| Republican senator on Trump soliciting foreign interference: 'Things happen' Posted: 19 Jan 2020 12:42 PM PST  Republican Senator Richard Shelby defended an argument from President Trump's legal team that soliciting foreign interference in an election is not an impeachable offense, saying, "things happen."
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| Bloomberg pledges $70 billion to bolster black America in new plan Posted: 19 Jan 2020 09:00 AM PST  Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his presidential campaign's plan for bolstering economic opportunity for black Americans.
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| 'I stayed alive to tell' - Auschwitz's dwindling survivors recount horrors of Nazi death camp Posted: 20 Jan 2020 05:14 AM PST  A strip of skin tattooed with the Auschwitz death camp number 99288 sits in a silver frame on a shelf in Avraham Harshalom's living room. As the 75th anniversary of the camp's liberation on Jan 27, 1945, nears, Harshalom, 95, is very clear about why he kept it. Harshalom is one of some 200,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today.
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| Illegal crossings plunge as US extends policy across border Posted: 19 Jan 2020 09:24 AM PST  Adolfo Cardenas smiles faintly at the memory of traveling with his 14-year-old son from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border in only nine days, riding buses and paying a smuggler $6,000 to ensure passage through highway checkpoints. Father and son walked about 10 minutes in Arizona's stifling June heat before surrendering to border agents. Instead of being released with paperwork to appear in immigration court in Dallas, where Cardenas hopes to live with a cousin, they were bused more than an hour to wait in the Mexican border city of Mexicali.
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| You Should Get an Electric Fireplace Posted: 20 Jan 2020 09:00 AM PST |
| Virginia on edge as pro-gun activists seethe over governor’s state of emergency Posted: 19 Jan 2020 12:05 PM PST  Moments after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam approached the podium at the state capitol building on Wednesday to announce that he was issuing a temporary state of emergency ahead of a gun rights rally on Monday in Richmond, the angry comments started pouring in. What started in November as a fight between rural Virginia gun owners and newly elected Democratic lawmakers seeking to propose gun control legislation has since been warped and amplified by extremist groups which, for different reasons, have sought to exploit real tensions around Virginia's gun debate to advance their own agendas.
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| Biden Tops Iowa Poll by Democratic Rural Group: Campaign Update Posted: 20 Jan 2020 08:05 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- A new Iowa poll has Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential race in the first caucus state. The former vice president also placed as likely caucusgoers' top second choice, putting him in a strong position with just two weeks to go until voters begin to choose their nominee.Biden had the support of 24% of likely caucus-goers polled by Focus on Rural America, an Iowa group with Democratic ties that has been polling in the state since last year. Biden's backing in the survey has been roughly stable since the group's September poll, when he was at 25%. He is also the second choice of 24% of those surveyed, an important measure given that caucusgoers have the chance to choose a second candidate if their first choice gets below 15% at their caucus site on Feb. 3.Elizabeth Warren was in second place at 19%, a 4-point drop from her showing in the previous poll. Pete Buttigieg was in third place at 16% and Bernie Sanders was in fourth at 12%. Amy Klobuchar, who's staking her campaign on success in Iowa, was in fifth place at 11%. Buttigieg was the second most-popular second-choice candidate, with 21% of likely caucus-goers saying they'd support him if their first choice is not viable.The poll's ordering of the top four candidates is different than the well-regarded Des Moines Register poll released 10 days ago, which had Sanders leading and Biden in fourth. The discrepancies probably reflect what's expected to be a messy caucus night result that few Iowa Democrats are willing to predict.The poll, conducted by David Binder Research, surveyed 500 likely caucusgoers and has an error margin of 4.4 percentage points.COMING UP:Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York, both plan to address the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Wednesday.The candidates will debate again in New Hampshire on Feb. 7.The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses will be held Feb. 3. The New Hampshire primary is Feb. 11. Nevada holds its caucuses on Feb. 22 and South Carolina has a primary on Feb. 29.(Michael Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Edward DufnerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Double trouble: Sri Lanka's twin gathering marred by overcrowding Posted: 20 Jan 2020 10:17 AM PST  Thousands of twins packed two-by-two into a stadium in Sri Lanka's capital on Monday - so many that officials struggled to count them in time to prove they had organized a record-breaking gathering. Huge queues built up at the open-air venue in Colombo as sets of siblings waited to get their birth certificates checked. The last record was set in Taiwan in 1999, when 3,961 sets of twins, 37 sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets gathered outside Taipei City Hall.
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| Climate crisis could justify asylum claims: UN committee Posted: 20 Jan 2020 11:20 AM PST  Governments that send refugees back to countries severely affected by climate change could be in breach of their human rights obligations, a UN committee said on Monday. The independent experts on the Human Rights Committee issued a non-binding but closely watched ruling in a case brought by Ioane Teitiota from the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. Several Pacific island nations including Kiribati are seen as among the most vulnerable in the world to climate change as they are just a few metres above sea level.
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| Martin Luther King Jr. would want Jewish & African Americans to stand united against hate Posted: 20 Jan 2020 01:00 AM PST  The civil rights coalition of the future will extend beyond African Americans and Jews. We must strengthen our ties but also reach out for new allies.
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| Giuliani associate in campaign cash probe seeks Barr recusal Posted: 20 Jan 2020 03:25 PM PST ![Giuliani associate in campaign cash probe seeks Barr recusal]( "Giuliani associate in campaign cash probe seeks Barr recusal") An associate of Rudy Giuliani charged with illegally funneling foreign money into U.S. political campaigns has asked Attorney General William Barr to recuse himself in the case and appoint a special prosecutor. The request is made in a letter filed Monday in the docket of the federal campaign finance violation case brought by New York prosecutors against Lev Parnas. The letter signed by defense lawyer Joseph Bondy came a day before the Senate impeachment trial against President Donald Trump was scheduled to start.
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| Could Taiwan Stop an Invasion By China? Posted: 19 Jan 2020 11:25 PM PST  Expert: "Over the next four years, it may be more important to acquire less glamorous but nimbler weapons to prevent Beijing from considering an invasion."
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| Leopard runs into house before being captured in south India Posted: 20 Jan 2020 06:15 AM PST  A leopard that ran into a house and sparked a frantic search and a frenzy of attention in southern India on Monday has been caught and tranquilized. The big cat emerged from the Kamdanam forest and ran into a house in Shadnagar town in Telangana state, said Dr. Mohammad Abdul Hakeem, a wildlife official. Deadly conflict between humans and animals has increased in recent years in India largely due to shrinking forest habitats and urban expansion.
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| ‘A Defining Moment.’ An Indian State’s Decision to Challenge the Country's Controversial Citizenship Law Signals a Growing Divide Posted: 20 Jan 2020 11:47 AM PST  Kerala's lawsuit argues that the Citizenship Amendment Act is "discriminatory" and runs counter to the Indian constitution's secular principles.
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| Report Warned of Threat to U.S. Troops in Germany: Newsweek Posted: 19 Jan 2020 01:00 PM PST ![Report Warned of Threat to U.S. Troops in Germany: Newsweek]( "Report Warned of Threat to U.S. Troops in Germany: Newsweek") (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. received intelligence about a potentially imminent attack being planned against military personnel stationed in Germany, Newsweek reported, citing a memo it saw.The 66th Military Intelligence Brigade received third party information stating that a possible attack could occur against soldiers at either Tower Barracks in Grafenwohr or Tower Barracks, Dulmen; the exact location, date and time of possible attack was unknown Information was marked unclassified and from a senior U.S. intelligence official "The source of information stated the attack would be carried out by an unknown Jordanian extremist currently located in Germany near an unknown military base," the report saidU.S. Army Europe confirmed to Newsweek that a potential threat was identified and investigated last night "German and US officials were consulted and no imminent threat was found to exit"To view the source of this information click hereTo contact the reporter on this story: Nathan Crooks in Miami at ncrooks@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Sebastian Tong at stong41@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Police fire tear gas to disperse thousands in central Hong Kong Posted: 19 Jan 2020 12:08 AM PST ![Police fire tear gas to disperse thousands in central Hong Kong]( "Police fire tear gas to disperse thousands in central Hong Kong") Police fired tear gas on Sunday to disperse thousands of anti-government protesters who gathered in a central Hong Kong park but later spilled onto the streets, briefly barricading roads and spray-painting buildings. Out in numbers before the demonstration began, police intervened promptly when the rally turned into an impromptu march. Several units of police in riot gear were seen chasing protesters and several arrests were made.
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| Evacuation crackdown ordered as Philippine volcano 'recharges' Posted: 20 Jan 2020 01:42 AM PST  Philippine authorities ordered a crackdown Monday on evacuees' daily visits to their homes in the danger zone around Taal volcano as scientists warned it could be "recharging" for a more powerful explosion. More than 110,000 people have taken refuge in evacuation centres since Taal burst to life a week ago, but many hard-hit towns have let residents back for hours each day to fetch items, feed livestock and clean up their houses. "We are directing DRRMCs (civil defence officers)... not to allow anyone to enter the danger zone," said Epimaco Densing, undersecretary for the Department of Interior.
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| Mothers who occupied vacant Oakland house will be allowed to buy it Posted: 20 Jan 2020 04:07 PM PST  Intervention of California governor helps Moms 4 Housing group score victory in fight against state's homeless crisisThe homeless mothers who took over a vacant house in Oakland, California and occupied it for almost two months will be allowed to purchase the property – a major victory in a movement working to keep such homes out of the possession of speculators.The group Moms 4 Housing entered the house on Magnolia Street on 18 November with the intent to stay. The house had sat vacant for more than two years before it was purchased in July at a foreclosure auction for $501,078 by Wedgewood Properties, a real estate investment company with a history of buying up foreclosed-upon houses cheaply, evicting the tenants, renovating the homes and then putting them back on the market at much higher prices.Housing advocates say companies such as Wedgewood fueled the housing crisis that now grips the state, which needs anywhere between 1.8m and 3.5m new housing units by 2025. More than 15,500 units remain vacant in Oakland alone, according to the latest US census bureau data, while 4,071 people are homeless. House-flipping has led to rapid gentrification, which then in turn led to the widespread displacement of black residents.In Oakland, 78% of the homeless population reported that their last place of residence before becoming homeless was within county limits. Seventy percent were black.Moms 4 Housing chose the Magnolia Street house in part to try to force Wedgewood to negotiate the sale of the home back to the community."This is what happens when we organize, when people come together to build the beloved community," Dominique Walker, one of the mothers who lived in the house with her two children, said in a statement, on the day that America marked Martin Luther King Day. "Today we honor Dr King's radical legacy by taking Oakland back from banks and corporations."With the housing and homelessness crisis worsening each day, the mothers received widespread support for their cause, from local lawmakers to California governor Gavin Newsom, who praised the activists.Moms 4 Housing had brought the issue to court, but a judge ruled in favor of Wedgewood. Sheriff deputies arrived in the early hours of 15 January to evict them, arresting two of the mothers and two of their supporters.Wedgewood has maintained that the mothers had committed a criminal act in breaking into the house, and the house legally belonged to the company."Wedgewood has always been and continues to be open to thoughtful and purposeful discussions," spokesman Sam Singer said in a statement."After regaining possession of Magnolia Street, we engaged in discussions with governor Gavin Newsom, mayor Libby Schaaf and councilman Larry Reid. These led to progress that everyone should agree is a step in the right direction in helping to address Oakland's homelessness and housing crisis."
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| A Surge of Migrants Rushes a Mexican Border Crossing Posted: 19 Jan 2020 09:09 AM PST  CIUDAD TECÚN UMÁN, Guatemala -- After days of walking and hitchhiking, a crowd of migrants rushed a bridge at Guatemala's border with Mexico on Saturday and clashed with Mexican police who used pepper spray and closed the crossing's large metal gates to keep them out.More than 1,000 migrants were trying to cross the bridge spanning the Suchiate River, which delineates a section of the border between Guatemala and Mexico. After calm was restored, small groups of 20 or so migrants, many of them women and children from Central America, were allowed to file through in orderly fashion and register with Mexican migration officials.The melee was the latest test of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's resolve to get tougher on undocumented migration and stop the flow of migrants illegally entering Mexico, many of them trying to make their way to the United States.The governments of Mexico and several Central American countries, the source of many of the undocumented migrants who have sought to cross the southwest border of the United States in recent years, have been under pressure from President Donald Trump to help stem the flow. Trump temporarily withheld development aid and threatened tariffs to try to force his counterparts in the region to take a tougher stance.The showdown on the southern border of Mexico on Saturday involved the vanguard of a mass mobilization of migrants, most of them Hondurans who set off from the northern city of San Pedro Sula earlier in the week as part of a new caravan. They are part of a tradition of mass migrations that have offered safety in numbers to participants.Over the years, such caravans have usually numbered in the hundreds and have mostly passed unnoticed. But in fall 2018, a caravan that at one point numbered more than 7,000, according to the Mexican authorities, caught the attention of Trump. He turned the matter into a campaign issue, warning against an invasion along the American border.By some estimates, the current mobilization is also in the thousands. The Guatemalan authorities say that more than 4,000 migrants, part of this scattered caravan, have entered Guatemala from Honduras since Wednesday. Many of them had been expected to arrive in the small Guatemalan border city of Tecun Uman on Saturday or Sunday.In recent days, as the caravan approached the Guatemalan border with Mexico, the Mexican authorities announced that only migrants who registered with proper documentation seeking asylum, work permits or other protections would be allowed to enter. Once registered in Mexico, migrants were transported on white unmarked buses to another location to continue their application process.Lopez Obrador said Friday that 4,000 jobs in southern Mexico needed to be filled, which seemed to raise hopes among migrants here that they would be offered employment at the border. But at the same time, the Mexican government also stepped up its enforcement.On Saturday, dozens of armed guards lined the banks of the Suchiate River across from Tecun Uman to prevent migrants from slipping across. A recording warned migrants over a loudspeaker that the United States would not be granting asylum and would instead send them back to Guatemala."Mexico will offer opportunities of employment in your country of origin," the message added.On Friday night, Alex Valladares, 28, sat on a sidewalk with other migrants bedding down on plastic and cardboard in Tecun Uman. He said he had worked for years in Indianapolis as an undocumented mechanic until he was discovered by the authorities and sent back to Honduras, his home country."I'm searching for a better life, employment," Valladares said.At one time, his heart was set on returning to the United States. But now, Valladares said, he sees more opportunity in Mexico. A friend who had also been deported from the United States had called to offer him a job as a mechanic in Veracruz, a Mexican city on the Gulf of Mexico. All he had to do was get there."Better that I can stay in Mexico where they'll give me papers to work legally," he said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| China's Navy Warships Are Now Armed With Land-Attack Missiles Posted: 20 Jan 2020 08:20 AM PST  China says its newest destroyer is capable of launching land-attack missiles.
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| 2 more Puerto Rico officials fired after warehouse break-in Posted: 19 Jan 2020 01:57 PM PST  Gov. Wanda Vázquez fired the heads of Puerto Rico's housing and family departments Sunday in the latest fallout over the discovery of a warehouse filled with emergency supplies dating from Hurricane Maria. The removal of Housing Secretary Fernando Gil and Department of Family Secretary Glorimar Andújar came a day after the governor fired the director of Puerto Rico's emergency management agency. Vázquez fired him hours after a Facebook video showed angry people breaking into the warehouse in an area where thousands have been in shelters since a recent earthquake.
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| Prince Harry banned from wearing military uniform after stepping back from armed forces Posted: 20 Jan 2020 07:06 AM PST  Harry, Duke of Sussex, will be barred from wearing his military uniform after he agreed to step back from his armed forces appointments.
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| Iran considers dual nationals on downed Ukrainian plane to be Iranians: TV Posted: 19 Jan 2020 11:58 PM PST  Iran considers the passengers with dual nationality, who were on a Ukrainian plane that was shot down accidentally earlier this month, killing all on board, to be Iranian citizens, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday. Many of the 176 who perished in the disaster were Iranians with dual citizenship, which is not recognized by Iran. "We have informed Canada that Tehran considers dual nationals who were killed in the plane crash as Iranian citizens ... Iran is mourning their deaths," Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told a televised weekly news conference.
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| The US Air Force recently acquired a new $64 million Gulfstream private jet for VIP government officials — see inside Posted: 20 Jan 2020 05:53 AM PST  The US president isn't the only government official that flies in a VIP plane operated by the US Air Force.
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| AOC Compares Baltimore Riots to Peaceful Richmond Gun-Rights Demonstration Posted: 20 Jan 2020 02:03 PM PST  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Monday contrasted the annual gun rights rally in Richmond, Va. with the riots after the death of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray and protests following the killing of Eric Garner by New York police."When we go out and march for the dignity…of the lives of people like Freddie Gray and Eric Garner, the whole place is surrounded by police in riot gear without a gun in sight [among protesters]," Ocasio-Cortez said at a Monday event. "And here are all of these people [in Richmond], flying Confederate flags with semiautomatic weapons, and there are almost no police officers at that protest."Following the death of Freddie Gray in the back of a police van in Baltimore in 2015, the city saw riots so extensive that Governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency, while national-guard units deployed to quell the violence. While the officers who arrested Gray were initially charged with murder, all charges were eventually dropped by the prosecution.During the Second Amendment rally in Richmond, Va. officers arrested one person for covering her face in public, which is banned under Virginia law. The individual was later released, and the rally continued without violence.On Thursday the New York Times reported that three suspected white nationalists had been arrested, with investigators alleging the three would try to ignite violence at the rally. Governor Graham Northam, who has voiced support for more restrictive gun laws, declared a state of emergency in response to the threat.
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| The 11 most expensive cities to live in around the world in 2020 Posted: 20 Jan 2020 05:27 AM PST  The 16th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey reveals cities bordering the Pacific Ocean are the most expensive.
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| Panama begins exhumation of victims from 1989 US invasion Posted: 20 Jan 2020 02:53 PM PST  Forensic workers took preliminary steps Monday for digging up the remains of some victims of the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, an effort that has lifted the hopes of Panamanians who had relatives die or disappear and have lived with unanswered questions about their fate for 30 years. Authorities gave the approval for exhumation of the 19 bodies buried in a Panama City cemetery after a truth commission set up three years ago documented about 20 disappearances from the U.S. military action to topple strongman Manuel Noriega. Prosecutor Maribel Caballero told reporters the remains will be compared to a database of DNA from relatives in 14 cases.
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| China repeats call on Canada to release Huawei CFO Meng Posted: 20 Jan 2020 12:12 AM PST  China repeated its call on Monday for Canada to release detained Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou as soon as possible, ahead of the executive's first extradition hearing later in the day. "The resolve of the Chinese government to protect Chinese citizens' proper legal rights is firm and unwavering," foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, told reporters during a daily briefing. Meng, daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested at Vancouver International Airport on Dec. 1, 2018, at the request of the United States, where she is charged with bank fraud and accused of misleading the bank HSBC about Huawei Technologies' business in Iran.
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| ‘OK, Now What?’: Inside Team Trump’s Scramble to Sell the Soleimani Hit to America Posted: 19 Jan 2020 02:04 AM PST  In the hours after the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3, U.S. officials in the White House, Pentagon, and State Department worked overtime on assembling a plan to handle the fallout, only to watch senior administration officials and the president himself scuttle their effort in real time on national television. The ensuing days became a mad dash to reconcile the intense intra-administration tensions over what the intelligence actually said about Iranian plots, and how best to sell their case to the American public. At the very top was a president who stewed and complained to staff about how the killing he'd just ordered might negatively affect his re-election prospects and ensnare him in a quagmire in the Middle East of his own creation.The plan to take out Soleimani had been approved months earlier by President Donald Trump after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-National Security Adviser John Bolton pushed for more to be done to manage Iran's aggression in the Middle East. But the president for years tried to avoid a direct military confrontation with Tehran, and hitting Soleimani was a move that could edge the two countries closer to war.When an American contractor was killed in Iraq in late December, President Trump's national security team presented him with a slew of options on how to respond, and killing Soleimani was on the list. National security advisers reminded the president that he had publicly drawn a line in the sand, saying that if the regime killed Americans there would be severe consequences. Still, the strike was a departure from the regular Trump playbook and officials knew it would take a robust effort to explain not only the reasoning behind the attack but also the administration's goal on Iran."There was this sudden nature about it all. Yeah, it had been in the works for some time. But it didn't feel like we were all thinking the same on how to move forward," said one U.S. official, referring to the strike on Soleimani. "It was like, 'OK, now what?'" For more than a week, Trump, Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence and officials from the national security community, including at the Pentagon, held twice-daily meetings and conference calls to make sure all government agencies were on the same page regarding messaging, according to two individuals familiar with those conversations.Despite that effort, what resulted appeared to be an uncoordinated effort to justify an action by national security officials who were varied in their answers about the pre-strike intelligence and who struggled to define the administration's strategy on Iran post strike.That internal confusion on how to re-frame the administration's approach to dealing with Iran led to weeks of what appeared to be frequent mixed messaging, critiques about the administration's apparent lack of strategy, calls from Congress for more robust intelligence briefings—and allegations that Trump and his lieutenants were actively misleading a nation into a sharp military escalation.This article is based on interviews with 10 U.S. government officials and several former administration officials. The State Department and White House House did not comment on the record for this story.Worry over the "counterpunch"For several days following Soleimani's assassination, Pentagon officials warned Trump and his national security advisers that Iran had a variety of responses it could carry out to make the Americans pay. Among them, sources said, were Iranian attacks on senior U.S. military officers overseas, or violence targeting American outposts in countries like Iraq. Their bottom line was that Iran would hit back, and hit back hard. The president worried aloud to his team about how the strike could impact the way voters viewed him in the upcoming election. After all, avoiding costly foreign wars in the Middle East had been one of the key promises— and points of contrast—he made as a candidate in 2016. One official told The Daily Beast that in meetings at the White House Trump was "preoccupied" with ensuring that his public statements on Iran—notably that he would not drag the U.S. into a war with the country—would hold following the assassination. Once Soleimani was gone, Trump was adamant that the administration "get things back to normal" with Iran, one official told The Daily Beast. According to another U.S. official, senior administration officials, including President Trump, were framing the strike as a de-escalatory measure even before the attack was ordered. The idea was that if the U.S. didn't hit Soleimani, more people would die because Iran would continue to carry out attacks in the region.Trump's insistence on returning to "normal" with Iran directly after he ordered the death of the Islamic republic's top military leader underscores this president's wild vacillations between diplomatic overtures and teasing violent retribution, where a call for peace one moment could be followed by a threat to destroy Iranian cultural sites—a tactic that is considered a war crime under international law.The president inquired about this not long before greenlighting, then abruptly calling off, military strikes on Iran that he approved knowing the body count was estimated to be high.And even as he publicly celebrated this massive escalation with Iran and aggressively campaigned on, and fundraised off of, his decision, Trump continued to lament privately to close allies that it would be "crazy" to plunge America into another invasion or full-blown war in the Middle East, according to two people who spoke to Trump in the days following the Soleimani hit.He then pledged he would not "let it happen" on his "watch." Of course, none of the president's stated reservations about starting a new war, or his stated desire to bring soldiers home, kept him and his administration from deploying thousands more American troops to the region as the U.S. and Iran walked up to the brink of all-out warfare early this month.The Soleimani strike, though, forced the president to pause, even just briefly, to consider whether what he had ordered would have lasting, irreversible consequences—repercussions he'd never meant to bump up against."You know, he's sincerely grappling with this, which is good. I mean, war should be hard and we should grapple with it. I just don't want any one person to say, okay, I've grappled with it we should do it," Sen. Tim Kaine told The Daily Beast in an interview about the escalating tension in Iran. Since the Soleimani strike, the Virginia Democrat has led a bipartisan push in the Senate to rein in Trump's authority to wage war in Iran without congressional approval. "If I were president I shouldn't have the ability to just on my own say, let's do this," Kaine added. "It should be deliberative, because that's what the troops and their families deserve."President Trump's concerns were fed, in part, by comments from lawmakers and other analysts that the strike on Soleimani could lead quickly to a major, sustained conflict."We need to get ready for a major pushback. Our people in Iraq and the Middle East are going to be targeted. We need to be ready to defend our people in the Middle East," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in an interview with The Daily Beast the night of the strike. "I think we need to be ready for a big counterpunch.""Overselling the intel"In the first week after the Jan. 3 strike, officials appeared on television and radio shows in an attempt to frame the Soleimani strike as an act of de-escalation. Just hours after the strike, Brian Hook, the special representative for Iran, went on BBC World Service radio saying that killing Soleimani was designed to "advance the cause of peace."Officials at the State Department, in coordination with the White House, drafted talking points advising those who would appear in the media to underscore Soleimani's "malign activities" and his role in killing American troops over the years, according to two U.S. officials. But the White House wanted to advance a different argument—one that wasn't about what Iran had already done, but what U.S. officials claimed Iran was about to do. They said the U.S. killed Soleimani because he was planning "imminent" attacks that would harm American interests. That talking point in particular was emailed out to officials across the Pentagon, White House, and State Department, and even to several GOP lawmakers' offices repeatedly the week of the strike, according to several officials who spoke to The Daily Beast. It became, for a time, the central rationale the administration offered for the assassination. On the night of the hit, the Pentagon said only that Soleimani was "actively developing plans" for an unspecified attack. By Sunday Jan. 5, Pompeo said on several morning talk shows that there were actually "constant threats" from Iran, rather than a specific one the strike preempted. And officials told a varying story about how many Americans could be killed. That next week, in briefings to Congress, the administration struggled to explain what exactly the alleged "imminent" attack was. Senators left a closed-door briefing Wednesday, Jan. 8, unconvinced, angry, and warning that the intelligence put forward did not match how senior officials described it. And when the dissatisfied lawmakers pressed for a clearer picture, Graham ended the briefing even though several members had yet to ask their questions."It was right when things were really starting to get heated and Graham just said something like, 'Hey don't you all have to get back to the White House?'," the source said.For Kaine, the problem wasn't the intel, it was some of the messengers. "I think the intel has been strong. But I think some of the political people have been overselling the intel," said Kaine. "What I heard of the political folks doing seems to me to be significantly beyond what the intel says."Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL), a member of the House intelligence committee who received a separate classified briefing on the Soleimani strike, said he "saw nothing related to imminence.""To exaggerate your view of what intelligence means is dangerous," he told The Daily Beast. "This was either a misrepresentation or a degree of incompetence in analyzing the intelligence."Senators were also displeased with how the administration's briefers, including Pompeo, answered questions about Iraq and its parliament vote to oust American troops from the country after the Soleimani assassination. According to two people in the room, the briefers dismissed questions about the Baghdad vote, telling lawmakers "don't worry about it," according to an individual who was in the room. "One of them said 'that's just how the Iraqis talk. We will take care of it.'""When you take strikes… in Iraq over their objections, there's going to be consequences to that. And that's the kind of thing where you got to be thinking down the board. If they object to us using Iraq as a field of battle… but we're saying yeah, we're doing it anyway. Well, what do you think is going to happen?" Kaine told The Daily Beast in reference to the briefing. "I certainly didn't get much sense that they had thought through, like, oh, they are probably going to kick us out of the country."Trump on Jan. 9 told reporters that the intelligence actually showed that Iran was "looking to blow up our embassy." The next day, he went bigger in a Fox News interview, saying that there "probably would've been four embassies." But two days after that, on Jan. 12, Trump's claim was put into question by his own defense secretary. In an interview on CNN's State of the Union, Mark Esper conceded that he had not in fact seen a piece of intelligence "with regard to four embassies." But, in an apparent attempt to cover for Trump, Esper said the president "believed that it probably and could have been attacks against additional embassies."According to two officials who spoke to The Daily Beast, Trump was outwardly frustrated by critiques of his embassy claim, telling his close confidants that he was furious with Esper's performance on CNN.Lawmakers on Capitol Hill called on the Trump administration to explain the president's remarks, demanding briefings with Pompeo and other administration officials—which were scheduled this week and then canceled without explanation. According to two senior U.S. officials, Trump and Pompeo spoke about the need to avoid answering more questions about the embassy threats."This whole episode has been one of mixed messages. Mixed messages is a function of no real strategy," said Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), a member of the House Intelligence Committee. "When you don't have a strategy, you get all sorts of confusing events on top of each other.""Aggressive opinions"Officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said part of that confusion on messaging came as a result of abundant input by GOP lawmakers with "aggressive opinions on how to handle Iran," as one official put it. In the days after the assassination, Trump spoke with Republican leaders in the Senate and the House, picking their brains on how to redefine the administration's years-long policy of maximum pressure—a campaign to wage economic warfare on Tehran. Some of those same senators had publicly and behind closed doors denounced the administration's maximum pressure campaign. They argued that the campaign wasn't doing enough to change Iran's behavior. In the days leading up to the strike, Graham spoke with President Trump. "I won't get into the details," Graham told The Daily Beast. "But he told me Soleimani was a target and that they had caught him red-handed." Graham said he had advocated for the president to take a tougher military stance against Iran following the attacks on the Saudi oil refineries in September."I didn't have any specific targets in mind," Graham said. "I just thought we needed to be doing more."Several national security officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said there was a push by GOP lawmakers, including Graham, in the days after the strike to fundamentally re-vamp the administration's maximum pressure campaign by adding a military component."If there are any more threats against Americans or our interests then we should hit refineries and oil infrastructure inside Iran," Graham said. "The military option should be on the table." The campaign was not initially designed to include military power as a form of maximum pressure, according to two former Obama administration officials. Instead, its architects envisioned it as a means of economic strangulation, whereby Iran would be put under such crippling sanctions that it would opt to transform its foreign policy and take an unspecified grand bargain that the administration began offering after abandoning the nuclear deal in 2018. Graham told The Daily Beast that he is working on an alternative to the Obama administration's 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. "I'm not surprised the President has close relationships with these folks," Kaine told The Daily Beast, referring to GOP lawmakers. "But it makes me nervous. Rather than senators pressuring the president, hey, go after Iran, let them make the case on the floor of the Senate."After two weeks of shifting talking points on Iran, re-defining the administration's policy, Pompeo seemed to edge the closest to articulating a clear response on the administration's policy when he appeared for a speech at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University on Jan. 13."President Trump and those of us on his national security team are re-establishing deterrence… against Iran. The goal is twofold. First we want to deprive the regime of resources. And second we just want Iran to act like a normal nation," he said, sighing. "Just be like Norway."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| 2 more bodies found on Tijuana property owned by missing Garden Grove couple believed dead Posted: 19 Jan 2020 08:03 AM PST  Two other bodies have been discovered by Mexican officials on a property in Tijuana, one day after the bodies of a missing Garden Grove couple were also found there.
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| Photos surface showing convicted Nazi guard Demjanjuk at Sobibor Posted: 20 Jan 2020 03:36 AM PST  New photos have emerged which for the first time show convicted Nazi guard John Demjanjuk at the Sobibor death camp, a Berlin archive confirmed Monday, although he always denied ever being there. Ukrainian-American Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of nearly 30,000 Jews at Sobibor by a German court in 2011. According to the Berlin-based Topography of Terror archive, photos of Demjanjuk are among a newly discovered collection of more than 350 snaps which give "detailed insight" into the camp in German-occupied Poland.
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| Philippine military says 5 Indonesians kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants Posted: 19 Jan 2020 03:16 AM PST  Eight Indonesians were abducted in Sabah on Thursday. Three were released, while the remaining five were probably brought by their captors to the southern Philippine province of Sulu, said Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana, chief of the military's Western Mindanao Command.
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| SpaceX rocket explodes after liftoff as planned; Crew Dragon capsule escapes fireball Posted: 20 Jan 2020 09:10 AM PST  A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, ultimately sacrificing itself for a test.
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| The Rift Between Turkey and America Has Paved the Way for Russia's Rebound Posted: 20 Jan 2020 12:08 PM PST  Once bitter rivals, Russia and Turkey have seen their relationship rebound over the past few years.
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| US envoy say it's his mustache; South Koreans say otherwise Posted: 20 Jan 2020 01:24 AM PST  The U.S. ambassador to South Korea has some unusual explanations for the harsh criticism he's faced in his host country. Or a Japanese ancestry that raises unpleasant reminders of Japan's former colonial domination of Korea? Many South Koreans, however, have a more straight-forward explanation for Harry Harris' struggle to win hearts and minds in Seoul, and it's got more to do with an outspoken manner that they see as undiplomatic and rude.
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| The images of Australia's storms are downright apocalyptic Posted: 20 Jan 2020 07:21 AM PST  Australia just can't catch a break. As wildfires continued to devastate parts of the country, a miles-long dust storm rolled across New South Wales Sunday, blotting out the sun. As CNN reports, the area has been experiencing drought since 2017, so dirt is loose and easily kicked up by high winds.> In Australia, people have been filming rolling clouds of dust sweeping across New South Wales. > > The massive dust storms blanketed entire towns and blacked out the sun over the weekend. https://t.co/59EwemGKFX pic.twitter.com/RA7nMgMsjN> > -- CNN (@CNN) January 20, 2020In other parts of the southeast, thunderstorms over the past two days brought hail stones the size of baseballs, bringing down trees, battering cars and buildings, and leaving thousands of people without electricity, according to The New York Times. There's also been flash flooding. And the Bureau of Meteorology says the storms could continue for another few days.> Parts of eastern Australia has been pelted by golf-ball sized hail - the storms have helped to fight some bushfires, but many continue to burnhttps://t.co/aaGqbxlEIa pic.twitter.com/VVuWXINivH> > -- BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 20, 2020More stories from theweek.com The strongest case for Joe Biden Boeing goes from bad to worse Trump's legal team calls on Senate to dismiss impeachment charges
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| Iran Threatens Non-Proliferation Treaty Exit Over European Move Posted: 20 Jan 2020 03:30 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Iran will withdraw from a major non-proliferation treaty if European nations attempt to refer the Islamic Republic to the UN Security Council over its infringements of the 2015 nuclear deal, the country's foreign minister said.The U.K., France and Germany said last week they would trigger the accord's dispute resolution mechanism, which could eventually mean the matter being referred to the Security Council. The move inflamed tensions with Tehran, which is locked in an economic confrontation with the U.S. that this month sparked a military exchange."If Europeans continue their untenable conduct or send Iran's nuclear case to the United Nations Security Council, we will withdraw from the N.P.T.," Mohammad Javad Zarif told lawmakers, referring to the international treaty to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the official parliamentary news service ICANA reported.Iran was an early signatory of the 1970 treaty, which was designed to eventually lead to disarmament. Non-nuclear weapons states that are signatories, including Iran, agree not to pursue weapons and to only develop peaceful atomic technology.Earlier on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Iran is planning "one last step" in its gradual draw-down from complying with the nuclear deal, raising the possibility that it's close to announcing a complete withdrawal from the embattled international accord. The final measure will have "more effective consequences," Mousavi said.Iran has been gradually reducing its compliance with the 2015 accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, since U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned it and began reimposing sanctions on the country's economy.Earlier this month, Iran announced it's no longer observing limits on uranium enrichment or research and development activities, but insisted it was still working within the parameters of the deal and would continue cooperating with United Nations nuclear inspectors.President Hassan Rouhani last week said all the steps could still be reversed as soon as Europe was able to commit to the agreement and take concrete steps allowing Iran to sell oil.Days before European nations turned up pressure on the Islamic Republic, the U.S. and Iran came to the brink of war after Trump ordered the killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. As Iranian forces launched retaliatory attacks on U.S. facilities in the Middle East, they accidentally shot down a Ukrainian airliner over Tehran, triggering protests against the regime.Britain has also infuriated Iran's government by proposing that the current accord be replaced with a "Trump deal." Mousavi said that while Iran remains open to talks with the EU on the future of the agreement, the Islamic Republic won't agree to any proposals from either the bloc or the U.S. for an alternative to the existing deal.(Updates with Zarif comments)To contact the reporter on this story: Arsalan Shahla in Tehran at ashahla@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Paul AbelskyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| UK's Johnson, France's Macron reiterate commitment to Iran nuclear deal Posted: 19 Jan 2020 06:07 AM PST  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated their commitment on Sunday to the Iran nuclear deal and agreed a long-term framework was needed, Downing Street said on Sunday. "On Iran, the leaders reiterated their commitment to the JCPoA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and also acknowledged the need to define a long-term framework to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon," a Downing Street spokeswoman said in a statement after the two met on the sidelines of a Libya summit in Berlin.
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| A Drexel University professor has been charged with stealing $185,000 in government grant money to spend on Philadelphia strip clubs and iTunes Posted: 20 Jan 2020 02:30 AM PST  The Philadelphia district attorney's office charged Chikaodinaka Nwankpa with theft by unlawful taking and theft by deception last week.
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| Palestinian family pledge appeal over Jerusalem eviction ruling Posted: 20 Jan 2020 10:08 AM PST  A Palestinian family pledged on Monday to appeal an Israeli court order to evict them from their home in a mainly-Palestinian east Jerusalem neighbourhood in a case lodged by a settler organisation. The Israeli anti-settlement NGO Peace Now said a Jerusalem magistrates court ruled Sunday in favour of evicting the Rajabi family from their home in the Silwan neighbourhood following a lawsuit filed by members of the pro-settlement Ateret Cohanim organisation. The three-storey building houses 17 Palestinians, the family said.
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| Germans are slamming Elon Musk's plans to clear 740 acres of forest for a $45.36 million Tesla factory Posted: 19 Jan 2020 01:36 PM PST  "I am not against Tesla," one activist said. "But it's about the site; in a forest area that is a protected wildlife zone. Is this necessary?"
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