Evergrande, the embattled Chinese property developer, has defaulted on its debt, according to Fitch Ratings.

The credit ratings agency on Thursday downgraded the company and its subsidiaries to "restricted default," meaning that the firm has failed to meet its financial obligations.

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Former Trump White House chief of Staff Mark Meadows is suing the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Meadows is asking a federal court to block enforcement of both the subpoena the committee issued him as well as the subpoena it issued to Verizon for his phone records, according to the complaint filed Wednesday. 

The lawsuit comes after the committee signaled it would pursue a criminal contempt referral against Meadows because of his refusal to sit for a deposition in the investigation into the Capitol riot.

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President Joe Biden on Wednesday ruled out sending US troops to Ukraine to defend the country from a Russian invasion a day after laying out the consequences for such an incursion during a stern phone call with President Vladimir Putin.

Speaking to reporters as he departed the White House for Kansas City, Biden said he warned Putin he would impose sanctions "like none he's ever seen" should the Russian troops massed on Ukraine's border escalate into an assault.

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The House select committee investigating the January 6 riot informed Mark Meadows, they have "no choice" but to advance criminal contempt proceedings against him, given that the former chief of staff to former President Donald Trump has decided to no longer cooperate with the panel, according to a new letter.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat wrote in a letter dated December 7, quote "The Select Committee is left with no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which Mr. Meadows once served refer him for criminal prosecution."

The letter, which the committee publicly released Wednesday, also reveals new details about the previous correspondence between the two parties, and shares for the first time in greater detail what information Meadows had voluntarily turned over to the committee.

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Preliminary lab studies show two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may not provide sufficient protection against the Omicron variant, but three doses are able to neutralize it, the companies said in a news release on Wednesday.

Samples from people who had two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine saw, on average, a more than 25-fold reduction in neutralization ability against the Omicron variant than the earlier virus, "indicating that two doses of the vaccine may not be sufficient to protect against infection with the Omicron variant," the companies said.

The companies said two doses may still provide protection against severe disease.

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Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will no longer cooperate with the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, according to a letter from his attorney to the panel, which was obtained by CNN on Tuesday.

"We agreed to provide thousands of pages of responsive documents and Mr. Meadows was willing to appear voluntarily, not under compulsion of the Select Committee's subpoena to him, for a deposition to answer questions about non-privileged matters. Now actions by the Select Committee have made such an appearance untenable," the letter from George J. Terwilliger II stated.

"In short, we now have every indication from the information supplied to us last Friday - upon which Mr. Meadows could expect to be questioned - that the Select Committee has no intention of respecting boundaries concerning Executive Privilege," Terwilliger added.

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The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic representatives to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing as a statement against Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced Monday.

Psaki said the administration was sending a "clear message" that the human rights abuses in China mean there cannot be "business as usual."

"The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics games given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang," Psaki said in the press briefing Monday.

Psaki added that Team USA has the administration's "full support" but that the administration would not be "contributing to the fanfare of the game."

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All private sector employers in New York City will now be required to implement a Covid-19 vaccine mandate by December 27, the city's mayor Bill De Blasio announced Monday. 

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Former Republican Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole died Sunday morning, according to a statement released by his family.

"Senator Robert Joseph Dole died early this morning in his sleep. At his death, at age 98, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years," the statement said.

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America added another 210,000 jobs to the economy in November, far fewer than expected. It was a disappointing result, especially considering the hires took place before the Omicron variant became a global concern.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.2%.

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