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(Bloomberg) -- President Vladimir Putin is to meet in Jerusalem with the mother of an Israeli woman imprisoned in Russia on drug-smuggling charges, the Kremlin said, amid reports Russian authorities are preparing to free her.Putin, who’ll be a guest of honor Thursday at a ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Red Army’s liberation of the Nazi Auschwitz death camp, spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone last week about 26-year-old Naama Issachar. Netanyahu said after the call that he was optimistic about securing her freedom.Issachar was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in a Russian prison in October for carrying a small amount of hashish on a transit flight via Moscow. Her mother, Yaffa, asked Putin in November to pardon her daughter in a letter handed to him by Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. The plight of the U.S.-born Israeli army veteran, who was detained in April, has become a cause celebre in Israel, where she’s widely regar...

The contamination of U.S. drinking water with man-made "forever chemicals" is far worse than previously estimated with some of the highest levels found in Miami, Philadelphia and New Orleans, said a report on Wednesday by an environmental watchdog group. The chemicals, resistant to breaking down in the environment, are known as perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The findings https://ift.tt/36jbXqC by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) show the group's previous estimate in 2018, based on unpublished U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, that 110 million Americans may be contaminated with PFAS, could be far too low. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2TIz6QN via Latest News

Pete Buttigieg finds himself in a place that he could hardly have contemplated when he began running for president a year ago: He likely cannot finish lower than second in the Iowa caucuses if he wants to advance in the Democratic presidential nominating campaign. “I’m not sure a win is necessary, but he’s got to be in the top two, I would think, to have any chance of moving on,” said Joe Trippi, campaign manager for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign. Each of the top four candidates in Iowa faces his or her own version of the challenge. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2uv2xeI via Latest News

Additional U.S. troops have been flown out of Iraq for closer evaluation of potential concussion injuries from the Iranian missile attack of Jan. 8, U.S. defense officials said Tuesday. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2RH0ThR via Latest News

Could Iran sink a carrier? from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2NSSAhL via Latest News

(Bloomberg) -- Elizabeth Warren called on fellow Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg to divest from the news division of his company “so there’s no question about his influence” over its coverage of 2020 candidates.“If Michael Bloomberg wants to be the Democratic nominee, he should let reporters do their jobs and report on him, and everyone else, as they see fit,” Warren said in a series of tweets on Wednesday.Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. He has said he’ll put his company in a trust or sell it if he wins the election.A spokesperson for Bloomberg News had no comment on Warren’s tweets.Warren referred to a policy that Bloomberg Editor in Chief John Micklethwait set out when Michael Bloomberg announced his candidacy. It said Bloomberg News would cover the Democratic candidates, including Bloomberg. It would continue the longstanding practice of not investigating Bloomberg or his family and foundation, an...

A Canadian judge said Thursday she will announce her decision at a later date after ending the first phase of an extradition hearing that will decide whether a top executive of Chinese tech giant Huawei is sent to the United States. This week's hearings dealt with the question of whether the U.S. charges against Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei's founder, are crimes in Canada as well. Canada arrested Huawei's chief financial officer in December 2018 at Vancouver's airport at the request of the U.S. as she was changing flights. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2vhCx6R via Latest News

A FISA Court order declassified Thursday confirmed that the government had found two of the four FISA applications authorized for the FBI to surveil 2016 Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page to be “not valid,” and will further investigate the validity of the other two.The order revealed that the government found two of the surveillance application renewals to be "not valid" based on “the material misstatements and omission” used by the FBI, which was found by the Justice Department to have "insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.”Based on the ordering of the applications, it appears the review found the second and third renewal applications used against Page to be invalid, while the original application and the first renewal remain under investigation. The third renewal was personally signed by James Comey, while the fourth was signed by Andrew McCabe.The court also said it was still waiting on th...

"Is she the chief economist or who is she? I'm confused," Mnuchin joked about the Swedish teenager's call for America to quit fossil fuels. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2RGLnT6 via Latest News

Since the end result is almost assuredly a foregone conclusion, the real question may be whether this looks like an  impeachment trial—or just a rushed show trial that was always rigged from the beginning.Republicans, anxious to please their president and move on, seem hell-bent on proving the latter.On Tuesday, every single Republican senator voted to block documents such as emails and memos that are related to impeachment but that the White House has refused to turn over.McConnell Redraws His Impeachment ‘Roadmap’ on Day OneIt’s hard to imagine why, if the goal is really to get to the bottom of the question of innocence or guilt, they would do this (with the usual caveats about relevance and not revealing national security secrets). The obvious conclusion here is that Senate Republicans aren’t concerned about checks and balances, separation of powers, or even (gasp!) discovering the truth.Although Mitch McConnell’s original proposal was revised at the last minute, we are sti...

(Bloomberg) -- Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the U.S. drone used to kill a top Iranian general in Baghdad took off from a military base in Kuwait, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Guards’ aerospace force.The Guards had detected activity from the drone and fighter jets near Baghdad airport but didn’t know they were planning to target Qassem Soleimani, according to Hajizadeh. At least four military bases in the Persian Gulf were involved in the Jan. 3 operation, he said, according to the report late Wednesday.To contact the reporters on this story: Farah Elbahrawy in Dubai at felbahrawy@bloomberg.net;Golnar Motevalli in Dubai at gmotevalli@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Amy TeibelFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomber...

A Tennessee inmate has chosen the electric chair for his scheduled execution next month, opting like four other inmates in little more than a year for electrocution over the state's preferred execution method of lethal injection. Nicholas Sutton, 58, is scheduled to be put to death Feb. 20 for the stabbing death of a fellow inmate decades ago while serving a life sentence for his grandmother's slaying. An affidavit signed on Tuesday said he waives the right to be executed by lethal injection and chooses electrocution. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/30IaUzx via Latest News

AirPods Pro: Update May Not Have Affected Noise-Canceling [Update: AirPods Pro Star Deal]    Forbes View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/38zg835 via Technology

Sonos CEO apologizes for confusion, says legacy products will work ‘as long as possible’    The Verge View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/2NUDDM8 via Technology

Microsoft releases preview SDK for its Surface Duo dual-screen Android phone (Update: Demo)    Android Police View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/2sQ2Ksc via Technology

Innocuous Gag Drives Fresh PS5 Reveal Rumours    Push Square View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/30NSnSl via Technology

Tinder Is Getting a Panic Button Specifically Tailored to Dating    Gizmodo View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/2TMeya6 via Technology

How to delete Cortana recordings and protect your privacy    The Verge from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/38B3YqG via Technology

Curb Your Smartphone Addiction With Google's New Android Apps    Lifehacker View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/2GjRmYU via Technology

Apple Watch Connected program rewards you for wearing it to the gym    Engadget View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/36n7OSK via Technology

Google’s Dataset Search comes out of beta    TechCrunch View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/30MzwHg via Technology

Jira Software gets better roadmaps    TechCrunch View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/36lKV27 via Technology

OnePlus Hints at a Phone Future With Less Glass    Droid Life View full coverage on Google News from Technology - Latest - Google News https://ift.tt/2O9PdU3 via Technology