Big Time News Blog: 01/07/20

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Rockets fired at Iraqi airbase hosting American forces: U.S. official

Rockets have been fired at Iraq's al Asad airbase, which hosts U.S. forces, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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Why Politicians Get a License to Lie

By BY CHARLIE WARZEL from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2rZT8uu

Official quits amid charges he paid women to give up babies

An elected official in metro Phoenix resigned Tuesday, months after being charged with running a human smuggling operation that paid pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to give up their babies in the U.S. The resignation of Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen came after leaders in the one of the nation's most populous counties suspended and pressured him to resign after his arrest nearly three months ago. The county's governing board voted in late December to start the process of removing Petersen, who also works as an adoption attorney.

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Bus driver, two passengers and two truckers died in Pennsylvania pileup

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Rand Paul Rails Against Trump’s Soleimani Strike: ‘I Hate This’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Tuesday railed against President Donald Trump’s killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, calling it the “death of diplomacy” and declaring that the U.S. was safer before the president pulled out of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal.The libertarian-leaning senator, who has long been opposed to military intervention abroad, was asked by Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer on Tuesday morning how he could be opposed to the airstrikes following National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien’s new claim that American diplomats were saved because of it.“I think you have to ask yourself the general question, are attacks more or less likely now that Soleimani is gone?” Paul responded. “The person who has replaced them has been his assistant general for 22 years, is a hard-liner, and now the whole country of Iran is consumed with revenge.”The Kentucky lawmaker went on to say that Soleimani’s assassination has “taken diplomacy off the table” and that the only possibility moving forward will be military escalation. Hemmer, meanwhile, wondered if there was much diplomacy with Iran to begin with.“There was with the Iran agreement,” Paul pushed back. “The Iran agreement wasn’t perfect, and I was a critic of the Iran agreement, however, I think it was a big mistake to pull out of the agreement. You should have tried to build upon the Iran agreement.”The Republican senator, who has become one of Trump’s biggest supporters on Capitol Hill, further criticized the administration for placing an embargo on Iran, saying an “act of an embargo is like an act of war.”“I think it is the death of diplomacy, and I see no way to get it back started again until, sort of, the revenge of the Iranian people is somehow sated,” Paul noted. “I hate this. I hate that this is where we are going.”“I have been someone who has been for engagement, but there was much less killing, there was much less violence after the Iran agreement," he continued. “In fact, there was a lull, a period in which I think we were headed towards a much more stable situation in Iran, and now I think that’s gone. And I think it may be gone for a lifetime.”Hemmer, meanwhile, pointed out that Trump recently told right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh that Soleimani “should have been taken out a long time ago,” asking Paul if he took exception to that.“Is Soleimani a bad guy? Yes. Is the guy who replaces him a bad guy? Yes,” the Kentucky senator replied, adding, “Saddam Hussein was a bad guy but taking him out destabilized the region. It is about the broader implications of killing someone, not whether they’re evil or not.”In a Monday interview with CNN, Paul said that one would have to be “brain dead” to think that Soleimani’s death will lead to diplomatic negotiations, calling the death of the Iranian military commander “the death of diplomacy.”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.

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Mississippi DA leaves murder case after multiple trials

A Mississippi prosecutor filed a court order Monday saying he won't be the one to decide whether to try a man a seventh time in a quadruple murder case. District Attorney Doug Evans recused himself in the case of Curtis Flowers and asked the Mississippi attorney general's office to decide whether to try Flowers again in the death penalty case. Flowers' attorney, Rob McDuff, said he is pleased Evans is stepping away from the case.

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Climate change has Australian wildfires 'running out of control,' experts say

Climate change didn't ignite Australia's fires, but it's turning them into catastrophic blazes by creating warmer temps and increasing fuel available.

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Hong Kong’s Carrie Lam to Work ‘Closely’ With New China Liaison

(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said she hoped to work “closely” with China’s new top local official to maintain the “one country, two systems” framework that provides the city limited autonomy from Beijing.Lam said Tuesday she would meet later this week with Luo Huining, who the Chinese government appointed Saturday to replace former Hong Kong Liaison Office director Wang Zhimin. The choice of Luo -- a Communist Party cadre known for executing President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, with little past connection to the largely Cantonese-speaking former British colony -- was seen as a signal of Beijing’s intention to restore law and order after more than six months of protest and political unrest.“I am sure we could work together in strict accordance with the implementation of ‘one country, two systems’ and the Basic Law to ensure the continued stability of Hong Kong,” Lam told a regular news briefing on the sidelines of her weekly meeting with top advisers.Lam called the situation in the financial hub “heart wrenching” and said it was her duty as Chief Executive to set it on the “right track.” Apart from suppressing violence and restoring order, Lam said she and her team also have to deal with grim economic challenges this year, with unemployment expected to climb.China’s New Hong Kong Liaison Confident City Will StabilizeChinese and Hong Kong officials have frequently appeared to be caught off guard by developments over the course of the protests, and communications between Beijing and Hong Kong are mainly conducted through the office.Lam also said Hong Kong would increase monitoring of pneumonia cases amid an outbreak of the illness amid an outbreak originating in the central mainland city of Wuhan. The government on Saturday classified its response level to the outbreak as “serious” -- the second-highest scale of action in its three-tier system, with the top being an emergency.Protests that began in June over legislation that would have allowed extradition to China have since morphed into often-violent calls for broader democracy. The unrest has crippled the city’s economy, particularly its tourism and retail sectors, and is leading some people to eye competing financial center Singapore.\--With assistance from Stephen Tan.To contact the reporters on this story: Natalie Lung in Hong Kong at flung6@bloomberg.net;Karen Leigh in Hong Kong at kleigh4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Australian bushfire cloud visible in Chile and Argentina

The cloud of smoke caused by raging bushfires in Australia has been spotted more than 12,000 kilometers (7,400 miles) away in Chile and Argentina, weather authorities in the South American countries said on Monday.

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Iran news – live: Tehran launches missile attack on US air base in Iraq, after Trump defends Soleimani killing

Iran has claimed responsibility for a barrage of missiles that struck a joint US-Iraqi air base late on Tuesday, and the Pentagon confirmed that “more than a dozen” ballistic missiles had been fired at US targets.State TV said Tehran‘s Revolutionary Guard had fired “tens” of warheads at Al Asad base in revenge for the death of Qassem Soleimani.

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College students panic over FAFSA and the draft

Concerns over an active draft and FAFSA's role in the service even shut down the Selective Service System's website because of the sudden surge in traffic.

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Legal group seeks federal inquiry into Mississippi prisons

Prisoner advocates are calling on the federal government to investigate Mississippi’s prison system for possible civil rights violations, saying the violence of recent days highlights deliberate violations of inmates’ constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Mississippi conference of the NAACP, the Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups made the request to the U.S. Department of Justice. “The Mississippi prison system is in a state of acute and undeniable crises, with five deaths in just the last ten days, and a history of preventable deaths and injuries stretching back years,” the 23-page complaint states.

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Guatemalan seeking asylum sues US to reunite with family

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Iran threatens to hit American bases with medium- and long-range missiles

Iranian military forces have said they are prepared to use medium- to long-range missiles to attack U.S. bases in the Middle East, in revenge for the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was the commander of Iran’s Quds Force.

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U.S. and Mexico moving closer on need to develop Central America: Mexico

Mexico and the United States are increasingly in agreement on the need to lift economic development of Central America in order to curb illegal immigration from the region, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Tuesday. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has sought to enlist U.S. support for his vision of stemming migration by creating more jobs and opportunities in Central America in the face of skepticism from his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump.