LONDON (The Guardian) - Boris Johnson has been accused of corruption after it emerged that he sought funds for his flat refurbishment from a Conservative donor while promising to consider plans for a mystery “great exhibition”. The prime minister is facing fresh questions after newly published WhatsApp messages with the Tory peer David Brownlow show Johnson called parts of his Downing Street residence a “tip” and asked for “approvals” so his decor designer, Lulu Lytle, could “get on with it” in November 2020.

***
NEW DELHI, (Reuters) - Indian police said on Thursday they had arrested a 20-year-old man they suspect created an online app that shared pictures of Muslim women for a virtual “auction”, as an investigation into the case of communal harassment widened. An open source app on the Github platform called ‘Bulli Bai’ - a derogatory term to describe Muslim women - had shared pictures of dozens of women without their consent before it was taken down. K.P.S Malhotra, a police official in the capital New Delhi, said his team had arrested a 20-year-old engineering student from Jorhat in the eastern state of Assam after a probe that involved the state-run Computer Emergency Response Team.

***
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden forcefully blamed Donald Trump and his supporters Thursday for holding a “dagger at the throat of democracy” with election lies that sparked last year’s deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, using the anniversary of the attack to warn that America’s system of government remains under urgent threat. The president set the tone on a day of remembrance that brought fiery speeches, moments of silence and anguished accounts from lawmakers recalling the terrifying hours of Jan. 6, 2021, when the Trump mob laid siege to the Capitol and rioters tried to stop the routine, ceremonial certification of election results.

***
WASHINGTON(Reuters) - A winter storm dumped more than a half a foot of snow in parts of the eastern United States on Friday, forcing schools and federal government offices to close and snarling air traffic two days after a blizzard shut down a major highway in Virginia. Winter storm warnings were in effect until midday for an area reaching from Washington north into Maine, with local snowfall rates expected to exceed 1 inch (3 cm) an hour, the National Weather Service said. The storm left some parts of Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland under 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) of snow. Coastal New England was hit hardest as some towns in Connecticut and Massachusetts saw more than a foot (30 cm) of snow fall on Thursday and into Friday, the weather service said.

***
NAIROBI (Reuters) - An air strike hit a refugee camp in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, killing three Eritrean refugees, including two children, the United Nations said on Thursday. The strike on Wednesday hit Mai Aini refugee camp near the southern Tigrayan town of Mai Tsebri, the United Nations said. “Three Eritrean refugees, two of them children, were killed,” the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) head Filippo Grandi said in a statement, adding that four other refugees were injured.