| Trump rages at Democrats over vote on war powers at Ohio rally Posted: 09 Jan 2020 06:01 PM PST  President Trump went after his Democratic critics at a raucous campaign rally hours after the House of Representatives passed a resolution that sought to limit his ability to wage war in Iran.
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| Pelosi says she will send impeachment articles once McConnell discloses Senate rules Posted: 09 Jan 2020 10:34 AM PST  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will send articles of impeachment to the Senate "soon," but still wants to see definitive details from the Senate on how it will conduct the trial.
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| Missing journalist's body found in Mexico's Michoacan state Posted: 09 Jan 2020 07:34 AM PST |
| 'If you're told to leave, you must leave': mass evacuations as Australia's bushfires intensify Posted: 09 Jan 2020 07:13 AM PST  Australian authorities urged another mass evacuation across the heavily populated southeast on Thursday as a return of hot weather fanned huge bushfires threatening several towns and communities. Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews urged communities to be on alert ahead of the extreme conditions. "If you receive instructions to leave, then you must leave," Andrews said in a televised briefing. "That is the only way to guarantee your safety." Parts of Kangaroo Island, a wildlife-rich tourist spot off the southeast coast where Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday made a plea for foreign tourists not to be deterred by the fires, were again evacuated on Thursday. "I urge everyone to heed warnings, follow advice, and to head to the east part of the island, which is deemed safe at this point," South Australia Fire Chief Mark Jones said in a separate briefing in Adelaide. A third of the island has been destroyed. Twenty-seven people have been killed this fire season, according to the federal government, as the monster fires have scorched through more than 10.3 million hectares (25.5 million acres) of land, an area the size of South Korea. Thousands have been made homeless and thousands have had to evacuate repeatedly because of the volatility of the fires. Read more | Australia's bushfire crisis A huge blaze has also now begun threatening Perth, in western Australia, with emergency warnings issued in several suburbs as the fire moved toward them with frightening speed. A thick smoke cloud hung over most of the city late in the afternoon, while residents in Mardella, Hopeland, Wellard, Casuarina and Oldbury were told to leave their home if they have a safe escape route, and otherwise to stay indoors and shelter in a room with two exits and a water supply. The fire burnt 1,000 hectares in its first four hours, and authorities warned it is out of control and highly unpredictable. Australia bushfires | Tell us your story Also in Western Australia, hopes to get stranded travellers across the only sealed road that connects the state to South Australia were dashed Thursday when the fires blocking the Eyre Highway got worse. People have been stranded on the Nullabor, on both sides of the state border, trying to get home for several days, relying in part on local truck stops for vital supplies. Also on Thursday, the Australian Academy of Science released a video summarising the impacts of the crisis on Australia's native wildlife. It is now believed one billion animals have been killed, and many species lost forever. New South Wales fire fighters said more than 2,600 homes have been incinerated or badly damaged this fire season, including 1,870 destroyed. On the same day, the state government announced a $1billion (£530,000,000) fund for reconstruction efforts. The commitment comes on top of more than $200 million already committed by the State, and a $2billion national fund provided by the Federal Government. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state funds would be used for infrastructure, while the Federal relief money would go directly to people. Australia fires gallery Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest also pledged $70million (£36,820,000) for fire relief and reconstruction. Mr Forrest did, however, receive some criticism for blaming the majority of the fires on arson, when police and fire authorities in all affected states have made clear that is not the case. It emerged this week that the Bureau of Meteorology found 2019 was the hottest and driest year ever recorded in Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's problematic handling of the crisis continued on Thursday too, when he said "thankfully we have had no loss of life" on Kangaroo Island while visiting an area where a father and son had been killed by the blaze. When he was quickly corrected, he said: "Yes two, that's quite right. I was thinking about firefighters firstly."
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| A North Korean woman is under investigation after saving her 2 kids from a house fire — but not her portraits of the Kim family Posted: 09 Jan 2020 04:54 PM PST  Daily NK adds that the unnamed woman hasn't been able to care for her kids in the hospital because of the investigation.
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| Ocasio-Cortez Refuses to Pay DCCC Dues, Frustrating House Dems Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:58 AM PST  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has exasperated her fellow House Democrats by announcing that she will not pay dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the House."For me personally, I'm not paying D-trip dues" for a "myriad of reasons" the freshman progressive congresswoman from New York said, using a nickname for the DCCC.According to records, she has so far not paid her $250,000 in dues despite leveraging her massive social media following to raise millions for her own reelection, Fox News reported.Ocasio-Cortez said her gripe with the party's official House campaign organization relates to the DCCC's practice of not supporting newer progressive candidates in order to insulate incumbent Democrats."One, I don't agree with the policy around blacklisting groups that help progressive candidates," she said. "I think we need to evolve as a party and make room for that.""I want to help frontline members by putting that money straight into their pocket," Ocasio-Cortez explained.The progressive 30-year-old has made good on that promise, pulling in more than $300,000 last year for candidates of her choosing, including $18,000 for Marie Newman, who seeks to oust longtime Illinois congressman Dan Lipinski, a rare pro-life Democrat."To have people try to purify the caucus because they don't agree with them – 100 percent, I certainly don't agree with that," said Texas Representative Henry Cuellar, one of the Democrats Ocasio-Cortez is trying to replace with a more progressive candidate, in this case Jessica Cisneros, for whom she raised $35,000."Hopefully, we will start to get away from this circular firing squad," Cuellar said.Ocasio-Cortez complained earlier this week that the Congressional Progressive Caucus's standard for lawmakers is too low, saying, "They let anybody who the cat dragged in call themselves a progressive."DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos highlighted the party campaign arm's strong fundraising numbers even without Ocasio-Cortez's contribution."That's always up to individual members so I guess I don't think about it one way or another," Bustos said of Ocasio-Cortez's decision to withhold dues. "We're raising record amounts of money from our members."
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| Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said he likely fell for a phishing scam. Here's how phishing scams work and how to avoid them. Posted: 09 Jan 2020 07:56 AM PST  Krugman tweeted that he received a phone call indicating that hackers downloaded child pornography on his WiFi network.
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| Modi is resurrecting the most horrifying episode of his career to crush dissent Posted: 10 Jan 2020 06:12 AM PST  When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to bring his Gujarat Model to the rest of the country, everyone thought he meant the pro-growth reforms that had allegedly done wonders for the economy of his home state. But the events of last week suggest that the real Gujarat Model that Modi had in mind was something else entirely: Government looking the other way as private militants violently attack disfavored groups. It's a model that infamously resulted in the slaughter of more than 1,000 men, women, and children, mostly Muslims, over the course of a few days in 2002 when Modi was its chief minister.And now Modi has done a mini re-enactment at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a prestigious college in the heart of New Delhi whose opposition has long irritated him. This is no doubt a warning shot to the growing youth resistance against his "papers, please" citizenship law.Here's what happened at JNU:Sunday evening, 40 to 50 hoodlums, mostly men but also a few women, faces partially wrapped in scarfs, armed with clubs, iron rods, and sledgehammers, stormed the campus. Eyewitness accounts and video footage suggest that several of these people were members of the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), a student union associated with Modi's party. They approached a group of students protesting a sudden, massive fee hike and began thrashing them. They bloodied the student president, Aishe Ghosh, and many others.Then, chanting that the students were traitors who deserve to be shot for opposing the administration, the attackers barged into dorm rooms and went on a rampage, taking care to spare rooms that sported ABVP posters. Muslim students were of course fair game. And so was a blind Hindu student, a Sanskrit scholar and a student of Hinduism no less, whose wall sported a picture of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, India's reformist founding father. (Ambedkar has fallen from grace in pro-Modi circles because he was a vigorous opponent of the caste system and other regressive Hindu practices and his thought is fueling the constitutional case against Modi's Hindu nationalism.)JNU's vice-chancellor, who is appointed by the central government, failed to mobilize campus security to stop the mayhem. Meanwhile, the Delhi police, which is under the command of the Modi government rather than local authorities, ignored the frantic calls of students for over an hour. There was a veritable battalion of cops standing right outside the campus gates, but not a single one of them went in to stop the attack. As if this is not shocking enough, the cops even stood by as ambulances were vandalized right in front of them.Modi hasn't said a word condemning the violence at JNU. No assailant has yet been charged or arrested. The police claim they're zeroing in on some suspects, but judging by how they have handled cow vigilantes lynching Muslims suspected of consuming beef, the culprits will face no more than a slap on the wrist.Incredibly, at the exact same time that the JNU students were getting bashed, the cops were preparing a rap sheet against some of them, including Ghosh, for allegedly vandalizing university computer servers the day before to stop students from registering. Ghosh denies that allegation. Meanwhile, a video that ABVP circulated — and no less than the vice chancellor retweeted — showing that the Sunday violence was triggered by a prior episode when a "lefty student" punched an ABVP member turned out to be the opposite: an ABVP supporter appears to be attacking a "lefty student."All of this — law enforcement standing by as private militants allied with the ruling party go on a violent spree, criminalizing the victims, spreading disinformation to confuse the public — was precisely Modi's modus operandi in Gujarat. But the ominous parallels with that grisly episode don't stop there.The Gujarat carnage was preceded by a long vilification campaign against Muslims, a strategy he is replicating in miniature against the university. Modi has long castigated JNU students and faculty as communists and traitors who want to break up the country — never mind that last year's Nobel Prize recipient in economics along with two of Modi's own cabinet ministers hail from the university. His Home Minister and right-hand man, Amit Shah, known for his brass knuckles politics, has repeatedly said the university's "tukde tukde gang" — meaning the gang that wants to dismember India piece by piece — needs to be "taught a lesson." Modi popularized this moniker a few years ago when some of JNU's firebrand student leaders harshly protested the abrupt hanging of a Muslim man who had allegedly attacked the Indian parliament.Such statements signaled to Modi and Shah's most extreme supporters that they wanted the university targeted, without having to bother with actually giving orders to law enforcement authorities.Not that the duo is shy about doing so when necessary.A few weeks ago, cops appeared to vandalize Jamia Millia University, a Muslim university in New Delhi. But Modi's comrade, Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, went even further. His police showed up at Aligarh Muslim University and roughed up students protesting Modi's faith-cleansing policies that'll strip an untold number of Indian Muslims of citizenship. Over 60 students were injured, three critically. Several students have just disappeared. A Muslim female journalist who was covering a protest in nearby Lucknow was arrested and allegedly assaulted by police.But such tactics are backfiring spectacularly. The anti-government protests, especially on college campuses, are spreading like wildfire. Students at many elite colleges have gone on strike and are holding candle light vigils to protest the events at JNU and AMU along with Modi's nefarious citizenship law.A normal politician would back off in the face of such public opposition and extend an olive branch, especially given how quickly Modi's carefully cultivated squeaky-clean image is getting trashed in India and abroad. But Modi and Shah are doubling down.Previously, they had dubbed secularists defending religious freedom as "Muslim appeasers." Now, even moderate free-market conservatives or middle-of-the-road liberals expressing concern over the direction of the country are being branded as the radical left, Madhvan Narayanan, a veteran Indian journalist, told The Week.Why is Modi doing this? What's his end game?Many fear he is deliberately baiting protesters and fomenting widespread unrest to build an excuse to cancel elections in Delhi next month and put the city under the president's rule. His party is expected to lose handily just as it has done in other state elections in recent months, thanks to the growing dismay over his assaults on citizenship. There is even speculation that he is preparing to suspend India's constitution and declare an emergency, just as Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi notoriously did in 1975.That may or may not be the case. But one open question about Modi always has been whether he was pushing an extreme Hindu nationalist agenda to gain power or vice versa: pursuing power to push his agenda. His growing enemies list — and the private and state violence he will apparently deploy against those on it — suggests that the former might be the case.This means no one outside of Modi's band of merry brothers is safe in India anymore. All of India is Gujarat now. Dissent is out. Violence is in.As one poster at a protest noted: "First AMU. Then JNU. Next You."Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Trump reportedly admitted impeachment played a big role in his Soleimani decision Rush's Neil Peart dies at age 67 Donald Trump is behaving like the guiltiest man alive
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| Crash of PS752 in Iran: Was the aircraft shot down? Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:38 AM PST  A Boeing passenger jet crashed in Iran early on January 8, hours after Tehran had launched a barrage of missiles at bases housing American troops in Iraq, in retaliation for the killing of commander Qasem Soleimani in a US strike. All 176 on board the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 -- mainly Iranian-Canadian dual nationals but also Ukrainians, Afghans, Britons and Swedes -- were killed. Speculation immediately emerged that the juxtaposition of the timing of the Iranian reprisals against the United States and the plane crash was no coincidence.
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| Canada prosecutor says essence of Huawei CFO case is fraud Posted: 10 Jan 2020 04:17 PM PST  Canada's Department of Justice said Friday the allegation against a top Chinese executive arrested at the United States' request would be a crime in Canada and she should be extradited to the United States on fraud charges. Canada arrested Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei's founder, in Dec. 2018 in a case that sparked a diplomatic furor among the three countries and complicated high-stakes U.S.-China trade talks. China detained two Canadians in apparent retaliation for the arrest Meng.
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| U.S. Army plans to expand Asian security efforts to counter China Posted: 09 Jan 2020 11:16 PM PST  The U.S. Army plans to deploy two specialized task forces to the Pacific capable of conducting information, electronic, cyber and missile operations against Beijing, a Pentagon official said on Friday. The task forces were slated to deploy over the next two years, U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said at an event https://brook.gs/39VM3fS in Washington. The units, called Multi-Domain Task Forces, would help neutralize some capabilities China and Russia already possess.
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| Death From Above: The Air Force's Fearsome AC-130 Gunship Is Getting Upgrades Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:00 AM PST  And America's enemies are running.
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| U.S. military tried to take out another Iranian leader, but failed Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:38 PM PST  The U.S. military tried, but failed, to take out another senior Iranian commander on the same day that an American airstrike killed a Revolutionary Guard commander, U.S. officials said Friday.
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| Boeing's former CEO, who was fired over the 737 Max crisis, got no severance pay but left with $62 million Boeing says he was 'contractually entitled' to Posted: 10 Jan 2020 02:37 PM PST  Boeings former CEO received 'the benefits to which he was contractually entitled and he did not receive any severance pay or a 2019 annual bonus.'
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| India's road-block women vow to fight on against citizenship law Posted: 10 Jan 2020 05:24 PM PST  Every night, 75-year-old Noornissa braves the freezing cold to help block one of the main roads into the capital of India, in a protest that is at the forefront of a rising challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For nearly four weeks, Noornissa and more than 200 other women have sat and slept across the four-lane road between Delhi and the satellite city Noida, gaining nationwide attention as protests erupted across India over a controversial citizenship law that critics say is anti-Muslim. Men stand guard as the women, from the mainly Muslim area of Shaheen Bagh, sing the US civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome" and chant against the Citizenship Amendment Act, passed last month by Modi's Hindu nationalist government.
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| Trump news – live: President calls for whistleblower and Bidens to testify in impeachment trial as reports say Iran 'accidentally' shot down Ukraine plane Posted: 09 Jan 2020 02:58 AM PST  Donald Trump has moved to soothe the tensions he inflamed with Iran by assassinating Quds commander Qassem Soleimani, saying the regime is "standing down" after fears a ballistic missile strike on two US military bases in Iraq could escalate into a full blown war.But the president's address to the nation on Wednesday, flanked by senior cabinet members and top generals at the White House, was criticised by many for the slurred nature of much of his speech, with commentators again questioning Mr Trump's fitness for office after he stumbled over simple words.
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| Iranian accused in 1994 Argentina bombing steps into debate Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:41 AM PST |
| All the Insane Surveillance Tools the Government (Maybe) Has Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:44 AM PST |
| Thousands of Australians are calling for their prime minster's resignation. He's vowed to keep exporting coal, despite the link between fires and climate change. Posted: 10 Jan 2020 09:30 AM PST  Since September, 25 million acres of Australia have caught fire. The resulting smoke plume stretches 1.3 billion acres.
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| North Korea's Underground Bunkers And Bases Are A Nightmare For America Posted: 10 Jan 2020 03:31 AM PST  What lies within them?
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| U.S. rebuffs Britain's extradition request for diplomat's wife after fatal crash Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:57 PM PST  WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday rejected a formal request from Britain for the extradition of a U.S. diplomat's wife who left the country last year after a road collision that killed 19-year-old Briton Harry Dunn. British prosecutors are seeking the extradition of Anne Sacoolas over the crash last August in which Dunn was killed while riding his motorbike. "Following the Crown Prosecution Service's charging decision, the Home Office has sent an extradition request to the United States for Anne Sacoolas on charges of causing death by dangerous driving," a UK Home Office spokesman said in a statement on Friday.
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| Zimbabwe's VP wife sues husband over access to children, house Posted: 10 Jan 2020 09:17 AM PST  The wife of Zimbabwe's vice president, who faces charges of attempting to murder her husband, has sued over access to their children and home, court papers showed Friday. Marry Mubaiwa, 38, who is the wife of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, 63, was arrested last month on allegations of attempted murder, fraud and contravening currency laws by transferring about $1 million abroad. According to an affidavit filed Thursday, she has not seen her children, and troops have barred her from their matrimonial home.
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| Iran is using bulldozers at the Ukrainian plane crash site, which could make it impossible to prove what happened Posted: 10 Jan 2020 06:50 AM PST  Experts fear that moving pieces of debris could effectively destroy evidence. Iran has also been reluctant to share the plane's flight recorders.
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| Nancy Pelosi lost the impeachment standoff Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:35 PM PST  After nearly a month of dithering, Nancy Pelosi is finally accepting defeat in her standoff with Mitch McConnell over impeachment. Despite insisting as recently as Thursday that she would wait to transmit the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate until she was confident that the trial in the upper chamber would proceed on terms favorable to her party, she quietly backed down on Friday morning. Her letter to Democratic colleagues in the House announced that the articles would be sent next week even though McConnell has made it clear that none of her demands — testimony from additional witnesses, for example — would be honored or even considered.Is anyone actually surprised by this outcome? How likely was it that Pelosi was ever going to change McConnell's mind? All of the leverage has been on his side from the beginning. He would be the one to decide how the trial would proceed, when it would begin, and how long it would last. Having to surrender the fate of judicial proceedings to the opposing party was how this was always fated to end.Was a delay actually in her party's interest? It could be argued that she hoped to persuade a handful of Republican senators to insist upon subpoenas for witnesses and documents. This did not happen, nor was it ever very likely. By the time Pelosi acknowledged that McConnell had the upper hand, Senate Democrats had been publicly begging her to surrender for days. "I think the speaker should send the articles regardless," Senator Chris Coons (Del.) said on Tuesday. "I think the time has passed."It is worth pointing out that Pelosi's letter arrived amid McConnell's decision to sign on to a resolution introduced by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri that would have dismissed the articles of impeachment 25 days after their adoption on the grounds that they had not been transmitted. It is unclear exactly what the constitutional implications of such a move would have been, but one thing that is clear is that it would have added many months of legal wrangling to the impeachment process. Forget about having presidential candidates in Washington when they should be in New Hampshire or South Carolina — a Supreme Court case over the constitutionality of a Senate dismissal of impeachment articles may well have dragged on into the summer, during which time Trump (and many constitutional scholars) could have argued that impeachment had never taken place. Could this possibly have forced her hand? We may never know.Which brings us back to the mystery that has been at the center of Trump's impeachment since the beginning. Why did Pelosi, a sober-minded, no-nonsense centrist who declared over and over again that impeachment was not worth pursuing, finally change her mind? Why did she wait to do so until last October, at which point it would have been obvious that the process would overlap with this year's caucuses and primaries? Why did she agree to draft and adopt articles of impeachment before she had secured the testimony of all the witnesses she and her members considered relevant? And why, finally, did she seem to have no coherent response prepared for the not exactly remote contingency in which McConnell refused to give her and her Senate colleagues the sort of trial they wanted? To quote an eminent anti-Boomer philosopher: "No thought was put into this."Though it is difficult to see what motivated Pelosi, especially in her decision to stall the inevitable handover of the process to the Senate, it is hard not to imagine that she had some sort of plan in mind. It just doesn't seem to have been a very good one.More stories from theweek.com Trump reportedly admitted impeachment played a big role in his Soleimani decision Rush's Neil Peart dies at age 67 Donald Trump is behaving like the guiltiest man alive
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| Egyptian restores historic synagogue, but few Jews remain Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:47 AM PST  Egypt reopened a historic synagogue on Friday in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria after a yearslong government renovation. The country's Jews largely left more than 60 years ago amid the hostilities between Egypt and Israel. The two-story Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue in Alexandria partially collapsed in 2016.
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| Russia's Putin oversees hypersonic missile test near Crimea Posted: 09 Jan 2020 03:54 AM PST  Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday oversaw military exercises from a naval vessel in the Black Sea near Crimea, including the test launch of a hypersonic air-launched Kinzhal missile, the Kremlin said. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has since built up military infrastructure on the peninsula. The first public outing of the Kinzhal occurred during a Red Square military parade in May 2018 and was one of several world premieres for Russian weapons.
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| California Is Losing Young People and Texas Is Getting More of Them Posted: 09 Jan 2020 05:16 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- America's most populous state is losing its young people.California's youth population fell by more than 400,000 over the past decade to 8.9 million, largely due to a decline in immigrant inflows and a falling birth rate, according to the latest Census data. The population grew for all the state's older age-groups, highlighting the demographic challenge of an aging workforce in the coming generations.The decline in young people is a common trend in the U.S., where 30 states recorded a drop in the under-18 age bracket between 2010 and 2019, according to recently released data.Chalk up the decline in California primarily to people having fewer babies, said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, a research group. The state's birth rate is at the lowest in history. Other experts suggest falling foreign immigration and more out-migration to other states also are hurting California."There aren't enough kids in the pipeline to fill all the jobs of retiring people," Levy said. "We're going to need immigration and housing policies that pull people from around the world and the country into California."The state may increasingly struggle to lure and retain young people if the cost of living keeps rising in urban centers, including for housing, and traffic jams aren't addressed."California had a particularly bad end of decade due to smaller immigration, greater out-migration to other states and fewer births," said William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "Some of this is economically driven and not pre-ordained for the next decade, if immigration picks up and the job scenario and cost of living scenario improve."America's population trends have ramifications for politics, including influencing the redrawing of voter maps. California -- a solidly Democratic state which has never lost a U.S. House of Representatives seat -- is expected to lose one during the next reapportionment, and its declining youth population suggests it could shed additional spots in the future.At the other extreme, Texas led all states in growing the youth population, which rose to 7.4 million last year from 6.9 million in 2010.Texas has one of the highest birth rates in the U.S., along with strong in-migration from places like California and New York and rising immigration from Asia, putting the Lone Star state in a good position, said Lloyd Potter, the state demographer."We grew more than any other state, but half of our population change is from more births than deaths," Potter said.To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Tanzi in Washington at atanzi@bloomberg.net;Michael Sasso in Atlanta at msasso9@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah McGregor at smcgregor5@bloomberg.net, Anita SharpeFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| US sharply reduces flights to Cuba Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:32 PM PST  The United States on Friday sharply reduced flights allowed to go to Cuba in a bid to reduce revenue to the communist island. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that charter flights would only be allowed to fly to Havana, not other airports -- a step already taken with commercial flights. The restrictions "will further restrict the Cuban regime's ability to obtain revenue, which it uses to finance its ongoing repression of the Cuban people and its unconscionable support for dictator Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela," Pompeo said in a statement.
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| Experts say 'panic' and 'poor training' could have resulted in Iran accidentally shooting down Ukrainian Flight 752 Posted: 10 Jan 2020 09:58 AM PST  The aircraft was flying near the sensitive Malard missile site — but mysteries remain around how it could have been mistaken for a hostile plane.
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| A brokered convention is more likely than Elizabeth Warren winning the nomination, FiveThirtyEight forecasts Posted: 10 Jan 2020 09:41 AM PST  The Democratic nominee is starting to take shape in FiveThirtyEight's 2020 vision.The data-driven news site gives former Vice President Joe Biden the best chance of locking down the 2020 Democratic nomination in its primary forecast that debuted Thursday. But things get more complicated beyond the top two candidates, with FiveThirtyEight predicting the Democratic National Committee could arrive at its convention without a nominee.Democratic candidates need to win more than half of pledged delegates ahead of the convention to land the presidential nomination. Biden has a two in five chance of earning that majority, FiveThirtyEight says, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) has a one in five chance.But the next most likely outcome isn't that prominent candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) or former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg win the nomination. It's that no one gets a majority of delegates at all, FiveThirtyEight predicts. The chances of ending up with a contested convention are one in seven, FiveThirtyEight forecasts. Warren meanwhile gets a one in eight chance of locking up the nomination, Buttigieg gets 1 in 10, and all the other Democrats out there get a collective one in 40.Find more of FiveThirtyEight's primary predictions here.More stories from theweek.com Trump reportedly admitted impeachment played a big role in his Soleimani decision Rush's Neil Peart dies at age 67 Donald Trump is behaving like the guiltiest man alive
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| Mexican man slits throat at U.S. border after being denied entry Posted: 09 Jan 2020 02:34 PM PST  A Mexican man has died after slitting his own throat when he was denied entry to the U.S., according to Mexican officials.
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| Storms with hurricane-force winds, huge hail threaten South Posted: 10 Jan 2020 05:16 AM PST |
| Sarah Huckabee Sanders: ‘Can’t Think of Anything Dumber’ Than Giving Congress War Powers Posted: 10 Jan 2020 05:17 AM PST  Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Thursday that should couldn't "think of anything dumber" than allowing Congress to authorize war, seemingly unaware that the U.S. Constitution specifically gives the legislative branch that exact power.Ahead of Thursday's House vote on a war powers resolution aimed at limiting President Donald Trump's military actions against Iran, Sanders—now a Fox News contributor—appeared on Fox & Friends to discuss the president's handling of the Iran crisis."Sarah, the president yesterday said the U.S. is ready to embrace peace," Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt said, referencing Trump's speech on Wednesday. "He's calling for more economic sanctions on Iran's already struggling economy. He did say that Iran is standing down, so why is the House putting up this resolution to try to limit the president's powers?""You know, I can't think of anything dumber than allowing Congress to take over our foreign policy," Sanders huffed. "They can't seem to manage to get much of anything done. I think the last thing we want to do is push powers into Congress' hands and take them away from the president."She went on to claim that Democrats who don't seem to understand "that America is safer now" that former Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani is dead are "completely naive," adding that she doesn't want to see them "take power away from President Trump and put it into their own hands.""I don't think anything could be worse for America than that," she concluded.Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, meanwhile, specifically states that Congress has the power "to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water, to raise and support armies and... to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces."Furthermore, the War Powers Act of 1973, which Congress is looking to pass a resolution reaffirming this week, asserts that only Congress can declare war and the president needs to seek Congress's approval in the case of sustained military action. The act was passed in the shadow of the Vietnam War in an effort to prevent other drawn-out overseas wars.Read 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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| The 7 Coolest Automotive Technologies Unveiled at CES Posted: 10 Jan 2020 09:01 AM PST |
| Australia bushfires spark 'unprecedented' climate disinformation Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:11 AM PST  Australia's bushfire emergency has sparked an online disinformation campaign "unprecedented" in the country's history, researchers told AFP Friday, with bots deployed to shift blame for the blazes away from climate change. The fires have claimed at least 26 lives and destroyed more than 2,000 homes across Australia. One hashtag in particular, #arsonemergency, has gained traction rapidly and conservative-leaning newspapers, websites and politicians across the globe have promoted the theory arson is largely to blame.
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| Dem Congressman Says He ‘Misspoke’ after Breaking Ranks with Pelosi on Impeachment Articles Posted: 09 Jan 2020 09:03 AM PST  Just hours after telling CNN that he thought it was time for Nancy Pelosi to send President Trump's impeachment articles to the Senate, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D., Wash.) released a statement saying he "misspoke.""If the Speaker believes that holding on to the articles for a longer time will help force a fair trial in the Senate, then I wholeheartedly support that decision," Smith said in the statement.> I am concerned that Senator McConnell won't have a fair trial and I am with the Speaker that we should do everything we can to ensure he does. Ultimately, I do want the articles sent to the Senate for the very simple reason that I want the impeachment process to go forward.> > -- Rep. Adam Smith (@RepAdamSmith) January 9, 2020The tone was markedly different from his Thursday morning interview with CNN's John Berman, in which he cast doubt on Pelosi's effort to stall and force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) to agree to more favorable paramaters for the impending impeachment trial."That doesn't look like that's going to happen," Smith said of Pelosi's prospects for forcing McConnell to the negotiating table."I understand what the speaker was trying to do, basically trying to use the leverage of that to work with Democratic and Republican senators, to try to get a reasonable trial — a trial that would actually show evidence, bring out witnesses," Smith said. "But at the end of the day, just like we control it in the House, Mitch McConnell controls it in the Senate."> Democrat committee chair says Pelosi should stop delaying, send impeachment articles to Senatehttps://t.co/sKydMOgf55 pic.twitter.com/Xr1xOtJW9C> > -- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 9, 2020It is unclear why Smith changed his stance, or if he had spoken with Pelosi after the CNN appearance. Appearing in a press conference on Thursday, the House Speaker struck a defiant note by resisting efforts to get her to send the articles to the Senate.I'll send [the articles] over when I'm ready," Pelosi said, and added "that it will probably be soon."In his revised comments, Smith added that he was "concerned that Senator McConnell won't have a fair trial and I am with the Speaker that we should do everything we can to ensure he does."McConnell said on Wednesday that "there will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure" after Senate Republicans determined they had enough votes secured to guarantee a trial on their terms. Several Democratic senators appeared to accept the news, and voiced their opinions that Pelosi should turn over the articles.
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| Montana girl Selena Not Afraid, 16, has been missing since New Year's Day. The FBI is asking for help to find her Posted: 08 Jan 2020 08:52 PM PST  The FBI on Wednesday alerted to a missing Montana girl, Selena Not Afraid, 16, who disappeared on New Year's Day near an interstate rest area.
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