| Trump to veto Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez resolution blocking national emergency unless Republicans lend support Posted: 17 Feb 2019 08:36 AM PST  Donald Trump is prepared to issue the first veto of his presidency over a national emergency declaration his critics have slammed as an unconstitutional power grab, a senior White House official said on Sunday. White House senior adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News Sunday that "the president is going to protect his national emergency declaration". The president declared the emergency Friday in an effort to go around Congress to fund his border wall.
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| Indian authorities detain 23 after deadly Kashmir attack Posted: 17 Feb 2019 11:06 AM PST  Indian forces have detained 23 men suspected of links to the Pakistan-based militant group that masterminded the bombing of an Indian security convoy that killed 44 paramilitary police, a top police official said on Sunday. The 23 men included members and sympathisers of Jaish-e-Mohammad, the militant group that claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack, the deadliest on Indian security forces in decades. The attack has fuelled tensions between India and Pakistan. India has demanded Pakistan close down Jaish-e-Mohammad and other Islamist militant groups that operate from its soil, while Islamabad has rejected suggestions it was linked to the attack. Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region at the heart of decades of hostility, is claimed in its entirety by India and Pakistan, but is ruled in part by both south Asian countries. Representatives of India's National Investigating Agency questioned the suspects about the bombing on Sunday, two security officials said. "They are trying to reach out to the top commanders of Jaish-e-Mohammad, including its Kashmir Chief," one of the sources said. Mohammed Umair, the commander of the group in Kashmir who is believed to have plotted the attack, is suspected to be hiding in the region where the attacks took place, the officials said. The officials say Mr Umair had "radicalized and motivated" the Kashmiri school dropout who rammed a car laden with explosives into the convoy on Thursday. Mr Umair is thought to have entered Indian Kashmir from Pakistan in September to head the Jaish in the region. Security forces suspect he is in hiding in southern Kashmir, according to the officials, who could not be named as a matter of policy. Indian officials say Mr Umair is a nephew of Jaish-e-Mohammad's chief, Masood Azhar, who is believed to be in Pakistan. Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, has promised a strong response to the attack and says he has given the military a free hand to tackle cross-border militancy.
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| Netanyahu's main rival in Israeli election voices agreement with him on Iran Posted: 17 Feb 2019 03:38 AM PST  Former general Benny Gantz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's strongest challenger in an election scheduled for April, voiced support on Sunday for the right-wing leader's tough policy toward Iran. "I am standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Prime Minister Netanyahu in the fight against Iran's aggression," Gantz, a former chief of Israel's armed forces and a centrist candidate, told the Munich Security Conference. Polls predict that Netanyahu's Likud party will win the April 9 election, taking about 30 of parliament's 120 seats - enough to form a coalition of right-wing and religious factions similar to one he now heads.
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| Gone in a New York minute: How the Amazon deal fell apart Posted: 16 Feb 2019 11:59 AM PST  NEW YORK (AP) — In early November, word began to leak that Amazon was serious about choosing New York to build a giant new campus. The city was eager to lure the company and its thousands of high-paying tech jobs, offering billions in tax incentives and lighting the Empire State Building in Amazon orange.
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| New Jersey Makes Bid for Amazon HQ2 After Company Pulls Out of New York Posted: 15 Feb 2019 07:24 PM PST  On the first full day after Amazon scrapped its plans to open its second headquarters in Queens, New Jersey made it very clear that it wants as many of the company`s jobs as possible to be added in the Garden State.
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| Jihadi bride Shamima Begum gives birth and says 'people should have sympathy for me' Posted: 17 Feb 2019 02:15 PM PST  The British schoolgirl who ran away to join Isil has appealed for public sympathy following the birth of her son, as a row intensifies over whether she should be allowed to return to the UK. Shamima Begum, 19, went to Syria in 2015 and was discovered there in a refugee camp last week, heavily pregnant and insisting she wanted to go home. The birth of her child over the weekend prompted calls for the baby to be subject to care proceedings should Begum be able to return from Syria, as it emerged that the Family Division of the High Court had presided over cases involving at least 150 children deemed at risk of radicalisation in the last five years. In an interview with Sky News recorded at the Kurdish-controlled camp she fled to from the last pocket of Isil-controlled territory, Begum said there was "no evidence" she had done anything wrong and she could not see "any reason" why her child should be taken from her when she had simply been living as a housewife. Speaking just hours after giving birth, her baby at her side, she said she had no regrets about fleeing the family home in Bethnal Green, east London, to support Isil, claiming the experience had made her "stronger, tougher". Shamima Begum's Dutch-born husband Yago Riedjik She said she could see a future for herself and her son, whom she has named Jarah after one of the two children she lost to malnutrition and disease in the last three months, "if the UK are willing to take me back and help me start a new life again and try and move on from everything that's happened in the last four years". She added: "I wouldn't have found someone like my husband [Yago Riedijk, 26, a Muslim convert from the Netherlands] in the UK. I had my kids, I had a good time there." Her other children, Jarah and Surayah, a daughter, died aged 18 months and nine months. Asked how she felt about the debate over whether she should be allowed to return home, Begum said: "I feel a lot of people should have sympathy for me, for everything I've been through. "I didn't know what I was getting into when I left, I just was hoping that maybe for the sake of me and my child they let me come back. "I can't live in this camp forever. It's not really possible." Isil bride Shamima Begum | Read more In the interview, Begum apologised for the first time to her family for running away, and said that though she knew it was "like a big slap in the face" for her to ask after she had previously rejected their calls for her to return, "I really need their help". Tim Loughton, deputy chairman of the home affairs select committee, said he thought it "extraordinary" that Begum was asking to come back while showing "not a scintilla of regret". The Conservative MP added: "My own feeling is in line with most others, that she has made her bed and should lie in it. But the law must prevail and we are probably going to have to let her back. "However, I think her child should be subjected to care proceedings due to the threat of radicalisation." He said a forthcoming report by the Henry Jackson Society disclosed that the Family Division of the High Court had presided over cases involving at least 150 children deemed at risk of radicalisation in the last five years. Isil schoolgirls' journey into Syria Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, said last week that he would "not hesitate" to prevent the return of anyone who supported terrorist organisations abroad. He reiterated his stance in a Sunday newspaper article, expressing compassion for any child born or brought into a conflict zone, but stating that the safety and security of children living in this country had to be the priority. Jeremy Wright, the Culture Secretary and former Attorney General, said Britain was "obliged" to take back British citizens. However, he added: "That doesn't mean that we can't put in place the necessary security measures to monitor their activities. It doesn't mean either that we can't seek to hold them to account for their behaviour thus far." He said the nationality of Begum's baby was a "difficult question", but the pair's health was the most pressing matter. "In the end she will have to answer for her actions," he added. "So I think it is right that if she's able to come back to the UK that she does so on the understanding that we can hold her to account for her behaviour thus far." Begum said she was attracted to Isil by videos that she had seen online, which she said showed "how they'll take care of you". She said she knew that the group carried out beheadings, but that she "was OK with it at first. I started becoming religious just before I left and from what I heard Islamically that is all allowed". "At first it was nice," she said of life in the so-called Islamic State. "It was how they showed it in the videos, you know, you come, make a family together, but then things got harder. "We had to keep moving and moving and moving. The situation got fraught." Begum acknowledged that it would be "really hard" to be rehabilitated after everything she had been through. "I'm still in that mentality of planes over my head, emergency backpacks, starving... it would be a big shock to go back to the UK and start again," she said. Writing in The Sunday Times, Mr Javid said that decisions about what to do with potential returnees had to be made on a case-by-case basis, based on the "facts of each case, the law and the threat to national security". He added: "I think about the children that could in future get caught up in dangerous groups if we don't take a firm stance against those who support them… And that means sending a message to those who have backed terrorism: there will be consequences." His comments were described as "sick" by Begum's lawyer on Sunday. Tasnime Akunje told Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "We are talking about a newborn baby who poses no risk or threat to anybody, [who is] not even cognitive, and yet he's speaking about a child who's a British citizen in terms of a security threat." Mr Akunje suggested that the birth of Begum's child increased pressure on the British authorities to allow her to return home. He also revealed that Begum's family has struggled to make direct contact with her and is now considering the possibility of getting out to Syria themselves. Her family has indicated that if she is jailed for supporting a terrorist group, they want to step in and raise her son themselves.
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| U.S. Appeal for NATO Personnel in Syria Brushed Off by Spain Posted: 16 Feb 2019 09:57 AM PST  Vice President Mike Pence told reporters at the Munich Security Conference that the U.S. is asking NATO members and other partners to provide "the resources and the support and the personnel" required to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State once U.S. operations conclude. "Requests between countries aren't made in press releases or conference comments," Spain's Josep Borrell said at a briefing in Munich on Saturday.
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| Yemen sides agree deal on first pullback: UN Posted: 17 Feb 2019 02:32 PM PST  Yemen's government and Huthi rebels have agreed on the first phase of a pullback of forces from the key city of Hodeida, in a deal the United Nations described Sunday as important progress. The redeployment from Hodeida is a critical part of a ceasefire deal reached in December in Sweden that calls on the government and Huthis to move forces away from ports and parts of city. The fragile truce deal marks the first step toward ending a devastating war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.
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| The Latest: Smollett says no truth he played role in attack Posted: 17 Feb 2019 03:10 AM PST  CHICAGO (AP) — The Latest on the investigation of the attack on Jussie Smollett (all times local):
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| Merck, Pfizer drug combo extends kidney cancer survival: study Posted: 16 Feb 2019 02:19 PM PST  Nearly 90 percent of patients who received the combination therapy were still alive after 12 months compared with about 78 percent of patients who were alive after a year when treated with the older drug Sutent, data showed. Merck on Monday released interim data from the trial, saying the combination reduced the risk of death by 47 percent compared with Sutent. The findings add to an arsenal of positive clinical data for Keytruda, which is approved to treat several types of cancer, making it by far Merck's most important growth driver.
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| Amazon pays zero federal taxes for second year in succession despite doubling profits, says new report Posted: 16 Feb 2019 12:49 PM PST  Amazon has paid zero federal taxes for the second year in succession, despite a doubling of its profits, according to a new report. Although the tech giant founded by Jeff Bezos saw its profits grow from $5.6bn (£4.3bn) in 2017 to $11.2bn (£8.7bn) in 2018, it will actually receive a tax rebate of $129m (£100m). "The company's newest corporate filing reveals that, far from paying the statutory 21 per cent income tax rate on its US income in 2018, Amazon reported a federal income tax rebate of $129m," said the report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), which describes itself as a "non-partisan, non-profit think tank", based in Washington DC.
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| How to Watch the Super Snow Moon, the Biggest Supermoon of 2019 Posted: 17 Feb 2019 06:00 AM PST  Here's what to know about the upcoming February full moon, also known as the 'super snow moon'— and what the best time is to see it.
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| Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman heads to Pakistan on Asian diplomatic offensive Posted: 17 Feb 2019 05:10 AM PST  Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman flew to Pakistan at the start of a three nation diplomatic tour designed to repair the kingdom's reputation and bolster ties with key regional allies. The crown prince's visit could be overshadowed by dangerously spiraling tensions between Pakistan and India. The trip comes days after a suicide bomber killed 44 Indian paramilitary police in the disputed Kashmir region. New Delhi has accused Pakistan of having a hand in Thursday's attack and vowed to punish Islamabad, which denies involvement. Iran, a regional rival of Saudi Arabia, accused Pakistan of harbouring and training militants behind a suicide bombing in Baluchistan that killed 27 troops on Wednesday. Crown prince Mohammed is expected to travel to Dehli to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday. He will spend Thursday and Friday in China. The three nation tour has been characterized as part of a Saudi "pivot to the east" and is in part meant to repair the crown prince's reputation following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the ensuing state-led cover-up. Despite his vow to shift Saudi Arabia to renewable energy, the trip is also in part a roadshow to sell Saudi oil. China is the world's largest buyer of Saudi crude, and India is close behind. As the guardians of the most holy site in Islam, the Saudi royal family carry great clout in Pakistan. The visit also deepens a long standing alliance that has seen Saudi Arabia propping up Pakistan's fragile economy. Pakistani officials have said that Saudi Arabia will announce eight investment agreements during the visit, including a $10 billion refinery and petrochemicals complex in the coastal city of Gwadar, where China is building a port. Saudi Arabia has in recent months helped keep Pakistan's economy afloat by propping up its rapidly dwindling foreign exchange reserves with a $6 billion loan, giving Islamabad breathing room as it negotiates a bailout with the International Monetary Fund.
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| Hong Kong economy stalls amid trade dispute: finance chief Posted: 17 Feb 2019 01:31 AM PST  Hong Kong's economy stalled last year as the ongoing China-US trade dispute and retail woes dragged down local business, the city's financial chief said Sunday. Beijing and Washington have already imposed duties on more than $360 billion in two-way trade, roiling global financial markets and weighing heavily on manufacturing output in both countries. "The impact of China-US trade frictions on Hong Kong's exports has clearly emerged at the end of last year," said finance secretary Paul Chan.
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| Email Address Given to Ocasio-Cortez Beau Sparks Heated Exchange Posted: 16 Feb 2019 11:51 AM PST  "While you were having a nice Valentine's Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff -- drawing a salary on the taxpayer's dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly," the conservative magazine's Luke Thompson said on his Twitter feed. Other conservative voices piled on, with Katrina Pierson, an adviser to President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, who suggested that "her jobs for everyone starts with her boyfriend.
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| How the 'Block' 4 F-35 Stealth Fighter Could Become A Navy Killer (And Much More) Posted: 15 Feb 2019 11:00 PM PST  New weapon systems due to be integrated in the Block 4 that will significantly expand the F-35's maritime strike, air-to-ground capabilities and air-to-air lethality.
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| Illinois factory gunman obtained firearm permit despite felony conviction Posted: 16 Feb 2019 05:12 PM PST  Gary Martin, 45, who carried his pistol to work on Friday apparently suspecting he faced dismissal from his job, opened fire after being told of his termination in a meeting at the Henry Pratt Company plant in Aurora, Illinois, about 40 miles (64 km) west of Chicago, police said. The dead included the plant manager, a human resources supervisor, a human resources intern and two other workers. A sixth employee and five police officers responding to the scene were wounded, and the gunman himself was slain about 90 minutes later in a gunfight with police who stormed the building.
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| Potential privacy lapse found in Americans' 2010 census data Posted: 16 Feb 2019 04:08 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — An internal team at the Census Bureau found that basic personal information collected from more than 100 million Americans during the 2010 head count could be reconstructed from obscured data, but with lots of mistakes, a top agency official disclosed Saturday.
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| Back in the Bronx, Ocasio-Cortez says to keep up the fight Posted: 16 Feb 2019 03:36 PM PST  NEW YORK (AP) — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez returned to her home district in the New York City borough of the Bronx on Saturday to encourage her supporters to keep up the kind of activism that resulted in Amazon rescinding its plan to build a campus in the city.
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| How many push-ups can you do? Study finds men who can do 40 have lower risk of heart disease Posted: 17 Feb 2019 02:02 PM PST ![How many push-ups can you do? Study finds men who can do 40 have lower risk of heart disease]( "How many push-ups can you do? Study finds men who can do 40 have lower risk of heart disease") Active, middle-aged men who could do more than 40 push-ups in timed test had significantly lower risks for heart problems, according to a new study.
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| NASA posts image of ghostly blue objects, deep in the cosmos Posted: 17 Feb 2019 08:19 AM PST  When a star is born, a chaotic light show ensues. NASA's long-lived Hubble Space Telescope captured vivid bright clumps moving through the cosmos at some 1,000 light years from Earth. The space agency called these objects clear "smoking gun" evidence of a newly formed star — as new stars blast colossal amounts of energy-rich matter into space, known as plasma. Seen as the vivid blue, ephemeral clumps in the top center of the new image below, these are telltale signs of an energy-rich gas, or plasma, colliding with a huge collection of dust and gas in deep space. As NASA says, these blue masses are transient creations in the cosmos, as "they disappear into nothingness within a few tens of thousands of years." Bright lights inside a nebula. Image: ESA/Hubble/NASA/K. Stapelfeldt These blue clumps are traveling at 150,000 mph toward the upper left direction (from our view, anyhow). In total, there are five of these ghostly clumps, hurtling through space. SEE ALSO: Opportunity rover's last picture is as grim as it is dark NASA doesn't identify the new star itself, called SVS 13, perhaps because it's obscured by thick clouds of cosmic matter. This collection of dust and gas is part of a distant nebula, which are often the remnants of exploded stars swirling through the infinity of space. WATCH: Ever wonder how the universe might end?
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| Iranians cry 'revenge' at funeral of suicide bomb victims Posted: 16 Feb 2019 06:34 AM PST  Tens of thousands of Iranians called for "revenge" Saturday at the funeral of 27 Revolutionary Guards killed in a suicide attack perpetrated by jihadists that Tehran accuses Pakistan of supporting. "The government of Pakistan must pay the price of harbouring these terrorist groups and this price will undoubtedly be very high," said Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, referring to jihadist outfit Jaish al-Adl ("Army of Justice"). "The Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer observe the previous reservations and will directly act to counter such acts," Jafari told mourners gathered at the city of Isfahan's Bozorgmehr Square.
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| Potato rösti Posted: 17 Feb 2019 02:00 AM PST  This potato rösti is the perfect way to use up that last bit of cheese in the fridge. SERVES Two INGREDIENTS 500g potatoes, ideally a nice waxy chip potato 1 small onion, finely sliced 1 garlic clove, crushed and chopped Pinch of dried chilli 50g butter 120g mixed grated cheese such as cheddar, gruyere or comté (a great opportunity to use up leftovers) Large pinch of fresh or dried sage METHOD Peel the potatoes and coarsely grate them into a bowl. Add the onion, garlic and chilli and season well. Tip onto a tea towel and squeeze them tightly to remove any excess liquid, then return to the bowl and mix in 25g of the butter, diced. Add 15g of the butter to a large non-stick and ovenproof frying pan (large enough to hold the potato mixture) and allow to melt. Press the potato mixture into the pan and cook over a medium heat until the underside starts to crisp – from around six to 10 minutes. When ready, flip the rosti onto a plate (cooked side up), melt the rest of the butter in the pan and slide the rosti into it to cook on the other side for about 10 minutes, until browned and cooked through. To finish, preheat the grill and sprinkle the rosti with the grated cheese and sage, along with a good grinding of black pepper. Place until the grill until the cheese melts and bubbles. Serve with a crisp green salad. RECIPES | Angela's budget-friendly dishes
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| Top US officials considered removing Trump using 25th amendment, FBI lawyers confirm Posted: 17 Feb 2019 02:57 AM PST  An explosive claim that senior officials at the FBI and Justice Department discussed forcing Donald Trump out of office has been backed by two more witnesses in secret Congressional hearings. Former acting head of the FBI Andrew McCabe revealed earlier this week there had been conversations at the top echelons of the government about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Mr Trump after he fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017.
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| Venezuela's Exit From U.S. Sanctions? Show Maduro the Door Posted: 16 Feb 2019 01:00 AM PST  The Treasury Department said Friday it would "consider lifting sanctions" on those who take concrete steps to "restore democratic order" in the country, as it imposed fresh penalties on five of Maduro's close associates, including Venezuelan Oil Minister and PDVSA Chairman Manuel Quevedo. The move is the latest in a series of steps the U.S. has taken to chip away at Maduro's inner circle.
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| San Jose hostage situation involving UPS truck ends, suspect shot, killed Posted: 15 Feb 2019 06:47 PM PST  The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office says the suspect who was in a standoff in a UPS truck was shot and killed after attempting to run from the truck. Friends have identified the suspect as Mark Morasky.
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| Germany's SPD climbs in polls after welfare rethink Posted: 17 Feb 2019 05:24 AM PST  Support for Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) has hit its highest level in almost six months, a poll showed on Sunday, a week after the center-left party outlined new welfare plans aimed at winning back working class voters. Ahead of European elections in May and four regional votes this year, the Emnid poll for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper put support for the SPD, which shares power with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, on 19 percent, up 2 points from a week ago.
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| Medical emergency triggers stampede at San Francisco theater Posted: 16 Feb 2019 02:11 PM PST  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Chaos broke out during a performance of the musical "Hamilton" at San Francisco's Orpheum theater Friday night after audience members mistook a medical emergency for a shooting.
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| Sex abuse survivors say Vatican summit must deliver action Posted: 17 Feb 2019 10:28 AM PST  VATICAN CITY (AP) — Roman Catholics who were sexually abused by clergy are insisting that decisive actions to confront the decades-long problem of pedophile priests and church cover-ups must come out of an upcoming Vatican summit.
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| Irish backstop can't be changed for Brexit deal: Estonian president Posted: 17 Feb 2019 02:38 AM PST  There can be no changes to the Irish "backstop", an arrangement to avoid a hard border between European Union member Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland after Brexit, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid told Reuters. Many British lawmakers, especially in Prime Minister Theresa May's governing Conservative Party, fear the backstop will trap the UK in a permanent customs union with the EU after Brexit.
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| Iran launches 'cruise missile capable' submarine Posted: 17 Feb 2019 07:35 AM PST  Iran on Sunday launched a new locally-made submarine capable of firing cruise missiles, state TV said, in the country's latest show of military might at a time of heightened tensions with the US. The launch ceremony, led by President Hassan Rouhani, took place in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas. "Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is fully self-reliant on land, air and sea," Rouhani said.
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| Archaeologists discover Incan tomb in Peru Posted: 15 Feb 2019 08:07 PM PST  Peruvian archaeologists discovered an Incan tomb in the north of the country where an elite member of the pre-Columbian empire was buried, one of the investigators announced Friday. The discovery was made on the Mata Indio dig site in the northern Lambayeque region, archaeologist Luis Chero told state news agency Andina. Archaeologists believe the tomb belonged to a noble Inca based on the presence of "spondylus," a type of sea shell always present in the graves of important figures from the Incan period, which lasted from the 12th to the 16th centuries.
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| Collusion: The Criminalization of Policy Disputes Posted: 16 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  What a weasel word "collusion" is.In Washington, Senator Richard Burr (R., N.C.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, has now seen fit to pronounce that, after two years of investigation, the panel has found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian regime. Meanwhile, in a nearby courtroom, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's senior staffer, Andrew Weissmann, told a federal judge that an August 2016 meeting between the then-chairman of the Trump campaign and a suspected Russian intelligence officer "goes . . . very much to the heart of what the special counsel is investigating" -- which sure sounds like Mueller's collusion hunt is alive and well.What gives?Readers of these columns know that the "collusion" label has been a pet peeve of your humble correspondent since the media-Democratic "Putin hacked the election" narrative followed hard on the declaration of Donald Trump's victory in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, November 9, 2016.The reason for the collusion label is obvious. Those peddling the "Putin hacked the election" story have always lacked credible evidence that Trump was complicit in the Kremlin's "cyber-espionage." They could not show a criminal conspiracy. Connections between denizens of Trump World and Putin's circle might be very intriguing, and perhaps even politically scandalous. But only a conspiracy -- an agreement by two or more people to commit an actual criminal offense, such as hacking -- would be a reasonable basis for prosecution or impeachment.This dearth of proof was significant. The Russians apparently started hacking operations in 2014, long before Trump entered the race. The FBI first warned the Democratic National Committee about penetration of its servers in September 2015. By the time Trump won, the Bureau and U.S. intelligence agencies had been working hard to understand the nature and extent of Kremlin-directed hacking operations for two years. The investigation was so high-level, so intense, that shortly before the election, there were confrontational conversations between CIA director John Brennan and his Russian counterpart, FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov, and later between President Obama and Russian president Putin.Yet, as thorough as the investigation was, no one could credibly say Trump was a participant in Russia's malfeasance. The best Obama's notoriously politicized CIA could say was that Trump was Putin's intended beneficiary.Unable to establish conspiracy, Trump's opposition settled on collusion. It is a usefully slippery word. Collusion just means concerted activity -- it can be sinister or benign. It can refer to a conspiracy or to any arrangement people have together, including those that may be sleazy but non-criminal.This commitment to ambiguity came in handy for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein when he appointed Robert Mueller to be special counsel. After President Trump fired FBI director James Comey on May 9, 2017, and then shamefully talked Comey down for the consumption of Russian diplomats visiting the White House the next day, Rosenstein came under intense pressure. Because he had written the memorandum originally used to justify Comey's dismissal, congressional Democrats slammed him for complicity in what they portrayed as Trump's obstruction of the Russia probe. Rosenstein wanted to appease them by appointing the special counsel they were demanding.Special counsels, however, are not supposed to be appointed unless there is a solid basis to believe a crime has been committed. Rosenstein was lawyer enough to know that a president's firing of an FBI director -- a firing that Rosenstein himself had argued was justified -- could not be an obstruction crime. And he knew that there was no proof that Trump had conspired in Russia's cyberespionage. So . . . how to justify appointing a special counsel?Easy: Make it a counterintelligence probe. That way, there would be no need for a crime, since such investigations are just intelligence-gathering exercises.What's that? You say there's no basis in the special-counsel regulations to appoint one for counterintelligence? You say the Justice Department does not appoint prosecutors for counterintelligence investigations, which are the FBI's bailiwick? So what? The special-counsel regulations expressly say that they create no enforceable rights enabling anyone to challenge the Justice Department's flouting of them. Rosenstein knew he could ignore the rules and there was not a thing anyone could do about it.So instead of a prosecutor investigating a crime of conspiracy, we have a bloated staff of prosecutors gathering intelligence about "collusion": Every contact between anyone connected to Trump and anyone connected to Russia.Some of this could be valuable information. That brings us back to that August 2016 meeting Andrew Weissman was talking about, between Trump's campaign chairman and a suspected Russian intelligence operative. Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman, had high-level contacts and conducted multi-million-dollar business with oligarchs close to the Kremlin. Konstantin Kilimnik, his partner in Kiev, certainly is suspected of having a "relationship with Russian intelligence," as Weissmann obliquely put it in the court session.That "relationship," however, goes back to the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell and the United States was quite content to do business with lots of people who had "relationships" with Russian intelligence, the Kremlin, and even the Communist party. One of Kilimnik's first jobs when he left the Russian military was to work for the International Republican Institute -- the democracy-promoting enterprise that Senator John McCain ran for over 20 years. Kilimnik started there as a translator -- hired for the skills he'd learned at the military academy that prepared translators for service in Russian intelligence. It didn't seem to bother anyone -- by the early 2000's, Kilimnik was running the IRI's Moscow office.My point is not to defend Kilimnik. Not only has Mueller already him indicted for witness-tampering conspiracy in Manafort's case (a charge to which Manafort has pled guilty). Kilimnik also hovers as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of Samuel Patten, a lobbyist friend of Manafort's who has pled guilty in a separate Justice Department case to being an unregistered agent of Ukraine and to violating the prohibition against foreign contributions to political campaigns -- enabling Kilimnik and two Ukrainian oligarchs to donate to the Trump presidential-inaugural committee and attend the inauguration festivities.The point is that if we are going to obsess over collusion rather than the actual crime of conspiracy, then we need to evaluate the Russian contacts of Trump associates in the context of everyone who has interacted with Russia in the last quarter-century. Under administrations of both parties, Washington has maintained that post-Soviet Russia was a perfectly fine country to partner with and do business with. Did the Trump campaign hope to tap Kremlin-connected sources for campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton? That seems undeniable. But it is not a crime per se. How does it rank on the scale of unsavory political behavior? You'd have to compare it to, for example, Democratic-party entreaties to the Kremlin -- back when the Russians were our Cold War Soviet antagonist -- for help in the campaigns against Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.I did not like candidate Donald Trump's blandishments toward the Putin regime. It was part of why Trump was closer to the bottom than the top of my preferred GOP candidates. I thought his performance as president in the meeting with Putin in Helsinki was appalling. But we are talking here about policy disputes. Trump has a right to be wrong, even seriously wrong, on a policy matter. That does not make him a Russian agent.If members of Trump's campaign were corruptly selling accommodations (such as sanctions relief) to Russia, then by all means prosecute them to the full extent of the law. But if the campaign was exploring whether sanctions relief could be traded for Russian actions in America's interests -- just as Obama told us sanctions relief for Iran was being bargained in exchange for what he claimed were advances of America's interests -- that might have been wrong-headed or naïve, but it wasn't criminal.Apparently Senator Burr thinks of "collusion" as criminal conspiracy, and he thus realizes that there was not one. Special Counsel Mueller, by contrast, has been unleashed to probe collusion not just in the form of criminal conspiracy, but in whatever form: All manner of contacts with a regime that, just the blink of an eye ago, President Obama was mocking Mitt Romney for regarding as a geopolitical foe, even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helped Moscow build its version of Silicon Valley -- notwithstanding Defense Department and FBI worries that we were thus improving their military and cyber capabilities.What is "collusion," then? Increasingly, it looks like the criminalization of policy disputes.
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| AP Interview: Karzai worries Pakistan talks risk peace pact Posted: 16 Feb 2019 04:36 AM PST  KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that previously unscheduled peace talks between the Taliban and the United States in Pakistan risk engulfing the country in regional rivalries.
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| Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox's private jet forced to make emergency landing Posted: 15 Feb 2019 09:10 PM PST  A private jet with Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and other friends was forced to make an emergency landing Friday.
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| Nigeria delays its election; candidates rush back to capital Posted: 16 Feb 2019 03:06 AM PST  YOLA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerians awakened on Saturday to find the presidential election delayed a week until Feb. 23 because of what the electoral commission called unspecified "challenges."
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| Mueller seeks tough sentence for ex-Trump campaign chairman Manafort Posted: 15 Feb 2019 06:56 PM PST  In their sentencing memo filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, prosecutors said Manafort, who is 69, deserves between 19.6 and 24.4 years in prison and a fine of between $50,000 and $24 million. "While some of these offenses are commonly prosecuted, there was nothing ordinary about the millions of dollars involved in the defendant's crimes, the duration of his criminal conduct or the sophistication of his schemes," prosecutors said in the memo. "Manafort did not commit these crimes out of necessity or hardship," they said.
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| Beckham looks to '70s, Westwood turns catwalk into protest Posted: 17 Feb 2019 11:19 AM PST  Victoria Beckham looked back to the 1970s at London Fashion Week on Sunday, while Vivienne Westwood turned her catwalk into a stage to protest issues ranging from climate change to Brexit. In front of an audience including Beckham's husband David and their children, models wore dresses and skirts slim fitted over the knee, some with abstract chain patterns. In a collection rich in vibrant colors and patterns, Beckham stuck to her signature silhouette of fitted skirt suits, which were checkered, and wide-leg trousers.
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| Iran takes aim at 'hateful' Pence comments Posted: 17 Feb 2019 03:15 AM PST  Iran's foreign minister on Sunday launched a blistering attack on US Vice President Mike Pence, saying his allegations that Tehran was plotting a "new Holocaust" were "hateful" and "ignorant". Mohammad Javad Zarif told the Munich Security Conference that Pence's demands for the EU to follow the US in abandoning the 2015 Iran nuclear deal amounted to asking Europe to undermine its own security.
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| Israel to withhold $138 mln from Palestinians over prisoner payments Posted: 17 Feb 2019 10:15 AM PST  Israel said its security cabinet on Sunday decided to withhold $138 million (122 million euros) in tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority over its payments to prisoners jailed for attacks on Israelis. A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the withheld cash would be equal to that paid by the PA last year to "terrorists imprisoned in Israel, to their families and to released prisoners". Israel alleges the payments encourage further violence.
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| 'Taking their last breath': IS hides among Syrian civilians Posted: 17 Feb 2019 12:57 PM PST  BAGHOUZ, Syria (AP) — From a self-proclaimed caliphate that once spread across much of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State group has been knocked back to a speck of land on the countries' shared border. In that tiny patch on the banks of the Euphrates River, hundreds of militants are hiding among civilians under the shadow of a small hill — encircled by forces waiting to declare the territorial defeat of the extremist group.
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| Problem: The Stealth F-35 Lightning II Can't Handle Lightning Posted: 16 Feb 2019 12:31 PM PST  Is that an issue?
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| Saudi crown prince arrives in Pakistan for regional visit Posted: 17 Feb 2019 10:50 AM PST  ISLAMABAD (AP) — Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began his four-day regional visit on Sunday, arriving in Pakistan where Saudi officials signed agreements worth $20 billion to help the Islamic nation overcome its financial crisis.
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| Egypt says deadly extremist attack hits Sinai checkpoint Posted: 16 Feb 2019 06:05 AM PST ![Egypt says deadly extremist attack hits Sinai checkpoint]( "Egypt says deadly extremist attack hits Sinai checkpoint") CAIRO (AP) — Extremists attacked an army checkpoint in the troubled northern Sinai peninsula on Saturday at dawn, causing 15 casualties among the armed forces including at least one officer shot dead, Egypt's military spokesman said.
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