Monday, Jan 12th
Last update09:57:40 AM GMT
Tornadoes killed at least 21 people in Tennessee as violent storms roared through the state late Monday and early Tuesday morning, part of a sprawling system that threatened more severe weather all the way from Texas to North Carolina.
A powerful and deadly storm moving through Middle Tennessee spawned a tornado that touched down in Nashville early Tuesday morning, cutting a swath of destruction that stretched through the city for miles.
A D.C.-based federal judge ruled Sunday that President Donald Trump's appointment of Ken Cuccinelli as acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, a decision that suspends two policies Cuccinelli implemented while leading the agency.
Cuccinelli, an immigration hard-liner who was previously attorney general in Virginia, became acting head of USCIS in June, assuming the newly created role of “principal deputy director." In November, Cuccinelli also assumed the position of "senior official performing the duties of the deputy secretary" at USCIS' parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.
More coronavirus infections were reported from South Korea to France to Qatar on Saturday after health officials in Washington state, Oregon and California on Friday reported a worrying development: new cases among people who have not traveled recently to countries hit hard by the outbreak or come into contact with anyone known to have the disease, which public health officials refer to as community transmission.
The four new cases Friday bring the total number of covid-19 cases detected through the U.S. public health system to 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The four-page pact spells out a timetable for the United States to withdraw its 13,000 troops from Afghanistan; in exchange, the Taliban agreed to sever its ties with al Qaeda, the terrorist group that launched the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S.
It also sets the stage for further negotiations between Afghanistan's government and the Taliban, a militant Islamist group that once ruled Afghanistan and provided safe haven to Osama bin Laden. American officials hope those talks will lead to a power-sharing deal, a permanent end to the bloody conflict, and a full withdrawal of American forces.
The coronavirus spread further on Friday, with cases reported for the first time in six countries across three continents, battering markets and leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to raise its impact risk alert to “very high.”
Hopes that the epidemic that started in China late last year would be over in months, and that economic activity would quickly return to normal, have been shattered.
World shares were on course for their largest weekly fall since the 2008 financial crisis, bringing the global wipeout to $6 trillion as supply chains were disrupted, travel plans postponed and major events canceled.
“Pls have Mr. G bring the documents,” reads the March 27, 2019, email from a State Department official to someone who worked for “Mr. G.,” better known as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a central figure in the Ukraine pressure campaign that culminated in the impeachment of President Trump.
Fallen film producer Harvey Weinsten was found guilty Monday of rape and a criminal sexual act.
Weinstein was found not guilty of the most serious charges in the case, two counts of predatory sexual assault. He also was acquitted in court in Manhattan of first-degree rape.
The charge of third-degree rape that Weinstein was convicted of relates to the claim that he attacked aspiring actress Jessica Mann in a hotel room in Manhattan in 2013.
TVNL Comment: This is the first conviction since the MeToo movement brought this crime to the forefront. Kudos to the jury.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked state and federal officials from moving as many as 50 Americans infected with the coronavirus to a city in southern California for quarantine.
U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Stanton, an Obama appointee, issued an order late Friday to prevent the transfer of coronavirus patients from Travis Air Force Base in Northern California to Costa Mesa in Orange County. The patients were previously quarantined on a cruise ship in Japan after a mini-outbreak on the vessel.
Local officials argued before the court that the federal government’s plan did not include sufficient protections from the virus for residents. They swiftly sought court intervention after being informed by the state government of plans to move patients to a state-owned facility in Costa Mesa as soon as Sunday.
Victoria Coates, one of President Donald Trump’s longest-serving national security aides, is leaving the White House soon to become a senior adviser at the Energy Department, the White House said on Thursday.
Coates has been at the Trump White House since he took office three years ago and has been a key player in the administration’s deliberations on Iran and the Middle East.
But she had battled rumors that she was the author of an opinion article by someone styling themselves as “Anonymous” expressing opposition to Trump’s agenda that ran in the New York Times on Sept. 5, 2018.
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