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2 more inmates killed in troubled 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. Department spokeswoman Grace Simmons Fisher verified to The Associated Press that the information is accurate.

Biden selfie with elevator operator goes viral after 2020 candidate fails to secure New York Times endorsement

A clip of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden taking a selfie with an elevator operator has gone viral after the former vice president failed to secure an endorsement from The New York Times.The exchange was captured on camera when Mr Biden was on his way to meet the Times’ editorial board as part of a series of interviews with Democratic 2020 election candidates.

Double trouble: Sri Lanka's twin gathering marred by overcrowding

Thousands of twins packed two-by-two into a stadium in Sri Lanka's capital on Monday - so many that officials struggled to count them in time to prove they had organised a record-breaking gathering. Huge queues built up at the open-air venue in Colombo as sets of siblings waited to get their birth certificates checked. The last record was set in Taiwan in 1999, when 3,961 sets of twins, 37 sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets gathered outside Taipei City Hall.

The last time China was hit by a deadly illness like the Wuhan virus, it covered it up and 774 people died. There are fears it could happen again.

China tried to cover up the deadly SARS virus in 2003, and observers are closely watching China as it deals with a new virus outbreak.

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

And its all underwater.

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.

‘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.

Gun rights advocates rally peacefully in Virginia

Several thousand gun rights supporters rallied peacefully Monday near the Virginia state Capitol under heavy security to protest new proposed gun control legislation. The rally took place without incident under a state of emergency declared by the governor over fears of violence by far-right groups. Dressed in hunting jackets and caps, rally-goers were checked for weapons as they passed through tight security before entering a fenced off area of Richmond's Capitol Square for the so-called "Lobby Day" event.

'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.

Puerto Ricans discovered a warehouse full of unused food, water, and supplies from Hurricane Maria, resulting in the firing of the island's emergency manager

The supplies, including food, water, cots, and diapers from 2017's Hurricane Maria, were discovered Saturday following earthquakes in Puerto Rico.

The Navy Has a Plan to Stop Ship-Killer Missiles

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

Intelligence officials: New ISIS leader is one of its founding members

The Islamic State's new leader is Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, one of the terrorist organization's founding members, intelligence officials told The Guardian.Last October, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a raid in Syria, and officials said Salbi replaced him just hours after his death. Born to an Iraqi Turkmen family, Salbi has a background as an Islamic scholar, and came up with the ISIS religious rulings authorizing the enslavement of Iraq's Yazidi minority. Salbi met Baghdadi in 2004, when both were detained by U.S. forces at Camp Bucca in Iraq.There aren't many founding members of ISIS left, and the group doesn't have nearly as many fighters as it did during its peak in the mid-2010s. ISIS no longer controls vast swaths of Iraq and Syria, but they are still behind assassinations and roadside bombings in northern Iraq, a senior Kurdish official told The Guardian. There are rural networks that "remain very much intact," the official said. "After all, ISIS members in Iraq still receive monthly salaries and training in remote mountainous areas. That network allows the organization to endure, even when militarily defeated."Salbi's whereabouts are unknown, but intelligence officials believe it's likely he is near Mosul, Iraq. There is a $5 million bounty on his head.More stories from theweek.com The first case of Wuhan virus has reportedly been detected in the U.S. Senators can only drink water or milk during the impeachment trial Ozzy Osbourne reveals he's been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease

Zimbabwe Opposition Vows Rolling Protests Over Economy

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Next Africa newsletter and follow Bloomberg Africa on TwitterZimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change will hold a series of demonstrations this year over the government’s failure to address the deteriorating economy.The southern African nation had the continent’s fastest-shrinking economy last year, after Libya, and its annual inflation rate was outpaced globally only by Venezuela, International Monetary Fund estimates show. Zimbabwe is grappling with shortages of food, fuel and foreign-exchange, while its inability to pay for adequate electricity imports and breakdowns at power plants have led to outages of as long as 18 hours a day.“This year is going to be a year of demonstrations and action,” MDC leader Nelson Chamisa told party supporters in the capital, while outlining their plans for this year.” This year it must be known that demonstrations are coming. It is time to fight for Zimbabwe we all want and have been dreaming of.”Previous protests by anti-government activists have resulted in brutal repression. At least 18 people have been killed in demonstrations since Emmerson Mnangagwa came to power in November 2017.To contact the reporter on this story: Godfrey Marawanyika in Harare at gmarawanyika@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gordon Bell at gbell16@bloomberg.net, Paul Richardson, Alastair ReedFor 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.

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.

Everything we know about the mysterious, deadly Wuhan virus sweeping across China

China's authorities have confirmed around 300 cases of the deadly Wuhan virus, which has spread to other parts of China and other countries entirely.

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.

How Trump Twisted Iran Intel to Manufacture the ‘Four Embassies’ Threat

When President Donald Trump publicly claimed earlier this month that he had seen intel showing Iran’s now-deceased top military leader Qassem Soleimani was plotting attacks on “four [American] embassies,” senior officials in Trump’s national security apparatus shook their heads. They weren’t sure exactly why the president leaned on that particular talking point, and scrambled in the following days to formulate answers to a barrage of questions from the media on exactly what the president had meant. Other officials wondered aloud whether the president had misrepresented the intelligence. “There were definitely questions [at the time, internally] about whether he had just made it up on the spot,” recalled one White House official.It turns out Trump—technically—didn’t get his eyebrow-raising claim out of nowhere, The Daily Beast has learned. According to three sources familiar with the matter, the president had simply seized on a small part of what he’d heard in private briefings, exaggerated that aspect of the intelligence, then began sharing the inflated intel to the American public during his post-Soleimani victory lap. In doing so, President Trump generated yet more confusion and discord among the national security brass that had already struggled to sell the American people on its case for the strike that just brought Iran and the United States to the precipice of all-out warfare. For weeks the Trump administration had struggled to get on message in talking about why the U.S. decided to strike Soleimani and what it would do in the future to manage any diplomacy with Tehran. Trump’s embassy claim didn’t help, officials said.The White House did not comment on the record for this story.Shortly before he began announcing to the media and rally-goers that the Iranian general was planning assaults on multiple U.S. embassies, the president received briefings at the White House from both national security officials and communications staffers. The purpose of some of these meetings were to prepare Trump on how best to talk to the press regarding his administration’s justifications for killing Soleimani. The president received a briefing shortly before he entered the Roosevelt Room Jan. 9 and said Iran was “looking to blow up our embassy.” According to two people familiar with this briefing, Trump was told the pre-strike intelligence showed that Iran could lash out against American assets in the region. The president was again told this in a subsequent briefing that day, one of these sources added. However, embassies were a part of a long list of American outposts and bases potentially under threat from Iran but sources familiar with those internal briefings do not remember the number four ever being specified, and they certainly do not recall any imminent danger to those embassies.When administration officials briefed Trump, they mentioned possible targets for Iranian assaults; they were not discussing intel on what anyone in the regime was actively plotting against U.S. interests, the sources noted.However, the moment he heard the word “embassies,” Trump immediately chimed in, interrupting the meeting to grill his briefers on that issue, according to one U.S. official. From there, he began to treat this possible threat as a near-certain danger. Trump received another intelligence briefing shortly before his interview with Fox’s Laura Ingraham Jan. 10 where he repeated the claim that Iran probably would have attacked four embassies. When the president started publicly trotting out his claims of “four embassies,” national security aides were dumbfounded. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump’s “four embassies” talking point clashed with intelligence assessments from Trump’s own officials. CNN also reported that security officials at the State Department weren’t even notified of an imminent danger to any specific set of four American embassies.Secretary of Defense Mark Esper himself admitted during an interview on the CBS Sunday show Face the Nation that while “the president said that he believed that it probably could have been attacks against additional embassies,” Esper personally “didn’t see [a specific piece of evidence] with regard to four embassies.”Esper added, “What I’m saying is I shared the president’s view that probably, my expectation is they were going to go after our embassies.”At that point, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad had of course already been stormed by an Iranian-supported militia, but that was prior to Soleimani’s death.Senior Trump administration officials have canceled several of their past scheduled briefings with Congress on specific threats to U.S. embassies pre-Soleimani strike. Briefers were also supposed to delve into more detail about what exactly U.S. intelligence said prior to the strike. The administration has held two briefings so far with both the House and the Senate, but sessions left lawmakers frustrated and overwhelmingly uninformed. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rescheduled his briefing on the embassy threats with the House Foreign Affairs committee for next week.‘OK, Now What?’: Inside Team Trump’s Scramble to Sell the Soleimani Hit to AmericaBut people close to Trump say his embassy fixation lies in his obsession with avoiding the kind of catastrophes that befell his predecessors Barack Obama and George W. Bush. President Trump, who has long bashed Obama for the 2012 Benghazi attack and Bush for the Hurricane Katrina response, is particularly concerned with opening himself up to accusations of having suffered “Trump’s Benghazi” or “Trump’s Katrina,” according to two sources who’ve spoken to the president about this. “Multiple times I’ve heard him talk about how you don’t want a Katrina moment,” said a former senior White House official. “You can’t do anything about what weather is going to do, but you can certainly manage the response and the optics of what you’re doing in addition to the substance of what you’re doing.”With Trump’s shambolic, even scandalous, handling of the response and relief efforts to the hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico, this president seems to have already had his “Katrina.” He is, however, determined not to experience a direct parallel to Benghazi. Indeed, on New Year’s Eve, the president took to Twitter to enthusiastically brand the embassy attack that occurred on his watch “The Anti-Benghazi!” UPDATE 1/21/20: The story has been updated to clarify the timing of one of Trump's intelligence briefings on Iran.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.

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.

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.

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.

How to stay healthy on a plane as coronavirus, flu, colds raise travel concerns

The CDC's top tip for staying healthy at 30,000 feet: Wash your hands often with soap and water, for at least 20 seconds.

China's Y-20 Is Not Stealth (But the U.S. Military Should Fear It)

And for good reason.

The US Air Force recently acquired a new $64 million Gulfstream private jet for VIP government officials — see inside

The US president isn't the only government official that flies in a VIP plane operated by the US Air Force.

CNN poll: 51 percent want Senate to remove Trump from office

A new CNN poll out Monday shows that 51 percent of Americans think the Senate should vote to convict and remove President Trump from office during his upcoming impeachment trial.Meanwhile, 45 percent believe the Senate should vote against conviction and removal. Almost 69 percent say the trial should include testimony from new witnesses who did not appear before House impeachment investigators. Republicans are split on whether there should be witnesses in the trial — 48 percent are in favor of new witnesses, while 44 percent are not.This was the first major national phone poll conducted since the articles of impeachment were sent to the Senate and Lev Parnas, the indicted Rudy Giuliani associate, appeared on cable news shows and implicated Trump in the Ukraine pressure campaign. The poll was conducted by SSRS from Jan. 16 to 19, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.More stories from theweek.com The first case of Wuhan virus has reportedly been detected in the U.S. Senators can only drink water or milk during the impeachment trial Ozzy Osbourne reveals he's been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease

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.

Iran acknowledges Russian-made missiles targeted Ukraine jet

Iran acknowledged on Tuesday that its armed forces fired two Russian anti-aircraft missiles at a Ukrainian jetliner that crashed after taking off from Tehran's main airport earlier this month, killing all 176 people on board. For days after the Jan. 8 shootdown, Iran denied that it fired missiles at the plane, initially blaming a technical malfunction and engine fire for the crash.

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.

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.

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.

Why America Stores 50 B61 Nuclear Bombs in Turkey

Seems like a questionable idea.

Here's who becomes president if Trump is removed from office in an impeachment trial

The vice president is the first in the line of succession to the presidency, followed by the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Iran says Zarif not attending Davos as its organizers 'changed its agenda'

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will not attend the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos this week because its organizers had "abruptly changed its agenda", its foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday. Reuters last week reported that Zarif was no longer on the list of nearly 3,000 people due at the event, which is being held under the banner "Stakeholders for a Sustainable and Cohesive World".

A Drexel University professor has been charged with stealing $185,000 in government grant money to spend on Philadelphia strip clubs and iTunes

The Philadelphia district attorney's office charged Chikaodinaka Nwankpa with theft by unlawful taking and theft by deception last week.

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.

The U.S.'s Next Aircraft Carrier Named After Doris Miller, Hero of Pearl Harbor

Miller heroically fought back against the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.

Russia's defence chief: diehard loyalist in Putin shadow

Russia's long-serving Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who held on to his post in a cabinet shake-up on Tuesday, is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin who shares his taste for macho stunts. Shoigu, 57, comes from the remote Siberian Tuva region close to the border with Mongolia, and is one of the few representatives of Russia's ethnic minorities in top politics. A construction engineer by training, he took a traditional route into Soviet politics, first working in construction organisations, then becoming a Communist Party official, following in the footsteps of his father.

Hail, floods, dust hit Australia amid raging wildfires

Dust storms, hail and flash floods have battered beleaguered Australian cities in recent days, extreme weather that has diminished the threat from scores of wildfires that continue to blaze across the country’s southeast. A hail storm in the national capital Canberra on Monday damaged public buildings, businesses, homes and cars, cut power to some suburbs, brought down trees, caused flash flooding and injured two people, emergency services officials said.

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.”

London Luxury House Sales Rebound as Buyers Race to Beat New Tax

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to receive the Davos Diary, a special daily newsletter that will run from Jan. 20-24.London’s luxury property market saw a surge in sales last quarter as buyers rushed to snap up houses before Prime Minister Boris Johnson follows through on a campaign promise to slap a new tax on purchases by foreign investors.Deals for the capital’s most expensive properties -- those going for 5 million pounds ($6.5 million) and above -- soared by 78% in the last three months of 2019 from the year-earlier period, according to LonRes. The number of sales was the highest in three years, the property research firm said in a report on Monday.The buying spree wasn’t limited to the very top of the market. Across London’s priciest neighborhoods, such as Mayfair and Chelsea, home sales increased by 34%, the biggest gain since mid-2017.A 3% levy on foreign buyers of homes in England was included in the Conservative Party’s manifesto before the December election in which Johnson won a commanding majority in Parliament, allowing him to deliver on his Brexit plans. It’s possible Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid could announce it in March as part of the budget. The tax is intended to cool prices and help locals get a foot on the housing ladder.“There are early indications that the relative political certainty provided by last month’s general election result is starting to boost activity in prime London markets,” Tom Bill, head of London residential research at broker Knight Frank, said in a separate statement. “In the 10 working days following the election, Knight Frank transacted more exchanges in prime central London than any equivalent period since December 2016.”Another factor driving the fourth-quarter sales surge was confusion surrounding the government’s plans for changes to the sales tax, called a stamp duty, which had depressed the market in the preceding months, according to LonRes. That issue dropped off the political agenda as the Brexit-dominated election approached, emboldening buyers to go ahead with purchases in the year’s final three months.Some activity has even returned recently to the pinnacle of the market, with Chinese property magnate Cheung Chung Kiu closing in on breaking London’s price record with the purchase of a 45-room mansion in Knightsbridge for more than 210 million pounds.\--With assistance from Lucca de Paoli.To contact the reporter on this story: Eddie Spence in London at espence11@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Shelley Robinson at ssmith118@bloomberg.net, Patrick Henry, Marion DakersFor 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.

How a NATO-Russia World War III Conflict Would Have Killed Us All

What could have been.

Iran MP: $3 million reward for 'whoever kills Trump': ISNA

An Iranian lawmaker offered a $3 million reward to anyone who killed President Trump and said Iran could avoid threats if it had nuclear arms, ISNA news agency reported on Tuesday amid Tehran's latest standoff with Washington.

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.

Trump's approval rating is on pace to be the lowest ever among independents, Gallup poll shows

Gallup revealed Tuesday that President Trump's approval rating during his third year in office set the record for the biggest partisan gap since the pollster began its records.Republicans and Democrats are dramatically split -- 89 percent of Republicans think Trump is doing a good job, compared to just 7 percent of Democrats. That 82-point difference is the largest ever, beating out the 79-point margin following Trump's second year in office. But what about the third subset, those pesky independents?Trump's numbers don't crater among independents like they do with Democrats, and have improved over the last year -- his 38 percent approval rating among non-affiliated respondents is higher than his 35 percent average rating to date, but they're still historically low. In the post-World War II era every other president has reached the 40 percent threshold among independents, with the lowest mark going to Jimmy Carter's 42 percent.Overall, Trump checked in with a 42 percent approval rating during year no. 3, an uptick from his first and second years. It's not far behind the numbers averaged by former presidents like Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan at this point in their tenures, but it's still one of the lowest three-year averages during a first term since World War II. Only Carter's 37.4 percent trails. The poll was conducted over the phone from a random sample of 4,560 adults living in the U.S. by Gallup between Oct. 14, 2019 and Jan. 16, 2020. The margin of error is 2 percentage points. Read more at Gallup.More stories from theweek.com The first case of Wuhan virus has reportedly been detected in the U.S. Senators can only drink water or milk during the impeachment trial Ozzy Osbourne reveals he's been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease