- PoliticsYahoo News
Trump impeachment hearings: 5 key takeaways from the first day
The first day of public impeachment hearings resulted in new evidence supporting the Democrats' case that President Trump was leveraging U.S. aid to Ukraine to get President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. State Department officials Bill Taylor and George Kent, career diplomats who have served under multiple presidents, were the witnesses Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee. While much of Taylor's testimony had already been disclosed in the transcripts of his earlier, closed-door deposition, there was key new information.
- PoliticsYahoo News
Sorry, Hillary: Democrats don't need a savior
Reminder: There are 84 days until the Iowa caucuses and 358 days until the 2020 election. With the Iowa caucuses fast approaching, Clinton is just the latest in the colorful cast of characters who seem to have surveyed the sprawling Democratic field, sensed something lacking and decided that “something” might be them. Never mind, for instance, that billionaire businessman and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg already closed the door on a run earlier this year, declaring in March that he was “clear-eyed about the difficulty of winning the Democratic nomination” and that “the best way for me to help our country is by rolling up my sleeves and continuing to get work done” as a political philanthropist.
- NewsNational Review
Young Turks Founder Cenk Uygur Files for Katie Hill’s Former Seat
Progressive talk show host Cenk Uygur has filed to enter the race for disgraced former congresswoman Katie Hill's congressional district, according to a Federal Election Commission database filing submitted on Wednesday. Uygur, host and creator of “The Young Turks,” a leftist online news outlet, tweeted “no comment” after news broke of the filing Wednesday night. A former MSNBC commentator, Uygur has drifted further left in recent years, but in college he espoused conservative views, supporting pro-life causes and defending Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
- WorldBusiness Insider
An Air India flight was delayed nearly 12 hours after a stowaway rat was spotted in the cabin
An Air India flight flying from Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam was delayed for 12 hours after a rat was spotted in the cabin. Flight AI-952 was due to depart at 06:10 a.m. on Sunday but after the rat was spotted passengers were told to disembark the plane— which did not leave until later in the day at 5.30 p.m. according to the Times of India. A domestic flight in India was delayed for 12 hours after a rat was spotted in the cabin as the flight was about to take off.
- NewsUSA TODAY
Saugus High School shootings: What you need to know about Santa Clarita, California
A school shooting that erupted Thursday morning took place in the third-most-populated city in Los Angeles County, a city that was once named the third-safest in the USA. Two people died after gunfire ripped through Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, a suburb in Southern California. Where is Santa Clarita?
- WorldThe Guardian
Mexico’s human rights chief draws fury for asking if journalists have been killed
Mexico's new human rights commissioner has questioned if journalists are actually killed in the country, which has become a cemetery for reporters over the past two decades – and has not become any safer since the arrival of a leftwing government last year. After being elected commissioner on Tuesday night, Rosario Piedra Ibarra blithely responded to reporters' questions on the murder of reporters in the country by asking, “They've killed journalists? She then insisted attacks on media members “happened in past administrations and it's something terrible” – even though at least 11 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office almost a year ago.
- NewsAssociated Press
Justice Dept. rolls out new program to combat gun violence
Attorney General William Barr announced a new initiative Wednesday that would better enforce the U.S. gun background check system, coordinate state and federal gun cases and ensure prosecutors quickly update databases to show when a defendant can't possess a firearm because of mental health issues. The push, known as Project Guardian, was unveiled at a news conference in Memphis, Tennessee, alongside officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, on the same day public impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump began in Washington. As part of the program, U.S. prosecutors will coordinate with state and local law enforcement officials to consider potential federal charges when a suspect is arrested for weapons possession, is believed to have used a gun to commit a violent crime or drug-trafficking offense or is suspected of being a violent gang member.
WorldAFPGeneral rebuked after tempers flare over rebuilding Notre-Dame
The French army general charged with the rebuilding of Paris' fire-ravaged Notre-Dame was rebuked by the government Thursday after telling the chief architect to "shut his mouth" in a sign of tension over the cathedral's future appearance. General Jean-Louis Georgelin lost his cool with architect Philippe Villeneuve in a dispute over whether to replace the spire -- which was toppled in the April 15 blaze -- with an exact replica or mix things up with a modern twist. "As for the chief architect, I have already explained that he should shut his mouth," Georgelin said to gasps of astonishment at a meeting of the cultural affairs committee of the lower house National Assembly late Wednesday.
- BusinessCar and Driver
Hyundai Santa Cruz Small Pickup Will Start Production in 2021
Hyundai announced that it will build a compact pickup truck called the Santa Cruz. Previewed as a concept model way back in 2015, the Santa Cruz will be assembled at Hyundai's factory in Alabama. The Santa Cruz will begin production in 2021, meaning it's likely to go on sale in the U.S. that year.
- PoliticsYahoo News
Ukrainian energy company tied to Hunter Biden supported American think tank, paid for trips
A Ukrainian company that employed Hunter Biden paid more than $450,000 to a prominent Washington think tank, including picking up the tab for energy-related conferences as part of a campaign to burnish its image in the United States after it was accused by Western officials of corruption. Burisma's support of the Atlantic Council was detailed last week by the Wall Street Journal, which said the company had given the think tank $100,000 per year for three years starting in 2016. In the public impeachment proceedings starting Wednesday, Republicans, led by House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., will likely focus on Burisma to justify efforts by President Trump and his associates to pressure the Ukrainian government to publicly announce it was investigating the company.
- WorldReuters
Top Putin aide named by MH17 airliner investigators
An international investigation into the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on Thursday released a series of phone intercepts, including one between a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and pro-Russian rebels accused in the crash. Calls between officials in Moscow and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine mostly took place via secure telephones provided by the Russian security service, and intensified ahead of the disaster in the first half of July 2014, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) said. "The indications for close ties between leaders of the DPR (Donetsk People's Republic) and Russian government officials raise questions about their possible involvement in the deployment of the (missile), which brought down flight MH17 on 17 July 2014," the JIT said.
- NewsThe Independent
US weather: Snowstorm causes 50-car pileup as America prepares for Arctic blast
More than 50 cars crashed on a strip of Ohio freeway in the middle of a snowstorm as the US braces for severe weather and hundreds of record-breaking, below-freezing temperatures overnight. Whiteout conditions across the northeast and midwest caused several accidents, some deadly, as an Arctic blast of frigid weather moves eastward. Many roads and schools have closed and thousands of flights were cancelled or delayed as millions of Americans prepare for an early winter blast of Arctic air.
- WorldThe National Interest
Forget North Korea: This Is The Nuclear Hotspot No One is Talking About
Key Point: The rest of the world should work to calm nuclear tensions on the Indian subcontinent. While the United States is preoccupied by the threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of potential adversaries such as Russia, China or North Korea, the danger of nuclear conflict may actually be greatest between two of its allies, Pakistan and India. The two nations have engaged in four wars starting since their partition along religious lines in 1947.
- NewsINSIDER
Students at the Santa Clarita school where 2 people were killed and 4 were injured in a shooting say their sense of safety 'will forever be ruined'
A gunman opened fire at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, on Thursday morning, killing two people and injuring at least three others before injuring himself with a self-inflicted gunshot, authorities said. Melissa Santillan, a 15-year-old sophomore, and Tyler Nilson, a 17-year-old senior who's the student government vice president, spoke with Insider about what happened during the shooting. Nilson described watching students run from the school after the gunman opened fire, saying band students were still carrying their instruments.
- EntertainmentArchitectural Digest
A History of Modern American Architecture
A new book surveys the stunning work of Ezra Stoller, the most prominent photographer of 20th-century American architecture Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
PoliticsYahoo News VideoThe U.S. Navy canceled a routine Black Sea operation after Trump complained that it was hostile to Russia
Christopher Anderson, an aide to Kurt Volker, former special envoy to Ukraine, testified that the White House canceled a Navy freedom-of-navigation operation in the Black Sea after President Trump complained to then-national security adviser John Bolton about a CNN report that framed the operation as a counter to Russia, Politico reported.
- NewsYahoo News
Immigration officer blows whistle on 'morally objectionable' Trump asylum policy
A new anonymous whistleblower has accused the Trump administration of requiring U.S. asylum officers to enforce an illegal and immoral policy “clearly designed to further this administration's racist agenda of keeping Hispanic and Latino populations from entering the United States. The policy in question is the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, the controversial program requiring that most asylum seekers who attempt to request protections in the United States via the southern border be returned to Mexico to await their immigration proceedings there rather than inside the U.S. Under the MPP, which was first announced at the end of last year, more than 50,000 migrants have been s...
WorldAFPDelhi smog hits 'emergency' levels as Britain's Prince Charles visits
The Indian capital's notorious air pollution hit "emergency" levels again Wednesday, coinciding with a visit by Britain's Prince Charles. New Delhi has been choked on and off for weeks, as industrial and traffic pollution -- combined with smoke from crop stubble burning -- cast a toxic pall over the metropolis. For the second time in 10 days, the amount of 2.5PM -- the deadly tiny particles that get into the bloodstream and lungs -- hit "emergency" levels, nearly 20 times the safe limit set by the World Health Organisation.
- NewsAssociated Press
The Latest: Officer says Miranda failure was a mistake
A police officer who obtained a confession from the suspect in the disappearance and death of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts says she made an honest mistake by initially failing to read him his legal rights. Officer Pamela Romero testified Wednesday that she tried to read Cristhian Bahena Rivera his Miranda warnings from memory during the Aug. 20, 2018, interrogation. After several more hours of questioning, Rivera led police officers to a cornfield where they discovered Tibbetts' body underneath a stack of leaves and stalks.
- WorldReuters
UPDATE 1-Japanese emperor begins last major accession rite: spending the night with a goddess
Japanese Emperor Naruhito, dressed in pure white robes, was ushered into a dark wooden hall by torchlight on Thursday night to start his last major accession rite after becoming emperor this spring: spending the night with a goddess. The "Daijosai" rite centres on Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess from whom conservatives believe the emperor is descended. It is the most overtly religious of the series of rituals marking Naruhito's taking over after his father Akihito's abdication.
- LifestyleCar and Driver
2020 Subaru Outback vs. 2019 Honda Passport in Photos
Freshly redesigned, Subaru's popular lifted wagon challenges Honda's mid-size Passport SUV in real-world usability and performance. From Car and Driver
- WorldUSA TODAY
Climate change is damaging the health of the world's children and threatens lifelong impact, report says
Climate change is already damaging children's health worldwide and could shape the well-being of an entire generation – unless the world meets the Paris Agreement targets to limit warming to well below 3.6 degrees F, according to a new report published Wednesday by the British health journal, The Lancet. According to the report, if the world continues its business-as-usual path – with high carbon dioxide emissions and climate change continuing at the current rate – a child born today will face a world on average over 7 degrees F warmer by their 71st birthday, threatening their health at every stage of their lives.
- PoliticsBusiness Insider
Trump keeps contradicting the Pentagon about whatever it is the US is doing with Syria's oil
President Donald Trump on Wednesday continued to claim that the US was "keeping the oil" in northern Syria, weeks after the US abruptly withdrew, and then deployed additional troops into the region to safeguard the natural resource. "So, we want to worry about our things," Trump added. "We're keeping the oil, we have the oil, the oil is secure, we left troops behind only for the oil."
- BusinessBloomberg
Warren Says Honest Businesses Shouldn’t Worry If She Wins 2020
Warren's progressive proposals for reducing inequality, including a wealth tax, breaking up big technology and agriculture companies, as well as her $21 trillion plan to replace private health insurance with a government-run system, have raised concerns on Wall Street that her policies would be ruinous and push the U.S. too far to the left. As she has gained in the polls, she's come in for criticism from Wall Street executives and billionaires, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman and Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates. The Massachusetts senator, who has pledged not to take big-donor money to fuel her campaign, said the criticism reminded her of the opposition she faced when she proposed establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- PoliticsNational Review
Sanders, AOC to Introduce Over $100 Billion Plan to Make Public Housing Environmentally Friendly
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) plan to introduce legislation on Thursday that makes public housing more energy efficient, at a cost of over $100 billion. The plan, dubbed the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, will call for renovation of public housing units to install community gardens and organic grocery stores along with on-site childcare services, according to the Washington Post. “Importantly, the working people who have been most impacted by decades of disinvestment in public housing will be empowered to lead this effort and share in the economic prosperity that it generates for our country,” Sanders said in a statement.
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