- WorldReuters
'Don't mess with Pakistan,' India is told amid Kashmir tension
Pakistan will respond to any attack by India with "full force", the army said on Friday amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors, as Islamabad said it took over the base of a militant group that claimed a deadly bombing in Kashmir. Army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor was speaking a week after a Pakistani-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack that killed 40 Indian paramilitary policemen in the Himalayan region disputed between India and Pakistan. Pakistan late on Friday announced a takeover of Jaish's headquarters in a southern Punjab province district bordering India.
- NewsThe Telegraph
Empire executives suspend Jussie Smollett and say his character Jamal will not appear in final two episodes
Jussie Smollett's character Jamal will not appear in the final two episodes of Empire, the Fox show's executive producers have said. Smollett has been charged with filing a false police report after alleging he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack, authorities have said. Police in Chicago had earlier said the 36-year-old actor was being considered as a suspect in the case and have now confirmed charges have been brought against him.
- NewsThe Independent
Girl banned from wearing MAGA hat claims school is violating her First Amendment rights
A California high school student who was banned from wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat on campus is challenging her school district for impinging on her First Amendment rights. Maddie Mueller, who attends Clovis North High School in Fresno, is a member of Valley Patriots. The conservative activist group asked its affiliates to wear the well-known hat bearing Donald Trump's campaign motto on Wednesday.
- WorldBloomberg
Venezuela Army Trucks Block Guaido's Travels as Showdown Looms
Army trucks blocking a tunnel almost two hours west of Caracas are preventing Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaido from reaching the Colombian border to oversee the entry of humanitarian aid planned for Saturday. Earlier today, three buses carrying about 40 lawmakers sympathetic to Guaido left Venezuela's capital heading for the frontier. The National Assembly president was traveling separately for security reasons and was unable to cross the tunnel, said Edward Rodriguez, his press team coordinator.
PoliticsYahoo NewsNorth Carolina board votes to hold new House election over absentee ballot fraud
The North Carolina Board of Elections voted unanimously to hold a new election in the state's Ninth District after overwhelming evidence of vote tampering. Prior to the board's decision, Republican Mark Harris, the declared winner in the race who had been fighting for his election to be certified, changed his position and called for a new election. Harris was initially declared the winner by 905 votes over Democrat Dan McCready, but the race was never certified, as evidence began to surface of ballot fraud by employees of the Harris campaign.
WorldAFPCanada looks to reunite Syrian family after fire claims seven kids
Canada is looking to quickly bring over siblings of a Syrian refugee distraught over the loss of her seven children in a Halifax house fire, the prime minister said Thursday. "The immigration minister is seized with this particular case," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said when asked if Ottawa would fast-track the immigration or asylum process to bring the woman's brothers to Canada in order to provide her with family support. The family was among tens of thousands of Syrian refugees welcomed by Canada over the past four years.
WorldReutersVietnam announces traffic ban for possible Kim Jong Un summit arrival route
Vietnam will ban traffic on the road North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is expected to take from a train station on the Chinese border to the capital, Hanoi, ahead of his summit next week with U.S. President Donald Trump, state media reported on Friday. Vietnam has been preparing for Kim to arrive by train for the Feb. 27-28 summit in Hanoi, two sources with direct knowledge of security and logistics planning told Reuters on Wednesday. Kim's train will stop at the border station of Dong Dang where he will disembark and proceed 170 km (105 miles) to Hanoi by car, the sources said.
NewsUSA TODAYSouthwest Airlines cancels nearly 400 flights as maintenance woes, winter storms linger
Southwest Airlines' flight woes continue, with nearly 400 Thursday flights canceled due to maintenance issues and winter weather. Southwest, the nation's largest domestic carrier, had canceled 389 flights, or 9 percent of its schedule, as of 1:15 p.m. ET, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. That is the highest number of cancellations by any carrier and accounts for 51 percent of flight cancellations within, into or out of the United States, according to FlightAware. Southwest attributed the high number of cancellations to weather challenges and continuing maintenance issues that have a pulled a higher-than-usual number of aircraft out of service.
- NewsAssociated Press
Alabama woman who joined Islamic State sues to return to US
The father of an Alabama woman who joined the Islamic State in Syria filed suit against the Trump administration Thursday in an effort to allow her return to the United States. Ahmed Ali Muthana argues in the suit filed in federal court in Washington that his 24-year-old daughter, Hoda Muthana, is an American citizen by birth and should be allowed to come back to the U.S. with her toddler son. Hoda Muthana is now in a Syrian refugee camp with the 18-month-old boy after fleeing the remnants of the Islamic State.
WorldReutersVictims testify at child sex abuse conference, Pope promises to fight 'enemy within'
Pope Francis promised that concrete action against child sexual abuse by priests would result from a conference he opened on Thursday, with one cardinal acknowledging that the Church had to fight "the enemy within". Francis convened Catholic leaders from around the world for the four-day meeting to address the scandal that has ravaged the Church's credibility in the United States - where it has paid billions of dollars in settlements - Ireland, Chile, Australia, and elsewhere over the last three decades. His opening remarks appeared aimed at countering scepticism among victims who said the meeting looked like a public relations exercise.
EntertainmentThe IndependentTucker Carlson: Fox News host laughs along with guest after he suggests black people 'need to move on' from slavery
A guest who appeared on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show said African Americans “need to move on” from slavery because it was abolished “a century-and-a-half ago”. Mark Steyn, a cultural commentator, made the comments on Thursday during a segment discussing 2020 presidential candidates who are in favour of reparations for African Americans. During his rant, Steyn said: “Slavery was abolished a century and a half ago, nobody alive today has a grandparent who was a slave, and in that sense I think you reach a point where, you know, you need to move on.
- PoliticsMashable
Trump's climate expert is wrong: The world's plants don't need more CO2
Plants on Earth have flourished for hundreds of millions of years, yet President Donald Trump's pick to lead his new climate team insists that they need more carbon dioxide to thrive. Princeton physicist and carbon dioxide-advocate William Happer has been selected to head the brand new Presidential Committee on Climate Security, reports The Washington Post. The atomic scientist — who achieved recognition for his work on atomic collisions and telescope optics, not climate science — maintains that the planet's atmosphere needs significantly more CO2, the potent greenhouse gas that U.S. government scientists — and a bevy of independent scientists — have repeatedly underscored is stoking accelerating climate change.
- U.S.KABC – Los Angeles
Gov. Newsom orders new DNA tests for inmate Kevin Cooper in 35-year-old Chino Hills murder case
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing new DNA tests for an inmate on death row who has been in prison for nearly 40 years.
- WorldThe Telegraph
Venezuela troops fire teargas on Colombia border protesters
Venezuelan forces on Saturday hurled tear gas and fired rubber to break up a crowd demanding to cross the Urena border bridge to Colombia. "We want to work!" people chanted as they faced Venezuelan National Guard riot police blocking the crossing, one of several ordered closed by President Nicolas Maduro late Friday. Supporters of opposition leader Juan Guaido in Colombia are planning to cross the border carrying emergency supplies into Venezuela.
BusinessConsumer ReportsCars Lose CR Recommendation Over Reliability Issues
Consumer Reports can no longer recommend six car models, including the Acura RDX SUV and the Tesla Model 3 sedan, because of problems identified in CR's annual reliability survey. The survey has data on 470,000 vehicles as reported by their owners. Some cars improved their standing.
WorldAFPPakistan bans groups linked to Mumbai attack suspects
Pakistan on Thursday banned two groups believed to be fronts for the group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, amid heightened pressure on Islamabad to act against militants. Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation were designated "proscribed organisations", the interior ministry said in a statement, adding that Prime Minister Imran Khan had ordered officials to accelerate action against banned groups. JuD and FIF are considered by the UN to be fronts for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group accused by Washington and New Delhi of carrying out the Mumbai attack, which killed 166 people and brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
NewsUSA TODAYRobert Kraft, accused of soliciting prostitution, known for philanthropy, bringing people together
BOSTON – Just weeks ago, before Robert Kraft won his sixth Super Bowl as owner of the NFL's New England Patriots, he was awarded perhaps a greater honor. The Genesis Prize is awarded to leaders of Jewish heritage "who have attained international renown in their chosen professional fields" and "have made a significant contribution to improving the world." It's sometimes called the Jewish Nobel Prize. The announcement capped decades of good works by the billionaire businessman, an icon not only in professional sports but in philanthropy.
- NewsYahoo News
The Soviets wanted to infiltrate the Reagan camp. So, the CIA recruited a businessman to bait them.
Beginning in 1975, a big black limousine with diplomatic plates would pull up once a month to the no-parking zone outside John Greenagel's office in the handsome Merchants Exchange Building in downtown San Francisco. The man would hand Greenagel, then in his mid-30s, the paper bag, which always contained stale Cuban cigars and a bottle of Stolichnaya without a tax stamp. Yuri Pavlov was a diplomat based at the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco and an undercover KGB officer, but the KGB probably wouldn't have been pleased about who ended up partaking in these delectables.
WorldReutersAt Pope's abuse summit, Church seeks to fix 'systematic failures'
The Roman Catholic Church must repair the "systematic failures" that enabled sexual abuse to take root around the world, and bishops should start policing each other's behavior, leading cardinals said on Friday. Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Oswald Gracias of Mumbai spoke on the second day of a conference of some 200 senior Church officials convened by Pope Francis to confront what he has called the scourge of sexual abuse by the clergy. quot;This past year has taught us that the systematic failures in holding clerics of all rank responsible are due in large measure to flaws in the way we interact and communicate with each other," Cupich said.
- PoliticsBloomberg
Manafort Faces March 8 Sentencing for Virginia Fraud Convictions
Paul Manafort will be sentenced on March 8 in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, where Special Counsel Robert Mueller has recommended he serve as much as a quarter century in prison for his convictions on tax- and bank-fraud charge, according to a judge. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III set the date on Thursday, giving Manafort until March 1 to reply to Mueller's recommendation that he serve between 19.6 and 24.4 years in prison. Manafort, 69, was convicted by jurors last August of bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to file a foreign bank account report.
- PoliticsAssociated Press
Trump ally Stone gets gag order after 'crosshairs' post
A federal judge issued a broad gag order forbidding Roger Stone to discuss his criminal case with anyone and gave him a stinging reprimand Thursday over the longtime Trump confidant's posting of a photo of the judge with what appeared to be crosshairs of a gun. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said that it would be "foolhardy" for her not to take any action over the Instagram post and that Stone would "pose a danger" to others in the case if the conditions of his release weren't modified to include a gag order. "Roger Stone fully understands the power of words and the power of symbols and there's nothing ambiguous about crosshairs," the judge said.
- LifestyleArchitectural Digest
Bobby Berk to Launch Collection for A.R.T. Furniture at High Point
For one High Point exhibitor, a soon-to-launch design collaboration is poised to add global influence—and a bit of buzz—to the program of this biannual trade show. At the spring market, A.R.T. Furniture, a division of Markor, will debut a collection by Bobby Berk featuring some 70 products for the living room, bedroom, dining room, and outdoors. You may recognize Berk for his impressively speedy home makeovers on the heartwarming Netflix show Queer Eye.
- WorldThe Independent
Relatives of US oil industry 'hostages' in Venezuela make emotional appeal for their release
Relatives of six American oil company employees detained by the Venezuelan authorities have made a powerful appeal for their release, demanding they not be overlooked as tension mounts in the country. The six men – five US citizens and one permanent resident, and all employees of Citgo, the US subsidiary of Venezuela's state-run Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) – were detained in November 2017 after being called to Caracas from Houston for a meeting. President Nicolas Maduro went on television to denounce them as “traitors”, saying: “They're properly behind bars, and they should go to the worst prison in Venezuela.” Asdrubal Chavez, a cousin of the late president, was appointed company's new president.
- LifestyleCar and Driver
A 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback Is the Latest to Be Immortalized in Legos
This 1970s-era Ford Mustang kit is customizable; there's a supercharger, front and rear spoilers, tail or side pipes, and even a nitrous-oxide tank. A removable roof panel permits access to the attentively detailed interior. The kit will be available directly from Lego stores or online, starting March 1.
