Reuters Newsletter

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

by Linda Noakes and Hani Richter

Good morning, .

Here’s what you need to know.

A 'cancer' on Republicans

House Democrats are moving to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee assignments following incendiary comments by the Republican Representative, including denying that school shootings took place and expressing support for violence.

"Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country," said top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell in a statement to reporters yesterday.

Greene struck back on Twitter, saying: "The real cancer for the Republican Party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully."

Republicans are facing a week of reckoning ahead of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial.

Reuters exclusively reported yesterday that dozens of people in former President George W. Bush’s administration are leaving the party in another sign of growing conflict over Trump and his legacy.

Global markets are buoyant ahead of negotiations today Joe Biden and Republican senators on a new COVID support bill. Fed officials say the U.S. economy is still in the depths of recession, and more relief is needed.

Today’s biggest stories

Pandemic

Japan is set to extend a state of emergency in Tokyo and other regions for another month on Tuesday, seeking to curb a COVID-19 outbreak even as daily case numbers begin to edge down.

Moderna said it was proposing filling vials with additional doses of the vaccine as the company approaches the manufacturing of almost a million doses a day.

China reported the fewest new COVID-19 infections in a month as imported cases overtook local ones, suggesting the country’s worst wave since March 2020 is being stamped out ahead of a key holiday.

Britain begins door-to-door testing of 80,000 people in an effort to stem the spread of a new highly infectious variant of the coronavirus believed to originate in South Africa.

Fears of a new cluster of cases in Australia eased, as the city of Perth maintained a strict lockdown and no new cases were detected across the country for a second day.

World News

The party of Myanmar’s detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for her immediate release and for the junta to recognize her victory in November elections, a day after a military coup sparked global outrage.

A Russian court weighed whether to jail Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny for up to three and a half years in a case that has sparked nationwide protests and talk of new Western sanctions.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the release from prison of a British-born militant who had been convicted in the kidnapping and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl by al Qaeda and Pakistani Islamist militants in 2002.

Torture and forced labor are rife in North Korea’s prisons, amounting to possible crimes against humanity, the U.N. human rights office said, as the Biden administration weighs fresh sanctions over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Turkey’s interior minister condemned protesters at a top Istanbul university as “LGBT deviants” in a statement which Twitter deemed as hateful conduct.

Business News

GameStop shares sank and a silver buying spree led by small investors subsided as a Reddit-driven trading frenzy that has shocked global financial markets over the past week started to show signs of fizzling out.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma has been left off a list of Chinese entrepreneurial leaders published by state media - the snub underscoring how just far he has fallen out of favor with Beijing.

Tesla has agreed to recall 134,951 Model S and Model X vehicles with touchscreen displays that could fail after U.S. auto safety regulators sought the recall last month, according to a recall posted on a government website.

American Airlines workers should brace for another round of furlough warnings as the airline expects to remain overstaffed on April 1, when U.S. aid for industry workers expires, Chief Executive Doug Parker said.

Google will spend $3.8 million, including $2.6 million in back pay, to settle allegations that it underpaid women and unfairly passed over women and Asians for job openings, the U.S. Department of Labor said on Monday.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Banks, Cards, Insurers

WISHFUL THINKING. What does it take to improve the banking industry’s reputation? Matt Comyn, chief executive of Australia’s largest lender Commonwealth Bank, said on Monday he hopes treating customers properly and helping shield the economy from the worst impact of the pandemic “has gone some way” to doing so.