00:00Good day, welcome to the gulf news update for Thursday, February 2.
00:06Here are the top stories at this hour.
00:08President Donald Trump notched a victory with Rex Tillerson anointed as his Secretary of
00:12State.
00:13But opposition Democrats girded for battle over other nominations, including his US Supreme
00:19Court pick.
00:20The Senate confirmed Tillerson, the former chief executive of oil giant ExxonMobil, by
00:25a vote of 56-43 before he was sworn in at the White House.
00:30With Tillerson sworn in, Trump has another key member of his national security team in
00:34place, along with his defence and homeland security secretaries and CIA director.
00:39A phone call between President Donald Trump and the Australian Prime Minister is threatening
00:44to develop into a diplomatic rift between two allies after the two men exchanged harsh
00:49words over refugee policy and Trump abruptly ended the call.
00:53The call last Saturday between Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull turned contentious
00:58after the Australian leader pressed the President to honour an agreement to accept 1,250 refugees
01:04from an Australian detention centre.
01:07Former Sopranos cast member and New York restaurateur Frank Pellegrino has died.
01:12Pellegrino died on Tuesday in New York of lung cancer.
01:15He was 72.
01:16While Pellegrino appeared in Law & Order and New York Undercover, and in films including
01:22Copland and Goodfellas, he is best known for his stint as SBI chief Frank Cubitoso
01:27on HBO's crime drama The Sopranos.
01:31Beyonce and Jay-Z announced on Instagram that the superstar singer is pregnant with twins.
01:36The news triggered half a million tweets in 45 minutes, according to Twitter.
01:40Their daughter, Blue Ivy, was born in 2012.
01:43The little girl served as the inspiration for Jay-Z's hit song, Glory, and she's appeared
01:48in music videos alongside her mother.
01:51And finally, the weather.
01:52Today's high across the UAE will be 24 degrees Celsius, dropping to 17 degrees at night.
01:58That's all for now.
01:59Thanks for watching.
02:00A reminder that our next bulletin will be on Sunday.
02:02But as always, you can get the latest news on gulfnews.com
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