🇺🇸 **The Latest: House approves measure rebuking Iowa Rep. King**
*AP* - <https://archive.fo/6L6iZ>

The House has approved a Democratic measure disapproving of Republican Rep. Steve King’s comments about white supremacy.

The nine-term Iowa congressman was among those supporting the measure, which was approved, 424-1.

King says he agrees with South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, the resolution’s sponsor, that white supremacy is an evil that cannot be ignored. King’s racist comments have been widely condemned by members of both parties in recent days.

King says the ideology of white supremacy “never shows up in my head” and that he does “not know how it could possibly come out of my mouth.”

Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois opposed the measure, saying the House should take the more serious step of censuring King for his “repugnant and racist behavior.”

Last week, King said in an interview, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”
----------------

🇺🇸 **Michael Cohen says he paid tech firm to rig online polls 'at the direction of' Trump**
*NBC* - <https://archive.fo/Xn427>

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, confirmed on Thursday that he paid a small tech firm to rig online polls before the 2016 presidential campaign got underway "at the direction of and the sole benefit of" Trump.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the payment and attempted poll manipulation. The Trump Organization declined to comment to the newspaper.

"As for the @WSJ article on poll rigging, what I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of @realDonaldTrump @POTUS. I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it," Cohen said in a tweet.

Cohen paid the money to John Gauger, who runs RedFinch Solutions LLC, in early 2015, to rig online polls in Trump’s favor before the presidential campaign.

The newspaper reported that Cohen gave Gauger a blue Walmart bag containing about $13,000 in cash. Gauger also said that Cohen randomly included a boxing glove Cohen claimed at the time had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter.

However, in a statement to the Journal, Cohen said he did not pay Gauger in cash.

“All monies paid to Mr. Gauger were by check,” Cohen told the newspaper, without offering further details to the newspaper.

Gauger, who is also chief information officer at Liberty University in Virginia, where evangelical leader and Trump supporter Jerry Falwell Jr. is president, said he was supposed to be paid $50,000 for the project but never received the remaining money. Trump, however, reimbursed Cohen in early 2017 for $50,000 for the work, the Journal reported, citing a government document and a person familiar with the matter.
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🌎 **Largest collection of breached data ever seen is found**
*The Guardian* - <https://archive.fo/HvhyA>

The largest collection of breached data ever seen has been discovered, comprising of more than 770m email addresses and passwords posted to a popular hacking forum in mid-December.

The 87GB data dump was discovered by security researcher Troy Hunt, who runs the Have I Been Pwned breach-notification service. Hunt, who called the upload “Collection #1”, said it is probably “made up of many different individual data breaches from literally thousands of different sources”, rather than representing a single hack of a very large service.

Still, the work to piece together previous breaches has resulted in a huge collection. “In total, there are 1,160,253,228 unique combinations of email addresses and passwords,” Hunt writes, and “21,222,975 unique passwords”. While most of the email addresses have appeared in previous breaches discovered being shared amongst hackers, like the 360m MySpace accounts hacked in 2008 or the 164m LinkedIn accounts hacked in 2016, the researcher says “there’s somewhere in the order of 140m email addresses in this breach that HIBP has never seen before.” Those email addresses could come from one large unreported data breach, many smaller ones, or a combination of both.

Security experts say the discovery of Collection #1 underscores the need for consumers to use password managers, like 1Password or LastPass, to store a random, unique password for every service they use. “It is quite a feat not to have had an email address or other personal information breached over the last decade,” says Jake Moore, a cybersecurity expert at ESET UK.
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🇺🇸 **New job of US vice president's wife sparks LGBT+ furor**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/XzKe5>

The wife of the U.S. vice president has started a job teaching art to children, the White House announced, working at a private school with a policy of refusing LGBT+ students and teachers.

Karen Pence will be teaching twice-weekly art classes at Immanuel Christian School, an elementary school in Virginia, the White House said on Tuesday.

Her husband, Vice President Mike Pence, is a social and evangelical conservative who in 2015, as governor of Indiana, signed into law a religious freedom bill that would have allowed businesses to deny services to gays.

Controversy followed, and he was forced to revise the law.

The Immanuel Christian School where Karen Pence has started her job has written policies online saying it will not hire LGBT+ faculty as well as refuse admission to LGBT+ students or those with LGBT+ parents.

Students and parents' lifestyles may not include "participating in, supporting, or condoning sexual immorality, homosexual activity or bi-sexual activity," its policy states.

Teachers must not engage in such behaviors as "homosexual or lesbian sexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity, any other violation of the unique roles of male and female," its job application states.

The head of GLAAD, a New York-based LGBT+ rights group, called on Karen Pence to resign from the job, saying it was "disturbing" she would "put her stamp of approval on an institution that actively targets LGBTQ students."
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🇺🇸 **Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cancels 2 upcoming events**
*CNN* - <https://archive.fo/IQc8u>

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will not attend scheduled talks in the upcoming weeks in Los Angeles and New York, following her surgery in December, after she missed Supreme Court arguments earlier this month, the event hosts said.

The 85-year-old justice was supposed to attend an event on January 29 at Los Angeles' Skirball Cultural Center. A long-planned conversation between Ginsburg and the financier and philanthropist David Rubenstein was scheduled for February 6, and the 92nd Street Y said Wednesday that it was working to reschedule the event.

"Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg regrets that she is unable to attend the talk with David Rubenstein at 92Y on February 6," an email from the 92nd Street Y said. "She is curtailing travel and focusing on her work while recuperating from recent surgery."

Ginsburg missed two weeks of oral arguments due to her recovery from the surgery, and the absence of the iconic liberal justice has attracted significant attention as the court weighs critical issues key to Trump administration policies.

The court announced in December that Ginsburg had undergone surgery to remove cancerous nodules from her lung, which had been detected in tests following a fall she sustained in early November.

Although she has not attended oral arguments, Ginsburg has participated in cases before the court this year by reading briefs at home.

On Tuesday, she issued a concurring opinion in a case concerning arbitration. The justices are to meet behind closed doors on Friday for a regularly scheduled conference -- Ginsburg is likely to vote by proxy -- and they will take the bench again for arguments on February 19.
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🇺🇸 **Storied Jewish publication The Forward ending 121-year print run**
*New York Post* - <https://archive.fo/Mmg7R>

The Forward is stopping — its print editions.

The storied Jewish-American publication is suspending its print operations and plans to lay off about 40 percent of its editorial staff — including Editor-in-Chief Jane Eisner — while moving to digital-only.

A print publication for 121 years, The Forward will continue to produce an English-language and a Yiddish-language edition online.

“The Forward is taking the next step in making our brand more relevant to our readers and more connected to their lives,” said publisher and CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen.

“We are announcing that this spring The Forward will complete its evolution from what was once a print-focused publisher to become a digitally focused publication.”

The Forward is eyeing growth among its under-35 readers who prefer to read news online. Currently that segments amounts to a third of total readers.

“It’s a sad day for the publication,” said one laid-off staffer who requested anonymity. “Hopefully, they can turn it around.”

Aside from Eisner, laid-off staffers include Executive Editor Dan Friedman, Digital Director David Goldiner, Design Director Kurt Hoffman and marketing, Kathleen Chambard, vice president of marketing.

“The revenue is not really there,” said a source. “They’ve been losing money for years but lately the losses have been more than $5 million a year.”

The publication is owned by The Forward Association, a not-for-profit whose endowment swelled to more than $100 million when the association sold its former headquarters on the Lower East Side as well as the radio station WEVD.
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🇺🇸 **PHOTOS: Democrats Stuck on Bus After Donald Trump Cancels Foreign Trip**
*Breitbart* - <http://archive.is/dYlVb#1%>

Confused Democrat lawmakers were left sitting idle on a military bus near the Capitol after President Donald Trump postponed their seven-day foreign trip as the partial government shutdown continues.

In a letter to Pelosi on Thursday, President Trump wrote that due to the shutdown, a trip to Egypt, Brussels, and Afghanistan would be delayed, declaring, “In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I’m sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.” “I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the strong border security movement to end the shutdown,” the president continued. Pelosi is welcome to fly on a commercial aircraft to make the trip, he told the House speaker.
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🇺🇸 **U.S. special counsel disputes report Trump told lawyer to lie**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/XmWv6>

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office on Friday disputed key elements of a media report that President Donald Trump directed his former lawyer to lie to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal, raising questions about a story that has dominated U.S. news coverage for the past 24 hours.

BuzzFeed News reported late on Thursday that Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer who is slated to go to prison for lying to Congress and other crimes, told investigators working for Mueller that Trump had instructed him to lie about efforts to build a skyscraper in Moscow while he was running for president.

"BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate," Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, said in the special counsel's first comment on a media report since its probe started 20 months ago.

While Carr did not directly address whether there was evidence that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, he disputed portions of the story about how BuzzFeed corroborated the explosive allegations against Trump.

Citing information from two federal law enforcement officials, BuzzFeed said Cohen told the special counsel that after the 2016 presidential election Trump instructed him to tell Congress that negotiations over the Moscow project had ended earlier than they had in order to obscure Trump's involvement.

Carr's statement also appeared to dispute BuzzFeed's assertion that the special counsel learned about Trump's directive from interviews with employees of the Trump Organization, emails, text messages and other documents.
----------------

🇨🇳 **China confirms the birth of gene-edited babies and vows to punish scientist He Jiankui who 'violated rules to carry out the unethical study for personal fame'**
*Daily Mail* - <https://archive.fo/CcNqY>

A Chinese investigation says the scientist behind the birth of two babies whose genes had been edited in hopes of making them resistant to the AIDS virus acted on his own 'for personal fame and profit' and will be punished for violating regulations.

Confirming the births, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday that investigators in the southern province of Guangdong determined Dr He Jiankui organised and handled funding for the experiment without outside assistance in violation of national guidelines. The university He worked for said he had been fired.

The scientist sparked global controversy in November when he announced in a YouTube video that he had successfully used a gene-editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls born that month.

One of the mothers gave birth to twins nicknamed 'Lulu' and 'Nana', the investigators said. Another woman is still carrying a gene-edited fetus. The Xinhua report said all three would remain under observation.
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🇫🇷 **France hits Google with 50 million euro data consent fine**
*Yahoo/AFP* - <https://archive.fo/fHr3H>

France's data watchdog on Monday announced a fine of 50 million euros ($57 million) for US search giant Google, using the EU's strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the first time.

Google was handed the record fine from the CNIL regulator for failing to provide transparent and easily accessible information on its data consent policies, a statement said.

The CNIL said Google made it too difficult for users to understand and manage preferences on how their personal information is used, in particular with regards to targeted advertising.

"People expect high standards of transparency and control from us. We're deeply committed to meeting those expectations and the consent requirements of the GDPR," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

"We're studying the decision to determine our next steps."

The ruling follows complaints lodged by two advocacy groups last May, shortly after the landmark GDPR directive came into effect.
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🇷🇺 **Russia opens civil cases against Facebook, Twitter: report**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/a9w6D>

Russia’s communication watchdog said on Monday it was opening administrative proceedings against Twitter and Facebook for failing to explain how they plan to comply with local data laws, the Interfax news agency reported.

Roskomnadzor, the watchdog, was quoted as saying that Twitter and Facebook had not explained how and when they would comply with legislation that requires all servers used to store Russians’ personal data to be located in Russia.

The agency’s head, Alexander Zharov, was quoted as saying the companies have a month to provide information or else action would be taken against them.

Russia has introduced tougher internet laws in the last five years, requiring search engines to delete some search results, messaging services to share encryption keys with security services and social networks to store Russian users’ personal data on servers within the country.

At the moment, the only tools Russia has to enforce its data rules are fines that typically only come to a few thousand dollars or blocking the offending online services, which is an option fraught with technical difficulties.

However, sources in November told Reuters that Moscow plans to impose stiffer fines on technology firms that fail to comply with Russian laws.
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🇺🇸 **Notre Dame to cover up murals depicting Christopher Columbus in the New World because they portray stereotypes of Native Americans and hide 'the darker side of this story'**
*Daily Mail* - <https://archive.fo/j4vRN>

The University of Notre Dame will cover 19th century murals on campus that depict Christopher Columbus in America due to their stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans.

Notre Dame President Rev John Jenkins announced the news on Sunday, saying the murals' depiction of Columbus as a 'beneficent explorer and friend of the native peoples hides from view the darker side of this story'.

The decision comes more than 20 years after Native American students first fought for the removal of the murals, which were painted in the entrance of Notre Dame's Main Building by Italian artist Luigi Gregori from 1882-1884.

'They reflect the attitudes of the time and were intended as a didactic presentation, responding to the cultural challenges for the school's largely immigrant, Catholic presentation,' Jenkins said in an open letter to the campus community.
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🇮🇱🇸🇾🇮🇷 **Israel, in rare move, announces attacks on Iranian targets in Syria, delivers warning**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.fo/DhCWg>

Israel confirmed early Monday that its military attacked Iranian targets in Syria, in a rare statement on such an operation.

“We have started striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory,” the military statement said. “We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory.”

Until now Israel largely has refrained from public admissions of its covert military operations in neighboring Syria to avoid large-scale involvement in the eight-year civil war.

The military’s statement was issued hours after Israeli missile defenses intercepted an incoming missile over the Golan Heights in the wake of rare daylight air raid near the Damascus International Airport.

The Israeli military initially had declined to comment on the airstrike, though it said a rocket fired at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.

Israeli warplanes have used Lebanon’s airspace recently to strike deep inside Syria, including attacking a warehouse near Damascus International Airport earlier this month, according to Syrian state media.

The Syrian military said Israel carried out intensive airstrikes with successive waves of guided missiles shortly after 1 a.m., but added that Syrian air defenses destroyed most of the missiles before they reached their targets.
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🇬🇧 **Royal Navy nuclear submarine's near miss with ferry**
*BBC* - <http://archive.is/brfhf>

A nuclear-powered Royal Navy submarine had a near collision with a ferry in the Irish Sea. The MoD would not confirm which of its 10 submarines was involved. All of its submarines are nuclear-powered but only four carry Trident nuclear missiles. An investigation has been launched into incident, which occurred on 6 November last year.

The ferry was the Stena Superfast VII, which operates between Northern Ireland and Scotland. The vessel, with a capacity for 1,300 passengers and 660 cars, sails between Belfast and Cairnryan.

A spokesman for the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) said: "We have carried out a preliminary assessment of the evidence in this case and the Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents has decided to open a safety investigation. The investigation is being conducted with the full co-operation of the Royal Navy. A report will be published when our investigation has concluded."

A Royal Navy spokesman said: "We can confirm the sighting of a Royal Navy submarine between Belfast and Stranraer on 6 November 2018. We are co-operating with the MAIB's investigation." A spokesman for Stena said: "Stena Line can confirm that on Tuesday 6 November 2018, Stena Superfast VII and a submerged submarine came into close proximity during a scheduled crossing between Cairnryan and Belfast.

"At no stage were the vessel, passengers or crew in any danger. The incident is now under investigation by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch and we will of course co-operate fully in this."
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🇻🇪🇺🇸 **Venezuela: Trump recognises opposition leader as president**
*The Guardian* - <https://archive.fo/5LMZx>

Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó has declared himself the interim president, in a dramatic escalation of efforts to force out Nicolás Maduro, who has overseen the country’s slide into authoritarianism and economic ruin.

Guaidó was quickly recognised by the US, Canada, Brazil, Colombia and other US allies in the Americas. Donald Trump warned that “all options are on the table” if Maduro responded with force against the opposition, but US officials made clear that the White House was focused on economic measures and would look at ways to transfer Venezuelan assets and oil revenues to Guaidó and the opposition-run national assembly.

Maduro responded with defiance, cutting off relations with the US and ordering all US diplomats to leave the country within 72 hours.

“We are defending the right to the very existence of our Bolivarian republic,” Maduro told supporters at a rally outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. He urged them to resist “at all costs” what he called a coup attempt being orchestrated by “the coup-mongering, interventionist gringo empire” and the “fascist right”.

“They intend to govern Venezuela from Washington,” Maduro shouted from the palace’s people’s balcony. “Do you want a puppet government controlled by Washington?”

A few hours earlier, thousands of protesters clogged the streets of the capital, Caracas, as Guaidó, the head of the national assembly, raised his right hand and said: “I swear to assume all the powers of the presidency to secure an end to the usurpation”.

The 35-year-old lawmaker, said his surprise move was the only way to rescue Venezuela from “dictatorship” and restore constitutional order.
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🇺🇸 **Gawker 2.0 Implodes as Its Only Reporters Quit**
*The Daily Beast* - <https://archive.fo/VZnEk>

Gawker 2.0 is blowing up on the launchpad just two weeks after the site’s first group of new staffers came aboard.

On Wednesday morning, the site’s only two full-time writers—former Vanity Fair writer Maya Kosoff and former Cosmopolitan writer Anna Breslaw—announced in a statement to The Daily Beast that they have left over concerns about Carson Griffith, the recently hired editorial director.

“We’re disappointed it ended this way, but we can’t continue to work under someone who is antithetical to our sensibility and journalistic ethics, or for an employer [CEO Bryan Goldberg] who refuses to listen to the women who work for him when it’s inconvenient,” Kosoff and Breslaw said.

The two reporters said they decided to leave the new Gawker after Bustle Digital Group—which bought the shuttered Gawker.com domain and its archives in a mid-2018 fire sale—refused to oust Griffith over offensive workplace comments about everything from poor people to black writers to her friend’s penis size.

Kosoff and Breslaw said they met with human resources to complain of several instances in which they felt personally uncomfortable working with Griffith.

In particular, Kosoff—a former colleague and personal friend of this reporter—described to human resources an incident in which Griffith forwarded an unsolicited chain email showing the editorial director’s friends boasting they knew the penis size of a prominent businessman.
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🇺🇸 **Pelosi says she won’t allow State of the Union during shutdown; Trump will ‘do something in the alternative'**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.fo/HAX1g>

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dug in Wednesday on her call to delay the State of the Union address even after President Trump vowed to proceed with the speech next week, sending a curt letter making clear she will not allow the event to take place during the government shutdown.

Reacting to Pelosi’s letter, Trump told reporters at the White House "we'll do something in the alternative," suggesting a speech of some kind will still happen next week.

Hours earlier, Trump had told Pelosi he was still planning to deliver the address from the House floor. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also introduced a resolution to allow the State of the Union to go forward as planned on Jan. 29.

But Pelosi makes the final call, and fired back in a letter to Trump saying she would not consider what's known as a "concurrent resolution," which is needed to allow the use of the chamber for the State of the Union.

“I am writing to inform you that the House of Representatives will not consider a concurrent resolution authorizing the president’s State of the Union address in the House Chamber until government has opened,” Pelosi wrote in the letter to Trump.

Pelosi added in her letter that she looks forward to welcoming Trump to the House “on a mutually agreeable date for this address when government has been opened.”

In recent days though, the White House has been readying a Plan B in case Pelosi moved to block the speech in the House chamber. White House officials told Fox News they essentially were preparing for two tracks for next week's speech. The preferred track is an address, as per custom, at the Capitol. The second track is a backup plan for a speech outside of Washington, D.C.
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🇺🇸 **Michael Cohen Indefinitely Postpones Testimony to Congress**
*The New York Times* - <https://archive.fo/PlpQl>

Michael D. Cohen, the former personal lawyer and fixer for President Trump, has indefinitely postponed his congressional testimony, his lawyer said in a statement on Wednesday.

Mr. Cohen was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 7 at the invitation of Representative Elijah Cummings, Democrat of Maryland and the chairman of the committee, but backed out because of ongoing threats against his family, his lawyer Lanny Davis said in a statement. He cited Mr. Trump’s verbal attacks on Mr. Cohen and some of his relatives.

“By advice of counsel, Mr. Cohen’s appearance will be postponed to a later date,” Mr. Davis said in the statement. “Mr. Cohen wishes to thank Chairman Cummings for allowing him to appear before the House Oversight Committee and looks forward to testifying at the appropriate time.” He added, “This is a time where Mr. Cohen had to put his family and their safety first.”
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🇲🇽🇬🇹 **Migrant caravan grows as Mexico fast-tracks humanitarian visas**
*CBS News* - <https://archive.fo/m9bch>

A migrant caravan trying to reach the U.S. is expected to grow as thousands gather at Mexico's southern border awaiting entry. Last week, Mexico decided to fast-track humanitarian visas so migrants can enter legally and nearly 8,000 people have applied. So far, more than 500 visas have been issued.

Thousands of migrants are gathered on both sides of Mexico-Guatemala border because of the five-day waiting period to get visas. Now, those who had originally entered Mexico illegally are trying to backtrack to the border, so they too can get visas, reports CBS News' Adriana Diaz.

As the buses arrived in Tapachula, 15 miles north of the border, desperation set in. The lines began forming before dawn Tuesday as word spread that the Mexican government was transporting migrants who had entered illegally to get humanitarian visas.

The caravan is more than 2,000 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, but the mayor of the border city Tijuana already said his government is not prepared to handle the group. Some migrants we spoke to said they know from word of mouth and social media that tension is rising at the border, but they are not deterred.
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🇺🇸 **BuzzFeed is cutting 15% of its staff**
*SFGate* - <https://archive.fo/fCLUv>

BuzzFeed is cutting 15% of its staff, CEO Jonah Peretti said in a memo sent to employees Wednesday.

The digital publisher is laying off the employees in order to get its costs in line with revenue, and the cuts will happen next week, Peretti said. The layoffs could affect 250 employees, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal, which was the first to report the news.

"Even though I'm confident this is the right business decision, it is upsetting and disappointing," Peretti said in the memo, which was obtained by Business Insider.

BuzzFeed's move could be an effort to better position itself financially for a merger with another digital media outlet, according to The Journal.

In his memo, Peretti cast the layoffs as an effort to make BuzzFeed's business more sustainable. Over the last year the company has "diversified" its revenue, and its business has grown by "double digits," but it needed to reduce its costs so it could control its own future, he said.

"We are confident the changes we are making will put us on a firm foundation and allow us to invest and grow sustainably for years to come," he said.
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🇺🇸 **Director Bryan Singer accused by more men of underage sexual misconduct in bombshell report**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.fo/0aucf>

Director Bryan Singer is the subject of a new bombshell report in which four men accuse him of sexually assaulting them when they were underage. The new allegations are just the latest in a long list of claims brought against Singer over the years, ranging from inappropriate touching to rape.

The report was published Wednesday by The Atlantic and the outlet said it was based in 50 sources — including the four men, who would not identify themselves for fear of repercussion. The exposé notes that the victims in question were left with psychological damage, substance-abuse problems, depression and PTSD after their experience.

In a statement provided to Fox News, Singer denounced the report as a 'homophobic smear piece."

One of the new accusers claimed Singer fondled him on a movie set when he was just 13 in 1997. Another claimed he was 17 when Singer had sex with him at a party at his house that same year while a third man alleged Singer had sex with him when he was just 15. A fourth man said he had sex with Singer when he was 16 after meeting the director at a series of parties the man claimed were designed to link underage boys with older men. All of the victims noted that Singer was aware of their ages at the time and was himself in his 30s.
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🇺🇸 **Trump ally Roger Stone charged with lying in Russia probe**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/yLWli>

U.S. President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone was arrested on Friday on charges of lying to Congress about the release of stolen Democratic Party emails during the 2016 campaign, prompting Trump to lash out again about a “Witch Hunt” against him.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller said in court papers that Stone had advance knowledge of a plan by WikiLeaks to release the emails, which analysts say may have contributed to Trump’s stunning defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Stone, a veteran political operative, is one of the closest Trump associates to be charged by Mueller, who is examining potential collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. He was arrested by the FBI in a predawn raid at his Florida home.

“Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION!,” Trump said on Twitter, using his most common slur for the Mueller probe.

The Kremlin has denied interfering with the 2016 election..

The indictment showed Stone using language evoking mob bosses — and even cited a “Godfather” movie — as he called an unnamed associate facing FBI inquiries “a rat. A stoolie” in a series of profanity-laced messages.

Stone was an early Trump backer whose reputation as an aggressive political operative and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” dates back to the Watergate scandal of the 1970s when he was working for Richard Nixon. He has a tattoo of Nixon’s face on his back.

Stone was charged with seven criminal counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, witness tampering and making false statements.
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🇺🇸 **Trump climbs down in wall row, Congress passes bill ending shutdown**
*Yahoo/AFP* - <https://archive.fo/iSZtF>

President Donald Trump on Friday brought a temporary end to the longest government shutdown in US history, while dropping his previous insistence on immediate funding for wall construction along the Mexican border.

The announcement in the White House Rose Garden on the bipartisan deal marked a retreat by Trump, suspending a row that paralyzed Washington, disrupted air travel, and left more than 800,000 federal employees without pay for five weeks.

The top Democratic senator, Chuck Schumer, said he hoped Trump had "learned his lesson."

The Senate and House of Representatives both passed the deal by unanimous consent Friday. The White House later confirmed Trump had signed it into law.

Trump's reversal came as the full weight of the shutdown, including the financial cost on struggling employees and the national economy, became clear, and as the president appeared outfoxed by his political nemesis Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives.

But while Trump climbed down in agreeing to reopen government without first getting $5.7 billion in border wall funds, he still threatened to renew hostilities with a new shutdown, or a state of emergency, if there is no breakthrough on his pet project in the next three weeks.

"Over the next 21 days, I expect that both Democrats and Republicans will operate in good faith," he said as he announced he would reopen the government.

"If we don't get a fair deal from Congress, the government either shuts down on February 15th again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency," he warned.
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🇺🇸 **Someone Intentionally Started Fire at Comet Ping Pong, Fire Officials Say**
*NBC Washington* - <https://archive.fo/JEZ8x>

A D.C. restaurant that was once at the center of an online conspiracy theory dubbed "pizzagate" was intentionally set on fire, fire officials say.

Firefighters responded to a small fire at Comet Ping Pong on Connecticut Avenue NW about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday night, D.C. Fire and EMS said.

They found that employees had put out the fire that spread to some curtains and window coverings inside the restaurant, the fire department said.

No one was injured in the fire.

Authorities described the suspect as a white man, 25 to 30 years old with blonde hair, a mustache and a beard. He was wearing a blue and white varsity style jacket and blue jeans at the time of the fire.
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🇯🇵 **Japan court upholds sterilization to register gender change**
*AP* - <https://archive.fo/HuV6s>

Human rights and LGBT activists on Friday denounced a ruling by Japan’s Supreme Court upholding a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilized before they can have their gender changed on official documents.

The court said the law is constitutional because it was meant to reduce confusion in families and society. But it acknowledged that it restricts freedom and could become out of step with changing social values.

The 2004 law states that people wishing to register a gender change must have their original reproductive organs, including testes or ovaries, removed and have a body that “appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs” of the gender they want to register.

More than 7,800 Japanese have had their genders officially changed, according to Justice Ministry statistics cited by public broadcaster NHK.

The unanimous decision by a four-judge panel, published Thursday, rejected an appeal by Takakito Usui, a transgender man who said forced sterilization violates the right to self-determination and is unconstitutional.

Usui, 45, appealed to the top court after he unsuccessfully requested that lower courts grant him legal recognition as male without having his female reproductive glands surgically removed.

Despite the unanimous decision, presiding justice Mamoru Miura joined another justice in saying that while the law may not violate the constitution, “doubts are undeniably emerging,” according to Usui’s lawyer, Tomoyasu Oyama.
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🇺🇸 **Google’s Sidewalk Labs Plans to Package and Sell Location Data on Millions of Cellphones**
*The Intercept* - <https://archive.fo/GEM8o>

The program, known as Replica, offers planning agencies the ability to model an entire city’s patterns of movement. Like “SimCity,” Replica’s “user-friendly” tool deploys statistical simulations to give a comprehensive view of how, when, and where people travel in urban areas. It’s an appealing prospect for planners making critical decisions about transportation and land use. In recent months, transportation authorities in Kansas City, Portland, and the Chicago area have signed up to glean its insights. The only catch: They’re not completely sure where the data is coming from.

Typical urban planners rely on processes like surveys and trip counters that are often time-consuming, labor-intensive, and outdated. Replica, instead, uses real-time mobile location data. As Nick Bowden of Sidewalk Labs has explained, “Replica provides a full set of baseline travel measures that are very difficult to gather and maintain today, including the total number of people on a highway or local street network, what mode they’re using (car, transit, bike, or foot), and their trip purpose (commuting to work, going shopping, heading to school).”

To make these measurements, the program gathers and de-identifies the location of cellphone users, which it obtains from unspecified third-party vendors. It then models this anonymized data in simulations — creating a synthetic population that faithfully replicates a city’s real-world patterns but that “obscures the real-world travel habits of individual people,” as Bowden told The Intercept.

The program comes at a time of growing unease with how tech companies use and share our personal data — and raises new questions about Google’s encroachment on the physical world.
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🇺🇸 **U.S. judge to allow controversial evidence in Roundup cancer trials**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/CkLlx>

A federal judge overseeing lawsuits alleging Bayer AG's glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer causes cancer on Monday tentatively allowed pieces of controversial evidence that the company had hoped to exclude from upcoming trials.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria during a hearing in San Francisco federal court called his decision "probably most disappointing for Monsanto," the Bayer unit that manufactures the world's most widely used herbicide.

The company denies allegations that glyphosate causes cancer and says decades of independent studies have shown the chemical to be safe for human use.

Chhabria on Monday said plaintiffs could introduce some evidence of Monsanto's alleged attempts to ghostwrite studies and influence the findings of scientists and regulators during the first phase of upcoming trials. He said documents which showed the company taking a position on the science or a study introduced during the first phase were "super relevant."

The company had hoped the judge would take a harder line on such evidence following a Jan. 3 order by Chhabria restricting evidence of corporate misconduct. At the time, that decision lifted Bayer's shares nearly 7 percent.

Monsanto had argued much of this evidence was a "sideshow" that would only distract jurors from the scientific evidence.

Plaintiffs' lawyers contended some evidence of corporate misconduct was inextricably linked to their scientific claims.
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🇮🇷🇮🇱 **Iran general says Tehran aims to wipe Israel off the ‘global political map’**
*Times Of Israel* - <https://archive.fo/nbric>

The deputy head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Monday that Tehran’s strategy was to eventually wipe Israel off the “global political map.”

Asked by a reporter in Tehran about Israeli threats to strike Iranian forces deployed in Syria, Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami was quoted by Iranian news outlets as saying, “Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map. And it seems that, considering the evil that Israel is doing, it is bringing itself closer to that.”

He added: “We announce that if Israel does anything to start a new war, it will obviously be the war that will end with its elimination, and the occupied territories will be returned. The Israelis will not have even a cemetery in Palestine to bury their own corpses.”

Salami’s comments followed a series of reciprocal taunts by Israeli and Iranian leaders in recent weeks as tensions have risen on the Israeli-Syrian border between IDF and Iranian forces.
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🇺🇸 **FBI final report finds no motive for Las Vegas shooting**
*Las Vegas Review-Journal* - <https://archive.fo/8wyiQ>

The FBI has concluded its investigation into the Las Vegas shooting without determining a motive.

On Tuesday the agency released a three-page summary of its key findings. After nearly 16 months, the agency said it cannot determine why gunman Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured nearly 900 others on Oct. 1, 2017.

“Throughout his life, Paddock went to great lengths to keep his thoughts private, and that extended to his final thinking about this mass murder,” the summary stated. “Active shooters rarely have a singular motive or reason for engaging in a mass homicide.”

The FBI also found no evidence that Paddock’s attack was motivated by any ideological or political beliefs.

Aaron Rouse is the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas office. He has said Paddock acted alone when he planned and carried out the attack. The 64-year-old fatally shot himself after opening fire from his hotel suite.

Investigators found no manifesto, video, suicide note or other communication regarding the planned attack.

“However, an important aspect of the attack was Paddock’s desire to die by suicide,” according to the summary of key findings.

His intention to die by suicide “was compounded by his desire to attain a certain degree of infamy via a mass casualty attack,” the summary states.

Experts concluded that Paddock was influenced in this aspect by the memory of his father.

“Paddock’s father created a facade to mask his true criminal identity and hide his diagnosed psychopathic history, and in so doing ultimately achieved significant criminal notoriety,” according to the summary.

Las Vegas police closed their investigation in August — also without determining a motive.
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🇺🇸🇲🇽 **Hundreds of migrants cross Arizona border after 'several busloads' dropped off in Mexico**
*CNN* - <https://archive.fo/D40G3>

In the early morning hours Thursday, several busloads of migrants were dropped off on Highway 2 in Mexico, just south of the Arizona border.

"They walked about 100 yards, climbed under and over the vehicle barrier that is the only infrastructure in that area and agents were called in to make the arrest," said acting Tucson Border Patrol Chief Jeffrey Self.

In total, 242 people -- mostly families from Guatemala -- were arrested when Border Patrol agents arrived at the scene after the migrants were detected by a mobile surveillance system.

This was one of the largest single groups crossing the Arizona border over the last year, according to Border Patrol, and comes on the heels of other large groups illegally crossing at other parts of the border.

Similar to other groups of families, these migrants willingly surrendered to Border Patrol with no attempts to evade or hide from authorities.

Earlier this month, Border Patrol agents stationed in the Yuma, Arizona, sector took around 375 migrants into custody after they had made it into the United States. Last week, a group of 306 migrants were taken into custody in a remote part of New Mexico near the border.

In Arizona earlier this month, agents encountered a group of 85 Central Americans after they arrived by bus and illegally entered the country in the same general area of Thursday's crossing.
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🇺🇸 **DC Antifa Leader Charged With ‘Ethnic Intimidation’ Related To Attack On Marines**
*The Daily Caller* - <https://archive.fo/B2uMk>

Washington, D.C. Antifa leader Joseph “Jose” Alcoff, also known as “Chepe,” was arrested and charged with multiple felonies in Philadelphia on Jan. 10 in connection to the Antifa mob attack against two Marines in November.

Alcoff faces 17 charges, including multiple counts of aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation, conspiracy and terroristic threats, and one count of robbery while inflicting serious bodily injury.

An affidavit filed in the case reveals that The Daily Caller News Foundation’s reporting on Alcoff’s connection to violent Antifa groups was an integral factor leading to his arrest.

The Marines, Alejandro Godinez and Luis Torres, testified in December that a group of 10 to 12 Antifa members called them “Nazis” and “white supremacists” and attacked them on the street despite their denials that they had no association with the right-wing group demonstrating nearby.

During the attack, Godinez said he shouted “I’m Mexican” at the mob, which allegedly led the attackers to call him a “spic” and “wetback.”

Thomas Keenan and Thomas Massey were arrested in November in connection to the beating. Keenan, who has been called a “leader” of the Antifa contingent in the Philadelphia area, was arrested and charged with rioting alongside Alcoff in New Jersey in 2011.

Alcoff is an organizer of Smash Racism DC, the Antifa group responsible for mobbing Fox News host and DCNF co-founder Tucker Carlson’s house in November and for chasing Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz from a D.C. restaurant in September.
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🇺🇸 **Facebook pays users to sideload data-gathering VPN in apparent violation of Apple privacy policies**
*Apple Insider* - <https://archive.fo/n1l3y>

Outlined in a exposé by TechCrunch, Facebook's latest gambit to acquire user data pays participants $20 plus referral fees for nearly unfettered access to iOS usage patterns and activity.

Through the Facebook Research app for iOS, which has been available since 2016, the company is able to collect data by enabling root access to a user's device. Marketed as a "social media research study," the VPN app is distributed through beta testing services Applause, BetaBound and uTest, the report says.

Importantly, Facebook relies on the three software testing platforms to enable sideloading of the Research app, effectively bypassing Apple's App Store and its stringent guidelines. Facebook does not disseminate Research through Apple's TestFlight, presumably because the system involves an app review process and 10,000 user limit.

Security expert Will Strafach, who was contracted to investigate Research, said the app could make use of the root privilege to collect data pertaining to "private messages in social media apps, chats from in instant messaging apps - including photos/videos sent to others, emails, web searches, web browsing activity, and even ongoing location information by tapping into the feeds of any location tracking apps you may have installed."

Interestingly, the Research app directs data to an address associated with Onavo Protect, a Facebook VPN app that was found to violate App Store privacy regulations in 2018. At the time, Apple said Onavo Protect ran afoul of data collection restrictions and parts of the iPhone maker's developer agreement covering customer data usage. Facebook pulled Onavo Protect from the App Store shortly after Apple revised its App Store guidelines to reflect stricter policies on data collection.
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🇻🇪🇷🇺 **$840M in gold bars prepared for loading onto Russian jet at Venezuelan airport: report**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.fo/meOAa>

About 20 tons of gold from Venezuela's central bank was ready to be hauled away Tuesday on a Russian airline's Boeing 777 that landed in Caracas a day earlier, a Venezuelan lawmaker wrote on Twitter.

The destination of the $840 million in gold bars was unknown, but a source told Bloomberg News that it represented about 20 percent of the country's holding of the metal. The gold was set aside for loading, the report said.

The news outlet, which first reported on the tweet, identified the lawmaker as Jose Guerra. The lawmaker did not provide evidence for his claim but is identified in the report as a former economist at the country's central bank with close ties to workers still there.

Noticias Venezuela, a news outlet in the country, posted a photo of what it identified as a Nordwind Airlines plane from Moscow that made the trip with only a crew aboard.

Simon Zerpa, Venezuela's finance minister, did not comment about the gold when reached by Bloomberg and denied there was a Russian plane at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas.

A plane belonging to a Moscow-based company was reportedly seen Monday heading to an international airport near Caracas, according to flight tracking records.

Reuters reported that there had been speculation about the jet that was “parked by a private corner of the airport.” And Reuters reported that it was the first time the plane made the trip.
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🇺🇸 **George Soros calls Xi Jinping ‘the most dangerous enemy’**
*NY Daily News* - <http://archive.is/vyxEv>

Billionaire investor George Soros slammed Chinese President Xi Jinping as “the most dangerous enemy” to those who believe in open society and warned against Beijing’s high-tech surveillance regime.

The Hungarian-born philanthropist’s comments came as China plans a broad ranking system to monitor its citizens, issuing them a social credit score.

“This makes Xi Jinping the most dangerous opponent of open societies,” added.

Soros “confused right and wrong in a meaningless statement, and it is not worth refuting,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing.
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https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/4chan-trolls-flood-laid-huffpost-buzzfeed-reporters-death-threats-n963001

THE HACKER KNOWN AS 4CHAN STRIKES AGAIN

🇺🇸 **Nellie Ohr Researched Trump’s Kids For Fusion GPS**
*The Daily Caller* - <https://archive.fo/dKKCM>

The wife of a Justice Department official who worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign told Congress in 2018 that one of her tasks at the opposition research firm was to research President Donald Trump’s children, including their business activities and travel.

Nellie Ohr, a former contractor for Fusion GPS, also told lawmakers during an Oct. 19 deposition that she recalls that Christopher Steele gave her husband, Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, materials from the infamous anti-Trump dossier funded by Democrats.

Ohr said during the testimony that Steele, who like her was a contractor for Fusion GPS, hoped that her husband would pass the materials to the FBI.

“My understanding was that Chris Steele was hoping that Bruce could put in a word with the FBI to follow up in some way,” Ohr testified to members of the House Oversight and House Judiciary Committees, according to transcripts confirmed by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Ohrs met with Steele and an unidentified British associate on July 30, 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Bruce Ohr testified to Congress on Aug. 28 that the meeting covered three main topics. He said Steele claimed that a former official with Russia’s SVR claimed that the Kremlin had Trump “over a barrel.”

Steele also relayed information about Carter Page, the former Trump campaign adviser who Steele claims in his dossier met with two Kremlin insiders during a trip to Moscow in early July 2016. Page has denied Steele’s allegations, saying he did not meet with the two Kremlin officials.
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🇺🇸🇨🇳 **U.S. charges 19 in Chinese 'birth tourism' scheme in California**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/Igdwh>

Nineteen people have been charged in three “birth tourism” schemes that operated in Southern California to bring pregnant Chinese women into the United States in order to secure birthright citizenship for their children, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles said on Thursday.

The 17 cases unsealed on Thursday are the first federal charges brought against operators and customers of birth tourism businesses, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Three defendants were arrested on Thursday morning, while the 16 others named in the indictments unsealed on Thursday are “fugitive defendants,” the prosecutors said.

The defendants are accused of links to three “birth houses” operating in Southern California that catered to wealthy women from China and were dismantled by federal agents in March 2015.

The indictments charge that Chinese customers were coached on how to pass U.S. Consulate interviews in China by falsely stating they would stay in the United States for only two weeks and to trick U.S. Customs at entry ports by wearing loose clothing to conceal their pregnancies, prosecutors said in the statement.

“These cases allege a wide array of criminal schemes that sought to defeat our immigration laws – laws that welcome foreign visitors so long as they are truthful about their intentions when entering the country,” U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said in a statement.

“Some of the wealthy clients of these businesses also showed blatant contempt for the U.S. by ignoring court orders directing them to stay in the country to assist with the investigation and by skipping out on their unpaid hospital bills,” Hanna said.
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🇺🇸🇷🇺 **US pulls out of Cold War-era nuclear treaty, blaming Russia**
*AP* - <https://archive.fo/zjth1>

The United States announced Friday that it is pulling out of a landmark nuclear arms treaty with Russia, arguing that it should not be constrained by a deal Moscow is violating with “impunity” by deploying banned missiles. Democrats in Congress and some arms control advocates slammed the decision as opening the door to an arms race.

President Donald Trump repeated a yearslong U.S. accusation that Russia secretly developed and deployed “a prohibited missile system that poses a direct threat to our allies and troops abroad.” He said the U.S. had adhered to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty since it was signed in 1987, but Russia had not.

“We cannot be the only country in the world unilaterally bound by this treaty, or any other,” Trump said in a written statement.

The Trump decision reflects his administration’s view that the arms treaty was an unacceptable obstacle to more forcefully confronting not only Russia but also China. China’s military has grown mightily since the treaty was signed, and the pact has prevented the U.S. from deploying weapons to counter those being developed in Beijing.

Pulling the plug on the INF pact, however, risks aggravating relations with European allies, who share the administration’s view that Russia is violating the treaty but who have not endorsed a U.S. withdrawal.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking to reporters after Trump’s statement, said Russia will be formally notified on Saturday that the U.S. is withdrawing from the treaty, effective in six months. In the meantime, starting Saturday, the U.S. will suspend its obligations under the treaty.
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🇺🇸 **VA Gov. Northam: No ‘Regrets’ on Childbirth Abortion Comments**
*Breitbart* - <https://archive.fo/fkEN7>

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam refused to recant his comments in support of legislation that would have allowed women in his state to request an abortion, even as they are about to give birth.

At a press conference Thursday, Northam responded, “I don’t have any regrets,” to a reporter’s question citing criticism that his comments about the legislation were not helpful.

Many Republicans, pro-life leaders, and physicians condemned both the legislation for allowing “infanticide” and Northam for backing it.

President Donald Trump tweeted, “Democrats are becoming the Party of late-term abortion,” and said during an interview with the Daily Caller that he was “surprised” to hear of Northam’s comments that a newborn infant could be left to die if the parents wished.

The Repeal Act – which has since been tabled – would have repealed most of Virginia’s abortion restriction laws and allowed abortion even as a woman is about to give birth, as stated by Democrat Delegate Kathy Tran, who introduced the measure.

Appearing as a guest on WTOP-FM Wednesday, Northam said the fierce reaction to the bill was “really blown out of proportion.”
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🇺🇸 **Cory Booker announces he is running for president**
*CNN* - <https://archive.fo/gijtJ>

Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat who rose to prominence as Newark's charismatic and ambitious mayor, announced Friday that he is running for president.

Booker chose the first day of Black History Month to launch his campaign, timing that nods to Booker's own heritage and suggests he will put it at the center of his pitch to voters.

"The history of our nation is defined by collective action; by interwoven destinies of slaves and abolitionists; of those born here and those who chose America as home; of those who took up arms to defend our country, and those who linked arms to challenge and change it," Booker narrates in a video released on Friday morning, which features him walking through his Newark neighborhood.

"I'm Cory Booker and I'm running for president of the United States of America," he says in the video.
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