Widespread communications outages continued to affect large areas of Tennessee on Saturday after a recreational vehicle exploded early Christmas morning in downtown Nashville.
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As of Dec. 24, President Trump has issued clemency in the form of pardons or commutations to more than 90 people, from relatively obscure white-collar or non-violent drug offenders to the famous (conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza; Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio) and the infamous (four security contractors with the Blackwater firm who murdered more than a dozen civilians in Iraq).
Police believe the act was intentional
Four people have been arrested in connection with the 2018 crash of a helicopter that killed a central Mexican governor and her husband — who had preceded her as governor — authorities said Friday. The Agusta 109 helicopter crashed in flames 10 minutes after takeoff on Dec. 24 that year while carrying newly installed Puebla Gov. Martha Erika Alonso and her husband, former Gov. Rafael Moreno Valle, as well as three other people. The Puebla state prosecutor's office said the four suspects worked for a Rotor Flight Services, a company “related to the functioning of the aircraft,” It said the suspects were accused of culpable homicide, damage to another's property and false testimony.
A doctor in Boston with a shellfish allergy developed a severe allergic reaction after receiving Moderna's coronavirus vaccine on Thursday, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing the doctor. Dr. Hossein Sadrzadeh, a geriatric oncology fellow at Boston Medical Center, said he had a severe reaction almost immediately after being vaccinated, feeling dizzy and with a racing heart, the NYT reported. It is the first severe reaction publicly linked to Moderna's vaccine, which is in its first week of a nationwide rollout.
President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday released a statement criticizing President Trump for refusing to sign the $900 COVID-19 relief bill passed by Congress earlier this week.Biden warned "this abdication of responsibility has devastating consequences," noting that millions of Americans will lose enhanced unemployment benefits (which are set to expire Saturday), small businesses will go longer without federal aid, and eviction moratoriums will end next week unless Trump decides to sign the bill.> Biden calls Trump not yet signing the covid relief bill an “abdication of responsibility.” He says Trump should sign it and again argues for “more action that we’ll need to take early in the new year to revive the economy and contain the pandemic.” pic.twitter.com/OsqFNRtWEc> > — Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) December 26, 2020It's unclear whether Trump will relent, though he continued to criticize the package because it designates just $600 for stimulus checks for individuals. Democratic lawmakers seem to be on board with his call to push that figure up to $2,000 per person, but the GOP appears hesitant. Biden didn't address stimulus checks specifically in his latest statement, but he said that while Trump signing the current bill is "critical," it's a "first step and down payment on more action that we'll need to take" after he steps into the Oval Office.More stories from theweek.com Joe Biden's anti-revolution takes shape 7 scathing cartoons about Russia's massive cyberattack The Christmas of 1918
President Trump’s demand for $2,000 checks for most Americans was rejected by House Republicans as his disorganized actions have thrown the COVID-19 relief and government funding bill into chaos.
Archaeologists excavating a snack bar in the ruins of Italy’s Pompeii have uncovered “exceptional” frescoes, and obscene graffiti likely directed at the establishment’s seventh century owner. The volcanic ash which buried the town during the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in AD79 has preserved an intimate historical record of the Roman town 14 miles southeast of Naples, and the lives of its 13,000 inhabitants. One of these inhabitants was called Nicias and was likely a freed slave from Greece, according to excavators who recently uncovered an inscription insulting the man. “NICIA CINAEDE CACATOR” reads the scrawled graffiti on a fresco of a chained dog painted onto the bar of the Thermopolium of Regio V, a cheap street food eatery. “An inverted s****er” is how archaeologists rendered the slur, though the adjective carries a homosexual connotation from its derivation from the ancient Greek term for catamite.
A team of French investigators will come to Beirut next month to participate in interrogating former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn, a Lebanese justice ministry official said Saturday. Former auto executive Ghosn, who is a Lebanese, Brazilian and French national, fled Japan in a dramatic escape that drew headlines last year, arriving in Lebanon on Dec. 30, 2019. In addition to his trial in Japan, the 66-year-old businessman is facing a number of legal challenges in France, including tax evasion and alleged money laundering, fraud and misuse of company assets while at the helm of the Renault-Nissan alliance.
DUBAI (Reuters) -At least eight climbers have died and several more are missing in mountains north of Iran's capital Tehran after heavy snowfall and a blizzard, state television reported on Saturday, and the seven crew of a ship are also missing after storms in the Gulf. Heavy snow and winds in several parts of Iran in the last days have closed many roads and disrupted transport. Several climbers remain unaccounted for since Friday when two deaths were reported, while the number reported as missing has increased as concerned families contact the authorities, the broadcaster said.
Ready to fly out of Donald J. Trump Airport in Palm Beach County?
Royal Caribbean, the world's largest cruise company, is trying to prevent victims of the 2019 New Zealand volcanic eruption from suing in the US. Passengers from the Royal Caribbean ship Ovation of the Seas took a trip to White Island, a popular tourist site, last December, when a volcano suddenly erupted, killing 27 visitors and injuring 25 more. Ivy and Paul Reed, from the US state of Maryland, who suffered burns as a result of the eruption, and Australians Marie and Stephanie Browitt, who lost family members because of the eruption, filed separate lawsuits against Royal Caribbean claiming that the cruise line did not properly explain the dangers of visiting White Island. Peter Gordon, a lawyer for the Browitt family, told the Australian Broadcasting Company that Royal Caribbean should have known that the volcano could erupt before allowing its passengers to visit White Island.
The decision potentially sets up the Trump administration to schedule the execution after President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -The new variant of coronavirus linked to a rapid rise in infections in Britain has been detected in Sweden after a traveller from the United Kingdom became ill and tested positive, the Swedish Health Agency said on Saturday. Health Agency official Sara Byfors told a news conference the traveller had been isolating and that no further positive cases had so far been detected. The unidentified traveller was staying in Sormland, south of Stockholm, according to Signe Makitalo, a regional infection control doctor.
President refers to first lady as “the greatest of all time”
Several people were injured in a shooting in Berlin in the early hours of Saturday, German emergency services said. Unidentified assailants fled the scene following the shooting in the Kreuzberg district of the German capital, according to police, who said four people were hospitalised with serious injuries. “Emergency medical services, including three emergency doctors and a head emergency doctor cared for three seriously injured people and transported them to hospitals for further treatment,” the Berlin fire service said in a tweet, without providing further detail. A manhunt was underway, according to state broadcaster Deutsche Welle, with armed police deployed to the area to search for shooters while a police helicopter circled overhead. The outlet reported that an injured man was pulled from a canal after jumping in to try to escape the shooting. Police also searched the nearby Mockernbrucke subway station. A photographer for German press agency DPA said the incident occurred near the offices of the centre-left Social Democratic Party. "The motive is not yet known,"a police spokesperson told DPA. "We also do not yet know how many people were involved."
The Islamist group also burnt down the church in the Christian village in northeast Nigeria.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Mainland China recorded 20 new COVID-19 cases on Dec. 25, compared with 14 cases the previous day, the country's health authority said on Saturday. The National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin that 12 of the new cases were imported. The new Beijing cases were from its Shunyi district, which has entered a "wartime state" requiring all residents to undergo testing, the state-owned China Daily reported on Saturday.
Speech came hours after Mr Trump golfed in Florida with Lindsey Graham
Boris Johnson has "totally capitulated" on fishing in the EU trade deal negotiations, but both sides have compromised, EU diplomatic sources have claimed. On Thursday Mr Johnson finally accepted the bloc’s final offer of returning 25 percent of the value of fish caught in UK waters to British fishermen. It was a “big move”, sources said, because he had been demanding 35 percent of the value of the catch. French officials claimed that the British had made major last minute concessions. The UK and EU settled on a five and a half year transition period before annual negotiations over fishing opportunities would begin. There was satisfaction in Brussels at having forced the prime minister into the climbdown but anxiety he will not be able to sell the deal to hardline Brexiteers in his party. “It won’t be a total victory. It never is,” an EU diplomat said. “I am a little concerned that London has not got the landing rights for the deal with its constituents.” “Whatever happens will be presented as a great victory. The Europeans will yawn,” another source said before confidently predicting that Mr Johnson has the European Research Group of MPs “in his pocket”.
BIHAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Hundreds of migrants were stranded Saturday in a squalid, burnt-out tent camp in Bosnia as heavy snow fell in the country and winter temperatures suddenly dropped. Migrants at the Lipa camp in northwest Bosnia wrapped themselves in blankets and sleeping bags to protect against the biting winds in the region, which borders European Union member Croatia. A fire earlier this week destroyed much of the camp near the town of Bihac that already was harshly criticized by international officials and aid groups as being inadequate for housing refugees and migrants.
