Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., on Sunday said it would play to the “president's advantage” to have his top administration officials, in an “out-of-the-box strategy,” testify in the upcoming impeachment hearings. “As it relates to the other members of the executive branch, the president has to make decisions not only for him but for the presidency,” he continued.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a novel case by Arizona seeking to recover billions of dollars that the state has said that members of the Sackler family - owners of Purdue Pharma LP - funneled out of the OxyContin maker before the company filed for bankruptcy in September. The justices declined to take the rare step of allowing Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to pursue a case directly with the Supreme Court on the role the drugmaker played in the U.S. opioid epidemic that has killed tens of thousands of Americans annually in recent years. The lawsuit accused eight Sackler family members of funneling $4 billion out of Purdue from 2008 to 2016 despite being aware that the company faced massive potential liabilities over its marketing of opioid medications.
Tesla recently announced that it would revise its service relationship with owners of its original Roadster, while simultaneously encouraging them to considering trading in Tesla's first car for a new model. Sign up for Business Insider's transportation newsletter, Shifting Gears, to get more stories like this in your inbox. Tesla's first vehicle was the original Roadster, and even CEO Elon Musk now admits it was an early draft of what Tesla could do.
With speeches and salutes, veterans and officials on Saturday commemorated the 78th anniversary of the 1941 sneak attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor, which brought a previously reluctant United States into World War II. A ceremony in Hawaii honoring survivors was attended by US Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Washington's ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris. It was held within sight of the sunken USS Arizona, which was bombed in the opening moments of the attack that killed more than 2,400 Americans.
For months, Carlos Lopez's mind has been endlessly spinning with the fears and anxiety of leaving his home country of Honduras, traveling 1,700 miles with his 13-year-old son to this Mexican border town and the day-to-day survival of living in a squalid tent city. “All the bad thoughts went away,” Lopez, 41, said, as he emerged from his 45-minute-long acupuncture session. Lopez is one of a growing number of migrants stuck on the border under President Donald Trump's Migration Protection Protocols policy – which sends migrants to Mexican border towns to await their immigration court hearing in the U.S. To help the migrants pass the time and deal with stress, teams of volunteers led by Acupuncturists Without Borders, or AWB, a nonprofit that treats people in disaster zones and refugee camps and trains other acupuncturists around the world, are providing Lopez and others with free acupuncture treatment at border towns in Mexico.
Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden said his son Hunter will not be engaged in any foreign business if the former vice president is elected in 2020. Hunter Biden raised eyebrows when it came to light that he held a lucrative position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company while his father was fighting corruption in Ukraine as vice president. The set-up prompted Trump to ask Ukraine to investigate the Bidens while temporarily withholding U.S. military aid, an alleged quid pro quo that became the basis for the impeachment inquiry against Trump.
Pete Buttigieg implied that he would take money off billionaires and closed-door fundraisers during a terse exchange with a student activist, amid growing criticism of the Democratic candidate's fundraising strategy. The 2020 presidential candidate has come under scrutiny for his decision to take money from wealthy donors after a number of Democrats have pledged to take “big money” out of politics. Greg Chung, a student activist from Iowa, challenged Mr Buttigieg about his fundraising at a campaign event over the weekend.
Russian diesel subs chased a British nuclear sub off the Syrian coast, according to British media. The incident reportedly involved one or two Russian Kilo-class diesel-powered submarines, which have been dubbed the "Black Hole" by Western navies because they are remarkably quiet. "Two Russian frigates and an anti-submarine aircraft are also thought to have been searching for the British boat as it maneuvered to put its Tomahawk cruise missiles within range of Syrian military targets," according to The Times of London."The Astute-class submarine is believed to have spent several days trying to evade detection in a tense and dangerous contest." The British sub did not fire its Tomahawks during last week's strike by American, British and French forces against Syrian chemical weapons sites, leading to speculation that the British boat was driven off by the Russian subs.
Family and friends are honoring a UPS driver who was killed in a shootout between Florida police and the robbery suspects who had hijacked his delivery truck. Loved ones and coworkers of Frank Ordonez gathered at a UPS Customer Center in Miami with lit candles and flowers Sunday. Other UPS workers also joined in — one group from London expressed support by tweeting a photo showing uniformed workers holding up letters that together spelled #ONE UPS and RIP Frank Ordonez.
The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France are meeting on Monday to discuss a peace settlement for Ukraine's war-ravaged east for the first time in more than three years. Monday's summit in Paris is also the first time that Ukraine's new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whom many in Ukraine hold personally responsible for the hostilities in the east. Mr Zelenskiy was elected in April this year and declared putting an end to the protracted armed conflict in the Donbass region one of his priorities.
An Ohio legislator who said he had “no knowledge” of a rightwing Christian bill mill called Project Blitz is, in fact, the co-chair of the state branch of an organization behind the campaign. The Ohio state representative Timothy Ginter sponsored a bill called the Student Religious Liberties Act. The Guardian revealed the bill was nearly identical to one promoted by Project Blitz, a state legislative project guided by three Christian right organizations, including the Congressional Prayer Caucus (CPC), WallBuilders and the ProFamily Legislators Conference.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal by a convicted murderer who filed a civil rights lawsuit because Texas prison officials denied her request to be considered for gender reassignment surgery. The justices let stand a lower court's decision to reject the claim by inmate Vanessa Lynn Gibson that denying the surgery request violated the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Gibson, 41, who is transgender and also goes by the name Scott in court papers, was assigned male at birth and has lived as a female since age 15.
It might be the most Japanese of political scandals: a furore over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's guest list at a party to mark the annual cherry blossom season. As scandals go, it has plenty of juicy elements -- alleged mafia guests, disappearing evidence, even gaffes by Abe, who appeared to lay blame for shredded documents on a disabled worker. It's the latest headache for Japan's longest-serving premier, who has already weathered two cronyism scandals in recent years and has faced an almost daily drubbing by opposition lawmakers since the scandal emerged in early November.
Following reports that Amazon plans to open a new office in New York City, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that the Trump administration "should focus more on cutting public assistance to billionaires instead of poor families."
Build those structures. Keep them from harm. Collect that loot.
Warren now sits at just 14.8 percent in the RCP average, in third place behind Bernie Sanders, with about half the support Biden has. The former vice president has lost a step or two (or several) since his time as Obama's right-hand man, but it's looking less and less likely that Warren will be the Democrat to supplant him as the party's favorite heading into 2020's early primaries. For media observers who have been pulling for Warren from the start of her campaign, there can be only one plausible explanation for her fall from grace: sexism.
Designed to minimize civilian casualties, the ninja missile is a specially modified Hellfire—without a warhead. The Hellfire missiles weigh in the 100 to 110 pound range, including a 20-pound warhead and are guided through a millimeter wave radar seeker, or by laser. Years after their development, Hellfire missiles have become the armament of choice in the war on terror, and are often used on Reaper and Predator drones in strikes against militants in crowded, urban environments.
Six people have been arrested after an off-duty firefighter was killed in an altercation between two couples and a group of young men in the southern German city of Augsburg, authorities said Sunday. Dozens of Augsburg firefighters held a vigil Sunday for their colleague and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer voiced his dismay at the killing. Both were 17 and born in Augsburg; the first had German and unspecified other citizenships and the second was a citizen of an unidentified southern European country.
The FBI presumes a Florida attack by a Saudi air force officer that left three U.S. sailors dead “was an act of terrorism,” the agent in charge of the investigation said, and Republican lawmakers urged a suspension of training from foreign fighters in the U.S. As criticism mounted about the incident, including Donald Trump's rapid defense of the Saudi royal family, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman called the U.S. president on Sunday to express his condolences, the state-run SPA news agency reported. The Saudi kingdom is willing to fully cooperate with U.S. authorities and give information to help determine the shooter's motives, SPA reported, citing the crown prince.
Celadon, a truckload carrier that grossed $1 billion as recently as 2015, filed for bankruptcy on Monday.
Russia plans to establish an air defence "dome" across its polar region by arming all of its Northern Fleet's Arctic divisions with S-400 missile batteries, a Russian naval commander said on Monday. Russia has been stepping up its military presence in the Arctic, building new infrastructure and overhauling its ports as it vies for dominance in a region with huge untapped mineral wealth amid warmer climate cycles. In May, Washington accused Russia of aggressive behaviour in the polar region and said China's actions must be watched closely.
Turkey has deported to France the “Islamic State matchmaker” who lured a British teen bride to Syria as part of a drive to send foreign fighters back to their countries of origin. Tooba Gondal, 25, is among 11 French nationals that Turkey repatriated early on Monday, according to France's Centre for Analysis of Terrorism, CAT, citing official sources. A French judicial source confirmed that four women and their seven children had arrived in France.
A Tesla Model 3 with Autopilot enabled crashed into a parked police car on Saturday. The police car was stationary behind a disabled vehicle, with flashers on and road flares behind it. No one was injured in the crash, but it's the latest such example of Tesla cars with Autopilot crashing into things; one such crash in 2018 resulted in the driver's death.
A young female local news journalist has spoken out after she was apparently groped by a runner while reporting live on a race in Savannah, Ga. Alexandrea Bozarjian, a WSAV3 journalist, was reporting on the Enmarket Savannah Bridge Run on Saturday as runners rush by her, waving to the camera, according to footage of the incident. Suddenly, a man throws back his arm, turns to her and appears to deliberately hit her on the rear end.
Sweden's former envoy to Beijing is to go on trial for overstepping her duties by trying to negotiate the release of a Chinese-Swedish dissident held in China, prosecutors in Stockholm said Monday. Anna Lindstedt is accused of brokering an unauthorised meeting during her time as ambassador to get publisher Gui Minhai freed, a statement from the prosecutor's office said. Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen known for publishing gossipy titles about Chinese political leaders out of a Hong Kong book shop, disappeared while vacationing in Thailand in 2015 before resurfacing in mainland China.