Almost 30 drones were launched in the region.

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• Rudy Giuliani attended Donald Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago. 
• In a video posted to Twitter, Giuliani films himself speaking while partygoers wave to the camera.
• The video is mostly inaudible as a cover band plays “Footloose” in the background.

Former President Donald Trump’s New Year’s Eve celebration at Mar-a-Lago featured Trump complaining about Southwest cancelling its flights, a media conference that no major news stations — including Fox or NewsMax — covered, and a video of Rudy Giuliani ringing in the New Year — though no one can hear him.

In a video posted to Twitter with the caption “Mar-a-Lago 2023 New Year headed right to 2024!” Giuliani can be heard saying  “Here we are at Mar-a-Lago…” before a live band starts performing a cover of “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins so loudly that nothing that Giuliani says is remotely audible. 

Giuliani did not appear to notice and posted the video as people danced around him and photobombed the camera. 

—Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 1, 2023

Recently, Giuliani’s name came up after a report the House Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot revealed that the Trump lawyer tried to leave a voicemail for GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama prior to President Joe Biden’s certification, but instead left it for GOP Sen. Mike Lee. 

In the voice message, Giuliani urged Tuberville to delay the certification process. Lee, who heard the message, later texted national security advisor Robert O’Brien that Giuliani was a “walking malpractice.”

Former President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump arrive for a New Years Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022.

Lynne Sladky/AP

During a media conference prior to the party, Trump avoided questions about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis investigating COVID-19 vaccines and questions about whether or not he would support a national abortion ban.

When asked about what he hoped for in 2023, he replied “world peace” before going on a rant about the Ukraine war and “strong borders.” 

The press conference lasted a couple of minutes before Trump and his wife, Melania, walked off.

—Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) January 1, 2023

Representatives for Trump and Giuliani did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Thousands of Chinese took to the streets to mark the New Year as authorities and state media sought to reassure the public that the COVID-19 outbreak sweeping across the country was under control and nearing its peak.

Though many people in major cities have continued to isolate as the virus spreads through the population, New Year revelries appeared to be mostly unaffected as people celebrated the end of 2022 and the turn into 2023.

In Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first identified at the end of 2019, residents said anxieties about the impact of easing strict zero-COVID restrictions to live with the disease had now abated – at least for the young and healthy.

“Basically, now my friends and I feel relatively positive and optimistic,” said a 29-year old tutor surnamed Wu. “Many people are going out and about.”

“We all know that especially for the middle-aged and the elderly, especially those over 60 years old, especially those with underlying diseases, they will be affected by this virus,” he said.

A long line of people queued at the emergency department of Wuhan’s Tongji Hospital, a major facility for COVID-19 patients, such as 72-year-old resident Huang, who wanted to be identified by his surname only.

“I don’t feel well. I have no energy. I can’t breathe. I used to be in good health. I had X-rays to check my lungs… This hospital is a lot of trouble, you have to wait a long time,” he said.

China’s abrupt U-turn on COVID controls – as well as the accuracy of its case and mortality data – have come under increasing scrutiny both at home and overseas.

The surge in cases has raised fresh worries about the health of the economy and in his first public comments since the change in policy, President Xi Jinping called in a New Year’s address for more effort and unity as China enters a “new phase”.

China reported one new COVID-19 death in the mainland for Dec. 31, the same as a day earlier, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday.

The accumulated official death toll in China now stands at 5,249, far lower than in other large countries. The government has rejected claims that it has deliberately underreported the total number of fatalities.

At the Hankou funeral home on the outskirts of Wuhan, an intermittent stream of mourners and hearse drivers were arriving on Sunday.

Staff at the site’s heavily guarded entrance declined to answer questions about their recent workloads. But funeral homes in other cities in China – including Chengdu and Beijing – said that they were busier than ever since China abruptly ditched its COVID curbs last month.

China’s CDC reported 5,138 official confirmed cases on Saturday, but with mass testing no longer in operation, experts say the actual number of infections is significantly higher.

State media in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China said on Sunday that daily cases peaked at around 60,000 recently, and now stand at around 19,000.

Authorities have been trying to reassure the public that they have the situation under control and state news agency Xinhua published an editorial on Sunday saying that the current strategy was “a planned, science-based approach” reflecting the changing nature of the virus.

Xinhua said separately the manufacturing of medicines had accelerated in the last month, with production of pain relievers ibuprofen and paracetamol now at 190 million tablets per day, five times higher than in early December.

Antigen test kit production has nearly doubled to 110 million per day in a month, it said.

On Sunday, Australia and Canada joined the United States and others in requiring travellers from China to provide negative COVID-19 tests when they arrive. Morocco will impose a ban on people arriving from China, its foreign ministry said.

Australian Health Minister Mark Butler said additional measures would also be considered amid concerns that China is not disclosing enough information about the nature and extent of the current outbreak.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen offered on Sunday to provide China with “necessary assistance” to help it deal with the surge in COVID-19 cases.

New Year greetings of President of Ukraine.

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KYIV (Reuters) -Russia continued intense attacks on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine early on New Year’s Day, following a barrage of missiles fired on Saturday, with air raid sirens wailing for hours overnight.

Ukraine’s Air Force command said that they had destroyed 45 Iranian-made Shahed drones — 32 of them after midnight on Sunday and 13 late on Saturday.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in a combative New Year address signalled that the war, now in its 11th month, will continue, a speech that contrasted with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s messages of gratitude and unity.

As sirens blared for over 4 hours in Kyiv, some people shouted from their balconies, “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!” Reuters witnesses reported.

Curfews ranging from 7 p.m. to midnight remained in place across the country, making celebrations for the start of 2023 impossible in public spaces.

Fragments from destroyed missiles caused minimal damage in the capital’s centre, and preliminarily reports indicated there were no wounded or casualties, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on social media.

Ukraine’s top command said in a report on Sunday that Russia had launched 31 missile and 12 air strikes across the country in the previous 24 hours.

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said on Twitter: “Russia coldly and cowardly attacked Ukraine in the early hours of the new year. But Putin still does not seem to understand that Ukrainians are made of iron.”

Andrii Nebytov, chief of Kyiv’s police, posted a photo on his Telegram messaging app, allegedly of a piece of drone used in the attack on the capital with a hand-written sign on it in Russian saying “Happy New Year”.

“These wreckage are not at the front, where fierce battles are taking place, they are here, on a sports grounds, where children play,” Nebytov said.

Attacks on Saturday killed at least one person in Kyiv and injured a dozen. They followed many bombardments over the past months, which Russia has chiefly directed at Ukraine’s energy and water infrastructure.

The newest attacks had damaged infrastructure in Sumy, in the northeast of the country, Khmelnytskyi in the west and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in southeast and south, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said.

“Let the day be quiet,” Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region said early on Sunday, after reporting heavy shelling of several communities in the region overnight, that wounded one.

Separately, Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the southern Russian region of Belgorod bordering Ukraine, said that overnight shelling of the outskirts of Shebekino town had damaged houses but there were no casualties.

Russian media also reported multiple Ukrainian attacks on the Moscow-controlled parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with local officials saying that at least nine people were wounded.

Russia’s RIA state news agency reported, citing a local doctor, that six people were killed when a hospital in Donetsk was attacked on Saturday.

There was no immediate response from Kyiv, which almost never publicly claims responsibility for any attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territories in Ukraine.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the Russian media reports.

Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, calling it a “special operation” to “denazify” and demilitarise Ukraine, which he said was a threat to Russia. Kyiv and its Western allies say Putin’s invasion was merely an imperialist land grab.

Russian forces have been engaged for months in fierce fighting in the east and south of Ukraine, trying to defend the lands Moscow proclaimed it annexed in September and which make up the broader Ukrainian industrial Donbas region.

The Washington Free Beacon wishes its readers a happy new year!

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