Trump's latest conspiracy theory is that the Kurds released ISIS prisoners to pull the US back into Syria

President Donald Trump suggested Kurdish forces intentionally released ISIS prisoners to pull the US back into northeast Syria. Trump provided no evidence to support this assertion and no US officials have gone on record to confirm this. The Kurds bore the brunt of the US-led campaign against ISIS, and are now facing a Turkish military invasion in Syria.

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  Trump suggested the Kurds were releasing ISIS prisoners, but US officials say Turkish-backed forces are actually doing this

  Business Insider
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  Fighting continues in Syria after US troops are withdrawn

  ABC News Videos

'It's got to stop': Superintendent condemns teacher's racist rant in school parking lot

A teacher at a Pennsylvania middle school has been placed on administrative leave after a viral Facebook video showed her calling a black man the N-word and using other derogatory language in the school's parking lot. In the video, a teacher at Drexel Hill Middle School in Pennsylvania, is seen scrubbing at the rear bumper of a red pickup truck with her sleeve after a car crash in the school's parking lot. The school confirmed reports that the teacher's name is Renee Greeley.

• Chicago Teachers Union tells mayor to 'do the right thing' with just days left before strike

  Fox Business
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  Chicago Teachers Union changes some demands with potential strike just days away

  WLS – Chicago

British paedophile who operated in Malaysia, Cambodia found dead in prison

One of Britain's most prolific child sex offenders, Richard Huckle, has died three years into a life sentence for abusing Malaysian and Cambodian children, Britain's Ministry of Justice said on Monday, with media saying he had been stabbed to death. Huckle, 33, who abused children and babies during a nine year period, was sentenced to life in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to 71 offences. Dubbed the country's worst paedophile by Britain's media, he was found stabbed to death in prison on Sunday after being attacked with a makeshift knife, the BBC reported.

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  Richard Huckle dead: Paedophile who sexually abused 200 children stabbed to death in prison

  The Independent
• British pedophile who operated in Malaysia, Cambodia found dead in prison

  Reuters

Anthony Scaramucci is desperately trying to recruit Mitt Romney for a 2020 run

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is running for president again — at least in Anthony Scaramucci's dreams. The famously short-lived White House communications director has since turned on the president who appointed him, and has publicly said he's trying to knock President Trump off the 2020 ticket. Now, it seems Scaramucci has decided on his dream candidate, and has launched a website and line of T-shirts to persuade him to run.

View Photos of Our Sports Sedan Battle Between the Dodge Charger and Kia Stinger GT

America's leading (and only) V-8 muscle sedan takes on Korea's upstart rear-drive hatchback in a battle of power versus poise. From Car and Driver

South Korean pop star Sulli found dead at her home

South Korean pop star and actress Sulli was found dead at her home south of Seoul on Monday, police said. The 25-year-old was found after her manager went to her home in Seongnam because she didn't answer phone calls for hours, said Kim Seong-tae, an official from the Seongnam Sujeong Police Department. "The investigation is ongoing and we won't make presumptions about the cause of death," said Kim, adding that security camera footage at Sulli's home showed no signs of an intrusion.

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  K-pop star and actress Sulli dies at 25

  Entertainment Weekly
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  K-Pop Star Sulli Has Died At Age 25 At Her Home In South Korea

  Women's Health

Kurds 'may be releasing' IS prisoners in Syria to get US involved: Trump

President Donald Trump suggested Monday that Kurdish fighters may be releasing imprisoned Islamic State group jihadists to bait the United States into remaining involved in northeastern Syria. The Pentagon said Sunday Trump had ordered the withdrawal of up to 1,000 troops from northern Syria -- almost the entire ground force in the war-torn country -- amid an intensifying Turkish assault on Kurdish forces. Trump's decision last week to pull out of the area -- clearing the way for the Turkish incursion -- has been attacked at home as a betrayal of America's Kurdish allies, that risks triggering a resurgence of IS.

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  The U.S. Spoiled a Deal That Might Have Saved the Kurds, Former Top Official Says

  The Daily Beast
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  Islamic State supporters escape in Syria as US pulls back

  USA TODAY

Climate change researchers recommend banning all frequent flyer reward programs to cut carbon emissions by targeting jet-setters

A new report commissioned by the Committee on Climate Change, the UK government's official climate-change advisers, has called for a ban on all frequent flyer reward programs to discourage people from traveling by air so much. Researchers from Imperial College London, who wrote the report, said that just 15% of the entire British population take 70% of all flights from the country. The report also called for an "air miles levy" to punish people who fly long distances, which would target those who rack up the most air miles, rather than people who travel shorter distances.

Special Report: The hunt for Asia's El Chapo

He is Asia's most-wanted man. Tse Chi Lop, a Canadian national born in China, is suspected of leading a vast multinational drug trafficking syndicate formed out of an alliance of five of Asia's triad groups, according to law enforcement officials. The syndicate, law enforcers believe, is funneling tonnes of methamphetamine, heroin and ketamine to at least a dozen countries from Japan in North Asia to New Zealand in the South Pacific.

Disney Skyliner reopens with modified hours after stranding passengers last week

Disney's Skyliner is up and running again with modified service after the new aerial cable car system stranded passengers for hours the night of Oct. 5. "Beginning today, guests may travel aboard Disney Skyliner from 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.," reads an update on Walt Disney World Resort's Skyliner landing page. "Following a complete review with the manufacturer, we've made adjustments to our processes and training, and we are improving how we communicate with guests during their flight with Disney Skyliner," Thomas Smith, editorial content director at Disney Parks, wrote in a blog post on Monday.

Meet the Massive Ordnance Penetrator: The Air Force's Newest Bunker Buster Bomb

Key point: The MOP bomb will increase the firepower and options of the Air Force. EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. The U.S. Air Force is asking the Boeing Co.to build additional Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting super bombs under terms of a $70 million contract announced last week.

In Jamal Khashoggi's death, Saudi money is talking louder than murder

Anyone interested in what it looks like to get away with murder should peruse the attendee list for Saudi Arabia's flashy "Davos in the Desert" this month. Vaporizing into the desert heat is all the righteous alarm that compelled leading financial firms to boycott the event last year out of concern that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, weeks before, had ordered the grisly killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Attending this year's extravaganza are executives of JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, all of them institutions selected to underwrite the kingdom's highly anticipated, partial public offering of its oil company, Aramco, valued $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion.

Polls show a 17-point swing toward impeaching Trump

As of three weeks ago, a majority of Americans, 51.1 percent, on average, opposed impeaching President Trump, with only 40 percent supporting it. But the results came before the Ukraine scandal snowballed. As of today, opposition to impeachment has plummeted 7 percentage points (to 44 percent) and support has climbed nearly 10 points (to 49.8 percent), according to FiveThirtyEight's preliminary polling tracker.

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  Trump loyalist accused of being president’s ‘eyes and ears’ after crashing closed-door impeachment hearing

  The Independent
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  Ex-National Security Council official testifying to Congress

  Associated Press

Rose McGowan attacks Hillary Clinton over ties to ‘monster’ Harvey Weinstein

Rose McGowan has lashed out at Hillary Clinton over a report that Ronan Farrow's investigation into Harvey Weinstein was a “concern” for the Clinton camp. “I knew that Hillary Clinton's people, were protecting the Monster,” McGowan wrote on Twitter, referring to Weinstein. The last remark in McGowan's tweet appeared to also apply to former US president Bill Clinton, to whom McGowan referred in a separate message.

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  Ronan Farrow says some NBC journalists "anguished" by "lies" put out by leadership

  CBS News Videos
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  NBC News chief Noah Oppenheim tells staff Ronan Farrow has 'an axe to grind'

  USA TODAY Entertainment

Thousands of Ukrainians march against a troop pullback

Thousands of Ukrainians marched in Kiev on Monday, decrying as "capitulation" a mooted pullback of troops fighting Moscow-backed separatists in the east and calling for victory in the five-year war. The protesters, many veterans of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, paraded through the centre of the capital with flares burning, singing the national anthem and chanting slogans against President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was the second of two marches in Kiev on Monday, a national holiday designated "Defenders Day".

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  Thousands march in Kiev in protest against Donbass peace plan

  Reuters
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  'Glory to Ukraine': Nationalist groups protest president

  Associated Press

California becomes first state to ban fur

California has become the first U.S. state to ban the sale and manufacture of new fur products. On Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law to prohibit residents from making or selling items such as clothing, shoes or handbags made of fur.

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  Smile Direct Club shares take a hit

  Yahoo Finance Video
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  The Latest: Newsom demands payments for those who lost power

  Associated Press

In campaign stop with evangelical Christians, Trump defends his actions on Syria

"Let them have their borders, but I don't think our soldiers should be there for the next 50 years guarding a border between Turkey and Syria when we can't guard our own borders at home," Trump said in a speech to the Value Voters Summit in Washington, an annual conference of religious conservatives. Trump was elected in 2016 running on a hard-line immigration policy and has sought to make legal and illegal immigration to the United States more difficult during his more than two years in office, pushing for a wall to be built on the U.S.-Mexico border among other measures. After a phone call between Trump and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan last Sunday, Trump made an abrupt policy change and ordered out U.S. forces in northeast Syria who had been fighting with Kurdish YPG militia against Islamic State.

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  Trump pulling all U.S. troops from northern Syria amid Turkish onslaught

  CBS News Videos
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  President Trump Says He's an 'Island of One' on Removing Troops From Northeast Syria

  Meredith Videos

Portland antifa activist killed in hit and run, police say

A Portland antifascist activist was killed in the early hours of Saturday in an apparent hit-and-run near Cider Riot, a cidery and taproom popular with the city's anarchist left that has been the scene of conflict with rightwing groups. According to the Portland police bureau, the car involved was fired upon and crashed into a nearby building. Police said in a statement that the 23-year-old victim, Sean D Kealiher, was taken to a local hospital by associates.

In 1986, a Russian Submarine with 27 Nuclear Missiles Sank (And Exploded)

Judging by the reaction of Soviet leaders to the accidental sinking of a Soviet nuclear missile sub 30 years ago, you'll be lucky if you're not shot by a firing squad. Just how hard-nosed the Kremlin can be is shown in the transcript of a Politburo meeting on the maritime disaster, published by the National Security Archive. On October 3, 1986, the Soviet Yankee-class ballistic missile submarine K-219, equipped with 16 R-27 nuclear missiles was on patrol in the North Atlantic, about 700 miles off the coast of Bermuda.

States are cutting university budgets. Taxpayers aren't interested in funding campus kooks

Times are bad for higher education, and higher educators are beginning to notice it. But the industry's problems are mostly of its own making. The latest "cri de coeur" comes from University of North Dakota's Sheila Liming, who writes, “My University is Dying; And soon yours will be, too.

Typhoon leaves as many as 33 dead as Japan continues rescue

Helicopters, boats and thousands of troops were deployed across Japan to rescue people stranded in flooded homes Sunday, as the death toll from a ferocious typhoon climbed to as high as 33. One woman fell to her death as she was being placed inside a rescue helicopter. Typhoon Hagibis made landfall south of Tokyo on Saturday evening and battered central and northern Japan with torrents of rain and powerful gusts of wind.

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  Deadly typhoon in Japan claims 33 lives, 19 gone missing

  ABC News Videos
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  Japan searches for survivors as typhoon death toll hits 58

  Yahoo News Video