McAllen

The Latest: US announces sanctions against Maduro officials

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The latest on the political crisis in Venezuela (all times local):

Venezuela opens investigation into opposition-appointed PDVSA directors: prosecutor

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's chief state prosecutor said on Thursday an investigation had been opened into directors of state-run oil firm PDVSA, and its U.S. refiner Citgo, that the opposition-controlled congress appointed on Wednesday. Prosecutor Tarek Saab, in comments broadcast on state television, announced "the opening of an investigation against people designated illegally as directors of PDVSA and Citgo." Saab also said they would investigate foreign ambassadors named by opposition leader Juan Guaido, who on Jan 23 invoked constitutional provisions to assume an interim presidency. ...

British schoolgirl Shamima Begum who joined Isil found in Syria and 'wants to come home'

A British schoolgirl who fled to Syria to join Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has said she does not regret it, but wants to return to the UK to give birth. Shamima Begum, 19, vanished from her home in Bethnal Green in London four years ago, along with two other teenage girls, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase. A girl who identified herself as Shamima Begum, was found in a refugee camp in Syria as the Isil caliphate collapsed, the Times reported. In an interview with the newspaper she described how she had been living in the caliphate and had married an Isil fighter from the Netherlands called Yago Riedijk. She was heavily pregnant and due to give birth any day. Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase, and Shamima Begum  Credit: PA The girl is living in the al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria along with 39,000 other refugees. She described having seen a severed head in a bin during her time with Isil, and escaping bombs dropping, the Times reported. The teenager also said she had already given birth to two children, both of whom died in infancy. She told the Times: "I’m not the same silly little 15-year-old schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago. And I don’t regret coming here." She added: "I am scared this baby is going to get sick in this camp, that's why I want to get back to Britain, because I know my baby will be looked after." The three girls had joined another London teenager, Sharmeena Begum, in Syria. All were married off to jihadists.  Shamima Begum said at least one of her friends, Kadiza Sultana, had been killed when a bomb hit a house in Raqqa. Renu, eldest sister of Shamima Begum, 15, holds her sister's photo while being interviewed by the media at New Scotland Yard, central London Credit: PA The other two girls reportedly stayed on to fight in Baghuz in eastern Syria, along with a few hundred Isil fighters, as the caliphate came to an end. Shamima Begum and her husband fled instead, and the husband surrendered to Kurdish forces. The girl told the Times she had spoken to her mother in the UK and asked for her support when she goes home. She had also read what had been written about her online by people back in the UK. "The caliphate is over," she told the Times. "There was so much oppression and corruption that I don’t think they deserved victory. I know what everyone at home thinks of me. But I just want to come home to have my child. All I want to do is come home to Britain." British teenagers Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum passing through security barriers at Gatwick Airport, en route to Syria in 2015 Credit: AFP The Home Office said it does not comment on individual cases, although anyone who returns to the UK after travelling to IS territory faces criminal investigation and stricter laws are now in place. Security Minister Ben Wallace said: "The UK advises against all travel to Syria and parts of Iraq. Anyone who does travel to these areas, for whatever reason, is putting themselves in considerable danger. "Everyone who returns from taking part in the conflict in Syria or Iraq must expect to be investigated by the police to determine if they have committed criminal offences, and to ensure that they do not pose a threat to our national security. "There are a range of terrorism offences where individuals can be convicted for crimes committed overseas and we can also use Temporary Exclusion Orders to control an individuals' return to the UK." A displaced Syrian woman and a child walk toward tents at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp of al-Hol in al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria Credit: AFP Tasnime Akunjee, a lawyer who was instructed by the Bethnal Green girls' families after they ran away, said he was "glad (Ms Begum) is alive and safe". He told the Press Association the authorities should be reminded of former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe's position at the time of their disappearance. "The position of the Metropolitan Police was that they should be treated as victims, so long as they hadn't committed any further offences while they are out there," he said. Mr Akunjee said he had spoken to the girls' families, who had "expressed the position that they want time and space to process what's happened". The Western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are expected to announce the territorial defeat of Isil in the coming days. Around 2,000 US special forces are expected to be brought home by April. Giving evidence to MPs in the wake of the British schoolgirls's disappearance, in 2015, senior police officers said they would not be treated as criminals if they returned home. They said there was a "difference between the person running around with a Kalishnikov" and three schoolgirls who had been duped into travelling to Syria. The girls funded their travel to Syria by stealing jewellery from relatives, paying more than £1,000 in cash to a local travel agent for their flights to Turkey. Donald Trump has said Isil is "defeated"and that an announcement is imminent on "100 percent of the caliphate" having been retaken. The war to push Isil out of its so-called caliphate had lasted more than four-and-a-half years. The area once covered part of Syria and Iraq that was around the size of Britain. Pentagon officials have warned that Isil remains an "active insurgent group in both Iraq and Syria". Sign up for your essential, twice-daily briefing from The Telegraph with our free Front Page newsletter.

'El Chapo' heading to Supermax prison? Who else is inside the hellish 'Alcatraz of the Rockies'

Inmates spend about 23 hours of every day in solitary confinement inside a 12-by-7-foot cell. "This place is not designed for humanity."

Netanyahu hails Warsaw talks with Arab states as 'turning point'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Thursday as historic a Warsaw meeting where he is joining Arab states, saying they stood united against Iran and voicing hope that cooperation extends to other areas. The opening dinner Wednesday night of the two-day, US-organised conference marked "a historical turning point," Netanyahu told reporters. "In a room of some 60 foreign ministers representative of dozens of governments, an Israeli prime minister and the foreign ministers of the leading Arab countries stood together and spoke with unusual force, clarity and unity against the common threat of the Iranian regime," he said.

Why This 'Atmospheric River' Could Cause Mudslides and 'Roofalanches' in California

Californians are experiencing some unusually nasty winter weather this week as an "atmospheric river" passes through most of the state, bringing howling winds and heavy rain.The storm arrived on Tuesday night (Feb. 12) in Northern California and continued into Wednesday (Feb. 13), leading the National Weather Service (NWS) to issue warnings of flash flooding, mudslides and high winds in the region. It is forecast to bring "excessive rainfall" to Southern California on Thursday (Feb. 14), according to the NWS.[Weirdo Weather: 7 Rare Weather Events]Atmospheric rivers are huge "rivers in the sky" that cause moisture from the tropics to flow north, from California to Canada. These huge weather systems can carry many times the freshwater that flows through the mighty Mississippi River, local news outlet KQED reported."They're the biggest freshwater rivers on Earth," F. Martin Ralph, the director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes in La Jolla, California, told KQED.These atmospheric rivers of condensed water vapor can easily be 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) long and 300 miles (482 km) wide, Ralph said. When an atmospheric river brings moisture from Hawaii to the Western U.S. -- as is the case with the current storm -- it's known as the Pineapple Express.Atmospheric rivers can bring much-needed rain -- or wreak havoc by dumping heavy rain or snow when they make landfall, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). California has recently experienced storms, meaning the current downpour is falling on waterlogged soil. Summer wildfires also scorched the earth in several areas of California, and burn scars can be more prone to flash flooding and debris as well, according to the NWS.On Wednesday morning, 24-hour rainfall totals were as high as 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) in some parts of the Northern Bay Area, with San Francisco receiving about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) of rain, according to the NWS. Residents along the Bay Area coast and hills may face high winds from 25 to 35 mph (40 to 56 km/h) with gusts up to 60 mph (97 km/h), according to the NWS. Social media was abuzz with reports of downed trees and flash flooding. In the Sierras, the NWS warned that the atmospheric river could cause "roofalanches," or the sudden release of snow from already snow-packed roofs, which can pose a serious hazard.Earlier this month, Ralph and his colleagues developed a new scale to describe the strength of atmospheric rivers. The scale, which was described in the February issue of the journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, ranks these weather events using categories "1 to 5," with Category 1 indicating a "weak" storm and Category 5 indicating an "exceptional" one. The ranking is based on the amount of water vapor the storm carries, and how long it dumps moisture on a given area, according to a statement. The scale also indicates the extent to which the storm is likely to be beneficial -- by bringing much-needed rain to replenish reservoirs after a drought, for example -- or hazardous, leading to flooding and mudslides. The current storm is a "Category 3," according to local news outlet CBS San Francisco.Tia Ghose contributed reporting. * 9 Tips for Exercising in Winter Weather * Fishy Rain to Fire Whirlwinds: The World's Weirdest Weather * 10 Surprising Ways Weather Has Changed HistoryOriginally published on Live Science.

Students track fatal child shootings since Parkland killings

PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — A student journalism project has concluded that at least 1,149 children and teenagers died from a shooting in the year since the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Denver teachers to end strike after school officials agree to raise pay

The strike, which cost Denver Public Schools about $400,000 per day, came to an end early Thursday.

Senator Bob Menendez reportedly threatens to call police on Daily Caller reporter Henry Rodgers about the Green New Deal

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) reportedly threatens to call police on Daily Caller reporter Henry Rodgers who asked the Senator about the Green New Deal.

US senate passes border bill as Trump prepares to declare national emergency

The US Senate has passed a major spending bill that would effectively avoid another federal government shutdown, sending the legislation to the president’s desk for a signature. Now, the only question is whether Donald Trump intends to sign it. The bipartisan measure is the product of weeks of negotiations after the longest government shutdown in history, in which Mr Trump demanded billions of dollars towards his campaign promise of building a wall sprawling across the entirety of the US-Mexico border.

Kashmir car bomb kills 44; India demands Pakistan act against militants

The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility for the attack. The Indian government accused Pakistan of letting militant groups operate from its soil and called on it to take action. Kashmir is a Muslim-majority region at the heart of decades of hostility between India and Pakistan.

Gay couples in Japan join together on Valentine's Day to sue government over same-sex marriage ban

Thirteen gay couples filed Japan's first lawsuit challenging the country's rejection of same-sex marriage on Valentine's Day, arguing the denial violates their constitutional right to equality. Six couples holding banners saying "Marriage For All Japan" walked into Tokyo District Court to file their cases against the government, with similar cases filed by three couples in Osaka, one couple in Nagoya and three couples in Sapporo. Plaintiff Kenji Aiba, standing next to his partner Ken Kozumi, told reporters he would "fight this war together with sexual minorities all around Japan." Mr Aiba and Mr Kozumi have held onto a marriage certificate they signed at their wedding party in 2013, anticipating Japan would emulate other advanced nations and legalise same-sex unions. That day has yet to come, and legally they are just friends even though they've lived as a married couple for more than five years. So they decided to act rather than waiting. "Right now we are both in good health and able to work, but what if either of us has an accident or becomes ill? We are not allowed to be each other's guarantors for medical treatment, or to be each other's heir," Mr Kozumi, a 45-year-old office worker, said in a recent interview with his partner Mr Aiba, 40. "Progress in Japan has been too slow." Politician Mizuho Fukushima has spoken out in favour of gay rights in Japan Credit: AP Photo/Mari Yamaguchi Ten Japanese municipalities have enacted "partnership" ordinances for same-sex couples to make it easier for them to rent apartments together, among other things, but they are not legally binding. Japanese laws are currently interpreted as allowing marriage only between a man and a woman. In a society where pressure for conformity is strong, many gay people hide their sexuality, fearing prejudice at home, school or work. The obstacles are even higher for transgender people in the highly gender-specific society. The Supreme Court last month upheld a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilized before they can have their gender changed on official documents. The LGBT equal rights movement has lagged behind in Japan because people who are silently not conforming to conventional notions of sexuality have been so marginalized that the issue hasn't been considered a human rights problem, experts say. "Many people don't even think of a possibility that their neighbors, colleagues or classmates may be sexual minorities," said Mizuho Fukushima, a lawyer-turned-politician and an expert on gender and human rights issues. "And the pressure to follow a conservative family model, in which heterosexual couples are supposed to marry and have children, is still strong." Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ultra-conservative supporters have campaigned to restore a paternalistic society based on heterosexual marriages. The government has restarted moral education class at schools to teach children family values and good deeds. "Whether to allow same-sex marriage is an issue that affects the foundation of how families should be in Japan, which requires an extremely careful examination," Mr Abe said in a statement last year.

The Latest: German minister says Airbus must find jobs

TOULOUSE, France (AP) — The Latest on Airbus' announcement that it will stop making the superjumbo A380 (all times local):

Amazon drops New York headquarters plan amid protests

Amazon abandoned plans for a new headquarters in New York City on Thursday, blaming opposition from community leaders angry at the huge subsidies being offered to one of the world's most successful companies. The online retail giant had promised the sprawling complex in the borough of Queens would create 25,000 jobs in exchange for nearly $3 billion in state and city incentives -- which had riled some New Yorkers. "While polls show that 70 percent of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project," Amazon said in a statement.

FBI releases 16 drawings prolific serial killer Samuel Little made of his victims

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released more than a dozen drawingsmade by a prolific serial killer in hopes the public may be able to identifysome of his victims

During a school lockdown, 7-year-old writes note on her arm in case she dies

A second-grader wrote a chilling note to her parents on her arm during school lockdown.

Trump Venezuela envoy interrogated by Ilhan Omar over his role in Iran-Contra scandal

Donald Trump’s envoy to Venezuela was left flustered and visibly angry following an interrogation by Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar over his controversial political past. Elliot Abrams was appointed special envoy to Venezuela last month to help lead the US response to the political crisis in the South American country, which is seeing widespread hunger and violence following the collapse of its economy. On Wednesday, Mr Abrams, who served in the Reagan administration, testified in front of the House foreign affairs select committee, where he was subjected to a fierce line of questioning by Ms Omar.

Valentine’s Day Is Stupid, But Men Should Stop Complaining about It

A  new survey found that men plan to spend an average of $339 on their partners for Valentine’s Day, while women play to spend an average of $64 -- and some men think that this is unfair.First of all, let me say that I think spending $339 on Valentine’s Day is ridiculous. I mean, where are all of these men? I would really love to know, because no one has ever spent that much on me on Valentine’s Day. Maybe I’m a little jaded, but I guess I always assumed the only reason someone would spend $339 on their partner for Valentine’s Day would be that he feels bad because he’s actually cheating on her. Considering the kind of Valentine’s Day presents I’ve gotten -- I once had a man give me only an e-card that said “Happy Black History Month is almost over” (and then that was over) -- I really am having a hard time believing that this survey could be actually true.After all, Valentine’s Day is the worst. I mean, who cares? All it means is that all of your social-media platforms are going to be flooded with pictures of other people’s flowers, complete with captions about how they were gifted by BEST BOYFRIEND IN THE WORLD, while you watch your cat lick up the crumbs from the cookies that you’re eating alone in bed. (Just me?) Even when I’ve been in a relationship, I still haven’t cared about it much because I have a career and a life and other things to worry about besides showing off my relationship on Instagram to make the cat-crumbs people feel bad about themselves.That being said, I’d still have to say that the only thing more ridiculous than Valentine’s Day is probably the fact that men are complaining about having to spend a little cash to celebrate it.Yes, $339 is a lot of money. I’ve already said that, and really, really, I think that any woman who is not a treacherous, gold-digging sociopath would probably be happy with much less. But here’s the thing: Even if you are a man spending $339 while your partner spends only $64, you still should not be complaining about it. Why? Because you have already saved so much money by just not being a woman.I mean, seriously -- it is so much cheaper to be a man. How much do your haircuts cost, like $10? (I have to spend money on getting mine cut and colored, and then on buying someone else’s hair to strap to my head, just to be acceptable to society.) How much money do you spend getting your nails done? That’s right, none, and all of the time you save by not having to waste your life sitting under those little dryers like an idiot waiting for them to be done is probably being spent making more money.Think about it: If you’re a man, you don’t even need to buy lip gloss. Do you know how much lip gloss us women have had to purchase throughout our lives? That s*** starts in like the fifth grade! Factor in that we’re also expected to wear mascara, eyeshadow, eyeliner, concealer (only men can have visible zits!), and a bunch of other garbage that sucks up our money and our time, and you might start to feel a little ridiculous about the fact that you have to get some flowers and a card.Valentine’s Day is dumb, and I’ve always believed that the people who really care about it must be some really sad people with some really sad lives. But the only thing more pathetic than getting super jazzed for Valentine’s Day is getting super salty about it because you’re a man and you have to spend a couple of extra bucks. If you find yourself complaining, then stop it. Remember: You’ve saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars thanks to society allowing you to look just straight-up worse than we do.

Storm creates chaos in California with flooding, mudslides

SAUSALITO, Calif. (AP) — Waves of heavy rain pounded California on Thursday, trapping people in floodwaters, washing away a mountain highway, triggering a mudslide that destroyed homes and forcing residents to flee communities scorched by wildfires last year.

Putin, Erdogan Spar Over Syria Militants Amid Split on Safe Zone

While Putin urged Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at a summit on Thursday to work out ways to “completely destroy the terrorist hotbed” in the Idlib region, a joint statement after the talks referred only to the need for “concrete steps” to restore a September truce shattered by the Islamist takeover last month. Erdogan said he’d “relayed our expectations” to Putin and Rouhani for Syrian government forces to “abide by the cease-fire” agreed in September, and for Russia and Iran to support Turkey’s demand for a buffer zone inside northern Syria to counter U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in the region.

Airbus A380, the Concorde: technical feats, commercial flops

The scratching of the superjumbo jet Airbus A380 echoes the sad fate of the supersonic Concorde, another feat of aviation technology that turned out to be a commercial flop. The inaugural commercial flight on January 21, 1976 of Concorde, the world's first supersonic passenger plane, promised a revolution in aviation. It was the first computer-controlled commercial aircraft in history and also innovated with a weight-saving aluminium body and triangular delta wings.

It Looks Like the Land Rover Discovery SVX Is Dead

This looks like another miss from Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations.

Isil bride Shamima Begum has a legal right to return to the UK, head of MI6 says

The British Islamic State (Isil) bride Shamima Begum has a legal right to return to the UK the Head of MI6 has said. The Director General of MI6 has said that British citizens have a right to return home from Syria, even though they may still present a threat to national security. Alex Younger, the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service - better known as MI6 - said he was "very concerned" about returning British nationals that had fought for or supported the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). Speaking ahead of the Munich Security Conference which started on Friday, Mr Younger said: "All experience tells us that once someone's put themselves in that sort of position they are likely to have acquired both the skills and connections that make them potentially very dangerous. "Anyone who has put themselves in this situation can expect to be questioned and investigated and potentially prosecuted if they return to our jurisdiction." When asked about the case of Ms Begum, the heavily pregnant 19-year-old Londoner who travelled to Syria four years ago to become an Isil bride and who now wants to return to the UK to have her baby, Mr Younger said: "British nationals have a right to come to the UK." Kadiza Sultana, left, Shamima Begum, center, and Amira Abase going through security at Gatwick airport Credit: Metropolitan Police Britain’s intelligence chief cautioned about showing triumphalism at the demise of Isil, saying such an approach led to hubris. "The military defeat of the caliphate does not represent the end of the terrorist threat that we face," he said. "You can’t use military force to kill and idea." Mr Younger warned that Isil was already in the process of trying to grow elsewhere around the world, even as its fighters are defeated in Syria, and that the threat from al-Qaeda had not been completely extinguished. He said: "Daesh [Isil] is a resilient organisation and it is reorganising, returning to its natural state as an asymmetric transnational terrorist organisation. We see it morphing, spreading out. "Al-Qaeda...has undergone a certain resurgence as a result of the degradation of Daesh and it is a force that should also be taken seriously. It is definitely not done out, and is something we should remain focused on." Mr Younger was keen to stress the "strength and unconditional nature of the UK security offer" and said Brexit would not harm enduring partnerships. "Britain’s commitment to the security of the European continent is unconditional," he said. "Our aim is to strengthen our security partnerships in Europe, alongside our other intelligence partnerships across the globe, because that is the inescapable logic of a world of increasingly international hybrid threats." The ability to "operationalise" partnerships with other intelligence organisations was critical in preserving our way of life, he said, and was used to great effect after the nerve-agent attack in Salisbury last year. Referring to the intelligence sharing relationships with France and Germany he said: "There are people alive in our three countries today because of terrorist attack plans that we have successfully disrupted, showing the value and importance of cooperation to all sides. This is not a one-way street." "Even in the past year...people’s lives have been saved in all of our countries as a result of this cooperation. The counter terrorist machine is working as it should. Bombs haven’t gone off as a result of our capacity to exchange data with each other. "Brexit doesn’t fundamentally alter those relationships."

Ahead of EU polls, Facebook voids accounts targeting Moldovan election

Employees of the Moldovan government were linked to some of the activity, the California-based social media company said. Facebook said it dismantled scores of pages and accounts designed to look like independent opinion pages and to impersonate a local fact-checking organization ahead of Moldova's elections later this month. "So they created this feedback loop," Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy, told reporters in Brussels.

Report: President Trump Installs $50,000 Golf Simulator in the White House

President Trump has installed a room-sized golfing simulator inside his personal quarters at the White House

Cars submerged, vineyards flooded as storm slams California

Among the hardest hit areas was northern California, with rain driven by winds of up to 75 mph (120 kph) pounding parts of Sonoma County's wine country. In the Sacramento Valley, flood warnings were in effect from Chico to Stockton as the warm "Pineapple Express" tropical system brought rain to the mountains, melting snow and swelling creeks. A woman was injured when a tree fell on a home in Carmel, and falling trees knocked out power to houses in Atherton near Palo Alto, according to tweets from the National Weather Service (NWS) and local authorities.

The U.S. Navy Just Bought Four Giant, Robot Submarines from Boeing

Orca could help to fill a yawning gap in the American submarine fleet. In December 2016, the U.S. Navy announced it needed 66 nuclear-powered attack subs, or SSNs, to meet regional commanders' needs.

Post-box love for lonely Britons on Valentine's Day

Big-hearted Britons have penned thousands of uplifting messages to be delivered to single seniors on Valentine's Day in a project aimed at alleviating loneliness. The letters and cards were written in recent weeks and left in ten models of old-fashioned red post-boxes set up in locations across London and several other cities. Red Letter Days, a gift experience company which came up with the idea, will dispatch the messages to needy elderly recipients in selected care homes during Thursday.

Mike Pence attacks UK for 'breaking US sanctions against Iran'

Mike Pence, the US vice president, has accused Britain, France and Germany of trying to sabotage American sanctions against Iran and called on the European states to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal.  In an unusually blunt attack on America’s traditional European allies, Mr Pence told a summit in Warsaw that the three countries were leading “an effort to break American sanctions against Iran’s murderous revolutionary regime”.  He focused his criticism on a financial mechanism created by the three states and the EU to allow European firms to continue trading with Iran in a way that skirts punishing US sanctions.  “It's an ill-advised step that will only strengthen Iran, weaken the EU, and create still more distance between Europe and the United States,” Mr Pence said.  He said the British, French, and German governments had “not been nearly as cooperative” in backing America’s anti-Iran policy as Israel and the Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Mr Pence said for the first time that the three countries should pull out of the nuclear agreement, which was signed in 2015 by Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the US and Iran. “The time has come for our European partners to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.” Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the summit for bringing Israel together with the Arab states Credit: AP Photo/Michael Sohn Other US officials, including Donald Trump, have harshly criticised the deal but never before called for the European states to leave it.    There was no immediate response from the Foreign Office to Mr Pence’s criticism.  The US-hosted conference in Poland was enthusiastically attended by Israel and the Gulf states but the European governments which continue to support the Iran deal largely stayed away.  Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, attended the opening dinner of the summit on Wednesday night but left before the main meetings on Thursday. Germany sent a junior minister and France was represented by a foreign ministry official.  Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, hailed the summit for bringing Israel together with its Arab neighbours “against the common threat of the Iranian regime”.  Mr Netanyahu sat next to the foreign minister of Yemen at the conference, an image that would have once been unthinkable in the Middle East.  Here is @IsraeliPM Netanyahu sitting next to Yemen's Foreign Minister Khaled Hussein Alyemany, at the WarsawSummitpic.twitter.com/d7c5jRwKXp— Raphael Ahren (@RaphaelAhren) February 14, 2019 However, there still appears to be a ceiling on how far the Arab states will go in befriending Israel without a solution to the Palestinian issue.  While the Israeli leader sat in the same room as ministers from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, none of them were prepared to hold a formal meeting with Mr Netanyahu or publicly shake his hand.  Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former spy chief, granted an unprecedented interview to Israeli television where he warned that there would not be peace between the Jewish state and Saudi Arabia until there was a deal on the Palestinians.  “From the Israeli point of view, Mr. Netanyahu would like us to have a relationship, and then we can fix the Palestinian issue. From the Saudi point of view, it’s the other way around,” he said.  Donald Trump has tasked his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with brokering a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians.  Mr Kushner told the conference the deal would not be released until after the Israeli elections in April and said that both sides would have to make compromises. However, he declined to give even basic details of his plan.  The US said that the Palestinians had been invited to the summit and refused to come. Palestinian officials said an invitation had only been issued five days before the start of conference, long after other governments were formally invited.  “This is not serious,” a Palestinian official said. “This is just part of the blame game of the Trump Administration in cooperation with their Polish friends.” An FCO spokesperson said: “The UK Government regards the JCPoA as a crucial agreement that makes the world a safer place by neutralising the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. We remain committed to preserving the JCPoA, which is why we are establishing a European Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with the E3 that aims to deliver the sanctions relief we committed to as part of the agreement. “The UK is not and has never been naïve about Iran and its nuclear intentions and while we share US concerns about Iranian regional activities and its missile programme, we believe the best way to address these wider concerns is while the nuclear deal remains in place.”

Anti-Amazon Backlash Rose From Grassroots to Stymie Bezos

Amazon.com Inc. expected some public outcry over its choice to expand in a redeveloped Queens industrial area along New York City’s East River. Among the fatal errors: Three-term Governor Andrew Cuomo and two-term New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, underestimated how an anti-corporate message from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in office less than two months, would take root so deeply and so quickly. “Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world,” Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described Democratic Socialist, said on Twitter.

Bentley Bentayga Speed: an SUV as luxurious as it is powerful

On Thursday Bentley unveiled the Bentayga Speed, an SUV with a top speed of 190 mph and 0- 62mph acceleration time of 3.9 seconds. Bentley celebrated its Valentine's Day by announcing what it calls the "world's fastest, most luxurious SUV:" the Bentayga Speed.

Amazon faces backlash from New York City locals after canceling HQ2 plans

The tech giant decided to pull out of the planned Long Island City site after local opposition.

Trump set to declare border emergency, sign shutdown-averting bill

Trump was also expected to sign a bipartisan government spending bill approved by Congress on Thursday that would prevent another federal shutdown by funding several agencies that otherwise would have closed on Saturday morning. The Republican president was scheduled to deliver remarks on the issue at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT) in the Rose Garden at the White House. The bill, lacking any money for his wall, is a defeat for Trump in Congress, where his demand for $5.7 billion in barrier funding yielded no results, other than a record-long 35-day December-January partial government shutdown that damaged the U.S. economy and his poll numbers.

The Latest: Robbery shooting suspect charged with murder

NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on the fatal shooting of a New York Police Department detective (all times local):

Jaish al-Adl: shadowy Sunni extremists on Iran-Pakistan border

A suicide attack that killed 27 troops in Iran's restive southeast on Wednesday was claimed by Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni Muslim extremist group that only emerged seven years ago. Jaish al-Adl -- Army of Justice in Arabic -- is seen as the incarnation of Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, which began a bloody rebellion against the Islamic republic in 2000. For a decade, Jundallah waged a deadly insurgency on civilians and officials in the restive southeast.

Papa John's serves up college tuition benefit to employees of pizza chain

Troubled pizza chain Papa John's will pay college tuition for its employees and assistance for franchisees.

Best Presidents Day TV Deals

Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping consumers. When you shop through retailer links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission—100% of the fees w...

Paul Manafort: Trump's ex-campaign manager breached plea deal by lying to prosecutors, judge rules

Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, breached his plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller’s office by intentionally lying to prosecutors, a federal judge has ruled. There was a “preponderance” of evidence that Manafort lied on three different topics, including his communications with his former business partner and alleged Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik, Judge Amy Berman Jackson in the US District Court for the District of Columbia found.

Nothing says 'I love you' like heart-shaped ravioli stuffed with goat cheese

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There’s Not Much Performance in Denver Schools’ ‘Pay for Performance’ System

On Monday, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) went on strike, the latest in a series of teacher strikes that have erupted across the country over the past year. While Denver teachers have voiced concerns about class sizes, support staff, and starting salaries, the consensus is that the issue at the heart of the strike is teacher frustration with Denver’s once-celebrated ProComp pay system, which was jointly developed by the DCTA and Denver Public Schools in 2005.Back then, ProComp was heralded as a pioneering step forward on pay-for-performance/merit pay, and that framing  has colored coverage of the strike. Even before the strike started, education outlet Chalkbeat ran an explainer headlined, “How a once-promising merit pay system led Denver teachers to the brink of a strike.” This week, the Washington Post reported “Denver teachers strike in bid to dismantle pay-for-performance system.” The New York Times account was headlined, “Denver Teachers’ Strike Puts Performance-Based Pay to the Test.”The only problem? This narrative is bunk. For all the talk about “merit” and “performance,” ProComp is almost wholly devoid of any links between pay and teacher performance.As Denver Public Schools’ compensation chart illustrates, ProComp allows teachers to earn an annual $3,851 pay bump for obtaining an advanced degree or license; a $2,738 boost for working in a “hard to staff” field or a “hard to serve” school; $1,540 for working in a “ProComp Title I” school, which is different than a “hard to serve” school; $855 for completing the requisite “professional development units”; and between $800 and $5,000 for filling designated leadership roles. There is also a yearly bonus for teachers based on students’ state-wide-exam results.None of these bonuses, save perhaps for the last one, are performance-based. The only other component of ProComp resembling anything even remotely close to a performance-based incentive for individual teachers is the $855 they can receive for a satisfactory evaluation on a paper-driven performance rubric — and that figure falls by half for longtime educators. (Just how modest is such a sum in context? Average teacher pay in Denver before incentives is about $51,000, and the district has already offered teachers a 10 percent raise.)A couple points here merit note. First, contra the coverage of the strike, the Denver pay system which has sparked so much backlash is not actually rewarding performance. Rather, ProComp is mostly designed to reward the usual credentialism and to steer teachers to work in certain schools or fields. That’s all fine, and some of it makes good sense, but it’s a misnomer to characterize it as constituting a “pay-for-performance” scheme.Second, to the extent that ProComp seeks to reward performance in any fashion, it has opted for school-wide bonuses to schools that make large gains on math and reading scores (what the district euphemistically terms “top performing-high growth” schools). Reading and math scores matter, a lot. But education reform’s fascination with paying for test points is troubling on several counts. It is bizarrely detached from the instruction that most teachers (including those who teach science, foreign languages, music, or history) are asked to focus on and has encouraged corner-cutting and outright cheating. It also has parents concerned about narrow curricula and soulless instruction, and teachers feeling like insurance salesmen.Performance pay is always tricky, but a raft of for-profit and non-profit organizers have muddled through in pretty sensible ways — tapping human judgment, seeking to assess the full contribution that an employee makes, and relying more upon promotions and raises than one-time bonuses.Denver’s situation is so noteworthy because Denver is no laggard. Indeed, for many years, it has been celebrated as a “model” district by reformers. So it’s disheartening how little progress the city has actually made. Reformers wound up being so focused on finding ways to pay teachers to switch schools or raise test scores that they missed what might have been a larger opportunity to reshape the teaching profession by reimagining how teachers’ job descriptions, pay structures, and responsibilities could work. Indeed, given the limited dollar amounts involved (a 1–2 percent bonus if a teacher aces his personal evaluation), it’s hard to imagine why anyone ever expected ProComp to be a game-changer.As teacher strikes continue apace and efforts to improve schooling move on from the enthusiasm of the Bush and Obama years, there may emerge new opportunities to rethink teacher pay. If they do, reformers should seize them by focusing more intently on how well teachers do their jobs, and less on where they work or how many boxes they check.Frederick M. Hess is the director of education-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Brendan Bell is the education-program manager at AEI.