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back its military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.

However, US and its allies refused to consider Russia's demand on Ukraine, citing NATO’s principle that membership is open to any qualifying country.

They agreed, however, to hold talks with Russia to discuss its concerns.

(With inputs from agencies)

Russia will be forced to take necessary measures to eliminate unacceptable threats if the United States and NATO don’t respond to Moscow’s security proposals, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

Russia will be forced to take necessary measures to eliminate unacceptable threats if the United States and NATO don’t respond to Moscow’s security proposals, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. “If a constructive response does not follow within a reasonable time and the West continues its aggressive line, then Russia will be forced to take all necessary measures to ensure a strategic balance and eliminate unacceptable threats to our security,” Lavrov told news agency Sputnik. The remarks came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Joe Biden spoke over phone, where the two focused on the security guarantee talks set for early January 2022 amid simmering tensions over Ukraine. The security guarantees talks will be held in three formats: between Russia and the US in Geneva on 10 January, followed by a Russia-NATO Council meeting on 12 January, and Russia-OSCE consultations on 13 January. Also read | US-Russia talks: Biden affirms sanctions threat; Putin says that would be colossal mistake Lavrov said that Washington and its allies are currently reviewing Russia’s proposals. Russia had recently sent a draft agreement to NATO and a draft treaty to the United States both on security guarantees in Europe for the Western countries to consider. Also Read: Amid tensions with Ukraine, Russia inducts S-550 air defence system The security guarantee documents demand that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back its military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe. However, US and its allies refused to consider Russia's demand on Ukraine, citing NATO’s principle that membership is open to any qualifying country. They agreed, however, to hold talks with Russia to discuss its concerns. (With inputs from agencies)

Russia will take measures to eliminate threats if US ignores security proposals: Minister Lavrov

Devastating wildfires are raging in the US state of Colorado. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated even as around 580 homes, a shopping centre and a hotel have already been lost to the wind-fuelled wildfires outside Denver, said officials on Thursday evening. &nbsp;

Spanning 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers), the wildfires have triggered smoky and orangish skies in many parts of the area. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-omicron-cases-could-peak-by-january-end-says-top-medical-chief-fauci-441062" hreflang="en">US Omicron cases could peak by January-end, says top medical chief Fauci</a>

On Thursday, several blazes started in the area due to various reasons, such as downed power lines. &nbsp;

As residents have been asked to get to safety, only one injury has been reported, said Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Due to the high intensity of fires, the official said that the number may be more or witness a spike soon. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/fda-plans-to-allow-12-to-15-year-olds-to-receive-pfizer-boosters-441278" hreflang="en">FDA plans to allow 12- to 15-year-olds to receive Pfizer boosters</a>

The fires have quickly swept across the region with the help of winds gusted up to 105 mph (169 kph). &nbsp;

Louisville city has been ordered to evacuate after the residents of Superior were also asked to leave. &nbsp;

Spokesperson Kelli Christensen said that six people injured in the fires are being treated at UCHealth Broomfield Hospital. US Highway 36’s nearby portion has also been shut down. &nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

Devastating wildfires are raging in the US state of Colorado. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated even as around 580 homes, a shopping centre and a hotel have already been lost to the wind-fuelled wildfires outside Denver, said officials on Thursday evening.

Devastating wildfires are raging in the US state of Colorado. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated even as around 580 homes, a shopping centre and a hotel have already been lost to the wind-fuelled wildfires outside Denver, said officials on Thursday evening. Spanning 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers), the wildfires have triggered smoky and orangish skies in many parts of the area. Also Read: US Omicron cases could peak by January-end, says top medical chief Fauci On Thursday, several blazes started in the area due to various reasons, such as downed power lines. As residents have been asked to get to safety, only one injury has been reported, said Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle. Due to the high intensity of fires, the official said that the number may be more or witness a spike soon. Also Read: FDA plans to allow 12- to 15-year-olds to receive Pfizer boosters The fires have quickly swept across the region with the help of winds gusted up to 105 mph (169 kph). Louisville city has been ordered to evacuate after the residents of Superior were also asked to leave. Spokesperson Kelli Christensen said that six people injured in the fires are being treated at UCHealth Broomfield Hospital. US Highway 36’s nearby portion has also been shut down. (With inputs from agencies)

Numerous homes lost, tens of thousands evacuated as wildfires cause havoc in US

The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 is fueling the latest spike in infections in the US as it reports 512,553 new cases in the last 24 hours.

US records highest single day COVID spike since the pandemic started due to Omicron variant

In a commendable effort, a woman school teacher, who was travelling from Chicago to Iceland onboard a trans-Atlantic flight, locked herself in the bathroom for five hours after she learned that she had contracted COVID-19 midair. &nbsp;&nbsp;

The teacher from Michigan, Marisa Fotieo, was flying on December 20 when she started complaining about sore throat, a report said. &nbsp;

She was able to find a rapid test kit and “within what felt like two seconds” learnt that she had contracted Covid, as per Fotieo. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/israel-to-administer-fourth-dose-of-vaccine-to-most-vulnerable-to-covid-19-441307">Israel to administer fourth dose of vaccine to most vulnerable to COVID-19</a>

"There's 150 people on the flight, and my biggest fear was giving it to them," Fotieo said. &nbsp;

As there were still five hours left for the flight to touch down, Fotieo said that she thought it was the best option to hide in a plane's bathroom until it lands to ensure others stay safe. &nbsp;

The woman captured her experience on camera and posted it to TikTok. The video has got over 1.5 million likes already. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/first-omicron-death-registered-in-indias-maharashtra-state-441335" hreflang="en">First ‘Omicron death’ registered in India’s Maharashtra state</a>

"Shout out to @Icelandair for my VIP quarantine quarters.." she gave the caption to the post. &nbsp;

As per Fotieo, Ragnhildur "Rocky" Eiríksdóttir, a flight attendant, brought her snacks and drinks while checking for her in the bathroom. &nbsp;

After getting down of the plane, she exchanged information with the flight attendant and went for isolation at the Red Cross hotel in Iceland. &nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

In a commendable effort, a woman school teacher, who was travelling from Chicago to Iceland onboard a trans-Atlantic flight, locked herself in the bathroom for five hours after she learned that she had contracted COVID-19 midair.

In a commendable effort, a woman school teacher, who was travelling from Chicago to Iceland onboard a trans-Atlantic flight, locked herself in the bathroom for five hours after she learned that she had contracted COVID-19 midair. The teacher from Michigan, Marisa Fotieo, was flying on December 20 when she started complaining about sore throat, a report said. She was able to find a rapid test kit and “within what felt like two seconds” learnt that she had contracted Covid, as per Fotieo. Also Read: Israel to administer fourth dose of vaccine to most vulnerable to COVID-19 "There's 150 people on the flight, and my biggest fear was giving it to them," Fotieo said. As there were still five hours left for the flight to touch down, Fotieo said that she thought it was the best option to hide in a plane's bathroom until it lands to ensure others stay safe. The woman captured her experience on camera and posted it to TikTok. The video has got over 1.5 million likes already. Also Read: First ‘Omicron death’ registered in India’s Maharashtra state "Shout out to @Icelandair for my VIP quarantine quarters.." she gave the caption to the post. As per Fotieo, Ragnhildur "Rocky" Eiríksdóttir, a flight attendant, brought her snacks and drinks while checking for her in the bathroom. After getting down of the plane, she exchanged information with the flight attendant and went for isolation at the Red Cross hotel in Iceland. (With inputs from agencies)

US woman locks self in airplane bathroom midair for five hours. Want to know why?

A fierce wildfire has engulfed the US state of Colorado, injuring at least half a dozen people with more than 500 homes that are feared to have been destroyed.

A fierce wildfire has engulfed the US state of Colorado, injuring at least half a dozen people

The Presidents of the United States and Russia held a telephonic conversation that lasted about 50 minutes. This is the second such conversation between the world leaders within 3 weeks.

Ukraine conflict: Biden, Putin trade warnings during their 50-minute telephonic conversation

Amid the ongoing Omicron wave and a surge in COVID-19 cases, Pediatric hospitalisations are up in the US as more children are contracting the virus.

US: Pediatric hospitalisations up as more children get caught in Omicron wave

US has now appointed an envoy, Rina Amiri who will deal with growing issues pertaining to human rights in Afghanistan. "As Special Envoy, she will work on issues of critical importance to me, this Administration, and U.S. national security: the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women, girls, and other at-risk populations in all of their diversity," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

US appoints envoy Rina Amiri to deal with growing issues pertaining to human rights in Afghanistan

After almost nine months without measurable snowfall, Chicago has witnessed its first record snowfall. According to the national weather service, the international airport in Chicago has received one tenth of an inch of snow officially breaking the drought spell in the region.

Chicago records first snow of season, one-tenth of an inch snow recorded

US records single day COVID spike fueled by Omicron variant

President Vladimir Putin is seeking security guarantees from the West in exchange for pulling back from Ukraine. Will Joe Biden agree to halt NATO's eastward expansion? Or will he push ahead with sanctions?

Another high-stakes phone call between US President Joe Biden & Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin

US President Joe Biden to talk on a phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin

Harry Reid, the Democrat who rose from childhood poverty in the rural Nevada desert to the heights of power in Washington, where he steered the Affordable Care Act to passage as Senate majority leader, died Tuesday in Henderson, Nevada. He was 82.

Reid had been treated for pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed in 2018, but lived to see the Las Vegas airport renamed for him this month. His death was confirmed in statements from Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader.

Even by the standards of the political profession, where against-the-odds biographies are common and modest roots an asset, what Reid overcame was extraordinary. He was raised in almost Dickensian circumstances in tiny Searchlight, Nevada: His home had no indoor plumbing, his father was an alcoholic miner who eventually committed suicide, and his mother helped the family survive by taking in laundry from local brothels.

After two decades of campaigns in Nevada marked by success, setback and recovery, Reid was elected to the Senate in 1986. He became the chamber’s Democratic leader after the 2004 election.

But it was not until his colleague Barack Obama was elected president four years later that Reid was able to meld his deep knowledge of congressional rules, his facility with horse-trading and his cussed determination to unify his 60-seat majority and pass landmark legislation.

“If Harry said he would do something, he did it,” President Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president, said in a statement Tuesday evening. “If he gave you his word, you could bank on it. That’s how he got things done for the good of the country for decades.”

Pushing through a sweeping economic stimulus after the Great Recession, a new set of rules governing Wall Street, and the most significant expansion of health care coverage since the Great Society of the 1960s — all with scant Republican support — Reid became, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the indispensable lawmakers of the Obama era.

“The records will be written about the eight years of Obama and Reid,” Reid boasted shortly after he announced in 2015 that he would not seek reelection the following year.

Yet the three-decade Senate tenure of this soft-spoken yet ferociously combative Nevadan, a middleweight boxer in his youth, also traced the chamber’s evolution from a collegial and consensus-oriented institution to the partisan and fractured body it has become. Republicans placed some of the blame on Reid for this change, pointing to his 2013 decision to upend Senate rules by doing away with the filibuster on most nominations by a president.

Reid, though, reflected the broader leftward shift of his party and his state. First elected to the House of Representatives in 1982, when Nevada finally grew large enough to require a second seat, he arrived in the capital as a moderate western Democrat: opposed to abortion rights, largely supportive of gun rights and uneasy about immigration.

But as Nevada grew from an overwhelmingly rural, white redoubt of ranches and mines to a polyglot gambling mecca in which 70% of voters live in the Las Vegas area, Reid adapted as a matter of necessity. He won his final reelection in 2010, a dismal year for Democrats nationally, thanks in part to an outpouring of support from his state’s rapidly growing Hispanic and Asian communities after his popularity among many other Nevadans had plummeted in the economic collapse.

“I may have won without them, but I doubt it,” Reid said in a later interview about his support among immigrants in his 2010 campaign.

But after Democrats lost the Senate majority in 2014, and after he had lost nearly all the sight in his right eye the next year in a serious accident in his home during a workout, Reid decided not to run for a sixth term. He said he did not want to be one of those senators who served well into old age.

While he was willing to adjust with the times politically, he remained a stylistic throwback. A Mormon who neither drank nor smoked, he also shunned his state’s principal industry, claiming with his characteristic bluntness that “the only people who make money from gambling are the joints and government.”

Prone to ‘Reidisms’

Reid was a meandering and awkward public speaker, far more comfortable plotting strategy beneath the imposing portrait of Mark Twain in his Capitol office than he was making the case for his party on a Sunday news show, much less at a political rally.

In private, he wielded an irreverent sense of humour, but could be brusque, often not even saying goodbye to colleagues at the end of a phone call. When he did speak publicly or to the press, he was often given to verbal miscues that came to be known as “Reidisms.”

He deemed President George W. Bush “a loser” while addressing a group of high school juniors in Nevada in 2005, mused about the body odour of Washington’s tourists a few years later and, when Obama first ran for president, in 2008, said the country’s first Black president could be elected because he spoke “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” (Reid telephoned Obama to apologize after the comments were made public; Obama issued a statement calling the remarks “unfortunate,” but added, “I know what’s in his heart.”)

It was Reid who saw Obama’s potential for a successful run at the White House when many Democrats were rallying behind Hillary Clinton. Recognizing that the young Illinois senator had little affection for the Senate’s byzantine ways, Reid in 2006 privately urged him to mount a bid for the Democratic nomination. “I am one of the reasons he’s president,” Reid told The Washington Post after announcing his retirement.

Obama confirmed as much Tuesday evening, when he posted on Twitter a letter he had recently written to Reid.

“I wouldn’t have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn’t have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination,” Obama wrote.

Reid was as shrewd a tactician as he was poor a communicator, and nowhere was that more evident than in Nevada, where he became the state’s dominant political figure for the final two decades of his life — “a Machiavelli with malaprops,” as the Las Vegas-based journalist Jon Ralston called him.

Reid used his position on the Senate Appropriations Committee and his eventual majority leadership to block nuclear waste from being deposited in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, a decades-long fight, while relentlessly earmarking spending for his state, where 85% of the land was federally owned when he left office. He also helped create Nevada’s Great Basin National Park, ensured that millions of acres in the state were protected as national parks or monuments, and made sure that federal funds were directed to cleaning and preserving Lake Tahoe, which straddles Nevada’s border with California.

Reid ran Nevada’s Democratic Party in the manner of an old-style political boss, determining which candidates would run up and down the ballot, arranging his own succession and even remaining in charge after his cancer diagnosis and through the 2018 midterm elections, nearly two years after his retirement from the Senate.

He also used his clout to elevate his state’s role in the presidential nominating process, moving Nevada’s caucuses up to become one of the early voting states in the Democratic primaries, and in 2016 he quietly helped Hillary Clinton salvage her nomination there.

A Difficult Start

Harry Mason Reid Jr. was born on Dec. 2, 1939, in Searchlight, a mining outpost that had about 200 residents in his youth. One of four sons of Harry Sr. and Inez (Jaynes) Reid, he grew up in privation. His father suffered from depression and was often unemployed. Harry worked at a gas station in high school, earning enough money to purchase his mother a new set of false teeth.

Boxing metaphors about Reid would eventually become clichéd — he even named his memoir “The Good Fight” — but he was quite the pugilist. He got into physical altercations with his father (when his father would become violent toward his mother) and with his future father-in-law (who was uneasy about his daughter marrying Reid).

To attend high school, he would hitchhike 40 miles to Henderson, near Las Vegas, where he had relatives. And it was there that his political career effectively began. He had a teacher and boxing coach named Mike O’Callaghan, who would be elected governor in 1970 with Reid as his running mate.

With financial assistance from Nevada businessmen, Reid graduated from Utah State University, where he converted to Mormonism. He then attended law school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., moonlighting as a Capitol Police officer to pay his way through.

With his law degree, he returned to Nevada and became the local prosecutor in Henderson. He was elected to the Nevada state Assembly in 1968. Two years later, he and O’Callaghan were elected statewide.

Then, unexpectedly, Sen. Alan Bible, a Democrat, announced in 1974 that he would not run for reelection. Reid won his party’s nomination but lost in the general election to Paul Laxalt, a popular former Republican governor, by fewer than 700 votes. It was the only Democratic Senate seat in the country that year that Republicans picked up.

In an early demonstration of his political pugnacity, Reid had demanded during the campaign that Laxalt release his family’s financial interests.

“One problem,” Reid recalled with a chuckle years later. “His sister was a nun. I got killed on that.”

After an ill-fated bid for the Las Vegas mayoralty in 1975, Reid’s career was floundering. But O’Callaghan again came to his aid, making Reid chair of the Nevada Gaming Commission at a moment when state officials were trying to root out the mob from Las Vegas’ casinos.

It was only then that Reid realized how entrenched the mob still was on the city’s famous Strip. “That was a real eye-opener for me,” he said later, “because I thought I knew the state very well, but I didn’t.”

As gaming commissioner he was offered bribes and participated in FBI stings. Near the end of his tenure his wife, Landra Reid, came out of their house one day to find a bomb attached to the family’s station wagon.

Landra Reid, who was his closest adviser, survives him, as do his children, Rory, Lana Reid Barringer, Leif, Josh and Key, and 19 grandchildren.

Following the 1980 census, Nevada, for the first time in its history, had a large enough population to merit a second House seat, representing the Las Vegas area. Reid won the new district, but after two terms a Senate seat again opened up, thanks to Laxalt’s retirement.

Reid again benefited from running in a good Democratic year, in 1986, and this time his bare-knuckled tactics paid off as he handily defeated Laxalt’s handpicked successor, former Rep. Jim Santini.

He won a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee in his first term and spent much of the first part of his career looking out for the needs of Nevada, which was beginning to boom as a global hospitality capital.

After another agonizingly close race in 1998 — he won by fewer than 500 votes following a recount — Reid was elected minority whip, the second-ranking Senate Democrat. Though still not a prominent figure in Washington, he was pivotal in wooing Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont to leave the Republican Party in 2001 and caucus with the Democrats, a move that gave Reid’s party control of the narrowly divided Senate.

After Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, was defeated in 2004, Reid effectively secured the commitments he needed to take over the caucus by the next day.

The Majority Leader

A fierce critic of George W. Bush — he called him “a liar” as well as a loser — Reid became a beneficiary of the president’s unpopularity in 2006, when Democrats took back control of the Senate and Reid became majority leader. He played a key role in passing the bank bailout after the stock market collapsed in the fall of 2008. Later that year, when Obama was elected, Democrats made even more gains, giving Reid a filibuster-proof majority.

But the Democratic caucus included senators across the ideological spectrum and, with few moderate Republicans left, it took all of Reid’s legislative acumen, doggedness and even shamelessness to win some close votes. On the health law, for example, he offered Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska a generous expansion of Medicaid funding in his state, a deal that critics called “the Cornhusker Kickback.”

Reid’s hard-nosed tactics handed Democrats a series of major achievements, but he enraged Republicans and was vulnerable to defeat entering what would be his final reelection campaign in 2010.

He overcame his own unpopularity by meddling in the Republican primary, as his allies undermined a potentially strong candidate and helped lift a far-right conservative, Sharron Angle, who was herself as gaffe-prone as Reid. He won the general election comfortably even as the rise of the Tea Party movement propelled Republicans to victory across the country.

That same single-mindedness and indifference to criticism, however, embarrassed even some of his allies two years later when he sought to undermine Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy in 2012 by repeatedly, and without evidence, claiming that Romney had gone a decade without paying income tax.

Reid was even more contemptuous of former President Donald Trump, calling him “a racist” and “sexual predator” who achieved prominence only because of the fortune he had inherited.

Being born into wealth was, of course, alien to Reid. At the end of his career — after great financial and political success and raising five children, one of whom became an elected official in Las Vegas — he relished showing visitors his dusty hometown. But he recalled that it was not until he saw Alex Haley give a talk about his book “Roots” that he stopped feeling ashamed by his impoverished background.

“He said be proud of who you are, you can’t escape who you are,” Reid said in his Senate farewell speech, adding that at that point he proudly became “Harry Reid, the guy from Searchlight.”

Harry Reid, the Democrat who rose from childhood poverty in the rural Nevada desert to the heights of power in Washington, where he steered the Affordable Care Act to passage as Senate majority leader, died Tuesday in Henderson, Nevada.

Harry Reid, the Democrat who rose from childhood poverty in the rural Nevada desert to the heights of power in Washington, where he steered the Affordable Care Act to passage as Senate majority leader, died Tuesday in Henderson, Nevada. He was 82. Reid had been treated for pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed in 2018, but lived to see the Las Vegas airport renamed for him this month. His death was confirmed in statements from Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader. Even by the standards of the political profession, where against-the-odds biographies are common and modest roots an asset, what Reid overcame was extraordinary. He was raised in almost Dickensian circumstances in tiny Searchlight, Nevada: His home had no indoor plumbing, his father was an alcoholic miner who eventually committed suicide, and his mother helped the family survive by taking in laundry from local brothels. After two decades of campaigns in Nevada marked by success, setback and recovery, Reid was elected to the Senate in 1986. He became the chamber’s Democratic leader after the 2004 election. But it was not until his colleague Barack Obama was elected president four years later that Reid was able to meld his deep knowledge of congressional rules, his facility with horse-trading and his cussed determination to unify his 60-seat majority and pass landmark legislation. “If Harry said he would do something, he did it,” President Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president, said in a statement Tuesday evening. “If he gave you his word, you could bank on it. That’s how he got things done for the good of the country for decades.” Pushing through a sweeping economic stimulus after the Great Recession, a new set of rules governing Wall Street, and the most significant expansion of health care coverage since the Great Society of the 1960s — all with scant Republican support — Reid became, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the indispensable lawmakers of the Obama era. “The records will be written about the eight years of Obama and Reid,” Reid boasted shortly after he announced in 2015 that he would not seek reelection the following year. Yet the three-decade Senate tenure of this soft-spoken yet ferociously combative Nevadan, a middleweight boxer in his youth, also traced the chamber’s evolution from a collegial and consensus-oriented institution to the partisan and fractured body it has become. Republicans placed some of the blame on Reid for this change, pointing to his 2013 decision to upend Senate rules by doing away with the filibuster on most nominations by a president. Reid, though, reflected the broader leftward shift of his party and his state. First elected to the House of Representatives in 1982, when Nevada finally grew large enough to require a second seat, he arrived in the capital as a moderate western Democrat: opposed to abortion rights, largely supportive of gun rights and uneasy about immigration. But as Nevada grew from an overwhelmingly rural, white redoubt of ranches and mines to a polyglot gambling mecca in which 70% of voters live in the Las Vegas area, Reid adapted as a matter of necessity. He won his final reelection in 2010, a dismal year for Democrats nationally, thanks in part to an outpouring of support from his state’s rapidly growing Hispanic and Asian communities after his popularity among many other Nevadans had plummeted in the economic collapse. “I may have won without them, but I doubt it,” Reid said in a later interview about his support among immigrants in his 2010 campaign. But after Democrats lost the Senate majority in 2014, and after he had lost nearly all the sight in his right eye the next year in a serious accident in his home during a workout, Reid decided not to run for a sixth term. He said he did not want to be one of those senators who served well into old age. While he was willing to adjust with the times politically, he remained a stylistic throwback. A Mormon who neither drank nor smoked, he also shunned his state’s principal industry, claiming with his characteristic bluntness that “the only people who make money from gambling are the joints and government.” Prone to ‘Reidisms’ Reid was a meandering and awkward public speaker, far more comfortable plotting strategy beneath the imposing portrait of Mark Twain in his Capitol office than he was making the case for his party on a Sunday news show, much less at a political rally. In private, he wielded an irreverent sense of humour, but could be brusque, often not even saying goodbye to colleagues at the end of a phone call. When he did speak publicly or to the press, he was often given to verbal miscues that came to be known as “Reidisms.” He deemed President George W. Bush “a loser” while addressing a group of high school juniors in Nevada in 2005, mused about the body odour of Washington’s tourists a few years later and, when Obama first ran for president, in 2008, said the country’s first Black president could be elected because he spoke “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” (Reid telephoned Obama to apologize after the comments were made public; Obama issued a statement calling the remarks “unfortunate,” but added, “I know what’s in his heart.”) It was Reid who saw Obama’s potential for a successful run at the White House when many Democrats were rallying behind Hillary Clinton. Recognizing that the young Illinois senator had little affection for the Senate’s byzantine ways, Reid in 2006 privately urged him to mount a bid for the Democratic nomination. “I am one of the reasons he’s president,” Reid told The Washington Post after announcing his retirement. Obama confirmed as much Tuesday evening, when he posted on Twitter a letter he had recently written to Reid. “I wouldn’t have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn’t have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination,” Obama wrote. Reid was as shrewd a tactician as he was poor a communicator, and nowhere was that more evident than in Nevada, where he became the state’s dominant political figure for the final two decades of his life — “a Machiavelli with malaprops,” as the Las Vegas-based journalist Jon Ralston called him. Reid used his position on the Senate Appropriations Committee and his eventual majority leadership to block nuclear waste from being deposited in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, a decades-long fight, while relentlessly earmarking spending for his state, where 85% of the land was federally owned when he left office. He also helped create Nevada’s Great Basin National Park, ensured that millions of acres in the state were protected as national parks or monuments, and made sure that federal funds were directed to cleaning and preserving Lake Tahoe, which straddles Nevada’s border with California. Reid ran Nevada’s Democratic Party in the manner of an old-style political boss, determining which candidates would run up and down the ballot, arranging his own succession and even remaining in charge after his cancer diagnosis and through the 2018 midterm elections, nearly two years after his retirement from the Senate. He also used his clout to elevate his state’s role in the presidential nominating process, moving Nevada’s caucuses up to become one of the early voting states in the Democratic primaries, and in 2016 he quietly helped Hillary Clinton salvage her nomination there. A Difficult Start Harry Mason Reid Jr. was born on Dec. 2, 1939, in Searchlight, a mining outpost that had about 200 residents in his youth. One of four sons of Harry Sr. and Inez (Jaynes) Reid, he grew up in privation. His father suffered from depression and was often unemployed. Harry worked at a gas station in high school, earning enough money to purchase his mother a new set of false teeth. Boxing metaphors about Reid would eventually become clichéd — he even named his memoir “The Good Fight” — but he was quite the pugilist. He got into physical altercations with his father (when his father would become violent toward his mother) and with his future father-in-law (who was uneasy about his daughter marrying Reid). To attend high school, he would hitchhike 40 miles to Henderson, near Las Vegas, where he had relatives. And it was there that his political career effectively began. He had a teacher and boxing coach named Mike O’Callaghan, who would be elected governor in 1970 with Reid as his running mate. With financial assistance from Nevada businessmen, Reid graduated from Utah State University, where he converted to Mormonism. He then attended law school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., moonlighting as a Capitol Police officer to pay his way through. With his law degree, he returned to Nevada and became the local prosecutor in Henderson. He was elected to the Nevada state Assembly in 1968. Two years later, he and O’Callaghan were elected statewide. Then, unexpectedly, Sen. Alan Bible, a Democrat, announced in 1974 that he would not run for reelection. Reid won his party’s nomination but lost in the general election to Paul Laxalt, a popular former Republican governor, by fewer than 700 votes. It was the only Democratic Senate seat in the country that year that Republicans picked up. In an early demonstration of his political pugnacity, Reid had demanded during the campaign that Laxalt release his family’s financial interests. “One problem,” Reid recalled with a chuckle years later. “His sister was a nun. I got killed on that.” After an ill-fated bid for the Las Vegas mayoralty in 1975, Reid’s career was floundering. But O’Callaghan again came to his aid, making Reid chair of the Nevada Gaming Commission at a moment when state officials were trying to root out the mob from Las Vegas’ casinos. It was only then that Reid realized how entrenched the mob still was on the city’s famous Strip. “That was a real eye-opener for me,” he said later, “because I thought I knew the state very well, but I didn’t.” As gaming commissioner he was offered bribes and participated in FBI stings. Near the end of his tenure his wife, Landra Reid, came out of their house one day to find a bomb attached to the family’s station wagon. Landra Reid, who was his closest adviser, survives him, as do his children, Rory, Lana Reid Barringer, Leif, Josh and Key, and 19 grandchildren. Following the 1980 census, Nevada, for the first time in its history, had a large enough population to merit a second House seat, representing the Las Vegas area. Reid won the new district, but after two terms a Senate seat again opened up, thanks to Laxalt’s retirement. Reid again benefited from running in a good Democratic year, in 1986, and this time his bare-knuckled tactics paid off as he handily defeated Laxalt’s handpicked successor, former Rep. Jim Santini. He won a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee in his first term and spent much of the first part of his career looking out for the needs of Nevada, which was beginning to boom as a global hospitality capital. After another agonizingly close race in 1998 — he won by fewer than 500 votes following a recount — Reid was elected minority whip, the second-ranking Senate Democrat. Though still not a prominent figure in Washington, he was pivotal in wooing Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont to leave the Republican Party in 2001 and caucus with the Democrats, a move that gave Reid’s party control of the narrowly divided Senate. After Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, was defeated in 2004, Reid effectively secured the commitments he needed to take over the caucus by the next day. The Majority Leader A fierce critic of George W. Bush — he called him “a liar” as well as a loser — Reid became a beneficiary of the president’s unpopularity in 2006, when Democrats took back control of the Senate and Reid became majority leader. He played a key role in passing the bank bailout after the stock market collapsed in the fall of 2008. Later that year, when Obama was elected, Democrats made even more gains, giving Reid a filibuster-proof majority. But the Democratic caucus included senators across the ideological spectrum and, with few moderate Republicans left, it took all of Reid’s legislative acumen, doggedness and even shamelessness to win some close votes. On the health law, for example, he offered Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska a generous expansion of Medicaid funding in his state, a deal that critics called “the Cornhusker Kickback.” Reid’s hard-nosed tactics handed Democrats a series of major achievements, but he enraged Republicans and was vulnerable to defeat entering what would be his final reelection campaign in 2010. He overcame his own unpopularity by meddling in the Republican primary, as his allies undermined a potentially strong candidate and helped lift a far-right conservative, Sharron Angle, who was herself as gaffe-prone as Reid. He won the general election comfortably even as the rise of the Tea Party movement propelled Republicans to victory across the country. That same single-mindedness and indifference to criticism, however, embarrassed even some of his allies two years later when he sought to undermine Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy in 2012 by repeatedly, and without evidence, claiming that Romney had gone a decade without paying income tax. Reid was even more contemptuous of former President Donald Trump, calling him “a racist” and “sexual predator” who achieved prominence only because of the fortune he had inherited. Being born into wealth was, of course, alien to Reid. At the end of his career — after great financial and political success and raising five children, one of whom became an elected official in Las Vegas — he relished showing visitors his dusty hometown. But he recalled that it was not until he saw Alex Haley give a talk about his book “Roots” that he stopped feeling ashamed by his impoverished background. “He said be proud of who you are, you can’t escape who you are,” Reid said in his Senate farewell speech, adding that at that point he proudly became “Harry Reid, the guy from Searchlight.”

Harry M Reid, a power in the Senate, dies at 82

US and Russian officials are coordinating in a bit to salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Delegates from both sides met in Vienna. Take a look at this report.

US, Russian officials coordinate in bit to salvage 2015 Iran nuclear deal

US, Russian officials coordinate in a bit to salvage 2015 Iran nuclear deal

A 130-year-old time capsule has revealed its secrets. It was buried in the base of a statue of a confederate German General, and the findings include bullets, buttons and currency from the US civil war.

130-year-old time capsule opened in US

The United States auto safety agency has stepped up its probe into engine fires that have plagued some Hyundai Motors and Kia Motors vehicles for more than six years.

US regulators to step up investigation into Kia, Hyundai engine fire probe

As the Omicron COVID-19 variant rages across the United States Apple has closed its stores to indoor customer traffic at its New York City retail locations.

Apple closes New York City stores amid surge in Omicron COVID-19 variant

Troubles for the Nepalese prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba over an American grant worth 500 million dollars is far from over as of now. The millennium challenge corporation Nepal compact has now failed to take off after the ruling coalition remains sharply divided over its parliamentary ratification.

US' MCC grant divides Nepalese leaders, PM Sher Bahadur Deuba makes a fresh pitch

US President Joe Biden hosted a group of state governors in a virtual meeting and told them that the White House is prepared to do more to help them manage rising COVID-19 cases nationwide that are being fueled by the Omicron variant.

US President Joe Biden holds virtual meeting with state Governors over Omicron variant

The United States and Russia will enter into a round of negotiations on issues such as nuclear arms control and also the Ukrainian tensions in Geneva next month. The talks are scheduled to be held on the 10th of January and they'll focus on a whole host of security guarantees that Russia is demanding from the United States.

Russia, NATO set for security talks on January 12 in Geneva

In a smash-and-grab burglary, luxury handbags worth $1 million were stolen from a boutique shop in the US state of Florida, a Palm Daily News report said citing store owner. &nbsp;

Virgil Rogers, store owner, said that 13 luxurious Hermes handbags were stolen from Only Authentics window display in Palm Beach on December 14’s night. &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/gunman-kills-four-in-denver-shooting-before-being-shot-dead-by-police-440640" hreflang="en">Gunman kills four in Denver shooting before being shot dead by police</a>

As per the website, the store is "the world's most trusted independent dealer of Hermes and Chanel handbags and accessories." &nbsp;

In the store, a handbag costs around $550. &nbsp;

An Only Authentics employee told the news outlet, "Because Birkins and Kellys are so exclusive, we provide a way for people to get these bags in a non-traditional way, still giving them an opportunity (to collect)." &nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/chinese-satellite-captures-images-of-us-city-while-rotating-in-few-seconds-claims-report-440597" hreflang="en">Chinese satellite captures images of US city while rotating in few seconds, claims report</a>

As per the WBTV, Palm Beach police are looking into the burglary. &nbsp;

Thefts and robberies have always been a cause of concern for several retailers in the US. To check the nuisance, many of these businesses have employed protective measures this year. &nbsp;

Some of the businesses deployed coiled wire and other measures to deter criminals from carrying out thefts and smash-and-grab-type robberies this festive season. &nbsp; &nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

In a smash-and-grab burglary, luxury handbags worth $1 million were stolen from a boutique shop in the US state of Florida, a Palm Daily News report said citing store owner.

In a smash-and-grab burglary, luxury handbags worth $1 million were stolen from a boutique shop in the US state of Florida, a Palm Daily News report said citing store owner. Virgil Rogers, store owner, said that 13 luxurious Hermes handbags were stolen from Only Authentics window display in Palm Beach on December 14’s night. Also Read: Gunman kills four in Denver shooting before being shot dead by police As per the website, the store is "the world's most trusted independent dealer of Hermes and Chanel handbags and accessories." In the store, a handbag costs around $550. An Only Authentics employee told the news outlet, "Because Birkins and Kellys are so exclusive, we provide a way for people to get these bags in a non-traditional way, still giving them an opportunity (to collect)." Also Read: Chinese satellite captures images of US city while rotating in few seconds, claims report As per the WBTV, Palm Beach police are looking into the burglary. Thefts and robberies have always been a cause of concern for several retailers in the US. To check the nuisance, many of these businesses have employed protective measures this year. Some of the businesses deployed coiled wire and other measures to deter criminals from carrying out thefts and smash-and-grab-type robberies this festive season. (With inputs from agencies)

In smash-and-grab burglary, luxury handbags worth $1 million get stolen from US boutique

In the United States, more than 204 million people are fully vaccinated, but that’s still only 62% of the population, much lower than in most other wealthy countries.

At the county level, vaccination rates range from about 83% in places like Montgomery County, Maryland, a populous area just outside Washington, D.C., to around 15% in rural places like McPherson County in northern South Dakota.

As the Omicron variant surges, and experts say that vaccinations strongly protect against severe illness, U.S. public health officials are closely examining ways to reach the least-vaccinated areas. But the roadblocks are not the same everywhere. Some clearly have to do with politics: Republican-leaning areas have generally been vaccine laggards. But pockets of the country can have their own quirks unrelated to partisanship.

Here is a look at the challenges faced by three counties where, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, vaccination rates are among the lowest in the nation. (State figures for those counties may vary from the CDC data because of differences in methodology, reporting lags and other factors.)

LaGrange County, Indiana

Resistance to vaccines is not new in LaGrange County, a rural area along Indiana’s border with Michigan. Just 22% of residents are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, and, according to Dr. Tony Pechin, the county health officer, only 15% of children in the county are up-to-date on standard vaccines by the age of 2.

Pechin said that he had encountered the usual conspiracy theories about vaccines, and that even some longtime patients would not heed his advice to get the shots.

But the most important factor, he said, is that about half the county’s 40,000 residents are Amish, a group that overwhelmingly rejects the vaccines. Among non-Amish residents, he said, the vaccination rate is 45%-48%.

Pechin said that a pharmacy frequented by Amish residents was among the first in LaGrange County to receive doses but had vaccinated just eight people in six months.

The state health commissioner sent a delegation to meet with Amish leaders in the spring, and the CDC sent another over the summer.

“When they were done,” Pechin said of the envoys, “they called me and just said, ‘Good luck, Tony.’ ”

Cameron Parish, Louisiana

When Hurricane Laura made landfall near Cameron Parish in August 2020, many residents left damaged homes behind and took refuge inland — and have yet to return.

According to the CDC, the vaccination rate is just 17%. But Louisiana health officials say that those figures do not take account of the population shift.

“Although the numbers look awful, they’re not as bad as they appear, because of an outflux of people due to the natural disasters,” said Dr. Lacey Cavanaugh, a regional health officer for the Louisiana Department of Health.

But if the statistics were calculated to reflect the current populations of Cameron Parish and others ravaged by recent storms, she said, they would probably still show vaccination rates below national averages. Laura destroyed much of the parish’s limited health infrastructure, so for months, health officials administered vaccines in a tent in a hospital parking lot. And for residents consumed by the work of repairing homes and businesses, getting vaccinated fell low on the priority list.

State health officials have worked to bring vaccines directly to disaster recovery events, and advised residents that getting sick with COVID-19 could make the road back even harder.

“Once you’re protected” from the virus, Cavanaugh said, “that’s one less thing for you to worry about.”

Winston County, Alabama

A rural county with a history of going its own way — it refused to join Alabama in seceding from the Union during the Civil War — faces many of the challenges that have hampered the state’s vaccine uptake.

Vaccine misinformation is still spreading on social media, said Dr. Karen Landers, a regional officer with the state’s Public Health Department, despite months of efforts with local leaders, faith-based organizations and pharmacies. The county’s vaccination rate has stalled at around 21%, according to the CDC.

Persuading young people that they are vulnerable to the disease and need a vaccine can be a particularly acute problem, Landers said. But she said she remained determined: “We know that not everyone will listen to us, but that does not alleviate our responsibility.”

In the United States, more than 204 million people are fully vaccinated, but that’s still only 62% of the population, much lower than in most other wealthy countries.

In the United States, more than 204 million people are fully vaccinated, but that’s still only 62% of the population, much lower than in most other wealthy countries. At the county level, vaccination rates range from about 83% in places like Montgomery County, Maryland, a populous area just outside Washington, D.C., to around 15% in rural places like McPherson County in northern South Dakota. As the Omicron variant surges, and experts say that vaccinations strongly protect against severe illness, U.S. public health officials are closely examining ways to reach the least-vaccinated areas. But the roadblocks are not the same everywhere. Some clearly have to do with politics: Republican-leaning areas have generally been vaccine laggards. But pockets of the country can have their own quirks unrelated to partisanship. Here is a look at the challenges faced by three counties where, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, vaccination rates are among the lowest in the nation. (State figures for those counties may vary from the CDC data because of differences in methodology, reporting lags and other factors.) LaGrange County, Indiana Resistance to vaccines is not new in LaGrange County, a rural area along Indiana’s border with Michigan. Just 22% of residents are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, and, according to Dr. Tony Pechin, the county health officer, only 15% of children in the county are up-to-date on standard vaccines by the age of 2. Pechin said that he had encountered the usual conspiracy theories about vaccines, and that even some longtime patients would not heed his advice to get the shots. But the most important factor, he said, is that about half the county’s 40,000 residents are Amish, a group that overwhelmingly rejects the vaccines. Among non-Amish residents, he said, the vaccination rate is 45%-48%. Pechin said that a pharmacy frequented by Amish residents was among the first in LaGrange County to receive doses but had vaccinated just eight people in six months. The state health commissioner sent a delegation to meet with Amish leaders in the spring, and the CDC sent another over the summer. “When they were done,” Pechin said of the envoys, “they called me and just said, ‘Good luck, Tony.’ ” Cameron Parish, Louisiana When Hurricane Laura made landfall near Cameron Parish in August 2020, many residents left damaged homes behind and took refuge inland — and have yet to return. According to the CDC, the vaccination rate is just 17%. But Louisiana health officials say that those figures do not take account of the population shift. “Although the numbers look awful, they’re not as bad as they appear, because of an outflux of people due to the natural disasters,” said Dr. Lacey Cavanaugh, a regional health officer for the Louisiana Department of Health. But if the statistics were calculated to reflect the current populations of Cameron Parish and others ravaged by recent storms, she said, they would probably still show vaccination rates below national averages. Laura destroyed much of the parish’s limited health infrastructure, so for months, health officials administered vaccines in a tent in a hospital parking lot. And for residents consumed by the work of repairing homes and businesses, getting vaccinated fell low on the priority list. State health officials have worked to bring vaccines directly to disaster recovery events, and advised residents that getting sick with COVID-19 could make the road back even harder. “Once you’re protected” from the virus, Cavanaugh said, “that’s one less thing for you to worry about.” Winston County, Alabama A rural county with a history of going its own way — it refused to join Alabama in seceding from the Union during the Civil War — faces many of the challenges that have hampered the state’s vaccine uptake. Vaccine misinformation is still spreading on social media, said Dr. Karen Landers, a regional officer with the state’s Public Health Department, despite months of efforts with local leaders, faith-based organizations and pharmacies. The county’s vaccination rate has stalled at around 21%, according to the CDC. Persuading young people that they are vulnerable to the disease and need a vaccine can be a particularly acute problem, Landers said. But she said she remained determined: “We know that not everyone will listen to us, but that does not alleviate our responsibility.”

Where vaccination rates are low in US, reasons vary

After a spell of drought for almost half of the year, western United States has now been battered by a powerful winter storm. WION tells you more.

Snowfall in western US after months of drought spell

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