NEWS Alerts

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Former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) is encouraging Republican senators to vote in favor of calling witnesses in President Trump's impeachment trial.Warner, 92, served in the Senate for 30 years. He said in a statement Thursday night he is "mindful of the difficult responsibilities those currently serving now shoulder. I believe, as I am sure you do, that not only is the president on trial, but in many ways so is the Senate itself. As such, I am strongly supportive of the efforts of my former Republican Senate colleagues who are considering that the Senate accept the introduction of additional evidence that they deem relevant."It wasn't so long ago that "senators of both major parties always worked to accommodate fellow colleagues with differing points of view to arrive at outcomes that would best serve the nation's interests," Warner said. "If witnesses are suppressed in this trial and a majority of Americans are left believing the trial was a sham, I c

(Bloomberg) -- President Vladimir Putin’s pardon of an Israeli woman imprisoned in Russia on drug-smuggling charges gave a much-needed electoral gift to visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Naama Issachar, 26, was released Thursday from a prison outside of Moscow, according to Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service. She was arrested in April and sentenced in October to 7 1/2 years for carrying a small amount of hashish on a transit flight via Moscow after a backpacking trip to India.Putin pardoned Issachar late Wednesday. He had previously rebuffed Netanyahu’s appeals for her release and his about-face couldn’t have been timed better for the premier, who’s battling fraud and bribery charges ahead of March elections. The Israeli leader flew to Moscow from Washington, where he attended the unveiling of the U.S. Middle East peace plan, whose heavy tilt in Israel’s direction also favored his campaign.Netanyahu said Russian-Israeli relations were the strongest in history as he

Colombia rejected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's proposal that the two countries resume diplomatic relations on Thursday, amid a dispute over a fugitive former Colombian congresswoman who was captured in Venezuela. Maduro abruptly cut diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia last February after Colombian President Ivan Duque helped Venezuelan opposition politicians deliver humanitarian aid to their crisis-stricken country. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2uJc5CN

Vallow had until Thursday to turn her children over to the state of Idaho. She missed it and is believed to still be in Hawaii. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/38V69W1

The holiday was over for almost 80 Chinese visitors to Thailand. Wuhan has been under tight lockdown as Chinese authorities seek to contain further spread of the virus. The virus outbreak has attached a measure of fear and loathing to the city's name, as was demonstrated Friday when another group of Chinese tourists at the airport was asked whether they were the ones waiting for the flight to Wuhan. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2GSEadT

If it was made in China—or uses Chinese parts—it ain't flying. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2GDpJtP

Demand has plummeted because of the coronavirus outbreak, putting airline profits and China's economy at risk. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/36MARPQ

Asylum seekers sent to Mexico to wait US court hearings under Trump scheme routinely targeted for abduction, survey findsA staggering 80% of asylum seekers sent to Mexico to await US court hearings report being victims of violence, according a survey by Doctors Without Borders (MSF).In one month – October – three-quarters of asylum seekers seen by MSF physicians in Nuevo Laredo reported having been kidnapped for ransom, according to the figures released on Wednesday.Some 44% of MSF patients also reported having been victims of violence in the week leading up to their consultations.Wednesday marked the first anniversary of a scheme officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), under which migrants seeking asylum in the United States are sent to Mexico to wait as their cases wind their way through US courts.Under the scheme, also known as “remain in Mexico”, more than 57,000 non-Mexican asylum seekers have been sent to wait in cities along the border – many of which have been p

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Get Jonathan Bernstein’s newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe.The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump moved to questions from senators on Wednesday. It wasn’t an encouraging day.The president’s lawyers moved closer than ever to simply embracing the idea that the president can do whatever he wants. Alan Dershowitz even went so far as to argue that since presidents always think that their re-election is in the national interest, they cannot be legitimately impeached for any use of their powers of office to aid that re-election. This would have been good news for President Richard Nixon. And surprising news to pretty much everyone throughout U.S. history. It appears more and more that even if the House managers serving as the impeachment prosecutors are eventually allowed to call one or more witnesses, the trial will end after establishing the principles that the president may use the powers of the office any way he or she wishes t

The Trump administration, while insisting the risk to Americans from coronavirus is low, nevertheless declared a public health emergency on Friday and announced the extraordinary step of barring entry to the United States of foreign nationals who have traveled to China. In addition, starting on Sunday U.S. citizens who have traveled within the past two weeks to China's Hubei Province - epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic - will be subject to a mandatory quarantine of 14 days: the incubation period of the virus, officials said. The emergency measures were unveiled by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar at a White House briefing, shortly before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local health authorities announced a seventh U.S. coronavirus case had been confirmed in Northern California. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2OwyLxl

ROME—More than 7,000 people were quarantined on an Italian cruise ship in the Mediterranean port of Civitavecchia outside of Rome after a Chinese woman from Hong Kong came down with a fever and symptoms that mimic the coronavirus. Initial tests seemed to exclude the deadly virus, according to Italian media, but passengers were expected to be kept onboard overnight as a precaution. A second round of tests late Thursday completely excluded contagion, and Italy’s health authorities gave the green light for passengers to disembark. But as of Thursday evening, the mayor of Civitavecchia refused to authorize any passengers to get off the ship. Tourism operators, suddenly confronted with a new nightmare scenario tied to the virus, scrambled to address fears of an outbreak on a cruise ship. “We have no information, the internet inside the ship isn’t working, and we can’t get news. But above all we take meals together in the common areas, and we don’t know if someone is infected,” Liborio Iervo

The money will be donated through Ma's charitable foundation, which will use it to help medical research efforts and disease prevention. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/318gYSb

A former top Trump official has defended leading witnesses who have testified against the US president in his impeachment inquiry, according to local media.John Bolton reportedly said the ex-members of the Trump administration “acted in the best interest of the country as they saw it” as Democrats push to hear his own testimony. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2GINtgh

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will speak in the U.N. Security Council in the next two weeks about the plan, Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour said on Wednesday, adding that he hoped the 15-member council would also vote on a draft resolution on the issue. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/37O502j

A top Pakistani health official said Thursday that Islamabad had no immediate plan to evacuate any of some 30,000 nationals living in China to study and work, despite the new coronavirus that surfaced there. Zafar Mirza, who advises Prime Minister Imran Khan on health issues, told a news conference that so far only four Pakistani students in China have been diagnosed with the new virus and their conditions are listed as stable. China has been largely praised for its response to the outbreak. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2GEO3vA

The quarantine and fears of coronavirus have made Wuhan a ghost city. Residents only occasionally go out to stock up on supplies. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2S7kPL1

DES MOINES, Iowa—Of the many pledges that Pete Buttigieg has made in his as-yet unfruitful quest to earn the support of black voters, his guarantee that a quarter out of every federal contracting dollar will be awarded to minority- and women-owned businesses is one of his most ambitious. “Look at what it would be like if we were co-investing in promising businesses led by black entrepreneurs, start-ups and other kinds of businesses that have the best track record of creating the kind of employment that can help lift people up economically,” Buttigieg told BET in September. But an analysis of such spending during Buttigieg’s tenure as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, shows that the presidential hopeful fell dramatically short of that goal. According to a 2019 study analyzing the city’s contract data conducted by Colette Holt & Associates, a national law and consulting firm specializing in disparity studies, the city of South Bend did not award a major contract to a black-owned business

Hungary will begin an ambitious prison-building program in an attempt to stem a tide of costly lawsuits by inmates complaining of overcrowding and inhumane conditions, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. Orban accused "business-savvy lawyers" of exploiting the conditions to launch 12,000 lawsuits against the Hungarian state for breaking EU prison standards, leading to penalties of 10 billion forints ($33 million) in total. Orban, who has often come under fire from the European Union and rights groups over his perceived erosion of the rule of law since he took power in 2010, announced plans for more prisons to reduce the prison overcrowding and disarm "malignant lawyers". from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2uajlrj

Classicist Mary Beard explains one of her favourite paintings, Titian's Tarquin and Lucretia. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/36Lbxtf

A military review of security for U.S. forces deployed to Africa has found “potential vulnerabilities” in multiple locations, the head of U.S. Africa Command told reporters Thursday. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/38TEPaE

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts signaled to Republican senators Wednesday that he will not say the name of the alleged Ukraine whistleblower during the question and answer session of the Senate impeachment trial.Roberts refused to read aloud a question submitted by Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) that contained the whistleblower's name. The justice is tasked with reading questions submitted by senators, and Paul's question was the first to contain the name of the alleged whistleblower."We’ve got members who, as you have already determined I think, have an interest in questions related to the whistleblower," Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R., S.D.) told Politico. "But I suspect that won’t happen. I don’t think that happens. And I guess I would hope it doesn’t."Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) has also reportedly cautioned against naming the whistleblower during impeachment proceedings. Paul, however, has said the name in several media r

The U.S. Navy promoted Chief Petty Officer Tony DeDolph four months after he admitted to choking a Green Beret to death. DeDolph—who will be back in court Thursday for a preliminary hearing—was formally charged in November 2018 with felony murder, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, burglary, hazing, and involuntary manslaughter in the strangulation death of Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar, a Special Forces soldier assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group.Melgar was nearing the end of his deployment when he was killed in the West African nation of Mali in June 2017. He was part of an intelligence operation in Mali supporting counterterrorism efforts against al Qaeda’s local affiliate, known as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.Days after Melgar was strangled, DeDolph, at the time a petty officer first class, was sent back to his base in Virginia Beach under suspicion of murder. Despite that, DeDolph found himself on the promotion list for chief petty officer in August 2017; he was “frocked”

ZURICH/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A humanitarian channel to bring food and medicine to Iran has started trial operations, the Swiss and U.S. governments said on Thursday, helping supply Swiss goods to the struggling population without tripping over U.S. sanctions. The Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA) seeks to ensure that Swiss-based exporters and trading companies in the food, pharmaceutical and medical sectors have a secure payment channel with a Swiss bank through which payments for their exports to Iran are guaranteed, a government statement said. Three shipments of cancer and transplant drugs have been sent to Iran through this channel and the transaction has been processed, U.S. Special Representative Brian Hook told a press briefing. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2vyeVuJ

After all that, it all could be over sometime on Friday.Donald Trump appears to be on a metaphorical bullet train to acquittal on charges of abusing the power of the presidency and unjustly stonewalling Congress. And one of his once most unlikely of allies, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is the conductor. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Ua7Gne

Michael Owen Jr., a veteran of the Prince George's County Police Department, was charged with murder Tuesday in the shooting death of William Green. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ObLZiG

Donald Trump has raged at his ex-national security adviser John Bolton, saying the Ukraine claims made in his forthcoming new memoir are “nonsense” and declaring he would have started “World War Six” if he had not been removed from office last September as the Republican effort to discredit him continues.A new poll by Quinnipiac University has meanwhile found that 75 per cent of Americans want to hear from Mr Bolton at the president’s Senate impeachment trial as GOP majority leader Mitch McConnell is forced to admit he does not currently have the votes to stop Democrats calling new witnesses to speak out. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2OapaMd

Fox News Breaking News Alert PROGRAMMING ALERT: Sen. Rand Paul talks impeachment fight on 'The Story,' 7 pm ET 01/30/20 3:52 PM

While numbers have fallen for the fifth summer running, the BBL remains one of the most successful leagues in Australia from Cricket news from ESPN Cricinfo.com https://ift.tt/2RKkb7r

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U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday tried to shift the focus of President Donald Trump's impeachment trial to the unnamed government official whose whistleblower complaint about Trump's dealings with Ukraine spurred the drive to remove him from office. from Reuters: U.S. https://ift.tt/2S162Bu

Sales were up 20% over the festive season in sharp contrast to weakness at other retailers. from BBC News - World https://ift.tt/2Ubwifk

The death toll in China from the new coronavirus reached 213 on Friday, with overall cases worldwide rising rapidly in an outbreak that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency. from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/2uRP3tl

China's National Health Commission (NHC) said on Friday the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in the country rose to 213 as of end-Thursday, with another 1,982 new cases confirmed. from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/2uIJjCh

Pilots and flight attendants are demanding airlines stop flights to China as health officials declare a global emergency over the rapidly spreading coronavirus, with American Airlines' pilots filing a lawsuit seeking an immediate halt. from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/38WzLCG