• Did Democrats just help Trump win reelection?
12 Dec 2019 at 4:05pm
House Democrats have officially agreed to back a revised version of Trump?s new trade pact ? an announcement made just one hour after House Democratic leaders unveiled articles of impeachment against him.
• Yes, China's New Submarine-Launched Nuclear Missiles Could Destroy America
12 Dec 2019 at 3:00pm
But that's why we have M.A.D.
• AOC explains why she won't go on Fox News: 'Unmitigated racism'
11 Dec 2019 at 8:38pm
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., lashed out at Fox News hours after host Tucker Carlson and a guest had criticized her climate policy proposals, while suggesting her district is ?dirty? due to its immigrant population.
• Washington state seeks to ban sale of 'assault weapons,' high capacity magazi...
13 Dec 2019 at 12:46am
![Washington state seeks to ban sale of 'assault weapons,' high capacity magazines]( "Washington state seeks to ban sale of 'assault weapons,' high capacity magazines")
If successful, Washington would become the seventh U.S. state to ban assault weapons, which it defines as semi-automatic rifles with at least one military feature, and the ninth to limit the capacity of ammunition magazines. "We should be making it harder for those who want to inflict mass violence and destruction upon innocent people," Governor Jay Inslee said in announcing the gun-control push.
• How 16-year-old Greta Thunberg ? Time's 2019 person of the year ? became the ...
11 Dec 2019 at 5:31pm
Greta Thunberg has met with world leaders, led climate strikes, sailed across the Atlantic, and been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
• The Real Locations That Inspired 13 Famous Paintings
11 Dec 2019 at 11:09pm
![The Real Locations That Inspired 13 Famous Paintings]( "The Real Locations That Inspired 13 Famous Paintings")
For over a year, Vincent van Gogh lived in the French city of Arles. Unfortunately, it was also in Arles where the post-Impressionist artist suffered his most famous mental breakdown, one that culminated in the severing of his left ear. Perhaps more than any subject, Paul Cézanne was drawn to Mont Sainte-Victoire.
• Taliban fighters hit with a series of airstrikes after failed attempt to brea...
12 Dec 2019 at 2:38pm
A series of airstrikes were called in following a failed attempt by the Taliban to breach Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, according to a Resolute Support spokesman.
• Oink oink, cha-ching: $3 million found in barrels of pork
11 Dec 2019 at 1:28pm
Barrels of raw pork shoulder were riding fat in a tractor trailer pulled over by North Carolina deputies. Approximately $3 million in cash was recovered from the barrels Saturday, the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post Tuesday. The driver of the tractor trailer was accused of failing to maintain his lane and impeding the flow of traffic on Interstate 85.
• Chile says no hope of survivors from missing plane
13 Dec 2019 at 12:31am
Chile confirmed Thursday that a military plane with 38 people aboard crashed in the sea, with no hope of finding survivors. "The condition of the plane wreckage that was found makes it practically impossible that there are survivors from this air accident," Air Force chief Arturo Merino told a news conference in the southern port of Punta Arenas.
• House impeachment hearing grinds toward final vote
12 Dec 2019 at 4:12pm
The 10th and final public impeachment hearing in the House lurched forward Thursday, as the House Judiciary Committee moved toward a vote that would send articles of impeachment to the full House floor for a final vote next week.
• The U.S. Navy's Frankenstein Project: Combine an Aircraft Carrier and a Battl...
11 Dec 2019 at 8:00pm
Could it have worked?
• US military releases photos showing Bagram Air Base damage following brazen T...
12 Dec 2019 at 9:22pm
A source on the ground detailed to Military Times that a firefight between the Taliban and Afghan and U.S. forces lasted nine to 10 hours.
• U.S. sets China trade deal terms, sources say, but Beijing mum
12 Dec 2019 at 7:31am
WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - Washington has set its terms for a trade deal with China, offering to suspend some tariffs on Chinese goods and cut others in exchange for Beijing's buying more American farm goods, U.S. sources said on Thursday. Beijing's silence, however, raised questions over whether the two sides can agree a truce in their trade war before a new round of tit-for-tat tariffs takes effect on Sunday. A source briefed on the status of bilateral negotiations said the United States would suspend tariffs on $160 billion in Chinese goods expected to go into effect on Sunday and roll back existing tariffs.
• Britain?s Political Map Changes Color in Ways Few Could Imagine
13 Dec 2019 at 7:24am
![Britain?s Political Map Changes Color in Ways Few Could Imagine]( "Britain?s Political Map Changes Color in Ways Few Could Imagine")
(Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.Towns in northern England share a history of mining, faded industry and neglect. For generations they also had another thing in common: staunch support for the Labour Party.From Workington on the west coast to Bishop Auckland and Blyth on the east, the dominoes fell as the results from the U.K. election rolled in through the small hours of Friday morning. The U.K.?s tortured efforts to leave the European Union redefined political tribes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson?s Conservatives took seats his party has never held before.Johnson declared the victory as ?historic.? That will be even more apparent in places where most voters have never known a Conservative lawmaker.Workington, where mines and steelworks shut years ago, last voted Conservative in 1976. Back then Britain was in the grip of an economic crisis. It turned back to the red of Labour three years later. On Thursday it voted Conservative by a margin of 10 percentage points.Bishop Auckland, in the mining area south of Newcastle, had never turned Tory blue in more than a century. Elsewhere, Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire elected a Conservative for the first time since the 1930s, as did swathes of the Midlands and Yorkshire. Labour?s so-called ?Red Wall? had fallen.Many of these former mining and steel towns endured mass unemployment under the Conservative governments of the 1980s. They then voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum amid a wave of anger at austerity, frustration over immigration and dismay at joblessness and lack of opportunity. Today, they are embracing the Tories in their determination to finally quit the EU. Backing for Brexit also comes with a rejection of the socialist promises of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who now says he will step down.In Scotland, Labour?s vote had already collapsed in the wake of the independence referendum in 2014. This time around the pro-independence Scottish National Party took the vast majority of districts again, even in some of the post-industrial regions that Labour had won back in 2017.In that election, the Conservatives planted a giant poster on a dilapidated building near the seafront in Redcar, a town in England?s northeast haunted by steelworks that finally collapsed a few years ago. The Tories had never won in Redcar, and failed in 2017 as well. But as people demanded their voice be heard over Brexit, the voters of Redcar did in 2019 as so many did across the north of England: They abandoned Labour -- and embraced Boris Johnson.To contact the reporter on this story: Rodney Jefferson in Edinburgh at r.jefferson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Heather Harris at hharris5@bloomberg.net, Adam Blenford, Alan CrawfordFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
• Saudi Family of Pensacola Gunman: 'Even We Don't Know the Truth' of Motive
11 Dec 2019 at 8:10pm
AL AHSA, Saudi Arabia -- Not long before a 21-year-old Saudi Royal Air Force trainee shot and killed three American sailors Friday at a naval base in Pensacola, Florida, he called his mother and his brother back home.The trainee, 2nd Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, was wearing his uniform, they could see on the video call -- the uniform he had always wanted to wear as a child, when he dreamed of becoming a pilot.With his elder brother, Abdullah, he joked around on the call: "You're the eldest," Alshamrani teased, "but I'm going to get married first." Talking to his mother, he promised he would be home as soon as he finished his training. "Just a few more months," he said.What was missing was any hint of what was to come: opening fire in a classroom building at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, shooting three fatally and wounding eight more before being killed by a sheriff's deputy.Alshamrani seemed utterly normal in that last conversation, his family insisted in interviews this week in Saudi Arabia. Four days later, they are still baffled."He never had a secret, he was never hiding anything," Saeed Abdullah Alshamrani, 55, the lieutenant's father, said at the family's home in eastern Saudi Arabia on Tuesday evening. "It's such a mystery. Even we don't know the truth.""Are you sure he's dead?" his father asked during the interview, surrounded by several relatives, acquaintances and others whose relationship to the family was not clear. "We haven't even been given any proof of whether he's dead or alive."No motive for the shooting has been determined, although the FBI is treating it as a presumed terrorist attack. The Pentagon announced Tuesday that it was suspending operational training for all of the nearly 900 Saudi military students in the United States.Among the few clues to emerge was a tweet from an account that may be connected to Alshamrani, which condemned United States foreign policy decisions in the Middle East, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online. There was also a complaint the lieutenant filed earlier this year against one of his instructors for mocking his mustache in class.But in Saudi Arabia, the American focus on possible radicalization has left family and acquaintances bewildered, forced to answer for their son and friend to other Saudis.Sensitive to Western stereotypes that often reflexively brand Muslims as terrorists, and aware that the kingdom cannot afford to lose Washington's support, many Saudis have been eager to portray the lieutenant as a monstrous outlier. A hashtag declaring that he "does not represent" Saudis has dominated Twitter in the kingdom, and the media has echoed the point."This work can only be done by a cowardly villain," Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri, a political scientist, wrote in the Arab News, a Saudi newspaper. "He has betrayed his country, which trusted him and spent millions on his education. Instead, he stabbed her in the back."The Saudi government is also extremely sensitive about the case, fearing it could jeopardize a relationship already frayed by criticism in Washington over the war in Yemen and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year. King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other top officials have all condemned the shooting. Alshamrani's family has said they were questioned by government officials.In interviews, his father, brother, cousins and a family friend said that Alshamrani had always seemed content to be in the United States, working toward his longtime goal, never mentioning difficulties."Since he was a kid, he'd dreamed of being a pilot, and he worked so hard for it," said his brother, Abdullah Alshamrani. Once he arrived in the United States, "he loved it so much, really," his brother said. "He was amazed by America's military force, just really impressed by the military."The third child in a family from Tabalah, a farming town in southern Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Alshamrani grew up in Al Ahsa, not far from the Saudi Aramco compound in eastern Saudi Arabia. His father had moved there to work in the local airport, eventually rising to be a security official.The family spent summers with extended family back in Tabalah, with its date farms nestled amid the undulating desert and stark mountains. They built another house there and frequently came back for weddings and other family events. On summer evenings, with other entertainment scarce, young men like Alshamrani and his brothers and cousins would gather at rented guesthouses in the desert to play cards and watch soccer on TV late into the night.Alshamrani always seemed more serious and less boisterous than the other young men, recalled Galat bin Mitshoosh, a retired longtime detective with the local prosecutor's office in Tabalah who knows the family."I never heard anything political from Mohammed," he said. "He was quiet, just a normal guy. He might talk about sports sometimes."The Alshamranis were observant Muslims who prayed, he said, but their practice of Islam was not considered especially strict.A person familiar with the investigation in the United States has said that friends and classmates told investigators that Alshamrani seemed to have become more religious when he returned from his last visit home in February.During that visit, relatives said, he took his mother to the holy city of Mecca to perform the umrah, a type of pilgrimage that many Muslims routinely undertake. In his relatives' eyes, however, they said there was nothing to indicate his Islamic beliefs had changed or hardened. He did not seem different, they said, except that he had shaven his chin clean.Always a good student, Alshamrani cemented his place as the pride of his family when he became one of the two students picked from his air force academy class of several hundred to enter the training program in the United States on a scholarship. Saudi Arabia has sent hundreds of thousands of young students overseas to study in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States in recent years, but it was so rare for someone from rural Tabalah to study in the United States that the last young man from the town to do so before Alshamrani is locally famous."I was so proud of him. He's the role model of the family," his brother Abdullah said. "I'm the eldest son, but Mohammed is a big deal."Starting in August 2017, the Saudi government paid for him to spend a year learning English at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio before he moved to Pensacola for military training. He had already received weapons training at his academy in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, the family said. But he did not appear to acquire a gun in the United States until July, when he legally purchased a Glock 45 9-millimeter handgun in late July, shortly after obtaining a state hunting license, the FBI said Tuesday.Over his years in the United States, he shared with his family pictures of himself smiling in Times Square and in uniform with one of his American trainers.A video he took in Florida showed friends splashing around in kayaks, as he laughed behind the camera. When he called home -- almost every day, his father and brother said -- he talked about traveling around the United States, hanging out with his Saudi roommate and coming home after graduation. He was counting down the months.So was his family. His father had told neighbors and friends in Tabalah that he would throw a huge graduation party for his son when the family visited next summer, according to bin Mitshoosh, the retired detective. All the men from all six of the town's tribes would be invited.When he called his family Friday, Alshamrani offered to send his brother some extra money. He promised to be home soon."I'll call you later," he told Abdullah.Only hours later, that night, would they learn the news.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
• A growing number of Republicans say they're satisfied with US healthcare cost...
12 Dec 2019 at 5:13pm
The poll suggests that heightened partisanship is swaying Republicans on healthcare just as it has been on the economy
• Charges dropped, brothers in hemp-pot mixup look to sue NYC
12 Dec 2019 at 12:45am
The bust was a bust, and it could end up costing New York City some serious green. A day after prosecutors dropped criminal charges in a case spotlighting confusion over hemp, marijuana and conflicting laws, the Brooklyn brothers caught in the chaos took the first step toward suing the city and the police department. Oren and Ronen Levy filed notices of claim Wednesday, saying the ?nightmare? ordeal that began with Ronen's Nov. 2 arrest and the seizure of 106 pounds (48 kilograms) of hemp plants tarnished their reputations and threatened their livelihoods selling CBD, the extract showing up lately in everything candy to coffee.
• German execs slam planned US sanctions on Russian pipeline
12 Dec 2019 at 9:41am
The German-Russian Chamber of Commerce called for retaliatory sanctions on Thursday after US lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill that would punish contractors working on a Russian pipeline to Germany. "Europe should respond to sanctions that damage Europe with counter-sanctions," Matthias Schepp, head of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement.
• Trump mocks Greta Thunberg's Time Person of the Year honor: 'So ridiculous'
12 Dec 2019 at 1:06pm
President Trump on Thursday mocked Greta Thunberg after the Swedish teenage climate activist was named Time magazine?s Person of the Year, edging out finalists including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hong Kong protesters ? and him.
• Meet the Navy's Small Warships That Help to Deter Iran
12 Dec 2019 at 9:45am
Spunky and important little boats.
• Jamal Khashoggi: US spy chief given deadline to name Saudi writer's killers
13 Dec 2019 at 7:30am
* Trump ally Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accused * Congress gives intelligence chief 30 days to assign responsibilityUS intelligence agencies will be given a month to make a formal declaration on whether the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was responsible for the murder of the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.The annual military spending bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), was passed by a large majority in the House of Representatives on Wednesday and is expected to be approved by the Senate next week before being signed into law by Donald Trump.In negotiations before the NDAA?s passage, sections stipulating that Khashoggi?s murderers be subject to punitive measures were stripped from the bill, on the insistence of the White House ? as were clauses that would have cut US support for the Saudi war in Yemen.According to the New York Times, the president?s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, took a leading role in negotiations on behalf of the White House, and was insistent that the punitive clauses on Saudi Arabia should be removed.But the final version of the bill retained language requiring the director of national intelligence (DNI) to present a formal determination within 30 days on who was responsible for the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October last year.In April, the US barred entry to 16 Saudis for their role in the murder plot, including one of the crown prince?s closest aides, Saud al-Qahtani. This week, the state department added the former Saudi consul general in Istanbul, Mohammed al-Otaibi.In a closed-door briefing in December 2018, the CIA director, Gina Haspel, told senators that the agency was convinced the murder had been ordered by the crown prince (colloquially known by his initials MBS).?We know that the intelligence community has assessed with high confidence that MBS bears at least some responsibility for Khashoggi?s murder and the cover-up that has followed,? Tom Malinowski, the Democratic congressman from New Jersey who drafted the Saudi human rights accountability legislation, told the Guardian. ?So if they answer the question, honestly, MBS will be on the list.?The congressional demand for a formal declaration, will be a test of the independence of the office of the DNI, since the ousting of Dan Coats from the post in the summer. His former deputy, Joseph Maguire, has been acting in the position since August.?I wouldn?t be surprised if the White House put some pressure on the director of national intelligence to come to a different conclusion,? Malinowski said. ?So we?ll be watching this with great interest. We do have the advantage of knowing in advance what the intelligence community thinks because they?ve already told us in a classified setting. So it will be quite striking if they tell us something that is different in response to this.?Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA officer and Saudi expert, said that Haspel is likely to have given the agency?s assessment of Prince Mohammed?s role in the Khashoggi murder in verbal form to the Senate, leaving the intelligence community enough wiggle room to hand over a list of the names of suspects the US has already named, excluding the crown prince.?I?m doubtful [the CIA assessment] was conveyed in a written product. More likely it was in answer to questions,? Riedel said. He added that obscuring the crown prince?s involvement ?is going to be a tight line to run, but no doubt this administration will run it?.He said that the White House would have found it more ?problematic? to convince Coats to issue a determination to Trump?s liking.?The acting DNI is a fine person, but he?s not going to fall on his sword, nor is the director of central intelligence,? Riedel said.
• 'She is speaking out to us': M?ori leader says volcano eruption was a message
11 Dec 2019 at 11:53am
Pouroto Ngaropo, standing on an ancient settlement site overlooking the island of Whakaari, recites his ancestry back thousands of years, back to the volcano which erupted there on Monday. "Whakaari is my connection to the ocean, to the land, and to the environment around me ... we are one and she's our ancestor,? said the 51-year old M?ori spiritual leader whose genealogy is depicted in the tattoo art known as a ?t? moko? adorning his face. The volcano island off New Zealand's North Island holds deep spiritual significance for his iwi or tribe, Ng?ti Awa, which also own the company that ran tours there before the eruption.
• Republican congressman publicly identifies purported whistleblower
12 Dec 2019 at 10:52pm
On Wednesday, Rep. Louie Gohmert publicly named a person some Republicans and allies of President Trump claim is the alleged whistleblower who first brought the Trump-Ukraine scandal to light.
• Bulletproof vest did not fail in fatal shooting of Houston police officer, ch...
12 Dec 2019 at 8:16pm
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo says body armor didn't fail Sgt. Christopher Brewster, who was killed while responding to a domestic violence call
• Bolivia?s Ex-President Morales Seeks Refugee Status in Argentina
12 Dec 2019 at 2:17pm
(Bloomberg) -- Bolivia?s former president Evo Morales has landed in Buenos Aires, with the purpose of seeking refugee status in Argentina, according to comments by foreign minister Felipe Sola on local TV.Morales? arrival follows a month-long stay in Mexico and several days in Cuba. In mid-November Argentina?s then president-elect, Alberto Fernandez, said that the former Bolivian leader could seek asylum in the country after he became president on Dec. 10.Morales resigned the presidency of the Andean country on Nov. 11 following civil unrest in the wake of a contested election. He fled to Mexico after the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador granted him asylum.Read More: Coup or No Coup, Bolivia?s Morales Fell From Grace: QuickTakeRecent opinion polls, however, showed the decision was a net negative for the administration, with 44% of Mexicans describing the decision as bad or very bad in a poll published in El Financiero.To contact the reporter on this story: Jorgelina do Rosario in Buenos Aires at jdorosario@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Bruce DouglasFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
