- 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.
- WorldAssociated Press
A global look at the Catholic Church's sex abuse problem
Some countries where the scandal has played out visibly in recent years: ARGENTINA Francis' home country is beginning to see an eruption of the scandal, with some cases even implicating the pontiff himself. As Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Francis played a decisive and divisive role in Argentina's most famous abuse case, commissioning a four-volume, 2,000-plus page forensic study of the legal case against a convicted priest that concluded he was innocent, that his victims were lying and that the case never should have gone to trial. Despite the study, Argentina's Supreme Court in 2017 upheld the conviction and 15-year prison sentence for the Rev.
- WorldThe Independent
Venezuela crisis: Maduro closes border with Brazil amid escalating tension with US over foreign aid
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has closed the nation's border with Brazil, amid an escalating standoff over allowing aid from the US to enter the country. In a televised address from the nation's largest military base, Mr Maduro said he was also considering shuttering the border with neighbouring Colombia, two days before the opposition has vowed to move aid from the US and other nations inside Venezuela. Earlier on Thursday opposition leader Juan Guaido set off for the border with Colombia, where much of the US-supplied aid is warehoused.
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.
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.
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.
EntertainmentFOX News VideosKamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren reportedly say they support reparations for black Americans affected by slavery
Senators Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren reportedly say they support reparations for black Americans affected by slavery.
WorldReutersFake news: Kim and Trump lookalikes draw crowds in Hanoi
Cars stopped and tourists gawked on Friday at what appeared to be North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wandering the streets of Hanoi. Days before the second summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump, to be held in Vietnam's capital, a Kim impersonator appeared at the Metropole Hotel, a back-up location for the meeting. Howard X, an Australian, has been cashing in on his resemblance to North Korea's leader, especially his haircut.
- WorldAssociated Press
More than 150 IS militants handed over to Iraq from Syria
U.S.-backed Syrian forces fighting the Islamic State group handed over more than 150 Iraqi members of the group to Iraq, an Iraqi security official said Thursday, marking the biggest repatriation from Syria of captured militants so far. The official said the IS militants were handed over to the Iraqi side late Wednesday, and that they were now in a "safe place" under investigation. The transfer comes as the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces is involved in a standoff over the final sliver of land held by IS in eastern Syria, close to the Iraqi border.
- NewsUSA TODAY Opinion
Robert Kraft prostitution scandal exposes depth of modern slavery, sex trafficking industry
If true, Robert Kraft is one of millions Even though slavery has been illegal in the United States since the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1865, slavery persists in this country because there is very little real penalty for the offense. Sex slavery in particular persists because men are largely able to purchase female bodies for sexual gratification with little to no penalty. These men appear to believe that money somehow confers the right to own another human being for a period of time, like subletting property.
- 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.
BusinessAFPGlobal equities climb on hopeful trade talk vibes
World stock markets advanced Friday as investors awaited what they hoped will be encouraging news from US-China trade talks in Washington, dealers said. Europe's key equity markets were modestly higher at the close, building on earlier Asian gains. Wall Street was also higher in the late New York morning as US economic concerns appeared to be eclipsed by hopes that high-level talks between the United States and China will seal a trade war truce.
- 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.
PoliticsUSA TODAYCarbon dioxide in our atmosphere may soar to levels not seen in 56 million years
Emissions of carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming – could soar to levels not seen in 56 million years by the middle of next century, scientists warned in a study Wednesday. Though it won't happen in our lifetimes, it could very well happen in the lives of our grandchildren or great-grandchildren. "You and I won't be here in 2159, but that's only about four generations away," said study author Philip Gingerich, a University of Michigan paleoclimate researcher.
- CelebrityTime
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Invoked Pop Culture to Hit Back at a Critical Billboard
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has hit back at a New York City billboard denouncing her criticism of Amazon's now-cancelled plan to open a new headquarters in Queens. After a conservative group called the Job Creators Network put up a digital ad in Times Square attacking Ocasio-Cortez for allegedly contributing to the loss of NYC jobs and wages, the 29-year-old congresswoman took to Twitter to call out the “billionaire-funded” organization. “Few things effectively communicate the power we've built in fighting dark money & anti-worker policies like billionaire-funded groups blowing tons of cash on wack billboards (this one is funded by the Mercers),” she tweeted, referencing conservative mega-donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer, who have close ties to the Trump administration.
- BusinessBloomberg
NYC's Amazon Negotiator Laments What Might Have Been
The deal fell apart, Patchett said, because Amazon wasn't prepared to respond to questions about how it would operate in the city. This is New York, after all, where the only thing we can agree on is that it's hard to be a Knicks fan,” he said. In November, Amazon chose Long Island City, just across the East River from Manhattan, and Arlington, Virginia, over 200 other competing locations for two satellite headquarters in an expansion to its home in Seattle.
- WorldAssociated Press
Pakistan PM authorizes military response if India attacks
Pakistan's prime minister on Thursday authorized the armed forces to "respond decisively and comprehensively to any aggression or misadventure" by neighboring India, as tensions soared between the nuclear-armed rivals. India has vowed a "jaw-breaking response" to a suicide bombing in the disputed Kashmir region last week that killed 40 Indian soldiers. It was the worst attack on Indian forces since the start of the Kashmir insurgency in 1989.
- 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.
- NewsNational Review
Indict the 'ISIS Bride'
Now Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that Muthana will not be allowed to reenter the U.S. because she is not an American citizen: While born in America, she was the daughter of a diplomat and thus not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. As the secretary put it in his statement, “Ms. Hoda Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States. She does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States.
BusinessAFPGoogle moves to fix YouTube glitch exploited for child porn
Google-owned YouTube said Thursday it was taking action to close a loophole that enabled users to share comments and links on child pornography over the video-sharing service. The response came after a YouTube creator this week revealed what he called a "wormhole" that allowed comments and connections on child porn alongside innocuous videos. "Any content -- including comments -- that endangers minors is abhorrent and we have clear policies prohibiting this on YouTube," a spokesman said in an email to AFP.
- U.S.KGO – San Francisco
Fresh snow falls on famous 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas' sign
Tourists lined up for selfies in front of the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign as snow blanketed Sin City.
WorldReutersCharity says 24 Polish bishops covered up sex abuses of minors
A Polish charity helping victims of child abuse committed by Catholic priests accused 24 bishops on Thursday of concealing perpetrators of sexual molestation of minors. The "Have No Fear" charity made the allegation in a report released as Pope Francis convened Catholic leaders from around the world to address scandals over child sexual abuse by priests that have ravaged the Church's credibility over the last three decades. The report, which has been delivered to the pope, named Polish bishops whom it said had "concealed clerical crimes and moved pedophilic priests from one parish to another".
