USA - The White House website has been overhauled and the Biden administration is already making its embrace of the transgender ideology clear, including a new line inserted into the contact page. While Donald J Trump was president the usual contact form was posted: Select Topic, Prefix, First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Suffix, Email, Phone Number, Address, and a comment space. Since Joe Biden was sworn in as president just minutes before noon on Wednesday a new line has been added asking for pronoun preferences — “she/her, he/him, they/them, other, or prefer not to share.”

UK - The UK has risked starting a row with the European Union, after refusing to grant full diplomatic status to João Vale de Almeida, the EU’s representative to the UK, as is traditionally granted to ambassadors. The UK Foreign Office has refused to grant the status to the EU ambassador, which would extend to him privileges and immunities under the Vienna Convention, as it is hesitant to set a precedent of treating an international body like a nation state. The decision could be seen as a post-Brexit snub, as it marks a stark contrast between the UK and the other 142 countries that have diplomatic relations with the bloc, where the EU has a representative that is treated in the same manner as other ambassadors. While the EU has not publicly criticized the UK over the situation, its High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, has written to British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to express his “serious concerns”. The EU is concerned that, if the UK does not change its approach, countries that have a contentious relationship with the bloc could follow suit and change the way in which EU ambassadors are treated.

USA - When people tried to sell us on the idea that the radical left would quit rioting once Joe Biden was president, I just had to chuckle. I knew that what they were saying simply was not true. But I figured that the radical left would at least give Biden a few days before they started rioting, looting and burning things again. Sadly, I was wrong. Just hours after Joe Biden was sworn in, radical leftists in Portland and Seattle started going completely nuts.

GERMANY - German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the European Union must find common ground in fighting coronavirus and stopping the spread of new strains that have already swept through the UK and Ireland recently. On Tuesday, Merkel warned that Germany could close its borders unless neighboring states acted together. “We need to make sure that everyone around us is doing the same. Otherwise we have to look at measures such as entry restrictions.” "The EU is one area," Merkel said in Berlin on Thursday morning, hours before she was scheduled to join a video summit of EU leaders focused on Covid-19. The chancellor warned about the dangers from the spread of the new mutant virus and that they need to be "taken very seriously." On Wednesday, Germany extended its national lockdown until February 14 and brought in new rules making it mandatory to wear medical-grade masks in shops and on public transport. So far, Germany has recorded 50,010 deaths and 2.1 million cases of coronavirus.

EUROPE - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen informed President-elect Joe Biden ahead of today's inauguration that Silicon Valley CEOs have no authority to decide on laws and rules, according to RT News. Von der Leyen said in a speech on Wednesday to the European Parliament that the incoming Biden administration must begin to regulate big tech companies. European lawmakers are in the process of formulating new digital privacy and antitrust regulation that would have severe implications for Apple, Google, and Facebook. Von der Leyen said tech giants that moderate themselves is a red flag, adding that it's more critical than ever for governments to intervene now. "This kind of decision must be taken in accordance with laws and rules... not by an arbitrary decision in the power of Silicon Valley CEOs," she said.

AUSTRALIA - Google has threatened to remove its search engine from Australia over the nation's attempt to make the tech giant share royalties with news publishers. Australia is introducing a world-first law to make Google, Facebook and potentially other tech companies pay media outlets for their news content. But the US firms have fought back, warning the law would make them withdraw some of their services. Australian PM Scott Morrison said lawmakers would not yield to "threats". Though Australia is far from Google's largest market, the proposed news code is seen as a possible global test case for how governments could seek to regulate big tech firms.

USA - Is this legal? A Florida bank announced on Thursday that they have closed President Donald Trump’s bank accounts. Trump’s money-market accounts at Banks United held between $5.1 million and $25.2 million, according to his financial disclosures. “We no longer have any depository relationship with him,” Banks United told the Washington Post. Professional Bank also announced that they will no longer be doing business with the former president or his organizations in a statement last week. Additionally, Signature Bank in New York and Deutsche Bank have also said that they have cut ties with Trump and his businesses. It is not enough that they cheated him out of office, the left won’t stop retaliating until his life is completely ruined.

USA - President Joe Biden will soon reverse the ban on transgender people serving openly in the military, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Wednesday. While the reversal was not one of the 15 actions the new administration announced it would take Wednesday, Day One of the Biden presidency, Psaki said it would be among the “additional executive actions” that will be taken “in the coming days and weeks.” Biden had previously vowed to reverse the Trump administration’s transgender military policy “on Day One” of his administration. However, his nominee for secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, is still going through the confirmation process, though it is not known whether this is the reason the reversal is not part of the president’s Day One agenda.

USA - President Biden has tapped Dr Anthony Fauci to lead a US delegation at the World Health Organization's annual meetings, as the new president and his team seek to immediately reverse President Trump's plan to withdraw from the international aid group, according to CNBC. “Once the United States resumes its engagement with the WHO, the Biden-Harris Administration will work with the WHO and our partners to strengthen and reform the organization, support the COVID-19 health and humanitarian response, and advance global health and health security," the Biden transition team said in a Wednesday statement, adding that the new administration will work with the WHO on an international pandemic response plan. The changes will make good on one of Biden’s key campaign promises. He pledged to rejoin the global health agency on his first day in office if he defeated Trump, whose decision to leave the WHO as America faced the worst coronavirus outbreak of any country globally drew bipartisan criticism from lawmakers. - CNBC

USA - In his first pro-abortion action as president, Joe Biden has written to the United Nations and informed it that the United States is rejoining and renewing funding for the pro-abortion World Health Organization. The WHO has come under fire from pro-life advocates for promoting abortion and it has received criticism for its poor handling of and deception about the coronavirus. In April, President Donald Trump announced he would halt federal taxpayer funding for the WHO, the international agency that has botched its response to the coronavirus. WHO had been accused of lying to the world about the coronavirus. It also criticized President Trump for protecting Americans from COVID by banning travel from China, where the virus originated. And it came under fire for saying killing babies in abortions is somehow an essential procedure as the world deals with the coronavirus pandemic.

USA - President Joe Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office, mandating that any schools that receive federal funding must function as if biological males who claim to be females are the same, and vice versa, or risk losing that funding. This pro-transgender policy extends to male athletes who claim their gender identity as a female should allow them to compete on women’s teams, receive women’s scholarships, and be admitted in women’s locker rooms. “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports,” the executive order reads, promising that the Biden administration is committed to “prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.”

USA - A new survey of citizens of 11 countries suggests that Joe Biden faces an almost impossible task when it comes to his goal of repairing frayed US-European relations. But it’s trite to simply blame four years of Donald Trump. A recent survey commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations has found that most Europeans look to Germany rather than the United States as their most important partner, having lost faith in America’s ability to elect leaders who share their continent’s vision and values.

UK - Having won more votes than any presidential candidate in American history, Joe Biden might have hoped for a triumphant entry into Washington. Instead, he travelled to the inauguration in a private plane to deliver his speech to more members of the National Guard than guests. A combination of the pandemic and security fears ruined normal proceedings: the event had become a target, crowds too great a risk.

USA - In America today, free speech can only be exercised in narrow and controlled channels. It can be used to demonize President Trump and his supporters as “enemies of democracy.” It can be used to demonize white people as “systemic racists” and “white supremacists,” and to demonize heterosexual white males as “misogynists.” Its one other use is to demonize countries — Russia, China, and Iran — that stand in the way of Washington’s hegemony.

USA - You are no longer allowed to question the regime. Questioning the fraudulent election will no longer be tolerated. So what if Pennsylvania had 205,000 more mail-in ballots than the number that were sent out? You are not allowed to question the results. So what if GOP poll workers were locked out of the counting rooms in Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee? You are not allowed to question the results.