| Trump rages at Democrats over vote on war powers at Ohio rally Posted: 09 Jan 2020 06:01 PM PST  President Trump went after his Democratic critics at a raucous campaign rally hours after the House of Representatives passed a resolution that sought to limit his ability to wage war in Iran.
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| Pelosi says she will send impeachment articles once McConnell discloses Senate rules Posted: 09 Jan 2020 10:34 AM PST  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will send articles of impeachment to the Senate "soon," but still wants to see definitive details from the Senate on how it will conduct the trial.
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| Boy kills teacher, self in Mexico school shooting Posted: 10 Jan 2020 05:28 PM PST  Torreón (Mexico) (AFP) - An 11-year-old boy shot and killed his teacher Friday at a school in northern Mexico and wounded six other people before killing himself, authorities said. As shocked Mexicans searched for explanations for the school shooting -- a rare event for the country -- officials said they were investigating a possible link to the Columbine High School massacre in the US in 1999. Panicked parents rushed to the private elementary school, the Colegio Cervantes, in Torreon as officials evacuated the trim brick building and police and soldiers put it on lockdown.
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| A North Korean woman is under investigation after saving her 2 kids from a house fire — but not her portraits of the Kim family Posted: 09 Jan 2020 04:54 PM PST  Daily NK adds that the unnamed woman hasn't been able to care for her kids in the hospital because of the investigation.
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| Ocasio-Cortez Refuses to Pay DCCC Dues, Frustrating House Dems Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:58 AM PST  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has exasperated her fellow House Democrats by announcing that she will not pay dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the House."For me personally, I'm not paying D-trip dues" for a "myriad of reasons" the freshman progressive congresswoman from New York said, using a nickname for the DCCC.According to records, she has so far not paid her $250,000 in dues despite leveraging her massive social media following to raise millions for her own reelection, Fox News reported.Ocasio-Cortez said her gripe with the party's official House campaign organization relates to the DCCC's practice of not supporting newer progressive candidates in order to insulate incumbent Democrats."One, I don't agree with the policy around blacklisting groups that help progressive candidates," she said. "I think we need to evolve as a party and make room for that.""I want to help frontline members by putting that money straight into their pocket," Ocasio-Cortez explained.The progressive 30-year-old has made good on that promise, pulling in more than $300,000 last year for candidates of her choosing, including $18,000 for Marie Newman, who seeks to oust longtime Illinois congressman Dan Lipinski, a rare pro-life Democrat."To have people try to purify the caucus because they don't agree with them – 100 percent, I certainly don't agree with that," said Texas Representative Henry Cuellar, one of the Democrats Ocasio-Cortez is trying to replace with a more progressive candidate, in this case Jessica Cisneros, for whom she raised $35,000."Hopefully, we will start to get away from this circular firing squad," Cuellar said.Ocasio-Cortez complained earlier this week that the Congressional Progressive Caucus's standard for lawmakers is too low, saying, "They let anybody who the cat dragged in call themselves a progressive."DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos highlighted the party campaign arm's strong fundraising numbers even without Ocasio-Cortez's contribution."That's always up to individual members so I guess I don't think about it one way or another," Bustos said of Ocasio-Cortez's decision to withhold dues. "We're raising record amounts of money from our members."
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| Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said he likely fell for a phishing scam. Here's how phishing scams work and how to avoid them. Posted: 09 Jan 2020 07:56 AM PST  Krugman tweeted that he received a phone call indicating that hackers downloaded child pornography on his WiFi network.
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| Canada prosecutor says essence of Huawei CFO case is fraud Posted: 10 Jan 2020 04:17 PM PST  Canada's Department of Justice said Friday the allegation against a top Chinese executive arrested at the United States' request would be a crime in Canada and she should be extradited to the United States on fraud charges. Canada arrested Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei's founder, in Dec. 2018 in a case that sparked a diplomatic furor among the three countries and complicated high-stakes U.S.-China trade talks. China detained two Canadians in apparent retaliation for the arrest Meng.
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| College Professor Out After Joke Suggesting Iran List U.S. Cultural Targets Posted: 09 Jan 2020 08:59 AM PST  An adjunct professor is no longer on staff at Babson College in Massachusetts after what he described as a "bad attempt at humor" in a Facebook post, in which he said Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei "should tweet a list of 52 sites of beloved American cultural heritage that he would bomb." The prof suggested those targets might include Minnesota's Mall of America and a home of the Kardashian family, among other locations.The since-deleted Facebook post by Babson's director of sustainability Asheen Phansey has been widely circulated on social media and was first reported by Turtleboysports.com on Tuesday.The Wellesley school said in a statement Thursday that it had suspended Phansey with pay "pending the completion of our investigation" and that the college "condemns any type of threatening words and/or actions condoning violence and/or hate." Hours later, Babson sent another statement, writing: "Based on the results of the investigation, the staff member is no longer a Babson College employee. As we have previously stated, Babson College condemns any type of threatening words and/or actions condoning violence and/or hate."Phansey told local news outlets he regretted making his ill-received "attempt at humor," which was an apparent response to a tweet from President Donald Trump on Saturday warning that, if Iran retaliated for the drone strike killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, it could face attacks from the United States on 52 Iranian sites, including those of cultural significance, a number the president said was symbolic of the 52 American hostages "taken by Iran many years ago."Leaders inside the United States and across the world, including Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, condemned Trump's tweets and accused him of threatening a "war crime," as well as breaching established norms of international law. Days later, Trump grudgingly backed down from that threat after the Pentagon said the U.S. military planned to follow international law.Phansey told The Boston Herald his post was an attempt to "juxtapose our 'cultural sites' with ancient Iranian churches and mosques" and that he is "an American, born and raised."WHDH-TV reported that Phansey was working with a public relations firm to handle the negative press after the post began circulating. "I am completely opposed to violence and would never advocate it by anyone," he told the Herald. "I am sorry that my sloppy humor was read as a threat. I condemn all acts of violence," he said."I am particularly sorry to cause any harm or alarm for my colleagues at Babson, my beloved alma mater and the place where I have enjoyed teaching students and serving as its sustainability director," Phansey added.Phansey's "professional experience spans the software, aerospace, and biotech sectors," according to Babson's website, which also said he holds a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Babson, where he frequently lectures.For his part, Adam Steinbaugh, director of the the advocacy group FIRE's Individual Rights Defense Program, which focuses on student and faculty speech rights, defended Phansey on Thursday. Before news of the professor's ouster broke, Steinbaugh wrote that his post amounted to "core political speech, protected under any principled understanding of freedom of expression" and that, "while Babson College is a private institution not bound by the First Amendment, it has committed itself to principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression." "Babson has betrayed those principles," Steinbaugh said.Lawmakers Fume About Trump Admin's Lack of Iran Explanation After 'Insulting' BriefingRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Russia's Putin oversees hypersonic missile test near Crimea Posted: 09 Jan 2020 03:54 AM PST  Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday oversaw military exercises from a naval vessel in the Black Sea near Crimea, including the test launch of a hypersonic air-launched Kinzhal missile, the Kremlin said. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has since built up military infrastructure on the peninsula. The first public outing of the Kinzhal occurred during a Red Square military parade in May 2018 and was one of several world premieres for Russian weapons.
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| Thousands flee beach towns after prime minister proclaims Australia 'wonderful place to come' Posted: 09 Jan 2020 07:52 AM PST  Hot, windy weather swept back into southeastern Australia on Thursday, whipping historic bushfires and prompting evacuation of several coastal towns.
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| India's road-block women vow to fight on against citizenship law Posted: 10 Jan 2020 05:24 PM PST  Every night, 75-year-old Noornissa braves the freezing cold to help block one of the main roads into the capital of India, in a protest that is at the forefront of a rising challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For nearly four weeks, Noornissa and more than 200 other women have sat and slept across the four-lane road between Delhi and the satellite city Noida, gaining nationwide attention as protests erupted across India over a controversial citizenship law that critics say is anti-Muslim. Men stand guard as the women, from the mainly Muslim area of Shaheen Bagh, sing the US civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome" and chant against the Citizenship Amendment Act, passed last month by Modi's Hindu nationalist government.
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| North Korea's Underground Bunkers And Bases Are A Nightmare For America Posted: 10 Jan 2020 03:31 AM PST  What lies within them?
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| Iranian accused in 1994 Argentina bombing steps into debate Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:41 AM PST |
| Nancy Pelosi lost the impeachment standoff Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:35 PM PST  After nearly a month of dithering, Nancy Pelosi is finally accepting defeat in her standoff with Mitch McConnell over impeachment. Despite insisting as recently as Thursday that she would wait to transmit the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate until she was confident that the trial in the upper chamber would proceed on terms favorable to her party, she quietly backed down on Friday morning. Her letter to Democratic colleagues in the House announced that the articles would be sent next week even though McConnell has made it clear that none of her demands — testimony from additional witnesses, for example — would be honored or even considered.Is anyone actually surprised by this outcome? How likely was it that Pelosi was ever going to change McConnell's mind? All of the leverage has been on his side from the beginning. He would be the one to decide how the trial would proceed, when it would begin, and how long it would last. Having to surrender the fate of judicial proceedings to the opposing party was how this was always fated to end.Was a delay actually in her party's interest? It could be argued that she hoped to persuade a handful of Republican senators to insist upon subpoenas for witnesses and documents. This did not happen, nor was it ever very likely. By the time Pelosi acknowledged that McConnell had the upper hand, Senate Democrats had been publicly begging her to surrender for days. "I think the speaker should send the articles regardless," Senator Chris Coons (Del.) said on Tuesday. "I think the time has passed."It is worth pointing out that Pelosi's letter arrived amid McConnell's decision to sign on to a resolution introduced by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri that would have dismissed the articles of impeachment 25 days after their adoption on the grounds that they had not been transmitted. It is unclear exactly what the constitutional implications of such a move would have been, but one thing that is clear is that it would have added many months of legal wrangling to the impeachment process. Forget about having presidential candidates in Washington when they should be in New Hampshire or South Carolina — a Supreme Court case over the constitutionality of a Senate dismissal of impeachment articles may well have dragged on into the summer, during which time Trump (and many constitutional scholars) could have argued that impeachment had never taken place. Could this possibly have forced her hand? We may never know.Which brings us back to the mystery that has been at the center of Trump's impeachment since the beginning. Why did Pelosi, a sober-minded, no-nonsense centrist who declared over and over again that impeachment was not worth pursuing, finally change her mind? Why did she wait to do so until last October, at which point it would have been obvious that the process would overlap with this year's caucuses and primaries? Why did she agree to draft and adopt articles of impeachment before she had secured the testimony of all the witnesses she and her members considered relevant? And why, finally, did she seem to have no coherent response prepared for the not exactly remote contingency in which McConnell refused to give her and her Senate colleagues the sort of trial they wanted? To quote an eminent anti-Boomer philosopher: "No thought was put into this."Though it is difficult to see what motivated Pelosi, especially in her decision to stall the inevitable handover of the process to the Senate, it is hard not to imagine that she had some sort of plan in mind. It just doesn't seem to have been a very good one.More stories from theweek.com Trump reportedly admitted impeachment played a big role in his Soleimani decision Rush's Neil Peart dies at age 67 Donald Trump is behaving like the guiltiest man alive
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| It looks like Iran is ready to start bombing its fake aircraft carrier again Posted: 09 Jan 2020 02:12 PM PST  Iran looks to have fixed its fake aircraft carrier after using it for target practice years ago, meaning it may be planning to start hitting it again.
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| U.S. rebuffs Britain's extradition request for diplomat's wife after fatal crash Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:57 PM PST  WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday rejected a formal request from Britain for the extradition of a U.S. diplomat's wife who left the country last year after a road collision that killed 19-year-old Briton Harry Dunn. British prosecutors are seeking the extradition of Anne Sacoolas over the crash last August in which Dunn was killed while riding his motorbike. "Following the Crown Prosecution Service's charging decision, the Home Office has sent an extradition request to the United States for Anne Sacoolas on charges of causing death by dangerous driving," a UK Home Office spokesman said in a statement on Friday.
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| Australia bushfires spark 'unprecedented' climate disinformation Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:11 AM PST  Australia's bushfire emergency has sparked an online disinformation campaign "unprecedented" in the country's history, researchers told AFP Friday, with bots deployed to shift blame for the blazes away from climate change. The fires have claimed at least 26 lives and destroyed more than 2,000 homes across Australia. One hashtag in particular, #arsonemergency, has gained traction rapidly and conservative-leaning newspapers, websites and politicians across the globe have promoted the theory arson is largely to blame.
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| Police detective convicted of inventing a crime to imprison innocent man is allowed to walk free by judge Posted: 09 Jan 2020 03:45 AM PST  A police detective who fabricated a fake assault and lied under oath in order to imprison an innocent man has been spared jail time.Former NYPD officer Michael Bergmann, 34, filed a criminal complaint claiming that a burglary suspect – whose car he had reportedly been pulling over for months in order to find grounds for his arrest – had tried to run him over in such a manner that the offending vehicle left skid marks on the ground.
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| Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed the largest budget in California history today. Here's what you need to know Posted: 10 Jan 2020 04:12 PM PST  California governor outline some of his biggest priorities for the coming year, including a focus on homelessness, wildfires, expanding health benefits.
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| Missing journalist's body found in Mexico's Michoacan state Posted: 09 Jan 2020 07:34 AM PST |
| Modi is resurrecting the most horrifying episode of his career to crush dissent Posted: 10 Jan 2020 06:12 AM PST  When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to bring his Gujarat Model to the rest of the country, everyone thought he meant the pro-growth reforms that had allegedly done wonders for the economy of his home state. But the events of last week suggest that the real Gujarat Model that Modi had in mind was something else entirely: Government looking the other way as private militants violently attack disfavored groups. It's a model that infamously resulted in the slaughter of more than 1,000 men, women, and children, mostly Muslims, over the course of a few days in 2002 when Modi was its chief minister.And now Modi has done a mini re-enactment at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a prestigious college in the heart of New Delhi whose opposition has long irritated him. This is no doubt a warning shot to the growing youth resistance against his "papers, please" citizenship law.Here's what happened at JNU:Sunday evening, 40 to 50 hoodlums, mostly men but also a few women, faces partially wrapped in scarfs, armed with clubs, iron rods, and sledgehammers, stormed the campus. Eyewitness accounts and video footage suggest that several of these people were members of the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), a student union associated with Modi's party. They approached a group of students protesting a sudden, massive fee hike and began thrashing them. They bloodied the student president, Aishe Ghosh, and many others.Then, chanting that the students were traitors who deserve to be shot for opposing the administration, the attackers barged into dorm rooms and went on a rampage, taking care to spare rooms that sported ABVP posters. Muslim students were of course fair game. And so was a blind Hindu student, a Sanskrit scholar and a student of Hinduism no less, whose wall sported a picture of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, India's reformist founding father. (Ambedkar has fallen from grace in pro-Modi circles because he was a vigorous opponent of the caste system and other regressive Hindu practices and his thought is fueling the constitutional case against Modi's Hindu nationalism.)JNU's vice-chancellor, who is appointed by the central government, failed to mobilize campus security to stop the mayhem. Meanwhile, the Delhi police, which is under the command of the Modi government rather than local authorities, ignored the frantic calls of students for over an hour. There was a veritable battalion of cops standing right outside the campus gates, but not a single one of them went in to stop the attack. As if this is not shocking enough, the cops even stood by as ambulances were vandalized right in front of them.Modi hasn't said a word condemning the violence at JNU. No assailant has yet been charged or arrested. The police claim they're zeroing in on some suspects, but judging by how they have handled cow vigilantes lynching Muslims suspected of consuming beef, the culprits will face no more than a slap on the wrist.Incredibly, at the exact same time that the JNU students were getting bashed, the cops were preparing a rap sheet against some of them, including Ghosh, for allegedly vandalizing university computer servers the day before to stop students from registering. Ghosh denies that allegation. Meanwhile, a video that ABVP circulated — and no less than the vice chancellor retweeted — showing that the Sunday violence was triggered by a prior episode when a "lefty student" punched an ABVP member turned out to be the opposite: an ABVP supporter appears to be attacking a "lefty student."All of this — law enforcement standing by as private militants allied with the ruling party go on a violent spree, criminalizing the victims, spreading disinformation to confuse the public — was precisely Modi's modus operandi in Gujarat. But the ominous parallels with that grisly episode don't stop there.The Gujarat carnage was preceded by a long vilification campaign against Muslims, a strategy he is replicating in miniature against the university. Modi has long castigated JNU students and faculty as communists and traitors who want to break up the country — never mind that last year's Nobel Prize recipient in economics along with two of Modi's own cabinet ministers hail from the university. His Home Minister and right-hand man, Amit Shah, known for his brass knuckles politics, has repeatedly said the university's "tukde tukde gang" — meaning the gang that wants to dismember India piece by piece — needs to be "taught a lesson." Modi popularized this moniker a few years ago when some of JNU's firebrand student leaders harshly protested the abrupt hanging of a Muslim man who had allegedly attacked the Indian parliament.Such statements signaled to Modi and Shah's most extreme supporters that they wanted the university targeted, without having to bother with actually giving orders to law enforcement authorities.Not that the duo is shy about doing so when necessary.A few weeks ago, cops appeared to vandalize Jamia Millia University, a Muslim university in New Delhi. But Modi's comrade, Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, went even further. His police showed up at Aligarh Muslim University and roughed up students protesting Modi's faith-cleansing policies that'll strip an untold number of Indian Muslims of citizenship. Over 60 students were injured, three critically. Several students have just disappeared. A Muslim female journalist who was covering a protest in nearby Lucknow was arrested and allegedly assaulted by police.But such tactics are backfiring spectacularly. The anti-government protests, especially on college campuses, are spreading like wildfire. Students at many elite colleges have gone on strike and are holding candle light vigils to protest the events at JNU and AMU along with Modi's nefarious citizenship law.A normal politician would back off in the face of such public opposition and extend an olive branch, especially given how quickly Modi's carefully cultivated squeaky-clean image is getting trashed in India and abroad. But Modi and Shah are doubling down.Previously, they had dubbed secularists defending religious freedom as "Muslim appeasers." Now, even moderate free-market conservatives or middle-of-the-road liberals expressing concern over the direction of the country are being branded as the radical left, Madhvan Narayanan, a veteran Indian journalist, told The Week.Why is Modi doing this? What's his end game?Many fear he is deliberately baiting protesters and fomenting widespread unrest to build an excuse to cancel elections in Delhi next month and put the city under the president's rule. His party is expected to lose handily just as it has done in other state elections in recent months, thanks to the growing dismay over his assaults on citizenship. There is even speculation that he is preparing to suspend India's constitution and declare an emergency, just as Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi notoriously did in 1975.That may or may not be the case. But one open question about Modi always has been whether he was pushing an extreme Hindu nationalist agenda to gain power or vice versa: pursuing power to push his agenda. His growing enemies list — and the private and state violence he will apparently deploy against those on it — suggests that the former might be the case.This means no one outside of Modi's band of merry brothers is safe in India anymore. All of India is Gujarat now. Dissent is out. Violence is in.As one poster at a protest noted: "First AMU. Then JNU. Next You."Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Trump reportedly admitted impeachment played a big role in his Soleimani decision Rush's Neil Peart dies at age 67 Donald Trump is behaving like the guiltiest man alive
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| There's a glaring loophole in Trump's latest claim that Soleimani was plotting to attack US embassies when he was assassinated Posted: 10 Jan 2020 02:14 PM PST  Why wasn't Congress informed about Soleimani's alleged attacks when administration officials briefed them on the strike this week?
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| All the Insane Surveillance Tools the Government (Maybe) Has Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:44 AM PST |
| Iran denies missile downed Ukrainian plane Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:27 PM PST  Iran's civil aviation chief denied Friday that a missile downed a Ukrainian airliner which crashed killing all 176 people on board, rejecting Western claims of a catastrophic mistake by Tehran's air defences. The cause of the crash is to be announced Saturday after an investigating committee meeting in the presence of foreign and local parties involved, Iran's Fars news agency said, quoting an "informed source". The report came as Ukraine said its experts had been granted access to the black box flight recorders and as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeated it was "likely" an Iranian missile had downed the plane.
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| Mexican man slits throat at U.S. border after being denied entry Posted: 09 Jan 2020 02:34 PM PST  A Mexican man has died after slitting his own throat when he was denied entry to the U.S., according to Mexican officials.
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| U.S. Army plans to expand Asian security efforts to counter China Posted: 09 Jan 2020 11:16 PM PST  The U.S. Army plans to deploy two specialized task forces to the Pacific capable of conducting information, electronic, cyber and missile operations against Beijing, a Pentagon official said on Friday. The task forces were slated to deploy over the next two years, U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said at an event https://brook.gs/39VM3fS in Washington. The units, called Multi-Domain Task Forces, would help neutralize some capabilities China and Russia already possess.
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| Man sentenced for accidentally killing best friend at party Posted: 09 Jan 2020 11:28 AM PST |
| 'Megxit': How the world's newspapers reacted to Harry and Meghan's news Posted: 09 Jan 2020 04:19 AM PST  The decision by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to quit life as senior royals surprised the world on Wednesday.
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| Iranian commander vows ‘harsher revenge soon’ against U.S. Posted: 09 Jan 2020 04:49 AM PST  The remarks come from IRGC senior commander Abdollah Araghi.
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| The 7 Coolest Automotive Technologies Unveiled at CES Posted: 10 Jan 2020 09:01 AM PST |
| Pentagon launched second attack on an Iranian militant the same day it killed Soleimani Posted: 10 Jan 2020 02:28 PM PST  The Pentagon launched a separate attack on an Iranian military leader in Yemen the same day it killed the Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
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| Australian animals face extinction threat as bushfire toll mounts Posted: 09 Jan 2020 09:11 PM PST  When volunteer Sarah Price found a baby kangaroo frightened but miraculously alive in the pouch of its dying mother surrounded by the embers of Australia's bushfires, it seemed fitting to name him Chance. The furry pair had survived flames that have ripped through much of southeastern Australia, but the mother's organs later collapsed from acute stress -- making her one among the more than one billion animals estimated to have died in the crisis so far. Chance is slowly recovering, getting regular food and water and hiding out in a bag in a darkened room -- a rare success story amid a disaster that has shocked even volunteers accustomed to Australia's frequent bushfires and prolonged droughts.
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| A brokered convention is more likely than Elizabeth Warren winning the nomination, FiveThirtyEight forecasts Posted: 10 Jan 2020 09:41 AM PST  The Democratic nominee is starting to take shape in FiveThirtyEight's 2020 vision.The data-driven news site gives former Vice President Joe Biden the best chance of locking down the 2020 Democratic nomination in its primary forecast that debuted Thursday. But things get more complicated beyond the top two candidates, with FiveThirtyEight predicting the Democratic National Committee could arrive at its convention without a nominee.Democratic candidates need to win more than half of pledged delegates ahead of the convention to land the presidential nomination. Biden has a two in five chance of earning that majority, FiveThirtyEight says, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) has a one in five chance.But the next most likely outcome isn't that prominent candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) or former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg win the nomination. It's that no one gets a majority of delegates at all, FiveThirtyEight predicts. The chances of ending up with a contested convention are one in seven, FiveThirtyEight forecasts. Warren meanwhile gets a one in eight chance of locking up the nomination, Buttigieg gets 1 in 10, and all the other Democrats out there get a collective one in 40.Find more of FiveThirtyEight's primary predictions here.More stories from theweek.com Trump reportedly admitted impeachment played a big role in his Soleimani decision Rush's Neil Peart dies at age 67 Donald Trump is behaving like the guiltiest man alive
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| Boeing's former CEO, who was fired over the 737 Max crisis, got no severance pay but left with $62 million Boeing says he was 'contractually entitled' to Posted: 10 Jan 2020 02:37 PM PST  Boeings former CEO received 'the benefits to which he was contractually entitled and he did not receive any severance pay or a 2019 annual bonus.'
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| Here's How Russia Almost Extended The Age Of The Battleship Posted: 10 Jan 2020 06:45 AM PST  Why didn't it happen?
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| Man who killed US Marine sentenced to life in prison Posted: 09 Jan 2020 04:11 PM PST |
| Trump news: Pelosi will send impeachment articles to Senate as president announces new Iran sanctions Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:35 PM PST  A judge in New York has refused a request by Donald Trump's legal team to have a defamation lawsuit brought against him by the writer E Jean Carroll dismissed, ensuring her allegations of sexual assault are heard while the president seeks re-election.Mr Trump went after his domestic rivals over the Iran crisis during a wild campaign rally in Ohio on Thursday night, suggesting House speaker Nancy Pelosi would have leaked the US plan to assassinate Qassem Soleimani to the media had she had prior warning.
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| The great dismantling of America's national parks is under way Posted: 10 Jan 2020 03:00 AM PST  In this waking nightmare, the Trump administration has filled the parks department with anti-public land sycophants * We're expanding our public lands project this year. Read more here. * Help us raise $1.5m to support the Guardian's journalism in 2020, including our coverage of environment, climate and public lands.Sign up for updates on America's public lands.Under this administration, nothing is sacred as we watch the nation's crown jewels being recut for the rings of robber barons.For more than 100 years, professional management of our national parks has been respected under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Yes, they have different priorities, the Democrats often expanding the system and the Republicans historically focused on building facilities in the parks for expanding visitation. But the career public servants of the National Park Service (NPS), charged with stewarding America's most important places, such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and the Statue of Liberty, were left to do their jobs.Even in the dark days of interior secretaries James Watt and Gail Norton, both former attorneys with the anti-environmental Mountain States Legal Foundation, the National Park Service (NPS) was generally left untouched, perhaps because they recognized that some institutions have too much public support or their mission too patriotic to be tossed under the proverbial bus.This time is different and we should know, as Jon, one of this story's authors, worked for the last 10 interior secretaries as a career NPS manager, and ultimately led the agency under Barack Obama, and Destry, Jon's brother and co-author, has worked with the past 12 NPS directors as a conservation advocate. The change began within 24 hours of the inauguration when Donald Trump complained that the NPS was reporting smaller crowds on the National Mall than Obama had drawn. Perhaps this is when the NPS wound up on the list of transgressors. Soon the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, attempted to double the entrance fees, rescinded climate policies and moved seasoned senior national park superintendents around to force their retirements.After Zinke's abrupt resignation, secretary David Bernhardt populated too much of the department's political leadership with unconfirmed, anti-public land sycophants, and announced a reorganization to install his own lieutenants to oversee super regions, realigning NPS from seven regions to twelve in the name of greater efficiency.Next came the proclamation that career staff in Washington would be sent to the field to be closer to the people they serve, but in reality, to be out of the way and no longer an impediment to his agenda.Then came the decisions to leave the parks open to impacts during the unfortunate government shutdown, illegally misuse entrance fees, open park trails to e-bikes, suppress climate science, kill wolf pups and bear cubs in their dens to enhance "sport hunting", privatize campgrounds, and issue muzzle memos to park managers. With a waiver of environmental laws, bulldozers are plowing ancient cacti in national parks along the southern border in order to build a wall. Senior career park managers are likely to be replaced with unqualified political hacks.These are not random actions. This is a systematic dismantling of a beloved institution, like pulling blocks from a Jenga tower, until it collapses. You ask, why on earth would someone want to do that to the popular National Park Service, the subject of one of Ken Burns' acclaimed documentaries and often called "America's best idea"?Because if you want to drill, mine and exploit the public estate for the benefit of the industry, the last thing you want is a popular and respected agency's voice raising alarms on behalf of conservation and historic preservation.Because if you want the public to ignore the science of climate change, the last thing you want are trusted park rangers speaking the truth to park visitors.Because if you want to get the federal government small enough (in the words of Grover Norquist) to "drown it in a bathtub", the last thing you want is a government agency with high popular appeal that needs to grow rather than shrink.It is clear that this administration cannot be trusted with the keys to the vault of our most precious places that define us as a nation, such as Mount Rushmore or Yosemite national park.When this nightmare ends, and we begin to rebuild, we suggest it is time for Congress to consider making the National Park Service an independent institution, more akin to the Smithsonian, and no longer subject to the vicissitudes of a hostile political agenda in a Department of the Interior dominated by extractive industries and anti-public land crusaders. * Brothers Jonathan and Destry Jarvis have spent a combined 87 years in the conservation of parks and public lands. Jonathan was the 18th director of the NPS and served in the agency for 40 years. Destry has spent 47 years as an advocate for national parks working for several non-governmental organizations and in the private sector. * The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. For more information about how this project is supported, click here.
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| Why Iran's Cruise Missiles Are a Serious Threat Posted: 10 Jan 2020 07:40 AM PST  In light of the seeming effectiveness of Iranian and proxy cruise missile attacks to date, Tehran will likely spend more time, effort, and money on this program, increasing the Iranian asymmetric military threat, shifting the relative military balance in the region, and further undermining regional stability.
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| US sharply reduces flights to Cuba Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:32 PM PST  The United States on Friday sharply reduced flights allowed to go to Cuba in a bid to reduce revenue to the communist island. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that charter flights would only be allowed to fly to Havana, not other airports -- a step already taken with commercial flights. The restrictions "will further restrict the Cuban regime's ability to obtain revenue, which it uses to finance its ongoing repression of the Cuban people and its unconscionable support for dictator Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela," Pompeo said in a statement.
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