- PoliticsBusiness Insider
Text messages show Devin Nunes' aide had extensive communications with Giuliani associate Lev Parnas about Trump's Ukraine efforts
AP Photo/Susan Walsh House Democrats released a tranche of previously undisclosed text messages on Friday night between an associate of Rudy Giuliani's and an aide to the top-ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. The records show that Parnas, who Rudy Giuliani used to communicate with Ukrainian officials, texted with Rep. Devin Nunes' aide, Derek Harvey, extensively throughout 2019. The messages provide key new evidence that Nunes' team was aware of and involved in Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden.
U.S.AFPKidnapped US teen rescued by police thanks to Snapchat
A California teen who had been drugged and kidnapped was rescued by police this week after using Snapchat to alert her friends to her abduction. Police said the 14-year-old victim on Tuesday notified friends she had been kidnapped via the popular app and they were able to determine her location and alert authorities. One man was arrested as he left the motel in San Jose, in northern California, where the girl was being held and two other suspects were taken into custody on Wednesday, police said in a statement.
- WorldReuters
Gulf carriers fly over Iraq, Iran after military action deters others
Qatar Airways, Emirates and several other Gulf airlines still fly in Iraqi and Iranian airspace and to cities in both countries, even as other international carriers have rerouted planes since the United States and Iran traded military strikes. Executives and analysts said carriers in the Gulf, a major transit stop between European and Asian destinations, have few alternative routes to choose from in an area where much of the airspace is kept clear of civilian aircraft for military use. In the latest flare up, a U.S. drone strike killed a top general in Iraq on Jan. 3 and Iran fired missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq on Jan. 8.
- U.S.USA TODAY
Body of woman who was missing for almost 6 years found in car submerged in NJ river
SALEM, N.J. – A body found in a submerged car here Thursday was a New Jersey woman reported missing almost six years ago. Vanessa Smallwood, who was 46 at the time of her disappearance, was identified in a statement from New Jersey State Police. Smallwood was a Maple Shade resident, according to the statement.
- U.S.The National Interest
Rep. Ilhan Omar Says ‘We Must Stop Detaining’ Illegal Immigrants
Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar on Thursday called for the U.S. government to cease detaining illegal immigrants. Omar tweeted an ABC News story about a tiny Georgia town having more detained illegal immigrants than residents. Her takeaway: America shouldn't be detaining those who cross the border illegally.
- U.S.The Guardian
Harvey Weinstein: fourth accuser opts out of settlement to pursue own claim
A controversial proposed settlement between Harvey Weinstein and alleged victims of his sexual misconduct faces further delays, as a fourth accuser opts out and several others plan to object. Dominique Huett will remove herself from the settlement in order to pursue her own claim against the movie mogul, the Guardian can reveal. Huett joins three others who have decided to not be a part of the agreement: Wedil David, Kaja Sokola and Alexandra Canosa.
- U.S.Associated Press
LGBT activists say new bills target transgender youth
At the urging of conservative advocacy groups, Republican legislators in more than a dozen states are promoting bills that focus on transgender young people. One batch of bills would bar doctors from providing them certain gender-related medical treatment; another batch would bar trans students from participating on school sports teams of the gender they identify with. The proposed laws, if enacted, “would bring devastating harms to the transgender community,” said Chase Strangio, a transgender-rights lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.
- HealthINSIDER
Fewer Americans are binge-drinking, but those who do are drinking more per session
Voyagerix / Shutterstock Americans who drink heavily are now consuming more alcoholic drinks during each binge, according to a new study. Researchers found that binge-drinkers consumed 12% more alcohol per episode in 2017 than in 2011 — from an average of 479 drinks a year per person to 529. Heavy drinking, defined as 5 or more drinks for men and 4 or more for women in a single sitting, can increase the risk of stroke, heart disease, and liver damage.
- WorldBloomberg
Venezuela’s Juan Guaido Leaves Country, Will Attend Davos
Sign up here to receive the Davos Diary, a special daily newsletter that will run from Jan. 20-24. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido left the country to start an international tour that includes meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to people familiar with his plans. Guaido is already in Colombia and will meet with President Ivan Duque Sunday afternoon, Duque said on Twitter.
- 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.
- WorldYahoo News Video
Cult slayed pregnant woman and five of her children in Panama
A religious sect whose members believed to be “anointed by God” forced a pregnant woman and five of her children to walk through fire as part of a cult ritual, according to local residents.
- BusinessBusiness 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.
- WorldReuters
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.
- SportsPopular Mechanics
The 25 Best PSP Games
Console-sized action. On-the-go goodness.From Popular Mechanics
- WorldThe National Interest
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.
- WorldAssociated Press
AP Explains: CFO of China's Huawei facing extradition to US
An extradition hearing begins Monday in a Vancouver courtroom for Huawei top executive Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the company's founder. Canada arrested Meng while she was changing planes at Vancouver's airport in late 2018. U.S. authorities allege Huawei used a Hong Kong shell company to evade U.S. trade sanctions on Iran.
PoliticsAFPWashing Trump's hair and Bloomberg's meatballs: offbeat moments in US election campaign
Donald Trump's fixation on water pressure, the bizarre tweets of Michael Bloomberg, a candidate who does push-ups at campaign gatherings, and another who can recite state capitals at lightning speed: AFP is starting its weekly list of the offbeat highlights from the run-up to the US presidential election. In a country where the age of several front-runners in the race for the White House has raised concerns, 38-year-old Army veteran Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, performed a set of push-ups wearing high heels at a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Thursday. During a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday Trump -- a notorious climate-change denier -- slammed the water-saving standards introduced by his predecessor Barack Obama, which he said affected the performance of toilets, sinks and showers.
- ScienceUSA TODAY
SpaceX rocket explodes after liftoff as planned; Crew Dragon capsule escapes fireball
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, ultimately sacrificing itself to test a Crew Dragon capsule's life-saving abort capabilities. The 10:30 a.m. liftoff from pad 39A looked like any other mission: nine Merlin main engines roared through a thin layer of stubborn clouds, taking the capsule to about 55,000 feet in altitude and then abruptly cutting thrust.
- PoliticsNational Review
Rand Paul Slams the Bidens over Alleged Corruption: ‘It Smells to High Heaven’
Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky. said Thursday that Joe and Hunter Biden's activity in Ukraine “goes to the heart of the matter” surrounding the upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate, and argued that GOP senators must be willing to call President Trump's preferred witnesses, or “all hell is going to break lose. Appearing on Hannity, Paul stated that he believed the alleged corruption perpetrated by Hunter Biden in his role on the board of a Ukrainian gas company Burisma — while his father was overseeing official U.S. relations with Kyiv —needed to be explored.
- U.S.The Daily Beast
Two More Bodies Found at Tijuana Property Where Missing California Couple Were Buried Under the Dirt Floor
Two more bodies have been discovered at a Tijuana, Mexico, property where investigators earlier found the remains of a missing California couple buried under the dirt floor of a house on Friday. Jesús Rubén López Guillén, 70, a U.S. resident, and his wife Maria Teresa Guillén, 65, a naturalized U.S. citizen, were reported missing by their daughter Norma López after they traveled from Garden Grove to Tijuana on Jan. 10 to collect more than $6,400 in overdue rent from their 37-year-old son-in-law. Police in Garden Grove launched a missing persons investigation after López said she could no longer track her parents' movements through the Find My Phone app.
- U.S.Business Insider
A plane slid off the runway and more than 800 flights were canceled as winter weather hit the Midwest
Nam Y. Huh/AP Winter storms wreaked havoc on airports and roads throughout the Midwest into the weekend. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport saw nearly 700 canceled arriving and departing flights Friday night before around 200 flights were canceled Saturday morning. Authorities issued alerts for areas across the Northeast as blizzard conditions were forecasted to move across the Great Lakes to New York and New England over the weekend.
- U.S.Reuters
Ten charred bodies found in vehicle in violence-plagued Mexican state
Mexican prosecutors are investigating the discovery of a burned-out vehicle containing the charred bodies of 10 people in the southwestern state of Guerrero, authorities said late on Friday. Police made the grisly discovery on a country road in the municipality of Chilapa de Alvarez after locals saw the vehicle on fire and alerted authorities, state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez said in a statement published on Facebook. The attorney general's office of Guerrero did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
- U.S.The Guardian
TSA issues apology to Native American woman who had braids pulled by agent
The federal Transportation Security Administration has apologized to a Native American woman who said an agent at Minneapolis-St Paul international airport “pulled her braids” and said “giddy up!” when she took a flight from there this week. “The agent said she needed to pat down my braids,” tweeted Tara Houska, an indigenous rights advocate and attorney. According to the Washington Post, women of color have long experienced problems at TSA checkpoints, because natural, braided or twisted hair prompt “flags” on security devices, spurring “more invasive screenings”.
- WorldThe National Interest
What Can Iran Hope To Do Against America's Stealth Aircraft?
Key point: The need for stealth grew only more urgent in 2019 when an Iranian missile knocked an MQ-4C out of the sky. U.S. forces on deployment to the Middle East include F-15E fighter-bombers, F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters and B-52 bombers, among others. But as tensions escalate between the United States and its allies including Saudi Arabia on one hand, and Iran and Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels on the other hand, it's worth considering what other American aircraft might be in the region.
- U.S.Associated Press
Remains of fallen US soldier returned to Fort Bragg
The remains of a paratrooper who was killed a week ago in Afghanistan have been returned to his family in the U.S. The family of Staff Sgt. Ian McLaughlin greeted his flag-draped casket at Pope Army Airfield at Fort Bragg on Saturday, The Fayetteville Observer reported. The 29-year-old from Newport News, Virginia, was killed Jan. 11 by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. Also killed in the attack was 21-year-old Pfc.
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