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Biden announced last Wednesday that his administration would bring an end to America’s longest war by September 11, marking the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks against Washington, D.C. and New York that the U.S. used as justification to invade Afghanistan in 2001. But Biden has received swift pushback from many top Republicans, who have strongly criticized the decision and warned of greater “instability.” On Fox News Sunday, Wallace raised these concerns directly with Sullivan....

The independent Facebook Oversight Board announced on Wednesday that it would uphold the social media giant’s decision to suspend Trump, which it did following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by the former president’s supporters on January 6. However, the board declined to rule on whether the ban should become permanent, saying Facebook’s leadership should make a final determination on that within six months. In a Wednesday YouTube video, Vaughn, the co-founder of First Harvest Ministries in Mississippi, responded to the decision, urging his followers and Trump supporters to share content from the former president on Facebook....

Chrome 90’s new link to highlight feature lets you link to any chunk of text on a web page, not just the page itself. This simple change could change the way we use the web, how we search, and more. It could even be enough to wrest users away from Safari and Firefox unless they follow along. “For people writing blog posts, they can now link directly to a specific phrase that they are trying to reference,” marketing consultant Phil Johnston told Lifewire via email....

Schumer spoke to the One NYCHA podcast about housing initiatives designed to serve vulnerable people and historic resistance from local communities to such projects. At one point in the discussion, Schumer referred to “retarded children.” “Retarded” is now considered an outdated and offensive term and has been largely eliminated from federal statues. Schumer was discussing his time in the New York state legislature between 1975 and 1980, when the term was more commonly used....

Late on the last Sunday in February, the first young refugees from the Branch Davidian cult arrived at the Methodist Home for children in Waco, Texas. The staff and extra volunteers were on call, beds were freshly made, snacks at hand if the youngsters needed a comforting cookie or two. But someone had left the television on, and as the first little girl walked into the living room, the image on the screen turned violent....

Brazil’s Guilherme Spinelli won the cars/trucks division aboard a Mitsubishi ASX Racing with a time of 11 hours, 29 minutes and 40 seconds, beating his closest rivals by more than an hour and half, reports Xinhua. Chile’s Pablo Quintanilla came in first place in the motorbike division aboard a KTM 450 with a time of 11:56:05, leaving France and Peru to take second and third place. Another 22 racers completed the difficult trail....

The coastal towns of Quintero and Puchuncaví in Chile are considered one of five ‘sacrifice zones’ in the country—industrialized areas containing chemical plants that were set up in the 1960s. This particular zone has previously been dubbed “the Chilean Chernobyl” by environmental charity Greenpeace, due to the health effects the plants have had on local citizens. The area is home to 50,000 people. Feminist campaign group the Women of Quintero-Puchuncaví Sacrifice Zone in Resistance fight for environmental justice for the area and have finally succeeded in urging the government to take action, Open Democracy reported....

The defending champions will play Mexico in the next round on Saturday, barring a heavy defeat for Argentina against bottom side Bolivia in the other Group D game. Argentina, who lead 3-0 in that game, would play Venezuela as group winners. “This was important for me and for the team,” said Vargas. “It has boosted our confidence for the games to come. “We are Copa America champions but we haven’t played as well as we did in the last Copa America and this will give us confidence....

Cheng Youquan, a supervisor at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said COVID outbreaks in the country were widespread and developing at a “faster pace.” “Some places are facing the most complex and severe situation in the three-year fight against the epidemic,” he told a weekly press conference. The central government acknowledged for the first time the vocal protests that took place in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai over the weekend....

The People’s Liberation Army Hong Kong Garrison shared the nearly two-and-a-half-minute clip on social media site Sina Weibo, showcasing a joint air and sea patrol that also involved other exercises such as small arms fire and arrest and inspection. The training involved the garrison’s air force, ground force and navy and was said to have comprehensively tested their defense capabilities. Dramatic scenes showed Chinese forces performing mock rescues and also practice chasing and detaining suspects....

Ma Xiaowei, the head of China’s National Health Commission, cautioned the nation and fellow Chinese Communist Party members against complacency, dismissing “wrong thinking” about coexisting with the virus and “misconceptions” about Omicron variants becoming flu-like. Writing in the Study Times, a journal published by the CCP’s Central Party School, Ma urged health workers to carry the “spirit of struggle” and maintain emergency status. The ongoing pandemic must be met with the central government’s “national playbook,” he said—Xi’s strategy of “dynamic zero COVID....

China’s Foreign Ministry fired back during a Friday press conference when spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that the remarks are “groundless and make no sense at all.” “Western countries, such as the U.K. and U.S., are actually the true empires of hacking and tapping,” Zhao said. Meanwhile, Fleming said China has a “competing vision for the future of cyberspace,” and added that there is a potential for China to use their authority to dominate technology markets, AP reported....

Compiled by international scientists after a visit to China, the report ranked the likelihood of four possible origins and deemed a laboratory accident to be “extremely unlikely.” It’s faced criticism for relying too heavily on information provided by China and the limitations of the study. However, Chinese officials have stood by their transparency and dismissed calls for further investigations into the lab as being a political attack. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian called the WHO report’s findings an “authoritative and official conclusion based on science....

China’s state-run news outlets cautioned that Biden may be trying to “appear tough” after he recently walked back his campaign criticism of Trump’s “disastrous” tariffs. Biden also nominated the new secretary of state who last week told the Senate, “Trump was right in taking a tougher approach to China.” U.S.-China relations are dismal after years of a Trump-led trade war, Chinese human rights violations and continued sniping over the coronavirus pandemic’s origins....

The frequent “gray zone” coercion involving People’s Liberation Army assets was unusually absent for about 10 days before a large fleet of 28 aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday. The following day, Taiwan’s air force detected a single Chinese Y-8 anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft near the island. Taipei then scrambled interceptors and deployed surface-to-air missiles when seven more PLA warplanes returned on Thursday. The appearance of three dozen military aircraft in 72 hours was a clear sign that Beijing’s military coercion had not stopped despite the period of relative quiet....

On Wednesday, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 moved through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The legislation will likely be voted on by both chambers in the coming weeks. If passed, it will allow the U.S. to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials who undermine the autonomy of Hong Kong. The bill will also require the president to review Hong Kong special economic status each year and ensure its freedoms are not being eroded....

The British Centre for Economics and Business Research released its annual report on Saturday, suggesting that the economic fallout of the pandemic means China will surpass the U.S. five years earlier than previously estimated. “For some time, an overarching theme of global economics has been the economic and soft power struggle between the United States and China,” the CEBR wrote as quoted by Reuters. “The COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding economic fallout have certainly tipped this rivalry in China’s favour....