AP News:特朗普指责班农失去理智

This is AP News Minute.

President Donald Trump is blasting Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, ahead of the release of a new book called Fire and Fury. The book quotes Bannon describing a Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a group of Russians as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic". Trump said in a statement that when Bannon was fired from the White House last year, "he not only lost his job, he lost his mind."

Former democratic vice presidents Joe Biden and Fritz Mondale stood beside the newest members of the US Senate, as Alabama democrat Doug Jones, and Minnesota democrat Tina Smith took the oath of office, administered by Vice President Mike Pence. The GOP control of the upper chamber is now narrower than it was just weeks ago.

The UN is welcoming the reopening of a key communications channel between North and South Korea. Pyongyang has reopened the border communication link between the two countries for the first time in nearly two years.

A brutal winter storm is marching up the east coast, hitting southern cities with a rare blast of snow and sleet. Forecasters are warning the storm system could become more severe as it moves up the eastern seaboard.

Ned Barker, is at the Associated Press, with AP News Minute.