Rep. Al Green, who has been on a “mission” to remove Donald Trump from office, is not optimistic the articles of impeachment unveiled by House Democrats on Tuesday will succeed in a Senate trial, but the Texas Democrat says he still thinks the push to force the president out of the White House won't end there. “If the Senate does not convict, that does not mean that it's over,” Green said in an interview with Yahoo News shortly after the articles were unveiled. “It simply means that for these two charges the president has not been convicted and he is still in office, which means that he is still subject to impeachment for other charges,” he said.
Mexico's former security chief was dogged by so many allegations of corruption and wrongdoing for so long that some said it was only a matter of time before he would be arrested. What amazed some was that it took so long, and that Genaro García Luna's arrest this week came on U.S. soil rather than in Mexico. García Luna, 51, who left the security post nearly a decade ago, was charged in federal court in New York with three counts of trafficking cocaine and one count of making false statements.
Still, South Bend's median income in 2017 was much lower than the other 87 cities with 100,000 to 125,000 inhabitants: the average city's median income was $60,211 in 2017. But, Mayor Pete's term has been a fairly unambiguous success on one point: In 2012, according to the ACS data unemployment in South Bend stood at 15.6%. As of 2017, according to the American Community Survey estimates it was down to 9.0%, a 6.6 percentage point decline that was the second-highest of any of the 87 cities in the sample.
Iran warned its citizens, particularly scientists, on Tuesday not to visit America, saying Iranians there were subjected to arbitrary and lengthy detention in inhuman conditions. "Iranian citizens, particularly elites and scientists, are requested to seriously avoid traveling to America, even to take part in scientific conferences and even having an invitation," a travel advisory on the foreign ministry website said. It cited, "America's cruel and one-sided laws toward Iranians, especially Iranian elites, and arbitrary and lengthy detention in completely inhuman conditions" as reasons for the travel advisory.
North Korea on Monday accused President Trump of “bluffing” and called him “an old man bereft of patience” as Pyongyang ramps up pressure on Washington over stalled nuclear talks.
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. 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.
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.
For when only a war film will do. From Popular Mechanics
Before catching the eye of German law enforcement, former Ukrainian parliamentarian Oleksandr Onyshchenko drew attention from the conservative TV channel One America News. Before his arrest, though, the Trump-friendly media outlet tried to help him get a visa to travel to the U.S. The effort, which has not been previously reported, was part of a push by OAN to unearth information on Burisma Holdings, the energy company that retained Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President and current Trump rival Joe Biden.
President Trump's Republican allies in his battle against impeachment don't seem too bothered about what the history books might say about them one day. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has appeared on both the House Judiciary and House Intelligence Committee panels during the impeachment inquiry, frankly couldn't seem to care less about his personal legacy. Instead Jordan said he's more concerned about House Democrats trying to remove Trump with "zero facts on their side" because they can't accept the 2016 election results, as well as what he apparently considers elitist attitudes of Democratic witnesses like Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, who testified before the House Judiciary Committee last week.
Representative Ted Yoho of Florida announced Tuesday that he will step down after completing his fourth term, joining the wave of House Republicans who have opted against running for reelection in 2020. Yoho had promised to serve no more than four terms in Congress. I ran on a pledge to serve four terms — eight years and come home,” Yoho said in his announcement.
Caspar Haarloev from "Into the Ice" documentary via Reuters The Greenland ice sheet is melting seven times faster than it was in 1992 — an increase that's even greater than scientists expected. According to a new study, Greenland has lost more than 4.2 trillion tons of ice in the last quarter-century, which raised global sea levels 0.4 inches. The melt rate is expected to increase, especially during years like this one, since a heatwave in July caused Greenland's ice sheet to lose 55 billion tons in just five days.
Police waged an hours-long gunfight with two men armed with high-powered rifles on Tuesday in and around a New Jersey cemetery and kosher market, leaving six people dead, including one officer and both suspects, authorities said. The violence began after noon in the heart of Jersey City, the state's second-largest municipality directly across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan, prompting a lockdown of all Jersey City schools as law enforcement swarmed the area. Police arriving on the scene immediately came under "high-powered rifle fire," Jersey City Police Chief Michael Kelly told reporters.
Two of nearly two dozen St. Louis police officers accused this summer by a watchdog group of posting objectionable Facebook messages have been fired. Sgt. Ronald Hasty and Detective Thomas Mabrey are appealing, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Their attorney, Brian Millikan, said the posts were made as private citizens and did not violate any city or police policy.
A top aide of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic requested an investigation into his boss and his brother in a bid to clear them from opposition-led allegations that they're linked to an illegal marijuana farm. Opposition parties are struggling to make a dent in the dominant position of Vucic's ruling Serbian Progressive Party as the Balkan state heads into general elections next spring. His opponents have led sporadic street rallies over the last year to protest against what they say is an autocratic style of governing that stifles media freedom and opens deals to businessmen allies.
The United States on Tuesday stiffened sanctions against Myanmar's army chief over the mass killings of Rohingya, as his country defended itself against genocide charges before the top UN court. The United States in July banned military chief Min Aung Hlaing from visiting, but Tuesday's move goes further by freezing any US assets and criminalizing financial transactions with him by anyone in the United States. The Treasury Department imposed the same sanctions on three other senior Myanmar commanders, as well as 14 individuals from other countries, to observe International Human Rights Day.
Scientists have discovered how the four famed fissures on Saturn's moon, Enceladus, formed. The largest of the “tiger stripes” formed due to gravitational pressure exerted on the moon's poles, according to a paper published December 9 in Nature Astronomy. The other three fissures formed soon after, as pressure on nearby ice built up.
Key point: In an actual war, both Washington and Beijing would employ their conventional missile arsenals to sink each other's ships. The Chinese military lobbed anti-ship ballistic missiles into the South China Sea in tests in early July 2019. The missile trials underscored Beijing's increasing militarization of resource-rich waters on which several countries have conflicting claims.
On Tuesday, Politico published a report detailing the background of Rudy Giuliani's new director of communications, Christianné Allen. The reporters Daniel Lippman and Tina Nguyen found that Allen, 20, is still getting a communications degree online and had inflated much of her résumé. Giuliani has stuck by Allen even as his actions in Ukraine helped trigger articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump and as he's reportedly under investigation by federal prosecutors.
The latest tempest: With Sen. Kamala Harris of California out of the race, the Democratic National Committee's Dec. 19 presidential debate might include only white candidates! Fact is, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro came close to qualifying and remain active candidates. Let's be clear: Harris wasn't booted off the debate stage in some hostile act of racial discrimination, or because of a flaw in the DNC's system.
Apia, Samoa — Doctors on the South Pacific islands of Samoa are trying to contain a massive, deadly outbreak of the measles. The virus has infected more than 4,800 people and at least 70 have died, many of them young children. The Samoan government says 91% of those eligible have now been vaccinated.
Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro called Swedish climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg a "brat" on Tuesday after she criticized mounting violence against indigenous people in which two Amazon tribesmen were shot dead three days ago. "Greta said the Indians died because they were defending the Amazon (forest). How can the media give space to a brat like that," Bolsonaro told reporters, using the Portuguese word "pirralha."
A 9-year-old Belgian boy who was on track to become the world's youngest university graduate has terminated his studies at the Dutch university of Eindhoven following a dispute over his possible graduation date.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal Wednesday by an Arizona death row inmate who is seeking a new sentencing trial, arguing the horrific physical abuse that he suffered as a child wasn't fully considered when he was first sentenced. The appeal of James Erin McKinney could affect as many as 15 of Arizona's 104 death row inmates. Attorneys say the Arizona courts used an unconstitutional test in examining the mitigating factors considered during the sentencing trials of the inmates.
A 5-year-old, wearing just socks and light clothing, carried an 18-month-old through subzero temperatures in the Yukon Flats of Alaska after the power went out at the home where they had been left alone, according to the authorities. The power failure scared the older child, who then carried the baby to a home about half a mile away in Venetie, Alaska, Tuesday, the Alaska State Department of Public Safety said in a statement Friday. The children are expected to make a full recovery, Ken Marsh, a department spokesman, said Sunday.