Finance news

• Impeachment: even the Senate's oath is controversial in hyperpartisan age

  16-01-2020 23:56 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Trump’s trial opened with senators taking a 232-year-old pledge of impartiality – but that’s where the unanimity endedAt 2.08pm on Thursday, a pair of pages opened the filigreed doors of the Senate. A quartet of senators – two Republicans and two Democrats – escorted the US supreme court’s chief justice, John Roberts, dressed in a long black robe, into the chamber. So began the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump.Chuck Grassley, the Senate’s preside
  
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• Andrew McCabe Proposes DOJ Accountability Office to Counter ‘Weakness’ of FISA-Warrant Process

  16-01-2020 23:44 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Former acting FBI director Andy McCabe admitted Thursday that the Bureau suffers from an “inherent weakness in the process” of obtaining FISA warrants, and suggested the establishment of an internal accountability office for lawyers to review FISA-application evidence in “real time.”Speaking on a panel at NYU Law School about the implications of DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the 2016 Trump c
  
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• Woman who poisoned husband with eyedrops sentenced to 25 years in prison

  16-01-2020 23:41 via news.yahoo.com
  
  A woman accused of poisoning her husband to death with eye drops then burning his will has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.South Carolina woman Lana Clayton pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter more than a year after she had spiked her husband's water with Visine until he collapsed inside the couple's multi-million-dollar home on 21 July 2018.
  
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• Reporters getting 1st taste of impeachment restrictions

  16-01-2020 23:40 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump has barely started and already journalists are getting a glimpse of how hard it will be cover the event under harsh new media restrictions imposed by the Senate.Thursday’s impeachment events were largely ceremonial, with the Senate formally receiving the articles of impeachment from the seven appointed managers from the House of Representatives.Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and the full Senate were also formally sworn in.
  
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• Mexico and U.S. plan to reduce illegal arms and drug trade

  16-01-2020 23:35 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Mexico and the United States have agreed on a plan to combat illicit trafficking of arms, drugs and money, the Mexican government said on Thursday, following meetings between U.S. Attorney General William Barr and top Mexican officials.The two neighboring countries also agreed to cooperate on measures to reduce drug consumption and combat addiction, the Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement."A number of advances on the issue of arms trafficking were discussed with the aim of analyzing how
  
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• 335 Million Dead? Or Double That? Here's How People Would Die in the First Three Days of Nuclear War

  16-01-2020 23:30 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Nuclear war is a bad idea...
  
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• Navy removes commander of San Diego-based destroyer Decatur

  16-01-2020 23:27 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The commanding officer of the San Diego-based destroyer Decatur has been removed from command, the Navy announced Thursday.Cmdr. John “Bob” Bowen was relieved of his duties due to a “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” according to a Navy statement obtained by the San Diego Union-Tribune.Navy Capt. Dan Cobain, the commander of Destroyer Squadron 21, ordered the move, the statement said.
  
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• U.S. to Tighten Control Over Releases of Major Economic Data

  16-01-2020 23:19 via news.yahoo.com
  
  (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Labor Department said it will ban computers from the room where journalists receive advance access to major economic reports such as employment and inflation figures, in an effort to ensure a level playing field.Currently, the department hosts “lockups” in Washington for major reports lasting 30 to 60 minutes, where journalists receive the data in a secure room, write stories on computers disconnected from the internet, and transmit them when connections are r
  
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• US Air Force B-52 bombers are done flying with nuclear bombs, but they're keeping the missiles

  16-01-2020 23:19 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The B-52 bomber is no longer authorized to carry nuclear gravity bombs, but it will continue to carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
  
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• Guatemala breaks off diplomatic relations with Venezuela

  16-01-2020 23:13 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Guatemala's new president announced Thursday that his government is breaking off diplomatic relations with Venezuela.Two days after his inauguration, President Alejandro Giammattei said he had ordered Guatemala's foreign secretary to recall the last person remaining in the country's embassy in Venezuela's capital and close the building.Giammattei's announcement came after a meeting with the head of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro.
  
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• U.S. weighs sending Brazilian migrants to Mexico amid spike in arrests

  16-01-2020 23:10 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has considered sending Brazilian migrants crossing the border from Mexico back there to await their U.S. court hearings, according to a U.S. official and a Mexican official familiar with the discussions.The deliberations came in response to an increase in Brazilians arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum in the United States, the officials said.The administration of President Donald Trump has also explored the possibility of sending Brazi
  
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• Pentagon gets request to build roughly 270 miles of Trump border wall

  16-01-2020 23:05 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The Pentagon has received a request from within the Trump administration to build roughly 270 miles (435 km) of wall on the border with Mexico and is evaluating its cost and viability, a senior Defense Department official said on Thursday.The disclosure of the request by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sets up another showdown with Democrats in Congress, who oppose President Donald Trump's past diversion of billions of dollars in military spending to bolster security on the border.The
  
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• There's a popular betting website that shows the likelihood of political events — here's what it says about Trump's impeachment odds

  16-01-2020 22:59 via news.yahoo.com
  
  On the website PredictIt, people can place bets with real US dollars on big political events — including Trump's impeachment hearings.
  
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• Georgia's parole board grants clemency to death row inmate hours before scheduled execution

  16-01-2020 22:57 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The state's Board of Pardons and Paroles commuted the death sentence of Jimmy Fletcher Meders, 58, to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the board said in a statement.The parole board said in a statement that Meders' lack of a criminal record before the murder and his good behavior while in prison were reasons it granted clemency.The parole board made its decision following a meeting on Wednesday and after it reviewed Meders' clemency application.
  
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• A new lawsuit says Jeffrey Epstein trafficked and sexually abused dozens of young girls on one of his private islands in the Caribbean. Here's an inside look at the islands.

  16-01-2020 22:53 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had an expensive real-estate portfolio that included two neighboring private islands.
  
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• FBI Will Report Cyber Breaches to States: Campaign Update

  16-01-2020 22:52 via news.yahoo.com
  
  (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation plans to notify both state and local officials if election systems are breached, marking a change from past elections when only local officials needed to be notified.“The FBI’s new policy mandates the notification of a chief state election official and local election officials of cyber threats to local election infrastructure,” the bureau said in a statement Thursday.Government officials, speaking on a press call with reporters
  
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• Trump tweets in all caps that he 'JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!'

  16-01-2020 22:51 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The call was part of a broad effort from Trump and his allies to push Ukraine to start investigations that would help his 2020 reelection campaign.
  
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• The 20 US cities with the highest STI rates, including chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis

  16-01-2020 22:47 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Global STI rates are on the rise, with cases of gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia spreading at an alarming rate.
  
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• Brazil sits out leftist Latin American nations' body on anti-democracy fears

  16-01-2020 22:43 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Brazil has decided to suspend its participation in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, a leftist regional body established by Venezuela, due to its failure to protect democracy, Brazil's foreign minister said on Thursday.Writing on his Twitter account, Ernesto Araújo said Brazil was also pulling out because the organization, known as CELAC, had become a "stage" for authoritarian states, citing Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua."CELAC had not been generating results in defens
  
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• One of Canada's biggest newspapers said Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are not welcome

  16-01-2020 22:41 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The scathing opinion piece from The Globe and Mail argued their residency would break "an unspoken constitutional taboo."
  
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• Donald Trump says he doesn't know Lev Parnas. Parnas says he has pictures with Trump

  16-01-2020 22:35 via news.yahoo.com
  
  “I don’t believe I’ve ever spoken to him," Trump told reporters about Lev Parnas, who says he has dealt with the president many times.
  
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• America Avoided War With Iran, But World War III Could Still Happen In These 5 Places

  16-01-2020 22:30 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The world's most dangerous locales.
  
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• Guatemala's new president cuts ties with Venezuela, as promised

  16-01-2020 22:19 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Guatemala's new President Alejandro Giammattei cut diplomatic ties with the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday and ordered the closure of its embassy in Caracas."We have instructed the foreign minister that the only person left in the embassy in Venezuela should return, and that we definitively end relations with the government of Venezuela," Giammattei said.The conservative Giammattei, who took office on Tuesday, had already indicated he would cut ties upon assuming p
  
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• The oath senators just took at the start of the impeachment trial is essentially meaningless

  16-01-2020 22:18 via news.yahoo.com
  
  There's nothing in the rules that would allow Chief Justice John Roberts or anyone else to ensure lawmakers uphold impartial justice.
  
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• Biden Says He Would Consider Beto O’Rourke, Julian Castro as Potential Running Mates

  16-01-2020 22:17 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would consider former 2020 contenders Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro as running mates or members of his Cabinet should he get the party's nomination.“I would consider either or both of them. I’ve spoken to each of them,” Biden told the Dallas Morning News. “My plea to both of them is that they stay engaged. They are talented, talented people.”O'Rourke made headlines during the 2018 cong
  
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• How could senators possibly ignore the damning testimony of Lev 'Smoking Gun' Parnas?

  16-01-2020 22:02 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Lev Parnas says the president knew exactly what was going on in Ukraine. He said so on TV. So, put him on the witness stand.
  
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• How China Is Practicing—and Perfecting—an Amphibious Invasion of Taiwan

  16-01-2020 22:00 via news.yahoo.com
  
  It takes a lot of hard work.
  
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• Trump offers new guidance on school prayer amid rift with evangelical magazine

  16-01-2020 21:58 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Trump previewed the idea of new school prayer guidance in an remarks to evangelicals in Florida. Students are already permitted to pray in school.
  
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• Texas gun control advocate prevented from getting free locks

  16-01-2020 21:54 via news.yahoo.com
  
  A firearms trade association distributing taxpayer-funded gun locks to Texas residents to prevent accidental shootings advised the Austin Police Department not to give any to a woman affiliated with a gun control advocacy group, emails show.The Police Department ultimately rejected Leesa Ross' request last year for 100 cable locks that were being given out as part of a program that followed several mass shootings, including one at a Houston-area high schoolthat officials said was carried out by
  
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• Idaho House expels member convicted of fraud by Texas jury

  16-01-2020 21:54 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The Idaho House of Representatives on Thursday expelled one of its members a day after he was convicted of conspiring to defraud the U.S. government.The House voted 65-0 to expel Republican Rep. John Green of Post Falls.It is the first ever expulsion from the Idaho Legislature, state officials said.
  
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• Feds: Smugglers ferry Chinese migrants to Florida in yachts

  16-01-2020 21:49 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Authorities have thwarted two separate attempts by smugglers to bring Chinese migrants illegally into the U.S. through Florida aboard yachts.Three men are facing human smuggling charges in federal courts in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.The Miami Herald first reported they are accused of ferrying a total of 26 Chinese migrants from the Bahamas in two unrelated cases where authorities also confiscated more than $300,000.
  
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• Chief Justice John Roberts, senators sworn in for impeachment trial

  16-01-2020 21:48 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The final procedural requirements for the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump were met on Thursday afternoon when Chief Justice John Roberts was sworn in by Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Grassley. Roberts, who will preside over the impeachment trial, then swore in all 100 sitting senators.
  
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• House Democrats overturn DeVos on student loan forgiveness, but change unlikely to pass Senate

  16-01-2020 21:41 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The Democrat-controlled House overturned rules from Betsy DeVos on student loan forgiveness. Republicans in the Senate are unlikely to agree.
  
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• White House Broke the Law in Withholding Aid to Ukraine, Watchdog Says

  16-01-2020 21:33 via news.yahoo.com
  
  (Bloomberg) -- The White House budget office violated federal law when it withheld about $214 million appropriated by Congress to the Defense Department for security aid to Ukraine, an independent congressional watchdog agency concluded.“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday. The Office of Mana
  
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• Life in a Troubled Mississippi Prison, Captured on Smuggled Phones

  16-01-2020 21:28 via news.yahoo.com
  
  ATLANTA -- The cellphone rang once before someone picked up. On the other end was an inmate inside Unit 29 of the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. "Hello," he said.Then, in a steady voice that competed against a cacophony of rowdy conversations and a fuzzy signal, he urgently described to a complete stranger the turmoil he said existed on the inside. Some inmates needed medical attention, he said. All of them could use a hot shower."Mold everywhere, rats everywhere," said the inmate,
  
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• 15 photos show a US nuclear missile silo that for decades was ready to strike the Soviet Union at a moment's notice

  16-01-2020 21:26 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Take a tour of the Arizona museum open to the public that has a US intercontinental ballistic missile once built to attack Russia with nuclear force.
  
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• Princess Cruises responds after 'Marriage Story' actress speaks out, sues alleging bedbugs

  16-01-2020 21:23 via news.yahoo.com
  
  A "Marriage Story" actress and her husband are suing Princess Cruises, alleging their room was infested with bedbugs.
  
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• Pelosi angers GOP by using 30 different personalized pens to sign Trump's 'sham' impeachment articles

  16-01-2020 21:22 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Nancy Pelosi used dozens of customized, signed pens to sign different parts of her signature on Trump's impeachment articles before handing them out as collectibles at the signing ceremony on Wednesday — a move that angered many Republicans.
  
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• Honduran migrant caravan rumbles on through Guatemala

  16-01-2020 21:21 via news.yahoo.com
  
  More than 1,000 Honduran migrants broke through a police barrier on the border with Guatemala on Thursday in a bid to join hundreds of others heading for the United States.The latest Central American migrant caravan formed despite increased attempts by President Donald Trump to keep them out of the US.Last year the US signed a deal with Guatemala that obliges migrants traveling through that country and seeking asylum in the US to first request protection in the Central American nation.
  
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• Oops. The U.S. Army Just Screwed Up Another Vehicle Program

  16-01-2020 21:13 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The U.S. Army has walked back its third effort in two decades to replace the aging M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle.
  
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• Jordan, Meadows Send Letter to FISA Court Questioning Kris Appointment

  16-01-2020 21:10 via news.yahoo.com
  
  House Oversight Committee Republicans Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows issued nine demands to FISA Court presiding judge James Boasberg in a Thursday letter in response to the appointment of Obama Department of Justice lawyer David Kris to help oversee the FBI’s reform of FISA applications.The letter, obtained by National Review, asked Boasberg to identify who else besides Kris was considered, whether Kris’s past defense of the FISA application to surveil Trump-campaign adviser Carter Pag
  
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• A chef who once served $300 Michelin-starred dishes is now making $3 public school lunches, and they look just as tasty

  16-01-2020 21:07 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Instead of preparing $350, once-in-a-lifetime meals, Dan Giusti runs a company that plates $3.41 lunches for more than 3,500 schoolkids.
  
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• Bloomberg Visits Capitol Hill to Woo Democratic Lawmakers

  16-01-2020 21:01 via news.yahoo.com
  
  (Bloomberg) -- Michael Bloomberg is meeting with groups of Democrats in Congress on Capitol Hill on Thursday seeking support for his fledgling 2020 presidential campaign.The former New York mayor plans to meet separately with BOLD PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; ASPIRE PAC, the political arm of Asian American and Pacific Islander members of Congress; the New Democrat Coalition of centrist Democrats and the co-chairs of the Blue Dog Coalition of “fiscally respon
  
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• Organizers appeal ban on arms at upcoming Virginia gun rally

  16-01-2020 21:00 via news.yahoo.com
  
  A gun-rights group filed an emergency appeal late Thursday of a judge's ruling upholding a ban on firearms at a pro-gun rally expected to draw thousands of gun activists to Virginia next week.The Virginia Citizens Defense League and Gun Owners of America had filed a lawsuit earlier in the day seeking an injunction against the ban, which Gov. Ralph Northam imposed for a rally scheduled to take place Monday on the grounds of the Virginia Capitol.Judge Joi Taylor ruled Thursday that the governor ha
  
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• Judge upholds ban on weapons at gun rally in Virginia

  16-01-2020 21:00 via news.yahoo.com
  
  A judge on Thursday upheld a ban on firearms at a pro-gun rally scheduled for next week in Virginia, rejecting a request from gun-rights groups that sued to overturn it.The Virginia Citizens Defense League and Gun Owners of America filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking an injunction against the ban, which Gov. Ralph Northam imposed for a rally scheduled to take place Monday on the grounds of the Virginia Capitol.In her written ruling, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Joi Taylor said the governor has the
  
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• These Are the Crazy High-Tech Weapons America Would Fight World War III With

  16-01-2020 20:59 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Better to deter than to actually fight.
  
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• Parnas turns spotlight on Pence's role in Ukraine affair

  16-01-2020 20:59 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Among the many revelations in Lev Parnas’s spate of recent interviews was his claim that Vice President Pence was “in the loop” regarding President Trump’s plan to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless its government publicly announced an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden.
  
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• 'We're riding a century-old measurement off a cliff': Andrew Yang tears into GDP as an outdated metric to gauge national wellbeing

  16-01-2020 20:58 via news.yahoo.com
  
  "If these are your measurements, then you're going to think things are going in one direction, while your way of life disintegrates," Yang said.
  
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• WH press secretary tells Fox News she won't hold press briefings because reporters just 'want their moment on TV so they can peddle their books'

  16-01-2020 20:56 via news.yahoo.com
  
  In a Thursday morning interview on "Fox & Friends," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said she doesn't want to hold televised press briefings because reporters "just want their moment to peddle their books."
  
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• Watchdog: White House budget office violated federal law by withholding Ukraine security funds

  16-01-2020 20:53 via news.yahoo.com
  
  The Office of Management and Budget's decision to withhold security funding from Ukraine is at the heart of the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
  
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