In a speech at a pro-Israel conference, President Donald Trump said Jewish voters should vote for him because they would "be out of business in about 15 minutes" otherwise. The crowd at the Israeli American Council national summit responded enthusiastically, chanting "four more years" and "12 more years" after Trump mentioned fears he wouldn't step down after two terms. Trump also touted his pro-Israel policy moves, including moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem.
The FBI said Sunday that it is treating the mass shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola as an act of terrorism so it can amass more resources to investigate whether the Saudi gunman was spurred by an “ideology. Special Agent in Charge Rachel Rojas said authorities have not yet pinpointed shooter Mohammed Alshamrani's motive for Friday's ambush, which killed three and wounded eight. I can tell you that we are looking very hard at uncovering his motive and I would ask for patience so we can get this right,” Rojas said at an afternoon press briefing.
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.
A Uighur woman living in the Netherlands has gone public about helping to leak secret Chinese government documents regarding human rights abuses in China's Xinjiang province because of fears for her safety. Asiye Abdulaheb told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that she was involved in last month's leak of papers to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which highlighted the Chinese government's crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang. The reveal, which followed an earlier document leak to the New York Times, showed how the Chinese government has indoctrinated and punished over a million Muslims, mainly members of the Uighur ethnic minority, in internment camps.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
The Trump administration planned to separate tens of thousands of migrant children from their parents in the span of five months before it was forced to end its "zero tolerance" crackdown along the southern border due to public outcry and a court ruling. In early May of 2018, the month when the administration began implementing the "zero tolerance" policy across the U.S.-Mexico border, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) told the White House budget office that it expected its officers to separate more than 26,000 families by September of that year, according to a report released by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General on Wednesday. The revelation represents the first official estimate of the number of families the administration was prepared and willing to separate as part of the controversial policy designed to deter U.S.-bound migrants.
Russia plans to establish an air defence "dome" across its polar region by arming all of its Northern Fleet's Arctic divisions with S-400 missile batteries, a Russian naval commander said on Monday. Russia has been stepping up its military presence in the Arctic, building new infrastructure and overhauling its ports as it vies for dominance in a region with huge untapped mineral wealth amid warmer climate cycles. In May, Washington accused Russia of aggressive behaviour in the polar region and said China's actions must be watched closely.
Build those structures. Keep them from harm. Collect that loot.
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.
It might be the most Japanese of political scandals: a furore over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's guest list at a party to mark the annual cherry blossom season. As scandals go, it has plenty of juicy elements -- alleged mafia guests, disappearing evidence, even gaffes by Abe, who appeared to lay blame for shredded documents on a disabled worker. It's the latest headache for Japan's longest-serving premier, who has already weathered two cronyism scandals in recent years and has faced an almost daily drubbing by opposition lawmakers since the scandal emerged in early November.
Family and friends are honoring a UPS driver who was killed in a shootout between Florida police and the robbery suspects who had hijacked his delivery truck. Loved ones and coworkers of Frank Ordonez gathered at a UPS Customer Center in Miami with lit candles and flowers Sunday. Other UPS workers also joined in — one group from London expressed support by tweeting a photo showing uniformed workers holding up letters that together spelled #ONE UPS and RIP Frank Ordonez.
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.
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.
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.
When Democrats won a Senate seat in Alabama two years ago, their chairman declared that “black women are the backbone of the Democratic party, and we can't take that for granted”. Unless something changes quickly, there will be no candidates of colour at all. “It's galling for people that are on the stage to not acknowledge and speak to black women's issues,” said Aimee Allison, the founder and president of She the People, a network dedicated to elevating the political power of women of colour.
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.
In 2017, Finland became the first European country to test a government-backed unconditional basic income, which gave people a regular stipend with no strings attached. Two years after Finland launched a basic-income trial in which nearly 2,000 unemployed residents were given a regular monthly stipend, many of the recipients remained jobless. The people reported that they were happier and healthier overall than other unemployed residents, but the experiment was widely declared a failure.
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."
Sweden's former envoy to Beijing is to go on trial for overstepping her duties by trying to negotiate the release of a Chinese-Swedish dissident held in China, prosecutors in Stockholm said Monday. Anna Lindstedt is accused of brokering an unauthorised meeting during her time as ambassador to get publisher Gui Minhai freed, a statement from the prosecutor's office said. Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen known for publishing gossipy titles about Chinese political leaders out of a Hong Kong book shop, disappeared while vacationing in Thailand in 2015 before resurfacing in mainland China.
Six people have been arrested after an off-duty firefighter was killed in an altercation between two couples and a group of young men in the southern German city of Augsburg, authorities said Sunday. Dozens of Augsburg firefighters held a vigil Sunday for their colleague and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer voiced his dismay at the killing. Both were 17 and born in Augsburg; the first had German and unspecified other citizenships and the second was a citizen of an unidentified southern European country.