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.
A man has been arrested after a would-be thief tipped a woman out of her wheelchair on a train and attempted to steal it. CCTV footage of the incident shows a man dressed in a red jacket and reindeer slippers, who lept out of his seat and grabbed the handles of the wheelchair as the train approached a station. The woman sitting in the chair can be seen desperately grabbing onto the railings inside the carriage as the attacker attempts to steer her out of the open doors.
People close to both President Nicolas Maduro and his rival Juan Guaido plotted to push both men aside and end the nation's crisis with the rule of a temporary junta, the newspaper reported without citing where it got the information. Guaido, the National Assembly president, has been recognized by more than 50 countries, including the U.S., as Venezuela's leader. The key figure appears to be Humberto Calderon Berti, then the designated ambassador to Colombia who Guaido dismissed last month.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Saturday he still plans to shift the military's focus to competing with China and Russia, even as security threats pile up in the Middle East. Esper outlined his strategic goals and priorities in a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum, an annual gathering of government, defense industry and military officials.
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.
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.
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.
The body of a Japanese doctor killed in a roadside shooting in Afghanistan arrived back home Sunday, with government officials on hand to lead a brief ceremony of mourning at Tokyo's Narita International Airport. Tetsu Nakamura was killed last week, along with five Afghans who had been traveling with him. Keisuke Suzuki, Japan's state minister of foreign affairs, joined other officials in bowing their heads in prayer after laying flowers by the coffin, draped in white, in a solemn ceremony in honor of Nakamura at the airport.
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.
A protestor who works for the right-wing talk radio and conspiracy site Infowars interrupted the first minutes of Monday's impeachment hearing by yelling loudly in the hearing room. Shroyer has helped spread right-wing conspiracies, including the "Pizzagate" theory, which falsely alleged that multiple pizza restaurants were fronts for child sex trafficking rings led by Hillary Clinton. A protestor who works for the right-wing talk radio and conspiracy site Infowars interrupted the first minutes of Monday's impeachment hearing by yelling in the hearing room about his opposition to the process.
A host on the far-right US conspiracy and disinformation website InfoWars has been removed from the latest impeachment hearing by police, after interrupting House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler with pro-Donald Trump messages. The interruption came from a host on the fringe conservative website who led a racist call earlier this year for the lynching of Barack Obama, America's first African American president. The host was seen being led out by Capitol Police after the interruption on Monday, shortly after the start of the hearings in which politicians are to question the counsels hired by the House Intelligence Committee to spearhead questioning during earlier impeachment hearings.
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.
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.
The Russian finance ministry said on Monday it remained confident that the UK Supreme Court would rule in Moscow's favor in a Russia-Ukraine $3 billion Eurobond case, it said in a statement. Moscow is seeking a summary judgment in its favor that could see Ukraine ordered to pay the debt in full, without a trial. The finance ministry also said Moscow's total claims to Ukraine, including interest payments, came to about $4.5 billion.
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.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's opponents within the ruling party are plotting to oust him over reforms that they say are failing to benefit the poor, the Citizen reported, citing people it didn't identify. A campaign being led by African National Congress Secretary-General Ace Magashule aims to discredit him over economic policies that his opponents argue are supplanting the party's pro-poor stance, the Johannesburg-based newspaper said. The anti-Ramaphosa faction wants Deputy President David Mabuza to become president, deputized by either Magashule or Water Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, the newspaper said.
More than a century ago, waves of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Poland and Quebec settled in Chicopee and other western Massachusetts mill towns, helping build churches, rectories and schools to accommodate their faith. Today the priests leading those churches are under siege due to stresses, challenges and sex abuse scandals complicating their lives and those of their fellow priests across the United States. The Rev. Mark Stelzer is among those trying to persevere.
Build those structures. Keep them from harm. Collect that loot.
"Yang2020 Path To Presidency" is an upcoming computer game featuring Andrew Yang, Donald Trump, and a several other candidates in the 2020 presidential election. Yang is the star of the game's story mode, but he's not the only playable character. You'll be able to unlock the other presidential candidates and go head to head in versus mode.
WASHINGTON – Many top U.S. officials held sharply negative views of the U.S. entry into Afghanistan and bleak assessments of the prospects for success – views that were often at odds with public pronouncements – a trove of documents obtained by The Washington Post revealed. The Post gained access to more than 2,000 pages of interviews on the war in Afghanistan through a Freedom of Information Act request. John Sopko – who heads the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which conducted the interviews – told the newspaper that the documents show "the American people have constantly been lied to" since U.S. troops first arrived there 18 years ago.
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.
Around 2,000 US Army soldiers have been banned from one of the main streets in the Italian city of Vicenza after a brawl between soldiers and locals. The temporary ban, which affects members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade stationed in the city, involves the quaint via Contra' Pescherie Vecchie, where two young Vicenza men say they were surrounded and beaten by several soldiers after a verbal exchange just outside a popular watering hole for off duty combat paratroopers. City authorities are studying CCTV images to identify the culprits of the latest violent episode, which prompted Mayor Francesco Rucco to request special restrictive measures from the base commander.
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.
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."
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.