The survey wrapped up as Congress launched its first impeachment proceedings on Monday. It found that Trump’s approval sits at just 34 percent, the lowest it’s been in the four years since he first took office, according to Politico/Morning Consult. More than six in 10 voters, or 63 percent, said they disapprove of the president. The largest drop in approval existed among Republicans and independents, as a great majority of Democrats already disapprove of Trump’s performance....

Trump was indefinitely locked out of his Facebook account after he was accused of using his social media platforms to incite a mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol in a deadly riot on January 6. The following day, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post that the risk of continuing to allow Trump to use Facebook and Instagram during the presidential transition period was “simply too great....

Forty-nine percent of Americans now approve of the president’s performance, according to the survey. Additionally, 50 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump, while the remaining 1 percent had no opinion. The approval rating is the highest Gallup has ever recorded for Trump since he took office in January 2017. A large majority of Republicans, 94 percent, said they supported the president, while less than 10 percent of Democrats did. Somewhat less than half of independents, 42 percent, expressed support for Trump....

“The plans to reopen the country are close to being finalized, and we will soon be sharing details and new guidelines with everybody,” Trump said during the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s daily briefing. Trump added that he would be speaking to the governors of each of the 50 states on Wednesday, and that he would be “authorizing each individual governor of each individual state” to develop and implement a plan to reopen their states’ economies....

Trump referred to those negotiating the infrastructure deal as “RINOS” - Republicans in Name Only - and blasted Democrats’ “fake infrastructure proposals.” The White House and a group of Senate Republicans agreed to a $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework in June. The bipartisan bill would be passed in tandem with Democratic proposals to fund “human infrastructure,” which the party intends to introduce using the budget reconciliation process. Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington issued a statement from the former president via Twitter on Friday....

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched short-range ballistic and cruise missiles Tuesday against Ayn al-Asad Air Base and a military site in Erbil in what the elite Iranian military branch said was “retaliation for the brutal assassination” of Iran’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike Thursday in Baghdad. Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to target Soleimani, a U.S.-designated terrorist, but announced that Iran’s attack inflicted no U....

During his Wednesday meeting with Finish President Sauli Niinisto, Trump said that the U.S., Finland and other Arctic nations were working together “to advance stability, freedom of navigation and respect for national sovereignty in the Arctic,” where new economic opportunities and political tensions are emerging as a result of climate change. The race for control of and influence in the Arctic is already well underway. Rising global temperatures are causing sea ice to recede, opening new sea lanes and natural resource deposits to exploitation....

Mary Trump, the niece of the former president and outspoken critic of his actions, made the observation during a recent episode of her podcast, The Mary Trump Show. She was speaking with political analyst David Rothkopf, who was promoting his newest book, American Resistance. In speaking with Rothkopf, Trump mused that a different Republican president elected in 2016, such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz, would have hewed much more closely to political tradition than her uncle....

Romney is one of few Republican lawmakers to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden’s election success after networks called the Democrat the victor in the contest, which was not close. States are now in the process of certifying their results. Trump has disputed Biden’s win, crying foul play and insisting widespread fraud and irregularities facilitated his opponent’s success. His team has launched a raft of lawsuits related to the election, which have so far failed to substantiate claims of mass fraud....

In the video sent by Trump’s Save America PAC, the former president started by saying that Saturday was a “very sad” day and that September 11 “represents great sorrow for our country.” He praised the “bravery of our police, fire and first responders of every kind. The job they did was truly unbelievable. We love them and we thank them,” he said in the clip titled “address on the 20th Anniversary of September 11th....

Trump has thus far refused to concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden, contesting the voting process in court in some battleground states. Some observers have criticized Trump’s allegations of widespread election manipulation as being presented without evidence. With many media outlets calling Biden the clear winner of the election, lawyers for Trump reportedly believe his best chance at remaining in office lies in states choosing to appoint electors who would not cast their votes for Biden....

The former president appears to have no intention to stop peddling the false claim that the 2020 Election was “rigged” against him, and will continue to attack the results until the 2022 midterms, and beyond. In almost every media appearance he has made on right-wing news networks since last November, Trump has repeated the same baseless allegations that have been long disproved. Trump has begun 2022 by continuing to make the claims, despite Attorney General William Barr stating there was no evidence of voter fraud, and dozens of lawsuits being thrown out in court, including some by his own appointed judges....

The 21-year-old has been outstanding at his Italian club Bologna but is yet to impress on international duty. He was substituted five minutes into the second half with Majeed Waris. “Honestly speaking, I would say rating my performance between 0-10, I think I will give myself five," Donsah told Ghanaweb. “This is because I wasn’t able to do my best. I play better in Europe but today I was not useful to the team....

A late Robert Lewandowski penalty finally settled the match in Bayern’s favor after a thrilling exhibition of football at Signal Iduna Park. But not everyone was in agreement with the decision to award the decisive spot kick, least of all Dortmund’s teenage England international. MORE: Mourinho takes it out on media after Roma loss “For me it wasn’t [a penalty],” Bellingham claimed after the final whistle. “[Mats] Hummels isn’t even looking at the ball, he’s fighting to get it and it just sort of hits him....

Sancho featured as a substitute in Dortmund’s 3-2 victory at the RheinEnergie Stadion, replacing Christian Pulisic with 18 minutes to go and playing a key part in Andre Schurrle’s winner, brilliantly springing the counterattack which brought about the goal. The win moved Dortmund into fourth in the Bundesliga table after Matchday 21. But the tricky winger appeared to turn his ankle in the turf late on and had to make way, leaving Dortmund with 10 men for the final moments due to already making their permitted three changes....

Though languishing sixth in the Bundesliga at the mid-season pause, only Bayern Munich have scored more league goals than Dortmund’s 35 and their 8-4 win over Legia Warsaw was a Champions League-record goalfest. Dortmund deny talk of China Auba bid Thomas Tuchel picked a strong side in Spain, only Africa Cup of Nations-bound Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was missing, but the striker’s replacement Adrian Ramos showed his class, setting up Dortmund’s first two goals through Marco Reus and Shinji Kagawa – Reus finding the net a minute after missing a penalty....

True, no team has ever opened a League Championship Series with back-to-back losses at home and actually qualified for the World Series. That little bit of history certainly favors the Royals, but history won’t throw a pitch or boot a ground ball in 2014 or take a breaking ball for a called strike three or slap a run-scoring double into the right-field corner. “You never assume anything, that something bad is going to happen or something good is going to happen,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said....

The Greens’ political clout on trade issues stems mainly from public concern over the safety of imported foods, including hormone-fed beef and genetically modified corn and soy. But their agenda for the WTO also extends to environmental and labor standards in the developing world, and to intellectual-property rights; the Greens hate the idea of biotech companies patenting modified genes. Bove plans to focus on two main issues in Seattle: people’s right to determine what they eat, and the creation of a separate court to rein in the WTO....

On Tuesday, Fauci appeared before the House Appropriations Committee and spoke about his involvement in SARS research: “We had a big scare with SARS CoV-1 back in 2000 to 2003, where that particular virus, unquestionably, went from a bat to an intermediate host—It would have been almost a dereliction of duty if we didn’t study,” he said. During a segment on Fox News, host Laura Ingraham played a clip of Fauci’s remarks on her show....

Speaking on CNN, Fauci noted that infections in the U.S. have gone down significantly but warned that unless Americans continue to get vaccinated and take necessary precautions, there could be another spike. “When people look at that curve, every day in the newspaper it’s very steeply going down, which is terrific news. The infections per day are going down. We can’t pull back on that and get complacent. Because if we do, we could see a surge,” said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases....