WASHINGTON, D.C. — Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said President-elect Donald Trump is disturbed by President Obama’s decision to commute the prison sentence of convicted leaker Chelsea Manning. “I think the president-elect is troubled by this action,” Spicer said during a Wednesday news conference at Trump’s presidential transition team headquarters. Spicer was also asked if Trump wanted to see WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange make good on a promise to allow himself to be extradited to the United States if Manning was given a deal.
Pressed by Democratic senators for his views on the causes of climate change, the Trump administration’s choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency insisted at his confirmation hearing Wednesday morning that his “personal opinion” was “immaterial” to how he would do his job. Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee questioned Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt closely on his history of suing the agency he has been nominated to lead, his statements questioning mainstream climate science and his close ties to the oil and gas industries. Republicans were much friendlier, mostly lamenting the impact of regulations on fossil-fuel industry jobs, something Pruitt promised to take into account.
The man accused of killing an Orlando police officer and his pregnant girlfriend said he plans to represent himself at trial, but not without some choice words for the judge. "Y'all portraying this s--t to the news people like I just went there and shot this girl when there were other guns found on the scene," Markeith Loyd told the judge in an unruly first court appearance Thursday. "A gun was pulled on me first, but y'all acting like I just went there and shot her," he said before he was ordered held without bail on charges he murdered his pregnant ex-girlfriend.
Months before his death, Osama bin Laden fretted about the Islamic State group's impatient, violent tactics and the fading of Al-Qaeda, documents released by the CIA Thursday showed. The latest release from the trove of documents found when Navy Seals stormed the Al-Qaeda chief's secret Pakistan compound and killed him in 2011 show bin Laden trying to keep his jihadist followers around the world aligned in his war against the United States.
Ricky Gray was pronounced dead at 9:42 p.m. following a lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. Gray showed no emotion as he was walked into the execution chamber wearing blue jeans and handcuffs. Gray was condemned to death in 2006 for the murders of 9-year-old Stella Harvey and 4-year-old sister Ruby, and sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of their parents, Bryan and Kathryn Harvey.
By Elaine Lies and Megumi Lim TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese hotelier's denial of a 1937 massacre by Japanese troops in the Chinese city of Nanjing has prompted Chinese social media calls for a boycott of travel to Japan, threatening tourist arrivals days before the Lunar New Year holidays. The furor erupted over books by Toshio Motoya, the president of Tokyo-based hotel and real estate developer APA Group, which contain his revisionist views and are placed in every room of the company's 400-plus APA Hotels. In one, printed in English and Japanese and entitled "The Real History of Japan", he says the "Nanking Massacre story" was "impossible", blaming looting and killings on members of a branch of the Chinese military who had shed their uniforms.
A video of a massive alligator walking through a reserve near Lakeland, Florida, had people speculating earlier this week whether it was a hoax. The video, which was uploaded Sunday to Facebook by Florida resident Kim Joiner, shows the massive reptile appearing out of a nearby bush at the Circle B Bar Reserve in Polk County and then casually walking on the reserve's Marsh Rabbit Run. Officials for the county's natural resources division said that while they appreciate the attention the nature reserve has been getting, they are also worried about the safety of visitors and wildlife.
There's a Florida company specializing in used military aircraft sales, and boy have they got a deal for you: 20 jet airplanes for less than $250,000. The 20 Fouga Magister trainers are sitting in Israel just waiting for someone of modest means who wants to start his or her private air force. As reported by The Aviationist, Raptor Aviation of Port St. Lucie, FL, is handling the sale of the Magisters.
As Constitution Daily counts down to Inauguration Day, we look back at three presidential ceremonies from the 1800s that ended very badly. Mobs descend on Jackson’s White House. For example, there were constant rumors that Abraham Lincoln would be killed at his 1861 inauguration.
At his final press conference as president of the United States, Barack Obama defended his controversial decision this week to commute convicted leaker Chelsea Manning’s sentence. Obama was asked if he feared that commuting her sentence might send a message that leaking classified information might send the wrong message to groups like WikiLeaks. The Obama administration has accused Russian hackers of sharing information with WikiLeaks to interfere in the U.S. election.
Woman arrested after accosting Bella Hadid with Palestinian flag, Nancy Sinatra destroys Trump for using ‘My Way’ at inauguration, Kanye apparently wasn’t invited to perform at the inauguration, and Gigi Hadid fuels engagement rumors after wearing a ring on *that* finger. Get all the details at MarieClaire.com!
In a discussion of OneWest, the name given to the failed bank IndyMac after Mnuchin and a group of investors took it over, Brown asked during Mnuchin’s Senate confirmation hearing, “Is it true that OneWest’s independent audit firm found it violated the Civil Service Relief Act by initiating foreclosures on 54 active duty military families? Then-Attorney General Kamala Harris — who was elected to the U.S. Senate in November — declined to pursue charges.
Global payments company Western Union will pay $586 million to settle a US criminal investigation that found it had a weak anti-money laundering program and looked the other way when employees collaborated in fraud. The settlement, which includes a deferred prosecution agreement, concerns violations uncovered between 2004 and 2012 in which the company failed to adequately safeguard its money transfer system from transactions that could have supported illicit activity such as human trafficking, drug dealing and other crimes. Western Union employees also worked to help customers get around requirements to file a currency transaction report when more than $10,000 is wired to a client in a single day.
Four strong earthquakes on Wednesday shook the same region of central Italy that suffered deadly temblors last year, sending quake-rattled residents into panic and further isolating towns that have been buried under more than a meter (3 feet) of snow for days. Premier Paolo Gentiloni said it appeared no one was killed, but that it was a "difficult day" for Italy. Several towns and hamlets in the quake zone had already sounded the alarm in recent days that they were without electricity and were isolated from highways due to the unusually heavy snowfall that has blanketed much of central Italy.
By David Randall NEW YORK (Reuters) - When U.S. President-elect Donald Trump criticized United Technologies Corp's Carrier unit in November for its plan to move some 800 jobs to Mexico, the parent-company made a swift decision to keep the factory in Indiana. Instead, the company decided it would move toward automation as a way to cut costs. "What that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs." Swapping robots and software for human labor has underpinned much of the productivity gains in the United States over the last 25 years.
Startling surveillance video posted to Twitter this week shows a woman in New York being hit by a school bus, which then runs her over. The victim was crossing a Brooklyn intersection when she was struck by a yellow mini-bus. She suffered non-life-threatening
The deep-sea sonar search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may not have found the plane but will reveal more about how land beneath the Indian Ocean formed over millions of years and where oil fields could lie. National geoscience agency Geoscience Australia will soon release detailed sonar mapping of 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) of seabed that was searched for the wreckage of the Boeing 777 that vanished with 239 passengers and crew on March 8, 2014. The unique information about plate tectonics would interest geoscientists as well as oil and gas explorers, said Australian National University marine geologist Neville Exon, who has advised Geoscience Australia on the sonar data.
A high-rise building in Tehran engulfed by a fire collapsed on Thursday, killing at least 30 firefighters and injuring some 75 people, state media reported. The disaster struck the Plasco building, an iconic structure in central Tehran just north of the capital’s sprawling bazaar. Iran’s state-run Press TV announced the firefighters’ deaths, without giving a source for the information.
More than 80 Islamic State jihadists were killed in a US aerial blitz on training camps in Libya, including fighters involved in plotting attacks in Europe, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday. The Pentagon made the highly unusual decision to conduct the air strikes with a pair of B-2 stealth bombers that flew to North Africa on a 34-hour mission from their base in Missouri in America's Midwest. The last time the distinctive, bat-shaped planes were used in Libya was in 2011 during the mission that led to the ouster of longtime leader Moamer Kadhafi.
An affidavit, filed with the Orange County Clerk of Courts a day after 41-year-old Markeith Loyd was arrested in an abandoned home, shows authorities want to make sure he remains in custody, as is customary for a fugitive facing murder charges. Loyd was arrested Tuesday night after a manhunt that lasted more than a week. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump had a phone conversation with Clayton's husband.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday shortened the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. military intelligence analyst who was responsible for a 2010 leak of classified materials to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, the biggest such breach in U.S. history. A White House official said there was no connection between Manning's commutation and renewed U.S. government concern about WikiLeaks' actions during last year's presidential election, or a promise by founder Julian Assange to accept extradition if Manning was freed.
As long as the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro remain in production, it seems the pony car wars will continue unabated. A little over a year ago, we declared the 2016 Camaro SS the champion, but with this facelifted Mustang, Ford is angling for a rematch. For 2018, the Mustang gets all sorts of changes that could add up to a big improvement.
The first direct freight train service from China to Britain arrived in London Wednesday, another leg in Beijing's plans for closer trade ties with Europe along a modern-day Silk Road. The 18-day trip saw dozens of containers packed mainly with clothes and household goods transported from the city of Yiwu in eastern China to a freight terminal in Barking in east London, via Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland and western Europe. The train entered Britain from France through the Channel Tunnel, completing a journey of some 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers).
Protests erupted both outside and inside a city council meeting in suburban Boston Wednesday night as local officials heard public comments about how police there has treated undocumented immigrants. People gathered outside of city hall with picket signs demonstrating against the prospect of the tony Massachusetts town of Newton becoming a so-called sanctuary city, where the local law enforcement does not coordinate with federal authorities to deport illegal immigrants. Some of the protesters in and outside of city hall could be seen holding signs that read "NO SANCTUARY CITY" as well as American flags.
ABC News' Maggie Rulli speaks with Clinton supporters who flew to Washington DC for inauguration weekend. As we said the blind and insane. People are claiming we happen. People are he has. The line continues to be freebie. So let's talk I just for a