Pakistan Has All the Leverage Over Trump

Why Islamabad isn’t worried about threats to cut off U.S. aid

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'This is dangerous': Trump's North Korea tweet alarms Democratic lawmakers

Members of Congress returning to Washington were quick to condemn President Trump's Tuesday-night tweet taunting North Korea’s Kim Jong Un about the sizes of their so-called nuclear buttons.

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Book Suggests New Aspects of Obstruction Case

Rachel Maddow highlights excerpts in the new Michael Wolff book, Fire and Fury, that add details and possible new avenues of inquiry for potential obstruction of justice cases against the Trump team.

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'I Screwed Up': Sean Spicer Says He Regrets Comments on Inauguration Crowd Size and Hitler

The former White House press secretary says it felt "really bad" when he messed up

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The tax bill that makes Trump POSTUS (president of some of the United States)

The tax bill’s message from Republican lawmakers to Democratic-voting states seems to be: “You’re not our people, so go get bent.”

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10 things from the explosive new book drawing fire and fury from Trump

Michael Wolff’s upcoming book about President Trump’s first year in office, “Fire and Fury,” has sent shockwaves through the White House. Here are 10 notable revelations gleaned from the excerpts published so far.

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Joshua Boyle: Canadian father held hostage by Taliban in Afghanistan for five years charged with sexual assault

A father held hostage by Taliban-linked militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan for five years has been charged with sexual assault. Joshua Boyle, 34, who with his wife Caitlan Coleman Boyle was captured by the Haqqani network in Afghanistan in October 2012, will have his case discussed during a brief preliminary hearing at a court in Ottowa, Canada, on Wednesday. The Canadian citizen, whose American wife gave birth to their three children while in captivity, faces a total of 15 charges, including eight counts of assault, two of sexual assault, two claims of unlawful confinement, and one accusation of uttering death threats.

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Earthquake hits San Francisco, shaking Berkeley awake

San Francisco Bay area residents have been shaken awake by a 4.5-magnitude earthquake, which hit the region in the early hours of Thursday. The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake's epicenter was two miles from Berkeley, California. The earthquake had a preliminary depth of eight miles. No damage or injuries was immediately recorded, but supermarket produce was shaken from its shelves and ceiling panels knocked loose. The quake hit at 2:39am local time, and the USGS website said that people reported feeling the quake 40 miles south, in San Jose.  The Did You Feel It? survey form for the Berkeley, CA M4.4 EQ is back up and running: https://t.co/jY2poBayEX Please tell us what you felt. http://pic.twitter.com/OVb8r4p22q— USGS (@USGS) January 4, 2018 "Felt like a big truck drove into the building or something blew up downstairs. It just rocked the room and bed like two or three times quickly with a decently loud rumble in North Berkeley," Dale Fest wrote on the San Francisco Chronicle's Facebook page . Jack Boatwright, a geophysicist with the USGS Earthquake Science Center in Menlo Park, said the shaking from the quake "seemed a little weak, about half as strong as what you would expect." He told the Chronicle that by 4:15 a.m., there had been no aftershocks, which he called "a good sign. It may mean less likelihood of a larger earthquake to follow." San Francisco sits on the San Andreas Fault, a continental transform fault that extends roughly 750 miles through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The quake was on the Hayward Fault, part of the San Andreas Fault. The Hayward Fault is capable of producing a 7-magnitude fault, which would have caused significantly more damage.  Its last major earthquake was a 6.8-magnitude quake, which occurred on October 21st, 1868, destroying downtown Hayward and killing five people, injuring 30. It was considered the "Great Earthquake" until 1906, when San Francisco was hit by its last major quake, which killed 700 people. The region is considered overdue for another quake, given they usually occur every 140 years.  

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California recreational marijuana sales begin as Trump administration toughens laws

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday reversed official policy that had tolerated the growing state-based movement to legalize marijuana sales, just three days after California formally permitted recreational use of the drug.

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The White House Loves To Rewrite Resumes Of Ex-Trump Aides Who Cause Trouble For Him

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump on Wednesday released a head-scratching statement in response to explosive comments by his former chief strategist Steve Bannon, detailed in a forthcoming book.

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Steve Bannon Tries To Mend Ties With Trump, After Trump All But Erases Him

WASHINGTON ― Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is standing by Donald Trump, even after the president on Wednesday widened an extraordinary rift with him ― and Bannon’s conservative allies sought to distance themselves ― in response to explosive comments Bannon made in a forthcoming book.

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Anti-Immigrant Signs Pop Up On California Highways As State Becomes A Sanctuary

As California officially became a “sanctuary state” at the start of the new year, fake signs with anti-immigrant messages appeared near the state’s borders.

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Windsor begging clampdown urged ahead of royal wedding

The leader of the local authority covering Windsor Castle has called for police action against "aggressive begging" ahead of Prince Harry's wedding there in May, it emerged on Wednesday. Simon Dudley, the leader of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, wrote to the local police chief to warn that the beggars' possessions, sometimes left unattended on the streets, presented a security risk. Harry is due to marry American actress Meghan Markle on May 19 at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, one of the residences of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II.

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Ivanka Trump Reportedly Imagined Herself As The First Female President

Ivanka Trump reportedly had some pretty high aspirations for herself when her father became president.

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Trump Lawyer Sends Cease-And-Desist Letter To Steve Bannon

A lawyer for President Donald Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter to Steve Bannon on Wednesday after the former White House chief strategist’s incendiary comments about the Trump presidency were revealed in a forthcoming book.

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Former Taliban Hostage Joshua Boyle Charged With Sexual Assault

He is facing 15 charges including forcible confinement

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Man jumps from emergency exit on airplane, stands on wing

A passenger on a Ryanair plane was arrested after he opened the emergency exit and climbed onto the wing of the aircraft. SEE ALSO: Some jerk just diverted a flight by naming his hotspot 'bomb on board' A Ryanair spokesperson confirmed the "security breach" occurred after landing at Malaga airport, Spain, on Jan. 1.   "Malaga airport police immediately arrested the passenger in question and since this was a breach of Spanish safety and security regulations, it is being dealt with by the Spanish authorities," the spokesperson continued.  Per the BBC, the incident occurred after passengers had been kept on board the plane for 30 minutes after landing due to an earlier delay. The passenger in question reportedly forced open the plane's emergency exit and made his way onto the wing, where he had to be talked down from.  The Daily Mail spoke to several passengers on board at the time, one of whom says the man was suffering from an asthma attack and needed some air. "It seems nobody noticed that the man who decided to exit the plane was suffering from asthma," Raj Mistry told the Mail.  "He needed air, hence he decided to exit the plane but Civil Guards didn't want to listen to what he had to say," Mistry said. "I was talking to him throughout the flight and there was a few times he was using his inhaler. He also took medication just before the flight took off."   The man was subsequently arrested by airport security and the incident is being dealt with by the Spanish authorities.  WATCH: Why this year in smartphone design has been epic

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Bannon reveals key insights into Trump and his family in new book

In a new book by journalist Michael Wolff, Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon says there's 'zero' chance Donald Trump Jr. did not take the attendees to the July 2016 Trump Tower meeting to meet his father.

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Failed asylum seekers blamed for rise in violent crime in Germany

The large migrant influx to Germany in recent years has fuelled a rise in violent crime, according to the findings of a new government report. Rejected asylum-seekers from countries considered safe were behind much of the rise, while genuine refugees from countries such as Syria and Iraq were more rarely involved, the study found. The report’s authors have called on Angela Merkel’s government to do more to return economic migrants posing as asylum-seekers to their own countries. Violent crime rose by 10.4 per cent between 2014 and 2016 in Lower Saxony, the German state chosen for the study.  The rise coincides with Mrs Merkel’s 2015 decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees, and the study found asylum-seekers were responsible for more than 92 per cent of the increase.  But it found that those whose asylum claims had been refused by the authorities were disproportionately frequent offenders. Asylum applications in Germany People from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, who are routinely refused asylum in Germany as their home countries are considered safe, accounted for fewer than 1 per cent of asylum-seekers in Lower Saxony, but more than 17 per cent of violent crimes. “It’s made clear to the North Africans from the outset that they have no chances here, that they must all go home,” Christian Pfeiffer, one of the report’s authors, told ZDF television. “The war refugees are very quickly told they can stay. And then, of course, they try to do nothing wrong.” Prof Pfeiffer, a criminologist and former regional interior minister of Lower Saxony, called on the government to spend more on sending rejected asylum-seekers home.  “It’s not enough just to say they should be deported. I think it’s time for a new perspective in refugee policy: namely to invest large amounts of money in a return program,” he said. The report’s findings match high-profile cases like that of Anis Amri, the rejected Tunisian asylum-seeker who killed 12 people when he drove a lorry into a crowded Berlin Christmas market in 2016. Rejected asylum-seekers are often allowed to remain in Germany in a semi-legal state. They are not allowed to work and have limited access to benefits. While terror attacks dominate the headlines, they accounted for little of the rise in violent crime. The report found most of the surge was caused by violence between migrants: 90 per cent of victims killed by asylum-seekers were themselves foreign nationals. The fact most asylum-seekers are young males aged between 14 and 30 was a major factor in the violence, according to Prof Pfeiffer. “Everywhere the lack of women has a negative effect. This increases the risk that young men conform to violent masculinity norms,” he said. For this reason, he argued, calls to allow family reunification for those granted asylum were “not stupid”.

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These 3 Maps Explain the 4.5 Magnitude Earthquake in San Francisco

The quake hit early on Thursday morning.

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