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* President claims Democrats ‘in real doubt’ about evidence * Trump tells troops he has yet to buy a present for Melania * US and China to have signing ceremony for trade deal, Trump saysDonald Trump has launched fresh attacks on the congressional architects of his impeachment, even as the standoff intensified between Democrats in the US House and Republicans in the Senate over the president’s impending trial, and appeared set to last well into the new year.And on a less grave note, Trump revealed in a video conference with US troops to deliver Christmas greetings that, despite it being the morning of 24 December, he had not yet bought his wife her Christmas present.And as for North Korea’s warning of a “Christmas gift” for America amid stalled nuclear weapons talks, Trump said the US would “deal with it”.Then he left for his golf course.On Tuesday, Christmas Eve, Trump accused the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, of uncertainty over the artic...

Michael Bloomberg, who is worth about $54 billion, used prisoners to make phone calls to California for his 2020 presidential campaign. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2PSeGSU via Latest News

(Bloomberg) -- Tokyo prosecutors arrested a ruling party lawmaker on suspicion of receiving bribes from a Chinese company seeking to invest in the casino industry, dealing a blow to already unpopular plans to open the country to the gaming industry.Liberal Democratic Party politician Tsukasa Akimoto, who had served as a vice minister in charge of promoting the establishment of casinos in the country, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of receiving payoffs of about 3.7 million yen ($34,000), the Tokyo Public Prosecutor’s office said. The bribes included cash, plane tickets and hotel rooms, it said in a statement.The company was not named in the indictment and prosecutors didn’t indicate what he did in return for the bribes. Three others who were related to the company were also arrested, prosecutors said.The Chinese firm suspected of paying the bribes runs online casinos and is headquartered in the southern city of Shenzhen, according to Kyodo News of Japan. It’s also suspected of smug...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday that he was not ruling out testimony from new witnesses in Trump's impeachment trial, as a dispute over the rules delays preparations for the trial.Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants witnesses who refused to appear during House impeachment hearings to testify in the Senate, The Associated Press reports. McConnell has declined, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has responded by delaying sending the Senate two articles of impeachment the House approved last week."We haven't ruled out witnesses," McConnell told Fox and Friends. "We've said let's handle this case just like we did with President Clinton."Some witnesses testified in that trial, but Republicans have the votes to block anyone requested by Democrats.More stories from theweek.com 'Fairytale of New York': How a soused Irish punk band created the greatest Christmas song of all time No, Christmas is not secular T...

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan paid a surprise visit to Tunisia on Wednesday to discuss cooperation for a possible ceasefire in neighboring Libya, where Ankara supports the internationally recognized government. Erdogan, speaking at a joint news conference with Tunisia's President Kais Saied, also reaffirmed Ankara's willingness to send troops to Libya if it received such a request. Erdogan's visit to Tunis came a month after Turkey and Libya signed two separate accords, one on maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean and another on security and military cooperation. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Znagqk via Latest News

Grand Theft Auto's wildly popular online multiplayer game has become the latest venue for Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters and Chinese nationalists to wage their ideological battles, with protests now breaking out in the virtual world. Over the last fortnight message boards and social media platforms used by gamers have filled with videos and chatter of the virtual clashes as well insults and recriminations on both sides of the ideological divide. After a recent expansion pack was released earlier this month, gamers in Hong Kong noticed they could now dress their avatars in the clothing of their movement, which is pushing for greater democratic freedoms and police accountability. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2SpPKUM via Latest News

A witness said the man held up a Colorado Springs bank but then got rid his haul because someone was tailing him outside. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/397ywkZ via Latest News

Huge protests in India against a citizenship law seen by many as anti-Muslim have wrong-footed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sent his Hindu nationalist party scrambling to douse the anger. In Modi's biggest challenge since taking office in 2014, hundreds of thousands have rallied against the law offering citizenship to immigrants from non-Muslim minorities who have fled Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were taken aback by the backlash, some party members told Reuters. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2PYbyF2 via Latest News

Napp Nazworth had worked at 'The Christian Post' for eight and a half years from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZyB2wh via Latest News

(Bloomberg) -- The new leftist leaders of Germany’s Social Democrats have failed to give Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partners a lift in the polls.The SPD were stuck on 13% in the final Insa survey of the year for Bild newspaper, the same as the previous week and down from 20.5% in the most recent general election in 2017. Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc gained one point to 28%, while the SPD again trailed the Greens and the far-right Alternative for Germany, stable on 21% and 15% respectively.In an attempt to revive their fortunes, the Social Democrats this month picked Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken as co-leaders, scuppering a rival bid by Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz.The new team endorsed policy demands as a condition to remain in government that would ease years of fiscal discipline under Merkel and Scholz, boost infrastructure spending, lift the minimum wage and step up efforts to tackle climate change.But the shift to the left has apparently failed to win b...

Police on Tuesday called off a search for two missing people presumed dead after one of New Zealand's most active volcanoes erupted earlier this month. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2E1Eo0H via Latest News

Iran’s armed forces will hold a joint, four-day naval exercise with Russia and China in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, a spokesman said Wednesday. Visits to Iran by Russian and Chinese naval representatives have also stepped up in recent years. Iranian military spokesman Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi said the joint maneuvers, which are aimed at promoting regional security, will extend as far as the Sea of Oman. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Qhx5I3 via Latest News

Decade in Review: What the smartphone has wrought    Financial Post View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/2rtwniv via Technology

Here are my five least favorite characters to fight against in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate    EventHubs View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/2sYvqz9 via Technology

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard will likely not win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, but she could still help reelect President Trump. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/35UM0yo via Latest News

A woman and two children were found unresponsive on a sidewalk outside a Northeastern University parking garage on Christmas Day, prompting a “death investigation,” according to authorities.Boston Police confirmed the woman and the two children—both under the age of 5—were found unconscious outside the Northeastern University Renaissance Parking Garage just before 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday. All three, who have not yet been identified, were transported to a local hospital and were pronounced dead on arrival. Video from WCVB showed a black SUV behind police tape on the roof of the garage, though authorities did not comment on how the vehicle was involved.Man Found Guilty of Murdering Two Boston Doctors Inside Their Penthouse Condo“Today is a tragedy,” Boston Police Commissioner William Gross said in a press conference, adding the relationship between the three individuals is not immediately known. “At this point, this is a death investigation.”Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Ro...

Hong Kong riot police fired rounds of tear gas at thousands of protesters, many wearing masks and reindeer horns, after scuffles in shopping malls and in a prime tourist district as pro-democracy rallies escalated into Christmas Eve chaos. Protesters inside the malls threw umbrellas and other objects at police who responded by beating some demonstrators with batons, with one pointing his gun at the crowd, but not firing. Some demonstrators occupied the main roads and blocked traffic outside the malls and nearby luxury hotels in the Tsim Sha Tsui tourist district of Kowloon. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34O0vm9 via Latest News

We take a look. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Mw7o5s via Latest News

Federal investigators are looking into former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's last-minute pardons, some of which have drawn national criticism. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ShGou9 via Latest News

Elderly voters say age and experience are positives and negatives for both candidates. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2PX4UPw via Latest News

A Russian court on Tuesday extended by three months the detention of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine accused by Moscow of spying, a decision his family and U.S. officials condemned as unjust. Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained by agents from Russia's Federal Security Service in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28 last year. Moscow says Whelan was caught red-handed with a computer flash drive containing classified information. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/39bix5m via Latest News

An attack by militants in northern Burkina Faso has killed 35 civilians, almost all of them women, the president said, one of the deadliest assaults in nearly five years of jihadist violence in the West African nation. Seven soldiers and 80 jihadists were also killed in the double attack on a military base and the town of Arbinda in Soum province. The morning raid was carried out by dozens of jihadists on motorbikes and lasted several hours before armed forces backed by the air force drove the militants back. The army said the attack was of a "rare intensity". "A large group of terrorists simultaneously attacked the military base and the civilian population in Arbinda," the army chief of staff said in a statement. "This barbaric attack resulted in the deaths of 35 civilian victims, most of them women," President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said on Twitter, praising the "bravery and commitment" of the defence and security forces. Remis Dandjinou, t...

Online shopping is on the rise, with more and more people choosing the sofa to buy goods, but which is better? from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/35YR8Bo via Online Shopping