Mcallen

Donald Trump is suddenly scared of Mike Bloomberg — as he should be

Mike Bloomberg probably isn’t going to win the Democratic nomination for president. But he might beat Donald Trump anyway. The reason? Well, there are a couple billion of them — namely, the $2 billion Bloomberg plans to spend on Democrats' behalf.

Fox News is covering Trump's impeachment trial — but with no audio of evidence from Democrats

Fox News host Sean Hannity assured viewers the impeachment trial wasn't worth watching, and summed it up as "babble" and "talking points."

US military investigating after finding Pornhub video of Navy service members shot through peephole

The Navy is reportedly investigating videos found on the website Pornhub that they believe show unsuspecting service members through a peephole in a bathroom.The videos were discovered earlier this month by an agent from the Naval Criminal Investigative Series, according to a report by NBC News.

'End of the world': Wuhan a ghost town under quarantine

Wuhan residents called for help and shared worries of food shortages Thursday, with streets in the virus-hit central Chinese city left deserted after it was put on lockdown. After he bought some, the person behind him in the queue bought the remaining stock in the shop.

Prosecutor: DNA match leads to Florida 'pillowcase rapist'

Prosecutors announced Thursday that a sophisticated DNA match has led to the cold case arrest of a Florida man believed to be the “pillowcase rapist" who terrorized greater Miami with a series of assaults on women in the 1980s. Robert Koehler, 60, was arrested over the weekend and was being held without bond Thursday in a Miami jail. The “pillowcase rapist” was so named because he used a pillowcase or other fabric to cover the faces of his terrified victims, usually after he had broken into an apartment or town home, according to investigators.

Mike Pompeo Blows Up at NPR Reporter: ‘Do You Think Americans Care About Ukraine?’

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly cursed and shouted at an NPR reporter after she repeatedly confronted him about his handling of the politically charged ouster of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. According to a transcript of the interview between NPR host Mary Louise Kelly and Pompeo, he repeatedly dodged questions on Ukraine and grew increasingly irate after Kelly asked, “Do you owe Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch an apology?” “You know, I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran,” Pompeo said before going on to insist, “I  just don’t have anything else to say about that this morning.” When Kelly kept grilling him and noted that some within the State Department had criticized his failure to stand up for Yovanovitch after she was fired amid what she described as a smear campaign orchestrated by President Trump, Pompeo sought to dismiss the criticism as being from “unnamed sources.” But Kelly stopped him: “These are not unnamed sources. This is your senior adviser Michael McKinley, a career foreign service officer with four decades experience,” she said, reminding Pompeo that McKinley had testified on the matter under oath. Declining to comment on McKinley, Pompeo insisted, “I have defended every State Department official,” only to end the interview when Kelly asked him to refer her to any comments he’d made in defense of Yovanovitch. According to NPR, things grew even more heated after the interview had concluded, when Pompeo is said to have “silently glared” at Kelly before leaving the room. She was then reportedly asked to follow him without her recorder, but without any agreement that the following conversation would be off the record. At that point, Pompeo reportedly challenged Kelly to find Ukraine on an unmarked map and asked, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” He reportedly wrapped up the meeting by declaring that “people will hear about this.” Read 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.

Damaged By Drone Strike: Suleimani's Sainthood Is Now Being Questioned

Iran’s brand is thinning among the Shi’a and Suleimani’s departure creates breathing room for the Shi’a in the region.

Experts fear China virus lockdown is too late

China's bid to contain a deadly new virus by placing cities of millions under quarantine is an unprecedented undertaking, but it is unlikely to stop the disease spreading, experts warn. The contagious virus has already reached elsewhere in China and abroad, and even an authoritarian government has only a small time frame in which trapped residents will submit to such a lockdown, they say.

Thunberg fires back at Mnunchin after college degree jab

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnunchin said Greta Thunberg can discuss fossil fuel divestment "after she goes and studies economics in college."

Democrats pounce as Trump says he would consider cuts to Social Security and Medicare

President Trump said he was open to look at cutting entitlements, giving Democrats another issue to run on in 2020.

U.S.-Israeli woman jailed in Russia has not yet sought pardon: Kremlin

The Kremlin said on Friday that the possible release of Naama Issachar, a U.S.-Israeli woman jailed in Russia on drug charges, was being held up because she had not yet formally asked to be granted a pardon. Israel has called on Russia to release Issachar, who was sentenced by a Russian court to seven-and-a-half years in jail for drug offences in October.

Smugglers tried to bring 3,700 invasive crabs through the Port of Cincinnati

Mitten crabs are a delicacy in Asia and sell for about $50 each in the United States, officials say. They are considered an invasive species.

A University of Minnesota student was arrested in China and sentenced to 6 months in prison for tweeting cartoons making fun of President Xi Jingping

According to Chinese court documents obtained by Axios, 20-year-old Luo Daiqing was arrested after returning to Wuhan for summer break.

Annabella Sciorra tells jurors Harvey Weinstein raped her in harrowing testimony: 'He kept coming at me'

Actress Annabella Sciorra took the stand in Harvey Weinstein's criminal trial Thursday, providing harrowing testimony alleging the disgraced producer raped her.Sciorra was called as a witness in the New York trial, in which Weinstein is facing sexual assault and rape charges. The Sopranos actress told jurors that in 1993 or 1994, Weinstein raped her in her New York apartment after a dinner, pushing the door open after he dropped her off, per The Hollywood Reporter. She previously spoke with The New Yorker about her allegation. "He kept coming at me, and I felt very overpowered because he was very big," she testified. "...As I was trying to get him off of me — I was punching him, I was kicking him — and he took my hands and put them over my head. He put my hands over my head to hold them back, and he got on top of me and he raped me."Sciorra, who The New York Times reports was "fighting back tears" as she testified, went on to say that she couldn't fight Weinstein off "because he had my hands locked." She said she didn't call the police and tried to pretend "it never happened" but that she "began to drink a lot" and "began to cut myself." Weeks later, Sciorra said she confronted Weinstein and he told her in a "very menacing" and "threatening" way, "This remains between you and I."Weinstein lawyer Damon Cheronis cast doubt on Sciorra's account, saying "we can't interview neighbors to figure out what happened" because she can't recall the exact date the encounter took place, per the Times.Prosecutors in Weinstein's case allege he forcibly performed oral sex on a woman in 2006 and raped a woman in 2013, although additional witnesses will testify as prosecutors seek to establish a pattern of behavior. Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and has denied allegations of non-consensual sex. If convicted, he faces possible life in prison. More stories from theweek.com Trump is reportedly threatening Republicans to keep them in line on impeachment The 'increasing expectation' in the Senate is reportedly that vote to call new impeachment witnesses will fail Donald Trump and the moral decline of the pro-life movement

Bernie Sanders Jumps to First in New Hampshire Poll

(Bloomberg) -- A new poll shows Bernie Sanders as the top pick for New Hampshire voters after support for the senator nearly doubled over the past month.Sanders, who is from neighboring Vermont, jumped from fourth to first in a WBUR poll out Thursday.He led the pack by double digits with 29%, up from 15% in December, followed by Pete Buttigieg with 17%, Joe Biden with 14% and Elizabeth Warren with 13%.Aside from Sanders, all other candidates moved between 0 and 3 percentage points. The poll was conducted from January 17-21 and has a margin of error of 4.8 percentage points. WBUR is the Boston NPR affiliate.Sanders led among voters under 45 with 37%. Among those voters, Buttigieg followed with 17%, Warren with 16% and Biden with 6%. Sanders also led among voters over the age of 45 with 24%, followed by Biden with 19%, Buttigieg with 16% and Warren with 11%.This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.\--With assistance from Ryan Beckwith.To contact the author of this story: Emma Kinery in Washington at ekinery@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Magan SherzaiFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Canada's TSB says Iran has invited it to examine black boxes

Canada's Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it has been invited by Iran to participate in the download and analysis of the flight recorders from the downing of a Ukraine International Airlines jet “whenever and wherever” that takes place. Iran has acknowledged that its armed forces fired two Russian anti-aircraft missiles at the jetliner that crashed after taking off from Tehran's main airport earlier this month, killing all 176 people on board. Fifty-seven Canadians died and 138 of the passengers were headed to Canada.

Victims' bodies still at New Orleans Hard Rock Hotel months after collapse

* Wind blows tarp off one of two bodies amid ruins * Unstable building to be imploded in MarchThree months after the partial collapse of the Hard Rock hotel construction site on the tip of New Orleans’s historic French Quarter, a macabre reminder of the tragedy that claimed three lives was visible to passersby this week.Among the collapsed building’s twisted remains and rubble, the dangling legs of a wedged corpse were revealed to the public after a tarpaulin sheet covering the body was blown away by wind.The gruesome sight came as city officials are scrambling to dismantle the 18-storey, 350-room hotel, which remains an eyesore and still holds the trapped remains of two workers, Quinnyon Wimberly and José Ponce Arreola.After images of the exposed corpse provoked outrage on social media, city firefighters installed a new tarp on Wednesday afternoon. As of Thursday morning the covering remained intact, as police maintained a heavy presence around the collapsed building.The mayor of New Orleans, LaToya Cantrell, urged members of the public and the media not to photograph or share images of the body.“To be clear: capturing or sharing images of the victims in such a condition is irresponsible, it is indefensible, and it is not who we are as New Orleanians,” a statement from the mayor’s office read. “We urge news outlets, residents, and social media users to have nothing to do with making a tragic situation needlessly worse.”Cantrell has faced significant criticism for her handling of the saga and it remains unclear if the collapse is being criminally investigated. Last week, city officials announced new plans to implode the building by mid-March, after the firm that owns the site – 1031 Canal Street Development – had lobbied for a gradual demolition process that would have extended into next year.The mayor’s office said on Wednesday that “respectful recovery of the remains” is still a “top priority” but that the building’s continued instability had made recovery “extremely difficult and very dangerous”. One of the bodies is trapped over 11 storeys above street level.A spokeswoman for the mayor’s office declined to comment further on Thursday.The city is preparing for the annual Mardi Gras season, which draws about a million tourists to New Orleans in February and brings in about $400m to the local economy.The collapse has also drawn attention to the plight of the city’s undocumented community after one worker, Delmer Joel Ramírez Palma, was deported to Honduras by federal authorities, having been hospitalized due to injuries sustained during the incident.Ramírez Palma had alerted authorities to dangers in the construction process before the collapse and was interviewed by Spanish language TV in the aftermath. He had lived in New Orleans for 18 years.Several lawsuits have been filed against the project’s developers and contracts, citing allegations of negligence. Plaintiffs include both bystanders and workers injured during the collapse.

Donald Trump shares image of Barack Obama scaling Trump Tower

Donald Trump has tweeted a photoshopped image of Barack Obama scaling the walls of Trump Tower with suction cups and holding binoculars.The image, which was posted without a caption, appeared to be a reference to Mr Trump’s claims that Mr Obama and the FBI illegally spied on him.

North Korea confirms former commander is new foreign minister

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea on Friday confirmed that Ri Son Gwon, a former defense commander with limited diplomatic experience, has been appointed the country's new foreign affairs minister, while the United States repeated calls for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. North Korea's official KCNA news agency reported that Ri, the latest military official to be promoted under North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, gave a speech as minister at a New Year dinner reception hosted by the ministry on Thursday for embassies and international organizations.

Amtrak engineer in fatal Washington state derailment sues railroad

The Amtrak engineer whose train derailed in Washington state in December 2017, killing three passengers, has filed a lawsuit against the railroad.

Greta Thunberg fires back after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says she isn't qualified to lecture the US on climate change

"Is she the chief economist or who is she? I'm confused," Mnuchin joked about the Swedish teenager's call for America to quit fossil fuels.

Mexico seeks US extradition of drug lord's son for reporter murder

Culiacán (Mexico) (AFP) - Mexico is seeking the extradition from the United States of the son of a Sinaloa cartel drug lord over the 2017 murder of acclaimed journalist Javier Valdez, the attorney general's office said Thursday. Damaso Lopez Serrano, the son of former top "El Chapo" lieutenant Damaso Lopez Nunez "El Licenciado", is accused of being the mastermind behind the killing of Valdez. An arrest warrant for Lopez Serrano was approved Thursday afternoon after prosecutors interviewed members of the Sinaloa cartel who testified against him, the attorney general's office said in a statement.

Virologist who helped identify SARS on coronavirus outbreak: 'This time I'm scared'

Experts are seeing shocking similarities between the coronavirus that has now spread beyond China and the SARS outbreak of 2003.Like the infectious pneumonia that has killed at least 17 people, SARS was caused by a coronavirus that originated in China. But when one of the virologists who helped identify the SARS virus visited Wuhan, where this virus originated, he didn't see nearly enough being done to fight it. People were out at markets without masks, "preparing to ring in the New Year in peace and had no sense about the epidemic," Guan Yi of the University of Hong Kong's State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases told Caixin. Airports were hardly being disinfected, Guan continued, saying the local government hasn't "even been handing out quarantine guides to people who were leaving the city."The city did disinfect the market where the virus has been traced to, but Guan criticized Wuhan for that, saying it hurts researchers' abilities to track down the virus's source. "I've never felt scared," Guan told Caixin. "This time I'm scared."A case involving the coronavirus was identified in Washington state on Wednesday, and cases have also been identified in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. A total of 639 cases were confirmed in China.More stories from theweek.com Trump debuts official Space Force logo — and it's literally a ripoff of Star Trek 14 dead, hundreds injured after 6.7 earthquake in eastern Turkey Donald Trump and the moral decline of the pro-life movement

China expands lockdown against virus, fast-tracks hospital

China expanded its lockdown against the deadly new virus to an unprecedented 36 million people and rushed to build a prefabricated, 1,000-bed hospital for victims Friday as the outbreak cast a pall over Lunar New Year, the country's biggest, most festive holiday. The number of confirmed cases around the world climbed sharply to more than 850, with at least 26 deaths, all of them in China. Meanwhile, France announced that three people had fallen ill with the virus — the disease's first appearance in Europe.

Russia, China, and Iran Would Love to Take Out a Nuclear Aircraft Carrier. Here's Why They Can't.

The beasts are more survivable than they seem.

Why Pay Off Your Student Loans if the Government Will Do It for You?

America's mountain of student-loan debt keeps growing ever higher. But the factors driving the increase have changed, as detailed in a fascinating new report from Moody's.It used to be that we could blame colleges for failing to control their costs. But for the past decade or so, college costs have actually grown in line with the median household income, and the “origination” of new student loans has slowed down a little. The reason we haven't seen a similar slowdown in overall student debt is that borrowers are making less progress on their loans. And a lot of the time they're doing it on purpose — because they participate in programs that were dramatically expanded during the Obama years, and that forgive debt entirely so long as the borrower first makes small payments for a set period of time.Among students who graduated between 2006 and 2008, 60 percent made at least some progress on reducing their loan balances during their first five years post-graduation, despite the recession precipitated by the 2008 financial crisis. Students who left school between 2010 and 2012 faced a better job market as the economy slowly began to recover, but only 51 percent of them reduced their balances. In the aggregate, borrowers today are repaying only 3 percent of their loans each year, despite the “baseline” student loan being one that is paid back in ten years.When someone doesn't manage to reduce his loan balance, there can be several reasons. One is that he’s not earning enough money to make significant payments. This is especially likely when a student either failed to graduate or attended a program that doesn't lead to real job opportunities — both of which are especially likely at for-profit and two-year schools, enrollment in which was high in the aftermath of the recession. (It has fallen off since). Some borrowers also opt for longer repayment terms, meaning they pay off their loans more slowly than they otherwise would.But the report also points to another factor that would seem to have a lot of explanatory power, especially when it comes to those with the highest debts: the still-growing popularity of “income-based repayment” (IBR) and similar programs, which were overhauled and dramatically expanded during the Obama years. Under these programs, students can make small payments for a decade or two, often not even covering the interest on their loans, and have the entire debt forgiven at the end.This is not necessarily a bad idea in principle, but — as Jason Delisle has noted previously in this space — the programs were structured in a way that encouraged their abuse by people with incredibly high debt levels, especially from graduate studies rather than two- or four-year degrees. As Delisle wrote,> Under current law, anyone who takes out a federal student loan today can enroll in IBR and have his payments fixed at 10 percent of his income, less an exemption of $18,700 (which increases with household size). . . . Then, after 20 years of payments (or only ten years for those working in any government or non-profit job), all of the remaining balance is forgiven, no matter how high it is.He further points out, that, using the Department of Education's own debt calculator, someone with $80,000 in debt and an income of $60,000 could receive $62,000 in debt forgiveness if he works for the government. Someone with $150,000 in debt and a $75,000 salary could pay for 20 years and still receive $82,000, more than half the initial balance. Meanwhile, as noted in the Moody's report, the median amount borrowed is just about $17–18,000.Income-based repayment is a giveaway to people who choose to spend abnormally large sums on higher education, often earning graduate degrees, but go on to make unremarkable middle-to-upper-middle-class salaries. It's far less generous to someone with a modest debt, even if that person also earns a modest income. It's simply not possible to wring $62,000 or $82,000 in debt forgiveness out of the system if you're a normal borrower and didn't take out anywhere near that much in loans to begin with.The Moody's report further demonstrates that income-based programs are, indeed, highly attractive to people with big debts: “Only 5% of the total balances of borrowers who owe less than $5,000 are covered by [income-driven repayment programs]. Meanwhile, 53% of the balances of borrowers who owe more than $200,000 are in IDR programs.” And unsurprisingly, heavy borrowers have a disproportionate impact on student loans in general: Folks who borrow $20,000 or less represent 55 percent of borrowers but only 14 percent of the overall debt.All of this needs to be kept in mind as we ponder proposals to shovel even more money at people who carry student debt. College really does cost too much, but the costs seem to have finally stabilized. And those with incredibly high debt already have options for getting rid of it — overly generous options that many of them are enthusiastically taking advantage of, at taxpayer expense.The concept of income-based repayment is not a bad one. Indeed, I think it would be an enormous improvement for more colleges to base the amounts they get repaid on the amounts students earn after graduating. But there's no justification for structuring such a program as a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to people with graduate degrees.

Biden, Bloomberg Hit Trump for Calling Brass ‘Dopes and Babies’

(Bloomberg) -- A new book on President Donald Trump includes some doozies about his behavior in office, but it’s an account of him calling military brass “a bunch of dopes and babies” that’s making a splash on the campaign trail.Both former Vice President Joe Biden and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have criticized Trump over a report in the forthcoming book “A Very Stable Genius.”At a campaign stop in Claremont, New Hampshire, Biden expressed incredulity. “He referred to these incredible generals and flag officers -- many of whom have left and publicly criticized him -- referred to these flag officers we now learn as quote ‘losers, dopes and babies’ to their face, in front of their folks,” he said.Trump has denied the account, calling the authors of the book -- Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker -- “two stone cold losers” who are “demeaning and belittling a President who is getting great things done for our country.”The account is also the subject of a recent TV ad from Bloomberg, which calls the military officials in the room as “war heroes” who had “risked their lives for our country.” Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.  --With assistance from Emma Kinery.  (Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.\--With assistance from Emma Kinery.To contact the author of this story: Ryan Beckwith in Washington at rbeckwith3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max BerleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Lebanon to seek up to $5bln in soft loans, prime minister rallies support

Lebanon's new government must reassure international donors it is serious about reforms to tackle a financial crisis as it looks initially to secure up to $5 billion in soft loans for basic goods, its finance minister said on Thursday. The government that took office on Tuesday faces an emergency in which banks have imposed controls, the Lebanese pound has weakened and protesters have turned to violence which a senior U.N. official described as "politically manipulated". "The entire international community has its eye on what this government will do," Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni said in televised comments.

White House breaks silence on Jeff Bezos phone-hacking scandal, calls Saudi Arabia an 'important ally'

The White House weighed in on reports that Saudi Arabia hacked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' phone, saying it takes the situation seriously.

Australia's Kangaroo Island is looking for volunteers to feed animals injured in bushfires

Nearly half of Kangaroo Island was burned by the bushfires this month alone. The RSPCA has posted an application form.

Philippine President Duterte threatens to end military deal with U.S.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned the United States on Thursday he would repeal an agreement on deployment of troops and equipment for exercises if Washington did not reinstate the visa of a political ally.

Belarus' leader blasts Russia for pushing merger of 2 states

The president of Belarus on Friday accused Moscow of pressuring his country to merge with Russia and vowed not to let it happen. The statement comes amid stalled talks on further strengthening economic ties between two countries, seen in Belarus as Moscow's plot to swallow its post-Soviet neighbor.

A 36-Year-Old Man Is the Youngest Fatality of the Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak So Far

The 36-year-old man from Hubei province was not reported to have any prior medical conditions, according to local health authorities

America's B-25G Bomber Was The Air Force's Very Own Flying Tank

And it shot like one too.

Pa. man chokes girlfriend after getting 'upset' while watching Trump impeachment trial

The woman told police in Pennsylvania that Lonnie D. Clark had been drinking alcohol all day while watching the impeachment trial and 'was upset.'

Greek Prime Minister Says Turkey-Libya Deal Is Unacceptable and Illegal

(Bloomberg) -- Turkey’s maritime border agreement with Libya is unacceptable and illegal, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said, amid growing tension in the eastern Mediterranean.“Turkey has been difficult to deal with,” Mitsotakis said in an interview with Bloomberg in Davos Thursday. “There’s a constant state of provocation, which leads Turkey nowhere.”The premier, who’s focused on bringing the country back from a crippling economic crisis since he took office in July, has been waylaid by smoldering geopolitical tensions in the east Mediterranean.Long-contentious relations with neighboring Turkey soured further in November when Ankara signed a maritime agreement with Libya in a bid to solidify claims to waters off the coast of Greece and Cyprus.“We don’t need Turkey’s permission,” to be able to supply Europe with Cypriot, Israeli or potential Greek gas, Mitsotakis said earlier in Davos. The pact signed by Libya and Turkey has an impact for the planned EastMed pipeline project, he said.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now threatening to start drilling for natural gas in the maritime area Greece claims as its own under international law.Libyan Commander Khalifa Haftar’s visit to Athens last week ahead of a summit in Berlin only raised the stakes, with Turkey accusing Greece of sabotaging the Libya peace process.\--With assistance from Sotiris Nikas.To contact the reporter on this story: Eleni Chrepa in Athens at echrepa@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sotiris Nikas at snikas@bloomberg.net, Jerrold Colten, Paul TugwellFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Democrats walked right into Mitch McConnell's trap

As the Senate wrapped up its long, loud squabbling about the rules of the impending impeachment trial in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, it was obvious that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had successfully lured Democrats into yet another procedural trap. The louder the partisan shouting gets, the more McConnell has succeeded in making the president's crimes seem like just another day in a D.C. that is widely loathed by voters. Now in full control of the trial proceedings, and hence the president's fate, McConnell will hold his attenuated trial, the president will huff and puff about total exoneration, and Democrats, still scared of their own shadows and neurotically obsessing over losing a single white voter who can walk to a cornfield, will have kicked away yet another opportunity to properly leverage their power.It didn't have to be this way.When leading Democrats rushed to impeach the president this past fall over the unfolding Ukraine scandal, they were unwittingly playing into the hands of the president and McConnell. While I have always thought the political case for removing Trump was underrated for Republicans, there was probably never any significant chance that McConnell's senate would vote to convict the president. For some Democrats, that meant that impeachment itself was a dangerous waste of time that would inevitably result in a very public victory for President Trump.Others wanted to stand on principle, outcome be damned. But Democrats should always have considered doing what McConnell himself would have done if he had been in Pelosi's shoes — keep the inquiry open as long as possible, strategically deploy leaks and hearings at critical moments like the GOP's summer nominating convention, investigate every possible avenue of the president's wrongdoing in committee after committee, and then sit on it until the upper hand is yours. Maybe you impeach the president close to the election so the Senate has no time to convict. Or maybe you prepare two dozen articles of impeachment and hold onto them in case the president is re-elected. Then impeach him on Inauguration Day. The point is to recognize that the current Senate is an immovable object, and to figure out a way around it rather than plowing directly into it at 65 miles per hour.Pelosi herself seemed to belatedly realize the fundamental dynamic at play here when she refused for several weeks to turn over the articles of impeachment to the Senate. It's hard to believe that she or anyone else in the Democratic caucus thought that McConnell would conduct a fair trial. So what did they think was going to happen, exactly? I can't blame them for hoping for a sharper turn in public opinion against the president, but that ship had sailed long before the full House voted on the articles on December 18.The case for slow-rolling impeachment in the House was threefold. From a substantive standpoint, the White House's hyper-aggressive stonewalling meant that critical witnesses like former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and the Logorrhea-stricken ringleader Rudy Giuliani would not be heard from. The only person in the actual cabal who Americans got to see testify was EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Democrats feared their subpoenas would get tied up in court for too long, perhaps past the election, or that the rulings would not go their way. But it's not clear how that's not preferable to what is transpiring now.Would Trump's cronies have melted down under the pressure and admitted to everything under oath in some kind of Colonel Jessup moment? Probably not. But they would have had to perjure themselves and spend the rest of their lives worried about the emergence of new evidence, like witness-protected ex-mafiosos who sleep with a gun under the pillow in fear that they've been found. And they almost certainly would have slipped at some point and accidentally told the truth about something, a la Mick Mulvaney's "we do that all the time" press conference. The thing about a lot of these people is that they are both corrupt and stupid. They wouldn't hold up forever.The second reason was that there were obviously more shoes to drop. Yes, the basic outline of the president's wretched Ukraine caper have been clear since September: Giuliani spearheaded a campaign to blackmail the new Ukrainian president into announcing investigations into Hunter Biden's time on the board of the energy firm Burisma as well as the LSD-spiked fever dream that Kyiv, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Critical military aid was held up, and a White House visit conditioned on the announcements. The twin goals were sabotaging the 2020 election and undermining the findings of the Mueller investigation.The Giuliani end of this scheme always promised more revelations. And sure enough, over the past few weeks we've learned potentially explosive new details from Giuliani bagman Lev Parnas, including that former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was under surveillance and that her life may have been threatened by some collection of Giuliani's goons. And the more we learn about these efforts, the more questions we have about why and when the influence operation started and who in the Trump administration was involved. Ukrainian officials seem to agree, and have opened a criminal inquiry into the Yovanovitch affair. Does any Democrat in the House really think they've heard the last bombshell?The third reason brings us to McConnell. The moment they passed the articles of impeachment, Democrats were handing control of the impeachment process over to McConnell, the master manipulator who has outfoxed and wrong-footed Democrats at nearly every juncture over the past decade. The Senate floor defeat of his Obamacare repeal effort should be thought of more like Yankees closer Mariano Rivera blowing Game 7 of the 2001 World Series — a rare stumble that only highlighted how dominant he was the rest of the time. And like Rivera, who threw the same pitch over and over and over again, McConnell runs the same play every time, and Democrats still can't make anything more than weak contact.That play is very simple. If something will benefit Republicans and screw over Democrats, it will be done, as long as it doesn't explicitly violate the Constitution. The majority leader relentlessly uses the Democrats' instinctive protectiveness of good government, procedural fairness and professionalism against them, with a kind of weaponized cynicism that somehow still surprises people. He'll negotiate, only to capitulate to his hardliners. He'll sucker Democrats into compromise, only to then violate either the spirit or the letter of it, often both. He'll let his "moderates" make ambiguous remarks that give Democrats hope, only to whip them into line when it really matters.Democrats should have played keep-away from McConnell for as long as possible. Instead, they let Nate Cohn's Midwest polls and the Sunday show geniuses get into their heads and convince them that impeachment was some kind of grenade they had just enough time to pull the pin on and run away.That's what they did. And it did some damage. Fifty-one percent of Americans believe the president should be removed from office, according to one recent CNN poll, with 58 percent saying he abused the powers of his office. The president has spent months mewling about the unfairness of it all instead of making an affirmative case for his re-election. Every day he looks tinier.But now Democrats are realizing that they left the door open for McConnell to come in and sweep the shards under the rug. It's what he does best, and when he wraps this thing up before the Iowa caucuses and the public moves on, Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? 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'The new evidence raises deeply troubling questions': did Arkansas kill an innocent man?

Revealed: two years after Ledell Lee was executed, damning evidence emerges that experts say could prove his innocenceThe day before Ledell Lee was executed on 20 April 2017, he talked to the BBC from death row. He said that while he could not prevent the state of Arkansas from killing him, he had a message for his executioners: “My dying words will always be, as it has been: ‘I am an innocent man’.”Almost two years after Lee was strapped to a gurney and injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs, it looks increasingly likely he was telling the truth: he went to his death an innocent man. New evidence has emerged that suggests Lee was not guilty of the brutal murder of a woman in 1993 for which his life was taken.The deceased inmate’s sister Patricia Young lodged a lawsuit on Thursday with the circuit court of Pulaski county, Arkansas, petitioning city authorities and the local police department in Jacksonville to release crime scene materials to her family.The ACLU and the Innocence Project, who are investigating the case on the family’s behalf, believe state-of-the-art forensic examination of the materials, including DNA testing and fingerprint analysis, could definitively prove Arkansas did indeed execute an innocent man.An 81-page filing in the lawsuit provides damning new evidence that key aspects of the prosecution case against Lee were deeply flawed. The complaint includes expert opinion from a number of world-leading specialists who find glaring errors in the way forensic science and other evidence was interpreted.The lawsuit also includes a bombshell affidavit from Lee’s post-conviction attorney who admits to having struggled with substance abuse and addiction throughout the years in which he represented him.Lawyers who prepared the filing, led by Cassandra Stubbs of the ACLU and the Innocence Project’s Nina Morrison, conclude: “It is now clear that the state’s forensic experts from trial misinterpreted the evidence in plain sight, and their flawed opinions were further distorted by the state in its zeal to convict [Lee] of the crime. The new evidence raises deeply troubling questions about the shaky evidentiary pillars on which the state executed Ledell Lee.”Innocence has always been the achilles heel of America’s death penalty: how to justify judicially killing prisoners who may have been wrongfully convicted. The question is far from academic: since 1973 no fewer than 167 death row inmates have been exonerated.The most harrowing question is whether innocent prisoners have been executed before the flawed nature of their convictions emerged. In recent years, there have been several cases that, with near certainty, suggest that innocent men have been put to death.They include Cameron Todd Willingham executed in Texas in 2004 for allegedly having caused a fire that killed his three young daughters. After the execution, further evidence emerged that conclusively showed that he could not have set the fire.The Columbia Human Rights Law Review carried out a groundbreaking investigation in which it concluded Carlos DeLuna was innocent when he was executed – also by Texas – in 1989. The six-year study discovered that the convicted prisoner had almost certainly been confused with another man, a violent criminal who shared the name Carlos.Now Ledell Lee looks as though he may be added to the grim rollcall of the wrongly executed. He relentlessly insisted he was not guilty from the moment he was arrested less than two hours after the brutally beaten body of Debra Reese was discovered in her home in Jacksonville on 9 February 1993.The difficulties with the case against Lee began almost immediately. He was picked up nowhere near the crime scene and was not in possession of any possessions that could be linked to the break-in at Reese’s home.The only evidence against him was inconclusive at best. There were two eyewitnesses, but they gave conflicting reports of the suspect’s identification.> In recent years, there have been several cases that, with near certainty, suggest innocent men have been put to deathThe crime scene was shocking, with blood splattered over the walls and floor. Yet when Lee was arrested on the same day detectives could find no blood on his clothes or body including under his fingernails and nothing was found in a forensic search of his house.Given the paucity of evidence, it is not surprising that it took two trials to find Lee guilty and sentence him to death. The first trial collapsed after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.The ACLU and Innocence Project took up Lee’s case very late in the day having been asked to get involved shortly before his scheduled execution date. What they discovered when they opened the case records astounded even these experienced death penalty lawyers.Very quickly they established there were major problems with the prosecution case against Lee. One area that especially concerned them was the inadequacy of Lee’s legal representation, both during the second trial in which defense attorneys inexplicably failed to call alibi witnesses that could have placed Lee elsewhere at the time of the murder, and in terms of the help he received at the appeal stage of his case.At one post-conviction hearing, a lawyer working for the state of Arkansas approached the judge and raised concerns about Lee’s attorney, Craig Lambert. “Your honor, I don’t do this lightly, but I’m going to ask that the court require him to submit to a drug test,” the counsel said. “He’s just not with us … His speech is slurred.”In an affidavit obtained since Lee’s execution, signed by Lambert in October, the lawyer admits: “I was struggling with substance abuse and addiction in those years. I attended inpatient rehab. Ledell’s case was massive and I wasn’t in the best place personally to do what was necessary.”Partly as a result of poor legal representation, terrible errors were made in Lee’s defense – both at trial and for years afterwards during the appeals process. The complaint goes into detail about these “deeply troubling” shortcomings.One of the key examples relates to the marks found on the victim’s cheek. The state’s experts mistakenly interpreted the marks as having come from a pattern on a rug in Reese’s bedroom where she had been beaten to death with a wooden tire club.In fact, the filing says, the pattern on the body’s cheek did not match that on the rug. Instead it was consistent with the murderer stomping on Reese’s face directly with his shoe.That is critically significant because the shoes that Lee was wearing that day, which the state used during the trial as evidence against him, were incompatible in the composition of their soles with the injury pattern on Reese’s face.To establish this point, an affidavit is provided by Michael Baden, former chief pathologist for New York who is recognized internationally as a leading forensic pathologist. He concludes: “The soles of Mr Lee’s sneakers have a much more closely spaced pattern than was transferred in the cheek imprint.”That inconsistency is just one of many that were uncovered when Baden and four other specialists were invited to review the case.Lee was executed in a flurry. When the state of Arkansas realized its supply of one of its three lethal drugs, the sedative midazolam, was about to expire at the end of 2017 with no hope of replacing it due to a global ban on medicines being sent to the US for use in executions, it went into overdrive.It announced plans to kill eight prisoners in 11 days.The declaration prompted revulsion from around the US and the world and accusations that the state was engaging in conveyor-belt executions. It was in that climate that attempts by the ACLU and the Innocence Project to have materials gathered at the crime scene of Reese’s murder released for DNA testing fell on deaf ears.Though the lawyers presented a strong argument that DNA testing could be crucial in casting doubt on Lee’s conviction and pointing towards the real killer, a federal district court denied the request on grounds that Lee had “simply delayed too long” in asking for the materials.It is too late now for Lee. But his lawyers hope that it is not too late to get to the bottom of the case posthumously.The city of Jacksonville is in possession of a rich array of crime scene materials including “Negroid” hairs collected from Reese’s bedroom and fingernail scrapings likely to contain DNA from the actual killer – Lee or otherwise.“This evidence can now be tested with state-of-the-art methods unavailable at trial, and compared to Mr Lee’s unique DNA profile,” the filing says.After a welter of legal challenges, Arkansas succeeded in killing four prisoners in one week, including the first double execution held in the US in a single day since 2001. The first of the four to die was Ledell Lee.Should Arkansas now agree belatedly to hand over the crime scene materials for testing, he may yet be proven to have been, just as he always said he was, an innocent man.

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Brexit Bulletin: Law of the Land

Days to Brexit: 8(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to get the Brexit Bulletin in your inbox every weekday.What’s Happening? The Withdrawal Agreement Bill received royal assent, making Brexit on Jan. 31 a matter of U.K. law.Seventeen words brought an end to the British side of this phase of the Brexit saga. In a statement to the House of Commons, Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans delivered the news to listening lawmakers: “Her Majesty has signified her royal assent to the following act: European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.”Royal assent brings to a close the crisis that paralyzed U.K. politics after the country voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. Former Prime Minister Theresa May failed to get her version of the deal through the House of Commons after reaching an agreement with the EU in November 2018. Her successor, Boris Johnson, succeeded only after winning a large majority in last month’s general election.With the U.K. due to slip out of the EU at 11 p.m. London time next Friday, all that remains is for the European Parliament to rubber-stamp the deal. That was due to move a step closer on Thursday afternoon via a vote of the assembly’s constitutional affairs committee, a group of the parliament’s most influential members. The panel was expected to nod the deal through.The full EU parliament, which officially has a veto over the deal, will vote on Jan. 29. It will almost certainly follow the committee’s lead. The U.K. is scheduled to leave the EU two days later.Beyond BrexitClimate activist Greta Thunberg should go back to school and study economics, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. These billionaires made their fortunes by trying to stop climate change. The £200 million ($262 million) London mansion bought by Cheung Cheung Kie earlier this month isn’t even his most valuable property.Brexit in BriefRule Makers | U.K. financiers are asking the government to revamp regulations to attract global business after Brexit. Watchdogs should have the power “to make the U.K. a better place to do business” through a new mandate to support London’s financial hub against rivals, according to the International Regulatory Strategy Group, a panel backed by the City of London.Diverging Views | Speaking at Davos on Thursday morning, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid tried to reassure business over Britain’s post-Brexit ties with the EU. “We won’t diverge just for the sake of it,” he said. That’s despite telling the Financial Times last week that “there will not be alignment” with EU rules after Brexit.Off-Piste? | Did Javid speak out of turn at Davos when he said that talks for a U.K.-EU trade deal will take priority over any agreement with the U.S.? Today’s Bloomberg Westminster podcast discusses his motivations.Time Is Tight | The clock is ticking for the EU and the U.K. to hammer out a trade deal by the end of the year, according to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “It’s an awfully short amount of time so I hope that coming next summer, June, July, that Boris Johnson will at least contemplate extending, if necessary, this transition phase,” Rutte said in a Bloomberg TV interview in Davos. “I’m Still Here” | Steve Bray, otherwise known as the “Stop Brexit Guy” was a fixture outside Westminster during the height of the U.K.’s Brexit tension, often disrupting live TV interviews. On Thursday he took his protest to Brussels, joining a small rally outside the European Parliament, the Brussels Times reports. “I came to Brussels just to visit this parliament,” the Times reported him as saying. “I’m still here because I still care.”Want to keep up with Brexit?You can follow us @Brexit on Twitter, and listen to Bloomberg Westminster every weekday. It’s live at midday on Bloomberg Radio and is available as a podcast too. Share the Brexit Bulletin: Colleagues, friends and family can sign up here. For full EU coverage, try the Brussels Edition.For even more: Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access for our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close.To contact the authors of this story: Thomas Penny in London at tpenny@bloomberg.netIan Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Adam Blenford at ablenford@bloomberg.net, Chris KayFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

No qualms for India's hangman before first job of executing rapists

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