- PoliticsYahoo News
Parnas said he is speaking out because he is afraid of William Barr
Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas said he was giving media interviews about his role in President Trump's attempts to convince Ukrainian officials to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden because he wanted to protect himself from Attorney General William Barr. Parnas made that claim in an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, the second part of which aired Thursday night. Trump, Parnas said, was made more powerful “when he got William Barr.
- WorldThe National Interest
Iran Has New Submarines, And That's Bad News For America
Key point: Certain technical questions notwithstanding, the inauguration of the Fateh class suggests that Iran is moving ahead with its Naval modernization program... In yet another milestone on Tehran's path to becoming a self-sustaining regional power, Iranian state news announced the Iranian Navy has commissioned its first homemade submarine. The new Fateh-class vessel was unveiled by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani late last week, at a ceremony held at the Bandar Abbas naval base.
- WorldINSIDER
An ISIS preacher captured in Iraq was apparently so overweight that police had to take him away in the back of a pickup truck
Twitter/AliBaroodi A well-known ISIS preacher was captured by Iraqi police, but he was apparently so overweight he had to be taken away in the back of a truck. Police said he incited extremist ideology and pledged allegiance to ISIS during their control of Mosul. Pictures posted to social media appear to show al-Nima being put in the back of a pickup truck by Iraqi forces.
- WorldYahoo News Video
Former Philippine police chief will be charged for drug war corruption
The former chief police enforcer of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly war on drugs will be charged with corruption for allegedly protecting officers linked to the narcotics trade, the country's justice department said Thursday. Oscar Albayalde resigned in October after serving as Philippine police chief for more than a year, having presided over an anti-narcotics crackdown that left thousands of drug suspects dead.
- WorldReuters
Disease that killed millions of China's pigs poses global threat
Soon the dog's handler discovered and confiscated a ham sandwich in the purse of a passenger who had flown on a China Eastern Airlines flight from Shanghai. China has lost millions of pigs in outbreaks of the disease, pushing its pork prices to record highs, forcing purchases of costly imports and roiling global meat markets. Bettie is among an expanded team of specially trained beagles at U.S. airports, part of a larger effort to protect the nation's $23 billion pork industry from a disease that has decimated China's hog herd, the world's largest.
- PoliticsNational Review
Jordan, Meadows Send Letter to FISA Court Questioning Kris Appointment
House Oversight Committee Republicans Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows issued nine demands to FISA Court presiding judge James Boasberg in a Thursday letter in response to the appointment of Obama Department of Justice lawyer David Kris to help oversee the FBI's reform of FISA applications. The letter, obtained by National Review, asked Boasberg to identify who else besides Kris was considered, whether Kris's past defense of the FISA application to surveil Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page was taken into account, and whether “the FISC bears any responsibility for the illegal surveillance of Carter Page,” among other concerns.
- WorldAssociated Press
Bureaucracy to brutality: New evidence reveals IS hierarchy
The Washington-based Syria Justice and Accountability Center said Thursday that the evidence — documents produced by IS itself — could help identify individuals responsible for atrocities during the militants' four-year reign of terror and lead to criminal prosecutions. The 24-page report, called “Judge, Jury and Executioner,” is based on dozens of documents obtained by SJAC from inside Syria and collected by a local activist from abandoned IS offices in Raqqa province, where the militants also had their self-declared capital in a city that carries the same name.
- WorldBloomberg
Nazi Leader Paraphrasing Costs Brazil Culture Secretary His Job
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro fired the country's culture secretary after he paraphrased notorious Nazi politician Joseph Goebbels in a video that stirred outrage in the nation. Roberto Alvim said that Brazilian art over the next decade will be “heroic” or “it will be nothing,” similarly to remarks made by Goebbels decades ago, according to a video posted on social networks early on Friday. Within hours, the term “Goebbels” became one of the top trending topics on Twitter in Brazil, and lawmakers including Senate President Davi Alcolumbre, who is Jewish, called for Alvim's immediate removal.
- CelebrityUSA TODAY
Princess Cruises responds after 'Marriage Story' actress speaks out, sues alleging bedbugs
An actress who had a role in "Marriage Story" and her husband are suing Princess Cruises, alleging their room on the Emerald Princess ship was infested with bedbugs and left them with bites all over their bodies. Connie and Alvin Flores allege in a lawsuit, filed in November 2019, that their stateroom aboard the cruise they took a year earlier was "infested with hundreds of bedbugs." The pair cruised from Nov. 28, 2018, through Dec. 4, 2018, out of Los Angeles. Connie Flores played an "arguing woman" in "Marriage Story," and is now speaking publicly about the suit.
WorldAFPMexico offers 4,000 jobs to new migrant caravan
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador offered 4,000 jobs Friday to migrants in a new caravan currently crossing Central America toward the United States. The caravan, which formed in Honduras this week and is making its way across Guatemala, currently has around 3,000 migrants, Lopez Obrador said. According to Guatemala's new President Alejandro Giammattei, Mexico has vowed to use "everything at its disposal" to stop them.
- LifestylePopular Mechanics
10 Home Prep Tips Before Going on Vacation
Before jetsetting across the world, make sure your home is ready for your extended absence. From Popular Mechanics
- PoliticsThe Week
Rachel Maddow and Lev Parnas explain why Parnas has publicly flipped on Trump and Giuliani
After MSNBC's Rachel Maddow aired her interview with Lev Parnas on Wednesday night, fellow host Lawrence O'Donnell told her it was an "extraordinary hour" of television. "Why has he decided to basically turn on his friends in the conspiracy and talk about the conspiracy?" Parnas worked with Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, to pressure Ukrainian officials to procure dirt on Joe Biden. Maddow said there's probably an "implicit" but far-fetched hope that cooperating with investigators and sharing what he knows will help him in his federal criminal case, but "I will tell you, Lawrence, I was convinced until the moment I was sitting there talking to him that it was going to be canceled." She added that for her, the "headline" from the interview was his claim about Vice President Mike Pence's involvement in the Ukraine meddling.
- BusinessThe Independent
Wealthy CEOs complain about feeling 'unsafe' because of homeless people in San Francisco
A major healthcare conference in San Francisco this week has sparked a debate about the California city's homeless crisis as wealthy executives and investors complain of feeling 'unsafe'. The city rakes in $51m (£39m) each year from the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference despite growing concerns about the city's homeless population among attendees of the healthcare industry's leading conference, according to Bloomberg News. The nearly 10,000 attendees have regularly criticised San Francisco's homeless crisis, Bloomberg reported, with one CEO describing it to the news outlet as “the Bill Clinton of cities”.
- U.S.The National Interest
Former U.S. Marine: Suleimani’s Killing Is the Apotheosis of American 'Strategy'
For all the righteous uproar it produced and the consequences still unfolding, in a way the killing of Iranian Major General Qassim Suleimani this month was business as usual. A longtime foe of America, Suleimani was killed by a Hellfire missile from a Reaper drone, like countless Al Qaeda terrorists, Taliban leaders, and other militants. Traveling to Iraq from Syria, Suleimani probably didn't even require the full exertions of America's vast intelligence and special operations manhunting machine.
- WorldReuters
'You have not seen anything yet,' climate activist Greta says ahead of Davos
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg marched with 10,000 protesters in the Swiss city of Lausanne on Friday and said "you have not seen anything yet" before some head to Davos next week to challenge the global financial elite to fight climate change. "So, we are now in a new year and we have entered a new decade and so far, during this decade, we have seen no sign whatsoever that real climate action is coming and that has to change,” Thunberg said in a speech in Lausanne. Hundreds will take trains over the weekend and then march to Klosters near Davos, the annual gathering of world political and business leaders that Thunberg is attending for the second year in a row and will take part in two panel events.
- WorldAssociated Press
'Days of God': A look at Iran's mounting crises
The Islamic Republic has been reeling from one crisis to another, from the targeted killing by the United States of its top general to the Revolutionary Guard's accidental shootdown of a passenger plane carrying scores of young people, most of them Iranians. U.S. sanctions have crippled its economy as tensions with America have soared. In a rare Friday sermon in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stuck to the playbook Iran has relied on since 1979, blaming the country's woes on the U.S. and other Western powers, and proclaiming that Iranians still support the Islamic Revolution.
- U.S.INSIDER
The TSA apologized after an agent pulled a Native American passenger's braid and said "giddyup!" during a pat down
Molly Riley/Reuters Native American woman Tara Houska says a TSA agent grabbed her braids, whipped them like reins and said "giddyup" while she was going through security at the Minneapolis airport on Monday. A TSA official apologized to Houska for the incident, and released a statement saying "improper behavior is taken seriously" by the agency. The Transportation Security Administration was forced to issue an apology on Tuesday after a Native American woman described on Twitter a humiliating experience going through security at the Minneapolis-St.
CelebrityUSA TODAYEvelyn Yang, Andrew Yang's wife, said she was sexually assaulted by her OB-GYN during pregnancy
Evelyn Yang, the wife of 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, is alleging that she was sexually assaulted during her first pregnancy by a doctor who has since lost his license. In an interview that aired on CNN on Thursday night, Yang said she was assaulted by her OB-GYN in 2012, claiming the doctor's abuse "started with inappropriate questions around how intimate I was with my husband, sexual activity, just very inappropriate probing questions that were unrelated to my health." Yang said the "examinations became longer, more frequent, and I learned that they were unnecessary most of the time."
WorldAFPRainstorms douse bushfires across eastern Australia
Rain and thunderstorms doused long-burning bushfires across much of eastern Australia Saturday, but they also brought a new threat of flooding in some areas. Major bushfires continued to rage in regions of the south and southeast of the country that have so far missed out on the rain, including in wildlife-rich forests on Kangaroo Island off the southern coast. The fire service in New South Wales (NSW) state, the country's most populous and the hardest hit by the crisis, said 75 fires continued to burn Saturday, down from well over 100 a few days earlier.
- U.S.Business Insider
USS Abraham Lincoln shatters US Navy's record for longest post-Cold War carrier deployment with 10-month around-the-world tour
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Zachary Pearson/ReleasedShortly after the deployment began, the powerful armada sailed through the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean, at one point sending a message to Russia in joint operations with the USS John C. Stennis. US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jeremiah Bartelt On May 5, plans unexpectedly changed. The Trump administration ordered the Lincoln to the Middle East to send an "unmistakable message" to Iran.
- PoliticsThe Daily Beast
Docs Show Parnas Helping Nunes Aide Set Up Interviews With Ex-Ukrainian Officials
New documents turned over to the House Judiciary Committee on Friday night include messages between Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas and Derek Harvey, an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). The Daily Beast was first to report that Parnas helped arrange meetings and calls in Europe for Harvey in 2018 to help the lawmaker's investigative work, and it appears the practice continued into 2019. The exchanges between Parnas and Harvey, which span several months in early 2019, show the two arranging several meetings and phone calls to discuss two claims that have been central to Trumpworld's dirt-digging mission in Ukraine and the president's subsequent impeachment: supposed corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and a plot against Trump by Ukrainian officials during the 2016 election.
- U.S.The New York Times
Life in a Troubled Mississippi Prison, Captured on Smuggled Phones
They're treating us like animals,” that inmate said, before passing the phone on yet again. And so it went, from one prisoner to the next, in a phone call with a reporter that stretched on for roughly an hour. The inmates complained about unreliable electricity and water, injuries that had not healed, and the vermin that forced them to hang leftover food from the ceiling.
- WorldThe National Interest
Secrets Stolen: What Will China Do With Data On Israel's Iron Dome Missile Defense?
Key point: America should be worried. A cybersecurity firm reports that Chinese hackers have stolen technical data for the Iron Dome rocket-defense system from Israeli computers. Maryland-based Cyber Engineering Services detected the cyber burglary, according to cybersecurity writer Brian Krebs.
- U.S.The Independent
Republican tells female reporter 30 schoolboys ‘could have a lot of fun’ with her
A Republican lawmaker is facing calls for a sexual harassment investigation after he told a young female reporter that a group of high school boys “could have a lot of fun” with her. Peter Lucido, a Michigan state senator, has been accused of making inappropriate comments to local reporter Allison Donahue during a tour of the state Capitol. Ms Donahue said the senator told her he would speak with her after addressing a group of about 30 boys who were visiting from De La Salle Collegiate, a nearby all-boys Catholic school.
- WorldAssociated Press
Ukrainian president rejects prime minister's resignation
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected his prime minister's offer to resign and asked him to stay on the job Friday after he was caught on tape saying Zelenskiy — a former sitcom star with no previous political experience — knows nothing about the economy. In a video released by Zelenskiy's office, the president called the situation “unpleasant” but asked Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk and his Cabinet to carry on. “I decided to give you and your government a chance if you manage to solve important issues that the public worries about,” Zelenskiy said as he faced Honcharuk across the table.
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