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5 Things to Know

Biden's COVID remarks, US democracy poll, goodbye Blackberry: 5 things to know Tuesday

Editors
USA TODAY

Biden to make remarks after meeting with COVID response team

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the White House coronavirus response team Tuesday to receive an update on the omicron variant and to discuss the administration's response, according to a White House source. That includes updates about resources being sent to communities to help with staffing needs and the latest data on the variant, which says that while cases continue to rise, fully vaccinated and boosted Americans who get infected are not likely to have severe symptoms. These developments come as the intensely rapid spread of omicron and a backlog of cases from the New Year's weekend has resulted in U.S. health authorities tallying more than three times as many new cases as in any previous wave of the coronavirus — over 1 million reported on Monday alone. About 1 of every 100 Americans will have been reported as a positive case in just the last week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

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Americans say democracy is in peril but disagree on why, new poll shows

Americans by overwhelming margins see the nation's democracy as in peril, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll released Tuesday found, but that consensus is based on starkly conflicting assessments of the assault on the U.S. Capitol nearly one year ago. Across partisan lines, more than 8 in 10 Republicans, Democrats and independents say they are worried about the future of America's democracy. They disagree on whether the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 represented an effort to undermine democracy, or fix it. Eighty-five percent of Democrats call the rioters "criminals." Two-thirds of Republicans say, "They went too far, but they had a point." The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken by landline and cellphone Dec. 27-30, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. 

Powerful winter storm to linger in some areas after lashing US

A powerful winter storm that dumped snow on the Plains, Midwest and interior Northeast over the past few days is expected to linger Tuesday. Gusty winds up to 65 miles per hour could hit the region, according to the National Weather Service. Western Washington state and Oregon saw a mix of rain and snow while heavy snow, gusty winds, drifts and crashes shut down mountain passes and some highways. The Northwest could see heavy rain and possible flooding along the coast Tuesday as multiple rounds of heavy snow travels across the region into the week, the weather service said. On Monday, the storm moved across the South and mid-Atlantic snarling traffic, causing five deaths, nearly 850,000 power outages and shutting down much of the federal government in Washington. The storm led to hundreds of car crashes and stuck vehicles.

Judge to hear arguments in Prince Andrew case

A federal judge in New York is expected to hear arguments Tuesday on Prince Andrew's motion to dismiss a civil suit accusing him of sexual assault. The hearing comes after an unsealed court document says that Virginia Roberts Giuffre accepted a $500,000 settlement from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2009, and agreed she wouldn't sue Epstein or any other "potential defendant." The Duke of York's lawyers say that agreement should bar Giuffre from suing Andrew now​​​​​​. Giuffre's lead lawyer, David Boies, said the 2009 settlement is "irrelevant" to the lawsuit against Andrew because it doesn't mention the prince by name. He said in a statement that Giuffre's team sought to have the settlement made public to refute Andrew's argument that it absolved him of liability by implication. The hearing comes in the wake of last week's conviction of Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, also a longtime friend of Andrew's, who was found guilty of five of six federal counts, including sex trafficking and conspiracy, after a month-long trial.

Your Blackberry will no longer be of use after Tuesday 

Are you still holding on to that BlackBerry for dear life? It's time to say goodbye for good. As of Tuesday, legacy services for BlackBerry devices will go away. That means any devices running BlackBerry software "will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality," said the company. BlackBerry ushered in the era of smartphones, positioning itself as the dominant player in the industry in the 2000s. But with the rise of Apple's iPhone and Google Android devices starting in 2008, BlackBerry devices fell out of favor with consumers and businesses. In 2016, BlackBerry announced it would no longer manufacture BlackBerry devices. In 2020, the company revealed it also planned to shut down legacy services tied to BlackBerry devices. 

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