| Trump lawyer: Joe and Hunter Biden have 'relevant evidence' for impeachment trial Posted: 24 Jan 2020 04:09 PM PST  A member of President Trump's defense team says that former Vice President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden have "relevant evidence" and could be summoned to testify if the Senate votes next week to permit witnesses in the impeachment trial.
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| Dutch Prime Minister apologizes for country's role in Holocaust Posted: 26 Jan 2020 10:27 AM PST  Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Sunday he was sorry for his country's role during the Holocaust and the lack of action against the persecution of Jews, becoming the first Dutch premier to make such an official apology. "With the last remaining survivors among us, I apologize on behalf of the government for the actions of the government at the time", Rutte said at an event in Amsterdam to mark the 75th anniversary on Monday of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Earlier Dutch governments have made apologies for the way Jews who survived World War Two atrocities were treated when they returned home from concentration camps, but have shied away from condemning the country's part in the persecution of Jews and other minorities during the German occupation.
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| Man kept woman as sex slave for five years, say police Posted: 26 Jan 2020 08:55 AM PST  A man has been charged with human trafficking after he allegedly kept a sex slave for five years.Salvador Espinoza Escobar, 48, is accused of "withholding basic needs in exchange for forced sexual acts" with the woman since January 2015.
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| Postal worker dies a week after being shot while delivering mail in Mississippi Posted: 25 Jan 2020 03:58 PM PST  The local community rallied around Ingold by hosting prayer vigils, dressing in purple and placing purple bows along her mail route.
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| Photos show the horrors of Auschwitz, 75 years after its liberation Posted: 26 Jan 2020 06:15 AM PST  Over 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, including nearly a million Jews. On the day of liberation 75 years ago, only 7,000 were saved.
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| China stiffens its defences against epidemic as death toll hits 56 Posted: 26 Jan 2020 03:59 AM PST  China on Sunday expanded drastic travel restrictions to contain a viral epidemic that has killed 56 people and infected nearly 2,000, as the United States, France and Japan prepared to evacuate their citizens from a quarantined city at the outbreak's epicentre. China has locked down the hard-hit province of Hubei in the country's centre in an unprecedented operation affecting tens of millions of people to slow the spread of the respiratory illness. The previously unknown virus has caused global concern because of its similarity to the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) pathogen, which killed hundreds across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.
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| Chinese Uighurs in Saudi face impossible choice Posted: 25 Jan 2020 06:18 PM PST  His eyes brimming with tears, a Uighur student in Saudi Arabia holds out his Chinese passport -- long past its expiry date and condemning him to an uncertain fate as the kingdom grows closer to Beijing. The Chinese mission in Saudi Arabia stopped renewing passports for the ethnic Muslim minority more than two years ago, in what campaigners call a pressure tactic exercised in many countries to force the Uighur diaspora to return home. Half a dozen Uighur families in Saudi Arabia who showed AFP their passports -- a few already expired and some approaching the date -- said they dread going back to China, where over a million Uighurs are believed to be held in internment camps.
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| French State’s Legal Adviser Warns Macron on Pension Reform Posted: 25 Jan 2020 03:40 AM PST ![French State's Legal Adviser Warns Macron on Pension Reform]( "French State's Legal Adviser Warns Macron on Pension Reform") (Bloomberg) -- Explore what's moving the global economy in the new season of the Stephanomics podcast. Subscribe via Apple Podcast, Spotify or Pocket Cast.France's supreme administrative jurisdiction warned there are gaps in the financial forecasts of President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform and said that it can't guarantee the legal certainty of the bills his cabinet approved on Friday.The criticism from the Council of State, which has an advisory role to the government, is a blow to Macron as he attempts a systemic overhaul of the nation's pension system in the face of mass protests and strikes.It may galvanize the opposition to the pension reform, which had been easing in recent days as the Paris public transport system resumed to an almost normal service and turnout at marches was lower than at the peak."I've never read such a negative study from the Council of State," Valerie Rabault, leader of the socialist opposition at the National Assembly, said in a post on Twitter.The council's overarching complaint is that it had insufficient time and "serenity" to guarantee the "legal security" of its examination of the pension bills."This situation is all the more regrettable because the bills lead to a reform of the pension system that is unprecedented since 1945 and aims to transform for decades to come a system that is a major component of the social contract," the council said.Regarding the financial impact of the reform, the council had already warned the government that its studies were insufficient. But an expanded investigation that the government submitted on Jan. 15 "is still incomplete," it said, and more analysis is needed of how the pension reform could affect employment rates of senior workers and the unemployment welfare system.To contact the reporter on this story: William Horobin in Paris at whorobin@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Lars Paulsson, Kasper ViitaFor 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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| Military investigating video of Navy members shot through peephole Posted: 25 Jan 2020 11:46 AM PST  The Navy is reportedly investigating videos found on the website Pornhub that it believes show unsuspecting Navy service members through a peephole in a bathroom.
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| U.S. to evacuate its citizens from Wuhan, China - WSJ Posted: 25 Jan 2020 04:01 AM PST  The plane, with around 230 people, will carry diplomats from the U.S. consulate as well as U.S. citizens and their families, the Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the operation. A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said that on Thursday, the State Department had ordered the departure of family members and all U.S. government employees at its Wuhan consulate, but declined to comment on the report that other U.S. citizens would be evacuated from the city.
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| What we learned at the Trump trial Saturday Posted: 25 Jan 2020 06:39 AM PST  Here are some of the key moments of the day.
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| Germany urged to fight anti-Semitism to avoid Jewish exodus Posted: 26 Jan 2020 04:41 AM PST  Germany's foreign minister is calling for strengthened efforts against anti-Semitism to ward off the possibility that many Jews decide to leave the country. Maas' comments came a day before the 75th anniversary of the Soviet liberation of the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp and at a time of rising concern in Germany and elsewhere in Europe about anti-Semitism. In October, a man tried to force his way into a synagogue in Halle on Judaism's holiest day, later killing two passers-by before being arrested.
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| Millions of locusts are swarming in Kenya. These striking photos show just how bad the outbreak is Posted: 25 Jan 2020 01:12 PM PST  Hundreds of millions of locusts are swarming into Kenya from neighboring Somalia and Ethiopia with unprecented size and destructive potential.
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| Trade Truce? China and America Have a Small Trade Deal—but Will It Last? Posted: 25 Jan 2020 05:00 PM PST  What if it falls apart?
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| Jordanian charged with 'terror' over tourist stabbings Posted: 25 Jan 2020 04:48 PM PST  A Jordanian court on Sunday levelled "terrorism" charges against a man suspected of wounding eight people in a November knife attack at a popular tourist site. The suspect, Moustafa Abourouis, 22, faces up to 20 years in prison after the stabbing of three Mexicans, a Swiss woman, a Jordanian tour guide and a security officer at the Roman city of Jerash. At a hearing open to the press, prosecutors accused Abourouis of committing a "terrorist act" and "promoting the ideas of a terrorist group" -- a reference to the Islamic State (IS) group.
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| Biden, Sanders Pull Further Ahead in ABC-WaPost National Poll Posted: 26 Jan 2020 07:17 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who represent rival visions for the Democratic Party, are solidifying their status as frontrunners in the crowded presidential field, according to a Washington Post-ABC News national poll.Coming just a week before voters finally get to have their say in the Iowa caucuses, the polls show Biden with a solid 32% overall among registered voters who lean Democratic, while Sanders registered support from 23%. Both are doing slightly better than in the same poll in October.Senator Elizabeth Warren, who was once considered a front-runner and earned endorsements from the New York Times a week ago and from the Des Moines Register in Iowa on Saturday, has seen a significant drop in her support. She was at 12% in this poll, down from 23% in October.Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has spent $250 million on advertising since getting a late start in the race and will not compete in the first contests, pulled in support from 8%. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.Businessman Andrew Yang, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar, who was also endorsed by The New York Times, were all mired in single digits.National polls are less predictive of the eventual winner at this point in the race because the winners of early-voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire often ride a wave of momentum and attention to surge nationally.The Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone Jan. 20-23. Results have an error margin of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.Separately, an NBC News/Marist poll for New Hampshire released on Sunday showed Sanders, at 22%, and Buttigieg at 17% leading in the state, with support for Biden and Warren also in the teens. That survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points and was also taken Jan. 20-23.This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.To contact the editor responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor 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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| Chinese people are turning on the government as the coronavirus outbreak spirals into the Lunar New Year Posted: 24 Jan 2020 10:04 PM PST  An unprecedented quarantine during the biggest festival of the year is proving a breaking point, as a fearful public faces the spreading virus.
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| Limited internet to be restored in Kashmir, no access to social media Posted: 25 Jan 2020 12:43 AM PST  Limited mobile data services and internet will be temporarily restored in Jammu and Kashmir from Saturday, ending nearly a six month communications lockdown after Prime Minister Narendra Modi withdrew the Muslim majority region's autonomy. Access will be limited to about 300 "whitelisted" websites and internet speed would remain low, the local Jammu and Kashmir government said in a notice late on Friday. The move to restore the services comes days after India's top court ordered the curbs to be reversed, saying that freedom of internet access is a fundamental right and that its indefinite suspension is illegal.
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| Forget impeachment. Republicans fear Ukraine revelations could spill into election. Posted: 25 Jan 2020 03:39 AM PST  It's not impeachment that's worrying Republicans. It's the months of steady revelations about the Ukraine saga that could follow.
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| Georgia inmate who came close to execution in 2017 dies Posted: 26 Jan 2020 06:13 AM PST  A Georgia death row inmate whose planned execution was halted in September 2017 by the U.S. Supreme Court after his lawyers argued his death sentence was tainted by a juror's racial bias has died, according to the state Department of Corrections. Keith "Bo" Tharpe, 61, died of natural causes Friday, Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Joan Heath confirmed in an email Sunday. In 1991, a jury convicted Tharpe of murder in the September 1990 slaying of his sister-in-law, Jacquelyn Freeman, and sentenced him to death.
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| Seven months detained: seven-year-old is longest-held child migrant in US Posted: 26 Jan 2020 01:00 AM PST  Maddie Hernandez and her father, Emerson, fled crime in Guatemala. After months, her parents says she has changedEmerson Hernandez and his daughter Maddie have withstood hunger and thirst.They've been dumped in a threatening border city in Mexico, a foreign country with nowhere to shelter. And, for seven months, they've been locked up at what critics call a "baby jail".The father and daughter have weathered all of this just for a chance at asylum in the United States after they fled a home in Guatemala that's now overrun with crime."I don't want my daughter to grow up in that environment of delinquency. I really am afraid that something could happen to her," Emerson told the Guardian.Maddie has been detained the longest of any child currently held in family immigration detention across the country, her attorneys say. On 17 January, she turned seven years old at Berks county residential center, a controversial detention facility in Pennsylvania where she has spent roughly 8% of her life.Despite her lawyers exhausting the legal avenues that could get her out, the government won't release her and Emerson together.A spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the agency detaining them, said, "ICE's custodial determinations for Mr. Hernandez and Maddie have been based on the merits and factors of their individual cases and are in conformity with the law and current agency priorities, guidelines and legal mandates."Emerson said Maddie has always been strong, but being confined for such a long time has changed her. She's gone from an easy, smiley little girl to someone who has become violent and throws explosive temper tantrums, according to her parents and an attorney."Her change was sudden," Emerson said. "And she says to me, 'When are we going to leave this place?'"The truth is no one knows. The Flores settlement, a landmark 1997 federal agreement that regulates child and family detention, made it the longstanding rule that kids and families should be released within 20 days. But there have been huge exceptions: Bridget Cambria, a lawyer representing Maddie, said the longest she was aware of a child being held through family detention was 707 days.Emerson and Maddie are desperate to see the rest of their family, Maddie's mother, Madelin, and her newborn baby, who still hasn't met his dad. Madelin traveled to the US with a visa and lives in New Jersey, but Maddie's visa application was denied. She and Emerson made a more perilous journey north last spring, when they went a full day without stopping."That day was hard for me," Emerson remembered. "To see that my daughter said to me, 'Papi, I'm thirsty, Papi, I want to eat,' and I had nothing to give her."Madelin said she came to the US because she thought her family would be reunited soon after. But Maddie and Emerson were swept into the Trump administration's increasingly hardline immigration policies, and Madelin hasn't seen them since.Last April, Emerson and Maddie finally made it to the US only to be turned back to Tijuana, Mexico, through the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a Trump-era program that returns people across the border while they await US immigration court hearings.Suddenly, they were homeless in one of the world's most dangerous cities.Emerson called Madelin to say there was no space for them at the local shelter. "I remember that he started to cry, and I did, too, because we didn't know what to do," she said.A US Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said around 57,000 people had been subject to MPP, and in October, Reuters found that 16,000 migrants under 18 had been sent to Mexico.At least 816 violent attacks against migrants under MPP have been reported, including 201 cases of children who were kidnapped or almost kidnapped, according to the not-for-profit Human Rights First.On days when Emerson and Maddie found housing with good Samaritans, she rarely went outside because the city was so dangerous."Tijuana is not a very pretty place, it's not a safe place," Emerson said.After two months in Mexico, they got their opportunity to go in front of a US immigration judge in June. Emerson made the mistake of following advice he said an immigration official gave him. He told the judge that he had come to the US to give his daughter a better life, a line that completely discredited his case.There are immigration laws that protect asylum seekers. There aren't immigration laws that protect devoted parents.The judge gave him two options: he could return to Mexico and, against all odds, continue to fight for the right to come to the US. Or – after all Emerson and Maddie had endured –they could return to Guatemala.Faced with an impossible choice, Emerson opted for the latter because at least if something happened to him at home, his family could look after his daughter and wife. But when he and Maddie boarded a plane, it didn't land in Guatemala. Instead, they took a long trip deep into the country's interior, to Berks county residential center in Leesport, Pennsylvania.The family immigration detention facility garnered national notoriety a few years ago after an employee admitted to sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman who was being held there. Critics have advocated for its closure, and reports of poor medical care and racism from employees have hamstrung the facility's reputation.But it continues to operate, as it has since 2001.After Emerson and Maddie arrived at Berks, they met Cambria, the attorney who has helped to revive their asylum bid. When the government flew them to San Diego in July and tried to return them to Mexico again, Cambria quickly filed a federal lawsuit to bring them back to Berks, where they've remained ever since.That lawsuit could eventually set a major precedent as to whether children can legally be placed under MPP. A ruling in Maddie's favor would mean other kids like her could sue the government, arguing they shouldn't be sent to Mexico. (Ice's spokesperson said the agency did not comment on pending litigation.)But Maddie didn't come to the US to challenge immigration policy. She's a kid who celebrated a Christmas and a birthday in detention, without her mom and little brother."This little girl is not doing well psychologically, we'll put it that way," said Cambria. "She's saying things that are scary. She's very sad."Ice has offered for Maddie to leave Berks, but without Emerson. This family separation is legally dubious, and Cambria said it was unprecedented in her experience representing immigrant families.Amy Maldonado, another of Maddie's lawyers, said Ice could release both Maddie and Emerson at any time, and has done so for families in similar situations.Cambria said she doesn't know why Ice is treating Emerson and Maddie differently from any other family at Berks. But the detention center is only for parents with children. If Maddie leaves and Emerson doesn't, he'll be sent away to another facility for adults or returned to Mexico.Maddie is so young that she thinks of everything she's gone through as a vacation, and she keeps telling her parents she's ready for the vacation to be over."When I speak to her, she sometimes cries and says, 'Mami, I want to leave already,'" Madelin said."'I want to leave already.'"
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| To Combat the Soviets, the U.S. Almost Built Its Own "Skyfall" Nuclear Powered Missile Posted: 26 Jan 2020 12:00 AM PST  The mistake was narrowly avoided.
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| Washington State's Department of Transportation Tweets That It Maybe, Just Maybe, Found Bigfoot. 'We Will Leave That Up to You' Posted: 25 Jan 2020 09:40 AM PST  A Sasquatch might be wandering near Sherman Pass. Well, at least according to the Washington State Department of Transportation's Twitter account
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| China stiffens defences against epidemic as death toll hits 56 Posted: 26 Jan 2020 09:40 AM PST  China expanded drastic travel restrictions Monday to contain an epidemic that has killed 56 people and infected nearly 2,000, as the US, France and Japan prepared to evacuate their citizens from a quarantined city at the outbreak's epicentre. China has locked down the hard-hit province of Hubei in the country's centre in an unprecedented operation affecting tens of millions of people in a bid to slow the spread of the respiratory virus. Its ability to spread appears to be "getting stronger" though it is "not as powerful as SARS", top Chinese health officials said at a press conference.
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| Bloomberg Offers Few Details to Back Up Trillions in Spending Posted: 25 Jan 2020 03:00 AM PST ![Bloomberg Offers Few Details to Back Up Trillions in Spending]( "Bloomberg Offers Few Details to Back Up Trillions in Spending") (Bloomberg) -- Ask Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg how he'll pay for his plans to create jobs, provide health insurance and repair roads and bridges, and you get the same answer: Wait until you see my tax plan.Bloomberg has released almost 20 proposals since joining the race on Nov. 24: $1.2 trillion for infrastructure. $70 billion of federal spending in low-income neighborhoods to aid black homeownership. Another trillion and a half for health care. He hasn't detailed where the money for the ambitious proposals will come from.If Bloomberg comes out of Super Tuesday among the Democratic race's top tier, there will be increasing pressure on him to explain how he's going to pay for his policies, said Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who hasn't endorsed a 2020 candidate."There will be a great hue and cry for him to add substance to his proposals and do it very quickly," Fowler said.Bloomberg's campaign says that it plans to release further details about the tax proposal as soon as next week and that it will show how he plans to pay for his proposals.That would mean details come out before 14 U.S. states vote March 3 on Super Tuesday, the contests on which Bloomberg is staking his campaign. But until then, voters have only heard him say he supports "taxing wealthy people like me" to pay for a growing list of policy proposals.The approach is at odds with Bloomberg's pitch -- that his three terms as New York mayor and in building the company that bears his name show he's a practical problem solver, someone who takes a data-driven approach to running government efficiently.It's also at odds with his Democratic rivals who often explain revenue streams when they propose big programs. No one does that more thoroughly than Elizabeth Warren, whose plan to pay for her $20.5 trillion health care plan ran 19 pages.Not that their estimates have always had pinpoint accuracy. Warren's and Sanders's Medicare For All cost estimates differ by $10 trillion. And academics have found Warren's, Biden's and Sanders's revenue estimates from their tax plans overly rosy.The lack of details hasn't stopped the Bloomberg campaign from rolling out the proposals in his campaign's earliest days, sometimes at a clip of two or three a week. The media has started to notice, as one recent Associated Press article led off by noting the lack of details about paying for a promise to create millions of new jobs.Bloomberg's plans on health care, the economy, climate change and other issues where he specifies costs total more than $3 trillion over 10 years. Many more don't list a cost.Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.His campaign has said it's hard to determine cost estimates because plans are related, and the cost or savings in one proposal can affect another. But the campaign has consistently said that Bloomberg's tax plan will pay for the policies he is releasing.Bloomberg himself has said little about his tax plan other than he supports increasing taxes on the rich but not with a wealth tax. He opposes the wealth taxes proposed by Warren and Bernie Sanders, which would place a tax on the fortunes of millionaires and billionaires.In a Jan. 11 interview, Bloomberg said the corporate tax rate cut in the Republicans' 2017 tax overhaul was necessary for competitive reasons but was too deep, and he opposed the measure's cuts in income-tax rates."I've said I didn't need the cut, and that was the money that we needed for infrastructure," Bloomberg said. "You can expect me to try to rectify that in our proposals."As New York's mayor, Bloomberg increased property taxes by 18.5% in 2003 – the largest in the city's history -- to generate $837 million to plug budget deficits. His poll numbers suffered but he was re-elected in 2005.Other Democratic presidential candidates have released cost estimates and funding sources for their plans in varying levels of detail. Joe Biden has said he would pay for $3.2 trillion in proposals with new and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, including a minimum federal levy targeting companies that have reported paying no federal income taxes in recent years.Sanders has said his Medicare-for-All plan alone would cost more than $30 trillion over a decade but hasn't fully detailed how he'd pay for it except to say taxes would go up while out-of-pocket health costs would go down.Leonard Burman, a fellow at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan policy research group in Washington, said he would expect Bloomberg "to put out a package where the revenues could cover the costs, but it's just really hard to tell what it would look like without knowing the exact price tag and the details." Burman co-founded the Tax Policy Center, which analyzes candidate tax plans.To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Niquette in Columbus at mniquette@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Craig GordonFor 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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| The US government will reportedly evacuate its diplomats and citizens from Wuhan on a chartered plane amid the coronavirus outbreak Posted: 25 Jan 2020 07:13 AM PST  A chartered Boeing 767 will transport US diplomats, citizens, and their families from Wuhan to some location in the US, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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| Mexico seeks U.S. extradition of drug lord's son over killing of reporter Posted: 24 Jan 2020 12:49 PM PST  Mexico is seeking the extradition from the United States of the son of a Sinaloa cartel drug lord over the 2017 killing of acclaimed journalist Javier Valdez, the attorney general's office said Thursday.
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| India's Republic Day celebrations marked with protests, blasts Posted: 26 Jan 2020 05:36 AM PST ![India's Republic Day celebrations marked with protests, blasts]( "India's Republic Day celebrations marked with protests, blasts") KOCHI/LUCKNOW, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Indians protested across the country on Sunday against a citizenship bill that many fear is discriminatory against the minority Muslim community. The protests, which began last month, gathered fresh momentum as India celebrated Republic Day, in commemoration of the day the Indian constitution came into effect. In the southern state of Kerala, organisers said more than a hundred thousand people formed a human chain.
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| Iranian FM: Tehran still willing to negotiate with US Posted: 25 Jan 2020 04:26 AM PST ![Iranian FM: Tehran still willing to negotiate with US]( "Iranian FM: Tehran still willing to negotiate with US") Iran is not ruling out negotiations with the United States even after an American drone strike that killed a top Iranian general, the country's foreign minister said in an interview released Saturday. Mohammed Javad Zarif told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine that he would "never rule out the possibility that people will change their approach and recognize the realities," in an interview conducted Friday in Tehran. There has been growing tension between Washington and Tehran since in 2018, when President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran.
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| Indiana 4-year-old dies after being accidentally shot while wrestling with his father Posted: 26 Jan 2020 10:13 AM PST ![Indiana 4-year-old dies after being accidentally shot while wrestling with his father]( "Indiana 4-year-old dies after being accidentally shot while wrestling with his father") A 4-year-old boy in Indiana died after he was shot accidentally by a handgun that discharged while he was wrestling around with his father.
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| In Peru, 'they teach you to be ashamed,' indigenous trans candidate says Posted: 25 Jan 2020 11:04 PM PST  The first indigenous transgender candidate to run for parliament in Peru says it's time to end the culture of machismo in the South American country. "I suffered, in my own flesh, the consequences of inequality, discrimination, violence and corruption," Gahela Cari, 27, said in an interview with AFP before Sunday's nationwide parliamentary ballot. "I'm an animal-rights advocate, an ecologist and a student leader," Cari told AFP.
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| Death Toll Rises in Turkey Quake as Erdogan Slams Social Media Posted: 26 Jan 2020 01:12 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- A magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Turkey's eastern Elazig province on Friday evening killed at least 31 people and injured hundreds. By Sunday, 45 people had been rescued from the rubble of collapsed buildings.A total of 76 buildings were destroyed and 645 heavily damaged, the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, or AFAD, said in a statement. As many as 20 of the 640 aftershocks since the first temblor had a magnitude greater than 4 on the Richter scale, according to the agency.Speaking on Sunday in Istanbul, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan targeted "provocative" social media posts about the earthquake. "Some messages are terrible, depraved," he said, according to the Anadolu Agency. "For example, some question what the government has done about earthquakes in the past two decades."The earthquake occurred at 8:55 p.m. local time on Friday at a depth of 6.75 kilometers (4.2 miles) on the East Anatolia Fault Line. Tremors were felt in many cities across the region.Prosecutors have launched an investigation into social media posts found to be "provocative," Anadolu reported. Two people in Gaziantep province have been detained.Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, Environment & Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum and Health Minister Fahrettin Koca were in Elazig as of early Sunday to coordinate rescue efforts.Turkey is situated in a seismically active area and is among countries, including China and Iran, that can experience catastrophic earthquakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1999, a 7.5-magnitude quake shook the western Marmara region killing thousands of people and damaging more than 300,000 buildings. The nation's economy contracted 3.4% that year.To contact the reporters on this story: Cagan Koc in Istanbul at ckoc2@bloomberg.net;Taylan Bilgic in Istanbul at tbilgic2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Lars Paulsson, Michael GunnFor 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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| NASA is hiring someone to help figure out how to get Mars rocks back to Earth — and the position pays at least $182,000 Posted: 25 Jan 2020 05:31 AM PST  The Mars Sample Return mission aims to get pristine rocks from the red planet back to Earth, perhaps by the end of the decade.
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| Racist threats rattle students, faculty at university Posted: 25 Jan 2020 07:21 AM PST  WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Three months after a set of anonymous, threatening, racist, antisemitic and homophobic emails sent a wave of fear through the sociology department at Wake Forest University, the department chairman says he's still waiting for university leaders to announce a meaningful response. Alarmed by what he deemed white supremacist terrorism, chairman Joseph Soares canceled sociology classes for a week. When they resumed, Wake Forest police officers were stationed outside classrooms and the building itself.
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| Chris Wallace Grills Dershowitz Over Shifting Stance on Whether Crime Is Necessary for Impeachment Posted: 26 Jan 2020 08:54 AM PST  Fox News anchor Chris Wallace took Alan Dershowitz, a member of President Donald Trump's impeachment defense team, to task over his shifting positions on impeachment over the years, noting on Sunday that the famed attorney previously claimed a president didn't have to commit a crime to be impeached.During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Wallace played a clip of Dershowitz discussing President Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998 in which Dershowitz argued that "if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don't need technical crime."Considering Dershowitz will now be arguing before the Senate that Trump can't be impeached because the House's articles don't detail a "technical crime," Wallace confronted the retired Harvard law professor on his apparent flip-flop."Let me ask about this, because when you argue that case, that what didn't have to be a crime in the Clinton impeachment, I find it very hard to believe that you had not studied the only other presidential impeachment in history, which was the [Andrew] Johnson impeachment," Wallace said. "So suddenly discovering that the key issue is what Justice Curtis argued in 1860, you're too good a lawyer not to have studied that back in 1998."Dershowitz attempted to argue that crime wasn't an issue in the Clinton impeachment because the then-president was charged with a crime, prompting the Fox host to point out that "we just put the sound bite up where you said it doesn't have to be a crime.""I've been immersing myself in dusty old books and I've concluded that no, it has to be a crime, it doesn't have to be a technical crime," Dershowitz countered. "That's what scholars do—that's what academics do."The lawyer also highlighted that Democrats and liberals have also changed their stances on impeachment, noting that fellow Harvard alum Laurence Tribe once said a sitting president couldn't be prosecuted but has since argued the opposite."It's also what lawyers do, which is depending on the facts of the case and the side they're arguing, they find an argument to make," Wallace shot back.Dershowitz, meanwhile, asserted that he had been making his argument "way, way, way before I was given the role to argue the constitutional case" for the Trump team.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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| Why Do We Have an Electoral College Again? Posted: 26 Jan 2020 08:44 AM PST  Who elects the president of the United States?In a democracy, that shouldn't be a trick question. Thanks to the Electoral College, it seems like one. The American people cast their ballots on a Tuesday in early November, but on a national level that vote is legally meaningless. The real election happens about six weeks later, when 538 presidential electors -- most of them average citizens chosen by local party leaders -- meet in their respective state capitals and cast their ballots.Nearly always, the electors vote for the candidate who won the most popular votes in their state. But do they have to? That's the question that the Supreme Court has agreed to answer in two related cases it will hear this spring. The cases -- one from Colorado and one from Washington -- raise an alarming prospect: Can presidential electors vote for whomever they please, disregarding what the voters of their state said?More than 160 "faithless electors" have chosen to go this route since the nation's founding, a tiny fraction of all electoral votes in history. But the issue has become freshly relevant because of a concerted effort to persuade dozens of Republican electors in 2016 to switch their votes to prevent Donald Trump from taking the White House. In the end, 10 electors voted or tried to vote for someone other than their state's popular-vote winner -- the most in a single election in more than a century. (In 1872, 63 electors went against their pledge to vote for Horace Greeley, the Liberal Republican candidate, but that was because Greeley died shortly after Election Day.)Even though faithless electors have never come close to changing the outcome of an election, more than two dozen states have passed laws requiring their electors to vote for the state's popular-vote winner. Some punish those who don't, while others replace faithless electors with ones who will do the job they pledged to do.Last May, Washington state's Supreme Court ruled that the state had the power to impose a $1,000 fine on its four faithless electors, on the ground that the Constitution gives the states total authority to decide how to appoint their electors.Three months later, a federal appeals court in Denver went the opposite way, ruling that the founders clearly intended for electors to act independently and vote according to their consciences, not to the dictates of any political party. Once a state appoints an elector, the court said, its power over that elector ends. They cannot punish someone, or replace him or her, for voting a certain way.The Constitution doesn't include any explicit guidance on the matter. So who's right? In a way, they both are.The framers of the Constitution, and the states that ratified it, clearly expected electors to vote as they pleased. In Federalist No. 68, Alexander Hamilton wrote that electors would be men "selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass" and "most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations."And yet, the Electoral College has almost never worked that way in practice. Less than a decade after the Constitution was drafted, the framers' idea of an independent elector was effectively kaput. As soon as national political parties took shape, elections became a partisan competition, and it was only logical that electors would start to take sides. In the election of 1796, electors were already pledging themselves either to John Adams, the sitting vice president and Federalist, or to Thomas Jefferson, the former secretary of state and Democratic-Republican. When one elector pledged to Adams changed his mind and voted for Jefferson, Federalists were outraged. One wrote, "Do I choose Samuel Miles to determine for me whether John Adams or Thomas Jefferson shall be President? No, I choose him to act, not to think."That's been the operating assumption ever since, and it is almost never questioned. Even the term "faithless" is revealing: What faith is an elector who votes his or her conscience breaking? Didn't the founders intend electors to be faithful above all to the country?Yes -- and yet they are not now and essentially never have been. For this reason, however the Supreme Court resolves the issue, which it will do by early summer, little will change in practice. Political parties and their candidates, who currently choose their own slate of electors in each state, are already careful about selecting people for their partisan loyalty. That selection process will only become stricter if the court rules that states may not interfere in any way with electors' votes.And faithless electors are unlikely to affect the outcome even if the Electoral College tally is very close, as it was in 2000, when as few as three Republican electors could have broken their pledges and handed the presidency to the Democratic nominee, Al Gore, who won the most votes nationwide. None did.That makes sense. Americans would rightly revolt if a handful of people they'd never heard of ignored their votes and decided the election for themselves. It's almost as if we believe that we, the people, should be voting directly for the president -- the only official whose job it is to represent all of us equally, wherever we live. Which raises the question of why we still have an Electoral College at all.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| India police decommission historic British-era rifles Posted: 26 Jan 2020 02:59 AM PST  Police in northern India on Sunday bid goodbye to the historic British-era bolt-action rifles after using them for one last salute during the annual Republic Day parade. The Lee-Enfield .303 rifle was the main firearm of British colonial military forces and, despite being designated "obsolete" around 25 years ago, it has been the main weapon used by police in Uttar Pradesh state over seven decades. "They have been in use since independence (from the British in 1947) and now they'll be replaced by INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) and SLRs (Self-Loading Rifles)," said police superintendent Amit Verma.
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| Italy Regions Vote in Test of Salvini Surge: Election Day Guide Posted: 25 Jan 2020 04:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Investors are viewing a Sunday regional vote in Italy as a key test on how long the rocky ruling coalition of the Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement can survive.The opposition League party led by Matteo Salvini is looking to snatch control of the center-left stronghold of Emilia Romagna, one of two regions voting over the weekend.A victory there would bolster Salvini's case for snap national elections he'd likely win. It is a popularity contest that's become even more significant following the resignation of the leader of Five Star, the biggest party in the government.While Salvini's party continues to ride high in the polls, opinion surveys show support for Five Star has cratered. Here's what you need to know.Who is voting?About 3.5 million people in Emilia Romagna and more than 1.5 million in the southern region of Calabria will elect governors and regional assemblies.Who will win?In prosperous Emilia Romagna -- a region historically dominated by the left -- polls have shown a virtual tie between the League and the center-left, with the latter holding the narrowest of leads in final surveys conducted before an electoral blackout period.Pre-blackout polls have pointed to a clear lead for a center-right coalition in Calabria.Though less symbolic than the leftist bastion in Emilia Romagna, a center-right win in Calabria would still be notable for Salvini, who fronts a party that once denigrated the south and called for northern Italy to secede.Will the government collapse if Salvini wins?Probably not, at least not right away. The parties backing Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte insist that regional votes don't have any impact on national politics. But a defeat in Emilia Romagna would be particularly hard to swallow for the Democrats, who might then begin rethinking whether their governing alliance with Five Star is really worth it.Brace for more turbulence in case of a League triumph but keep in mind that the government may actually grow stronger if the coalition parties become weaker. The glue holding them together is, after all, their shared desire to avoid snap elections that would put Salvini in power.What do markets say?Most analysts share the sanguine assessment that, in the short term, the government won't be directly affected by the outcome of this vote. However, they also highlight the concern that a weakened Conte will be even less capable of carrying out reforms that Italy's stagnant economy desperately needs.When to tune in?Voting is on Sunday, Jan. 26, between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. Italian time.Once polls close, Italy's state-run Rai television will publish exit polls, though it's possible they won't immediately point to a clear winner. After midnight, projections based on actual vote counts should start giving a clearer picture.The winner will likely be declared in the early hours of Monday morning and full results will come that day.Must readsItaly Coalition Girds for Succession Battle as Di Maio QuitsItaly Prepares for Prime Minister Salvini: Ferdinando Giugliano\--With assistance from Samuel Dodge.To contact the reporter on this story: Alessandro Speciale in Rome at aspeciale@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Jerrold Colten, Caroline AlexanderFor 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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| Family of five and their dog found dead in NC home Posted: 26 Jan 2020 07:18 AM PST ![Family of five and their dog found dead in NC home]( "Family of five and their dog found dead in NC home") A family of five and their dog were found dead Friday in their Vanceboro, North Carolina home, authorities said.
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| A Hurricane Damaged This Air Force Base, but Now It's Getting a 5g-Powered Upgrade Posted: 24 Jan 2020 03:00 PM PST  A smart base?
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| Hong Kong bans entry of visitors from China virus province Posted: 25 Jan 2020 06:24 PM PST  BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Residents of China's Hubei province, where the new coronavirus outbreak was first reported, will be banned from entering Hong Kong from Monday as China tries to halt the rapid spread of the outbreak. China's Cabinet also announced it will extend the week-long Lunar New Year holiday by three days to Feb. 2 and schools will return from their break later than usual, state broadcaster CCTV said. Health authorities around the world are racing to prevent a pandemic of the virus, which has infected more than 2,000 people in China and killed 56.
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| Sharpton to lead memorial service for teen killed by trooper Posted: 26 Jan 2020 06:06 AM PST  Family and friends of a 19-year-old Connecticut man killed by a state trooper earlier this month are set to gather Sunday for a memorial service featuring the Rev. Al Sharpton. The ceremony honoring Mubarak Soulemane will begin at 1 p.m. at the First Calvary Baptist Church in New Haven. It was the third fatal shooting by police in Connecticut since the new year began.
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