WASHINGTON • The leaders of the US Senate have agreed to push back former president Donald Trump's impeachment trial by two weeks, giving the Chamber more time to focus on President Joe Biden's legislative agenda and Cabinet nominees before turning to the contentious showdown over Mr Trump. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said on Friday that the trial is set to begin in the week of Feb 8, an arrangement praised by the Chamber's top Republican, Mr Mitch McConnell. The House of Representatives is due to formally deliver to the Senate tomorrow the impeachment charge accusing Mr Trump of inciting an insurrection, a move that ordinarily would have triggered the beginning of the trial within a day. The charge stems from Mr Trump's incendiary speech to supporters before they stormed the Capitol on Jan 6 in a rampage that delayed the formal congressional certification of Mr Biden's election victory and left five people dead, including a police officer. Mr Schumer said the new timeline will allow the Senate to move quickly on key Biden appointees and other tasks while giving House lawmakers who will prosecute the case and Mr Trump's team more time
GENEVA (AFP) - The mysterious "Q" behind the QAnon conspiracy movement, which was instrumental in the storming of the US Capitol, is in fact two people, according to Swiss experts. Swiss start-up OrphAnalytics said it had used its algorithm-based machine-learning text analysis software, developed to detect plagiarism, to help crack the mystery behind QAnon. "There are clearly two styles characterising the QAnon messages," company chief Claude Alain Roten said in an interview at his home in western Switzerland. The conspiracy movement is based on messages by "Q Clearance Patriot", who claims to be a US intelligence official leaking classified information. The so-called Q-drops began appearing on fringe messaging board 4chan in October 2017 and later moved to 8kun, promoting a vast conspiracy theory claiming President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against a global liberal cult of Satan-worshipping paedophiles. There has been speculation about Q's identity and whether one person is really behind thousands of these Q-drops but Mr Roten said it was now clear "two people are behind them". 'Two styles' The 60-year-old asked AFP not to divulge the location of the house, which serves as a meeting
WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) - When President-elect Joe Biden takes the oath of office on Wednesday (Jan 20), he is likely to place his hand on a familial artefact that has followed him throughout his 50-year political career: a hefty Bible, accented with a Celtic cross, that has been in his family since 1893. While this possibility has yet to be confirmed by Mr Biden's inaugural committee, the Bible has been a staple at Mr Biden's past swearing-in ceremonies as a United States senator and as vice-president. His son, Mr Beau Biden, also used it when he was sworn in as the Delaware attorney-general. Mr Biden, who will make history as the country's second Catholic president, after Mr John F. Kennedy, often invoked his faith during the 2020 presidential campaign as he courted voters with a promise to restore the "soul of America". In an interview last month with Stephen Colbert, Mr Biden shared some history about the family heirloom. "Every important date is in there," Mr Biden said. "For example, every time I've been sworn in for anything, the date is inscribed." But on Tuesday, a spokesman for Mr Biden's inaugural committee said he could not