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Issued on: September 30, 2019 Oval Office 2:18 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Well, this is a very big day. We just had the swearing-in. We just had the most beautiful ceremony. I don’t know if anybody was there, of you, but — our new head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And now we have Department of Labor. So, that’s big stuff. This is a big day. And it’s my pleasure to welcome everyone to the swearing-in of our new Secretary of Labor, Eugene Scalia. Gene is joined by many members of his family, which is a large family, including...

THE Remainer Alliance is plotting to ask the Queen to sack Boris Johnson as PM in a DAY if he refuses to beg Brussels for a Brexit extension. Opposition parties plan to use a Humble Address – a direct call f The Alliance, led by Lib Dem boss Jo Swinson, also wants to use the address to force the government to produce documents on its Brexit plans. However, a Cabinet minister told Bloomberg News that No10 had taken legal advice and was confident a Humble Address could not be used to boot Boris out of Downing Street. The move comes...

NEW: Attorney General William Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials, including in the U.K. and Italy, seeking their help in investigation of the Russia investigation.

If you've been sweating your way through the past few muggy weeks, it may seem impossible for you to remember a time when it was actually cold enough outside to warrant hats and scarves. But on June 24, a dairy farmer in Ireland tweeted out a pic of one of his calves sporting baby pink earmuffs, and the internet went wild. "So it turns out ear muffs for calves to stop them getting frostbite are a real thing," wrote Twitter user @ThisFarmingMan_. The post has since been liked 171,000 times and garnered more than 30,000 responses. But this isn't the...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, September 30, 2019 Northern California Resident Charged with Acting as an Illegal Agent American Citizen Arrested for Acting as an Illegal Foreign Agent of the People’s Republic of China The Department of Justice unsealed charges today in a criminal complaint charging Xuehua Peng, also known as Edward Peng, 56, for acting as an illegal foreign agent in delivering classified United States national security information to officials of the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS).“According to the allegations, Peng conducted numerous dead drops here in the...

Ex-Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger was "unreasonable" when she mistakenly entered her neighbor's apartment "commando-style" last year and fatally shot him, thinking he was an intruder, prosecutors said Monday during closing arguments in her murder trial. "A guilty verdict in this case does not mean you hate police. This has nothing to do with politics," prosecutor Jason Fine told the jurors. But the defense argued to jurors that at that moment, Guyger truly believed she was acting in self-defense when she thought she was at her apartment, which is one floor directly below that of neighbor Botham Jean. "It's one...

TOMBALL, Texas — The disturbing story of an 8-year-old Tomball boy who was beaten unconscious at school Tuesday struck a chord with parents across the nation. Christian Boynton, a third-grader, was ambushed when he arrived at Lakewood Elementary School, according to Kailee Boynton, his sister. "They pinned my brother down. They were beating him. They beat him to the point of unconsciousness, where they continued to beat him," Kailee said. "They went through his backpack." Christian was rushed to Texas Children's Hospital after being found unconscious in the bathroom. Neurologists treated him for a brain bleed and monitored him for...

MADISON, Wis. - After announcing his retirement on his blog on Sunday, Police Chief Mike Koval is voicing his reasons for the sudden exit. "I'm tired of the politics. The politics has been oppressive to me," said Koval. "And frankly we're getting ready to go through another budgetary process where I am completely frustrated in terms of what I believe are important priorities for this department that probably won't be met. And I get it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it. And that certainly doesn't mean I have...

Joe Biden has insisted he doesn't want Barack Obama's endorsement in his third run for the presidency. But if history is any gauge, Obama had no intention of going out on a limb for his former VP this time around. The 'bromance' between the former president and Joe Biden that blossomed when Obama took office in 2008, dissipated in the post-White House years, according to an upcoming book about the pair: Barack and Joe: The Making of an Extraordinary Partnership. While the two men did develop a strong affection for one another, there were times Biden drove Obama over the...

In a touching moment on Monday, Donald Trump embraced a wounded and wheel-chair bound veteran from Afghanistan who sang 'God Bless America' at a ceremony to honor the new incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The rare display of affection from the president came after U.S. Army Captain Luis Avila sang the patriotic hymn in a ceremony filled with a 21-gun salute, a fife and drum corp, military bands, and other pomp and circumstance. It was an emotional moment for those present, which included Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs...

A staffer for Rep. Adam Schiff’s House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence took a trip to Ukraine last month sponsored and organized by the Atlantic Council think tank. The Atlantic Council is funded by and routinely works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The Schiff staffer, Thomas Eager, is also currently one of 19 fellows at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Congressional Fellowship, a bipartisan program that says it “educates congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region.” Eager’s trip to Ukraine last month was...

The discussion was another instance of the president using American diplomacy for potential personal gain. President Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call. The White House restricted access to the call’s transcript to a small group of the president’s aides, one of the officials said, an unusual decision that is similar to the handling of a July call with the Ukrainian president that...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that if the House impeaches President Trump he will “have no choice” but to hold a trial in the Senate and a vote on removing the president from office. His comments in an interview with CNBC confirm the position he took in an interview with NPR in March, and the conclusion of a Senate staff memo that was obtained by HuffPost. “Under the Senate rules we’re required to take it up if the House does go down that path, and we’ll follow the Senate rules,” McConnell said Monday. “It’s a Senate rule related...

Politically engaged bikers want to ride to Washington to defend President Trump against the threat of impeachment from House Democrats. Multiple pro-Trump organizers have expressed interest in swarming Capitol Hill in a demonstration of support for Trump, whose blunt style and populist appeals won intense support from the biker community. Trump defenders buzzing about the concept see it as a way to express opposition to ousting Trump among ordinary people, while Trump critics have expressed alarm about the optics and intent of participants.

A federal court ruled University of Iowa officials must pay out of their own pockets for discriminating against a prominent Christian student group, calling the university's conduct "ludicrous" and "incredibly baffling" during a hearing last week. Judge Stephanie M. Rose of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa ruled Friday that the University of Iowa and its officers violated constitutional law when they kicked InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and other religious groups, off the campus in June 2018 for requiring leaders to uphold Christian beliefs -- but giving a pass to secular student groups that also have leadership...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on the July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing a senior State Department official. The revelation could implicate the State Department more closely in the House of Representatives’ ongoing impeachment inquiry into Trump over his request to Zelensky during the call that Ukraine investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. The House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight Committees last week subpoenaed Pompeo for documents concerning the administration’s contacts with the Ukrainian government.

It hasn’t been a good year to be a cop in New York City, but at 12:30 Sunday morning at the gang-plagued Edenwald Houses in the Bronx, bad became infinitely worse. ... Then onlookers loudly did their best to escalate the incident — wishing the cops on the scene dead, among other ugly things. How many cops on the beat fear ending up as a scapegoat — as did Daniel Pantaleo, fired in the Garner case — and hesitate for a fatal split-second in responding to a lethal challenge? It doesn’t help that many cops believe, quite reasonably, they’ve been...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a mediocre political strategist, but a very good tactician. We should not make the mistake of thinking that we understand something about the politics of impeachment over the Ukraine call that she does not.Pelosi, who would love to remove Trump but has no realistic options for doing so, has had to thread the needle on impeachment for months. With roughly 200 House Democrats now supporting impeachment to various degrees (or perhaps 218, depending on whose head counter you trust), her options dwindled, and no longer included verbal gymnastics alone.The latest Ukraine-related non-scandal is almost irrelevant...

After the Mueller report came out AG Barr was called before a committee to testify. During that testimony he promised to investigate the origins of the hoax. President Trump likewise tweeted that he was excited for Barr to get to the bottom of this hoax. So when President Trump asked for a “favor” and then brings up crowdstrike, he was clearly seeking the cooperation in investigating the origins of the Russian hoax.