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Republican senator on Trump soliciting foreign interference: 'Things happen'

Republican Senator Richard Shelby defended an argument from President Trump’s legal team that soliciting foreign interference in an election is not an impeachable offense, saying, “things happen.”

Bloomberg pledges $70 billion to bolster black America in new plan

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his presidential campaign's plan for bolstering economic opportunity for black Americans.

'I Dare You to Mock Me.' Capt. 'Sully' Sullenberger Defends Joe Biden Against Attacks on His Speech in New York Times Op-Ed

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger opened up about his past struggles with stuttering in defending Biden and his speech.

Illegal crossings plunge as US extends policy across border

Adolfo Cardenas smiles faintly at the memory of traveling with his 14-year-old son from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border in only nine days, riding buses and paying a smuggler $6,000 to ensure passage through highway checkpoints. Father and son walked about 10 minutes in Arizona's stifling June heat before surrendering to border agents. Instead of being released with paperwork to appear in immigration court in Dallas, where Cardenas hopes to live with a cousin, they were bused more than an hour to wait in the Mexican border city of Mexicali.

Bodies of Ukrainian victims of Iran plane crash returned home

The bodies of the 11 Ukrainian citizens who died when a passenger plane was accidentally shot down by Iran this month were brought back to Ukraine on Sunday in a solemn ceremony at Kiev airport. All 176 on board the Ukraine International Airlines flight from Tehran to Kiev were killed when the Boeing 737-800 was shot down on Jan. 8, at a time when Iran was on high alert for a U.S. attack. Nine of the Ukrainian citizens were crew members.

Ex-Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Line workers reveal the things they couldn't live without on board

Workers for cruise lines like Carnival and Norwegian might be away from home for over six months, so they need to be thoughtful about what they pack.

Climate crisis could justify asylum claims: UN committee

Governments that send refugees back to countries severely affected by climate change could be in breach of their human rights obligations, a UN committee said on Monday. The independent experts on the Human Rights Committee issued a non-binding but closely watched ruling in a case brought by Ioane Teitiota from the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. Several Pacific island nations including Kiribati are seen as among the most vulnerable in the world to climate change as they are just a few metres above sea level.

China's Navy Warships Are Now Armed With Land-Attack Missiles

China says its newest destroyer is capable of launching land-attack missiles.

Cult slayed pregnant woman and five of her children in Panama

A religious sect whose members believed to be “anointed by God” forced a pregnant woman and five of her children to walk through fire as part of a cult ritual, according to local residents.

Trump impeachment news: President gives 'chilling' defence as his legal team lay out furious response to Senate trial

The day before his impeachment trial is set to begin, Donald Trump's lawyers are urging the Senate reject the charges against him and are calling the hearings an "illegitimate partisan effort to take him down" by Democrats.Meanwhile, the prosecution team from the House has filed a stern reply to the president's legal team, following their response to a summons request calling the impeachment articles "constitutionally invalid." House managers replied, calling the president's assertion that he can't be removed from the presidency "chilling" and "dead wrong".

John Roberts Has More Power Than Mitch McConnell Would Like You to Think. But Will He Use It?

If John Roberts deems it relevant to call witnesses during the impeachment trial, he, as presiding officer, has the power and the duty to do so, whatever Mitch McConnell thinks.

Leopard runs into house before being captured in south India

A leopard that ran into a house and sparked a frantic search and a frenzy of attention in southern India on Monday has been caught and tranquilized. The big cat emerged from the Kamdanam forest and ran into a house in Shadnagar town in Telangana state, said Dr. Mohammad Abdul Hakeem, a wildlife official. Deadly conflict between humans and animals has increased in recent years in India largely due to shrinking forest habitats and urban expansion.

'Took me right out of my seat' — Warren Buffett was inspired by a Martin Luther King Jr. speech to push for civil rights

The famed investor's support of King marked "the first time there had been space in Warren's life for anything outside of moneymaking."

Mysterious Sars-like virus spreading across China amid sharp rise in new cases and a third death

China says a mysterious Sars-like virus has spread across the country, including to Beijing, raising concerns as millions begin trips for the Lunar New Year. A day after state authorities said the virus was "controllable", officials said a third person was confirmed to have died and there were nearly 140 new cases.  The new coronavirus strain has caused alarm because of its connection to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003. In Wuhan, the central city where the coronavirus was first discovered, 136 new cases were found over the weekend, the local health commission said, without giving details about the person who died. Health authorities in Beijing's Daxing district said two people who had travelled to Wuhan were treated for pneumonia linked to the virus and are in stable condition. In Guangdong, a 66-year-old Shenzhen man was quarantined on January 11 after contracting a fever and showing other symptoms following a trip to visit relatives in Wuhan, the provincial health commission said in a statement. A total of 201 people have now been diagnosed with the virus in China. In Wuhan, 170 people are still being treated at hospital, including nine in critical condition, the city health commission said. Read more: Just how worried should we be about this virus - and what do we know?  Wuhan is a city of 11 million inhabitants that serves as a major transport hub, including during the annual Lunar New Year holiday when hundreds of millions of Chinese people travel across the country to visit family. In its first statement since the virus was detected, China's National Health Commission said on Sunday the disease's source was unknown but vowed to "step up monitoring" of any mutations during Chinese New Year period. Chinese authorities said they had begun "optimised" testing of cases across the city to identify those infected, and said they would begin "detection work ... towards suspected cases in the city" as a next step, as well as carrying out "sampling tests". How the coronavirus spreads Scientists from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College in London have warned that the number of cases in Wuhan is likely to be closer to 1,700, much higher than the number officially identified. China is yet to confirm whether the virus can be spread from one person to another, but Wuhan's health commission has previously said the possibility "cannot be excluded". China's centre for disease control sought to quash speculation about the coronavirus at the weekend, publishing a flyer that dismissed "five big rumours". One of them included claims about the coronavirus spreading, which China's disease control authority had dismissed at the time by saying all cases were being treated in Wuhan. Global outbreaks of coronaviruses Although there has been no official announcement of screening measures on the mainland, Chen Xiexin, Wuhan deputy mayor, said infrared thermometers had been installed at airports, railway stations and coach stations across the city. Mr Chen said passengers with fevers were being registered, given masks and taken to medical institutions. Nearly 300,000 body temperature tests had been carried out, according to state broadcasters. Authorities in Hong Kong have also stepped up detection measures, including temperature checkpoints for travellers arriving from the Chinese mainland. The United States has said it will begin screening direct flights arriving from Wuhan at San Francisco airport and New York's JFK, as well as Los Angeles, where many flights connect.

Could Taiwan Stop an Invasion By China?

Expert: “Over the next four years, it may be more important to acquire less glamorous but nimbler weapons to prevent Beijing from considering an invasion.”

Ten killed in seating collapse at Ethiopian festival

At least ten people were killed Monday and scores injured when a seating area collapsed during a major Orthodox Christian celebration in Ethiopia, with fears the death toll could rise. The accident occurred just before 8am (0500 GMT) Monday in Gondar, a historic city in the country's north, where every year more than a million people gather for the epiphany festivities known as Timkat. Two doctors at the University of Gondar Hospital told AFP that 10 people died when the spectator stands gave way suddenly at Fasilides' Bath, where thousands typically gather to watch worshippers plunge into the holy waters.

2 more Puerto Rico officials fired after warehouse break-in

Gov. Wanda Vázquez fired the heads of Puerto Rico’s housing and family departments Sunday in the latest fallout over the discovery of a warehouse filled with emergency supplies dating from Hurricane Maria. The removal of Housing Secretary Fernando Gil and Department of Family Secretary Glorimar Andújar came a day after the governor fired the director of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency. Vázquez fired him hours after a Facebook video showed angry people breaking into the warehouse in an area where thousands have been in shelters since a recent earthquake.

Pair of storms to unleash rain, snow across Middle East this week

More unsettled weather is set to grip the Middle East this week after several storms have battered the region in recent weeks.The first of two storms to impact the area this week has dampened locations from the Mediterranean coast to Iraq on Monday. This slow-moving system will continue to bring wet weather to the region on Tuesday and Wednesday.The steadiest rainfall is expected from northern Israel and Lebanon into southern Syria and central Iraq. Downpours are possible in Beirut, Damascus, Homs and Baghdad. Rain will also spread into the lower elevations of western Iran with snow falling in the mountains. In the higher terrain of Lebanon and Syria, snow accumulation can be expected.On the southern side of this storm, showers may briefly dampen southern Jordan, far northern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait from Tuesday into Wednesday. This storm will then push into eastern Iran with rain and high-elevation snowfall on Thursday.CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APPA second storm will race southward from Turkey into the Middle East late Thursday into Friday, bringing soaking rain and mountain snow to Syria, Lebanon and Israel on Thursday night through Friday morning.The storm will then lash Jordan, Iraq and northwest Iran on Friday with impacts continuing into Friday night in Iraq and Iran.Local downpours and high-elevation snowfall may result in travel impacts across the region, before drier weather builds across the Middle East this weekend.Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.

'I stayed alive to tell' - Auschwitz's dwindling survivors recount horrors of Nazi death camp

A strip of skin tattooed with the Auschwitz death camp number 99288 sits in a silver frame on a shelf in Avraham Harshalom's living room. As the 75th anniversary of the camp's liberation on Jan 27, 1945, nears, Harshalom, 95, is very clear about why he kept it. Harshalom is one of some 200,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today.

The US Air Force recently acquired a new $64 million Gulfstream private jet for VIP government officials — see inside

The US president isn't the only government official that flies in a VIP plane operated by the US Air Force.

Africa's richest woman accused of corruption and siphoning off state assets

Africa’s richest woman has been accused of corruption and exploiting her own country’s natural resources, after thousands of documents detailing her business interests were leaked to the media. Isabel dos Santos, who resides in the UK and whose father was the president of Angola, faces allegations of exploiting family connections to secure deals on land, oil and diamonds. According to the documents, seen by BBC Panorama and the Guardian, she and her husband were allowed to buy up valuable state assets and siphon hundreds of millions of dollars out of Angola. Ms dos Santos, whose fortune is estimated at £2bn, says these claims are entirely false and that she is the victim of a witch-hunt led by the Angolan government. She also wrote on Twitter that the leaked documents were “fake” and based on “false information.”     Ms dos Santos is already under investigation for corruption by the Angolan government, which has frozen her assets in the country. The documents were obtained by the Platform to Protect Whistle-blowers in Africa and then passed to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Anti-corruption campaigners responded by claiming that Ms dos Santos has been exploiting her own country for personal gain, with normal Angolan citizens the victims of her lavish lifestyle. "Every time she appears on the cover of some glossy magazine somewhere in the world, every time that she hosts one of her glamorous parties in the south of France, she is doing so by trampling on the aspirations of the citizens of Angola,” Andrew Feinstein, the head of Corruption Watch, told the BBC. In an interview with the BBC following the leak, Ms dos Santos said: “I regret that Angola has chosen this path, I think that we all stand a lot to lose. “Now, when you look at my track record and you see the work I have done and look at all the companies I have built, most certainly my companies are commercial companies.   “If you tell me, is there anything wrong for an Angolan person to have a business venture with a state company, I think there is nothing wrong.” She added that she was facing “prejudice” due to being the daughter of José Eduardo dos Santos, who served as President of Angola from 1979 to 2017. Ms dos Santos was educated in the UK and is married to Sindika Dokolo, a Congolese art collector and businessman.

China Has Been Watching America, And Now Has Special Forces Of Its Own

America heavily relies on its elite special forces.

Palestinian family pledge appeal over Jerusalem eviction ruling

A Palestinian family pledged on Monday to appeal an Israeli court order to evict them from their home in a mainly-Palestinian east Jerusalem neighbourhood in a case lodged by a settler organisation. The Israeli anti-settlement NGO Peace Now said a Jerusalem magistrates court ruled Sunday in favour of evicting the Rajabi family from their home in the Silwan neighbourhood following a lawsuit filed by members of the pro-settlement Ateret Cohanim organisation. The three-storey building houses 17 Palestinians, the family said.

Kellyanne Conway Claims Martin Luther King Would Be Against Trump Impeachment

Kellyanne Conway on Monday responded to a question on how the president is observing Martin Luther King Day by claiming the civil-rights leader would oppose the impeachment of President Donald Trump.During a press gathering at the White House, NBC News correspondent Geoff Bennett asked the senior Trump aide how the president was observing Martin Luther King Day, prompting Conway to first note that Trump was preparing for his trip to Davos before saying the president “agrees with many of the things that Dr. Martin Luther King stood for.”From there, it only got more bizarre.Adding that the president and Dr. King would see eye-to-eye on “unity and equality,” Conway complained that it’s not the president who is “trying to tear the country apart through an impeachment process and a lack of substance that really is very shameful at this point.”“I’ve held my opinion on it for a very long time, but when you see the articles of impeachment that came out, I don’t think it was Dr. King’s vision to have Americans dragged through a process where the president is not going to be removed from office, is not being charged bribery, extortion, high crimes and misdemeanors,” she continued.After declaring that anyone who cares for the phrase “and justice for all” should appreciate that the president has a “full-throttle defense” when it comes to impeachment, Conway concluded by linking herself with MLK.“I, this morning, was reading some of the lesser-known passages by Dr. King and I appreciate the fact that we as a nation respect him by giving him his own day,” she proclaimed.“I’m happy to share a birthday with this day,” Conway concluded.Kellyanne Conway Melts Down Under Grilling by Fox NewsRead 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.

Deadly NJ police chases kill innocent victims, catch few crooks

Many police pursuits across the nation end tragically and disproportionately affect black people. Chases often start with a traffic violation.

Trump's Russia adviser 'escorted from White House' amid investigation

President Trump's latest Russia expert has reportedly been escorted from the White House amid claims of a security-related investigation.

Iran backtracks on plan to send flight recorders to Ukraine

The Iranian official leading the investigation into the Ukrainian jetliner that was accidentally shot down by the Revolutionary Guard appeared to backtrack Sunday on plans to send the flight recorders abroad for analysis, a day after saying they would be sent to Kyiv. The same official was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Saturday as saying the recorders would be sent to Ukraine, where French, American and Canadian experts would help analyze them. Iranian officials previously said the black boxes were damaged but usable.

17 more cases of a mysterious and deadly virus have been detected in China

Wuhan, central China, seems to be the origin point of 2019-nCov, a virus that has infected 62 patients and killed two people.

Taiwan Is Not Worth A War With China (For 1 Key U.S. Ally, That Is)

Especially for Australia.

Photos surface showing convicted Nazi guard Demjanjuk at Sobibor

New photos have emerged which for the first time show convicted Nazi guard John Demjanjuk at the Sobibor death camp, a Berlin archive confirmed Monday, although he always denied ever being there. Ukrainian-American Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of nearly 30,000 Jews at Sobibor by a German court in 2011. According to the Berlin-based Topography of Terror archive, photos of Demjanjuk are among a newly discovered collection of more than 350 snaps which give "detailed insight" into the camp in German-occupied Poland.

Body of woman who was missing for almost 6 years found in car submerged in NJ river

Vanessa Smallwood of Maple Shade, N.J., was 46 at the time of her disappearance. She was identified in a statement from New Jersey State Police.

A Drexel University professor has been charged with stealing $185,000 in government grant money to spend on Philadelphia strip clubs and iTunes

The Philadelphia district attorney's office charged Chikaodinaka Nwankpa with theft by unlawful taking and theft by deception last week.

AP FACT CHECK: Distortion in Trump's impeachment defense

In his first formal response to impeachment charges, President Donald Trump misrepresented the testimony of a key witness who described an exchange of favors in the Ukraine matter. The claim marked a week of frequent exaggeration and distortion by the president heading into the opening statements of his impeachment trial. Just as his tax cuts are far from the biggest in history, the economy isn't the best ever and his election victory in 2016 was no landslide of historic proportions, Trump's two trade deals don't stand atop the field of presidential endeavors.

Philippine military says 5 Indonesians kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants

Eight Indonesians were abducted in Sabah on Thursday. Three were released, while the remaining five were probably brought by their captors to the southern Philippine province of Sulu, said Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana, chief of the military's Western Mindanao Command.

Malaysia says won't be 'garbage dump' as it returns waste

Malaysia has sent back 150 shipping containers of plastic waste to mostly wealthier nations, with the Southeast Asian country saying Monday it would not be the world's "garbage dump". Many Chinese recycling businesses moved to Malaysia after the ban took effect, leading to huge quantities of plastic being shipped in without permits and flooding small communities. Governments across the region are now sending back illegally imported plastic, and Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said Malaysia had returned 150 shipping containers carrying 3,737 metric tons to places including France, Britain and the United States.

US envoy say it's his mustache; South Koreans say otherwise

The U.S. ambassador to South Korea has some unusual explanations for the harsh criticism he's faced in his host country. Or a Japanese ancestry that raises unpleasant reminders of Japan's former colonial domination of Korea? Many South Koreans, however, have a more straight-forward explanation for Harry Harris' struggle to win hearts and minds in Seoul, and it's got more to do with an outspoken manner that they see as undiplomatic and rude.

Dan Bongino responds to video of mob attacking Baltimore officer: I blame the political leaders

A video posted on social media shows a Baltimore police sergeant repeatedly kicked by bystanders while trying to make an arrest; reaction from Fox News contributor Dan Bongino, former NYPD officer.

Local Governments May Soon Be Forced To Rethink How They Use Private Property

An upcoming court case could be very impactful.

Police robots keep malfunctioning, with mishaps ranging from running over a toddler's foot to ignoring people in distress

As companies have begun to experiment with security robots, the robots have repeatedly hit obstacles — or, in some cases, fallen into them.

After Jeffrey Epstein suicide, Bureau of Prisons tells guards: Stop surfing the web and watch inmates

Two corrections officers face criminal charges for claiming they checked on Jeffrey Epstein and other inmates. Feds say they slept and browsed online.