“Source confirms the US Attorney’s office is in possession of security camera footage of possible rioters being given tours before the Capitol attack – but nothing else. No visitor logs or entry records. I’m told the US Attorney’s office only received security footage, in part because formal visitor logs don’t exist for tours organized through congressional offices with the Capitol closed as a result of coronavirus” reports freelance journalist Hugo Longwell.

In the biggest upgrade of the social media platform since they expanded the text field, Twitter will introduce a way for users to monetize content and a new feature to create groups based on shared interests, TheVerge has reported.   The changes were announced during a call with investors and market analysts held Thursday afternoon.

Still resisting the call for an edit function, Twitter will allow “blue check” users to add the ability of followers to become Super Follows for a monthly or annual fee.  Becoming one will allow followers to access additional content, receive newsletters or get a special badge that demonstrates their support.

Twitter will also introduce the ability to form or join “communities” in which people share a specific interest, much the same way Facebook has groups.

There was no timetable announced for introducing these features.

George Zimmer, the founder of menswear retailer The Men’s Wearhouse, spoke out in support of Democrats’ plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, saying this isn’t a partisan issue, “it’s an American issue.”  For the group Patriotic Millionaires, Zimmer calls the current $7.25 rate “an immoral abomination” and “an embarrassment to all Americans,” saying that increasing the minimum wage will add more money to the US economy as those at the lowest pay start becoming customers of other businesses.

https://youtu.be/E2Lr0GXGMXM

Trans people exist.

— OREO Cookie (@Oreo) February 25, 2021

Reuters: “U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Thursday, stressing the importance of human rights and vowing to make the relationship between the two countries stronger and more transparent, the White House said. Biden ‘affirmed the importance the United States places on universal human rights and the rule of law,’ and the two leaders discussed the U.S. commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend itself against attacks by Iran-aligned groups.”

Last year, Biden promised to reopen most of our schools within his first 100 days as President.

But all he has done so far is put special interests ahead of our students.

— GOP (@GOP) February 25, 2021

“In a tweet voicing his opposition to raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour, Republican South Dakota Senator John Thune said he made $6 an hour working at a restaurant as a ‘kid.’ Adjusted for modern inflation, that would be $24 an hour today. Congressional Republicans have largely opposed the Democratic proposal to raise the minimum wage. They argue a wage hike will harm small businesses who have already been economically harmed during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. ‘I started working by bussing tables at the Star Family Restaurant for $1/hour and slowly moved up to cook – the big leagues for a kid like me – to earn $6/hour,’ Thune tweeted Wednesday evening. ‘Businesses in small towns survive on narrow margins. Mandating a $15 minimum wage would put many of them out of business.'”

“It’s unclear which years Thune worked at the restaurant in his hometown of Murdo, South Dakota, where he attended high school. However, Thune was born in 1961. Assuming he was earning $6 an hour by the time he was 17 – the last year one is still considered a non-adult under the national age of consent, which is 18 – the year would have been 1978. A $6 an hour wage in 1978, adjusted to modern inflation rates, would equal $24.07 an hour in 2021. A person making $24.07 an hour, working 40 hours a week would earn over $50,000 annually before taxes” – Newsweek.

Axios: “The House voted 224-206 on Thursday to pass the Equality Act, which would expand federal protections for LGBTQ people by prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. The legislation passed in the House in May 2019, but never reached the Senate under former President Trump. Democratic leaders believe there is a chance to pass the act into law this year with a 50-50 split in the Senate, but it is uncertain whether enough Republicans will support the bill for it to move forward. The bill would amend laws including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act to explicitly include protections for LGBTQ people.”

John Geddert, a former US Olympic Team gymnastics coach, committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot hours after being indicted on more than two dozen charges relating to sexual assault and human trafficking, WOOD NBC-8 in Michigan reports.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel had held a news conference Thursday morning announcing that her office was filing charges against Geddert, who was accused of assaulting or trafficking more than 150 women, in association with Larry Nassar, the former team doctor, who was convicted of multiple counts of child pornography and sexual assault of minors.

“These allegations focus around multiple acts of verbal, physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by the defendant against multiple young women. I am grateful for these survivors coming forward to cooperate with our investigation and for bravely sharing their stories,” Nessel said.

The White House commemorated the United States hitting 50 million doses of coronavirus vaccinations administered since President Joe Biden took office 36 days ago, well ahead of the pace of one million vaccinations per day Biden promised when he took office.

Two firefighters, a supermarket worker, a school counselor and a nurse received their inoculations as President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris looked on.  Besides celebrating the milestone, Biden noted that “the worst thing we could do not is let our guard down,” as new coronavirus variants start to spread around the nation.

Biden noted that 60% of people over the age of 75 have received at least one dose, and 75% of people who live in long-term care facilities have received at least one dose.  Prior to Biden’s inauguration, just six million Americans had been vaccinated, and the prior administration, which had no plan to vaccinate the American people, had left no supplies of vaccines available.

In a first-of-its-kind budget expenditure, the Department of Homeland Security allocated $77 million in grants for state and local governments to specifically combat threat from domestic extremist groups, NBC News reports.

The money is part of a large $1.8 billion budget allocation to help state and local governments to protect against terrorism and other disasters.  It’s the first time DHS has made a specific grant to lower levels of government to combat violence from domestic terror groups.

“While we continue to lawfully protect against threats posed by foreign terrorist organizations, we also must ensure adequate focus and funding is provided to combat domestic terrorism, some of which is motivated by false narratives and extremist rhetoric spread through social media and other online platforms,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

During the floor debate on the Equity Bill for LGBTQ rights, South Carolina Republican Congressman Ralph Norman took to the House floor to ask unanimous consent for a 30-second moment of silence in memory of Rush Limbaugh, “one of the greatest radio hosts ever,” he claimed, without mentioning Limbaugh, a regular cigar smoker who died last week from lung cancer, was a notorious homophobe and transphobe who frequently mocked LGBTQ members during his program.

The chair denied the request.

https://youtu.be/nolWslegYWs

Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said that intelligence reports indicate members of extremist groups are planning to attack the Capitol when President Joe Biden makes his address to a joint session of Congress in March, NBC News reports.

Testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee, Pittman said, “We know that members of the militia groups that were present on January [6th] have stated their desires that they want to blow up the Capitol and kill as many members as possible with a direct nexus to the State of the Union, which we know that date has not been identified.”

Pittman was testifying about the continued need to maintain National Guard presence and barriers around the Capitol complex in the months following the January 6th domestic terrorist attack stoked by Republicans who claimed the November 2020 election was stolen because Donald Trump lost.  Many Republicans and conservative commentators have questioned the need for a continued elevated security level at the Capitol.

A gunman shot the dog walker and kidnapped Lady Gaga’s two French bulldogs Wednesday night in Hollywood, prompting the iconic pop singer to offer a $500,000 reward for their return, CNN reports.

The Los Angeles Police Department said a man with a semiautomatic handgun shot the dog walker and took the two dogs while the dog walker was out with the dogs Wednesday at around 10 p.m. local time.  He then fled with the dogs in a white van.  The dog walker was wounded but is expected to make a full recovery.

The singer, who performed at the Biden-Harris inaugural in January, immediately offered $500,000 for the safe return of the dogs, named Koji and Gustav, no questions asked.  Anyone with information can email KojiandGustav@gmail.com.

The government of Israel–which has not acknowledged its stockpile or development of nuclear weapons–has started a construction project at a highly-sensitive nuclear weapons site, the Associated Press reports.

Satellite photos of the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center near the city of Dimona show excavation larger than a football field near an existing underground facility that extracts plutonium from spent nuclear power plant rods.  The plutonium is then processed into weapons-grade material.

The International Panel on Fissile Materials at Princeton University spotted the construction last week on photos taken by a commercial satellite; the AP then commissioned a different commercial satellite company to provide higher-resolution images.  The site was original constructed by the Israelis, with French assistance, in the 1950s.  It’s become the center for Israeli nuclear research and development.

Warehouse shopping titan Costco announced Thursday that it will raise the minimum wage for its employees to $16 per hour ahead of a pending bill before Congress that will raise the national minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, Reuters reports.

Costco, which already pays its employees a minimum of $15 per hour, is trying to maintain an advantage in attracting workers.  Competitors Amazon and Target already pay their employees $15 per hour, and Walmart announced that it will raise its hourly wage to $15 per hour for its Walmart and Sam’s Club locations.

Costco’s Chief Executive Officer Craig Jelinek made the announcement at a U.S. Senate Budget Committee hearing on worker wages at large companies.

More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar while working on that nation’s preparation for hosting the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament, the Guardian reports.

Since 2010, when Qatar was awarded the games, an average of 12 migrant workers per week have died while working on the construction of soccer stadiums and other infrastructure projects.  According to the report, this includes 2,711 workers from India, 1,641 from Nepal, 1,018 from Bangladesh, 824 from Pakistan and 557 from Sri Lanka.

The overall figure is likely higher given that the data are only from the five countries listed and encompass only workers directly connected to the construction process.  Causes of death range from electrocution, blunt force trauma from construction accidents, suicide, road accidents and “natural causes.” 

Fox News: “Just weeks after voting in support of the second impeachment of former President Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., is already facing a pro-Trump GOP primary challenger. His opponent? Catalina Lauf, a 27-year-old who previously served in the Trump administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce. She launched her bid Tuesday to oust the 42-year-old incumbent in Illinois’ 16th Congressional District. ‘I never thought I’d primary a fellow Republican, but is Congressman Kinzinger really a Republican anymore? He isn’t and we have the proof,’ Lauf says in a video campaign announcement.”

“Lauf attacks Kinzinger as a ‘weak-kneed, establishment Republican’ who ‘cares more about his next MSNBC appearance than the voters who elected him.’ She suggests that the sitting congressman does not support the ‘America First’ movement, pointing to his ‘one in three votes’ in Congress that have sided with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. ‘Instead of being in our fight, Adam betrayed his constituents for a life in the D.C. swamp,’ Lauf says.”

In today's update, Chairwoman Kelli Ward provides an update on two important Arizona court cases focused on election integrity. @kelliwardaz pic.twitter.com/rpDrWVuAZF

— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) February 25, 2021

“Trump’s taxes and underlying tax documents are in the hands of the Manhattan District Attorney. The records include millions of pages of documents” reports MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin.