San Francisco

McConnell releases impeachment trial rules, sparking new outcry from Democrats

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released the rules for a Senate impeachment trial on Monday evening.

Northeastern College Student Deported to Iran Despite Judge’s Order

The attorneys for a 24-year-old Iranian national and Northeastern University student who inspired protests at Boston Logan International Airport over the weekend said their client was deported late Monday in spite of a federal court order.Shahab Dehghani was detained Sunday night at about 5 p.m. when he arrived to study economics at the private school on a valid F1 student visa. He was held for secondary questioning by federal agents, and more than 100 people reportedly came out to demonstrate on his behalf outside of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) area of the airport for at least three hours on Monday. Protesters chanted “let Shahab in,” “do the right thing,” “stop deporting students,” and “let him in!”Dehghani was ordered removed from the U.S. without his having access to a lawyer, WBUR reported, but his attorneys, Susan Church and Kerry Doyle, filed an emergency federal petition on his behalf Monday night. The filing claimed CBP agents violated Dehghani’s rights when they detained him at the airport in the first place.U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs granted the order, scheduled a hearing in Boston federal court at 10 a.m. on Tuesday to discuss the matter, and appeared to delay Dehghani’s removal.“It is not a total victory. It is a partial victory,” Church told a crowd of protesters on Monday night, according to MassLive.com.Despite that order, Church said on Twitter Tuesday morning that Shahab Dehghani was “removed from the U.S. at 10:03 p.m.” Monday after agents told “multiple attorneys” that he was taken off the plane about 30 minutes earlier.Church tweeted on Tuesday morning: “THEY LIED.”A CBP spokesperson said in a statement that the agency could not confirm or deny that Dehghani was even in custody, citing the Privacy Act.“Applicants must demonstrate they are admissible into the U.S. by overcoming all grounds of inadmissibility including health-related grounds, criminality, security reasons, public charge, labor certification, illegal entrants and immigration violations, documentation requirements, and miscellaneous grounds,” the statement said.Judge Richard G. Stearns reportedly dismissed the case during a Tuesday morning hearing, declaring the issue moot—since Dehghani had already been deported—and noting that he did not believe he had the authority to order CBP to allow for the student’s return, according to WBUR.During the 10 a.m. hearing in Boston federal court, CBP attorneys also disputed the timeline presented by Dehghani’s attorneys, one of whom said Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey received confirmation that the emergency stay order was granted before the flight took off, WBUR reported. In court, the agency’s attorneys reportedly claimed that Dehghani’s plane left before the order was issued.“We are aware that a Northeastern University student who is an Iranian citizen has been denied entry to the United States,” school spokeswoman Shannon Nargi said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Northeastern welcomes thousands of international students and supports them with an array of resources. We have been in touch with federal officials to learn more about this case and to provide our student with the appropriate assistance to facilitate a successful return to Northeastern.”Dehghani previously attended University of Massachusetts Boston and was in the country for more than two years before he returned to Iran to visit family in December 2018, MassLive.com reported.Massachusetts Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren recently requested more information from CBP about additional security measures that may target Iranian travelers entering the country. The Guardian reported that the U.S. has deported at least 10 Iranian students with valid visas since August—despite the lengthy and intense approval process it takes to acquire that paperwork. Seven of those students had reportedly flown into Logan International Airport in Boston, and some now allege serious infractions by an individual CBP officer at the Boston airport, the newspaper reported.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.

AOC Compares Baltimore Riots to Peaceful Richmond Gun-Rights Demonstration

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Monday contrasted the annual gun rights rally in Richmond, Va. with the riots after the death of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray and protests following the killing of Eric Garner by New York police."When we go out and march for the dignity…of the lives of people like Freddie Gray and Eric Garner, the whole place is surrounded by police in riot gear without a gun in sight [among protesters]," Ocasio-Cortez said at a Monday event. "And here are all of these people [in Richmond], flying Confederate flags with semiautomatic weapons, and there are almost no police officers at that protest."Following the death of Freddie Gray in the back of a police van in Baltimore in 2015, the city saw riots so extensive that Governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency, while national-guard units deployed to quell the violence. While the officers who arrested Gray were initially charged with murder, all charges were eventually dropped by the prosecution.During the Second Amendment rally in Richmond, Va. officers arrested one person for covering her face in public, which is banned under Virginia law. The individual was later released, and the rally continued without violence.On Thursday the New York Times reported that three suspected white nationalists had been arrested, with investigators alleging the three would try to ignite violence at the rally. Governor Ralph Northam, who has voiced support for more restrictive gun laws, declared a state of emergency in response to the threat.

World needs to prepare for 'millions' of climate displaced: U.N.

The world needs to prepare for millions of people being driven from their homes by the impact of climate change, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday. Speaking to Reuters at the World Economic Forum, Filippo Grandi said a U.N. ruling this week meant those fleeing as a result of climate change deserved international protection, and that it had broad implications for governments. The U.N. Human Rights Committee made the landmark ruling on Monday in relation to Ioane Teitiota, from the Pacific nation of Kiribati, who brought a case against New Zealand after authorities denied his claim of asylum.

Forget North Korea or Pakistan: This U.S. Ally Has a Nuclear Arsenal That Could Kill Billions

And its all underwater.

Leopard runs into house before being captured in south India

A leopard that ran into a house and sparked a frantic search and a frenzy of attention in southern India on Monday has been caught and tranquilized. The big cat emerged from the Kamdanam forest and ran into a house in Shadnagar town in Telangana state, said Dr. Mohammad Abdul Hakeem, a wildlife official. Deadly conflict between humans and animals has increased in recent years in India largely due to shrinking forest habitats and urban expansion.

2 inmates were killed Monday night at an understaffed Mississippi prison

Two inmates were killed Monday night at an understaffed Mississippi prison that has been shaken by other deadly violence in recent weeks. The state Department of Corrections confirmed the deaths Tuesday but did not immediately release the names of the latest inmates killed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. The department said it is investigating the deaths.

Trump impeachment news: President gives 'chilling' defence as his legal team lay out furious response to Senate trial

The day before his impeachment trial is set to begin, Donald Trump's lawyers are urging the Senate reject the charges against him and are calling the hearings an "illegitimate partisan effort to take him down" by Democrats.Meanwhile, the prosecution team from the House has filed a stern reply to the president's legal team, following their response to a summons request calling the impeachment articles "constitutionally invalid." House managers replied, calling the president's assertion that he can't be removed from the presidency "chilling" and "dead wrong".

New charge filed against Michigan lawmaker who reportedly said boys could 'have a lot of fun' with reporter

The sexual harassment allegation, filed by a Michigan state senator, comes as Peter Lucido faces investigation over remarks to a reporter.

‘Sorry for Lying to You for 13 Years’: Iranian State TV Host Turns on Regime after Ukrainian Jet Downing

A number of Iranian TV hosts and other public personalities have denounced the regime in the wake of Iran's missile strike on a Ukrainian passenger jet that killed 176 people after the military mistook the jet for an enemy target."Apologies for lying to you for 13 years," state TV host of "Good Morning Iran" Gelareh Jabbari posted on Instagram last Monday. "It was very hard for me to believe our people have been killed, forgive me for believing this late."The post, which was seen by NBC News, has since been deleted.Taraneh Alidoosti, one of Iran's most popular actors and a star of the Oscar-winning 2016 movie The Salesman, also criticized the regime in a post to her 5.8 million Instagram followers."We are not citizens, we are captives, millions of captives," Alidoosti wrote. That post has also been deleted."The Islamic Republic is facing the worst legitimacy crisis in its 40-year history, and the pressures are mounting from every angle," Afshin Shahi, associate professor of Middle East politics at Bradford University, England, told NBC. "The gap between the state and society has widened to an extreme extent."Iran admitted to accidentally shooting down the plane after several days of official denials. U.S., Canadian and European intelligence had already indicated the plane was shot down in a missile strike.Several hours earlier, Iran launched 15 ballistic missiles at U.S. positions in Iraq, in retaliation for the U.S. killing of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. The Iranian military later said the strikes were not intended to kill U.S. troops.However, the Pentagon later acknowledged that 11 Americans were injured in the strikes, and were being treated for concussive symptoms.

Homeless Oakland Moms Cut Deal to Buy House They Squatted In

A group of homeless mothers evicted and arrested after squatting in an empty Oakland residence have reached an agreement to buy the home in a radical conclusion to a struggle that shone a renewed spotlight on the Bay Area’s dire housing shortage. The women, known collectively as Moms 4 Housing, occupied a house in West Oakland from November until Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies removed them in a pre-dawn raid on January 14. Cops also arrested two of the women, along with two men on the scene. Around the same time as that eviction raid, hundreds of supporters gathered at the house to express solidarity with the mothers’ rallying cry of “housing is a human right.” On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Moms 4 Housing announced that the women—who were released from jail last week—reached an agreement to purchase the property from its owner with the help of a local nonprofit, Oakland Community Land Trust. “This is what happens when we organize, when people come together to build the beloved community. Today we honor Dr. King’s radical legacy by taking Oakland back from banks and corporations,” said Dominique Walker, one of the mothers who was living in the home.Eviction Squad Tosses Moms on Street in Ultra-Rich Bay AreaThe house, owned by the Southern California real estate company Wedgewood, had remained empty for two years, even as homelessness in Oakland rose by nearly half in the same time period. Members of Oakland’s city council had urged the company to make a deal with the mothers to end the dispute. In a statement, the company said, “Wedgewood is thankful for the outpouring of support for our company throughout the illegal occupation of our Oakland property. We appreciate the local, state and national support for property owners as well as the public’s support for non-violent discussion and action.” Activists who worked with the mothers were quick to brandish the outcome as not just a win but a precedent they might repeat.“The moms fought for all of Oakland,” said Carroll Fife, director of the Oakland chapter of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “Now Wedgewood has pledged to work with the City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department and the Oakland Community Land Trust to negotiate a first right of refusal program for all Oakland properties they own and we will hold them to it.” 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.

'I stayed alive to tell' - Auschwitz's dwindling survivors recount horrors of Nazi death camp

A strip of skin tattooed with the Auschwitz death camp number 99288 sits in a silver frame on a shelf in Avraham Harshalom's living room. As the 75th anniversary of the camp's liberation on Jan 27, 1945, nears, Harshalom, 95, is very clear about why he kept it. Harshalom is one of some 200,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today.

If Prince Harry and Meghan split their time between the UK and Canada, here's how raising Archie could change

In some ways, life for Archie and the couple may be better in Canada, since the country is more diverse.

The Navy Has a Plan to Stop Ship-Killer Missiles

The threat keeps building from nations like Russia, China, Iran and many others.

Iraqi officials: 3 dead, dozens wounded in Baghdad protests

Iraqi security forces fired tear gas and live rounds during clashes with anti-government protesters overnight and Monday morning in Baghdad, killing three and wounding dozens of demonstrators, officials said. Separately, three katyusha rockets landed in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq's government and home to several foreign embassies, but caused no injuries or damage, two security officials said.

Mitch McConnell pulled a 'Machiavellian' move to swing Trump's impeachment trial in his favor

Constitutional scholars told Insider McConnell's maneuver was "cynically Machiavellian" and a "hyperpartisan" manipulation of Senate norms.

SpaceX rocket explodes after liftoff as planned; Crew Dragon capsule escapes fireball

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, ultimately sacrificing itself for a test.

Dutch farm dad 'beat bad spirits out of kids'

A Dutchman isolated six of his children in a remote farmhouse from birth and beat them to drive out "bad spirits," prosecutors told a court on Tuesday. Gerrit Jan van D., 67, subjected the youngsters who were found on the farm in the village of Ruinerwold in October to "very serious physical punishment" when he thought they had been made "unclean". One child was tied up by his hands and feet as punishment, while another child was forced to spend an entire summer in a doghouse at the farm in northern Drenthe province, prosecutors said.

Erdogan says Somalia has invited Turkey to explore for oil in its seas: NTV

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Somalia had invited Turkey to explore for oil in its seas, after Ankara signed a maritime agreement with Libya last year, broadcaster NTV reported. Turkey has been a major source of aid to Somalia following a famine in 2011 as Ankara seeks to increase its influence in the Horn of Africa to counter Gulf rivals like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Jeff Bezos’s Phone Hacked by Saudi Crown Prince: Report

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's phone was hacked by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2018, five months before the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the Guardian reported on Tuesday.According to the report, Bezos and bin Salman were having a friendly discussion on Whatsapp when on May 1 bin Salman sent the Amazon CEO a video file. That file was likely infected with malware, and in a matter of hours large amounts of data were extracted from Bezos's phone.Bin Salman is currently attempting to open Saudi Arabia to western investment and wean the country's economy off its dependence on oil. However, the prince is suspected of involvement in the murder of Khashoggi, which occurred at the Saudi embassy in Turkey.Khashoggi, a columnist at the Bezos-owned Post, was critical of the Saudi regime and allied himself with an organization funded by Qatar, Saudi Arabia's rival in the Persian Gulf.If confirmed, the hack into Bezos's phone would also raise questions regarding how the National Enquirer tabloid received text messages between Bezos and his mistress in early 2019, including photos of the two in various revealing states.On February 7, Bezos published the photos online to prove that American Media Inc., the owner of the Enquirer, was attempting to blackmail him to stop the Amazon CEO's investigation into how the Enquirer obtained the text messages in the first place."Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption," Bezos wrote at the time. "I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out."

Photos of starving lions in Sudan spark campaign to save them

One of the five lions at Khartoum's Al-Qureshi Park is believed to have died.

Michigan lawmaker says senator harassed her at orientation

A Michigan lawmaker alleged Tuesday that a fellow legislator sexually harassed her during a Capitol orientation 14 months ago, coming forward a week after a young female reporter said the same senator made a sexist comment to her before a group of high school boys. Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a Royal Oak Democrat, filed a complaint against Republican Sen. Peter Lucido.

4 wild stories we've learned so far from 'A Very Stable Genius,' a new book on the Trump White House

The book tells never-before-heard stories about the Trump White House, and confirms anecdotes that were detailed in other books and reporting.

Prince Harry banned from wearing military uniform after stepping back from armed forces

Harry, Duke of Sussex, will be barred from wearing his military uniform after he agreed to step back from his armed forces appointments.

UK to introduce tougher jail terms for convicted terrorists after London Bridge attack

Britain will introduce tougher jail sentences for convicted terrorists and will end early release as part of a series of measures to strengthen its response to terrorism, the government said on Tuesday. Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to make changes after an attack near London Bridge in November in which Usman Khan, a convicted terrorist who had been released early from prison, killed two people. Khan had been sentenced to a minimum of eight years in prison in 2012 with a requirement that the parole board assess his danger to the public before release.

Photos surface showing convicted Nazi guard Demjanjuk at Sobibor

New photos have emerged which for the first time show convicted Nazi guard John Demjanjuk at the Sobibor death camp, a Berlin archive confirmed Monday, although he always denied ever being there. Ukrainian-American Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of nearly 30,000 Jews at Sobibor by a German court in 2011. According to the Berlin-based Topography of Terror archive, photos of Demjanjuk are among a newly discovered collection of more than 350 snaps which give "detailed insight" into the camp in German-occupied Poland.

Iranian student with valid visa facing deportation from US ‘without explanation’

An Iranian student with a valid visa to study in the US was detained without explanation or direct access to legal counsel and threatened with imminent deportation as the country celebrated Martin Luther King Day, his lawyers said.More than 50 protesters gathered at Logan Airport in Massachusetts, where Mohammad Shahab Dehghani Hossein was arrested by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and was due to be deported at 6:30pm local time on Monday.

Why America Stores 50 B61 Nuclear Bombs in Turkey

Seems like a questionable idea.

US envoy say it's his mustache; South Koreans say otherwise

The U.S. ambassador to South Korea has some unusual explanations for the harsh criticism he's faced in his host country. Or a Japanese ancestry that raises unpleasant reminders of Japan's former colonial domination of Korea? Many South Koreans, however, have a more straight-forward explanation for Harry Harris' struggle to win hearts and minds in Seoul, and it's got more to do with an outspoken manner that they see as undiplomatic and rude.

Security guard 'definitely saved lives' by killing shooter at Kansas City bar, police say

A Missouri security guard was lauded as a hero after shooting a gunman who killed one person and wounded 15 outside a Kansas City nightclub.

Russia admits its deadly Zircon hypersonic missile is suffering from 'childhood diseases'

The weapon which is expected to eventually arm the country's newer frigates is apparently experiencing developmental challenges.

Trump’s China Deal Is His Hedge Against Impeachment Damage

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to receive the Davos Diary, a special daily newsletter that will run from Jan. 20-24.Hours before the seven House Democrats managers marched articles of impeachment across the Capitol last week, President Donald Trump secured what he’s relying on to counter any political damage -- a cease-fire in the trade war with China.With little chance the Republican-controlled Senate will convict him on two articles of impeachment, the greatest danger to Trump is that the proceedings present an unfavorable portrait of the president durable enough to sway Americans against his re-election 10 months later.His hedge is the phase-one trade deal with China he signed on Wednesday. By calling a truce in a trade war that has dampened economic growth -- historically one of the most powerful engines of support for incumbent presidents -- Trump won what he’s counting on as a key element of his case for re-election.The signing ceremony coincided with the House vote to formally submit two articles of impeachment to the Senate for a trial, and he pointed out the juxtaposition to some of the GOP lawmakers at the event.“This is a big celebration. And, by the way, some of the congressmen may have a vote, and I don’t — it’s on the impeachment hoax. So, if you want, you go out and vote,” Trump said to laughter as a delegation from China stood behind him.It was a bit of stage management to show him at work on the economy just as the impeachment proceedings were about to commence, and he’ll have an opportunity for a repeat performance as the Senate trial is underway when he signs legislation implementing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China was willing to “deepen cooperation” with the U.S., while also warning it would push back against international “bullying” and any attempts to “interfere” in its internal affairs. “The past four years of interactions show that both sides stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation,” Wang said at a new year reception for foreign ambassadors on Monday.The trade conflict with China has been slowing down the economy just as the stimulus from Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and government spending increases fades, with election-year growth forecast to drop to 1.8% from 2.3% in 2019. Moreover, the tariff dispute has hit manufacturing especially hard, a critical contributor to the economies of Rust-Belt battleground states and even more important in counties that backed Trump in 2016.Workers’ wages also have started slowing. After inflation, average hourly earnings in December were up only 0.6% from a year earlier. Crucially for Trump, it is the trajectory of the economy that typically matters most for a president’s re-election, so a slowing economy works against him, though, of course, that is better than slipping into recession.Trump’s standing in the polls has departed from historic norms in tracking the economy, with his job approval rating never topping 46% in the Real Clear Politics average of polls despite a growing economy throughout his presidency.Democrats CounterattackWith unemployment low, Democrats have concentrated their fire on economic inequities, including dislocations caused by the trade war. As Trump celebrated the deal, some of the Democratic presidential candidates assailed him for achieving little despite a costly struggle.“True to form, Trump is getting precious little in return for the significant pain and uncertainty he has imposed on our economy, farmers, and workers,” former Vice President Joe Biden said. The deal “won’t actually resolve the real issues at the heart of the dispute.”The China accord doesn’t eliminate the negative impact of the trade dispute because Trump is continuing his existing tariffs covering $360 billion a year worth of Chinese goods. Those levies reduce economic growth and have particularly hurt manufacturing companies, with U.S. industrial production down 1% over the past year.Return to OrderBut the trade deal ends the threat of tit-for-tat tariff escalation and lifts some of the uncertainty businesses have faced. It also promises an immediate stimulus for Trump’s rural supporters through China’s commitment to increase agricultural imports from the U.S., even if many analysts doubt the Asian nation will reach $40 to $50 billion in annual purchases the president has promised.The sense of a return to order is underscored by congressional passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement legislation, which Trump plans to sign next week. Though the changes from Nafta are modest, enactment of the accord offers businesses an assurance of continued access to markets and supply chains in Mexico and Canada, the two largest U.S. trading partners.Trump’s rolling out of his trade deal with China has matched in an uncanny way with key moments in the impeachment process. His Dec. 13 announcement that the accord’s details had been nailed down coincided with a vote in the House Judiciary Committee to approve two articles of impeachment against him.Trump also betrayed during the signing ceremony how keenly he was tracking the fallout of his trade actions. And how much he and his and advisers had been paying attention to the financial markets, particularly last August when a summer of escalation caused fears the U.S. could slip into a recession. “We had a day where the market went down $1 trillion. Think of that,” he told the audience.Tim Keeler, who served as a senior trade official in the administration of President George W. Bush and is now a partner at the law firm Mayer Brown, said the “phase one” deal Trump signed provided Trump something he could use to counter criticism that economic pain of the trade war hadn’t achieved anything while heading off a potential catastrophe risk going into the election.“It had clearly reached a point where the markets reacted and couldn’t tolerate it any more,” Keeler said. “Not that markets are the most important factor politically, but they are a leading indicator and it posed risks for the president and the economy more broadly.”(Updates with comment from Chinese Foreign Minister in 7th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Peter Martin.To contact the reporters on this story: Mike Dorning in Washington at mdorning@bloomberg.net;Shawn Donnan in Washington at sdonnan@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, John HarneyFor 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.

"The Rock" opens up about dad's "quick" death

Rocky "Soul Man" Johnson died last week at the age of 75 – and in an emotional video, "The Rock" said he would deliver his dad's eulogy.

French workers turn to sabotage as transport strike flags

French energy workers protesting against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform plans cut power to Paris' wholesale food market on Tuesday in the latest of a series of sabotage and wildcat actions as a weeks-long transport strike loses momentum. The deliberate sabotage of power supplies underlines the determination of left-wing unions after a wave of strikes and street protests since early December failed to force Macron to back down. The hard-left CGT union's energy branch said it was responsible for an early-morning power outage at Rungis, the world's largest wholesale fresh food market.

Twisted Christians Sentenced a Man to 12 Years in Prison Over a Cell Phone Charge in Mississippi

Brian K. Burns was sworn in as a Mississippi Circuit Court judge in early January, one of the last appointments made by outgoing hardline Republican Governor Phil Bryant. Before becoming a judge, Burns had prosecuted just 11 cases in the entirety of his legal career, leading fellow attorneys from his district to register “grave concerns about Burns’s lack of trial experience,” according to his hometown newspaper. In one of those cases, he’d succeeded in sending an African-American man to jail for 12 years merely for possessing a cellphone in a local jail—a sentence so extreme that Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Leslie King wrote that it “seems to demonstrate a failure of our criminal justice system on multiple levels.” The defendant, Willie Nash, is a 39-year-old father of three currently serving his decade-plus sentence in one of Mississippi’s worst prisons. By any reasonable reading of the trial court record, Nash’s real crime seems to have been a lack of detailed knowledge about Mississippi’s lengthy list of codes and statutes. While in the custody of the Newton County jail after a misdemeanor arrest in August 2017, Nash asked a guard to charge his cellphone. The officer’s testimony later affirmed that Nash handed over his smartphone “voluntarily,” as if he “wasn’t trying to hide anything,” and even “said thank you”—unlikely behavior for someone knowingly committing a felony—before also providing his phone’s passcode. Officers later discovered, according to court records, that Nash’s last outgoing text had been to his wife, informing her that he was “in jail.” Nash was then charged with violating a law prohibiting possession of any “unauthorized electronic device, cell phone or any of its components or accessories” in correctional facilities, a statute that carries a penalty of three to 15 years.The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the 2018 decision last week, noting that while the lower court’s sentence against Nash’s is “obviously harsh,” it still “falls within the statutory range.” Presiding Justice King wrote a special concurring opinion “to voice [his] concern over this case as a whole.” In it, the jurist notes that “Nash’s behavior was that of a person who did not know” he was not supposed to have the phone, “as he voluntarily showed the officer his phone and asked the officer to charge it for him.” He goes on to point out that it is likely the jail’s “booking procedure was not followed”—Nash’s intake officer was never called to testify—which explains how Nash entered the jail with a “large smartphone that would have likely been impossible to hide during a strip search.” The jurist responds to the lower court’s citation of Nash’s two previous burglary convictions by noting that Nash had remained out of trouble for a decade after he’d served seven years for the most recent conviction in 2001, which “evinces a change in behavior.” While King makes clear he agrees with the state Supreme Court’s decision establishing the legality of Nash’s sentence, his opinion questions the morality of Judge Mark Sheldon Duncan harsh sentence and prosecutor Burns’s pursuit of it. “[Nash] has a wife and three children who depend on him,” King writes. “Combining this fact with the seemingly innocuous, victimless nature of his crime, it seems it would have been prudent for the prosecutor to exercise prosecutorial discretion and decline to prosecute or to seek a plea deal. In that same vein, it would have been prudent for the judge to use his judicial discretion in sentencing to sentence Nash to a lesser sentence than that of twelve years. Cases like Nash’s are exactly why prosecutors and judges are given wide discretion.”That’s not how prosecutors and judges in Mississippi have used that discretion.A Justice Department report ranks the state’s incarceration rate as the third highest in the country, after Louisiana and Oklahoma. Even as the national prison population has been on the decline, the number of people imprisoned  in Mississippi has increased over the last five years, and currently stands at roughly 19,000. One reason for that rise may be the number of former prosecutors who then ascend to Mississippi’s bench—from which they continue to prosecute. Like Burns, Nash’s sentencing judge, Mark Duncan, is a former prosecutor, who served as District Attorney for Mississippi’s Eighth District for nearly 15 years. Additionally, while 38 percent of Mississippi’s population is black—the largest share of any state—its prosecutors and judges are white and male, as in the rest of the country. Today, the state that lynched the most African-Americans now locks up its black citizens. According to a 2018 ACLU report, 1 in 30 black men in Mississippi is in jail, while a 2019 report from FWD.us finds that “1 in 7 black Mississippians has a felony conviction.” “This is a guy who has no history of violence,”  said Robert McDuff, director of the Mississippi Center for Justice’s Impact Litigation Project. “His only prior criminal convictions were burglary convictions that were nearly 20 years old or older. I mean this guy's obviously not a career criminal. He was in jail on a misdemeanor charge when this cellphone was found…. So, yeah, clearly he's not a violent person—he’s not a danger if he's on the streets. It's just ridiculous to be sentencing him to 12 years in prison,”. McDuff was also a defense lawyer for Curtis Flowers, a black Mississippi man who has been prosecuted six times for the same crime by Doug Evans, a white district attorney. In December, after 23 years in prison, Flowers’s most recent conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that Evans and his team had undertaken a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals.”“In Mississippi we are facing a crisis of overcrowding in the prisons,” McDuff told me. “There are not enough guards to supervise the prisoners. This recently has broken out in violence, in chaos, and conditions that are unsafe both for prisoners and for staff. And a large part of the reason for this is because the judges are sending nonviolent people like Mr. Nash to prison when they just don't need to be there.”Nash has been imprisoned since December 2019 in the South Mississippi Correctional Institution, which ProPublica described in a 2019 report as “a violent tinderbox.” One inmate set another on fire last August, leaving him with second-degree burns. Another inmate described a separate incident in which prisoners begged guards to stop a fight that ultimately ended in the death of an inmate. “We had beat on the cell doors for hours, trying to summon help… all the officer in the tower would do is yell over the P.A. speaker for us to ‘shut the hell up.’” The report went on to describe a place where danger is a constant threat, as “the prison struggles to meet the fundamental duties of a correctional facility, with surging violence and, now, a lockdown barring visits entering its seventh month. Rather than counting inmates, as required, some guards are reportedly falsifying those counts, an internal prison memo says. The state has sharply cut its spending on prisons over the last few years. Along the way, the number of guards at the three state-run prisons has plummeted, from 905 in July 2017 to 627 two years later, even as the number of inmates has remained the same. Vacancies abound, largely because the pay is so low. South Mississippi Correctional Institution, known as SMCI, now has an inmate-to-correctional officer ratio of 23 to 1, far higher than that of other states or the federal prison system.”On January 3, Burns was officially sworn in as a judge for Mississippi’s Eighth Judicial District. The new judge told a local news outlet that in his new job, he planned to rely on one idea above all others. “Prayer,” Burns said. “Lean on the lord. Cast all your burdens upon him. Pray, pray, pray. He will provide the answer.”It was Duncan—the sentencing judge who told Nash he should “consider himself fortunate” he’d only been sentenced to 12 years, given his long-ago non-violent convictions—who administered the oath to Burns, Nash’s zealous prosecutor. At the ceremony, Duncan deemed Burns a “highly intelligent, sharp lawyer” who will make an “outstanding circuit judge.” Duncan said that he and Burns had spoken about their shared Christian faith, and how God had “put us there to use the gifts he has given us to administer to those who are around us. Brian and I talked and he agreed with that assessment. He told me he trusted God to put him wherever he was supposed to be.” The judge added, “We’ve enjoyed a lot of great conversations about golf and time on the golf course as well. Golfers will tell you that you can find out a lot about a person on the golf course. Golf has a way of exposing a person’s true character. As much as legal skills are required to do the job of judge, a person’s character may be even more important.” 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.

AOC criticises Democratic Party: ‘We don’t have a left party in the United States’

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained that the Democratic party does not represent the political left in the United States, calling the organisation a “centre or centre-conservative” party that “can’t even get a floor vote” on nationalising health care.She said: “We can’t even get a floor vote on Medicare for All — not even a floor vote that might get doubled down.”

Migrants tear-gassed as they try to storm into Mexico

Hundreds of Central Americans from a new migrant caravan tried to storm into Mexico Monday by fording the river that divides the country from Guatemala, but National Guardsmen fired tear gas trying to force them back.

Meet the TF-X: Turkey's Wanna-Be F-22 Stealth Fighter

But it might not happen.

Venezuela reportedly has less than $1 billion in cash, which is less than rapper Jay-Z's net worth

The South American country has been cash-strapped since facing global sanctions.

Bernie Sanders apologizes to Joe Biden after campaign surrogate writes he has 'a corruption problem'

A campaign surrogate for Bernie Sanders wrote in an op-ed that Joe Biden would have trouble defeating Donald Trump because of a "corruption problem."

Xi Vowed Not to Turn the Screws on Hong Kong, Carrie Lam Says

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to receive the Davos Diary, a special daily newsletter that will run from Jan. 20-24.Chinese President Xi Jinping has offered personal assurances that he won’t use the protests in Hong Kong as an excuse to tighten Beijing’s controls on the region, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said.Speaking in a Bloomberg Television interview at the World Economic Forum Tuesday, Lam pushed back against the widespread assumption that Xi is tightening controls on Hong Kong as she sought to reassure global investors that the Asian financial center will remain stable despite months of historic and increasingly violent protests.“There is no truth in the allegation that the central government is tightening the grip on Hong Kong,” Lam said. “The central government has time and again made it very clear that they want Hong Kong to succeed under ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and a high degree of autonomy.”“It was made very clear to me by President Xi Jinping on the three occasions that I met him” in recent months, she added.Lam arrived in Davos after a fresh bout of protest violence in downtown Hong Kong, with four police officers injured in clashes with demonstrators Sunday following an otherwise peaceful rally. More than seven months of pro-democracy protests have battered the former British colony’s economy, undermined its reputation for political stability and increased geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China.China has governed Hong Kong since 1997 under a “one country, two systems” framework that preserves its freedom of expression, independent courts and capitalist financial system. The city’s pro-democracy opposition has accused Beijing of eroding that autonomy and stonewalling calls for meaningful direct elections of the chief executive, who’s currently selected by a 1,200-member committee.While Lam withdrew legislation allowing extraditions to China that initially prompted the unrest, she has so far refused to consider other key protester demands including an independent probe of the police. Nevertheless, in Davos, Lam hinted that there may be other motivations behind the protests.“One has to wonder what are the underlying factors that caused the sustained social unrest in the last few months,” she said.The protests have been more subdued since mid-November, when pro-democracy candidates swept elections for local district councils though the city of 7.4 million people remains bitterly divided, with widespread distrust of Beijing and the local government. The main political event this year will be elections for the more powerful Legislative Council in September.Rumors have persisted for months that Beijing may replace Lam, whose approval rating is hovering near a record low of 14%, according to a Hong Kong Public Opinion Program survey released earlier this month. So far, President Xi Jinping has reaffirmed China’s support for Lam, although Beijing replaced its main representative in Hong Kong earlier this month with an official some analysts described as a hardliner.Lam herself insisted she wouldn’t quit.“I will do my utmost to stay in this position and arrest the current situation,” she said.To contact the reporters on this story: Haslinda Amin in Singapore at hamin1@bloomberg.net;Dandan Li in Davos, Switzerland, at dli395@bloomberg.net;Iain Marlow in Hong Kong at imarlow1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Daniel Ten KateFor 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.

Philippine volcano recharging, scientist says, as shops, hotels told to keep shut

A restive volcano in the Philippines has a high risk of eruption as it is "recharging" with fresh magma and rising emissions of toxic gas, a top scientist said on Monday, while authorities ordered commercial establishments to stay shut. Earthquakes were still happening at the Taal volcano, which shot giant clouds of ash miles into the air on Jan. 12, and levels of the gas were rising, a sign of magma "recharging" and "resupplying" beneath it, a Philippine vulcanologist said. "If it reaches the crater, it could cause a strong explosion," Renato Solidum, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), told DZMM radio.

Tekashi 6ix9ine won't be allowed to serve the rest of his 2-year sentence in home confinement even though his prison has a lot of Blood gang members

A judge dashed the controversial rapper's hopes that he could spend the rest of his two-year prison sentence away from the gang he once betrayed.