Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren weighed in on the arrest of two Republican donors connected to Rudy Giuliani, arguing that their campaign-finance charges indicate the depth of corruption in Trump’s political world.
In addition to abusing and manipulating our diplomatic relationships for Trump's political gain, we can add corruption and campaign finance violations to the list. https://t.co/b57uGfVl3l
Here’s a midday summary of today’s news, which is slightly belated given the many developments the blog is tracking:
Donald Trump will meet China’s negotiating team at the White House on Friday for the latest round of talks aimed at ending a 15-month trade battle that is weighing on the global economy.
“Big day of negotiations with China. They want to make a deal, but do I?” the president tweeted. On Wall Street stocks moved higher on hopes that there would be a breakthrough in the dispute.
‘We’re going to get back into the groove of a very vigorous campaign,’ 2020 candidate says, a week after having a heart attack
Bernie Sanders said he intends to compete as aggressively as ever for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination after suffering a heart attack last week, saying he “misspoke” when he told reporters he planned to scale back the relentless pace of his campaign for health reasons.
Cal Fire said flames consumed about 60 acres in little more than two hours in the hills of a Bay Area community, Sanders Ranch
Police ordered evacuations early on Thursday as a fast-moving wildfire spread in the hills of a San Francisco Bay Area community.
The flames surged despite the area being part of a large parcel of northern California where more than 1.5 million people have had their power deliberately cut off to try to prevent the kind of blazes that have devastated parts of the state in recent years.
Continent could lose 389 of 604 species studied to threats from rising temperatures, higher seas, heavy rains and urbanization
Two-thirds of bird species in North America are at risk of extinction because of the climate crisis, according to a new report from researchers at the Audubon Society, a leading US conservation group.
Russia and Iran have troops in Syria and will see opportunities amid chaos of US impulsiveness
Donald Trump’s decision to give the green light – now seemingly turning amber – for Turkey to enter northern Syria has produced a torrent of criticism from European capitals to Washington Republicans, all pointing out that Ankara’s move will revive Islamic State, cause untold civilian deaths and land the US with an indelible reputation across the Middle East as an unreliable ally.
But the west has been losing traction in Syria over the past two years, and it may be the reaction of Russia and Iran, who have forces on the ground in Syria, that will most concern the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Their reaction may also reveal more about the long-term future of Syria’s eight-year civil war.
As we noted earlier, when Trump defended his decision abandon Kurdish allies in Syria by saying that they didn’t help the US during World War II.
“They didn’t help us with Normandy as an example,” Trump told reporters.
Trump on the Kurds: "They didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy, as an example." He suggests that they battled alongside U.S. forces for "their land," and adds, "With all of that being said, we like the Kurds." pic.twitter.com/4aFGJiQquv
Trump told reporters he’ll cooperate with the House democrats’ impeachment inquiry if “they give us our rights”.
Asked whether he’ll cooperate with the democrats if they hold a vote on the impeachment inquiry, Trump responded: “The Republican Party and president has been treated extremely badly by the Democrats, very unfairly, because they have a tiny margin in the House, they have eviscerated the rules, they don’t give us any fair play, it is the most unfair situation people have seen, no lawyers, you can’t have lawyers, you can’t speak, you can’t do anything.”
The Constitution states clearly that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment,” and that “the Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”
What “impeachment” means in this context is, effectively, indictment — the House has the power to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to spur a trial that would then take place in the Senate.
Civilians flee as airstrikes and artillery hit border region
Trump on Kurds: ‘They didn’t help us in Normandy’
Turkish troops have advanced into north-eastern Syria, following airstrikes and artillery barrages aimed at US-backed Kurdish forces who control the region.
The Turkish military confirmed on Wednesday it had “launched the land operation into the east of the Euphrates river” and later said it had hit 181 “militant targets”.
The region makes up more than a quarter of the entire country and is the largest area outside of the control of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and his allies. Until Turkey launched its latest offensivethere on 9 October, it was controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which comprises militia groups representing a range of ethnicities, though its backbone is Kurdish. The Kurds are an ethnic group of about 30 million people spread across the Middle East who have been fighting for their own state for more than a century.
Prosecutors criticised after alleging the youngster started the blaze intentionally to kill three small children and two adults
A nine-year-old child has been charged with the first-degree murder of three children and two adults in a fire at a trailer park in Illinois.
The child was also charged with two counts of arson and one count of aggravated arson, the Peoria Journal Star reported. The juvenile’s gender was not identified.
Activists say police racially profile black communities, despite Puerto Rico’s image as a melting pot without racial problems
When Nina Figueroa, 25, protested with fellow Puerto Ricans this summer to oust the then governor, Ricardo Rosselló, she believed she stood out to police. Figueroa, a college student studying comparative literature, had been arrested multiple times while in the streets and was starting to notice a pattern.
“I have been arrested in protests three times and all three times I was doing nothing,” says Figueroa. “I asked myself: ‘Why do the police arrest me so much?’ And obviously it wasn’t until I understood that I’m an easy target for the police because I’m a black woman.”
Ankara says military will cross border ‘shortly’, and claims US president gave green light, contradicting US denials
The Turkish government claimed that Donald Trump has handed it the leadership of the military campaign against Isis, and warned its forces would be crossing into Syria “shortly”.
Kurdish military leaders inside Syria said they were braced for the invasion and claimed there had been an Isis attack on its former stronghold of Raqqa. But reports from the city suggested the attack had been small scale.
Investigators have confirmed 50 of the homicides to which Samuel Little has confessed
The FBI is asking for the public’s help in identifying dozens of victims of the man who has confessed to strangling 93 people, claims the agency says are credible and make him the most prolific serial killer in US history.
Investigators who have interviewed Samuel Little at a Los Angeles-area prison say they have confirmed 50 of the homicides he admitted to carrying out between 1970 and 2005 and have released videotapes of his jailhouse confessions as they investigate the remaining killings.
Eight-page letter to Democratic leaders sets stage for constitutional crisis, as legislative and executive branches clash
Donald Trump pushed the United States towards a constitutional crisis on Tuesday when his legal counsel said the White House would refuse to cooperate with Congress’s impeachment inquiry.
“Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” the counsel Pat Cipollone said in a letter to Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives.
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has announced visa restrictions on Chinese officials suspected of being involved in “a highly repressive campaign against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang).”
Earlier today, the US commerce department issued a list of 28 state security bureaus and tech companies in China that it said are being used to suppress muslims and other ethnic minorities.
Donald Trump warned Turkey that there would be ‘big trouble’ if American troops in Syria are injured, as Turkish forces push into Kurdish lands across north-eastern Syria.On Monday the White House gave the green light to a Turkish offensive into Syria, moving US forces out of the area in an abrupt foreign policy change that will in effect abandon the Kurds, Washington’s longtime military partner
The secretary of defense for public affairs, Jonathan Hoffman, said in a statement it does not support a Turkish operation in northern Syria.
Despite the president giving a green light for that to occur, the defense department’s statement claims that their position is in tune with the presidents.
The Department of Defense made clear to Turkey - as did the President - that we do not endorse a Turkish operation in Northern Syria. The US Armed Forces will not support, or be involved in any such operation.
In conversations between the Department and the Turkish military we have consistently stressed that coordination and cooperation were the best path toward security in the area. Secretary Esper and Chairman Milley reiterated to their respective Turkish counterparts that unilateral action creates risks for Turkey. As the President has stated, Turkey would be responsible, along with European nations and others, for thousands of ISIS fighters who had been captured and defeated in the campaign lead by the United States.
The homeland security department released a statement in response to the department’s acting secretary, Kevin McAleenan, deciding not to speak after protestors interrupted his remarks at an immigration conference this morning.
The department said McAleenan’s right to free speech and assembly were “robbed.”
PM to appeal to Donald Trump if Anne Sacoolas fails to return to UK over fatal traffic collision
Boris Johnson will personally appeal to Donald Trump if the US continues to refuse to lift the diplomatic immunity it has granted to a US diplomat’s wife who is accused of killing a 19-year-old motorcyclist in a traffic collision.
Anne Sacoolas, who is married to a US communications official, left the UK last month, prompting widespread anger in Britain over the use of diplomatic immunity to flee potential charges of causing death by dangerous driving.