- PoliticsYahoo News
Trump: Impeachment 'has been very hard on my family'
President Trump said Thursday that the impeachment inquiry launched by House Democrats has been “very hard” on his family. Impeachment to me is a dirty word,” Trump said while campaigning in Bossier City, La. for Republican Eddie Rispone, who is running against incumbent Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, adding, “It has been very hard on my family.
- NewsAssociated Press
Virginia police say wanted Marine deserter sought family
Police in Virginia say the Marine deserter wanted for questioning in a murder case was trying to reach out to a family member when he was spotted. Roanoke Police Chief Tim Jones told a news conference that it's believed Michael Alexander Brown was trying to contact his grandmother when a neighbor saw him early Thursday. The Roanoke Times reports the U.S. Marshals Service learned Sunday night that Brown might be driving a recreational vehicle near Clarendon County, South Carolina, about four hours southwest of Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, where he had been stationed as a U.S. Marine until leaving his post last month.
- NewsThe Daily Beast
Jewish Groups Blast Fox News for Joe diGenova’s Anti-Semitic Soros Conspiracy Theory
Fox has come under fire from Jewish organizations following a Wednesday night segment on Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs Tonight in which Trump-boosting lawyer Joe diGenova seemingly trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes by accusing Jewish financier George Soros of controlling “very large parts” of the U.S. Department of State. Speaking with host Lou Dobbs—who has a history of peddling Soros-based conspiracies—diGenova dismissed the impeachment testimony of senior diplomat George Kent by baselessly claiming he is part of an insidious Soros plot to take over Ukraine with the help of State and the FBI.
- WorldReuters
Russia exchanges spies with Lithuania, Norway in Cold War-style swap
VILNIUS/OSLO (Reuters) - Russia freed two Lithuanians and a Norwegian on Friday in return for two Russian spies held in Lithuania, in a Cold War-style spy swap that brought several high profile espionage cases to a close. The Norwegian, Frode Berg, a retired border guard, was arrested in Moscow in 2017 and convicted of gathering intelligence on behalf of Norway. Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg told a news conference she had spoken with Berg by telephone and he would come home as soon as "practically possible".
WorldAFPHong Kong leader condemns London protester 'attack' on minister
Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam on Friday condemned a "barbaric attack" on her justice minister, who fell while being surrounded by a crowd of jeering pro-democracy protesters in London. It was the most physical confrontation involving a member of Lam's cabinet since the protests, now in their sixth month, erupted in the international finance hub. Teresa Cheng, Hong Kong's deeply unpopular Secretary for Justice, was ambushed by around a dozen masked demonstrators as she prepared to attend a speaking event on Thursday night in London.
U.S.Yahoo News VideoAmerican teacher's death in D.R. is being investigated Thursday as a murder
An American teacher's death in the Dominican Republic was being investigated Thursday as a murder. Police said they found Patricia Anton deceased in her apartment in Puerto Plata, on the country's northern coast, with her hands and feet bound.
- WorldBloomberg
Macron to Host Meeting on Ukraine, Citing ‘Major Progress’
French President Emmanuel Macron will host the leaders from Russia, Germany and Ukraine on Dec. 9, citing “major progress” in efforts to resolve tensions in Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014. “The summit will take place against the backdrop of major progress since last summer in negotiations for the settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine,” Macron's office said in a statement on Friday. Macron, who will be meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Paris, said there will be a renewed commitment progress.
- PoliticsNational Review
AOC Says Impeachment Necessary to Unite Dems, Stop ‘Potential Compromise of the 2020 Election’
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) seemed to admit on CNN Wednesday night that she is motivated to pursue impeachment because she believes in will unite the Democratic Party and make victory in the 2020 presidential election more likely. “At the end of the day, we have to be able to come together as a caucus, and if it is this Ukrainian allegation that is what brings the caucus together, then I think we have to run with however we unify the House,” Ocasio-Cortez told Wolf Blitzer, who asked the Congresswoman whether she hoped other potential violations by Trump would be considered in any articles of impeachment.
NewsUSA TODAYSupreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh gets hero's welcome from conservative Federalist Society
WASHINGTON – Brett Kavanaugh waited more than 13 months to take a victory lap. On Thursday night, a hero's welcome greeted the associate justice who made it to the Supreme Court by the narrowest of margins last October after two contentious Senate confirmation hearings. The annual black-tie dinner of the Federalist Society – the nation's premier gathering of conservatives in the law – is dedicated to the memory of the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.
- PoliticsYahoo News
'You embarrassed yourself': Kellyanne Conway blasts CNN's Wolf Blitzer for playing George Conway clip
Appearing live on CNN Thursday, Kellyanne Conway, special counselor to President Trump, was asked to respond to the assessment given by her husband, George, that testimony of career diplomats in the first public impeachment hearings was damning for her boss. George Conway, a conservative lawyer and outspoken Trump critic, appeared on MSNBC as a guest analyst during Thursday's hearings. While introducing a clip of George Conway, CNN's Wolf Blitzer told Kellyanne Conway he wanted to ask her a “sensitive” political question.
- NewsAssociated Press
Suspect in ‘Potomac River Rapist’ cold case arrested
Genealogy websites and a cheek swab enabled U.S. Marshals to arrest a man suspected of being the “Potomac River Rapist,” who terrorized the nation's capital in the 1990s. News outlets report 60-year-old Giles Daniel Warrick is now awaiting extradition from Horry County, South Carolina. Authorities said DNA evidence matched family profiles in genealogy services, enabling investigators to narrow their search after interviewing Warrick's relatives.
- WorldThe National Interest
Look Out, Israel: China May Have Stolen The Iron Dome
Key point: China has aided its military modernization by stealing and reverse-engineering top-of-the-line military hardware. Maryland-based Cyber Engineering Services detected the cyber burglary, according to cybersecurity writer Brian Krebs. “Between Oct. 10, 2011 and Aug. 13, 2012, attackers thought to be operating out of China hacked into the corporate networks of three top Israeli defense technology companies, including Elisra Group, Israel Aerospace Industries, and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems,” Krebs writes.
WorldAFPVietnam jails music teacher for 'undermining' state
Vietnam sentenced a music teacher to 11 years in prison on Friday for Facebook posts that allegedly undermined the one-party state, which has been accused of tightening the noose on online dissent. Communist Vietnam has long jailed its critics but has come under fire recently for targeting users on Facebook, a popular forum for activists in the country where all independent media is banned. Nguyen Nang Tinh is the latest activist jailed for his Facebook comments, including posts about police brutality, land rights, and a Taiwanese steel firm that dumped toxic sludge into the ocean, killing masses of fish off the coast of Vietnam.
- LifestylePopular Mechanics
20 Great Gifts for Boys Who Love to Tinker
These toys will do what your junior high chem teacher never could: make learning about science fun. From Popular Mechanics
- WorldChristian Science Monitor
From shattered glass and broken tents, Lebanese draw resolve
Soaring high above Beirut's central Martyrs' Square, the focal point of a month of nationwide protests against decades of corrupt and sectarian rule in Lebanon, is a signboard of a clenched fist and the Arabic word for revolution. Here, like a shrine, protesters have collected the broken tent frames and smashed plastic chairs and tables left over after thugs armed with sticks and pipes – and chanting pro-Shiite slogans favoring the powerful Hezbollah and Amal parties – attacked the square in late October. “They attacked everyone; they were not behaving like Lebanese,” says Anita Mansour, a 30-something architect from Beirut, speaking beside the pile of revolutionary debris.
- WorldReuters
Top Putin aide named by MH17 airliner investigators
An international investigation into the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on Thursday released a series of phone intercepts, including one between a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and pro-Russian rebels accused in the crash. Calls between officials in Moscow and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine mostly took place via secure telephones provided by the Russian security service, and intensified ahead of the disaster in the first half of July 2014, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) said. "The indications for close ties between leaders of the DPR (Donetsk People's Republic) and Russian government officials raise questions about their possible involvement in the deployment of the (missile), which brought down flight MH17 on 17 July 2014," the JIT said.
- PoliticsNational Review
Sanders, AOC to Introduce Over $100 Billion Plan to Make Public Housing Environmentally Friendly
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) plan to introduce legislation on Thursday that makes public housing more energy efficient, at a cost of over $100 billion. The plan, dubbed the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, will call for renovation of public housing units to install community gardens and organic grocery stores along with on-site childcare services, according to the Washington Post. “Importantly, the working people who have been most impacted by decades of disinvestment in public housing will be empowered to lead this effort and share in the economic prosperity that it generates for our country,” Sanders said in a statement.
- WorldBloomberg
Immigration Row Reopens Old Brexit Scars: U.K. Campaign Trail
Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast. The Conservatives are trying to put immigration at the center of their campaign on Thursday. Home Secretary Priti Patel published analysis -- which Labour rejects -- saying Jeremy Corbyn's “open borders” policy will push up net migration to 840,000 per year.
- PoliticsThe Daily Beast
Transcript Shows WH Made Up Details of Trump’s Zelensky Call
The release of the transcript of President Donald Trump's first call in April with Ukrainian President-elect Volodomyr Zelensky was meant to bolster the case that Trump had nothing but good intentions in his dealings with Ukraine—but it also showed a White House summary of the same call released to the public shortly after it occurred was largely fabricated. The White House released the transcript in an effort to undercut claims by congressional Democrats that Trump sought to leverage a Zelensky White House visit and delayed military aid to Ukraine to solicit an investigation by Ukrainian prospectors into the son of former Vice President Joe Biden and into conspiracy theories regarding a supposed Ukrainian role in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
- NewsUSA TODAY
Georgia inmate executed for 1994 convenience store killing as last-minute DNA test denied
A Georgia inmate sentenced to death for fatally shooting a convenience store clerk during a robbery 25 years ago was executed Wednesday night, authorities say. Ray Jefferson Cromartie, 52, was pronounced dead at 10:59 p.m after lethal injection at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, the state's department of corrections said. Cromartie was convicted of the 1994 killing of Richard Slysz at a Thomasville convenience store, but his lawyers recently had appealed for DNA testing of evidence they say could have exonerated Cromartie after a new statement from one of the men involved in the robbery.
- NewsThe Independent
American war veteran who spent several days in ICE detention receives $190k settlement
A US citizen and military veteran suffering from a mental health condition will reportedly receive $190,000 (£147,988) from a Michigan city after local officials transferred him to ICE detention following an arrest last year. Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, a decorated Marine veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, was arrested while experiencing an episode in which he lost all recollection, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Police found the veteran, who was born and raised in Michigan, on the helipad of a hospital after he started a small fire and pulled an alarm, according to reports.
SportsAFPTempers flare over rebuilding of Notre-Dame spire
The French army general charged with overseeing the rebuilding of Paris' fire-mangled Notre-Dame, has caused astonishment by publicly telling the cathedral's chief architect to "shut his mouth" in a sign of tension over the monument's future look. General Jean-Louis Georgelin and chief architect Philippe Villeneuve are at odds over whether to replace the cathedral's spire -- which was toppled in the April 15 blaze -- with an exact replica, or mix things up with a modern twist. President Emmanuel Macron, who appointed Georgelin to head the massive reconstruction project, has said he is in favour of adding a "contemporary" touch.
- WorldThe National Interest
The Army Plans To Use These 6 Weapons In A War Against Russia Or China
Key point: The Pentagon is at a crossroads. The U.S. Army is at a crossroads as the Pentagon is reorienting itself to fight a capable great power opponent after nearly two decades focused on counter-insurgency conflicts. Russia poses a traditional land-power challenge for the U.S. Army with its large mechanized formations threatening the Baltics, as well as formidable long-range ballistic missiles, artillery and surface-to-air missiles.
- WorldAssociated Press
Amid Gaza fighting, Israel could face questions on tactics
Residents say the airstrike came without warning: With fighting raging between Israel and Islamic Jihad militants throughout Gaza, two loud blasts shook the night, destroying the Abu Malhous home and killing eight members of the family in a split second. As Israel claims victory in its latest battle against Gaza militants, its tactics of carrying out airstrikes on private homes suspected of harboring militants could once again come under scrutiny over the civilian death toll. A truce announced early Thursday appeared to be breaking down less than 24 hours later, as Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza overnight Friday after a series of Palestinian rocket attacks.
- WorldReuters
China envoy threatens Sweden over award to detained writer Gui Minhai
China threatened Sweden with unspecified "counter measures" if its culture minister attends a literary award ceremony on Friday for Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen who was abducted in Thailand in 2015 and is now in detention in China. The case of Chinese-born Gui Minhai, who studied in Sweden in the 1980s and was based in Hong Kong when he published books critical of China's leaders, has soured relations between Sweden and China. Svenska PEN, a literary organization, has awarded Gui Minhai the 2019 Tucholsky Prize, praising his work in the service of free speech.
