Republicans have joined the race by Democrats to remove Donald Trump from office, after Mike Pence rejected a vote to oust the president. Liz Cheney, the third most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, said she would vote to impeach Mr Trump. With insufficient time to impeach him before he is succeeded by Democrat Joe Biden in seven days’ time, the Senate would still be able to ban him from running for office again.
A coronavirus vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac has been found to be 50.4% effective in Brazilian clinical trials, according to the latest results released by researchers. It shows the vaccine is significantly less effective than previous data suggested – barely over the 50% needed for regulatory approval. The Chinese vaccine is one of two that the Brazilian government has lined up.
A convicted murderer who strangled an expectant mother in Missouri and cut the baby from her womb 16 years ago, became the first woman in nearly seven decades to be federally executed early Wednesday. Lisa Montgomery’s execution came after the U.S. Supreme Court denied an effort by her defense attorneys to stay her execution based on her ability to understand her death sentence.
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny plans to fly back to Russia on Sunday for the first time since he was poisoned in August, despite the risk of being jailed on his return from Germany. Navalny, who has been receiving treatment in Germany, accuses Putin of ordering his poisoning with the deadly nerve agent Novichok, and some supporters had urged him to stay abroad for his own safety.
Some 9,000 children died in Ireland’s church-run homes for unwed mothers, a government report published on Tuesday found. This is equivalent to 15 percent of all children who were born or lived in the 18 institutions investigated over nearly 80 years. The nearly 3,000-page report describes the emotional and even physical abuse some of the 56,000 unmarried mothers — from farmhands to domestic servants — were subjected to in the so-called mother-and-baby homes.