Trump impeachment narrative gathers steam as diplomats fill in details

In the first week of public impeachment hearings, three witnesses, all veteran U.S. diplomats, added details of what they knew of President Trump's efforts to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a plan whose unraveling threatens his presidency. While the fundamental partisan dynamics of the inquiry continue to hold — Democrats who control the House appear poised to impeach the president, while Republicans in the Senate are unlikely to convict him — this week's developments shed new light on the months-long effort by the Trump administration to procure investigations from a foreign government.

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  White House budget official broke ranks to testify

  CBS News
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  'It's obviously wrong': House Intel Committee Dem on Trump’s attack on Yovanovitch

  ABC News Videos

NATO ally expels undercover Russian spy 

WASHINGTON — On Oct. 30, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry delivered a rare warning to a Russian diplomat stationed in Sofia, the capital: Leave the country within 24 hours. The expelled diplomat, Vladimir Anatolyevich Rusyaev is affiliated with the Russian military intelligence service, or the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the GRU, according to a Western intelligence source. The intelligence source provided Yahoo News with a document describing Rusyaev's career history, including a current photograph.

Disabled Woman’s Boyfriend Told Police He Lured Her to Nevada Desert and Suffocated Her

A Maryland man who may have been leading a double life has confessed to kidnapping his disabled girlfriend, luring her into the Nevada desert, tying her to a signpost and suffocating her with duct tape, police said Friday. He allegedly then pretended to be the victim on Facebook, sending her family messages to cover up her disappearance until friends reported her missing earlier this week. Jaime Rae Feden, 33, suffered from a rare congenital condition called VATER syndrome and stood just over 4 feet tall.

French interior minister blames protest violence on 'thugs'

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner blamed "thugs" and "bullies" on Sunday for the violence that hit demonstrations the previous day marking marked the first anniversary of the anti-government "yellow vest" protests. "Yesterday, what we saw were few (legitimate) demonstrators but thugs, bullies and morons," Castaner told Europe 1 radio when asked about the violence in Paris on Saturday. Demonstrators torched cars and pelted police with stones and bottles and police fired tear gas and water cannon during the rallies to mark a year since the birth of the anti-government yellow vest movement.

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  Fires Burn in Paris on First Anniversary of Yellow Vest Protests

  Storyful
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  Scuffles mar anniversary of birth of yellow vest movement

  Associated Press

Elephant dies in captivity after killing villagers

An elephant named after Osama bin Laden, the late al-Qaida leader, has died in captivity after he was captured following a massive hunt in northeastern India, officials said Sunday.

Nuclear missile bunker: yours for less than $400k

One local newspaper described the sales listing, with calculated understatement, as a “mid-century fixer-upper”: an underground bunker built to withstand a nuclear attack, and to house the fire power to retaliate. The decommissioned nuclear silo in southern Arizona was once home to the Titan II, the largest intercontinental ballistic missile deployed by the US Air Force. The silo's owner, Rick Ellis, told the Arizona Daily Star newspaper that he was selling the property because he's “bored”.

Racist, anti-Semitic incidents prompt Syracuse to halt fraternity activities; Alpha Chi Rho suspended

Syracuse University suspended one fraternity and halted social activities at all the school's fraternities for the rest of the semester after a series of racist and anti-Semitic incidents that have prompted days of protests, the school president announced Sunday. "Last night, one of our African American students reported being subjected to a verbal racial epithet from a group of students and visitors to our campus," Chancellor Kent Syverud said in a statement. Syverud's action was the latest in a series of crackdowns on fraternities across the nation and comes less than a week after San Diego State University suspended all Interfraternity Council-affiliated organizations following the death of a freshman who had attended a fraternity event.

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  Syracuse University suspends fraternity's activities after alleged racist incidents

  ABC News
• Syracuse suspends fraternity after report of racial slur

  Associated Press

Elizabeth Warren takes risk with ad blasting billionaires

Elizabeth Warren, one of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, has stepped up her assault on billionaires -- a rallying cry popular with her base, but one that could stymie her efforts to garner wider support among US voters. The 70-year-old US senator from Massachusetts on Thursday unveiled a new ad in an appearance on CNBC, a business news network that often criticizes her, in which she takes on the ultra-rich. The one-minute campaign ad shows clips of several leading businessmen criticizing her plans for a wealth tax and predicting economic ruin if she is elected to succeed Donald Trump, a billionaire himself.

The War That Made India a 'Great Power' (And Hurt Pakistan to This Day)

When British India became independent in 1947, the country was divided into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The problem was that East Pakistan and West Pakistan were almost a thousand miles apart, and wedged in between them was archenemy India. Imagine if the United States only consisted of the East Coast and West Coast, and Russia controlled all of North America in between.

On an upswing, the Pete Buttigieg show rolls through New Hampshire

Earlier this week, Pete Buttigieg traveled more than 100 miles through the Granite State on a bus emblazoned with his name and packed with over a dozen journalists. It's a spectacle that hasn't been seen in recent presidential races, but it's part of a freewheeling strategy that has helped bring Buttigieg from relative obscurity to the top of the Democratic primary field. As the bus headed toward Buttigieg's third event of the day in Rochester, N.H., on Monday, news broke that a Quinnipiac University poll was showing the South Bend, Ind., mayor in third place in the state, just 1 percentage point behind Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

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  Black South Carolinians Say Buttigieg Campaign Misleadingly Touted Their Support

  HuffPost
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  Can Pete Buttigieg win the presidency?

  Yahoo News 360

Bolivia’s crisis exposes old racial, geographic divides

Bolivia's increasingly violent political crisis is exposing historical racial, ethnic and geographic divides that many thought had been overcome after 14 years of rule by the Andean nation's first indigenous president and a new “plurinational” constitution, analysts say. While regionally Sunday's resignation of Evo Morales marked the exit of the last member of the wave of leftist leaders who took power in South America in recent decades, inside Bolivia the departure of the president who had stabilized the chronically unstable nation was a political earthquake that has re-opened old cracks. Analysts say the movement to oust Morales was an urban middle-class revolt against what opponents said was fraud in his re-election and his repeated bids to retool the constitution to extend his rule through four terms.

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  Bolivian interim leader meets UN envoy amid violence fears

  Associated Press
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  U.N. warns Bolivia crisis could 'spin out of control' as death toll mounts

  Reuters

Forgotten Genocide: How a Quarter of Europe’s Roma Were Murdered by the Nazis, then Erased From History

An eyewitness account by a Holocaust survivor—unearthed for a new exhibition in London—describes the conditions in the “gypsy” section of Auschwitz as even more inhumane than the rest of the appalling facility. “The conditions were worse than in the other camps,” wrote eyewitness Hermann Langbein in 1945. The gypsies were still wearing the clothes that they had been given upon arrival… footwear was missing… The latrines were built in such a way that they were practically unusable for the gypsy children.

Three family murder-suicides within ten days shock Turkey as the country faces record unemployment

The deaths of three separate families within ten days have shocked Turkey as the country struggles with mass unemployment and a financial crisis. On Friday, authorities confirmed that a family of three had been found dead in their home in the central Istanbul district of Bakırköy, poisoned by cyanide. Earlier in the month, police discovered the bodies of a family of four, including a nine year-old daughter and a five year-old son, in their home in the southern city of Antalya.

First African-American FBI agent finally gets recognition

The first African-American FBI special agent, who was hired 100 years ago, is finally getting recognition. There are no known photographs of James Wormley Jones, but there is a record of his hiring. Inside FBI headquarters in Washington is an archive room filled with hundreds of thousands of documents and a lone application for the job of special agent.

'Funny, loyal, light of our lives': Santa Clarita mourns victims of Saugus school shooting

As investigators continue to search for a motive behind the deadly shooting at a Southern California high school Thursday morning, the community of Santa Clarita is coming together to remember the children it lost. Dominic Michael Blackwell, 14, and Gracie Anne Muehlberger, 15, died Thursday when another student opened fire at Saugus High School, injuring three others. GoFundMe pages that appeared to be created by family members of the two students killed had each raised tens of thousands of dollars by Saturday.

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  Shooting at New Jersey High School Football Game Leaves 2 Spectators 'Seriously Injured'

  People
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  Alleged gunman, 4 others charged in shooting at football game

  Yahoo News Video

S. African asylum-seekers held on trespassing charges

South African police detained more than 180 foreign nationals for storming the UN refugee agency in Pretoria, where they had been staging a sit-in protest, police said Saturday. Hundreds of asylum-seekers started camping in front of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on October 8, asking to be relocated to another country after a spate of xenophobic violence in September. Protesters broke into the UNHCR premises on Thursday after they were informed of a court order giving them three days to vacate the site.

Why Russian Fighter Jets Are Threatening NATO In The Baltics

Key point: Russia and NATO's military buildup in the Baltics is creating a tense situation. In the most recent illustration of ongoing Russia-NATO military tensions over Baltic airspace, recently released footage shows a Russian Su-27 fighter making a sharp turn into an American F-15C. It is unclear when the video was filmed, with some speculating that it occured during a prior NATO BAP (Baltic Air Policing) mission. When viewed in that light, this incident seems to fall into the trend of what US officials have previously described as “unsafe” Russian interceptions and “aggressive maneuvers” in high-tension airspace.

Biden warns about Trump during campaign event in Vegas

Former Vice President Joe Biden brought an alarmist warning to a diverse crowd of Democrats late Saturday in early-caucus Nevada during a town hall at an elementary school in a historically minority Las Vegas neighborhood. Biden opened the event saying that as long as Donald Trump is president, the security and future of the United States is at risk. “As long as he's there, everything we care about as a nation, and the issues we care about, are in the balance,” Biden said.

Conservative Group Fires Michelle Malkin Over Support for Holocaust Denier

A conservative group cut ties with right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin on Sunday over her support for an anti-Semitic internet personality, ramping up a growing conservative civil war centered on college campuses. Malkin's firing from Young America's Foundation, whose speaker's bureau had booked Malkin for speeches across the country for the past 17 years, marks the latest battle between supporters of Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and more establishment conservative figures. Michelle Malkin in no longer part of YAF's campus lecture program,” a YAF spokesman said in an email to The Daily Beast.

Chile police stopped rescue workers helping dying protester: human rights watchdog

Chile's independent human rights watchdog said on Saturday it would file a formal complaint for murder against police officers who allegedly prevented paramedics from attending a heart attack victim amid a protest Friday. Security forces firing tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons made it impossible for rescue workers to properly treat the victim, Chile's publicly-funded National Institute for Human Rights said. Twenty-nine year old Abel Acuna died shortly after at a nearby Santiago hospital.

Child abuse victims should have right to sue paedophiles caught with images of them, children charities say

Child abuse victims should be given new rights to sue paedophiles caught viewing or sharing indecent images of them, children charities have said. The Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety (CCCIS) called for the initiative arguing it would act as a deterrent for offenders, who now know they are unlikely to go do jail, as it could mean potentially losing their homes and pensions if caught with abuse material. The CCCIS, which represents charities such as the NSPCC and Barnardo's, said those convicted of indecent images should also face a new automatic surcharge to fund the treatment and therapy costs of victims of abuse.

The Leonids meteor shower will send bright green shooting stars across the sky this weekend, early next week. Here's how to see them.

The Leonids meteor shower peaks this weekend and early next week, with about 15 meteors streaking across the night sky every hour. The waning gibbous moon will be bright, but you can still catch some green shooting stars. The Leonids have made spectacular meteor storms in the past, with up to 100,000 shooting stars each hour.

'He doesn't seem like the kind of kid to do this': Classmates, neighbors surprised by suspected Santa Clarita shooter's identity

The 16-year-old suspected of fatally shooting two students and wounding three others at their high school Thursday was an unlikely gunman, classmates and neighbors said. Following a 16-second burst of gunfire that ended with the suspect shooting himself in the head, the boy was is in critical condition at a local hospital, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Neighbors and classmates described the boy as pleasant but noted that he was changed by the death of his father two years ago.