Bloomberg pledges $70 billion to bolster black America in new plan

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will announce on Sunday his presidential campaign's plan aimed at bolstering economic opportunity for black Americans, promising to triple their income over the next decade, but stopping short of promising reparations. Bloomberg's “Greenwood Initiative” plan is named after the Greenwood District, otherwise known as “Black Wall Street,” a Tulsa neighborhood that was once considered one of the most economically prosperous black communities in the U.S. The neighborhood was the center of a deadly two-day attack by a white mob during the 1920s. Ninety-nine years later, Bloomberg will announce his plan in the same district.

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  'My story might have turned out very differently if I had been black': Michael Bloomberg

  ABC News
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  Bloomberg says his life would be different "if I had been black"

  CBS News

Nancy Pelosi's daughter said she was able to hand Trump a bottle of water in the White House without anyone checking for contamination

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter Alexandra handed President Donald Trump a water bottle in the White House without anyone checking it for contamination, according to a new book about the president. Alexandra Pelosi was directing a film at the White House when the incident happened six weeks after Trump was sworn in, the book, titled "A Very Stable Genius," said, according to an excerpt of it published in Vanity Fair. Pelosi, who had been to the White House before, said it was highly unusual for her to witness such a lax security system.

ICE ups ante in standoff with NYC: 'This is not a request'

Federal authorities are turning to a new tactic in the escalating conflict over New York City's so-called sanctuary policies, issuing four “immigration subpoenas” to the city for information about inmates wanted for deportation. This is not a request — it's a demand,” Henry Lucero, a senior U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, told The Associated Press. This is a last resort for us.

Japan Planned to Attack Pearl Harbor (Yes, Again)

Key point: Japan should not have antagonized America. At 7:45 AM on the morning of December 7, 1941 Commander Mitsuo Fuchida gazed exultantly from the rear seat of his B5N bomber at the serene vision of Pearl Harbor below him, it's defenses unprepared for the onslaught about to befall them. Upon returning safely to the deck of the carrier Akagi, he and classmate Commander Minoru Genda—the raid's mastermind—then urged Admiral Chuichi Nagumo to authorize a third wave to finish off the already crippled defenses.

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  New US aircraft carrier to be named after Pearl Harbor hero Doris Miller

  FOX News Videos
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  Aircraft carrier to be named after Pearl Harbor hero

  CBS News Videos

Evacuation crackdown ordered as Philippine volcano 'recharges'

Philippine authorities ordered a crackdown Monday on evacuees' daily visits to their homes in the danger zone around Taal volcano as scientists warned it could be "recharging" for a more powerful explosion. More than 110,000 people have taken refuge in evacuation centres since Taal burst to life a week ago, but many hard-hit towns have let residents back for hours each day to fetch items, feed livestock and clean up their houses. "We are directing DRRMCs (civil defence officers)... not to allow anyone to enter the danger zone," said Epimaco Densing, undersecretary for the Department of Interior.

Prince Harry banned from wearing military uniform after stepping back from armed forces

Harry, Duke of Sussex, will be barred from wearing his military uniform after he agreed to step back from his armed forces appointments.

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  Queen Elizabeth attends church after royal family negotiations end

  ABC News Videos
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  Prince Harry Makes a Moving Speech, Says There Was 'No Other Option' But Megxit — Watch!

  SheKnows

You Should Get an Electric Fireplace

Who couldn't use a little more ambiance? Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

The Wuhan Pneumonia Crisis Highlights the Danger in China's Opaque Way of Doing Things

In the years since, China's belief in its system of governance has only grown. The impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump, turmoil in the U.K. over Brexit, and yellow vest protests in France, have all been held up by state media as evidence that Western democracy is messy and flawed. The actual number could be far higher: an independent study by Imperial College London‌ estimated what it said was a more realistic figure of 1,723 cases in Wuhan alone by Jan. 12.

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  U.S. checks travelers as China confirms virus spreads between people

  CBS News
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  S. Korea confirms first case of SARS-like virus from China

  AFP Relax News

JFK's grandson called a Pence op-ed on impeachment a 'perversion of JFK's legacy'

PAUL FAITH/AFP/Getty Images In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Vice President Mike Pence referenced former President John F. Kennedy's praise of party-breaking lawmakers to urge Senate Democrats to oppose the impeachment proceedings facing President Donald Trump. Kennedy's grandson Jack Schlossberg hit back on Twitter, calling the comments a "total perversion of JFK's legacy and the meaning of courage." Instead of abiding by Kennedy's intended point of praising lawmakers who broke from their parties to stand for their "conscience," Schlossberg wrote that by defending the president on the basis of party, "Pence and Congressional Republicans have also failed the test of courage."

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  Trump is first president to face impeachment while seeking re-election

  FOX News Videos
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  As trial nears, President Trump's lawyers call impeachment case 'flimsy'

  KTRK – Houston

Russia Is Worried About Britain's Astute-Class Submarines

Key point: The Astutes are the largest SSNs ever operated by the Royal Navy, half again as large as the Trafalgar class. Since the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought in 1963, the Royal Navy has maintained a formidable force of nuclear attack submarines. The latest nuclear attack subs, the Astute class, have become a critical component of the future of the Royal Navy—but, given Russia's resurgence, are they enough?

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  Is Russia's Submarine Force Dying?

  The National Interest
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  The Navy SEALs Have Plans For Small, Deadly Submarines

  The National Interest

2 more Puerto Rico officials fired after warehouse break-in

Gov. Wanda Vázquez fired the heads of Puerto Rico's housing and family departments Sunday in the latest fallout over the discovery of a warehouse filled with emergency supplies dating from Hurricane Maria. The removal of Housing Secretary Fernando Gil and Department of Family Secretary Glorimar Andújar came a day after the governor fired the director of Puerto Rico's emergency management agency. Vázquez fired him hours after a Facebook video showed angry people breaking into the warehouse in an area where thousands have been in shelters since a recent earthquake.

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  Puerto Rico disaster agency boss sacked over discovery of unused Hurricane Maria supplies

  The Independent
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  Puerto Rican official fired after warehouse discovered with supplies from 2017

  ABC News Videos

'I stayed alive to tell' - Auschwitz's dwindling survivors recount horrors of Nazi death camp

A strip of skin tattooed with the Auschwitz death camp number 99288 sits in a silver frame on a shelf in Avraham Harshalom's living room. As the 75th anniversary of the camp's liberation on Jan 27, 1945, nears, Harshalom, 95, is very clear about why he kept it. Harshalom is one of some 200,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today.

Palestinian family pledge appeal over Jerusalem eviction ruling

A Palestinian family pledged on Monday to appeal an Israeli court order to evict them from their home in a mainly-Palestinian east Jerusalem neighbourhood in a case lodged by a settler organisation. The Israeli anti-settlement NGO Peace Now said a Jerusalem magistrates court ruled Sunday in favour of evicting the Rajabi family from their home in the Silwan neighbourhood following a lawsuit filed by members of the pro-settlement Ateret Cohanim organisation. The three-storey building houses 17 Palestinians, the family said.

Illegal crossings plunge as US extends policy across border

Adolfo Cardenas smiles faintly at the memory of traveling with his 14-year-old son from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border in only nine days, riding buses and paying a smuggler $6,000 to ensure passage through highway checkpoints. Father and son walked about 10 minutes in Arizona's stifling June heat before surrendering to border agents. Instead of being released with paperwork to appear in immigration court in Dallas, where Cardenas hopes to live with a cousin, they were bused more than an hour to wait in the Mexican border city of Mexicali.

El Chapo 701 craft lager coming soon thanks to drug lord's daughter

The mug shot of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, imprisoned leader of the ruthless Sinaloa Cartel, is not just for police blotters anymore. A Mexican company run by Alejandrina Guzman Salazar, the drug lord's daughter, is awaiting government approval to start selling El Chapo Mexican Lager. Adriana Ituarte, a salesperson for the brand, told the Latin American media site Remezcla the beer is 4% alcohol, made from malt, rice and honey.

Pair of storms to unleash rain, snow across Middle East this week

More unsettled weather is set to grip the Middle East this week after several storms have battered the region in recent weeks. The first of two storms to impact the area this week has dampened locations from the Mediterranean coast to Iraq on Monday. The steadiest rainfall is expected from northern Israel and Lebanon into southern Syria and central Iraq.

As Impeachment Trial Looms, Trump's Legal Team Insists President Did 'Absolutely Nothing Wrong'

The brief from Trump's lawyers, filed ahead of arguments expected later this week in the Senate impeachment trial, offered the most detailed glimpse of the lines of defense they intend to use against Democratic efforts to convict the president and oust him from office over his dealings with Ukraine. It is meant as a counter to a brief filed two days ago by House Democrats that summarized weeks of testimony from more than a dozen witnesses in laying out the impeachment case. The 110-page filing from the White House shifted the tone toward a more legal response but still hinged on Trump's assertion he did nothing wrong and did not commit a crime — even though impeachment does not depend on a material violation of law but rather on the more vague definition of “other high crimes and misdemeanors” as established in the Constitution.

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  In impeachment document, Democrats say Trump endangers security, Trump denies

  Reuters
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  A Trump impeachment lawyer says he will defend the president by arguing that even if he did abuse his power, he hasn't committed any actual crimes

  Business Insider

Ex-Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Line workers reveal the things they couldn't live without on board

The workers' former employers were Carnival Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, and American Cruise Lines. A cruise ship is an unusual work environment, keeping employees away from their homes for months at a time. Six former cruise-ship workers told Business Insider what they couldn't live without during their contracts.

China Thinks It Can Nuke American Cities. Should We Worry?

Key Point: Despite the developments related above, the balance of opinion in Beijing seems impressively moderate on the prospects for a major nuclear buildup by China. When one reads enough Chinese naval literature, diagrams of multi-axial cruise missile saturation attacks against aircraft carrier groups may begin to seem normal. Targets include the biggest cities on the East and West Coasts, as well as in the Midwest, as one would expect.

Philippine military says 5 Indonesians kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants

The Philippine military on Sunday said it has launched search and rescue operations for five Indonesian fishermen kidnapped by militants belonging to the Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf group in Malaysian waters last week. Eight Indonesians were abducted in Sabah on Thursday. Three were released, while the remaining five were probably brought by their captors to the southern Philippine province of Sulu, said Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana, chief of the military's Western Mindanao Command.

Ten killed in seating collapse at Ethiopian festival

At least ten people were killed Monday and scores injured when a seating area collapsed during a major Orthodox Christian celebration in Ethiopia, with fears the death toll could rise. The accident occurred just before 8am (0500 GMT) Monday in Gondar, a historic city in the country's north, where every year more than a million people gather for the epiphany festivities known as Timkat. Two doctors at the University of Gondar Hospital told AFP that 10 people died when the spectator stands gave way suddenly at Fasilides' Bath, where thousands typically gather to watch worshippers plunge into the holy waters.