By Julia Edwards Ainsley | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The Department of Justice is deploying 50 judges to immigration detention facilities across the United States, according to two sources and a letter seen by Reuters and sent to judges on Thursday. The department is also considering asking judges to sit from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., split between two rotating shifts, to adjudicate more cases, the sources said. A […]
By Mark Hosenball | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON FBI Director James Comey on Thursday met with senior congressional leaders, including the intelligence committee chiefs, FBI and congressional officials said. The officials declined to discuss the subject of Comey’s meeting with the group of leaders known as the “Gang of Eight”. U.S. President Donald Trump has alleged that the Obama administration wiretapped his election campaign. The Gang of Eight, who […]
BEIRUT Turkey’s military shelled Syrian government forces and their allies on Thursday, causing deaths and injuries, Syrian state media quoted a military source as saying. State-run SANA news agency quoted the military source as saying that the Turkish bombardment targeted Syrian border guard positions in the countryside near the northern city of Manbij. Turkey intervened in northern Syria in August in support of rebel groups with the […]
BEIRUT U.S.-backed Syrian forces said on Thursday they were closing in on Islamic State-held Raqqa and expected to reach the city outskirts in a few weeks, as a U.S. Marines artillery unit deployed to help the campaign. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a militia alliance including the Kurdish YPG, is the main U.S. partner in the war against Islamic State in Syria. Since November it has been […]
The Senate voted Monday to kill an Obama administration rule aimed at curbing labor violations among government contractors. Two years in the making, the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule was targeted by Republican lawmakers 10 days after Donald Trump’s inauguration. The House voted to excise it on Feb. 2, and Trump can seal its fate with his signature. Before the Senate vote – 49-48, along party […]
Why West Berlin? After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city’s eastern side, formerly occupied by the communist German Democratic Republic, was ripe for renovation. The space created by the removal of the wall, and the old buildings overdue for renewal, meant everything edgy and inventive went east. The formerly cool West Berlin districts fell into something of a funk as the gaze shifted elsewhere. But […]
Former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has wished his successor President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo success in his administration amid challenges faced by the President in running the country. “I told him that his Cabinet is only part of it. My hope is [his administration] is more successful in the future,” he said with a smile with Jokowi sitting next to him. In their first official meeting, Yudhoyono said he and […]
SEOUL The head of South Korea’s Samsung Group, Jay Y. Lee, denies all charges against him, his lawyer said on Thursday, at the start of what the special prosecutor said could be the “trial of the century” amid a political scandal that has rocked the country. Lee has been charged with bribery, embezzlement and other offences in a corruption scandal that has already led to the impeachment […]
TOKYO Support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has plunged after questions were raised in parliament about a murky land deal involving an elementary school to which his wife had ties, according to an online poll published on Wednesday. Abe has said neither he nor his wife, Akie, was involved in the deal for state-owned land purchased by Moritomo Gakuen, an educational body in the western city […]
By Adam Jourdan and Eric Walsh | SHANGHAI/WASHINGTON SHANGHAI/WASHINGTON China has granted preliminary approval for 38 trademarks linked to Donald Trump, documents on China’s state trademark office show, giving the U.S. President and his family protection were they to develop the “Trump” brand in the market. The trademarks – which in theory cover a wide sweep of businesses from hotels to mobile libraries and escorts – underline […]
By Susan Cornwell and Yasmeen Abutaleb | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Republicans pushed ahead on Thursday with their plan for a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system backed by President Donald Trump, despite Democratic concern that the cost of the bill and its impact on the budget remain unknown. Two House of Representatives committees debated the draft legislation late into the night on Wednesday in marathon sessions, two […]
Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday: WIRETAPPING Two senior senators ask the FBI and Justice Department for any information they have on Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that predecessor Barack Obama wiretapped him during the presidential campaign. HEALTHCARE The top U.S. doctors’ organization and several hospital groups come out strongly against a Republican plan backed by Trump to overhaul America’s healthcare system as […]
Are you a woman who feels like you are always interrupted by a man? Well, there’s now an app that will prove just how much a user gets “manterrupted.” Inspired by none other than President Donald Trump, Woman Interrupted is the app that lets users know the rates in which men cut off and overpower women while they are speaking. Launched this week in celebration of International […]
By Susan Cornwell and Yasmeen Abutaleb | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Democrats mounted a fierce uphill battle on Wednesday to thwart a Republican plan backed by President Donald Trump to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, even as the legislation also drew fire from a top medical group and dissatisfied conservatives. Two House of Representatives committees began debating the bill and considering amendments two days after it was unveiled by […]
ROME A prize-winning racehorse dubbed the “Blonde Bombshell” and a thoroughbred colt were stolen from their stables in Italy on Tuesday, in a blow for an industry reeling from years of crisis. The abduction of the chestnut mare, called Unicka, and the colt, named Vampire Dany, was discovered by the horses’ trainer at the Wave stables near Pisa, northern Italy, when he went to feed them on […]
Based on new leaks you’d think we live in truly Orwellian times, but the authorities building the surveillance state still can’t do anything to stop actual crimes. WikiLeaks is rolling out Vault 7, a cache of documents that outline CIA hacking operations. Oddly, people are shocked. Why? We’ve been told for years that phone microphones and webcams can be turned on […]
KINSHASA Three mass graves have been discovered in central Democratic Republic of Congo, where hundreds have been killed since July in clashes between security forces and a local militia, the top U.N. rights official said on Wednesday. At least 400 people have died and 200,000 have been displaced since the fighting broke out with the Kamuina Nsapu militia. Police killed its leader, Kamuina Nsapu, last August, causing […]
A government watchdog group, Public Citizen, said on Wednesday it will ask lawmakers to investigate whether billionaire investor Carl Icahn should have been subject to lobbying disclosure laws when he advised President Donald Trump to overhaul the U.S. biofuels program. Icahn, an unpaid adviser to Trump on regulation, submitted a proposal to Trump last month to change the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard by shifting the burden of […]
By Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo | TOKYO TOKYO Rattled by North Korean military advances, influential Japanese lawmakers are pushing harder for Japan to develop the ability to strike preemptively at the missile facilities of its nuclear-armed neighbour. Japan has so far avoided taking the controversial and costly step of acquiring bombers or weapons such as cruise missiles with enough range to strike other countries, relying instead […]
BERLIN Support for Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) nudged up to 32 percent, one percentage point behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, over the past week, according to a poll published on Wednesday. The centre-left SPD, currently the junior partner in Merkel’s ruling coalition, has seen its poll ratings soar since nominating former European Parliament president Martin Schulz as its candidate for chancellor in the Sept. 24 federal election. […]
UNITED NATIONS The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday condemned North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches and expressed concern over the country’s increasingly destabilising behaviour and defiance of the 15-member body. Pyongyang fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan’s northwest coast on Monday, angering South Korea and Japan, days after it promised retaliation over U.S.-South Korea military drills it sees as preparation for war. The […]
By David Morgan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Senate Democrats, seeking to capitalise on growing disclosures about the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, urged a top Republican lawmaker on Tuesday to obtain President Donald Trump’s tax returns as a matter of national security. It was the second request for Trump’s returns by Senate Democrats in as many weeks, part of a Democratic campaign to pressure Republicans in Congress […]
The House of Lords has voted in support of a requirement for the government to bring the final terms of Britain’s exit from the EU before parliament for its approval, inflicting a second defeat on Theresa May’s Brexit strategy in the space of a week. With 634 peers voting — the largest number of peers to participate in a vote in the upper chamber on record, according […]
Via Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org, At Mar-a-Lago this weekend President Donald Trump was filled “with fury” says The Washington Post, “mad — steaming, raging, mad.” Early Saturday the fuming president exploded with this tweet: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” The president has reason to be enraged. For what is afoot […]
