| Iran has vowed revenge on the US after Trump's airstrike killed its top military commander. Here's how it could happen. Posted: 03 Jan 2020 03:30 AM PST  Qassem Soleimani has died in a US airstrike. Though Iran is militarily weaker, it could still harass and punish the US with unconventional warfare.
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| 'Affluenza teen' jailed in Texas for probation violation Posted: 03 Jan 2020 12:35 AM PST  A Texas man who used "affluenza" as a defense at his trial for killing four people while driving drunk was arrested Thursday after authorities say he violated the terms of his probation. Ethan Couch, 22, was booked into a jail in Fort Worth after he tested positive for THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, court records show. "We cannot make any further statement until we have the opportunity to conduct an investigation to determine if, in fact, Ethan ingested THC and, if so, if it was a voluntary act on his part," Brown and Wynn said in a statement.
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| Cruise ship tour: New Carnival Panorama cruises to Mexico with water park, top-notch dining, more Posted: 03 Jan 2020 06:17 AM PST  The first brand-new Carnival cruise ship to debut on the West Coast in 20 years, the Carnival Panorama was christened in Long Beach in December.
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| China seeks to identify cause of mystery pneumonia infecting 44 Posted: 03 Jan 2020 03:04 AM PST ![China seeks to identify cause of mystery pneumonia infecting 44]( "China seeks to identify cause of mystery pneumonia infecting 44") Chinese health authorities are trying to identify what is causing an outbreak of pneumonia in the central city of Wuhan, officials said on Friday, as the tally of cases rose to 44 and Singapore said it would screen arrivals on flights from there. The World Health Organization said it was aware of the reports, is monitoring the situation and is in contact with the Chinese government about it. Chinese municipal health officials in Wuhan said in a statement on their website on Friday that they had ruled out common respiratory diseases, such as influenza, bird flu and adenovirus infection, as the cause.
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| A F-22 Raptor Snuck Right Underneath an Iranian Fighter Jet Posted: 03 Jan 2020 10:00 AM PST  In a war, Iran won't know what hit them.
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| Carlos Ghosn may have escaped arrest in double bass case Posted: 02 Jan 2020 11:17 PM PST  The former Nissan chairman was being held on financial misconduct charges when he fled Japan and ended up in his native Lebanon.
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| 'People Do Not Like the Unknown.' Here's What To Know About The Mystery Drones Hovering Over Rural Colorado and Nebraska Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:50 AM PST  Sightings of mysterious drones have been reported over night skies in rural Colorado and Nebraska. Officials are searching for answers.
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| Fox News segment on Soleimani strike descends into chaos as Geraldo Rivera and Brian Kilmeade clash Posted: 03 Jan 2020 06:41 AM PST  A Fox News segment on the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Quds Force, became quite heated Friday morning as a shouting match between Geraldo Rivera and Brian Kilmeade broke out.Rivera spoke with the hosts of Fox & Friends on Friday morning and encouraged them not to cheer the U.S. air strike that killed Soleimani, a dramatic escalation of tensions with Iran that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says was necessary to prevent an attack in the region."I will cheer it on," Kilmeade told Rivera, to which Rivera responded, "Then you, like Lindsey Graham, have never met a war you didn't like." > Geraldo: Don't for a minute start cheering this on, what we have done, what we have unleashed -- > > Kilmeade: I will cheer it on. I am elated. > > Geraldo: Then you, like Lindsey Graham, have never met a war you didn't like. > > Kilmeade: That is not true, don't even say that. pic.twitter.com/1VZ3tZJPRb> > -- Lis Power (@LisPower1) January 3, 2020Rivera suggested Kilmeade shouldn't so easily trust U.S. intelligence in light of the "con job that drove us into" the Iraq war. The segment became even more tense as Kilmeade suggested Rivera is "making excuses for Iran." "Dammit, I'm not making excuses, Brian!" Rivera shouted. "That's absolute baloney!" He went on to tell Kilmeade that his "arrogance is exactly what's wrong with the region." Watch the most heated portion of the chaotic segment below. > All out brawl on Fox & Friends > Kilmeade: You're making excuses for Iran. > > Geraldo: Dammit, I'm not making excuses Brian that's absolute baloney! ... Your arrogance is exactly what's wrong with the region. pic.twitter.com/ULtzgNOk4I> > -- Lis Power (@LisPower1) January 3, 2020More stories from theweek.com Mike Pence crams 3 inaccuracies about 9/11 into 1 tweet while trying to justify Soleimani strike America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing 4 reasons to beware Trump's decision to kill Soleimani
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| Police: Psychic said girl was possessed, scammed mom of $70K Posted: 03 Jan 2020 06:39 AM PST  Tracy Milanovich, 37, of Somerset, is charged with obtaining property by trick, along with larceny and witness intimidation, Somerset police said in a statement Thursday. Police started investigating Dec. 17 when the alleged victim reported that she was tricked by Milanovich into handing over large sums of cash along with household items, including towels and bedding, to battle the demon. The allegations date to Nov. 15, when the woman first went to Milanovich's business, Tracy's Psychic Palm Reader, for a tarot card reading, police said in their report.
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| Trump's old tweets about Obama attacking Iran come back to haunt him Posted: 03 Jan 2020 04:53 AM PST  Tweets from 2011 and 2012 in which Donald Trump predicted that President Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to secure his reelection have gone viral, after the U.S. assassinated a top Iranian general, dramatically escalating its confrontation with Iran.
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| Terrifying video shows a 'fire tornado' ripping through the Australian countryside as devastating fires ravage the country Posted: 03 Jan 2020 05:44 AM PST  Australia's third-largest island is ravaged by two fires as firefighters battle huge blazes destroying homes, lives, and wildlife across the country.
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| 'I had nowhere to go': Mississippi hunter battles rattlesnake in deer stand Posted: 02 Jan 2020 07:38 AM PST  Hunting in December, a Mississippi man found a rattlesnake only inches away in a hunting blind. He was in a real predicament.
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| Greece, Israel and Cyprus call Turkey's planned Libya deployment 'dangerous escalation' Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:04 PM PST  Turkey's bill allowing troop deployment in Libya marks a dangerous escalation in the North African country's civil war and severely threatens stability in the region, a joint statement by Greece, Israel and Cyprus said late on Thursday. "This decision constitutes a gross violation of the UNSC resolution...imposing an arms embargo in Libya and seriously undermines the international community's efforts to find a peaceful, political solution to the Libyan conflict," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades said in the statement.
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| Argentine president expresses doubt over mysterious prosecutor death Posted: 02 Jan 2020 02:28 PM PST  Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said on Thursday he doubts that a prosecutor who died two days after accusing former president Cristina Kirchner of a cover up in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center committed suicide. Nisman was appointed special prosecutor into the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) headquarters, which left 85 dead and 300 wounded. The timing and circumstances of his death were suspicious: it came just days after he directly accused then-president Kirchner and some of her top aides of covering up Iran's alleged involvement in the bombing.
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| US lawmakers 'not told of attack' on Qassim Soleimani as top Democrats warn of 'costly war' Posted: 03 Jan 2020 12:14 AM PST  US lawmakers were not told in advance of the attack ordered by President Donald Trump that killed a top Iranian military commander, a senior House Democrat said late on Thursday. General Qassim Soleimani, head of Iran's elite Quds Force, was killed in a US airstrike alongside top Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis early on Friday. The high-profile assassinations are likely to be a massive blow to Iran, which has been locked in a long conflict with the United States that escalated sharply last week with the storming of the US embassy in Iraq. While Republicans cheered news of Soleimani's demise, Democrats said there were legal concerns over the operation and warned of severe repercussions. The strike conducted in Iraq "went forward with no notification or consultation with Congress," House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel said in a statement. Soleimani was "the mastermind of immense violence" who has "the blood of Americans on his hands," the Democratic lawmaker said. But "to push ahead with an action of this gravity without involving Congress raises serious legal problems and is an affront to Congress's powers as a coequal branch of government," Mr Engel added. The White House traditionally notifies senior members of both parties in the Senate and House of Representatives ahead of major military action. But top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer "was not given advanced notice" of the strike, a senior Democratic aide told AFP. The War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action. Iranian assassination | Read more But several Democrats have warned that Congress's constitutional role in making decisions about war have been eroded in the first three years of the Trump administration. "Even if this strike was in self-defence, no current congressional authorisation covered it and the President needs to notify Congress within 48 hours pursuant to the War Powers Resolution," Mr Engel said. Senior Democrats lined up to warn that the move threatened stability in the region. Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate, said "no American will mourn Solemani's passing". But he warned that the move would likely have significant ramifications in the region. "President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox, and he owes the American people an explanation of the strategy and plan to keep safe our troops and embassy personnel, our people and our interests, both here at home and abroad, and our partners throughout the region and beyond." US Senator Elizabeth Warren, another Democratic presidential contender, said "Soleimani was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans". My statement on the killing of Qassem Soleimani. pic.twitter.com/4Q9tlLAYFB— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 3, 2020 "But this reckless move escalates the situation with Iran and increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict. Our priority must be to avoid another costly war." Republicans hailed the strike and congratulated Mr Trump. "Qassem Soleimani was an arch terrorist with American blood on his hands," former US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said on Twitter. "His demise should be applauded by all who seek peace and justice. "Proud of President Trump for doing the strong and right thing." To the Iranian government: If you want to stay in the oil business leave America and our allies alone and stop being the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 3, 2020 Lindsey Graham, senator of South Carolina, threatened Iran with attacks on its oil refineries if it continues to target US interests. "Thank you, Mr. President, for standing up for America," Mr Graham said. "If Iran continues to attack America and our allies, they should pay the heaviest of prices, which includes the destruction of their oil refineries."
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| Search for driver after video emerges of car speeding off California cliff Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:11 AM PST  Dramatic video captured by a motorist appears to show a vehicle plunging off of a cliff in California this week — but authorities have yet to find the SUV or the driver.In the video, a dark SUV can be seen speeding off of the road at a curve.
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| Climate deniers are cooking themselves — and everyone else Posted: 03 Jan 2020 02:50 AM PST  The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that climate change is something only hippies should care about. By this view, commonly expressed by conservative politicians, fixing climate change is only for bleeding-hearts who care more about hugging trees than making money.But this is completely wrong. Climate change will wreck the environment, and in the process it will wreck human society as well — causing many deaths and billions of dollars in damage, as we're seeing now as Australia is battered by the worst wildfires in its history. People who deny or downplay climate change are broiling themselves and everyone else alive.Some extreme weather events have a complex array of causes, and it is hard to tie them definitively to climate change. Hurricane formation, for instance, involves winds, ocean temperatures and the difference between atmospheric temperatures, the spin of the earth, and many other factors, so it is a tricky business to pin worse storms on global warming. (Nevertheless, a growing body of research does indeed point to climate change as a key cause of increasing hurricane severity.)But that is not true at all of the Australian bushfires. Fires get worse when things are hot, dry, and windy, and climate change has provided all of those conditions in abundance. The continent has warmed by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (a bit over 1 degree Celsius) since the 1970s, and in keeping with the predictions of climate models, Australia has experienced steadily worse droughts and heat waves over the last 30 years. The current drought may end up being the worst in history — this spring was the driest ever recorded on the continent, and back on December 18 it set a new record for the hottest day ever measured with an average temperature across the entire country of 105.6 degrees.So far this Australian fire season, almost 15 million acres have been burned, at least 18 people have died, a further 17 are missing, and over 1,200 homes have burned down. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated, and thousands more are still trapped in hazardous locations. Australia's largest cities have repeatedly suffocated under smoke plumes — on December 11, Sydney recorded particulate pollution 11 times worse than the "hazardous" level, and at time of writing capital city Canberra had the second-worst air in the world. Meanwhile, the ongoing drought has devastated Australian farmers.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (from the Liberal Party, which is politically conservative) has been wrong-footed by the crisis — residents of fire-stricken towns yelled at him during a tour of the damage, and his record of boosting fossil fuels has become a major focus of news coverage of the events.Morrison insists that he has taken a measured approach to climate, but this is nonsense — on the contrary, Australia is one of the major climate villains in the world. Morrison has long been in the pocket of Big Carbon, and has consistently boosted fossil fuel development as prime minister. Indeed, before he was head of the Liberals he brought a chunk of coal onto the floor of parliament and accused the opposition party of "coalphobia." As recently as November, his deputy prime minister was calling climate activists "inner-city raving lunatics."As a result, Australia's domestic emissions have increased steadily since 2013, when the Liberals took power and immediately repealed the carbon tax passed under the previous Labor Party government. More importantly, Australia is the second-largest coal exporter in the world (only recently passed up by Indonesia, despite increased Australian production), and thanks to the Liberal government, it has recently soared to become the second-largest exporter of liquid natural gas as well, and may take first place next year. Most of that fuel goes to Japan, China, India, and Korea. All this makes Australia the third-largest exporter of carbon dioxide emissions, just behind Russia and Saudi Arabia.To be fair, the opposition party isn't much better, despite the modest carbon tax mentioned above. Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese backs coal exports despite criticizing Morrison's abysmal climate record.Of course, Australia's natural environment is getting pummeled as well by the drought and fires. As Nerilie Abram writes at Scientific American, "early estimates suggest that around 500 million animals have died so far, including 30 percent of the koala population in their main habitat."But it is worth emphasizing that the koalas aren't the only ones suffering. If adorable animals being slaughtered by the millions doesn't tug one's heartstrings, then perhaps consider self-interest, as Australians hide in lakes to keep from being burned alive. A few more years of fat coal profits aren't worth making Mad Max into a documentary.In short, Australia, like many countries (very much including the United States) is pathologically addicted to fossil fuels, and is roasting itself and the world in the process. Without strong international climate policy, there will be future droughts, fires, and other disasters that make the current crisis seem like a friendly daydream.More stories from theweek.com Mike Pence crams 3 inaccuracies about 9/11 into 1 tweet while trying to justify Soleimani strike America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing 4 reasons to beware Trump's decision to kill Soleimani
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| Pentagon: Anyone who tries to overrun the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad will 'run into a buzz saw' after violent protests Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:43 PM PST  The Pentagon warned on Thursday morning that anyone who tries to breach the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad would face a "buzz saw."
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| Kentucky attorney general asks FBI to investigate ex-Gov. Matt Bevin's pardons Posted: 02 Jan 2020 03:04 PM PST  Former Gov. Matt Bevin has received criticism for pardoning or commuting the sentences of more than 650 people following his failed re-election bid.
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| Carlos Ghosn's escape plane reportedly also ferried gold for Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro Posted: 03 Jan 2020 08:02 AM PST  Bloomberg reported that two planes operated by MNG Holding, which aided in Ghosn's escape, also assisted a Venezuelan gold trade.
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| Kurz Seals Historic Pact With Austria’s Greens for Second Term Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:50 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sebastian Kurz clinched a historic alliance with Austria's Green party to claim a second term as chancellor and position his country at the forefront of Europe's battle to limit climate change.Kurz, a 33-year-old conservative, announced the deal late on New Year's Day. Pending approval by a Green party conference on Saturday, the new administration could be sworn in by President Alexander Van der Bellen (himself a former Green leader) on Jan. 7.Two years after he leaped to prominence by embracing the backlash against immigration, Kurz may be about to set a very different precedent for Europe's conservatives by teaming up with the Greens. His new coalition brings the Austrian Greens into the federal government for the first time and offers a template for politicians across the continent searching for a formula to repel the threat of populism.German conservative Ursula von der Leyen took charge of the European Commission last month after forging a parliamentary majority around her plan to decarbonize the European economy. The next government in Berlin could see a similar alliance as the Greens supplant the ailing Social Democrats as the natural partner for Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats."Kurz is now trying to address the two main issues of the next decade: immigration and climate change," said Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Germany. "This can become an interesting test case for Germany, and indeed for Europe: the first conservative-Green coalition."It's a risky project though.From 2015, Kurz used the European refugee crisis to take over his party. He dressed the conservatives in the clothes of populism and steered them out of an awkward coalition with the Social Democrats to join forces with a xenophobic party founded by former Nazis. After winning two straight elections, a third of his voters are now former supporters of the Freedom Party and other rightist groups.By teaming up with the Greens, Kurz finds himself on the opposite side of the debate from the populists and vulnerable to their attacks for the first time. Concessions to his partner could also estrange his new voters as well as People's Party mainstays like farmers, industry, commuters and traditionalists panicking about meat prices or fuel taxes."It's going to be hard to swallow for many groups in the People's Party," said Thomas Hofer, a political analyst and consultant in Vienna. "It's also a fine line to tread because of the voters he won from the Freedom Party."Yet Kurz had few other options after the tumultuous months that started when the "Ibiza" bombshell exploded on Austria's political scene in May. German media published excerpts of a video shot on the Spanish island that appeared to show nationalist leader Heinz-Christian Strache offering state contracts in return for campaign funds. That toppled Strache and Kurz's government, and triggered a snap elections on Sept. 29.The Freedom Party descended ever further into scandal. Secret gold stashes in the Alps, eye-watering expense accounts, and photos of cash-filled bags from eastern European donors emerged. The Social Democrats failed to benefit from the affair under their hapless and gaffe-prone new leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner. Kurz and the Greens were the only clear winners."There is no alternative, and he knows it," Hofer said.Litte is known yet about the government program Kurz and Green leader Werner Kogler, 58, have agreed on and they declined to take questions when they announced their agreement on New Year's Day. The programme will be presented Thursday afternoon. Both have flagged to their followers that their very different policies may make for some difficult compromises.Kurz will have to show to his supporters that his tough line on migration and integration remains intact, that there are neither more taxes nor more debt and that legislation will remain business-friendly. Kogler will need some wins on climate policy, including tangible investments in infrastructure and some form of carbon taxes, at least a toning down of the anti-immigration rhetoric of Kurz's former government, and measures on transparency and anti-corruption."It is possible to cut taxes and make the tax system more ecological," Kurz said. "It's possible to protect the climate, and the borders."Kurz will appoint his close ally Gernot Bluemel as the next finance minister. The Greens will get an enlarged transport ministry that will be headed by environmental activist Leonore Gewessler, and name as justice minister Alma Zadic, a 35 year-old lawyer who fled the Bosnian civil war to Austria in the 1990s."I think this can hold," Brzeski said. "Kurz has shown he's very flexible and adaptable."(Updates with statements on deal by Kurz and Kogler.)To contact the reporter on this story: Boris Groendahl in Vienna at bgroendahl@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net;Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Hundreds arrested in Hong Kong in New Year's Day protests: police Posted: 01 Jan 2020 08:10 PM PST  Hong Kong police arrested about 400 people in New Year's Day protests after what started as a peaceful pro-democracy march of tens of thousands spiraled into chaotic scenes with police firing tear gas to disperse the crowds. The arrests take the total to about 7,000 since protests in the city escalated in June over a now-withdrawn bill that would have allowed extradition to mainland China, and will highlight the apparent absence of any progress towards ending the unrest. The tension on Wednesday rose after some arrests were made in the Wan Chai bar district near a branch of global banking group HSBC <0005.HK>, which has been the target of protester anger in recent weeks.
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| Why It Seems Like Nothing Can Stop the A-10 Warthog Posted: 02 Jan 2020 08:00 PM PST  Is it still viable?
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| US long watched Soleimani, but feared risks of a strike Posted: 03 Jan 2020 12:14 PM PST  In 2007, U.S. commandos watched as a convoy carrying a powerful Iranian military leader made its way to northern Iraq. It was a prime opportunity to take out Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who had been accused of aiding Shiite forces that killed thousands of American troops in Iraq. "To avoid a firefight, and the contentious politics that would follow, I decided that we should monitor the caravan, not strike immediately," retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal wrote last year in Foreign Policy.
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| What's behind the recent rash of anti-Semitic attacks? Posted: 03 Jan 2020 01:36 AM PST  There were more than 1,300 anti-Semitic incidents in 2019, according to the Anti-Defamation League, including a stabbing at a rabbi's home Saturday. Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl and professor Ibram Kendi joined "CBS This Morning" to discuss the rash of hate.
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| Fleet commander directs US Navy’s surface force to develop concepts for unmanned ships Posted: 03 Jan 2020 07:31 AM PST  The U.S. Navy is making moves to develop concepts for the integration of unmanned surface vessels into its surface fleet.
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| Ursula von der Leyen, the EU’s Centripetal Force Posted: 01 Jan 2020 10:00 PM PST ![Ursula von der Leyen, the EU's Centripetal Force]( "Ursula von der Leyen, the EU's Centripetal Force") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Centrifugal or centripetal, which force will prevail in the European Union in 2020? A lot suggests it'll be the former, with the EU drifting apart. Its third-biggest member state is preparing to exit. Populists are railing against Brussels and want their "sovereignty" back. Conservatives in the north balk at deeper integration of the euro area.One woman who wants to nudge the EU in the opposite direction is Ursula von der Leyen, the new president of the European Commission. The EU needs "a centripetal force, coming again and again as the uniter," she once told me, when she was still defense minister of Germany.She stretched that point into an extended metaphor. A mother of seven, she has almost superhumanly balanced her career and her sprawling, often unruly family. The EU is like such a family, she told me. It's not a nation, and therefore won't ever have one "leader." But it shares a common destiny, even if it's always at risk of being pulled apart. That's why it needs a uniter. A mom, basically.Von der Leyen, who is considered a feminist in her party, the Christian Democratic Union, wears the mom label proudly. In that as in other respects, she seems to have taken a page out of Chancellor Angela Merkel's book. For years, von der Leyen was rumored to be interested in succeeding Merkel. More plausibly, she was simply taking notes: Merkel, during much of her 14-year reign, was known to Germans as "Mutti."The similarity is one of style, not substance. Merkel, though capable at managing international crises, has never expressed a bold policy vision. Von der Leyen, by contrast, has already outlined several big goals for the EU. She wants to lead a "geopolitical commission" that can stand up to the U.S. and China. She's determined to give Europe a digital upgrade and migration reform. Above all, she promises a "European Green Deal" to make the whole union carbon neutral by 2050.She can only announce such visions, however, not execute them. That's because she has a surprisingly fluid role, one that's badly understood outside of Brussels. The commission is often called the EU's executive. But it's less like a government and more like a civil service that also participates in ambassadorial rites. Running it is hard enough, because it consists of a "college" of 26 other commissioners who view their portfolios as personal fiefs. Fitting it into the EU's overall institutional architecture is even harder.First, there's the European Parliament, which von der Leyen got off to a bad start with because of the way she got her job. She was chosen by EU leaders in several rounds of back-room horse trading, after French President Emmanuel Macron dropped her name. Parliament was so miffed at being sidelined, it confirmed von der Leyen only by a nail-biting nine votes, then rejected three candidates for her commission, delaying its inauguration by a month.Then there's the Council of the European Union, in which ministers of member states co-legislate with the commission. And there's the European Council, in which national leaders gather, club-like, to set overall policy direction and hammer out compromises. (To make the confusion sublime, there's also a Council of Europe, which has nothing to do with the EU at all.)The European Council is in effect a collective EU presidency. Besides the 28 (soon 27) leaders, it also includes von der Leyen and the body's own president, currently Charles Michel, a former Belgian prime minister. One problem in recent years was that von der Leyen's predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Michel's, Donald Tusk, didn't get along. That impeded cooperation between their institutions.Underneath such rivalries hums a constant din of general bickering — within the parliament, among national leaders, and between the institutions. The cast ranges from bone-dry Eurocrats to wanton gadflies and flamboyant prima donnas. The relationship currently being watched is that between the "Jupiterian" Macron and the matter-of-fact pastor's daughter Merkel. Brussels really is like an unruly family.One European leader who has excelled in this environment is in fact Merkel. Over the years, she perfected the art of taking steam out of the blustering of other leaders. She doesn't rise to provocations and sits out tantrums before gently allowing even unreasonable interlocutors to climb down from their trees. She has been a stabilizing presence.Von der Leyen has served in three of Merkel's cabinets (as minister of families, labor and defense). Both women grasp intuitively that female leaders have no need to arm-wrestle with the alpha males, either metaphorically or literally, as Macron did with U.S. President Donald Trump. If anybody can hold the EU together, then, it may well be von der Leyen. Born in Brussels as daughter of a German politician who was then helping to negotiate the Treaty of Rome, the foundation of what is today the EU, she's fluent in French and English and has the "ever closer union" in her blood.She also knows that holding families and unions together is in large part about atmospherics. That time I came to interview her — it was in December — she cut me off, then left and came back with a lighter. She lit up a candle on the Advent wreath between us. "There," she said. Then she exhaled, smiled and talked politics.To contact the author of this story: Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andreas Kluth is a member of Bloomberg's editorial board. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Louis Vuitton to close Hong Kong shop as protests bite: report Posted: 03 Jan 2020 03:22 AM PST  PARIS/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Louis Vuitton, the world's biggest luxury goods brand by sales, is preparing to shut one of its shops in Hong Kong where protests have hit demand as high rental costs bite, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported on Friday. The company says on its website it has eight shops in Hong Kong. Wharf Holdings, the shopping center's owner and Vuitton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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| Iraqi troops secure U.S. Embassy following attack Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:15 AM PST  Elite Iraqi troops were deployed to secure the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Thursday, after a pro-Iran mob laid siege to it on Tuesday in dramatic scenes that overshadowed months of antigovernment grassroots protests.
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| Iraq could 'pay price' for US strike on Iran commander: analysts Posted: 02 Jan 2020 11:34 PM PST  The killings of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and a top Iraqi paramilitary chief in a US strike on Baghdad Friday threaten to drag Iraq into the abyss of regional conflict, analysts warned. The US strike on Baghdad international airport targeted a convoy carrying Soleimani and his top Baghdad-based adviser Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq's powerful Hashed al-Shaabi force. The raid has confirmed the worst fears of many Iraqis: that their homeland will become the main battlefield in a looming conflict between Iran and the United States.
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| Former Fox News reporter says she rejected Trump's sexual advance Posted: 03 Jan 2020 03:16 PM PST  Former Fox News reporter and occasional Fox & Friends host Courtney Friel writes in a new memoir that before he was president, Donald Trump told her she was "the hottest one at Fox News" and during one call, "out of nowhere, he said: 'You should come up to my office sometime, so we can kiss,'" according to an excerpt of the book shared with the New York Daily News. Friel writes she was "shocked" by the come-on and said no: "'Donald,' I responded, 'I believe we're both married.' I quickly ended the call."Friel, now an anchor at KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, said Trump's "proposition made it difficult for me to report with a straight face on Trump running for president," the Daily News reports. "It infuriated me that he would call all the women who shared stories of his bold advances liars. I totally believe them. ... At least now I can joke that I could have banged the president — but I passed." You can read more about Friel's upcoming book, Tonight At 10: Kicking Booze and Breaking News, at the Daily News.More stories from theweek.com 4 reasons to beware Trump's decision to kill Soleimani America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing Senate won't hold impeachment trial until Pelosi hands over articles, McConnell says
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| US starts sending asylum seekers across Arizona border Posted: 02 Jan 2020 02:30 PM PST  The U.S. government on Thursday began sending asylum-seekers back to Nogales, Mexico, to await court hearings that will be scheduled roughly 350 miles (563 kilometers) away in Juarez, Mexico. Authorities are expanding a program known as Remain in Mexico that requires tens of thousands of asylum seekers to wait out their immigration court hearings in Mexico. Until this week, the government was driving some asylum seekers from Nogales, Arizona, to El Paso, Texas, so they could be returned to Juarez.
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| How North Korea Could Start a War (Detonate a Nuke in the Atmosphere) Posted: 02 Jan 2020 08:30 PM PST  Would Kim ever consider it.
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| Cyprus rape case: Teenager begs Boris Johnson to bring her home and end 'waking nightmare' Posted: 02 Jan 2020 04:50 PM PST  A British teenager found guilty of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus has pleaded with Boris Johnson to "bring me home". The 19-year-old alleged she was raped by up to 12 Israeli tourists in a hotel room in the Ayia Napa on July 17, but she has said Cypriot police forced her to sign a retraction statement which led to her being convicted of public mischief at Famagusta District Court, in Paralimni. "Every second of this ordeal has been a waking nightmare," the woman said. "I'm 19 and all I want to do is clear my name and come home to my family," she added in quotes reported by The Sun. "I would say to both the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, both of whom are fathers, please support me with your actions, not just with your words." The paper also reported that the Foreign Office had on Thursday contacted the teenager's family for the first time since she was convicted. Protesters claim the woman is a victim of Cyprus's "rape culture" Credit: IAKOVOS HATZISTAVROU/AFP via Getty Images A Foreign Office spokeswoman told PA that the UK was "seriously concerned" about the "fair trial guarantees in this deeply distressing case and we will be raising the issue with Cypriot authorities". Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, said on Monday that he would raise the case with the Cypriot authorities. The woman's legal team said that regardless of the sentence passed by the court, they would appeal against the conviction, even if she was given a suspended sentence - which would still mean a criminal record. "Appealing against the conviction is the most important thing for a young person," Michael Polak, director of the campaigning group Justice Abroad, said. An online crowdfunding appeal to raise money for legal support for the woman's daughter has passed £120,000, exceeding its £105,000 goal. The "help teen victim get justice in Cyprus" GoFundMe page was set up by British lawyer John Hobbs in August to raise cash for the 19-year-old's legal representation. The woman has been on bail since the end of August, after spending a month in prison, and could face up to a year in jail and a 1,700 euro (£1,500) fine when she is sentenced on January 7. A number of prominent legal figures in Cyprus have also written to Costas Clerides, the attorney-general, urging him to intervene in the case. The group includes former justice minister Kypros Chrysostomides, who told the BBC the woman involved had "already suffered a lot" and he expected her sentence would be "very lenient". "She has already been in detention for four-and-a-half weeks and she has been prevented from travelling for about five months already," he said. But the government of Cyprus has said it has "full confidence in the justice system and the courts". Meanwhile, the teenager's mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has backed calls for a tourism boycott of the country. "The place isn't safe - it is absolutely not safe. And if you go and report something that's happened to you, you're either laughed at, as far as I can tell, or, in the worst case, something like what's happened to my daughter may happen," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. The woman said her daughter was experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hallucinations, and is sleeping for up to 20 hours a day because of a condition called hypersomnia. "She needs to get back to the UK to get that treated - that's my absolute primary focus. She can't be treated here because hearing foreign men speaking loudly will trigger an episode," she said. "It needs resolving otherwise she's going to carry on having this for the rest of her life."
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| Last year the British Army wanted 'snowflakes' — now it wants binge-drinkers and nervous Nellies Posted: 02 Jan 2020 08:30 AM PST  The British Army is pushing forward with its unconventional recruitment approach in hopes of encouraging more millennials into the ranks.
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| Denying Professor Tenure, Harvard Sparks a Debate Over Ethnic Studies Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:03 PM PST  CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The news spread quickly, angering Latino students and others at Harvard: One of the few professors who specialized in Latino and Caribbean studies and devoted time to mentoring students of color had been denied tenure.The students sprang into action, occupying an administration building last month and also disrupting a faculty meeting. They submitted a letter to administrators demanding transparency about the tenure process and the creation of an ethnic studies department. And on the day in December that early admissions decisions were to be released, black, Latino and Asian students protested in the admissions office, accusing the university of using them as tokens in its professed commitment to diversity, while failing to invest in academic areas critical to their lives.It is an unsettled moment at Harvard. The university is still fighting a lawsuit challenging its use of race-based affirmative action in admissions; a district court judge ruled in Harvard's favor in October, but the plaintiffs are appealing.But at the very moment that Harvard is defending its use of race in admissions, citing diversity as a key component of the education it provides, students of color are saying that once they are on campus, Harvard devalues their history and experiences and fails to retain professors who support them.Several students who testified during the legal challenge to Harvard's admissions policies, saying it was important for the school to be able to consider race in admissions, are now among those criticizing the decision to deny tenure to the professor, Lorgia Garcia Peña.One of them, Catherine Ho, 20, a junior, took part in the December protest at the admissions office, where students held signs with messages like "After You Admit Us, Don't Forget Us!" and "Want Diversity? Teach Our Histories!"Ho, who is Vietnamese-American, accused Harvard of using her and other students who testified to burnish its image at the trial and afterward, while refusing to listen to what they said they needed in terms of resources once they got to campus."I am tired of Harvard using my story without giving me ethnic studies so I can fully understand what my story even means," Ho said during the protest, to cheers from the other students. She added, "Harvard, stop using our stories when you won't listen to us."Another student, Laura Veira-Ramirez, 21, a senior, was one of several who worked part-time in the admissions office, doing outreach to minority applicants or those who came from poor backgrounds or would be the first in their families to go to college.Lately, she said, she and other students had felt uncomfortable about reassuring those prospective students that they would feel welcome at Harvard."We need more than just letting us in," said Veira-Ramirez, who came to the United States from Colombia, without legal permission, when she was 3 years old. Veira-Ramirez has protection from deportation under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that protected young unauthorized immigrants."We need resources once we get to campus," she said, "and part of those resources is an ethnic studies program."The students have not been alone in voicing concern over the decision to deny tenure to Garcia Peña. Scholars from around the country have written to Harvard's president expressing dismay with the decision, and Harvard faculty have demanded a review of the tenure process, with an eye to whether it is undermining the university's effort to diversify its faculty.Garcia Peña declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Harvard.Lawrence S. Bacow, Harvard's president, has declined to discuss the reasons for denying Garcia Peña tenure, citing the confidentiality of the process. The dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Claudine Gay, has said that she wants to increase offerings in ethnic studies but believes that hiring more faculty must come first, before creating a new major. Last June, she announced that Harvard would hire three to four new faculty working in ethnic studies; the search is still ongoing. Gay also said in response to the faculty concerns that she would conduct a review of the tenure process.Just 81 of Harvard's 2,490 faculty members identify as Hispanic, according to Harvard's Fact Book; the university would not say how many of those are tenured. According to a 2019 report on faculty diversity, 8% of the roughly 1,000 tenured faculty are underrepresented minorities, which includes people who are black, Latino and Native American. Of the tenure-track faculty, 12% are underrepresented minorities.The controversy echoes recent conflicts at other schools. At Yale last March, 13 professors withdrew from the university's Ethnicity, Race and Migration program, citing a lack of support; the professors later rejoined the program after the university agreed to increase its resources. At Dartmouth, an English professor who specialized in Asian-American studies was denied tenure in 2016, setting off an uproar among students and faculty about the college's failure to attract and retain faculty of color and the treatment of faculty who specialized in the studies of race, gender and sexuality.A spokeswoman for Dartmouth, Diana Lawrence, said, "Although we cannot comment on confidential tenure matters, Dartmouth is committed to inclusivity and diversity and has been steadily increasing its recruitment and retention of faculty and staff of color."Efforts to create an ethnic studies program at Harvard go back several decades. Undergraduates now have two ways to pursue ethnic studies: Students majoring in history and literature can focus on the subject, and students can minor in ethnicity, migration, rights. The ethnic studies track in history and literature was created in 2017, the minor in 2009. The students who are protesting now want a full-fledged department and the opportunity to major in ethnic studies.Garcia Peña has been involved in both of the existing programs, as well as the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures' program in Latinx studies. (Latinx is a gender-neutral term for people of Latin American heritage, used commonly in academia.)In an online article published last year, Garcia Peña wrote that ethnic studies programs make universities "a little less racist, a little less white.""They provide students with spaces for thinking and writing about important questions," she wrote. "They also provide support for students of color who are made to feel in every other course, like second class citizens who are reminded that they don't belong."In December, a group of Harvard faculty and administrators who teach in Asian American, Latino and Native American studies or run the existing programs that support ethnic studies released a letter about Garcia Peña's tenure denial that was suffused with a sense of frustration with what they said was the continual institutional resistance faced by their fields.They said that the denial of tenure to Garcia Peña had "severe repercussions" on their efforts to recruit and retain top faculty in their disciplines."While we understand that receiving tenure at Harvard is never assured," they wrote, "questions about the fairness of the promotion process for faculty in fields long misunderstood and dismissed at the university will inevitably arise until they are afforded the respect and resources given to other areas of study."The tenure process at Harvard is shrouded in secrecy. Garcia Peña's colleagues in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures voted unanimously to recommend her for tenure. Bacow then consulted a committee of experts from within and outside Harvard who remain anonymous, before denying Garcia Peña tenure.Faculty and students have questioned whether the process was fair, citing Garcia Peña's academic accomplishments, which include a book about the construction of Dominican racial and national identity. Some argued that the decision reflects an institutional lack of respect for work in ethnic studies, as well as a failure to reward the work of mentoring and supporting students.Robert Reid-Pharr, a professor in the departments of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and African and African American Studies, said, "We need to ask, not just in her but in all cases, how it is that certain faculty members -- particularly people of color, particularly women -- are being asked to do all sorts of extra work, but that work is not necessarily properly judged, or remunerated for that matter."Garcia Peña's supporters have also cited two troubling incidents from last year. In September, Garcia Peña found a hateful note tacked to her office door that attacked her race and gender. And in October, several students of color in one of her classes were questioned by Harvard University police officers when they were putting up an art project in Harvard Yard, an activity for which Garcia Peña had received permission.Cornel R. West, who holds a joint appointment between Harvard Divinity School and the Department of African and African American Studies, said that many students believed that the decision to deny tenure for Garcia Peña was driven by racism and sexism. He said he did not think that was the case, at least without clear evidence, but he did think that the decision was wrong."She belongs at Harvard, period," he said.Veira-Ramirez, the senior who participated in the admissions office protest, said that Garcia Peña was focused on helping students like her feel at home at one of the country's most elite universities."She wanted us to take up space at Harvard," she said. She recalled that, last fall, she had gone to the first meeting of one of Garcia Peña's classes and found the room packed, with people sitting on the floor and standing against the walls.Garcia Peña's response was telling, Veira-Ramirez said."She said, 'This room is not big enough, because Harvard doesn't think that we can fill a room for Latinx studies.'"This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Why Obama, Bush, and Bibi All Passed on Killing Soleimani Posted: 03 Jan 2020 01:59 PM PST  Until the Trump administration blew him away in Baghdad in the pre-dawn dark of Friday morning, Qassem Soleimani had made the very fact of his survival part of his considerable mystique. The powerful Iranian general commanded forces that had become the scourge of Iran's adversaries abroad, especially the United States and Israel. Yet he came and went to the war fronts of the Middle East unscathed.In fact, conscious decisions were taken under the George W. Bush administration, even when Soleimani was in the crosshairs, not to pull the trigger. Gen. Stanley McChrystal wrote last year, he had a shot in 2007 but let Soleimani go: "The decision not to act is often the hardest one to make—and it isn't always right."Ali Khedery, a former U.S. adviser in Iraq, told The Daily Beast that not striking Soleimani when they had the chance was an "enormous frustration to me and many of my colleagues.""I remember during the [2007 Iraq troop] surge sitting with Ambassador Ryan Crocker and [Gen.] David Petraeus and saying, 'Wouldn't it be a shame if Soleimani ran into one of his own EFPs," Khedery added, using the acronym for Explosively-Formed Projectiles, the Iranian-made bombs that killed dozens and dozens of American troops in Iraq. "But obviously, this was a decision that had to be taken by the president personally because of its implications."Under the Barack Obama administration, the assassination of the most famous general in the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps appears not to have been considered seriously.There was never any manhunt, according to Derek Chollet, assistant secretary of defense from 2012 to 2015. "To my knowledge there was never a decision of 'We've gotta go find this guy and get him.'" Nobody could begin to be sure what would come next if Soleimani were killed, and no scenario looked good. And in those days the priority was stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon without having to go to war. The murder of Soleimani could have scuttled the negotiations.The calculus was a fairly simple one, says Chollet: "Do the potential risks of taking an action like this outweigh the gain of taking him off the battlefield?" The answer was yes.U.S. Braces for Iran's 'Counterpunch' After Slaying of SoleimaniAccording to Patricia Ravalgi, who served as a civilian analyst at U.S. Central Command from 2008 to 2019, concerns at the operational level went beyond declined opportunities to terminate Soleimani. There was often the worry among military planners and Washington policymakers that with Iranian-backed militias and American troops operating in close proximity in Iraq, especially during the campaigns against the so-called Islamic State, Soleimani would be in the wrong place at the wrong time, get killed by accident, "and all hell would break loose.""There was even wishful thinking that Soleimani would stay out of Iraq more, to keep such an accident from occurring," says Ravalgi.But why didn't the Israelis target Soleimani?According to Soleimani, in an interview given just three months ago, they did. Speaking to Iranian television last year, the head of the élite Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that Israeli aircraft targeted him and Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2006, while Soleimani commanded forces in Beirut during the Second Lebanon War."Israeli spy planes were constantly flying overhead," he said as he began his war story. Hezbollah, an Iranian backed militia, had its situation room in the heart of Dahiyeh, a Beirut neighborhood, and the Israelis were "watching every movement," Soleimani said. Then late one night, he and Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah's most notorious terrorist operative, decided to remove Nasrallah to safety in a separate building. Shortly after their arrival, two Israeli bombardments struck nearby, he said. "We felt that these two bombings were about to be followed by a third one… so we decided to get out of that building. We didn't have a car, and there was complete silence, just the Israeli régime planes overflying Dahiyeh," he recalled. Soleimani said he hid under a tree with Nasrallah from what appeared to be heat-seeking drones while Mughniyeh went in search of a car. Afraid the car was also being tracked, they eventually switched cars in an underground garage, supposedly confounding the Israelis.Mughniyeh's luck did not last long. He was blown up in Damascus in 2008 in an operation later attributed jointly to the CIA and Israel's Mossad. An Israeli military officer with knowledge of Israel's Iran preparedness told The Daily Beast that when the Americans took out Soleimani this week, "It wasn't a surprise, not really."The officer, who spoke without attribution because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said there had been previous Israeli and American efforts to eliminate Soleimani, though it wasn't clear to what extent the plans had advanced.The Obama administration "asked us not to proceed," he said. "It was clear the implications could be much greater than a localized war, the repercussions could affect the whole world."This time around, "We're not involved in the American operation," said the Israeli officer. "But the Iranians always put us together, the big Satan and the little Satan. You see people on the streets screaming death to America and death to Israel. Could we potentially get hit? Of course. We are secondary, seen as a proxy for the United States."Iran's Qasem Soleimani is the Mastermind Preparing Proxy Armies for War With AmericaIn Trump's remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday, he claimed, "We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war." But as his predecessors understood well, the decision to assassinate Soleimani has opened the door into the unknown and the unknowable."We need de-escalation," one anxious Iraqi official told The Daily Beast, "and this is the mother of all escalations." —with additional reporting by Spencer AckermanRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet 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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| Trump administration restricts some e-cigarette flavors Posted: 03 Jan 2020 01:48 AM PST  The ban came under immediate criticism from public health advocates who said it does not go far enough. It does not apply to most e-cigarette liquids that are purchased separately, a variety most often sold in vape shops and used in so-called open tank e-cigarettes.
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