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  • Trump allies to Michigan judge: Force Gov. Whitmer to overturn Biden's win, give state to president

    The allegations, provided without credible evidence of widespread fraud or misconduct, have been rebuffed in courts in other states.

  • Giuliani has reportedly talked with Trump about a possible 'pre-emptive' pardon

    Rudy Giuliani has reportedly discussed with President Trump the idea of receiving a potential "pre-emptive pardon" prior to the end of his term in office.Giuliani, Trump's lawyer who has sought to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election over baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud, has "discussed with the president as recently as last week" a potential pardon, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. The Times notes that Giuliani's "potential criminal exposure is unclear," though he has come under investigation over his Ukraine business dealings. He hasn't faced charges. According to the report, Trump hasn't yet indicated whether he might issue this pre-emptive pardon for his personal attorney, and it also reportedly isn't clear who raised the idea. But this report comes after last week, Trump pardoned Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and CNN writes that he's "expected to issue a string of additional pardons before leaving the White House."Robert Costello, Giuliani's lawyer, told the Times that "he's not concerned about this investigation, because he didn't do anything wrong and that's been our position from Day 1," while a spokesperson said "Mayor Giuliani cannot comment on any discussions that he has with his client." Giuliani himself denied the report on Twitter, saying he "never had the discussion they falsely attribute to an anonymous source."More stories from theweek.com Americans are choosing death over deprivation Our parents warned us the internet would break our brains. It broke theirs instead. Obama tells Stephen Colbert he messed up by not giving Dolly Parton the Presidential Medal of Freedom

  • China gave COVID-19 vaccine candidate to North Korea's Kim: U.S. analyst

    China has provided North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family with an experimental coronavirus vaccine, a U.S. analyst said on Tuesday, citing two unidentified Japanese intelligence sources. Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said the Kims and several senior North Korean officials had been vaccinated.

  • Charging the 'Beatles': Inside the case against IS militants

    As two Islamic State militants faced a judge in Virginia last month, Diane Foley listened from home through a muffled phone connection and strained to make out the voices of the men prosecutors say kidnapped her son before he was murdered. Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh stand accused of belonging to an IS cell dubbed “the Beatles,” an incongruously lighthearted nickname for British citizens blamed for the jailing, torture and murder of Western hostages in Syria. After geopolitical breakthroughs and stalemates, military actions in Syria and court fights in London, the Justice Department’s most significant terrorism prosecution in years was finally underway.

  • Body of missing Instagram influencer Alexis Sharkey found on Texas road

    There were no visible wounds to the body and a cause of death hadn't yet been determined for the 26-year-old, police said.

  • Iran denies Revolutionary Guard commander killed in Iraq-Syria border drone strike

    Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman on Tuesday denied knowledge of an air strike reported to have killed an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander on the Iraq-Syria border over the weekend. Iraqi security and militia officials told Reuters on Monday that the commander, whose identity they did not confirm, was killed alongside three men travelling in the same vehicle as him. Two officials told Reuters the vehicle was struck shortly after crossing into Syria with a load of weapons from Iraq. Israel has launched strikes against an array of Iranian and Syrian targets in Syria the past week, though there was no claim of responsibility for the drone strike said to have killed the IRGC commander, named in some reports as Muslim Shahdan. Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said he was unaware of those reports during a weekly foreign ministry briefing in Tehran, adding that “it seems to be fake news," in remarks carried by the semi-official ISNA news agency. He directed further queries to the General Staff of the Armed Forces. The apparent denial comes amid heightened tensions regionally and calls for retaliation domestically after the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated outside Tehran on Friday in an attack that Iran has blamed on Israel. Mr Khatibzadeh warned Iran would unleash “maximum pain” on Fakhrizadeh’s assassins, adding that the regime would not heed international calls for restraint. The killing has raised the prospect of military confrontation in the final months of Donald Trump’s presidency and could make it harder for president-elect Joe Biden to fulfil his campaign promise to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal that President Trump abandoned in 2015. On Tuesday, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei declared that parliament had no right to amend the nuclear agreement reached with world powers in 2015, after hardliners passed a bill demanding that Iran disregard all restraints on its nuclear programme. Parliamentarians have been calling for an end to international inspections of the country’s nuclear sites in the wake of Friday’s attack. The draft bill passed on Tuesday also called for Iran to pursue uranium enrichment of 20 percent, beyond the limit of 3.67 percent set by the deal. Mr Rabiei however said adherence to the nuclear agreement was the responsibility of the National Security Council, who would decide whether to curtail inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to state-run ISNA. Iran's intelligence ministry meanwhile released photos of four suspects it claims were involved in Fakhrizadeh’s killing, according to an Iranian news website, in another change to the official narrative of the assassination.

  • GOP Sen. Josh Hawley tries to explain how Democrats are both 'Marxists' and 'corporatists'

    Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) suggested Monday that he might oppose President-elect Joe Biden's nomination of Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary because Biden's Cabinet picks are "a bunch of corporate liberals and warmongers." Over the summer, The Bulwark's Tim Miller pointed out, Hawley told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the Democratic Party "in thrall" to "the Marxist left.""Hawley could have ignored the criticism — after all, it’s not like his target audience is going to complain that he attacked the Democrats in two mutually exclusive ways," Jonathan Chait noted at New York. But Hawley, "a prep school kid with degrees from Stanford and Yale" who "still craves the respect of elites," evidently "felt compelled to show that he is not just a glib demagogue mouthing slogans." So this is how he reconciled his contradictory accusations:> Let me explain this to you. Corporate liberals are woke capitalists. The corporatists love critical race theory and all the other warmed-over Marxist garbage. They sell out working Americans and sneer at them at the same time. That’s the New Left https://t.co/pOrG5NdXsq> > — Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 30, 2020If that doesn't make much sense to you, get in line. Some critics pointed out that Hawley's policies and fat donations from corporate interests aren't all that helpful to "working Americans," while others delighted in the word-salad incoherence of his explanation:> Tell us more about the corporate liberal Marxist capitalist critical-race-theorist socialist Wall Street leftist corporatist antifa fascist communists> > — Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) December 1, 2020> This is the kind of answer on an exam in high school where the teacher would say quit using a bunch of words you read or heard somewhere without putting anything together in a paragraph that makes sense.> > — Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) November 30, 2020"Big corporations do not like Marxists who want to discredit and destroy the system," and "Marxists do not support uses of the American military," Chait summarized. But "the most precious line Hawley's lecture to Miller is 'Let me explain this to you.' As if any fool can see the obvious congruity of his two attacks on Biden. Only the elites can't spot the obvious. Just ask any regular hardworking Missouri farmer, and he'll explain that neoliberal corporate warlords are working hand in glove with Marxists to use critical race theory in order to advance Janet Yellen's candidacy for Treasury secretary."More stories from theweek.com Americans are choosing death over deprivation Our parents warned us the internet would break our brains. It broke theirs instead. Obama tells Stephen Colbert he messed up by not giving Dolly Parton the Presidential Medal of Freedom

  • Mexico's president pledges justice for murdered Frenchman

    Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised Monday that justice will be done in the case of a French restaurant owner who was found murdered over the the weekend. López Obrador compared the case to last year’s killings of nine U.S. dual-nationals in northern Mexico, claiming “practically all” of whose alleged killers in that attack have been arrested. Authorities said evidence indicates dual French-Mexican citizen Baptiste Jacques Daniel Lormand set out late last week to sell bottles of high-end wine or liquor, accompanied by a Mexican partner.

  • Trump shares posts asking ‘why bother voting for Republicans?’ ahead of key vote that could decide Senate

    President launches attacks on his own party despite two decisive Senate races in Georgia next month

  • Turkish exploration vessel back in port ahead of EU summit

    Turkey's seismic exploration vessel Oruc Reis returned to port on Monday from disputed Mediterranean waters, less than two weeks before a European Union summit where the bloc will evaluate possible sanctions against Ankara. NATO members Turkey and Greece have conflicting claims to continental shelves and rights to potential energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean. Tensions flared in August when Ankara sent Oruc Reis to map out energy drilling prospects in waters also claimed by Greece.

  • On Russia’s flank, a small war heralds big changes

    The recent Armenia-Azerbaijan war, a result of failed diplomacy, has thrown up a new victor and paved the way for Turkey to extend its influence.

  • Thai protest leaders hear police charges of defaming king

    Five leaders of Thailand’s pro-democracy movement reported to police Monday to acknowledge charges that they defamed the king, the most serious of many offenses of which they stand accused. The five are part of the student-led movement that for several months has been campaigning for Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and his government to step down, the constitution to be amended to make it more democratic and the monarchy be reformed to make it more accountable. The protest movement has nevertheless emphasized reform of the monarchy as a key demand, and made it the theme of several of its protest rallies, which have attracted thousands of people.

  • I was an election monitor in Afghanistan. Trump's fraud claims follow a corrupt playbook.

    The 2014 Afghan presidential election involved accusations of fraud, recounts, and threats of violence. Eventually there was peace. Sound familiar?

  • U.S. imposes sanctions on Chinese firm accused of undermining democracy in Venezuela

    The United States imposed sanctions on Monday on Chinese firm China National Electronics Import & Export Corporation (CEIEC), accusing it of supporting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's efforts to undermine democracy. The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement the Chinese company supported the leftist government of Maduro in its "efforts to restrict internet service and conduct digital surveillance and cyber operations against political opponents." "The United States will not hesitate to target anyone helping to suppress the democratic will of the Venezuelan people and others around the world," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.

  • Switzerland halves new infections without national lockdown as pubs and restaurants stay open

    Switzerland is emerging as a model for how the coronavirus can be contained without a national lockdown, after daily new infections halved since the start of November despite pubs, restaurants, gyms and sports remaining open in much of the country. The figures were hailed as a triumph for the “Swiss special way” by Swiss government doctors last week, and will be seen as evidence that regional tiers can work in the UK. Rather than ordering a general lockdown, Switzerland allowed regions to decide their own measures and only the worst-hit imposed tough restrictions. But critics have charged that the success came at too high a price, after the country experienced some of the highest death rates in Europe. Switzerland has been described as the “new Sweden” after it refused to follow the UK and other countries into a second lockdown this month. The Swiss government imposed only minimal restrictions at a national level, including a limit of ten on private gatherings, an 11pm curfew for restaurants and the compulsory use of facemasks in crowded areas.

  • China sanctions leaders of US groups over Hong Kong actions

    China on Monday said it is sanctioning leaders of U.S. government-affiliated bodies that promote democracy around the world in response to what it calls practices that “blatantly meddle in Hong Kong affairs.” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said the measures would cover the senior director for Asia at the National Endowment Democracy, John Knaus, the regional director for the Asia-Pacific at the National Democratic Institute, Manpreet Singh Anand, and two of the institute’s officials responsible for Hong Kong. Hua gave no details and the institute said in a news release that it had no further information but that it “remains steadfastly committed to these core principles and to continuing our work in support of democracy worldwide.”

  • Trump administration rushes to complete Mexico border wall before Biden takes office

    The administration’s blasting crews are swiftly tearing through the remote Peloncillo Mountains in forbidding terrain with dynamite, reflecting an increasing urgency to install the structure

  • Mother accused of holding son captive for decades

    A grim discovery has been made in Stockholm, Sweden: A man in his forties found wounded in an apartment -- and may have been held captive there by his own mother for nearly 30 years. The mother -- a 70-year-old woman whom neighbors thought lived alone -- has been arrested. The man was reportedly found by a relative on Sunday (November 29). Swedish media say he was found lying on a blanket on the floor, toothless, unable to speak, and covered in sores and injuries. One of the neighbors spoke to Swedish television: "We haven't lived here that long. We moved in June this year. But she's been very nice and sweet. We had a baby in the summer so she was like 'oh, have you had a baby' and she told us that she had a child that was born prematurely and so on. But we've felt that she been a nice, elderly neighbor." Swedish news outlets are reporting that the son was taken out of school aged about 12, and that he was found next to two almanacs from the nineties in the apartment, packed with clutter. Stockholm prosecutor Emma Olsson says the mother is denying charges of false imprisonment and grievous bodily harm. There was no immediate explanation of why the son had been held.

  • Brazil voters elect mayors amid surge in COVID-19 cases, violence

    Shaken by the world's second deadliest coronavirus outbreak and a deep economic crisis, Brazilians largely voted for experienced politicians from traditional parties. Covas' win boosts São Paulo Governor João Doria, a potentially strong adversary for far-right President Jair Bolsonaro who plans to seek re-election in 2022.

  • North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may have already received an unapproved coronavirus vaccine

    Japanese intelligence officials told a US expert that Kim Jong Un received a trial COVID-19 vaccine from China within the last few weeks.