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The Islamic Republic has been reeling from one crisis to another, from the targeted killing by the United States of its top general to the Revolutionary Guard's accidental shootdown of a passenger plane carrying scores of young people, most of them Iranians. U.S. sanctions have crippled its economy as tensions with America have soared. In a rare Friday sermon in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stuck to the playbook Iran has relied on since 1979, blaming the country's woes on the U.S. and other Western powers, and proclaiming that Iranians still support the Islamic Revolution.

POSTED JANUARY 17, 2020 7:50 AM

Teachers at an elementary school outside of Los Angeles, California are suing Delta after a plane dropped fuel on area schools, causing 60 injuries.

POSTED JANUARY 17, 2020 9:31 PM

Yes, it's a trial — but the Senate's impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump won't resemble anything Americans have seen on Court TV. In Trump's trial, the Senate will serve as both judge and jury. COURTROOM TRIAL: Federal trials, both civil and criminal, are presided over by District Court judges who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

POSTED JANUARY 17, 2020 5:37 PM

Chinese President Xi Jinping flew into Myanmar on Friday for two days of talks to shore up massive infrastructure projects in the Southeast Asian nation isolated by the West over its treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority. State counselor Aung San Suu Kyi greeted him with a handshake on the steps of the presidential palace after a ceremonial welcome by the president and a military marching band, on the first day of a two-day visit, Xi's first as leader and the first of any Chinese president in 19 years. Analysts say Xi will seek to reinvigorate stalled infrastructure projects central to his flagship Belt and Road Initiative described as a "21st century silk road".

POSTED JANUARY 17, 2020 7:19 AM

Tara Houska was going through security at the Minneapolis airport on Monday when she said an agent humiliated her by whipping her braids.

POSTED JANUARY 17, 2020 12:43 PM

New documents turned over to the House Judiciary Committee on Friday night include messages between Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas and Derek Harvey, an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). The Daily Beast was first to report that Parnas helped arrange meetings and calls in Europe for Harvey in 2018 to help the lawmaker's investigative work, and it appears the practice continued into 2019.The exchanges between Parnas and Harvey, which span several months in early 2019, show the two arranging several meetings and phone calls to discuss two claims that have been central to Trumpworld’s dirt-digging mission in Ukraine and the president’s subsequent impeachment: supposed corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and a plot against Trump by Ukrainian officials during the 2016 election. “We need to set a time for Skype w your four people,” Harvey wrote in an April 2019 message to Parnas, apparently referring to former Ukrainian officials claiming to have information on Biden. “It looks like we can get all the interviews set up for Tuesday or Wednesday whatever works better for you,” Parnas wrote back.“Wednesday would be best here,” Harvey wrote. “It allows me to prep a staff lawyer to assist. Any suggested line of questions? Full names of who we will interview?”Parnas responded, “Sounds good will put together there (sic) names and questions that I recommend.”Parnas then sent Harvey a list of names including several widely discredited former Ukrainian officials who were shown to be in close contact with Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, for a dirt-digging mission against Biden that is at the heart of the impeachment. In addition to setting up interviews and arranging meetings, the messages between Parnas and Harvey also show the two exchanging several news articles critical of Biden and his son Hunter. In another message in March, Harvey appeared to task Parnas with doing research on claims the Ukrainian government worked with Hillary Clinton’s allies in 2016 to find compromising information on then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a conspiracy theory frequently espoused by Trump and his allies. Harvey also mentioned Parnas “working through (John) Solomon,” a former columnist at The Hill who had been in contact with Nunes, Giuliani, and Parnas. The Daily Beast reported that Solomon sent a version of his article last year to Parnas and Trumpworld lawyers Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing before it was published on the The Hill's website.A lawyer for Parnas, Ed MacMahon, told The Daily Beast previously that his client aided Nunes in arranging meetings and calls in Europe in 2018. Congressional records show Nunes, Harvey, and two of Nunes' other aides went to Europe in late 2018 for four days, using over $63,000 of government funds for the trip.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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.

POSTED JANUARY 17, 2020 8:53 PM

From fiction to reality.

POSTED JANUARY 18, 2020

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S., Japan and South Korea are keen to invest in Indonesia’s Natuna Islands as President Joko Widodo steps up efforts to rebuff Chinese claims over the resource-rich waters in the South China Sea.The countries are interested in building fisheries processing and manufacturing industries in Natuna, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Pandjaitan, told reporters in Jakarta on Friday. Indonesia can manage the sea dispute with China without going into a war, Pandjaitan, a former general, said.“The U.S. investors have expressed their interest, along with investors from Japan, Korea and China,” Padjaitan said. “For us, it doesn’t matter where they come from.”Widodo’s efforts to lure foreign investment into the Natuna islands may ratchet up tension with Beijing following the intrusion of Chinese fishing vessels into an area claimed by Indonesia as an exclusive economic zone. Indonesia is not a claimant in the broader dispute over the South China Sea, but it does insist on its sovereign rights to waters around the Natunas.Beijing says while it has no territorial disputes with Jakarta, claims over maritime interests in certain waters in the South China Sea “overlap.”“War is the last resort in our negotiation process,” Pandjaitan said referring to the standoff with China on Natuna. “But under no circumstances will we negotiate our sovereignty and territorial rights.”Jokowi, as Widodo is commonly known, visited the Natuna islands last week and asserted Indonesia’s sovereignty over the waters after authorities deployed fighter jets and warships to push back the Chinese fishing vessels, which were accompanied by coast guard ships. The president also inaugurated a fisheries processing center in the region and days later invited Japan to invest in Natuna to develop the fishing industry.Indonesia is also seeking investment by Vietnamese marine processing companies. Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi met officials of Hai Nam Co., a seafood importer this week in Ho Chi Minh City, and asked it to explore a joint venture with Indonesian companies for a fisheries processing unit in areas including Natuna, according to a foreign ministry statement Thursday.It has identified a location in north Natuna for a fishing port, while southern Natuna will serve as a base for the navy, Pandjaitan said. The country will also soon acquire its first ocean-going vessel, probably from Denmark, to beef up its sea powers, he said.To contact the reporters on this story: Arys Aditya in Jakarta at aaditya5@bloomberg.net;Harry Suhartono in Jakarta at hsuhartono@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at sphang@bloomberg.net, Thomas Kutty AbrahamFor 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.

POSTED JANUARY 17, 2020 1:39 AM

Heavy rains in fire-ravaged eastern Australia have brought welcome relief for firefighters and farmers, but sparked flash floods that have led to fresh scrambles to save native animals.  As the rain hit on Thursday the New South Wales State Emergency Services department warned that the sudden heavy downpours in some areas would bring flash flooding, falling trees and landslides where the fires have wiped out vegetation.  On Friday, the warnings were realised when flash floods hit the Australia Reptile Park on the NSW east coast, and the state's koalas - having lost thousands of their number and huge swathes of their habitat - needed to be rescued again as floods thundered down fire-blasted hills empty of vegetation.  Park director Tim Faulkner told local media that the sudden floods on Friday morning were “incredible”.  “Just last week we were having daily meetings to discuss the imminent threat of bushfires,” he said. “Today, we've had the whole team out there, drenched, acting fast to secure the safety of our animals and defend the park from the onslaught of water… We haven't seen flooding like this at the park for over 15 years.” And while the rains have doused fires in some areas, blazes continue to rage across many other parts of the country where the weather stayed dry, including in other parts of New South Wales where 82 fires were still burning, with 30 out of control, and in the state of Victoria, to the south. Parts of the state’s Alpine region were evacuated again as erratic winds caused spot fires around a large blaze at Mount Buffalo.  The rain also completely missed Kangaroo Island, the nation's third biggest off the southern coast of the mainland, where fires have devastated the formerly wildlife-rich national park.  The authorities have warned the crisis could worsen again with Australia only halfway through its summer. The unprecedented fires, fuelled by climate change and a years-long drought, have already claimed 28 lives over the past five months. They have scorched massive tracts of pristine forests in eastern and southern Australia, decimated livestock on already barren farms and destroyed 2,000 homes. In areas where rain has arrived, there are new concerns that muddy ash will be swept into rivers and lakes, exacerbating an emerging crisis as fish die in vast numbers due to ash poisoning the waterways. The NSW Department of Primary Industries has received reports of “hundreds of thousands” of fish dead in the Macleay river since December 2019.

POSTED JANUARY 17, 2020 11:19 AM

Defiant women who have been blocking a New Delhi highway for more than four weeks in protest against a bitterly disputed citizenship law have inspired thousands across India to copy their challenge to the Hindu nationalist government. Nearly all pay tribute to the 200 grandmothers and housewives and students who sit and sleep across the main road in the Shaheen Bagh district of Delhi, fighting a law that would give passports to "persecuted" religious minorities from three neighbouring countries but only non-Muslims. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in rallies across India since parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act on December 11.

POSTED JANUARY 18, 2020 8:42 PM