The president on Tuesday exercised his pardon power, granting clemency to or commuting the sentences of nearly a dozen people convicted of crimes.
Former New York city mayor Mike Bloomberg downplayed China's contribution to climate change during Wednesday night's Democratic debate, arguing that the rapidly industrializing superpower has "slowed down" its pollution in recent years.“Well you’re not going to go to war with them. You have to negotiate with them, and we’ve seen how well that works, with tariffs that are hurting us” Bloomberg said. “What we have to do is convince the Chinese that it is in their interest as well — their people are going to die, just as our people are going to die, and we’ll work together. In all fairness, the Chinese have slowed down, it’s India that is even a bigger problem.”While China has made progress in curbing emissions in recent years, it remains the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide due to its massive population and commensurate manufacturing base.Bloomberg has repeatedly defended the Chinese Communist Party in the past, and said in September that “Xi Jinping is not a dictator,” when asked a similar question on PBS’s Firing Line on how to limit China’s greenhouse emissions.“China is doing a lot, India is doing some, but I think that China is doing a lot. Yes, they are still burning a lot of coal-fired power plants, yes they are, but they’re now moving plants away from the cities,” Bloomberg claimed. “The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China and they listen to the public. When the public says ‘I can’t breathe the air,’ Xi Jingping is not a dictator, he has to satisfy his constituents or he’s not going to survive.”The comments drew a scathing criticism from Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), who called Bloomberg’s remarks “the kind of stupid you can’t script.”Bloomberg has extensive business interests in China, and has headed efforts to allow the trading of Chinese currency in U.S. banks. In 2013, The New York Times reported that Bloomberg’s media conglomerate stifled its reporting on Chinese premier Xi Jingping after Beijing imposed restrictions on the Bloomberg News for its investigative reporting.Bloomberg did not deny that his company halted its reporting in accordance with Beijing's censorship demands in comments to CNBC in 2014.“In China, they have rules about what you can publish. We follow those rules. If you don’t follow the rules, you’re not in the country,” he said.
Dramatic video shows a Kentucky man allegedly attempting to rob a Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers in Louisville. Then, two off-duty cops stepped in.
Well-wishers at Pope Francis' weekly audience have thrust soccer T-shirts, flowers and many a wailing baby into his arms. On Wednesday, Francis seemed to thoroughly enjoy a surprise expression of affection: a long, tender kiss planted on his forehead by a man in one of the front-row seats reserved for ailing or disabled people at the end of his audience. Francis appeared to be smiling when the man, who stood up when the pontiff approached to greet him and others in the front row, pulled the pope's head toward him and gave a kiss lasting several seconds, pressing his nose against Francis' forehead in the process.
Moscow is to impose a blanket ban on Chinese visitors over coronavirus fears in a move that will hit its tourism industry as experts question the need for such "draconian" measures. Moscow will ban all Chinese citizens from entering its territory from Thursday. It has already halted visa-free tourism for Chinese nationals and stopped issuing them with work visas and suspended rail links and restricted air travel.
The only way to get to Miami's exclusive Fisher Island is by a seven minute ferry, and two women inexplicably fell off it and died last night.
The ACLU races to retrieve years of ICE detention records that they say are critical to holding ICE accountable for abuses and misconduct.
An experienced hurricane hunting crew chasing a winter storm came across a far different discovery this past weekend. In what is know as St. Elmo's fire, footage of the forking electric discharge was captured on Saturday by pilots as the spectacle flashed throughout the cockpit.The video, captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Aircraft Operations Center (AOC), was taken as pilots flew across the Atlantic Ocean amid thunderstorms. NOAA deployed the hunters to support a project analyzing ocean surface winds in winter storms over the North Atlantic.The flight took place as Storm Dennis chugged along in the North Atlantic approaching Ireland and the United Kingdom.While frightening and shocking on camera, AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Samuhel said the actual charge from the weather phenomenon is harmless, especially for those surrounded by the metal shell of the aircraft."St. Elmo's fire is a phenomena that has occurred throughout human history. Before it was reported on planes, it happened on ships in the open ocean," Samuhel said. "It happens when the charge of an object is much different than the charge of the air. Unlike lightning when huge bolts of electricity jump across a large distance from one charge to another, St. Elmo's fire happens on a very small scale." Sprawling displays of St. Elmo's fire illuminated the cockpit of a crew flying across the Atlantic Ocean. (NOAA Corps) Named after St. Erasmus of Formia, the patron saint of sailors, reports of St. Elmo's fire trace back thousands of years to ancient Greece and tales of the marvel were consistently shared by ship fleets.St. Elmo's fire differs from lightning in that it is simply a glow of electrons in the air, whereas lightning is the movement of electricity from a charged cloud to the ground. In a thunderstorm, where the surrounding environment is electrically charged, the phenomenon is sparked when a charged object, such as a ship mast or airplane nose, causes a dramatic difference in charge, emitting a visual discharge. It can most simply be compared to a continuous spark."The point of the nose of an aircraft gives electricity an easy path to flow, as does the mast of the ship," Samuhel said. "These locations are where St. Elmo's fire is most common."CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APPIn historical recounts of St. Elmo's fire, writers such as Julius Caesar and Charles Darwin depict the instances as a steady glow."Everything is in flames: the sky with lightning, the water with luminous particles and even the very masts are pointed with a blue flame," Darwin wrote while aboard the Beagle as he traveled across the Atlantic.For experienced pilots like the Hurricane Hunters, the light show in front of them likely wouldn't have induced any fear or panic, although the event could be a sign of stormy weather ahead."It lasted about three minutes," explained Maria Ines Rubio, a flight attendant who witnessed the phenomenon in 2017, to The Washington Post. "I wasn't nervous, because it a rather normal occurrence when you get into a strong enough storm."The phenomenon, also known as a corona discharge, is "commonly observed on the periphery of propellers and along the wing tips, windshield, and nose of aircraft flying in dry snow, in ice crystals, or near thunderstorms," according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
President Trump granted a full pardon to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik on Tuesday, clearing him of his eight counts of tax fraud, lying to federal investigators, and other crimes that accompanied his downfall. Kerik had already served his three years in prison for his crimes, but the pardon wipes out more than his criminal record, the New York Daily News reports. "The pardon cancels out $103,300 in restitution that Kerik still owed the Internal Revenue Service as part of his sentence, according to a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan."The White House credited Kerik's friend and former boss in New York City, Rudy Giuliani — now Trump's personal lawyer and Ukraine fixer — for helping persuade Trump to pardon Kerik. Another friend of both Kerik and Trump, Newsmax chief executive Christopher Ruddy, told the Daily News that Trump's pardon was "a just decision" in light of Kerik's "minor stuff" crimes.One of Kerik's former colleagues in the Giuliani administration, NYC Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, recalled Kerik's multifaceted downfall from heroic 9/11 figure to flamed-out reject for Homeland Security secretary slightly differently back in late 2004, The New Yorker recounted: "Officials have gotten into trouble for sexual misconduct, abusing their authority, personal bankruptcy, failure to file documents, waste of public funds, receiving substantial unrecorded gifts, and association with organized crime figures. It is rare for anyone to be under fire on all seven of the above issues."More stories from theweek.com Mike Bloomberg is not the lesser of two evils Buttigieg hits Bloomberg and Sanders in 1 swoop: 'Let's put forth someone who is actually a Democrat' Elizabeth Warren defends Amy Klobuchar for forgetting the name of Mexico's president