Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
In July the president called the Maryland city a ‘rat and rodent-infested mess’ and moved on. But for residents striving to build a brighter future, the hard work continues
A visitor was heading to the exit of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. “Thank you for coming to Baltimore,” said Shauntee Daniels, a local heritage official, “with our rats and all.”
Turning in the doorway, the visitor, a middle-aged woman, replied: “I know better than that. I know too many good people here.”
Democrats must be given access to testimony, judge rules
Committees subpoena Trump officials who refused to testify
A judge on Friday ordered the justice department to give the House unredacted portions of grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, handing a victory to Democrats who want the material for the impeachment investigation of Donald Trump.
Trump has complained that his campaign was improperly targeted, but critics say department is being used to chase conspiracy theories
The US justice department has reportedly opened a criminal inquiry into the origins of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a move that would raise concerns that Donald Trump and his allies may be using the powers of the government to go after their opponents.
The development, first reported by the New York Times, comes as Trump is already facing an impeachment inquiry examining whether he withheld military aid to pressure the president of Ukraine to launch an investigation of former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Tanks to come from units already in Middle East, report says
Trump has said US ‘secured oil’ despite withdrawal
The US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump’s earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country.
The charade may seem desperate, but it’s a strategy straight out of Trump’s playbook when he faced Mueller
In addition to an abuse-of-power allegation, Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump are said to be building a case against the president for alleged obstruction of justice.
But it had not occurred to anyone that the obstruction in question might literally amount to the physical obstruction by Republican lawmakers of impeachment proceedings.
Tim Ryan failed to gain much traction since entering the presidential race in April, but during his campaign, he helped to cast a spotlight on gun violence.
Ryan represents Youngstown and suburbs of Akron in the House. When a gunman opened fire on the nearby Ohio city of Dayton, Ryan lambasted Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell for inaction on gun legislation.
Tim Ryan’s exit from the presidential race means that there are now 18 contenders seeking the Democratic nomination.
AND THEN THERE WERE 18: @RepTimRyan announces he's dropping out of the Democratic presidential race and will seek re-election to Congress. pic.twitter.com/oZIOIG6coX
Donald Trump on Wednesday talked about the construction of a wall in states that border Mexico, but included Colorado, which is 400 miles away from the frontier. The US president later said on Twitter he had been kidding and added that he had been referring to people in states that weren't on the border, saying they would still benefit from the wall
Political tensions over an intensifying impeachment inquiry reached fever pitch on Wednesday as Republicans ‘stormed’ a closed-door committee hearing on Capitol Hill disrupting a crucial deposition related to the Ukraine controversy.
The chaos and confusion temporarily shut down the proceedings before the three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry where Laura Cooper, a top Pentagon official who oversees Ukraine policy, was preparing to testify
Political tensions over an intensifying impeachment inquiry reached fever pitch on Wednesday as Republicans “stormed” a closed-door committee hearing on Capitol Hill disrupting a crucial deposition related to the Ukraine controversy was appearing – a day after devastating testimony from a key diplomat.
Donald Trump has said he will lift the economic sanctions imposed on Turkey after its government informed the US that it would make the ceasefire in Syria ‘permanent’. Claiming success at the US-brokered effort, the US president said on Wednesday that ‘this was an outcome created by us’
The impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump has heard some extraordinary testimony over the last month. From the first mention of Trump’s desired “deliverable” from Ukraine, successive layers of witnesses and documents have added to an indictment of the president’s conduct that only gets heavier, as Trump howls his defenses to the wind.
Trump announced in a tweet that he would deliver a statement from the White House at 11 a.m. E.T. on the situation in Syria.
Big success on the Turkey/Syria Border. Safe Zone created! Ceasefire has held and combat missions have ended. Kurds are safe and have worked very nicely with us. Captured ISIS prisoners secured. I will be making a statement at 11:00 A.M. from the White House. Thank you!
Tuesday’s developments more concretely define the size and scope of the area that Turkish soldiers will occupy, adding to pockets of northern Syria that Turkey seized from Islamic State and Kurdish fighters in operations in 2016 and 2018.
The deal was widely perceived as good news for Ankara and a poor result for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), building as it does on the US’ agreement last week that Turkey has a right to a buffer zone on its border at their expense. Most of all, it cements Moscow’s new role as prime powerbroker in the Middle East as US influence in the region wanes.
Laura Cooper – the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia – has arrived to testify in House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
Cooper may be able to shed more light on the delaying of military aid to Ukraine, but her appearance feels a bit anticlimactic after Bill Taylor testified yesterday that he was told Trump specifically wanted a public announcement of investigations into Joe Biden and the 2016 election before releasing the aid.
Trump and his supporters have said that there couldn’t have been a quid pro quo because Ukrainians weren’t aware that aid was being witheld.
Neither he (Taylor) or any other witness has provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo.” Congressman John Ratcliffe @foxandfriends Where is the Whistleblower? The Do Nothing Dems case is DEAD!
Word of the aid freeze had gotten to high-level Ukrainian officials by the first week in August, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times.
The problem was not a bureaucratic snag, the Ukrainians were told then. To address it, they were advised, they should reach out to Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, according to the interviews and records.
President attempted to discredit Ukraine diplomat with quote from John Ratcliffe: ‘You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo’
Donald Trump launched a relatively lackluster attack on Wednesday morning against the impeachment inquiry into his dealings with Ukraine and the devastating testimony on Capitol Hill the previous day of the most senior US diplomat in Kyiv, Bill Taylor.
Unlike some of his aggressive and fiercely personal attacks on opponents, the US president appeared to be struggling early Wednesday in any attempt to discredit the explosive account given by Taylor – a career diplomat who discussed his role in detail with secretary of state Mike Pompeo earlier this year before accepting the post of acting ambassador to Ukraine.
The Ukraine diplomat said Trump put pressure on Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and gave the most detailed account so far
The US’s top diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, gave damning evidence on Tuesday to congressional committees in Washington investigating Donald Trump. Taylor told impeachment inquiry hearings that Trump had explicitly put pressure on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden – Trump’s Democratic rival in the 2020 election – and to pursue the conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election on the side of Hillary Clinton. Taylor released his version of events in a 15-page document, in the most detailed account of the scandal so far.
Bill Taylor, acting US ambassador to Ukraine, says he was told Trump made aid conditional until Ukraine publicly announced investigations into Biden and the 2016 election
Bill Taylor does not respond to questions as he leaves Capitol Hill following a deposition that lasted 9+ hours pic.twitter.com/FtQYNrNpo4
Here’s what Trump has done *just this week*:
- He called the constitutional ban on profiting from the presidency “phony.” - His Administration has defied lawful subpoenas and document requests. - He stood by his shakedown of a foreign government and called it “perfect.”
Even as House Republicans rally behind Trump and seek to discredit the impeachment inquiry, Pelosi is promoting a public petition to condemn Trump.
They’ve backed him through scandal after scandal. But concerns over Ukraine, Syria and the G7 summit are proving too much for some
No call summary has yet emerged of a phone chat Donald Trump held with Republican members of Congress on a retreat at Camp David last Saturday.
But hours after the call, the president announced that he had done a most un-Trumpian thing: reversed a decision to host next year’s G7 summit at one of his own properties, “based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility”.
Angry scenes demonstrate sense of betrayal amid rushed US pullout as Trump says remaining force is to protect oil not Kurds
Pelted with fruit and hounded by insults, the American military’s exit from Syria was very different from its time on the ground. The remnants of the US presence in the north-east of the country made an ignominious departure on Monday, driving through towns that had welcomed them for the past four years.
The regional capital of Qamishli, a hub of cooperation between US officers and Kurdish officials throughout the war against Islamic State, was among the least hospitable spots on the road out. As US battle trucks, sporting large American flags, made their way through town and headed towards Iraq, groups of locals threw rotting fruit and vegetables at them, cursing soldiers that only two weeks ago many in the region had considered to be their protectors.
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren responded to a report that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has quietly recommended potential hires to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign.
Warren said that she believed Facebook has “too much political power” and echoed her proposal to break up major tech companies but avoided criticizing Buttigieg by name.
Warren was asked in gaggle about the news that Zuckerberg recommended hires to Buttigieg, and while she declined to criticize Buttigieg, she did say FB already has "way too much influence in Washington" pic.twitter.com/eO41EKL9EH
Earlier this year, Zuckerberg sent multiple emails to Mike Schmuhl, Buttigieg’s campaign manager, with names of individuals that he might consider hiring, campaign spokesman Chris Meagher confirmed. Priscilla Chan, Zuckerberg’s wife, also sent multiple emails to Schmuhl with staff recommendations. Ultimately, two of the people recommended were hired.
The emails between Zuckerberg and Buttigieg have come to light as Zuckerberg faces unrelenting attacks from politicians from both parties over such issues as misinformation, privacy, election meddling and bias. Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee on Facebook’s impact on the financial services and housing sectors.
Facebook on Monday disclosed that it had taken down a new foreign interference operation targeting the US 2020 presidential elections that appears to be linked to the Russian troll agency, the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
The 2012 presidential nominee has criticized the president over Syria and Ukraine – could he rally Republicans in the event of an impeachment trial?
With most of his colleagues unable to choke out a syllable of opprobrium for Donald Trump, Republican senator Mitt Romney has stood out as a willing, if reserved, critic of the president.