USA - In the latest Economist/YouGov survey, 36% of Republicans called Trump the best. Just 18% called Reagan that, followed by 13% for President Abraham Lincoln and 11% for President George Washington. The poll was conducted during Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial, during which seven Republicans voted to convict him, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who did not vote to impeach, blamed Trump for the Capitol riots. It is further evidence that Trump remains the leader of the Republican Party in the eyes of Republicans. Another survey this week found that 75% want Trump to have a “prominent role” in the GOP. In a blast at the “swamp” and establishment Republicans on Tuesday, Trump said that he will continue to speak out on GOP politics and will play a role in the 2022 elections.

EUROPE - The US used to hold almost absolute sway over the EU’s global politics. Now, on the issue of China, Europe is slipping from Washington’s grasp as it realizes it’s better off building that relationship on its own terms. Over 70 years ago, the United States forged the beginning of a new transatlantic order through the initiation of first, the Marshall Plan to rebuild the war-torn economies of Europe, and then secondly, the NATO alliance, framed as a protection from the perceived threat of the Soviet Union.

USA - Walmart has temporarily closed more than 500 stores as an unprecedented winter storm pelts much of the southern half of the US. According to a tracker on Walmart’s website, 501 stores are currently shut down, from Texas to Kentucky, due to Winter Storm Uri, which has dumped snow and ice and caused frigid temperatures in the South since last week. Many of the Walmart closures are concentrated in Texas, which has been battered by a winter storm that hit the region last Thursday. Icy conditions caused a 130-car pile-up on a highway near Fort Worth, leaving six people dead and over 60 injured. In response to the severe weather, Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration on Friday for all 254 counties in Texas. On Sunday, President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Texas, ordering that federal aid be sent to the region.

USA - The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress will unveil an immigration reform bill later this week that is expected to include a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants, NBC News reported. The “US Citizenship Act of 2021” will include the immigration commitments that Biden released when he first took office, according to NBC News. The president’s proposal provides a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants, expands the refugee resettlement program and adds unspecified new technology to the US-Mexico southern border.

USA - The Department of Homeland Security will begin phase one of the Biden administration’s new approach to immigration and asylum seekers on Friday by releasing thousands of migrants in three American cities over a two-week period. The new plan, in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s “Remain In Mexico” policy, will have DHS start releasing illegal aliens in San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas; and Brownsville, Texas, according to Breitbart and the Associated Press. Around 25,000 migrants will be let into the country through the first phase. DHS plans to process and release about 300 migrants a day in both San Diego and El Paso, with plans to release about 100 migrants a day in Brownsville.

USA - Project Veritas has released a video showing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sharing views on COVID-19 vaccines that would get him tossed off of his own platform. The leaked video comes from a Facebook internal meeting from last summer where Zuckerberg expressed his concerns about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines that are being rushed to the masses in the fog of mass hysteria. “I do just want to make sure that I share some caution on this because we just don’t know the long-term side effects of basically modifying people’s DNA and RNA,” Zuckerburg stated in a comment that would get an individual labeled as a conspiracy theorist these days.

USA - Winter's brutal assault continued Wednesday night as another snowstorm roared its way across the nation through the end of the week, hitting areas where millions were already without electricity in record-breaking cold. More than 100 million Americans are in the path of the storm as it tracks from the southern Plains to the East Coast over the next few days, the National Weather Service said. But the nation's heartland will get some relief over the weekend, the weather service reported, as the frigid air will begin to moderate over the next couple days. But first, much of Texas and the Southeast will have to endure heavy snowfall and "ice accumulations of a light glaze to a few hundredths of an inch" through Thursday. Heavy snow is forecast to move work its way as far north as southern New England on Thursday. More than 30 people have died because of the intense cold and a series of storms that moved from coast to coast since the weekend.

EUROPE - Mount Etna in Sicily, Europe’s tallest volcano and one of its most active, has erupted for the second time in as many days, with a stream of molten rock and a massive ash cloud tinged red by the sun captured in remarkable footage. The volcano came alive around 4pm local time on Tuesday, according to the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, while the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in Toulouse said the blast launched ash over 6 miles (10 kilometers) into the sky, warning of “very strong ash emission.” Tuesday’s activity marked Etna’s second eruption this week alone, with tremors increasing in the early hours of Monday before lava finally blasted from the volcano in the afternoon. Standing nearly 11,000 feet (3,300 meters) tall, Mount Etna is one of Europe’s most active volcanoes, erupting dozens of times over the last century.

USA - The world’s third-richest man is shifting from preaching about pandemics to promoting his new book about climate change, urging humanity to embrace the sci-fi idea of fake meat in order to save the earth from greenhouse gases. The idea is to lower the emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas produced by grazing animals such as cows or sheep as they digest grass. Praising the technological achievements in agriculture and bioengineering, Gates said there was no other way but to eliminate livestock, even as he admitted that telling people “You can’t have cows anymore” is a “politically unpopular approach to things.” Unpopular is one way to describe it, judging by the reaction to his proposals, which have ranged from telling Gates to “take a hike” to much less printable things.

AFRICA - The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned several African nations about possible Ebola infections after new cases were found in Guinea and DR Congo. The last major outbreak in the region killed more than 10,000 people. “We have already alerted the six countries around [them], including of course Sierra Leone and Liberia, and they are moving very fast to prepare and be ready and to look for any potential infection,” WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris said. Guinea has borders with Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone. An Ebola outbreak was declared in the southern part of Guinea on Sunday – the first time the deadly disease has been recorded in the country since 2016. New cases were also reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a vaccination campaign was launched.

ISRAEL - Israel may ignore US President Joe Biden in dealing with Iran if he pushes toward reviving the nuclear deal, according to Ambassador to the US Gilad Erdan. Biden campaigned on restoring the Iran deal, even though it allowed the regime to pursue nuclear weapons after roughly a decade, and did not include provisions preventing Iran’s development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles or its support for terrorist proxies in the region and around the world.

USA - The Pentagon, in the three weeks that Joe Biden has been president, has turned the department’s attention from outside threats towards potential threats from inside the military. Former President Donald Trump’s first military priorities were to rebuild the military, defeat the Islamic State, and focus on the threat from China. President Joe Biden, in contrast, while continuing the focus on China, has taken a number of actions to promote social justice inside the Pentagon. His first military-related executive order was to overturn Trump’s transgender policy.

USA - From National File: Vice President Kamala Harris is now taking calls from world leaders in lieu of Joe Biden, first speaking to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on February 2, and just yesterday speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron. It is unclear if Joe Biden's early bed time of 7 pm, revealed by CNN, could be the reason why. On February 2, "Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday, marking her first call to a foreign leader since entering the White House."

USA - Billionaire Bill Gates may have been one of former President Donald J Trump’s biggest critics, but he is completely on board with Joe Biden’s radical environmental policies. The Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist praised Biden’s efforts to destroy the domestic fossil fuels industry in order to replace it with alternatives under the guise of eco-friendly “sustainability” during an appearance on “60 Minutes” on Sunday. During his chat with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Gates touted what he calls a “zero carbon future” that over 30 years will require “global cooperation on a scale the world has never seen”. This is music to the ears of those who are rushing to dismantle Trump’s America first agenda.

USA - It appears that the ‘We the People’ petition system has been taken off the White House website. The system has been around for many years. At any given time, hundreds of petitions were active. If you get 100,000 signatures, the White House is supposed to give an answer. You may remember that there was an active “Free Assange” petition that the Obama Administration was obligated to answer (and gave a bad answer). When Trump took office, he briefly discontinued it but put it back up after a media uproar. Now it appears the Biden White House has removed it. I have seen nothing about this in the media. When I Google “White House Petition System Down” and other similar searches, I only get 4-year-old articles about the time that Trump temporarily disabled it.