| Williamson lays off entire campaign staff, Castro exits race Posted: 02 Jan 2020 02:34 PM PST  Former housing secretary and San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro dropped out of the Democratic race for president Thursday and spiritualist author Marianne Williamson laid off her entire campaign staff amid rumors she was close to ending her campaign.
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| Texas 'affluenza teen’ to be released; drug test questioned Posted: 03 Jan 2020 12:36 PM PST  A man who became known as the "affluenza teen" for his unusual defense at a 2013 manslaughter trial was set to be released from a Texas jail after prosecutors raised questions Friday about a drug test that triggered an alleged probation violation. Ethan Couch, 22, avoided prison following his initial conviction for killing four people while driving drunk. Couch was arrested Thursday after probation officers reported that a drug monitoring patch he wears returned a "weak positive" result for THC, the psychoactive substance found in marijuana, District Attorney Sharen Wilson said in a statement.
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| More Than Mines: Iran Is Ready To Harass And Destroy The U.S. Navy Posted: 03 Jan 2020 03:25 AM PST  Iran has been preparing for this.
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| Cruise ship tour: New Carnival Panorama cruises to Mexico with water park, top-notch dining, more Posted: 03 Jan 2020 06:17 AM PST  The first brand-new Carnival cruise ship to debut on the West Coast in 20 years, the Carnival Panorama was christened in Long Beach in December.
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| China seeks to identify cause of mystery pneumonia infecting 44 Posted: 03 Jan 2020 03:04 AM PST ![China seeks to identify cause of mystery pneumonia infecting 44]( "China seeks to identify cause of mystery pneumonia infecting 44") Chinese health authorities are trying to identify what is causing an outbreak of pneumonia in the central city of Wuhan, officials said on Friday, as the tally of cases rose to 44 and Singapore said it would screen arrivals on flights from there. The World Health Organization said it was aware of the reports, is monitoring the situation and is in contact with the Chinese government about it. Chinese municipal health officials in Wuhan said in a statement on their website on Friday that they had ruled out common respiratory diseases, such as influenza, bird flu and adenovirus infection, as the cause.
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| Former Fox News reporter says she rejected Trump's sexual advance Posted: 03 Jan 2020 03:16 PM PST  Former Fox News reporter and occasional Fox & Friends host Courtney Friel writes in a new memoir that before he was president, Donald Trump told her she was "the hottest one at Fox News" and during one call, "out of nowhere, he said: 'You should come up to my office sometime, so we can kiss,'" according to an excerpt of the book shared with the New York Daily News. Friel writes she was "shocked" by the come-on and said no: "'Donald,' I responded, 'I believe we're both married.' I quickly ended the call."Friel, now an anchor at KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, said Trump's "proposition made it difficult for me to report with a straight face on Trump running for president," the Daily News reports. "It infuriated me that he would call all the women who shared stories of his bold advances liars. I totally believe them. ... At least now I can joke that I could have banged the president — but I passed." You can read more about Friel's upcoming book, Tonight At 10: Kicking Booze and Breaking News, at the Daily News.More stories from theweek.com 4 reasons to beware Trump's decision to kill Soleimani America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing Senate won't hold impeachment trial until Pelosi hands over articles, McConnell says
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| US killing of Soleimani: what we know Posted: 03 Jan 2020 04:38 PM PST  The American raid that killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad on Friday opens a period of uncertainty for both the Middle East and the US. A US defense official told AFP that the strike targeting Soleimani, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps' foreign operations arm, was carried out by a drone. The mission was conducted "at the direction of" President Donald Trump, the Pentagon said.
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| Iraqi troops secure U.S. Embassy following attack Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:15 AM PST  Elite Iraqi troops were deployed to secure the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Thursday, after a pro-Iran mob laid siege to it on Tuesday in dramatic scenes that overshadowed months of antigovernment grassroots protests.
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| Police: Psychic said girl was possessed, scammed mom of $70K Posted: 03 Jan 2020 06:39 AM PST  Tracy Milanovich, 37, of Somerset, is charged with obtaining property by trick, along with larceny and witness intimidation, Somerset police said in a statement Thursday. Police started investigating Dec. 17 when the alleged victim reported that she was tricked by Milanovich into handing over large sums of cash along with household items, including towels and bedding, to battle the demon. The allegations date to Nov. 15, when the woman first went to Milanovich's business, Tracy's Psychic Palm Reader, for a tarot card reading, police said in their report.
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| A F-22 Raptor Snuck Right Underneath an Iranian Fighter Jet Posted: 03 Jan 2020 10:00 AM PST  In a war, Iran won't know what hit them.
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| 'I had nowhere to go': Mississippi hunter battles rattlesnake in deer stand Posted: 02 Jan 2020 07:38 AM PST  Hunting in December, a Mississippi man found a rattlesnake only inches away in a hunting blind. He was in a real predicament.
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| Terrifying video shows a 'fire tornado' ripping through the Australian countryside as devastating fires ravage the country Posted: 03 Jan 2020 05:44 AM PST  Australia's third-largest island is ravaged by two fires as firefighters battle huge blazes destroying homes, lives, and wildlife across the country.
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| Trump Rallies Evangelicals After Christian Journal’s Scorn Posted: 03 Jan 2020 03:30 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump's first campaign event of the year was aimed at keeping evangelicals on his side after a prominent Christian magazine called the president immoral and supported his impeachment.The president spoke at a Miami megachurch on Friday at an event his campaign says is intended to establish an "Evangelicals for Trump" coalition. The effort comes after the magazine Christianity Today, founded by the evangelist Billy Graham, published an editorial on Dec. 19 calling for Trump's removal from office by either impeachment or defeat at the polls.Trump began the event by thanking the military for carrying out an airstrike in Iraq on Thursday that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, before pivoting to describe himself as the "greatest champion" of Christians in the White House."Our opponents want to shut out God from the public square," Trump told the audience. "We're going to defeat the radical Washington Democrats."The timing of the event so soon after the editorial is coincidental, said a campaign official who asked not to be identified discussing an internal scheduling matter. Yet polls have shown indications that Trump's support is softening among white evangelical Christians, 81% of whom voted for the president in 2016."He needs those votes," said Matthew Continetti, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group in Washington. "Remember, President Trump pulled an inside straight in 2016. He won his Electoral College victory through narrow margins in just three states, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, so every vote counts if he is to win re-election."The president's campaign took out a full-page advertisement touting the effort in Friday's Miami Herald. The ad includes a picture of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence praying among religious leaders.Trump on Friday urged churchgoers to register to vote and turn out at the polls to "protect" their rights and beliefs. "Talk to your families, talk to your neighbors," he said in Miami.Creating CoalitionsThe Trump campaign has created similar "coalition" events to appeal to other groups, including black voters. It's not clear how many people are part of the evangelical coalition or other groups created by the campaign.Polls, including one of Florida voters released this week, show Trump trailing Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, who has made overtures to religious voters.Surveys also suggest Trump's support among white evangelicals may have slipped slightly since the 2016 election. A December Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed 79% of white evangelicals approve of how Trump handles his job. A December NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll found 75% of white evangelical Christians approve of the president.Trump and his campaign repeatedly sought to marginalize Christianity Today after the editorial was published. On Twitter, the president called the magazine "far left" and said it would prefer a "Radical Left nonbeliever" who would take away religion and guns. His campaign issued a statement from a granddaughter of Graham, Cissie Graham Lynch, who said she was "outraged" over the editorial.But another granddaughter, Jerushah Duford, called the editorial "courageous" and a "first step" in an interview on CNN.Maintaining support from white evangelicals is crucial for Trump as he responds to last month's impeachment vote in the U.S. House and fends off attacks from Democrats running against him.Identifying as EvangelicalAbout 26% of voters in the 2018 mid-term elections identified as white evangelical or born-again Christian, according to an analysis of exit poll data by the Pew Research Center."Evangelicals are going to be critical to Trump and to Republicans in general," said Chris Wilson, a Republican pollster and chief executive officer of WPA Intelligence in Washington. "They're one of the key components of the modern Republican base."Trump is the first impeached U.S. president to seek re-election in more than 150 years. His approval ratings since 2016 have mostly been below 50%, but he's enjoyed overwhelming support among Republicans and white evangelicals.The campaign event is a move to shore up his base at a "vulnerable" point of his presidency, said Robert Jones, chief executive officer and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington. "He needs a display of strength."Christians have long favored Republicans because of the party's conservative stance on social issues, such as opposition to abortion.Tensions ExposedThe Christianity Today editorial, however, exposed tensions.The editorial said Trump's "Twitter feed alone -- with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders -- is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused."While some religious conservatives consider things the president has said and done to be coarse and inappropriate, he has championed issues many of them hold dear.Trump and his campaign cannot afford an erosion in support from that bastion of voters, said Bryan McGraw, a politics professor at Wheaton College in Illinois."The Trump folks have to be worried," he added. "They don't have to lose too much," he said, "to lose places like Wisconsin and Ohio."Trump has said he has delivered for socially conservative voters with the confirmation of judicial nominees who share their values, a ban on transgender solders in the military and faith-based initiatives.Seeking RestraintThe president's evangelical supporters have praised those efforts but have also urged Trump to show restraint in his language.Chad Connelly, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party who ran the national party's evangelical outreach in the 2016 election, said that he regularly speaks with pastors that visit the White House and that they've told him that they've suggested the president tone down his tweets.John Green, author of "The Faith Factor" which analyzed the influence of religion on the 2004 election, said pastors he's spoken with are increasingly uneasy."Privately, they express a lot of dismay about the president's behavior," Green said.(Michael Bloomberg is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)(Updates with Trump comments in eighth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Josh Wingrove.To contact the reporter on this story: Mario Parker in Washington at mparker22@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Laurie AsséoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Last year the British Army wanted 'snowflakes' — now it wants binge-drinkers and nervous Nellies Posted: 02 Jan 2020 08:30 AM PST  The British Army is pushing forward with its unconventional recruitment approach in hopes of encouraging more millennials into the ranks.
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| Cyprus rape case: Teenager begs Boris Johnson to bring her home and end 'waking nightmare' Posted: 02 Jan 2020 04:50 PM PST  A British teenager found guilty of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus has pleaded with Boris Johnson to "bring me home". The 19-year-old alleged she was raped by up to 12 Israeli tourists in a hotel room in the Ayia Napa on July 17, but she has said Cypriot police forced her to sign a retraction statement which led to her being convicted of public mischief at Famagusta District Court, in Paralimni. "Every second of this ordeal has been a waking nightmare," the woman said. "I'm 19 and all I want to do is clear my name and come home to my family," she added in quotes reported by The Sun. "I would say to both the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, both of whom are fathers, please support me with your actions, not just with your words." The paper also reported that the Foreign Office had on Thursday contacted the teenager's family for the first time since she was convicted. Protesters claim the woman is a victim of Cyprus's "rape culture" Credit: IAKOVOS HATZISTAVROU/AFP via Getty Images A Foreign Office spokeswoman told PA that the UK was "seriously concerned" about the "fair trial guarantees in this deeply distressing case and we will be raising the issue with Cypriot authorities". Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, said on Monday that he would raise the case with the Cypriot authorities. The woman's legal team said that regardless of the sentence passed by the court, they would appeal against the conviction, even if she was given a suspended sentence - which would still mean a criminal record. "Appealing against the conviction is the most important thing for a young person," Michael Polak, director of the campaigning group Justice Abroad, said. An online crowdfunding appeal to raise money for legal support for the woman's daughter has passed £120,000, exceeding its £105,000 goal. The "help teen victim get justice in Cyprus" GoFundMe page was set up by British lawyer John Hobbs in August to raise cash for the 19-year-old's legal representation. The woman has been on bail since the end of August, after spending a month in prison, and could face up to a year in jail and a 1,700 euro (£1,500) fine when she is sentenced on January 7. A number of prominent legal figures in Cyprus have also written to Costas Clerides, the attorney-general, urging him to intervene in the case. The group includes former justice minister Kypros Chrysostomides, who told the BBC the woman involved had "already suffered a lot" and he expected her sentence would be "very lenient". "She has already been in detention for four-and-a-half weeks and she has been prevented from travelling for about five months already," he said. But the government of Cyprus has said it has "full confidence in the justice system and the courts". Meanwhile, the teenager's mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has backed calls for a tourism boycott of the country. "The place isn't safe - it is absolutely not safe. And if you go and report something that's happened to you, you're either laughed at, as far as I can tell, or, in the worst case, something like what's happened to my daughter may happen," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. The woman said her daughter was experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hallucinations, and is sleeping for up to 20 hours a day because of a condition called hypersomnia. "She needs to get back to the UK to get that treated - that's my absolute primary focus. She can't be treated here because hearing foreign men speaking loudly will trigger an episode," she said. "It needs resolving otherwise she's going to carry on having this for the rest of her life."
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| Pentagon: Anyone who tries to overrun the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad will 'run into a buzz saw' after violent protests Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:43 PM PST  The Pentagon warned on Thursday morning that anyone who tries to breach the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad would face a "buzz saw."
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| One Of NATO's Greatest Fears: A Russian Invasion Of Iceland Posted: 02 Jan 2020 04:00 PM PST  Iceland has not had a military since 1869.
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| 'People Do Not Like the Unknown.' Here's What To Know About The Mystery Drones Hovering Over Rural Colorado and Nebraska Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:50 AM PST  Sightings of mysterious drones have been reported over night skies in rural Colorado and Nebraska. Officials are searching for answers.
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| Climate deniers are cooking themselves — and everyone else Posted: 03 Jan 2020 02:50 AM PST  The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that climate change is something only hippies should care about. By this view, commonly expressed by conservative politicians, fixing climate change is only for bleeding-hearts who care more about hugging trees than making money.But this is completely wrong. Climate change will wreck the environment, and in the process it will wreck human society as well — causing many deaths and billions of dollars in damage, as we're seeing now as Australia is battered by the worst wildfires in its history. People who deny or downplay climate change are broiling themselves and everyone else alive.Some extreme weather events have a complex array of causes, and it is hard to tie them definitively to climate change. Hurricane formation, for instance, involves winds, ocean temperatures and the difference between atmospheric temperatures, the spin of the earth, and many other factors, so it is a tricky business to pin worse storms on global warming. (Nevertheless, a growing body of research does indeed point to climate change as a key cause of increasing hurricane severity.)But that is not true at all of the Australian bushfires. Fires get worse when things are hot, dry, and windy, and climate change has provided all of those conditions in abundance. The continent has warmed by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (a bit over 1 degree Celsius) since the 1970s, and in keeping with the predictions of climate models, Australia has experienced steadily worse droughts and heat waves over the last 30 years. The current drought may end up being the worst in history — this spring was the driest ever recorded on the continent, and back on December 18 it set a new record for the hottest day ever measured with an average temperature across the entire country of 105.6 degrees.So far this Australian fire season, almost 15 million acres have been burned, at least 18 people have died, a further 17 are missing, and over 1,200 homes have burned down. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated, and thousands more are still trapped in hazardous locations. Australia's largest cities have repeatedly suffocated under smoke plumes — on December 11, Sydney recorded particulate pollution 11 times worse than the "hazardous" level, and at time of writing capital city Canberra had the second-worst air in the world. Meanwhile, the ongoing drought has devastated Australian farmers.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (from the Liberal Party, which is politically conservative) has been wrong-footed by the crisis — residents of fire-stricken towns yelled at him during a tour of the damage, and his record of boosting fossil fuels has become a major focus of news coverage of the events.Morrison insists that he has taken a measured approach to climate, but this is nonsense — on the contrary, Australia is one of the major climate villains in the world. Morrison has long been in the pocket of Big Carbon, and has consistently boosted fossil fuel development as prime minister. Indeed, before he was head of the Liberals he brought a chunk of coal onto the floor of parliament and accused the opposition party of "coalphobia." As recently as November, his deputy prime minister was calling climate activists "inner-city raving lunatics."As a result, Australia's domestic emissions have increased steadily since 2013, when the Liberals took power and immediately repealed the carbon tax passed under the previous Labor Party government. More importantly, Australia is the second-largest coal exporter in the world (only recently passed up by Indonesia, despite increased Australian production), and thanks to the Liberal government, it has recently soared to become the second-largest exporter of liquid natural gas as well, and may take first place next year. Most of that fuel goes to Japan, China, India, and Korea. All this makes Australia the third-largest exporter of carbon dioxide emissions, just behind Russia and Saudi Arabia.To be fair, the opposition party isn't much better, despite the modest carbon tax mentioned above. Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese backs coal exports despite criticizing Morrison's abysmal climate record.Of course, Australia's natural environment is getting pummeled as well by the drought and fires. As Nerilie Abram writes at Scientific American, "early estimates suggest that around 500 million animals have died so far, including 30 percent of the koala population in their main habitat."But it is worth emphasizing that the koalas aren't the only ones suffering. If adorable animals being slaughtered by the millions doesn't tug one's heartstrings, then perhaps consider self-interest, as Australians hide in lakes to keep from being burned alive. A few more years of fat coal profits aren't worth making Mad Max into a documentary.In short, Australia, like many countries (very much including the United States) is pathologically addicted to fossil fuels, and is roasting itself and the world in the process. Without strong international climate policy, there will be future droughts, fires, and other disasters that make the current crisis seem like a friendly daydream.More stories from theweek.com Mike Pence crams 3 inaccuracies about 9/11 into 1 tweet while trying to justify Soleimani strike America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing 4 reasons to beware Trump's decision to kill Soleimani
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| US long watched Soleimani, but feared risks of a strike Posted: 03 Jan 2020 12:14 PM PST  In 2007, U.S. commandos watched as a convoy carrying a powerful Iranian military leader made its way to northern Iraq. It was a prime opportunity to take out Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who had been accused of aiding Shiite forces that killed thousands of American troops in Iraq. "To avoid a firefight, and the contentious politics that would follow, I decided that we should monitor the caravan, not strike immediately," retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal wrote last year in Foreign Policy.
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| Iran’s Ayatollah Vows Revenge for Soleimani Killing: ‘His Blood Was Shed by the Most Barbaric of Men’ Posted: 03 Jan 2020 05:16 AM PST  Iranian Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei announced three days of nation-wide mourning following the death of top military leader Qassim Soleimani on Thursday, calling him a "eminent example of a person trained in Islam," and threatening retribution for the U.S. attack."The loss of our dear General is bitter. The continuing fight & ultimate victory will be more bitter for the murderers & criminals," Khamenei wrote on Twitter.Soleimani, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. troops over the last two decades, ran the Iranian special Quds Force, which the U.S. designated a terror group in 2007. He was killed alongside Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis by an airstrike at Baghdad airport after President Trump warned Iran and its allies over the multi-day siege of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.> ….Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!> > -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2019In a statement confirming Soleimani's death, the Pentagon said the Iranian "approved" the attacks on the embassy by Iranian-backed militias, which had scrawled "Soleimani is my leader" on the embassy walls during the attack. The U.S. also said the strike was "aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans," with Democrats and other skeptics voicing concerns that the attack could lead to war.The Ayatollah seemed to confirm an Iranian response, tweeting "a SevereRevenge awaits the criminals who have stained their hands with his & the other martyrs' blood last night."> His efforts & path won't be stopped by his martyrdom, by God's Power, rather a SevereRevenge awaits the criminals who have stained their hands with his & the other martyrs' blood last night. Martyr Soleimani is an Intl figure of Resistance & all such people will seek revenge. /3> > -- Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 3, 2020Iraq's Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi also reacted to the attack, saying Friday that it was "a dangerous escalation that will light the fuse of a destructive war in Iraq, the region, and the world."Mahdi, whose government has support from both the U.S. and Iran, called Soleimani and al-Muhandis as "huge symbols of the victory against terrorists." With support from Soleimani and Iran, al-Muhandis had previously led the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella network of militias, in assisting Iraqi security forces retake Iraq from ISIS.
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| Argentine president expresses doubt over mysterious prosecutor death Posted: 02 Jan 2020 02:28 PM PST  Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said on Thursday he doubts that a prosecutor who died two days after accusing former president Cristina Kirchner of a cover up in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center committed suicide. Nisman was appointed special prosecutor into the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) headquarters, which left 85 dead and 300 wounded. The timing and circumstances of his death were suspicious: it came just days after he directly accused then-president Kirchner and some of her top aides of covering up Iran's alleged involvement in the bombing.
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| Kentucky attorney general asks FBI to investigate ex-Gov. Matt Bevin's pardons Posted: 02 Jan 2020 03:04 PM PST  Former Gov. Matt Bevin has received criticism for pardoning or commuting the sentences of more than 650 people following his failed re-election bid.
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| An oxygen leak forced Lufthansa passengers heading to Brazil to take an 8-hour flight from Frankfurt to Frankfurt Posted: 03 Jan 2020 02:21 AM PST  Lufthansa Flight 500 to Rio de Janeiro turned back to Frankfurt while off the coast of West Africa, with passengers in the air for over eight hours.
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| Search for driver after video emerges of car speeding off California cliff Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:11 AM PST  Dramatic video captured by a motorist appears to show a vehicle plunging off of a cliff in California this week — but authorities have yet to find the SUV or the driver.In the video, a dark SUV can be seen speeding off of the road at a curve.
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| Why It Seems Like Nothing Can Stop the A-10 Warthog Posted: 02 Jan 2020 08:00 PM PST  Is it still viable?
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| Ursula von der Leyen, the EU’s Centripetal Force Posted: 01 Jan 2020 10:00 PM PST ![Ursula von der Leyen, the EU's Centripetal Force]( "Ursula von der Leyen, the EU's Centripetal Force") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Centrifugal or centripetal, which force will prevail in the European Union in 2020? A lot suggests it'll be the former, with the EU drifting apart. Its third-biggest member state is preparing to exit. Populists are railing against Brussels and want their "sovereignty" back. Conservatives in the north balk at deeper integration of the euro area.One woman who wants to nudge the EU in the opposite direction is Ursula von der Leyen, the new president of the European Commission. The EU needs "a centripetal force, coming again and again as the uniter," she once told me, when she was still defense minister of Germany.She stretched that point into an extended metaphor. A mother of seven, she has almost superhumanly balanced her career and her sprawling, often unruly family. The EU is like such a family, she told me. It's not a nation, and therefore won't ever have one "leader." But it shares a common destiny, even if it's always at risk of being pulled apart. That's why it needs a uniter. A mom, basically.Von der Leyen, who is considered a feminist in her party, the Christian Democratic Union, wears the mom label proudly. In that as in other respects, she seems to have taken a page out of Chancellor Angela Merkel's book. For years, von der Leyen was rumored to be interested in succeeding Merkel. More plausibly, she was simply taking notes: Merkel, during much of her 14-year reign, was known to Germans as "Mutti."The similarity is one of style, not substance. Merkel, though capable at managing international crises, has never expressed a bold policy vision. Von der Leyen, by contrast, has already outlined several big goals for the EU. She wants to lead a "geopolitical commission" that can stand up to the U.S. and China. She's determined to give Europe a digital upgrade and migration reform. Above all, she promises a "European Green Deal" to make the whole union carbon neutral by 2050.She can only announce such visions, however, not execute them. That's because she has a surprisingly fluid role, one that's badly understood outside of Brussels. The commission is often called the EU's executive. But it's less like a government and more like a civil service that also participates in ambassadorial rites. Running it is hard enough, because it consists of a "college" of 26 other commissioners who view their portfolios as personal fiefs. Fitting it into the EU's overall institutional architecture is even harder.First, there's the European Parliament, which von der Leyen got off to a bad start with because of the way she got her job. She was chosen by EU leaders in several rounds of back-room horse trading, after French President Emmanuel Macron dropped her name. Parliament was so miffed at being sidelined, it confirmed von der Leyen only by a nail-biting nine votes, then rejected three candidates for her commission, delaying its inauguration by a month.Then there's the Council of the European Union, in which ministers of member states co-legislate with the commission. And there's the European Council, in which national leaders gather, club-like, to set overall policy direction and hammer out compromises. (To make the confusion sublime, there's also a Council of Europe, which has nothing to do with the EU at all.)The European Council is in effect a collective EU presidency. Besides the 28 (soon 27) leaders, it also includes von der Leyen and the body's own president, currently Charles Michel, a former Belgian prime minister. One problem in recent years was that von der Leyen's predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Michel's, Donald Tusk, didn't get along. That impeded cooperation between their institutions.Underneath such rivalries hums a constant din of general bickering — within the parliament, among national leaders, and between the institutions. The cast ranges from bone-dry Eurocrats to wanton gadflies and flamboyant prima donnas. The relationship currently being watched is that between the "Jupiterian" Macron and the matter-of-fact pastor's daughter Merkel. Brussels really is like an unruly family.One European leader who has excelled in this environment is in fact Merkel. Over the years, she perfected the art of taking steam out of the blustering of other leaders. She doesn't rise to provocations and sits out tantrums before gently allowing even unreasonable interlocutors to climb down from their trees. She has been a stabilizing presence.Von der Leyen has served in three of Merkel's cabinets (as minister of families, labor and defense). Both women grasp intuitively that female leaders have no need to arm-wrestle with the alpha males, either metaphorically or literally, as Macron did with U.S. President Donald Trump. If anybody can hold the EU together, then, it may well be von der Leyen. Born in Brussels as daughter of a German politician who was then helping to negotiate the Treaty of Rome, the foundation of what is today the EU, she's fluent in French and English and has the "ever closer union" in her blood.She also knows that holding families and unions together is in large part about atmospherics. That time I came to interview her — it was in December — she cut me off, then left and came back with a lighter. She lit up a candle on the Advent wreath between us. "There," she said. Then she exhaled, smiled and talked politics.To contact the author of this story: Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andreas Kluth is a member of Bloomberg's editorial board. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| US starts sending asylum seekers across Arizona border Posted: 02 Jan 2020 02:30 PM PST  The U.S. government on Thursday began sending asylum-seekers back to Nogales, Mexico, to await court hearings that will be scheduled roughly 350 miles (563 kilometers) away in Juarez, Mexico. Authorities are expanding a program known as Remain in Mexico that requires tens of thousands of asylum seekers to wait out their immigration court hearings in Mexico. Until this week, the government was driving some asylum seekers from Nogales, Arizona, to El Paso, Texas, so they could be returned to Juarez.
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| Hundreds arrested in Hong Kong in New Year's Day protests: police Posted: 01 Jan 2020 08:10 PM PST  Hong Kong police arrested about 400 people in New Year's Day protests after what started as a peaceful pro-democracy march of tens of thousands spiraled into chaotic scenes with police firing tear gas to disperse the crowds. The arrests take the total to about 7,000 since protests in the city escalated in June over a now-withdrawn bill that would have allowed extradition to mainland China, and will highlight the apparent absence of any progress towards ending the unrest. The tension on Wednesday rose after some arrests were made in the Wan Chai bar district near a branch of global banking group HSBC <0005.HK>, which has been the target of protester anger in recent weeks.
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| U.S. airstrike kills Iranian commander in Iraq Posted: 02 Jan 2020 07:18 PM PST  General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force and among the country's most powerful figures, was reportedly killed in an American airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq, early Friday morning. "At the direction of the president, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qassem Soleimani," the Pentagon said, accusing him of "actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region." The assassination of Soleimani comes after Iran-backed Iraqi militias attacked the American embassy in Baghdad earlier this week to avenge the deaths of several militia members killed in another U.S. airstike. "[B]e prepared for all sorts of Iranian retaliation against U.S. diplomatic and military personnel," Council of Foreign Relations President Richard Haass warned on Twitter shortly after reports of the general's death first emerged.More stories from theweek.com Mike Pence crams 3 inaccuracies about 9/11 into 1 tweet while trying to justify Soleimani strike America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing 4 reasons to beware Trump's decision to kill Soleimani
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| Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher has launched a lifestyle brand after Trump reversed a military court's sentence Posted: 02 Jan 2020 04:37 AM PST  Edward Gallagher, who was charged with murder and acquitted, now has a lifestyle brand with T-shirts, hoodies, and drinking accessories.
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| Fleet commander directs US Navy’s surface force to develop concepts for unmanned ships Posted: 03 Jan 2020 07:31 AM PST  The U.S. Navy is making moves to develop concepts for the integration of unmanned surface vessels into its surface fleet.
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| How North Korea Could Start a War (Detonate a Nuke in the Atmosphere) Posted: 02 Jan 2020 08:30 PM PST  Would Kim ever consider it.
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| One of Chinese Leaders’ Biggest Worries for 2020 Is Pork Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:11 AM PST ![One of Chinese Leaders' Biggest Worries for 2020 Is Pork]( "One of Chinese Leaders' Biggest Worries for 2020 Is Pork") (Bloomberg) -- While many around the world were preparing to usher in 2020 with champagne and fireworks, some of China's senior-most officials were busy on inspection tours that revealed one of the their biggest worries for the new year: pork.Two members from the Communist Party's elite Politburo -- Li Qiang and Li Hongzhong, the party chiefs of Shanghai and Tianjin, respectively -- made New Year's visits to local grocery markets. That's after Beijing party secretary Cai Qi -- another Politburo member and a former subordinate of President Xi Jinping -- led a Dec. 24 meeting urging officials in the capital to help ensure sufficient pork supply among other livelihood-related tasks in 2020."Groceries are a matter linked to tens of thousands of household's livelihoods and thus party committees and governments at all levels are duty-bound to ensure market supply," Li Hongzhong said during a market visit on the first morning of the new year, the Tianjin Daily reported Thursday. Li urged local officials to strengthen price monitoring, and stabilize the price of pork and other agricultural products ahead of Lunar New Year feasts in late January.The price of pork -- propelled upwards because of a swine fever epidemic -- has become a keen focus for Chinese leaders as the country heads into the festive season. Consumer inflation rose at the fastest pace since 2012 in November, due largely to the rising cost of pork and other food staples, becoming a possible source of discontent.The issue is one of several perceived political risks that have led the ruling party to increase scrutiny on local officials. The party is also carrying out a reshuffle of local governments on a rare scale, appointing at least 32 mayoral-level officials since Dec. 21.Pork prices rose so quickly in the second half of 2019 they became a meme, with some internet users circulating photos of a pork belly necklace as the latest way to show off wealth. The Chinese government has rolled out a flurry of policies to slow the trend, from importing record amounts to restoring hog production.On New Year's Eve, the country announced that it would auction off frozen pork from state reserves Friday. Such moves have helped slow the pace of increases and some economists say that CPI will peak on climbing pork demand during Lunar New Year festivities, before gradually falling through 2020.Vice Premier Hu Chunhua, another Politburo member who's recently led a series of pork-focused meetings, said in December that provincial and city governments must assume greater responsibility for ensuring the food supply."We must fully implement the instructions from General Secretary Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, to ensure stability of the supply and price of pork during the New Year's day and the Spring Festival," Hu said.\--With assistance from Lin Zhu.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Dandan Li in Beijing at dli395@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Shamim AdamFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Denying Professor Tenure, Harvard Sparks a Debate Over Ethnic Studies Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:03 PM PST  CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The news spread quickly, angering Latino students and others at Harvard: One of the few professors who specialized in Latino and Caribbean studies and devoted time to mentoring students of color had been denied tenure.The students sprang into action, occupying an administration building last month and also disrupting a faculty meeting. They submitted a letter to administrators demanding transparency about the tenure process and the creation of an ethnic studies department. And on the day in December that early admissions decisions were to be released, black, Latino and Asian students protested in the admissions office, accusing the university of using them as tokens in its professed commitment to diversity, while failing to invest in academic areas critical to their lives.It is an unsettled moment at Harvard. The university is still fighting a lawsuit challenging its use of race-based affirmative action in admissions; a district court judge ruled in Harvard's favor in October, but the plaintiffs are appealing.But at the very moment that Harvard is defending its use of race in admissions, citing diversity as a key component of the education it provides, students of color are saying that once they are on campus, Harvard devalues their history and experiences and fails to retain professors who support them.Several students who testified during the legal challenge to Harvard's admissions policies, saying it was important for the school to be able to consider race in admissions, are now among those criticizing the decision to deny tenure to the professor, Lorgia Garcia Peña.One of them, Catherine Ho, 20, a junior, took part in the December protest at the admissions office, where students held signs with messages like "After You Admit Us, Don't Forget Us!" and "Want Diversity? Teach Our Histories!"Ho, who is Vietnamese-American, accused Harvard of using her and other students who testified to burnish its image at the trial and afterward, while refusing to listen to what they said they needed in terms of resources once they got to campus."I am tired of Harvard using my story without giving me ethnic studies so I can fully understand what my story even means," Ho said during the protest, to cheers from the other students. She added, "Harvard, stop using our stories when you won't listen to us."Another student, Laura Veira-Ramirez, 21, a senior, was one of several who worked part-time in the admissions office, doing outreach to minority applicants or those who came from poor backgrounds or would be the first in their families to go to college.Lately, she said, she and other students had felt uncomfortable about reassuring those prospective students that they would feel welcome at Harvard."We need more than just letting us in," said Veira-Ramirez, who came to the United States from Colombia, without legal permission, when she was 3 years old. Veira-Ramirez has protection from deportation under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that protected young unauthorized immigrants."We need resources once we get to campus," she said, "and part of those resources is an ethnic studies program."The students have not been alone in voicing concern over the decision to deny tenure to Garcia Peña. Scholars from around the country have written to Harvard's president expressing dismay with the decision, and Harvard faculty have demanded a review of the tenure process, with an eye to whether it is undermining the university's effort to diversify its faculty.Garcia Peña declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Harvard.Lawrence S. Bacow, Harvard's president, has declined to discuss the reasons for denying Garcia Peña tenure, citing the confidentiality of the process. The dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Claudine Gay, has said that she wants to increase offerings in ethnic studies but believes that hiring more faculty must come first, before creating a new major. Last June, she announced that Harvard would hire three to four new faculty working in ethnic studies; the search is still ongoing. Gay also said in response to the faculty concerns that she would conduct a review of the tenure process.Just 81 of Harvard's 2,490 faculty members identify as Hispanic, according to Harvard's Fact Book; the university would not say how many of those are tenured. According to a 2019 report on faculty diversity, 8% of the roughly 1,000 tenured faculty are underrepresented minorities, which includes people who are black, Latino and Native American. Of the tenure-track faculty, 12% are underrepresented minorities.The controversy echoes recent conflicts at other schools. At Yale last March, 13 professors withdrew from the university's Ethnicity, Race and Migration program, citing a lack of support; the professors later rejoined the program after the university agreed to increase its resources. At Dartmouth, an English professor who specialized in Asian-American studies was denied tenure in 2016, setting off an uproar among students and faculty about the college's failure to attract and retain faculty of color and the treatment of faculty who specialized in the studies of race, gender and sexuality.A spokeswoman for Dartmouth, Diana Lawrence, said, "Although we cannot comment on confidential tenure matters, Dartmouth is committed to inclusivity and diversity and has been steadily increasing its recruitment and retention of faculty and staff of color."Efforts to create an ethnic studies program at Harvard go back several decades. Undergraduates now have two ways to pursue ethnic studies: Students majoring in history and literature can focus on the subject, and students can minor in ethnicity, migration, rights. The ethnic studies track in history and literature was created in 2017, the minor in 2009. The students who are protesting now want a full-fledged department and the opportunity to major in ethnic studies.Garcia Peña has been involved in both of the existing programs, as well as the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures' program in Latinx studies. (Latinx is a gender-neutral term for people of Latin American heritage, used commonly in academia.)In an online article published last year, Garcia Peña wrote that ethnic studies programs make universities "a little less racist, a little less white.""They provide students with spaces for thinking and writing about important questions," she wrote. "They also provide support for students of color who are made to feel in every other course, like second class citizens who are reminded that they don't belong."In December, a group of Harvard faculty and administrators who teach in Asian American, Latino and Native American studies or run the existing programs that support ethnic studies released a letter about Garcia Peña's tenure denial that was suffused with a sense of frustration with what they said was the continual institutional resistance faced by their fields.They said that the denial of tenure to Garcia Peña had "severe repercussions" on their efforts to recruit and retain top faculty in their disciplines."While we understand that receiving tenure at Harvard is never assured," they wrote, "questions about the fairness of the promotion process for faculty in fields long misunderstood and dismissed at the university will inevitably arise until they are afforded the respect and resources given to other areas of study."The tenure process at Harvard is shrouded in secrecy. Garcia Peña's colleagues in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures voted unanimously to recommend her for tenure. Bacow then consulted a committee of experts from within and outside Harvard who remain anonymous, before denying Garcia Peña tenure.Faculty and students have questioned whether the process was fair, citing Garcia Peña's academic accomplishments, which include a book about the construction of Dominican racial and national identity. Some argued that the decision reflects an institutional lack of respect for work in ethnic studies, as well as a failure to reward the work of mentoring and supporting students.Robert Reid-Pharr, a professor in the departments of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and African and African American Studies, said, "We need to ask, not just in her but in all cases, how it is that certain faculty members -- particularly people of color, particularly women -- are being asked to do all sorts of extra work, but that work is not necessarily properly judged, or remunerated for that matter."Garcia Peña's supporters have also cited two troubling incidents from last year. In September, Garcia Peña found a hateful note tacked to her office door that attacked her race and gender. And in October, several students of color in one of her classes were questioned by Harvard University police officers when they were putting up an art project in Harvard Yard, an activity for which Garcia Peña had received permission.Cornel R. West, who holds a joint appointment between Harvard Divinity School and the Department of African and African American Studies, said that many students believed that the decision to deny tenure for Garcia Peña was driven by racism and sexism. He said he did not think that was the case, at least without clear evidence, but he did think that the decision was wrong."She belongs at Harvard, period," he said.Veira-Ramirez, the senior who participated in the admissions office protest, said that Garcia Peña was focused on helping students like her feel at home at one of the country's most elite universities."She wanted us to take up space at Harvard," she said. She recalled that, last fall, she had gone to the first meeting of one of Garcia Peña's classes and found the room packed, with people sitting on the floor and standing against the walls.Garcia Peña's response was telling, Veira-Ramirez said."She said, 'This room is not big enough, because Harvard doesn't think that we can fill a room for Latinx studies.'"This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Wisconsin teacher admits to defecating in park for 2 years Posted: 02 Jan 2020 11:28 AM PST ![Wisconsin teacher admits to defecating in park for 2 years]( "Wisconsin teacher admits to defecating in park for 2 years") A retiring Wisconsin English teacher cited for defecating in a public park for two years told authorities he was "being an idiot" and that he did it for convenience and to be disrespectful. Jeffrey S. Churchwell, who is retiring from Milton School District later this month, will have to pay $365 in fines plus $5,705 in restitution to the Public Works Department, which cleaned up after him. The Janesville Gazette reported Tuesday it found out about the case through an open records request of sheriff's office reports.
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| Giant new rallies slam Indian government's citizenship law Posted: 03 Jan 2020 06:00 AM PST  Tens of thousands of people protested across India on Friday against a citizenship law passed by the Hindu nationalist government that critics say discriminates against Muslims. Some 30,000 marched in the southern city of Bangalore, more than 20,000 in Siliguri and thousands in Chennai, while big rallies were also held in New Delhi, Guwahati and other cities. Demonstrators shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
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| Why Obama, Bush, and Bibi All Passed on Killing Soleimani Posted: 03 Jan 2020 01:59 PM PST  Until the Trump administration blew him away in Baghdad in the pre-dawn dark of Friday morning, Qassem Soleimani had made the very fact of his survival part of his considerable mystique. The powerful Iranian general commanded forces that had become the scourge of Iran's adversaries abroad, especially the United States and Israel. Yet he came and went to the war fronts of the Middle East unscathed.In fact, conscious decisions were taken under the George W. Bush administration, even when Soleimani was in the crosshairs, not to pull the trigger. Gen. Stanley McChrystal wrote last year, he had a shot in 2007 but let Soleimani go: "The decision not to act is often the hardest one to make—and it isn't always right."Ali Khedery, a former U.S. adviser in Iraq, told The Daily Beast that not striking Soleimani when they had the chance was an "enormous frustration to me and many of my colleagues.""I remember during the [2007 Iraq troop] surge sitting with Ambassador Ryan Crocker and [Gen.] David Petraeus and saying, 'Wouldn't it be a shame if Soleimani ran into one of his own EFPs," Khedery added, using the acronym for Explosively-Formed Projectiles, the Iranian-made bombs that killed dozens and dozens of American troops in Iraq. "But obviously, this was a decision that had to be taken by the president personally because of its implications."Under the Barack Obama administration, the assassination of the most famous general in the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps appears not to have been considered seriously.There was never any manhunt, according to Derek Chollet, assistant secretary of defense from 2012 to 2015. "To my knowledge there was never a decision of 'We've gotta go find this guy and get him.'" Nobody could begin to be sure what would come next if Soleimani were killed, and no scenario looked good. And in those days the priority was stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon without having to go to war. The murder of Soleimani could have scuttled the negotiations.The calculus was a fairly simple one, says Chollet: "Do the potential risks of taking an action like this outweigh the gain of taking him off the battlefield?" The answer was yes.U.S. Braces for Iran's 'Counterpunch' After Slaying of SoleimaniAccording to Patricia Ravalgi, who served as a civilian analyst at U.S. Central Command from 2008 to 2019, concerns at the operational level went beyond declined opportunities to terminate Soleimani. There was often the worry among military planners and Washington policymakers that with Iranian-backed militias and American troops operating in close proximity in Iraq, especially during the campaigns against the so-called Islamic State, Soleimani would be in the wrong place at the wrong time, get killed by accident, "and all hell would break loose.""There was even wishful thinking that Soleimani would stay out of Iraq more, to keep such an accident from occurring," says Ravalgi.But why didn't the Israelis target Soleimani?According to Soleimani, in an interview given just three months ago, they did. Speaking to Iranian television last year, the head of the élite Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that Israeli aircraft targeted him and Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2006, while Soleimani commanded forces in Beirut during the Second Lebanon War."Israeli spy planes were constantly flying overhead," he said as he began his war story. Hezbollah, an Iranian backed militia, had its situation room in the heart of Dahiyeh, a Beirut neighborhood, and the Israelis were "watching every movement," Soleimani said. Then late one night, he and Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah's most notorious terrorist operative, decided to remove Nasrallah to safety in a separate building. Shortly after their arrival, two Israeli bombardments struck nearby, he said. "We felt that these two bombings were about to be followed by a third one… so we decided to get out of that building. We didn't have a car, and there was complete silence, just the Israeli régime planes overflying Dahiyeh," he recalled. Soleimani said he hid under a tree with Nasrallah from what appeared to be heat-seeking drones while Mughniyeh went in search of a car. Afraid the car was also being tracked, they eventually switched cars in an underground garage, supposedly confounding the Israelis.Mughniyeh's luck did not last long. He was blown up in Damascus in 2008 in an operation later attributed jointly to the CIA and Israel's Mossad. An Israeli military officer with knowledge of Israel's Iran preparedness told The Daily Beast that when the Americans took out Soleimani this week, "It wasn't a surprise, not really."The officer, who spoke without attribution because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said there had been previous Israeli and American efforts to eliminate Soleimani, though it wasn't clear to what extent the plans had advanced.The Obama administration "asked us not to proceed," he said. "It was clear the implications could be much greater than a localized war, the repercussions could affect the whole world."This time around, "We're not involved in the American operation," said the Israeli officer. "But the Iranians always put us together, the big Satan and the little Satan. You see people on the streets screaming death to America and death to Israel. Could we potentially get hit? Of course. We are secondary, seen as a proxy for the United States."Iran's Qasem Soleimani is the Mastermind Preparing Proxy Armies for War With AmericaIn Trump's remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday, he claimed, "We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war." But as his predecessors understood well, the decision to assassinate Soleimani has opened the door into the unknown and the unknowable."We need de-escalation," one anxious Iraqi official told The Daily Beast, "and this is the mother of all escalations." —with additional reporting by Spencer AckermanRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| A Texas judge said a hospital can take an 11-month-old off life support, but the family and some pro-life groups object Posted: 03 Jan 2020 12:04 PM PST  Medical professionals have asked to keep broader political and religious issues out of what they believe is best for the baby.
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| Mexico president says "El Chapo" had same power as then president Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:31 PM PST  Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador closed out 2019 with a parting shot at his predecessors, saying imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán had had the same power as the country's president.
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| Here are all the bizarre theories surrounding Carlos Ghosn's international bail-jumping escapade Posted: 02 Jan 2020 09:09 AM PST  Theories have ranged from a musical instrument case to forged passports and help from Turkey. Here's what we know so far.
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