Sanders retracts controversial endorsement less than 24 hours after making it

Sen. Bernie Sanders retracted his endorsement of congressional candidate Cenk Uygur on Friday, less than 24 hours after making it, as allegations of sexism hit the former online talk show host. Last month, Uygur announced he would run for the congressional seat in California's 25th District vacated by California Democrat Katie Hill, who resigned after “revenge porn” photos revealed she had an affair with a subordinate. On Thursday, Sanders became the only presidential candidate to endorse Uygur, whose YouTube program “The Young Turks” has nearly 30,000 subscribers.

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  Why Bernie Sanders Walked Back His Endorsement of Cenk Uygur

  Time
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  Bernie Sanders Retracts Endorsement of Young Turks Founder Cenk Uygur After Backlash

  Variety

Trump: 'I'll do whatever I want' during Senate impeachment trial

President Trump said Friday that he hasn't decided whether to wage a long or short impeachment defense in the U.S. Senate, but either way, he expressed confidence in the outcome. During a Thursday night appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News program, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the host that his “hope is that it will be a shorter process rather than a lengthy process.” McConnell also made clear that he was acting in lockstep with the White House. “Everything I do during [the impeachment process], I'm coordinating with White House counsel,” McConnell said.

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  Republicans attack Democratic congressman watching golf during impeachment hearing

  The Independent
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  Sen. Marsha Blackburn says Senate impeachment trial will be conducted with respect to the American voter

  FOX News Videos

Meghan McCain Confronts Tom Steyer: ‘You Bought Your Way’ Onto Debate Stage

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer got a warm welcome from every co-host of The View except one on Friday morning. “Mr. Steyer, between you and Mayor Bloomberg, you have now spent $200 million on political ads,” Meghan McCain told their guest. “I'm talking about breaking a corporate stranglehold on our government that is preventing it from acting on anything,” Steyer said.

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  Sarah Ferguson Shows Unwavering Support For The Duchess Of Sussex!

  TheBlast
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  It's No Wonder Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Get Along So Well When You Look at Their Signs

  PopSugar

2 children dead after being swept away in Arizona floodwaters

Two children are dead and another is still missing after the vehicle they were traveling in was swept away in floodwaters in Arizona's Tonto Basin, the Gila County Sheriff's Office said Saturday. The Gila County Sheriff's Office told CBS Phoenix affiliate KPHO-TV the victims found were a five-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl. According to the Gila County Sheriff's Office, they received a call around 4 p.m. Friday of a vehicle stuck in Tonto Creek at Bar X Crossing in Tonto Basin, located about 80 miles from Phoenix.

Kamala Harris flames out: Black people didn't trust her, and they were wise not to

Even though Barack Obama surprisingly won Iowa in 2008, Harris struggled to gain support in the small, mostly white state whose African American population is a whopping 3.8%. All that may be true, but it misses the most important part of the story. It was one thing for Harris to receive little to no support from whites in Iowa, but how could the fact that blacks in South Carolina (and beyond) weren't excited about her either be explained?

US Pacific commander says China seeks to intimidate region

China's activities in territory it claims in the South China Sea are meant to intimidate other nations in the region, the commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet said Friday. Adm. John Aquilino said China's actions, including constructing islands in the disputed waters, are intended to project its military capacity. He told journalists at a briefing in the Thai capital Bangkok that in addition to installing anti-aircraft and anti-ship missile systems and radar jamming equipment, China has recently landed bombers on runways on some of the man-made islands it built atop coral reefs and lagoons that dot one of the world's busiest waterways.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warns Iran of 'decisive response' if harm in Iraq

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday warned Iran of a “decisive” response if U.S. interests are harmed in Iraq, after a series of rocket attacks on bases.

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  Mike Pompeo stokes Kansas Senate rumours with Twitter launch

  The Guardian
• Pompeo, Now Just ‘Mike,’ Opens Twitter Account Amid Senate Talk

  Bloomberg

Decades on, Soviet bombs still killing people in Afghanistan

Gholam Mahaiuddin sighs softly as he thinks of his 14-year-old son, who was killed in the spring by a bomb dropped last century in the hills of Bamiyan province in central Afghanistan. "We knew the mountain was dangerous," said Mahaiuddin, who found his son's remains after he didn't come home one day. Forty years after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan -- and three decades since the conflict ended -- the war's legacy continues to claim lives across the country.

Judge's decision may shine light on secret Trump-Putin meeting notes

A district court judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered administration lawyers to explain why, for more than two years, the White House has refused to turn over to the State Department an interpreter's notes from a meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. That meeting took place in the summer of 2017, during a summit of the G-20 nations in Hamburg, Germany. The two men got along so well that the meeting, which was supposed to last an hour, ran to 137 minutes.

Anger erupts at U.N. climate summit as major economies resist bold action

Major economies resisted calls for bolder climate commitments as a U.N. summit in Madrid limped toward a delayed conclusion on Saturday, dimming hopes that nations will act in time to stop rising temperatures devastating people and the natural world. "At a time when scientists are queuing up to warn about terrifying consequences if emissions keep rising, and school children are taking to the streets in their millions, what we have here in Madrid is a betrayal of people across the world," said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a climate and energy think-tank in Nairobi. The annual climate marathon had been due to conclude on Friday, but dragged on with ministers mired in multiple disputes over implementing the Paris deal, which has so far failed to stem the upward march of global carbon emissions.

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  Negotiators work through the night to salvage U.N. climate summit

  Reuters
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  Facing climate emergency, UN summit staggers on

  AFP

Will the Navy's New LRASM Missile Change the Balance of Power?

The realization dawned on navies across the world that long-range “over-the-horizon” missiles had replaced the gun, torpedo and aerial bomb as the preeminent antiship weapon in naval warfare. German air-launched antiship missiles had already scored some notable successes during World War II, but now it was clear that even small surface combatants could be capable launch platforms. A decade later, the U.S. Navy debuted the AGM-84 Harpoon missile, a subsonic sea-skimming weapon with a 488-pound warhead that came in variants that could fire from a ship, a submarine or an airplane.

Satellite evades ‘day of reckoning' to discover puzzling weather phenomenon on Jupiter

At first glance, these newly released images by NASA may look like lava churning in the heart of a volcano, but they reveal otherworldly storm systems whirling in a way that surprised scientists. The swirls in the photos are cyclones around Jupiter's south pole, captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft on Nov. 3, 2019. Juno has been orbiting the solar system's largest planet since 2016 and has seen these polar cyclones before, but its latest flight over this region of the planet revealed a startling discovery - a new cyclone had formed unexpectedly.

Hong Kong’s Police Overtime Bill Tops $120 Million During Protests

Hong Kong police officers have racked up more than $120 million in overtime wages and other allowances as they work long hours to handle unprecedented pro-democracy protests in the Asian financial hub. Roughly 11,000 officers per month were paid more than HK$950 million ($122 million) for extra shifts between June and November, according to a document uploaded by the city legislature's Finance Committee. The Hong Kong Police Force's total budget for wages, allowances and other operating costs in the current fiscal year was HK$20.2 billion, the document said.

Challenge to immigration law is tossed on eve of enactment

A law that will allow New Yorkers to get driver's licenses without having to prove they are in the country legally weathered a second court challenge Friday, days before its enactment. A federal district judge ruled against Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola, saying he lacked the legal capacity to bring the lawsuit. Merola, a Republican, had argued that the state law conflicts with federal immigration law.

The 10 Best Tech Gadgets of 2019

From the Apple AirPods Pro to the Google Pixel 3a, these are the gadgets that took over 2019. From Popular Mechanics

• The Korea Fund, Inc. Declares Year-End Distributions

  Business Wire
• Hannon Armstrong Announces $0.335 per Share Quarterly Dividend

  Business Wire

Harvey Weinstein seen without zimmer frame amid accusations of 'playing for sympathy'

Harvey Weinstein has been photographed walking unassisted around a supermarket near his New York home, days after arriving at a court hearing dishevelled and using a zimmer frame. Weinstein, 67, shocked onlookers on Wednesday as he arrived for a bail hearing looking a shadow of his former self. Hunched over, scruffy and shuffling along with a zimmer frame, he was almost unrecognisable.

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  Weinstein’s lawyers insist he isn’t using Zimmer frame for sympathy in court after he is seen shopping without it

  The Independent
• Harvey Weinstein seen without walker after struggling in court

  Fox Business

A Mobster's Murder, and the Jockeying to Move Up the Hierarchy

On a quiet night in March, a mob leader was executed in New York City for the first time since 1985. The body of Francesco Cali, a reputed boss of the Gambino crime family, lay crumpled outside his Staten Island home, pierced by at least six bullets. One of them, Vincent Fiore, said he had just read a “short article” about the “news,” according to prosecutors.

Joe Biden told a protestor at his Texas campaign rally that he's 'just like Donald Trump' for asking about corruption in Ukraine

Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images At a community gathering for Joe Biden's campaign in San Antonio, Texas, the 2020 hopeful was interrupted by a protestor asking about corruption in Ukraine. Biden paused while the crowd chanted "We want Joe," then said the protestor "represents Donald Trump very well" and is "just like Donald Trump." He also said the man is a "great American" and urged the crowd to "let him go" and "don't hurt him," saying "this is not a Trump rally, this is a real rally."

Bolivia's interim leader says arrest warrant to be issued against Morales

Bolivia will issue an arrest warrant in the coming days against former leftist President Evo Morales, accusing him of sedition, interim Bolivian President Jeanine Anez said on Saturday. Morales is in Argentina, granted refugee status this week just days after the inauguration of new President Alberto Fernandez. Peronist Fernandez succeeded outgoing conservative Argentine leader Mauricio Macri, who lost his bid for re-election in October.

America's Lethal F-15, Meet Russia's Su-35, PAK-FA and China's J-20

Stealth is considered a key aspect of survival over the modern battlefield. But an all-stealth force has been an extremely expensive proposition. Declining defense budgets during the 1990s and a focus on the Global War on Terror in the 2000s have meant that many legacy aircraft continue to fly on.

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  Lockheed Martin Wins Deal to Support F-35 Aircraft Program

  Zacks
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  Russia's Stealth Fighter Failure: Meet the Su-47

  The National Interest

Stomach flu outbreak terrorizes school in Washington state, sickening over 100 students, staff

A nasty Norovirus outbreak is terrorizing Washington state, forcing hundreds of kids to stay home and dozens of schools to close. Seattle Public Schools tweeted that Leschi Elementary will be closed Friday for cleaning because of the stomach flu outbreak. Over 100 students and staff members reported being sick Thursday.

Louisiana sues California over alligator ban

Louisiana is suing the state of California over its decision to ban the import and sale of alligator products, saying the ban will hurt an important Louisiana industry and ultimately could hurt the state's wetlands. In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Louisiana said the economy surrounding alligators has played a key role in bringing back the American alligator population and is an important factor in protecting wetlands and other species besides alligators that depend on the wetlands. “California has nevertheless attempted to destroy the market for American alligator products notwithstanding the fact that no such alligators live in California," the lawsuit says.