- WorldReuters
Factory owner, manager nabbed after Indian capital's deadliest fire in 20 years
Police in New Delhi have arrested the owner and manager at a factory where 43 people perished in the Indian capital's deadliest fire in 20 years, a spokesman said on Monday. The blaze started early Sunday morning when more than a hundred workers were sleeping in the four-storey building located in a residential part of Delhi. "We have arrested the owner and a manager of the factory where the fire broke out, and initiated an investigation which is going to be completed soon," Mandeep Singh Randhawa, Delhi police spokesman, told Reuters.
- PoliticsUSA TODAY
'Last and most extraordinary resort': House Democrats release report on legal basis for impeachment
WASHINGTON – Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released a 55-page report Saturday on the constitutional grounds for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. "President Trump abused his power, betrayed our national security, and corrupted our elections, all for personal gain," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., in a statement. The report does not say whether Trump should be impeached, instead leaving the question to the full House of Representatives to decide while laying out the history of impeachment throughout American history and addressing issues of constitutional law.
- WorldThe Telegraph
Whistleblower goes public after leaked documents reveal China's crackdown on Uighur Muslims
A Uighur woman living in the Netherlands has gone public about helping to leak secret Chinese government documents regarding human rights abuses in China's Xinjiang province because of fears for her safety. Asiye Abdulaheb told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that she was involved in last month's leak of papers to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which highlighted the Chinese government's crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang. The reveal, which followed an earlier document leak to the New York Times, showed how the Chinese government has indoctrinated and punished over a million Muslims, mainly members of the Uighur ethnic minority, in internment camps.
- NewsAssociated Press
Suspect's mother speaks out after Alabama officer slain
The mother of man charged with killing an Alabama police officer spoke said Sunday that she doesn't believe her son is capable of committing murder. LaJeromeny Brown of Tennessee has been jailed on capital murder charges in the shooting of Huntsville police officer Billy Fred Clardy on Friday. Brown's mother, Alma Jean Applebet, told Al.com in a phone interview her son should be presumed innocent until he has a chance to stand trial, though she acknowledged he has a history of arrests in Tennessee.
- WorldThe National Interest
Could Mexico's Version of the Marine Corps Crush the Cartels?
Compared to their counterparts in the United States, the United States Navy and Marine Corps, the Mexican Navy is small— around sixty-six thousand. The Mexican Naval Infantry, their Marine Corps, is even smaller— numbering only about eighteen thousand. In contrast to the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy, the Mexican Navy's main missions have typically been coastal protection, which in the United States would fall to the U.S. Coast Guard.
NewsAFPPearl Harbor veteran to be interred on sunken ship
With speeches and salutes, veterans and officials on Saturday commemorated the 78th anniversary of the 1941 sneak attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor, which brought a previously reluctant United States into World War II. A ceremony honoring survivors attended by US Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Washington's ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris was held within sight of the sunken USS Arizona, which was bombed in the opening moments of the attack that killed more than 2,400 Americans. Later in the day, the remains of Lauren Bruner, who died in September at age 98 and was among the last sailors rescued from the Arizona after it exploded into flames, will be interred in the wreckage.
- BusinessBusiness Insider
One of the world's largest basic-income trials, a 2-year program in Finland, was a major flop. But experts say the test was flawed.
In 2017, Finland became the first European country to test a government-backed unconditional basic income, which gave people a regular stipend with no strings attached. Two years after Finland launched a basic-income trial in which nearly 2,000 unemployed residents were given a regular monthly stipend, many of the recipients remained jobless. The people reported that they were happier and healthier overall than other unemployed residents, but the experiment was widely declared a failure.
- NewsTime
5-Year-Old Carried a Toddler Through Minus 31-Degree Weather After Left Alone in Alaska Home
A 5-year-old carried a toddler about half a mile in frigid Alaska weather this week, after the pair were left at home by themselves, according to the Alaska State Troopers. After the power went out at the house, the 5-year-old “became scared,” picked up the 18-month-old child and walked to a neighbor's house in the Village of Venetie, according to the State of Alaska Department of Public Safety. The village, which is in northeastern Alaska, is south of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
- ScienceCBS News
World's oceans are losing oxygen at a dangerous rate, study says
The world's oceans are struggling to breathe, rapidly running out of oxygen at an unprecedented rate. Climate change is dangerously exacerbating the issue, scientists warned in a new study. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released the largest report of its kind — combining the efforts of 67 scientists from 17 countries — at the global climate summit in Madrid on Saturday.
- WorldReuters
South Korea jails three Samsung Electronics executives over evidence destroyed in probe of alleged fraud
A South Korean court on Monday jailed three executives of Samsung Electronics for their role in a plot that included burying computers under factory floors at its biotech affiliate, in an investigation of alleged accounting fraud. Prosecutors began investigating the suspected fraud at Samsung Biologics after South Korea's financial watchdog complained the firm's value had been inflated by 4.5 trillion won ($3.82 billion) in 2015. The episode is the latest legal trouble for South Korea's top conglomerate, whose leader Jay Y. Lee is embroiled in separate trials in a corruption scandal involving former President Park Geun-hye.
- PoliticsThe Independent
‘We’ve seen enough’: LA Times board announces backing for Trump impeachment
One of the largest newspapers in the US has come out in favour of the impeachment of Donald Trump for his “flagrant abuse of power”. The LA Times said that the inquiry hearings had produced “overwhelming” evidence that the president had “perverted US foreign policy for his own political gain”. Mr Trump's attempt to pressure Ukraine to investigate his rival Joe Biden was “outrageous and corrosive of democracy”, it added.
- NewsThe Telegraph
American soldiers banned from Italian main street after vicious brawl
Around 2,000 US Army soldiers have been banned from one of the main streets in the Italian city of Vicenza after a brawl between soldiers and locals. The temporary ban, which affects members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade stationed in the city, involves the quaint via Contra' Pescherie Vecchie, where two young Vicenza men say they were surrounded and beaten by several soldiers after a verbal exchange just outside a popular watering hole for off duty combat paratroopers. City authorities are studying CCTV images to identify the culprits of the latest violent episode, which prompted Mayor Francesco Rucco to request special restrictive measures from the base commander.
- NewsAssociated Press
Accidental shootings by police expose training shortfalls
When a Minnesota sergeant stopped a motorcyclist after a 2015 high-speed chase, he stepped out of his patrol car with his firearm drawn, flush with adrenaline, and accidentally shot the man in the arm. Accidental shootings by law enforcement have happened in recent years at agencies small and large and at all levels — city, county, state and federal — across the U.S., an Associated Press investigation found. Experts say it's because officers don't get the training they need to handle their guns proficiently, especially in life-and-death situations.
- BusinessThe National Interest
Russia's Su-57 Would Be A Game-Changer If It Wasn't So Expensive
Key point: A fancy photo shoot can't reverse an economic slump, nor can it magically conjure hundreds of new stealth fighters. The Russian defense ministry staged an impressive video shoot with four of its Su-57 stealth fighter prototypes. But the dramatic display doesn't make the Su-57 any more relevant.
WorldAFPCherry blossoms prompt full-blown scandal for Japan's PM
It might be the most Japanese of political scandals: a furore over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's guest list at a party to mark the annual cherry blossom season. As scandals go, it has plenty of juicy elements -- alleged mafia guests, disappearing evidence, even gaffes by Abe, who appeared to lay blame for shredded documents on a disabled worker. It's the latest headache for Japan's longest-serving premier, who has already weathered two cronyism scandals in recent years and has faced an almost daily drubbing by opposition lawmakers since the scandal emerged in early November.
- NewsUSA TODAY
'I felt like I was going to die': A harrowing look into CIA torture from the eyes of a detainee
The drawings show the detainee crouched and handcuffed in a small box; naked and strapped to a table as water pours over his covered face; shackled as an interrogator slams his head into a wall. The graphic self-portraits, drawn in captivity by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, provide a new and harrowing account of the CIA's torture program during a dark chapter in the U.S. war on terror. They were published for the first time this week in a report called “How America Tortures,” by the Seton Hall University School of Law's Center for Policy and Research.
- WorldBusiness Insider
Boris Johnson said patients should have to pay to use the NHS so they will 'value' it more
In a 1995 column unearthed by Business Insider, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for patients to be charged to use the National Health Service to prevent free care being "abused" by people who can afford to pay. The prime minister wrote in the Spectator magazine that free healthcare should be only for "those who are genuinely sick, and for the elderly." He added that "if people have to pay" for NHS services, "they will value them more."
PoliticsYahoo News VideoJury would convict Trump 'in 3 minutes flat': Nadler
The chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee said Sunday that if the impeachment case against President Trump were put to a jury, there "would be a guilty verdict in three minutes flat."
- LifestylePopular Mechanics
13 Mythical Creatures, Ranked
Did your favorite make the list? From Popular Mechanics
- PoliticsAssociated Press
Booker slams Democratic debate rules as he ends Iowa tour
Fighting to be in the next Democratic presidential debate, Cory Booker concluded a nearly 800-mile, 12-county tour of Iowa on Sunday by criticizing the Democratic party for allowing “elites" and “money" to control who gets on stage and urging voters to offer his name when pollsters call. “Iowa never lets elites decide," he told a crowd at his campaign office in Cedar Rapids on Sunday. Just six candidates are qualified for the Dec. 19 debate, and Booker is not one of them.
- WorldReuters
Shooting in the dark; Afghanistan's endless war pits brother against brother
The 19-year-old Taliban deserter is haunted by the memory of the attack on a police checkpoint in northern Afghanistan in August. Kneeling in the blood-soaked sand of the bunker as he and his comrades checked the bodies for weapons and ammunition, the young militant made a terrible discovery – one of the dead men was his elder brother. Now hiding in Kunduz district, fearing reprisals by the Taliban for deserting, the young man and his father told their harrowing story on condition of anonymity.
- NewsThe Guardian
Hard Rock Hotel collapse reminds New Orleans of undocumented workers' plight
José Ponce Arreola, from Mexico, and Quinnyon Wimberly, from New Orleans – still remain inside the wreckage. After Delmer Joel Ramírez Palma was deported just days after Thanksgiving, the Hard Rock ruins serve as a stunning visual reminder of the precarious situation of undocumented workers who hold a unique place in the history of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. Having helped rebuild New Orleans and much of the surrounding region after the hurricane, they now face being hounded out of the place many of them call home.
- WorldThe National Interest
Is Russia's New Anti-Tank Weapon Aimed at the Army's M1 Abrams?
On February 26, 1991, a cavalry troop of nine M1 Abrams tanks and twelve Bradley fighting vehicles bumped into an armored brigade of Iraqi T-72 tanks of the elite Tawakalna Republican Guard division. Within twenty-three minutes of frenzied firing, the troop destroyed thirty-seven of the Soviet-designed T-72s without losing a vehicle in return. Such outcomes were not solely a result of superior U.S. training.
WorldAFPSyrian President Assad's uncle on trial in France on graft charges
The uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is set to go on trial in Paris Monday on charges of building up a property empire in France using funds from Syrian state coffers. Rifaat al-Assad, dubbed the "Butcher of Hama" for allegedly commanding troops that put down an uprising in central Syria in 1982, has been under investigation in France since 2014. This year, an investigating magistrate ordered he stand trial for organised money laundering in building a 90-million-euro ($99.5-million) property portfolio in France.
- PoliticsUSA TODAY
Trump says Rudy Giuliani will give information about Ukraine to Justice Department, Congress
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Saturday his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, will provide the Justice Department information on his investigation of Ukraine, the country at the center of the impeachment investigation of Trump. "He has not told me what he found, but I think he wants to go before Congress ... and also to the attorney general and the Department of Justice," Trump told reporters at the White House. Giuliani has said he has been in Ukraine talking to officials and ex-officials there about former Vice President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden, who has had business interests in the country.
