| Ottawa lowers Canadian death toll in Iran air crash to 57 Posted: 10 Jan 2020 05:26 PM PST  Canada on Friday lowered the number of its citizens killed in the crash of a jetliner in Iran from 63 to 57. "This is based on additional information we had about birth dates and comparing the travel documents that people were travelling on when they boarded the flight," Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told a press conference. All 176 people on the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight died in the crash this week just after takeoff from Tehran on a flight to Kiev.
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| US tried to kill Iranian commander in Yemen same night as Soleimani strike: Officials Posted: 10 Jan 2020 04:45 PM PST  An unsuccessful strike on another high-ranking Iranian military commander took place in Yemen on the same night a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, two sources told ABC News. The Jan. 2 nighttime strike targeted Abdul Reza Shahla'i, a key Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander, at his compound in Yemen, where he led Iran's military support for the Houthi rebel group backed by Iran, according to a counterterrorism official and a U.S. official.
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| San Diego College Student Killed Alongside Her Mother and Sister in Ukrainian Plane Crash Posted: 10 Jan 2020 04:32 PM PST  Ukraine Plane Crash Victims in Iran Include San Diego College Student
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| Hannity Appears to Threaten to Give Out GOP Senators’ Phone Numbers if They Allow Impeachment Witnesses Posted: 10 Jan 2020 04:18 PM PST  During his radio show on Friday, Fox News host Sean Hannity appeared to threaten to publicize Republican senators' phone numbers if they vote to allow witnesses to be called during the Senate impeachment trial, which could begin as early as next week."They now get to present their case to all of you Republican senators," Hannity said, in comments first spotted by Media Matters. "Don't make me start giving out the phone number!"It isn't entirely clear, however, what phone number Hannity was threatening to start "giving out." Within the context of his remarks, though, it would appear to be either senators' office numbers or the United States Capitol switchboard number.Hannity has a history of urging his listeners to call up lawmakers or other political figures in an effort to sway opinion. Earlier this week, he aired Congress' main number on his primetime show, telling viewers to tell their Congress members to "do their damn job." Last month, he told listeners of his radio show to call the Georgia governor to switch his choice for a Senate replacement.The pro-Trump media star went on to complain that it is the House of Representatives' "sole Constitutional role" to impeach, claiming that they "decided in their insanity and psychosis and rage to abuse that power and bring up what is a non-case.""That is not what your role is in the U.S. Senate," he added. "Your role is also very very clear, you are to run the trial. That's it. That's what your job is. It is not your job, at all, to redo their corrupt investigation!"With Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announcing that she will send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate next week, Hannity told Republicans that he would allow them to call one witness in the impeachment trial."It's not your job to present their case, let them bring in their one relevant witness, Ambassador Sondland, or read back his testimony," he exclaimed. "And do not—let them fail spectacularly, as they will, that's your role. It starts Wednesday. Do your job. Show fidelity to the Constitution."Hannity apparently threatening to unleash angry Trump supporters on specific GOP lawmakers comes on the heels of moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) announcement on Friday that she's working with "a fairly small group" of Republican senators to make sure witnesses are called in the upcoming impeachment trial. Collins remarks come after former National Security Adviser John Bolton said he'd be open to testifying to the Senate after his lawyers said he has relevant information about President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine.Chris Wallace: Trump Has 'Himself to Blame' for Iran 'Skepticism'Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Ukraine handed crash plane black boxes as Tehran rejects rogue missile theory Posted: 10 Jan 2020 04:17 PM PST  Ukrainian investigators said they had gained access to the black boxes that may reveal whether an airliner that crashed in Tehran was shot down by an Iranian missile as fears rose that the crash site had been tampered with. Vadim Prysatsko, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said on Friday that Iran had allowed a 50-strong Ukrainian team access to the black boxes and the crash site, but refused to comment on Western governments' claims that it was hit by anti-aircraft fire. "We're analyzing pieces of the plane, we're analyzing the bodies and we're analyzing chemical residue," Mr Prystaiko said at a press conference in Kyiv. "We want to come to conclusions. We don't want to come to them right now. Right now, we're not ruling out any theories." Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 crashed six minutes after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport early on Wednesday morning, killing all 176 people on board. Ukrainian Minister for Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystayko refused to comment on Western reports that the aircraft had been shot down Credit: Efrem Lukatsky/ AP The crash came hours after Iran launched a missile strike against US forces in Iraq, prompting speculation that the aircraft was a casualty of crossfire. The United States, Canada, and Britain said on Thursday that they had intelligence suggesting the aircraft had been shot down, probably unintentionally, by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. The Netherlands on Friday said its intelligence services had reached the same conclusion. But Iran on Friday insisted all its anti-aircraft weapons were accounted for and accused Mr Raab of "politicizing" the tragedy. "From our side we can confirm that no missile was triggered in the area," Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran's ambassador to London. "We need to avoid politicisation of the issue. The victims need sympathy and calm. We should not allow ourselves to go to judgments that are not credible at this time," he said. Hassan Rezaeifar, the head of Iran's investigation team into the crash, said that the black box analysis will be done in a laboratory in Iran and that it will take up to two months to extract its data and that the entire investigation into the crash could take more than one year. He said that Tehran will use expert help from Russia, Ukraine, France and Canada "if we cannot recover data" from the plane's recorders. Iran also said it was expecting a 10-person delegation from Canada, which lost at least 57 citizens in the crash, to take part in the investigation, and would welcome officials from Boeing and the United States National Transportation Safety Board, reversing initial statements that it would not cooperate with the US. François-Philippe Champagne, Canada's foreign minister, said on Friday that he believed some debris from the crash site had been moved to a hangar in Tehran. Steve Mnuchin, the US Treasury Secretary, said he would issue sanctions waivers to anyone involved in the investigation. Iran faced accusations of attempting to cover up evidence on Friday as reports emerged that the crash site had been cleared and footage emerged that appeared to show a missile impact. Iran crisis | Read more CBS News said much of the site had been cleared of wreckage when its journalists were allowed to visit the scene on Friday morning. Ukrainian media published several reports suggesting the area had been cleared by bulldozers. Iranian officials denied the reports, saying any heavy equipment was part of the recovery effort. Mr Prystaiko also dismissed the suggestion of tampering, but added that the debris is spread over a large area and that Ukrainian experts are present only at one spot. Earlier The New York Times released footage it said it had verified, showing a fast-moving object rising to an angle into the sky before a flash is seen, which dims and then continues moving forward. Several seconds later an explosion is heard. The video was taken in Parand, near Tehran's international airport, was originally published on the Telegraph messaging service. The investigative organisation Bellingcat said it had geolocated the video and believed it to be credible. Rescue crews at work on Wednesday morning. Iran denied reports on Friday that the site had been tampered with Credit: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, confirmed that the US believes it "likely" the airliner was shot down but that it would wait for the outcome of the investigation before making a final determination. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, on Friday changed official travel advice to warn British nationals not to travel to Iran "given the body of information that UIA Flight 752 was shot down by an Iranian Surface to Air Missile, and the heightened tensions." He said the FCO also recommended against taking a flight to, from and within Iran.
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| N.Ireland government returns after three-year suspension Posted: 10 Jan 2020 03:56 PM PST  Northern Ireland's government will reopen for the first time in three years on Saturday after rival parties rallied around a new power-sharing agreement that can help the volatile province handle the pressures of Brexit. The UK government in London also promised a large cash infusion into the tiny but strategically vital region if the republican Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) came to terms. "Sinn Fein has taken the decision to re-enter the power-sharing institution and nominate ministers to the power-sharing executive," party leader Mary Lou McDonald told reporters.
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| Iran fallout deepens rift between Washington and Europe Posted: 10 Jan 2020 03:12 PM PST  The old allies are a literal ocean apart when it comes to NATO's job description for the Middle East and the role of diplomacy towards Iran.
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| Chris Wallace: Trump Has ‘Himself to Blame’ for Iran ‘Skepticism’ Posted: 10 Jan 2020 02:54 PM PST  Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace doesn't think President Donald Trump or anyone else in his administration should be surprised that Congress and the American people are not taking their claims about an "imminent" threat from Iran at face value. Speaking to Fox News' Bret Baier on Friday afternoon, Wallace said, "I think to a certain degree, the administration has itself to blame. Because right away the president and Mike Pompeo, when he was doing all five Sunday shows this last week, was saying 'imminent, imminent, imminent.'" He said that "understandably" people want to know what "imminent" actually meant in this case. As the host laid it out, Trump first said Gen. Qassem Soleimani was targeting an American embassy and is now claiming there were plots against four embassies. "I think if they had been a little more forthcoming right from the start, they might not have allowed this skepticism to build." "And look, to a certain degree, I think the president has himself to blame, because who has been more critical and less sort of just trusting of the intelligence agencies than Donald Trump over the last three years?" Wallace asked. "So, you know, why shouldn't we be skeptical too?"All of that being said, Wallace agreed with Baier that this entire episode has been a "political win" for Trump if the conflict with Iran does not escalate any further. "But we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow," he said. "And if they strike again, whether it's directly or through a proxy and you begin to see tensions ratchet up, then some people are going to say, are we really safer or not?" Fox News Host Hits Trump for Attacking Chris Wallace: You're 'Not Entitled to Praise'Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Trump 'did business with' organisation Soleimani was part of years before death of Iran general Posted: 10 Jan 2020 02:14 PM PST  The Iranian general whose killing sparked a week of heightened tensions between the US and Iran ran an organisation which Donald Trump once indirectly did business with, according to reemerged reports.During Major Gen Qassem Soleimani's nearly two decades at the top of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds force, the organisation cultivated connections to oligarchs and their businesses as it established a network of sanctions-evading entities which it has used to fund itself and support clandestine activities across the Middle East and around the world.
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| Cryptocurrency expert released on $1M bond in sanctions case Posted: 10 Jan 2020 02:08 PM PST |
| Your Evening Briefing Posted: 10 Jan 2020 02:04 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Want to receive this post in your inbox every afternoon? Sign up hereU.S. intelligence agencies long ago concluded Russia carried out a sophisticated operation in 2016 to damage former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and ultimately help real estate developer Donald Trump win the presidential election. Now, they are assessing whether the Kremlin is trying to undermine former Vice President Joseph Biden, a current Democratic front-runner to unseat Trump, in the same way. Part of the inquiry is to determine whether Moscow is attempting to weaken the Democrat by fueling unsubstantiated Republican claims about his son and U.S. policy toward Ukraine. Trump was impeached and faces trial in the Senate over his effort to have Ukraine interfere in the 2020 campaign by investigating Biden.Here are today's top storiesTrump claimed Iran had been targeting four American embassies before he ordered the killing of a top Iranian general. The administration hasn't made public any evidence of such plans or an imminent attack Trump's aides claimed justified the U.S. assassination.Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House will prepare to send articles of impeachment to the Senate next week after failing to secure a pledge from Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the trial's structure, including the inclusion of witnesses. Trump said he'd invoke executive privilege to prevent former National Security Adviser John Bolton from testifying if witnesses are allowed.The Trump administration on Friday said it imposed new sanctions on Iran. The Islamic Republic, meanwhile, accused the West of "psychological warfare" for claiming a Boeing jet that crashed near Tehran was downed by Iranian missiles. If it was, there should be clear signs in the wreckage. Boeing released a damaging new batch of internal messages in which company employees discussed deep unease with the 737 Max before the aircraft suffered two crashes that killed a total of 346 people. "This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys," said one company pilot in a 2016 message.The U.S. labor market ended the year with less momentum, as payroll gains cooled by more than forecast and wages rose at the weakest annual pace since 2018.The economic cost of Brexit has already hit $170 billion, according to research conducted by Bloomberg Economics. And the bill is still rising.What's Luke Kawa thinking about? The Bloomberg cross-asset reporter says the window for junk issuers in the energy sector may have gotten a little wider thanks to the temporary jump in crude prices caused by the U.S.-Iran confrontation. It helps that producers are actively hedging, too.What you'll need to know tomorrowHollywood made 532 TV shows in 2019, and it's making more. Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force. A cheaper alternative to Obamacare is a hit in Idaho. New vaping devices want to fix what went wrong at Juul. Life on the run is proving expensive for Carlos Ghosn. The Pentagon is auditing the troubled F-35 fighter program. A London mansion with 45 rooms may shatter price records.What you'll want to read in Bloomberg PursuitsAt its most extreme, a Tesla Model S can hit 60 mph in 2.4 seconds. That's faster than many supercars, electric or not. For some, however, it's still not fast enough. Unplugged Performance, the tuning shop next door to Tesla headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., guarantees its modifications will shave seconds off your personal best lap times.To contact the author of this story: Josh Petri in Portland at jpetri4@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Man burned as huge wildfire forms during Australia crisis Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:47 PM PST  Two wildfires merged to form a massive inferno in southeast Australia on Saturday, near where a man suffered serious burns protecting a home during a night of treacherous conditions during the nation's unprecedented fire crisis. Authorities were assessing the damage after firefighters battled flames fanned by strong winds through the night and lightning strikes sparked new blazes in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia's most populous states. New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters that officials were "extremely relieved" the fires were not been more destructive overnight.
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| U.S. reportedly tried and failed to kill another Iranian leader the same night as the Soleimani strike Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:33 PM PST  The assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani may not have been the only attack the U.S. carried out last week.On the night of Jan. 2, the U.S. sent a drone to attack the leader of Iran's Quds Forces in Baghdad, killing the powerful Iranian figure. But on that same night, U.S. forces also tried and failed to kill another Quds leader, The Washington Post first reported.U.S. forces embarked on the top secret mission in Yemen to kill Abdul Reza Shahlai, a top commander of the Quds, U.S. officials tell the Post. While the officials declined to share details of the still-classified mission, they did say they failed to kill Shahlai. "If we had killed him, we'd be bragging about it that same night," a senior U.S. official said, as there were plans to announce his killing and Soleimani's together. A counter-terrorism official and a U.S. official told ABC News the same information.Shahlai has been active in Yemen as he leads the Iranian military in support of the Houthi rebels fighting the Yemeni government. The U.S. backs the established government in Yemen, and like the Shahlai mission, "U.S. military operations in Yemen ... are shrouded in secrecy," the Post writes.More stories from theweek.com Trump reportedly admitted impeachment played a big role in his Soleimani decision Rush's Neil Peart dies at age 67 Donald Trump is behaving like the guiltiest man alive
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| Trump's new sanctions on Iran are part of a failing strategy that brought them to the brink of war in the first place Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:32 PM PST  Trump's stated goal is ensuring Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, but everything he's done so far has pushed it in the opposite direction.
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| Pompeo has sealed his spot as 'Trump's whisperer' with his mission to beat Iran Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:31 PM PST  The strike on Suleimani represented a significant victory for Pompeo, his outsize influence on Trump and his Iran fixationWhen the US embassy in Baghdad was mobbed on the last day of 2019, a rattled Donald Trump turned to his most hawkish aide, Mike Pompeo, and finally agreed to the extreme measure the secretary of state had long advocated: the assassination of Qassem Suleimani.The drone strike on the Iranian general a week ago may well turn out to be one of the most consequential decisions of the Trump presidency. It represented a significant victory for Pompeo, reflecting his ascendancy in foreign policy and national security spheres.It also highlighted the dwindling of restraining influences in an administration for which confrontation with Iran has become, in the words of one European diplomat, "the one central organising principle that everybody agrees on".Rob Malley, a former senior official in the Obama national security council and now president of the International Crisis Group, said: "What is clear is that Iran is a fixation and obsession for this administration. And it certainly seems to be a fixation of Secretary Pompeo's.""Pompeo is an Iran hawk, and is more powerful than anyone else in the inner circle," said Kirsten Fontenrose, former director for the Gulf in Trump's national security council (NSC), who added that his clout far outweighed the relative newcomers, the defence secretary, Mark Esper, and national security adviser, Robert O'Brien."Pompeo has the credibility of having been CIA director. [Gina] Haspel is CIA director now, but Pompeo is the president's whisperer. He can say what the language [in the president's intelligence briefs] means, and the president listens to him very closely. He has an outsize influence."According to multiple reports, the killing of Suleimani had been presented to Trump as an option several days earlier, when a 27 December attack on an Iraqi military base by an Iranian-backed Shia militia killed an American contractor. On that occasion the president ignored Pompeo's lobbying and chosen a less escalatory reprisal: airstrikes against the militia, Kata'ib Hezbollah.But that led to a counter-punch: Shia militiamen and their supporters rushed into Baghdad's fortified diplomatic quarter, the Green Zone, with no resistance from Iraqi checkpoints and overran the gates of the US embassy compound.The rioters failed to breach the embassy building itself, Iraqi forces eventually arrived on the scene and the militiamen dispersed. There were no US injuries. But the incident unnerved the president. According to an official quoted by CNN, it did not just remind Trump of the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi in 2012 when four Americans were killed, but also the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran after the Iranian revolution, in which 52 US diplomats and staff were taken hostage.The political lesson was clear. The Iran hostage crisis proved fatal for Jimmy Carter's presidency, while the Benghazi attack was used for years to lambast the secretary of state at the time, Hillary Clinton, most of all by then congressman Mike Pompeo.Against that backdrop, Pompeo was pushing at an open door last week when he warned that of the risks of the showing weakness in the Oval Office.It also helped Pompeo's cause that the decision was being made while Trump was on holiday at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, without a full complement of national security staff around him.John Gans, a former Pentagon speechwriter and author of a new book White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War, said those circumstances allowed Pompeo to score "an end run" around the policymaking process."It was very clear that this thing wasn't staffed through," Gans said. "And Pompeo was able to say hey: you didn't choose this option because people thought it was too aggressive earlier in the week, and then he sold him on it. Trump launches, and here we are."Other former officials and analysts argue that Pompeo would have eventually got his way in any circumstances because of the departure over the past three years of voices of caution. According to security analyst Peter Bergen in a recently published book, Trump and his Generals, the former defence secretary James Mattis refused to provide the White House aggressive options on Iran.According to a diplomatic source, the advice of the former chairman of the joint chiefs Gen Joseph Dunford was a key factor in Trump's last-minute decision to call off airstrikes against Iran in June. Their replacements, Esper, a former defence industry lobbyist, and Gen Mark Milley, have not played such a restraining role.At the NSC, traditionally where decisions are debated, there is also no one with the experience and authority to second-guess Pompeo. O'Brien is a lawyer with little national security experience. His deputy, Victoria Coates, who is also senior director for the Middle East, is trained as an art historian, and gained her foreign policy experience as an adviser to Senator Ted Cruz, another hardliner on Iran.Below Coates, a former special forces officer, Rob Greenway, has been given an expanded role to manage policy across the Middle East."He has taken over the whole region, and he has spread the lens of Iran over the whole region," said a former Trump official. "He has been given the job of coordinating an economic war against Iran, and for him, it is all about beating Iran in all these other theatres."According to Fontenrose, a major Yemen reconstruction initiative was sacrificed to the exclusive focus on Iran."Part of that focus is appropriate," she said. "But unfortunately the full vision has been lost. There is no nuance, no light and shade."Some analysts, however, pointed to some recent evolution from a purely Iran-centric view of the Middle East. In a departure last month, the state department Iran envoy, Brian Hook, acknowledged that the Houthi movement in Yemen acted independently from Tehran, and was not just a proxy."The administration's policy focus extends far beyond the Iran file," a senior administration official said. "Other major priority areas include the Middle East Strategic Alliance, Libya, Israel, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, to name a few. In fact, Victoria Coates is currently overseas meeting with Libyans to help resolve the conflict in their country, which speaks to our versatility."
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| Canadian prosecutors say case against Huawei CFO is about fraud, not sanctions Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:25 PM PST  Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou's conduct amounts to fraud under Canadian law and the court need not consider U.S. sanctions law, Canadian federal prosecutors argued in a court filing released on Friday. Meng's legal team argued in November that the Huawei chief financial officer could not be extradited to the United States because her alleged conduct was not illegal in Canada. Canada did not have sanctions against Iran at the time Canadian officials authorized commencing with the extradition, her lawyers said.
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| Jewish neighborhoods in NYC to get 100 new security cameras Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:19 PM PST |
| Commentary: Can The New Silk Road Compete With The Maritime Silk Road? Posted: 10 Jan 2020 01:01 PM PST |
| Trump's dangerous stand-off with Iran is allowing ISIS to plan more attacks in the ensuing chaos Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:56 PM PST  Experts have raised concerns that tensions between the US and Iran may actually embolden a common enemy — the Islamic State — in Iraq.
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| An air-safety expert says that despite Iran's denials, investigators will be able to tell if a missile caused Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 to crash Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:51 PM PST  Iran has doubled down in denying a missile brought the Ukrainian plane down, but the black box and wreckage can offer definitive proof.
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| Texas governor to reject new refugees, first under Trump Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:51 PM PST  Texas will no longer accept the resettlement of new refugees, becoming the first state known to do so under a recent Trump administration order, Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday. Abbott's announcement could have major implications for refugees coming to the United States. Texas has large refugee populations in several of its cities and has long been a leader in settling refugees, taking in more than any other state during the 2018 governmental fiscal year, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
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| US piles on the sanctions pain against Iran Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:45 PM PST  The United States piled new sanctions on Iran's already crippled economy Friday and defended the killing of a top Iranian leader, saying he had been planning an "imminent" attack on US embassies. The sanctions, announced at the White House, marked the latest salvo in a US-Iranian confrontation that risked sliding into war a week ago with the deadly US drone attack on general Qasem Soleimani, by some measures the second most influential person in Iran. In response, Iran fired volleys of ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases housing US troops, without causing casualties.
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| Trump Is Handing Iran Its Biggest Strategic Objective: Iraq Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:41 PM PST  It was barely a year ago that the U.S. outmaneuvered Qassem Soleimani to install Adil Abdul-Mahdi as Iraq's prime minister. But with Soleimani dead in a U.S. drone strike, the U.S. is treating the Iraqi government that U.S. forces created during the 2003-2011 occupation as little more than an adjunct of Iranian strategy. As the Iranians vow that revenge for Soleimani will include the eviction of the U.S. from the Middle East (Tehran's longtime goal), the administration is refusing even to talk with the Iraqis about leaving, dismissing out of hand the very vocal insistence of Abdul-Mahdi and the Iraqi legislature that the Americans get out. While it's not as if the U.S. typically respects Iraqi sovereignty, the Trump administration's hostility toward Baghdad shows the U.S. doesn't need Iranian interference to undermine its position in a country it once considered a cornerstone of its presence in the region. On Friday, Mahdi reiterated that he wants to discuss getting the U.S. out. But the State Department, in a statement about a "continued partnership," ruled out any such discussion. Trump Calls Off His War With Iran for Now to Aggressively Campaign on the Soleimani Hit"At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership—not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East," read Friday's statement, attributed to department spokeswoman Morgan Ortegus. The U.S. military command in Iraq did not respond to a request for comment.The State Department response struck some observers as an escalation–not against Iran but against Iraq, though one that would redound to Iran's benefit. "This will likely be seen by Iraqi officials as a refusal to discuss withdrawal, which in turn will solidify their demands for withdrawal," said Douglas Lute, a retired Army lieutenant general who was White House coordinator for Iraq and Afghanistan for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. "Ending the U.S. presence and partnership in Iraq is the strategic goal most important to Iran. [It] will take the long strategic view, not obstructed by tactics, even tactics like the killing of Soleimani." "We are disappointed that the State Department does not seem interested in working with the Iraqi government on a plan to safely withdraw American forces from Iraq," said Dan Caldwell of Concerned Veterans for America. "The State Department is treating the preferences of a sovereign country and current strategic partner as if they are irrelevant," added William Ruger of the Charles Koch Institute. "This violates the original war aims of Operation Iraqi Freedom of creating a free and democratic Iraq. Instead, it treats Iraq as merely a means for its imprudent maximum pressure campaign against Iran that promises greater hostilities when we should be finding a diplomatic resolution of our differences and the ultimate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Syria."Ever since the Iraqi parliament voted to kick the U.S. out, the administration has tacitly insisted that the vote wasn't legitimate. President Donald Trump threatened to sanction an allied country that in 2014 invited its former occupier back to fight the so-called Islamic State. Ortegus' statement conspicuously said that the U.S. seeks "a conversation between the U.S. and Iraqi governments not just regarding security, but about our financial, economic, and diplomatic partnership."Earlier this week, after a confusing letter from a one-star general seemed to accept the untenability of the U.S. military presence, Defense Secretary Mark Esper insisted, flatly, that the U.S. would not leave. A parliamentary vote to expel the U.S. just "shows the support of the–of most Iraqis for our presence in the country," in Esper's telling. He reasoned that most Sunni and Kurdish parliamentarians didn't vote. "Those Shias who did vote, many of them voted at the threat of a–of their own lives by Shia militia groups," Esper asserted. But Ilan Goldenberg, who dealt with Mideast issues for the Pentagon and State Department in the Obama administration and who advises Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign, said that Esper undermined his own point by dismissing an official act of a sovereign government. "Iraq's biggest nightmare is to end up as the chessboard on which Iran and the U.S. duke it out, and with killing Soleimani, we pretty much fulfilled all their worst fears," said Goldenberg.In the days since the strike, Trump has complained to those close to him that various advisers keep telling him that he would look "weak" and risk a harsh backlash from some GOP lawmakers if he were to actually pull out of Iraq, according to three sources familiar with the conversations. He's told various people that he still wants out of Iraq and other countries, however, while still heeding for the moment the advice of his hawkish officials.For the past week, senior administration officials have been in conversations with their Iraqi counterparts about the vote in parliament, according to both Iraqi and U.S. officials. As the Iran story unfolded in Washington, Iraqi officials in Baghdad consulted among themselves about how to handle whatever the U.S. was planning to do with its troops. Should the parliament continue to demand their ouster? Officials in the prime minister's office and in parliament convened to discuss options for continued U.S.-Iraq partnership on training and other anti-ISIS military operations with a roadmap for total American withdrawal. But for the most part, Iraqi officials waited on Washington to get back to them with a plan for staying, or leaving, or something in between.As the week rolled on, and senior U.S. officials tried to answer Congress' questions about the strike, Baghdad waited. Then, on Friday, it officially asked the administration what its plan for Iraq is–before the State Department issued its statement. For years, U.S. officials have lamented Iran's ability to outplay the U.S. in Iraqi politics–something that during the 2003-2011 war and afterward drove U.S. officials to dismiss inconvenient Iraqi political decisions. Many on the right who opposed leaving Iraq in 2011, particularly the late Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, ignored the lack of parliamentary support for a post-2011 basing agreement and treated withdrawal as a unilateral wish of the Obama administration. On Friday in Baghdad, Iraqis continued their months-long protests against both Iranian and American domination. One of the consistent features of the post-9/11 era is for American adversaries not to respond to the U.S. in ways that play to American strengths, but rather to ensnare the U.S. in protracted conflicts, political as well as military, that display U.S. weaknesses. Another is for the U.S. to declare victory at the outset of escalation, as Trump is doing after the Soleimani killing, before the full consequences of its actions manifest. A third is for the U.S. to learn the hard way that launching missile strikes can undermine the political outcomes it says it seeks, and empower the adversaries it launched those strikes against. All that leads some to conclude that while the U.S. focuses on Iranian military responses to Soleimani, Iran can advance its interests in a more durable manner, particularly while the U.S. muscles its supposed friends."This is a delicate moment where some deft diplomacy can prevent us from being unceremoniously kicked out of Iraq," said Goldenberg, now with the Center for a New American Security. "But the administration has decided to pursue sledgehammer diplomacy instead, precisely what does not work."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Pompeo faces questions about the 'imminent threat' that led to the strike on Iran's Soleimani Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:39 PM PST  In a briefing on Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted the U.S. government had "specific information" that Iran was planning an "imminent" attack on American facilities before President Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
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| Trump news: Pelosi will send impeachment articles to Senate as president announces new Iran sanctions Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:35 PM PST A judge in New York has refused a request by Donald Trump's legal team to have a defamation lawsuit brought against him by the writer E Jean Carroll dismissed, ensuring her allegations of sexual assault are heard while the president seeks re-election.Mr Trump went after his domestic rivals over the Iran crisis during a wild campaign rally in Ohio on Thursday night, suggesting House speaker Nancy Pelosi would have leaked the US plan to assassinate Qassem Soleimani to the media had she had prior warning.
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| Trump Says Iran Had Planned to Attack Four U.S. Embassies Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:28 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said Iran had been targeting four American embassies before he ordered the killing of a top Iranian general."I can reveal that I believe it would've been four embassies," Trump said in an interview with Fox News's Laura Ingraham scheduled to air Friday.On Thursday, Trump said Iran was "looking to blow up" the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, without mentioning the three other embassies.Trump ordered the Jan. 2 strike on Qassem Soleimani after violent protests at the Baghdad embassy that the U.S. says Iran instigated. No Americans were killed in the strike.The president's justifications for killing Soleimani have shifted. He has said the Iranian general was planning unspecified "imminent" attacks against U.S. forces. He has also blamed Soleimani's history of helping to foment unrest in the Middle East and provide weapons to Iraqi militia that were used to kill American troops in the Iraq War.To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Kevin WhitelawFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 52 Places to Go in 2020 Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:23 PM PST  1\. WashingtonSuffragists are remembered, and a culture and dining scene blooms.One hundred years ago, on Aug. 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, and American women had won the right to vote. In Washington, institutions like the Library of Congress, the National Museum of American History and the National Archives Museum have long-running exhibitions either underway or planned to commemorate the milestone. (Admission to all three is free, as it is to most of the city's museums and monuments.) In an election year of perhaps unprecedented political angst, some might find visiting the nation's capital fraught. But in recent years Washington has watched its already-rich culture and dining scene blossom, offering a vast menu of fresh sights and tastes. Away from the halls of government, Washington presents a diverse identity as a majority-minority black city and a cosmopolitan crossroads where American society blends with international influences. The U Street area, sometimes referred to as Black Broadway, is packed with historic theaters and concert halls where jazz flourished and go-go music was pioneered. Beyond a small but growing set of pricier Michelin-starred restaurants, the district has also seen a younger, forward-thinking crop of restaurants emerge, with Ethiopian and Laotian food well represented. Even as a modern, homegrown and ever-changing culture percolates below the surface, though, Washington holds to its historical ideal of a city built on a common heritage -- a place for all Americans to reflect on a shared identity, even in a contentious election year.-- ZACH MONTAGUE2. British Virgin IslandsAn island chain devastated by hurricanes rebounds.Hit by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, the British Virgin Islands have been slow to recover. But this year, a number of resorts will reopen, including Rosewood Little Dix Bay, the iconic resort originally developed by the conservation-minded Laurance Rockefeller in 1964 and was under renovation when the storms hit; it is set to reopen in January. On Norman Island, planned developments for 2020 include three hotels, a marina and an observatory. Offshore, the ship William Thornton, which once housed the floating bar known as Willy T, was damaged and is now part of an artificial reef, but a new vessel has replaced it. Many properties have a new environmental focus. Necker Island, the private island owned by Richard Branson, will finish rebuilding by April, and it will introduce uniforms made from recycled plastic found in the ocean; in 2019, the resort installed wind turbines that have enabled it to run on up to 90% renewable energy. This summer, the Bitter End Yacht Club will open a new marina using recycled materials and a market to provision boat crews; accommodations are scheduled to follow in the fall. Cooper Island Beach Club on Cooper Island, a 15-minute water taxi ride from Tortola, plans to offer packages combining island stays with emissions-free sailing trips aboard a new electric-powered yacht from Voyage Charters.-- ELAINE GLUSAC3\. Rurrenabaque, BoliviaA new protected area invites visitors to see rare wildlife.The small town of Rurrenabaque is the gateway to a lush and thrillingly beautiful part of northwestern Bolivia that offers a twofer for tourists passionate about supporting efforts toward sustainability and protecting endangered species. Bolivia just won an award for best green destination from World Travel Awards for its efforts in making this entire region -- packed with roaring waterfalls and rare wildlife, and home to many indigenous groups -- sustainable while starting programs for ecotourism. Here visitors will find Madidi, one of the world's most biodiverse protected areas, and Rhukanrhuka, an area of tropical rainforest and natural grasslands almost as large as Yellowstone. In June, the Reyes municipal government (in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Rainforest Trust) designated Rhukanrhuka a protected area, one that will conserve endangered titi monkeys, pink river dolphins and other rare wildlife. Go now to take advantage of this newly inviting area before other tourists arrive; the Wildlife Conservation Society has a list of operators it recommends.-- NELL McSHANE WULFHART4. GreenlandLike Iceland, only more vast, more remote and without the crowds (for now).President Donald Trump's desire to purchase Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory, unleashed jokes and diplomatic strains -- and piqued interest in this little-visited island (which counted fewer than 50,000 guests during the first half of 2019). This year, new sustainably focused expedition cruises, some with onboard naturalists and conservationists, are making it easier than ever to explore the least densely populated territory on Earth. Witness the tremendous glacier feeding into the Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site, from the MS Fridtjof Nansen. The new hybrid electric-powered ship from Hurtigruten's cruise fleet, based out of Norway, reduces carbon emissions by 20%. Set course for Northeast Greenland National Park, with its glacial lagoons and shaggy-haired musk oxen, on Lindblad Expeditions' new ship, the National Geographic Endurance, which won't have any single-use plastic bottles, cups, straws or stirrers on board. And trek on the Greenland Ice Sheet with famed mountaineer Alex Pancoe off Abercrombie & Kent's new Ultimate Iceland & Greenland Cruise on Le Boreal, which features an onboard wastewater treatment system. With that mile-thick ice sheet melting fast, and two new international airports slated to open in 2023, the time to explore an untrammeled, intact Greenland is now.-- RATHA TEP5\. Kimberley Region, AustraliaThe country's last frontier teems with grand landscapes and ethereal corals.The least touristy part of Australia is now in bloom with an easier-to-reach bucket list of natural wonders: the Bungle Bungle Range in the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Purnululu National Park; the waterways of the mighty Ord River and Lake Argyle (one of the largest freshwater lakes in the Southern Hemisphere); and El Questro's waterfalls, gorges and epic landscapes. There are new itineraries, too, including Narlijia Experiences' history tours highlighting aboriginal culture, and Kingfisher Tours' outings to the unique and soon-to-close Argyle Diamond Mine. Other options include scenic flights over the Bungles and Lake Argyle, as well as Indian Ocean cruises to three untouched coral atolls in the Rowley Shoals Marine Park. But there's more: The city of Broome's Chinatown area is now revitalized, and the Western Australia Gourmet Escape food festival is extending its reach to the wine and foodie favorites Swan Valley and Margaret River. The area's new accommodations are Call of The Kimberley's outback glamping at Yeeda Cattle Station and the refurbished Kimberley Sands Resort and Spa, which is now for adults only. New air service includes direct flights from Melbourne and Darwin to Kununurra.-- DANIEL SCHEFFLER6\. Paso Robles, CaliforniaThe Central Coast does its best Tuscany.California's Central Coast has been known as California's other wine country since actor Paul Giamatti went on a road trip and swore off merlot in "Sideways" 16 years ago. But while Paso Robles in particular is undoubtedly an accomplished wine terroir with more than 300 wineries (L'Aventure and Adelaida wineries recently expanded), to assume it is a string of tasting rooms would be to underestimate it. Last fall, artist Bruce Munro created "Field of Light," a show of 60,000 illuminated glass orbs spread over 15 acres that has turned the city into an art destination (until June 30, when the show ends). Meanwhile, the Paso Robles has turned the good life -- of wine, olive oil, cheese and boutique hotels -- into an identity. The star hotel here, Hotel Cheval, is adding 20 guest rooms, a luxury spa and an infinity pool in 2020, while the new Hotel Piccolo has brought exposed brick walls, a rooftop bar and a hipster crowd to downtown. Two blocks away, chef Julien Asseo (of Guy Savoy in Las Vegas) just opened Les Petites Canailles, a buzzy new farm-to-table restaurant, in November. And Paso Market Walk, a 16,000-square-foot marketplace, is expected to open this year -- bringing a bakery, microbrewery, gelateria, vegan cheese shop, olive oil tasting room, coffee roasters and artisanal, local specialties to the city.-- DANIELLE PERGAMENT7\. SicilySustainable rebirth and culinary heritage on a volcanic island.There's some rumbling on Sicily, and it's not just Mount Etna, which began erupting again in 2019. A new wave of green tourism is washing over the Mediterranean island, where nonprofit grassroots groups have begun to spearhead sustainable volunteer tourism initiatives like EtnAmbiente, which started an app in 2019 to help locals and tourists photograph and report pollution, increasingly an islandwide problem. These initiatives grew from five concerned individuals in 2018 to a powerful network to help reduce plastics and preserve the unique landscapes and marine habitats. Sicily's Tasca d'Almitra wine family have converted a derelict farmhouse into a winery on the lower slopes of Etna to open in 2020, offering workshops and wine tastings. The family's Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School is also starting the Food Heritage Association, a nonprofit group celebrating Sicilian ingredients. Last year had the opening of Historic Trains of Taste, a series of scenic rail excursions that recently teamed up with Slow Food Sicily to take visitors on trips to lesser-known food and wine spots. Among them is Zash, a hotel and restaurant in the heart of a local citrus grove at Etna's base that received its first Michelin star in the 2020 guidebook. Uncovr Travel, a small-group tour operator (up to eight guests) specializing in Sicily, launches electric-car tours to local food producers and artists this year. Palermo will get more lodging accommodations, including Rocco Forte's Villa Igiea, which has committed to plastic-free amenities like straw flip-flops and boxed water, while the NH Hotel Group, a chain devoted to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, will give its Palermo property a significant refurbishment.-- ADAM HARNEY GRAHAM8\. Salzburg, AustriaA renowned music festival celebrates its centennial.The hills are still alive with you-know-what. Salzburg, Austria, draws hordes each year to the bright yellow town house where Mozart was born and to the Mirabell Gardens, where Julie Andrews taught a troupe of ersatz von Trapp children their do-re-mi's in "The Sound of Music." But it's worth the pilgrimage this year for another reason: The Salzburg Festival, the Davos or Disneyland of classical music, will celebrate its centennial this summer. There will be diva turns by Anna Netrebko and Cecilia Bartoli and performances by some of the finest maestros and soloists in the world; the house band, as ever, will be the incomparable Vienna Philharmonic. The charming Salzburg Marionette Theater offers smaller scale (and prices). And the tone-deaf can enjoy the Baroque splendor of the Old Town; the sublime Wiener schnitzel at Herzl; and the addictive local street food, bosna sausages. A nearby alpine peak, Untersberg, is reachable by city bus and cable car. A different kind of summit can be enjoyed in its grand cafes: the Salzburger nockerl, a sweet souffle whose sugar-dusted peaks suggest nearby snow-capped hills.-- MICHAEL COOPER9\. TokyoThe Olympic Games are just the beginning.All eyes will be on Tokyo as the city hosts the 2020 Summer Olympics from July 24 to Aug. 9. In addition to the games -- with all the new hotels, sporting venues, transport upgrades and general excitement they confer -- the Japanese capital is a top pick for travelers hungry for a taste of its unmatched food scene, rich cultural heritage, cutting-edge architecture and see-it-here-first fashion. In this ultramodern metropolis, endless adventures await: Watch the tuna auction at the new Toyosu fish market, wait in line for Japanese souffle pancakes at Flipper's, try the chocolaty coffee at the cult roastery Bear Pond Espresso and browse one-of-a-kind clothing at the eclectic Kitakore complex. You can satisfy your pop-culture predilections at Nakano Broadway, walk through a bygone era in the traditional Yanaka district, and admire the futuristic facade (and excellent reading selection) at a bookstore called Daikanyama T-Site. And don't miss slurping Michelin-starred ramen at Tsuta. To get the big picture, check out the view from 1,480 feet at the Skytree. Then drink craft beer in a treehouse at Nakano Beer Kobo, unwind at the discreet record bar Track, or simply forge your own path. The options are endless.-- INGRID WILLIAMS10\. Caesarea, Israel"Pompeii by the beach" is an impressive archaeological complex.Herod the Great named this ancient port city Caesarea in honor of Caesar Augustus more than 2,000 years ago. Today it preserves many of the world's most impressive Roman ruins, including an amphitheater, an aqueduct that runs parallel to the Mediterranean Sea and a hippodrome with an Egyptian obelisk. A flurry of recent restoration work -- spearheaded mainly by Ariane de Rothschild -- has now made the city a leading historical tourism destination on par with the Acropolis in Athens. Visitors to Caesarea National Park can walk atop a fortress built in the 13th century and view the newly restored ruins of one of the world's oldest synagogues. A visitor center unveiled last June, in four 26-foot-tall vaults dating to the first century B.C., includes a theater and a room filled with antiquities, like a cache of gold coins divers found in Caesarea's underwater archaeological park. This summer archaeologists plan to unveil eight more vaults, a vast platform containing the ruins of a temple devoted to Emperor Augustus and a monumental staircase. After exploring, travelers can stay at the nearby Dan Caesarea, a midcentury hotel that recently reopened with contemporary art installations and a poolside Greek taverna.-- CASEY HATFIELD-CHIOTTI11\. National Parks, ChinaThe country ramps up conservation efforts with a new park system.Despite China's major problems with pollution and as a driver of the illegal wildlife trade, the country appears to be attempting to safeguard its ecosystems, in part by establishing a new unified system of national parks. In 2020, the 47,500-square-mile Sanjiangyuan National Park will open in the Tibetan Plateau, a region known for its high density of elusive snow leopards. To protect the animals, over 17,000 local herdsmen have been enlisted as salaried rangers. In Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, the Giant Panda National Park will connect 67 panda reserves across 10,500 square miles. While it is difficult to observe the bears in the wild, travelers can spot other endemic species like antelope, muntjac and Tibetan macaque, as well as volunteer as panda keepers at the Dujiangyan Panda Base. In Sichuan province, the UNESCO-listed Jiuzhaigou National Park suffered a devastating earthquake in 2017, but the park is expected to fully reopen this year and showcase the scenic valley's Tibetan villages and waterfalls.-- NORA WALSH12\. LesothoA quiet mountainous country is a wonderland for adventurers.The tiny country of Lesotho -- a picturesque enclave of jagged desert mountains fully surrounded by South Africa -- has been lost to most African itineraries. But things are changing in landlocked Lesotho, known as the "mountain kingdom," where most residents, dressed in colorful traditional wool blankets, live in remote rural villages. Over the past decade the number of visitors has nearly doubled as the country has begun promoting tourism to grow its economy. A newly started e-visa platform is making visiting easier. Visitors can explore ancient rock paintings at UNESCO-listed Maloti-Drakensberg Park, or take multiday pony treks to stay in remote thatch-hut villages. (Outfitters such as solar-powered Malealea Lodge arrange trips.) And in 2020, the capital, Maseru, is scheduled to open a new National Museum and Art Gallery in a three-story building shaped like a spiral aloe, an endemic plant. It will feature exhibits on Basotho culture, its handicrafts tradition and the nation's first digitized archives.-- KIM I. MOTT13\. Colorado SpringsThe new Olympics museum is only one draw.A gateway to alpine vacationlands since trains first arrived in 1871, Colorado Springs springs anew in 2020. In April, the $90 million U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum opens, with a design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the architects behind the reinvention of the Museum of Modern Art. Another opening, this one in autumn, will be up on 14,115-foot Pikes Peak, where the new zero-energy Pikes Peak Summit Complex, sheathed in weathering steel and sandstone quarried in New Mexico, will give travelers a ptarmigan's-eye view of the panorama from 30-foot-high windows. Hungry? The city's emergent locavore food scene is another draw: Bakers at Nightingale Bread mill their own organic heirloom grain (much of it from Colorado's San Luis Valley) at Lincoln Center, a new market hall tucked into a 1948 former elementary school. At Four by Brother Luck -- whose namesake chef has appeared on "Chopped" and "Top Chef" -- dishes are inspired by the indigenous foods of the Four Corners region, including Ute tribe blue cornbread with wojapi (berry sauce). You'll find trout from Front Range streams on the menus at the recently renovated Broadmoor, a pink stucco Italian Renaissance-style resort that looms over the landscape like a fever dream of Gold Rush-era miners.-- KATHRYN O'SHEA-EVANS14\. Krakow, PolandA city with a rich past focuses on new parks and curbing pollution.Largely spared from the destruction of World War II, Poland's second largest city has an intact medieval town center that is one of the largest in Europe. It is known for its cathedrals, Jewish history, cafe culture and rich university life, as well as oddities such as the Wieliczka salt mine, a 13th-century underground labyrinth of rooms, passageways, chapels and statues, all carved from salt. Unfortunately, Krakow has suffered from some of Europe's worst air pollution. The Nowa Huta (New Steel Mill) district in Krakow, built in 1949 as a model Socialist settlement, once produced seven million tons of steel a year. For years, acid rain from the burning of fossil fuels and wood damaged the city's medieval stonework. Recently, Krakow has begun to make changes to improve air quality for residents and tourists alike. In 2019, it became the first city in Poland to carry out a ban on burning coal and wood. By the end of 2020, it will have deployed a fleet of electric buses throughout the most heavily polluted parts of the city. It is also opening a series of parks along tributaries of the Vistula River, like Reduta Park, Krakow's first resident-designed communal space. Other greening initiatives, like an urban forest, are planned.-- PETER KUJAWINSKI15\. Jodhpur, IndiaSong, dance and royal grandeur in Rajasthan's "Blue City."Jodhpur, in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, remains a rustic, rough-hewed hub of art and culture at a time when many of India's cities have been transformed by the tech industry. In February, the World Sacred Spirit Festival will descend on Jodhpur's Mehrangarh Fort, a 15th-century fortification, museum and UNESCO World Heritage Site, bringing with it more than 200 musicians from around the world. If you can't make it by then, don't fret: Every fall, the Mehrangarh Fort plays host to a folk music festival where patrons have included Mick Jagger. An immersion into an India that existed before skyscrapers and call centers continues among the city's many cobalt-blue houses (painted to reflect the rays of the sun, to signify the dweller's superior status, to repel insects or for aesthetic appeal, depending on whom you ask) and at Umaid Bhawan Palace, an art deco compound that still houses the former royal family but also functions as a luxury hotel. The palace's nightly performances of song and dance pay tribute to the Marwari people of this desert-dappled region. In July, the budget airline IndiGo announced daily nonstop flights to Jodhpur from Delhi and Ahmadabad, making the city more accessible than ever.-- SHEILA MARIKAR16. Western SwedenHike a new trail, eat a new meal, then work it off, all (or mostly) carbon free.It's hard to talk about sustainability without talking about Scandinavia. Few destinations offer as many new opportunities to witness how the region's green goals are playing out as Sweden, which seeks to free itself of fossil fuels by 2050. Western Sweden feels like ground zero. A 44-mile trail recently opened between Gothenburg and the small town of Alingsas, focusing on sustainability. Train stations along the way allow you to hike it in sections, without a car. You can stop by the "zero waste" restaurant Garveriet, and have coffee and cake, or "fika," as part of a "meet the locals" initiative. Up the coast, Ramsvik Stugby and Camping now has the Swedish travel industry's largest solar-power generating facility, making it an emissions-free camping and cabin area. Spend your days running or hiking around the Ramsvikslandet Nature Reserve or at an "edible country table": an outdoor dining experience in which groups forage for ingredients like wild garlic and raspberries and cook them together following a chef's recipe (without the chef).-- TIM NEVILLE17\. EgyptFancy new digs for King Tut and company.The Egyptians are building like the pharaohs to finish the massive and much-anticipated Grand Egyptian Museum in time for its scheduled gala opening this year. The project, which is reported to cost $1 billion, has involved thousands of workers and nearly two decades of labor. The soaring space will be situated just over 1 mile from the Pyramids of Giza and contain around 100,000 objects, including more than 5,000 related to King Tutankhamen. It will join other recently inaugurated archaeological troves, including the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and an ancient tomb of colorful frescoes in the Saqqara Necropolis. And visiting Cairo will be easier than ever, courtesy of the new Sphinx International Airport and hotels like the 366-room St. Regis Cairo, set to open in June.-- SETH SHERWOOD18\. La Paz, MexicoIn Baja, a reimagined waterfront and a sustainable sensibility.Just up the coast from Cabo San Lucas is La Paz, the capital of the state of Baja California Sur state and one of the region's oldest, with a population of 250,000, most dynamic cities. But unlike many of Mexico's better-known beach towns, the La Paz area has resisted large-scale resort-style development and remained comparatively unknown to outsiders. Decades ago, local environmentalists pushed for the creation of what eventually became the expansive UNESCO Marine World Heritage protected area, a designation that aimed to preserve the coast and offshore areas, home to such rich biodiversity that the Sea of Cortez is known as the "Aquarium of the World." Last year, La Paz passed one of the strictest single-use plastic bans in Mexico, which will begin going into effect this year. At the same time, the city has undergone an extensive, multiyear renovation of its waterfront malecon, or boardwalk, which extended its length by three miles, created bike lanes and added a skate park, fountains and sculptures by prominent Mexican artists illustrating local marine life. Later this year, Grupo Habita, Mexico's stylish boutique hotel operator, is opening its first southern Baja property, the 32-room La Casa de las Perlas, or House of Pearls, in La Paz. The hotel, which incorporates a building from the 1910s, will have a pool, spa, restaurant and "sunset bar" overlooking the malecon and sea.-- FREDA MOON19\. Grand Isle, LouisianaHauntingly beautiful, a barrier island may soon vanish.Louisiana's last inhabited barrier island, Grand Isle raises an unsettling question: Does a place appear more hauntingly beautiful when you know it's disappearing? A longtime sport and commercial fishing hub two hours south of New Orleans, this pancake-flat wisp of land 7 miles long and on average a half-mile wide faces one of the world's highest rates of relative sea level rise, and uncertain survival. Now is the time to go, while the Gulf of Mexico still washes the sands of Grand Isle State Park under blue skies dotted with cotton-puff clouds, and roseate spoonbills still take flight in a flash of pink plumage in hushed bayous and marshes best experienced by kayak. Wind-twisted trees populate the unique live oak forests known as cheniers, and in the spring -- especially around April's migratory bird festival -- masses of songbirds from Central and South America as well as Mexico can drop almost literally from the sky, exhausted after their epic gulf crossing. Bottlenose dolphins often frolic alongside the boat tours offered by Calmwater Charters, which highlight the isle's human and natural history and include a cruise-by of a vital pelican rookery, Queen Bess Island, where major habitat restoration wraps up in February 2020.-- CHRISTOPHER HALL20\. Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaAn underappreciated neighborhood gets a dose of fresh style and energy.As Malaysia's financial and political hub, Kuala Lumpur attracts international travelers on many fronts. There are the Islamic-inspired, Cesar Pelli-designed Petronas Twin Towers; the hypnotically bloody Hindu festival Thaipusam (where devotees pierce their flesh to honor the deity Murugan); and the just-opened, multiuse Exchange 106, the tallest building in Southeast Asia. This year, however, visitors might focus on the neighborhood of Chow Kit, as the recent opening of two hotels delivers a fresh dose of style and energy to the gritty, underappreciated red-light district. The 113-room Chow Kit hotel, designed by Brooklyn-based Studio Tack in its first project in Asia, welcomes guests with hand-textured walls, deep-tufted banquettes and layered rugs. Its handsome Chow Kit Kitchen & Bar, with reeded-glass windows, pulls in the local and international crowd with a modern Malaysian menu. Next door, its wallet-friendly sister property MoMo's has a pared-back look: unfussy microrooms have concrete and combed-plaster walls and plenty of wood, while a social space called the Playground replaces the traditional lobby. Beyond, the district is home to the country's largest fresh-produce market, Southeast Asia's biggest Sikh temple and eclectic new restaurants like the Caribbean-influenced Joloko. Along Jalan Doraisamy, a one-way street that runs off the district's main artery and was once a popular nightclub strip, reimagined shophouses have become The Row, an enclave of hip stores, art spaces and places to eat and drink.-- SANJAY SURANA21. Jevnaker, NorwayTwisted architecture is the draw at a village with a major sculpture park.About 50 miles north of Oslo, Norway, Jevnaker is a sleepy village on the southern shore of the Rands Fjord that is also home to one of the largest sculpture parks in northern Europe. Founded by a wealthy Norwegian art collector, Kistefos Museum and Sculpture Park occupies a former wood pulp mill complex that today showcases 46 sculptures from contemporary artists such as Anish Kapoor, Olafur Eliasson and Yayoi Kusama, among many others. What makes it a must-see cultural destination is the Twist, a new 15,000-square-foot structure spanning a river in the middle of the sculpture park. Opened in September, the showstopping bridge was designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group with a streamlined aluminum facade that twists like a stack of cards. Both a bridge and a sculpture in its own right, this topsy-turvy structure will also serve as a gallery space for temporary exhibitions.-- INGRID WILLIAMS22. The BahamasMuch was untouched by a major hurricane and awaits visitors.The hundreds of islands that make up the Bahamas are so pristine that astronaut Scott Kelly deemed them Earth's most easily recognizable place from space -- and one of its most beautiful. About 6.6 million people visited the Bahamas in 2018, but in the wake of Hurricane Dorian in September, that number took a nosedive. Four months later, only Great Abaco remains too damaged to visit; many islands, including the 120-mile-long Exumas chain -- home of the famous swimming pigs -- were not hit by the storm. And the Bahamas, where close to half the economy depends on tourism, needs visitors' dollars to shore up critical rebuilding efforts. Grand Bahama Island has already bounced back, with cruise ships once again docking in Freeport and several hotels reopening. In 2020, nonstop flights to Nassau from Denver will begin, opening up the Bahamas to the western United States. In June, one of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville resorts is scheduled to open in Nassau's downtown, offering a much-needed injection of energy to the city center night life. On New Providence Island, Baha Mar, a 2,300-room luxury resort on Cable Beach, has a new children's center opening in January that will make the destination, which has the largest casino in the region, more family-friendly.-- FRANCES ROBLES22\. Kampot, CambodiaA tranquil riverside escape adds a dedicated food street.Kampot, a laid-back riverside enclave of French colonial buildings, pepper plantations and a giant sculpture of Southeast Asia's famously pungent fruit, the durian, has long been southern Cambodia's under-the-radar destination. Getting there in 2020 will be considerably easier: a road-widening project (on the route from the capital, Phnom Penh) is nearing completion, and a new port is opening this spring, with ferries to Phu Quoc in Vietnam and to other islands in the Gulf of Thailand. When you arrive, Kampot's charms will be amplified, too. The low-slung town center, accented with arches, shutters and colonnades, is adding trendy eateries like the Hotel Old Cinema, a recent remake of an Art Deco theater. And on the promenade along the Praek Tuek Chhu River -- picture-perfect for sunsets and the launching point for neon party boats and firefly tours -- a new food street is opening, with dozens of local cooks setting up stalls each night. Fairs with handicrafts, live music and carts piled with trays of fried bugs are popping up almost monthly. For the best perspective, head up nearby Bokor Mountain, a former colonial hill station with waterfalls, an elaborate Buddhist temple and an abandoned stone church overlooking forests and the sea.-- PATRICK SCOTT24\. Christchurch, New ZealandA quake and a terrorist attack turn a city into a global symbol of resilience.Ten years after the 2010 Canterbury earthquake and not quite a year after the March 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques, Christchurch, where 23 million New Zealand dollars (about $15 million) has been raised to support the Muslim community, continues to prove itself as a global symbol of resilience. While earthquake destruction remains visible, downtown has been animated by recent building and restoration, including the Turanga, or Central Library, designed in modernist style by Danish firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen. Expected to open this year, the nearby Puari Village, a Maori cultural center, will offer exhibitions, Maori food and waka (canoe) tours on the Avon River. The new Riverside Market offers produce and prepared food from the surrounding Canterbury region, the breadbasket of New Zealand, in 40 stalls adjacent to a lane of new boutiques. Besides a strong public art program, which has installed sculptures across the city, recent highlights include the food hall Little High Eatery; its neighboring wine bar Not Without You; and Eco Villa, an eight-room inn reconstructed from a 1910 vintage, earthquake-damaged house across the street from architect Shigeru Ban's Cardboard Cathedral. Christchurch will also soon be easier to reach: American Airlines recently announced direct service from Los Angeles beginning in the fall.-- ELAINE GLUSAC24. Asturias, SpainAn under-the-radar retreat for Spaniards to get away from it all.With emerald hillsides dropping down to sapphire seas lapping crescent-shaped beaches, Asturias has long been the summer refuge of Spaniards who shun the masses crowding Mediterranean shores. Today the region that launched the Reconquista of Spain starting in the eighth century is known for abundant hospitality but doesn't get much attention from abroad, perhaps because of its rainy reputation. More visitors are inevitable by 2021, once Spain's high-speed AVE rail system crosses the Picos de Europa mountains, making the province easier to reach from Madrid and other parts of Spain. Visitors will find hiking and cycling routes like the Bear's Trail and the Cares Gorge; Spain's oldest national park; ancient Celtic hilltop settlements known as Castros; Roman gold mines; and a cultural center designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Now, about that famous hospitality: Asturias is known as Spain's dairyland, so it's only fitting that its capital, Oviedo, is the 2020 Capital of Cheese. If you want to combine ecotourism with high-end gastronomy, check out the PuebloAstur Hotel. For traditional fare, try El Llar de Viri; the best of surf and turf is at Michelin-starred Casa Marcial or newcomers Gueyu Mar and Gunea. The only complaint visitors have is that they ate too much.-- ANDREW FERREN26\. Haida Gwaii, British ColumbiaA remote group of islands celebrates its First Nations heritage. You can, too.On this isolated archipelago off the coast of British Columbia, you'll see more bald eagles than people on hiking trails and experience powerful indigenous sites in near solitude. That's by design: The Haida First Nations people who live here fiercely protect their natural and cultural resources with sustainable, small-group tourism. Visitors are rewarded with a deep connection to place and people, especially at SGang Gwaay (Ninstints), an extraordinary UNESCO site in Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve accessible only by boat. Here, Haida descendants called Watchmen take a maximum of 12 people at a time into an abandoned 19th-century Haida village whose memorial poles and cedar longhouses are being slowly reclaimed by the earth. Getting there is equally memorable: Haida-owned Haida Style Expeditions runs daylong Zodiac tours with whale watching en route; Inland Air organizes splurge-worthy floatplane-and-Zodiac combo trips. In June, Intrepid Travel will begin its first Haida Gwaii Islands Expedition, an eight-day trip from mainland British Columbia with four nights in Haida Gwaii and a Watchmen-led visit to K'uuna Llnagaay (Skedans), another deserted village with Haida poles overgrown by moss and grass. Alternatively, the Haida House offers immersive three- to seven-night packages led throughout by Haida guides; clan matriarchs teach on-site weaving classes.-- ARABELLA BOWEN27\. Austin, TexasWhether you seek art, music or food, chill evenings are everywhere.It's no surprise that your friends and friends of friends have talked for years about Austin, where a buoyant economy and an intellectual hub are packaged in an aesthetic of cowboy patina and broken-in leather. This year, as a blue capital in a red state, Austin will play an important role in the presidential election. But politics aside, the major draws are in the art, music and food scenes. Dive into Austin City Limits and South by Southwest, yes, but don't miss the East Side's art galleries, either. And options for chill evenings outside are everywhere, from sampling churros at the food truck park The Picnic and sour brews at Jester King Brewery to canoeing around Lady Bird Lake (through the skyline's reflection) and gorging at Franklin Barbecue downtown. Austin is an explore-at-your-pace kind of place, which is why so many people get stuck, even those who once rolled their eyes at Austin believers. You can resist Austin, sure. But why would you, when the music, the art, the outdoors and the breakfast tacos -- at Tacodeli, particularly -- are so mind-blowingly good?-- SHANNON SIMS28\. Sabah, MalaysiaPrimeval forests with endangered orangutans off the tourist map.The most compelling reason to visit this biodiversity hot spot on the island of Borneo is to help preserve it. Every year, thousands of acres of pristine rainforest are burned down to make way for new palm oil plantations, but tourism could provide an incentive to protect these primeval jungles. Perched in the northeast corner of Borneo, and with multiple airports, the Malaysian state of Sabah offers diverse experiences while still being largely off the tourist map. Adrenaline junkies can climb Mount Kinabalu and go diving with sharks off the Semporna coast. Beach lovers should head to Gaya Island, a short ferry ride from the capital of Kota Kinabalu. The Gaya Island Resort has its own coral reef, marine center (and marine biologist) and stunning, sandy coves. But Sabah's biggest draw is the chance to see endangered orangutans in the wild. Cruise along the Kinabatangan River in small boats to glimpse the apes, as well as pygmy elephants, crocodiles and proboscis monkeys. Or head to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, which has been rescuing orphaned orangutans from forest fires and poachers since 1964. The 60-odd resident orangutans come out of the reserve forest during daily feeding times.-- SHALINI VENUGOPAL BHAGAT29\. Churchill, ManitobaThe Polar Bear Capital of the World confronts climate change.Via Rail's 1,000-mile route from Winnipeg north to Churchill was out of commission for 18 months after flooding in 2017. This starved the town, best known for polar bear viewing, of vital supplies and affordable transportation. Fewer visitors resulted in layoffs as businesses contracted to stay afloat. Now, with the train recently restored to service, Churchill is getting back on its feet. In addition to touring with pricey safari operators such as Churchill Wild, visitors can sign up for affordable citizen-scientist outings with Churchill Northern Studies Center. The conservation group Polar Bears International, which recently opened a new interpretive center in town, says that since the 1980s, the polar bear population of western Hudson Bay, where Churchill is, has shrunk by 30%, a result of global warming and the decline of sea ice that the bears depend on to access the seals they prey upon. As Churchill manages both the threat and the opportunity of climate change, it is carefully straddling industrial development -- it has the only deepwater port in the Canadian Arctic -- and scientific research; as the Churchill Marine Observatory, devoted to studying the effects of oil spills on sea ice, is set to open this fall.-- ELAINE GLUSAC30. UgandaA primate capital and birder's paradise becomes more accessible.Landlocked in east-central Africa, Uganda has long been in the shadow of Kenya, Tanzania and other countries more popular with visitors on safari. But Uganda, described by some as the "Pearl of Africa," with its own rich wildlife, is set to become more accessible, thanks to the resurrection last summer of the country's national carrier, Uganda Airlines. Uganda is one of the world's primate capitals, with 15 species (four of which are endangered) and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, a renowned mountain gorilla sanctuary. The UNESCO World Heritage Site, in southwestern Uganda, is home to roughly half the world's mountain gorillas. The park's gorilla-trekking safaris limit contact to eight visitors per gorilla group per day, and proceeds from their trekking permits go toward conservation efforts and protecting the animals from poachers. The dense forest mountain park, which ranges in elevation from 3,810 feet to 8,880 feet, also features a scenic waterfall trail framed by ancient ferns and wild orchids, and is a birder's paradise, with 350 species of forest birds.-- VIVIAN SONG31\. ParisThe food and fashion capital renews itself with a green push.Ever-resilient Paris had its setbacks in 2019. First came the Yellow Vest riots, then the catastrophic Notre Dame fire. But with a slew of big openings -- restaurants by marquee-name chefs included -- the City of Lights is renewing itself. The iconic Jules Verne restaurant, on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, unveiled a gleaming new look and a new, high-profile chef, Frederic Anton, last July. In June, the Bourse de Commerce will open as a museum showcasing the private contemporary art collection of French billionaire François Pinault, with a restaurant by the acclaimed father-and-son duo Michel and Sebastien Bras. In July, the imposing 18th-century Hotel de la Marine will open its doors as a national monument, with a grand tearoom by Alain Ducasse. Fashion hounds, not to be outdone, have their own spate of news in April: Paris' fashion museum, the Palais Galliera, will reopen with double its former exhibition space, and after a 15-year-closure, the grand magasin La Samaritaine will reveal a stunning redesign and a luxury Cheval Blanc hotel. Paris will be greener, too, with what is expected to be the world's largest rooftop urban farm, NU Nature Urbaine, opening in April, and 247 acres of new vegetation across Paris' rooftops, facades and walls through the city's ambitious Parisculteurs commitment.-- RATHA TEP32. Lake District, EnglandThe 'loveliest spot' is now even more so.William Wordsworth's lyricism shaped Romanticism, the movement of individualism, inspiration and communing with nature -- which, for the celebrated poet, was epitomized by the Lake District, a verdant region of peaks and valleys in northwest England that was designated a World Heritage Site in 2017. In 2020, the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth's birth, an ambitious $8 million project, Reimagining Wordsworth, will highlight the writer across his pastoral Cumbrian homeland, notably in the achingly charming village of Grasmere. Wordsworth lived here, at Dove Cottage, where he scribbled vigorously to emerge with seminal works like "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud." At Dove Cottage and the corresponding Wordsworth Museum, the outdoors will be embraced with a new courtyard, walking trails, expanded galleries and a recreated orchard, while the village is unveiling a community sensory garden with local plants from Wordsworth's time. In Cockermouth, Wordsworth's birthplace, the Wordsworth House and Garden will also host an anniversary exhibit from mid-March 2020. But perhaps the most memorable way to pay tribute to the pioneering environmentalist is to roam the countryside -- poetry readings will be held around Cumbria and beyond -- guided by his prescient words: "Let nature be your teacher."-- ANNELISE SORENSEN33. TajikistanA high-altitude haven for adventure travelers gets easier to visit.This landlocked country in Central Asia is becoming a prime spot for hiking, white-water rafting and climbing, even though it's one of the least visited countries in the world. With little internet access and a developing infrastructure, it's pure off-the-grid travel -- at least for now. The Wakhan Valley is a rugged region that sits mostly in northern Afghanistan but stretches into Tajikistan. Reached via the Pamir Highway, this area offers access to an ancient Silk Road fortress in Namadgut, where you can bathe in natural hot springs, climb the rocks above the city of Langar to discover ancient stone carvings, explore the fascinating mix of cultures or gaze at the Milky Way from the mountains of Murghab. (The tour company Remote Lands offers an itinerary -- the Pamir Highway Road Trip -- based on this dramatic route.) With 2020 comes greater accessibility: a further easing of visa restrictions, new flight connections with Somon Air and additional bus service on new highways connecting major towns. Hilton also recently debuted a flagship property in the capital, Dushanbe, the first of 10 new hotels opening across the country.-- DANIEL SCHEFFLER34\. Antakya, TurkeyOn the site of an ancient mosaic, there's a museum and a new hotel.Antakya, the former ancient city of Antioch that is nestled in southern Turkey near the Syrian border, has rich offerings for a visitor. An important center for early Christians led by St. Paul, it is home to one of Christianity's earliest churches, the Church of St. Peter, cut into the mountain; one of the first mosques built outside Arabia; an old city of narrow alleys and white stone houses; and an exceptional archaeology museum filled with Roman and Byzantine mosaics. An unusual hotel, the Museum Hotel Antakya, overlooks extensive new archaeological excavations, including the largest intact Roman mosaic ever discovered, thought to be the floor of a forum. When digging the foundations for the five-star hotel, the Asfuroglu family encountered such important layers of ancient history that they financed the excavations and redesigned the hotel. The work uncovered tens of thousands of artifacts, city walls from 300 B.C. and the fourth-century mosaic, an undulating flow that tells of devastating earthquakes and rerouted rivers. The site is now an open-air public museum, and the hotel, suspended on steel pillars, offers unparalleled views and glass walkways over the site, together with complimentary access to the museum.-- CARLOTTA GALL35. Leipzig, GermanyFrom industrial center to shrinking city to newest cool-kid town.Thirty years after German reunification, the once-dreary factories of Leipzig have been overtaken by lofts, galleries, workshops, clubs and restaurants. Often called "the new Berlin," the city is home to more than 40,000 students (Angela Merkel was once one of them), and has a thriving night life scene, further boosted by the city's decision to abolish club closing times in 2018. However much it has changed, though, Leipzig hasn't forgotten its roots. Throughout 2020, in tandem with a state exhibition celebrating 500 years of industrialization, Leipzig will celebrate its own industrial history, which dates back to the early 19th century, with exhibitions, performances, talks, fairs and tours of the city. Until March, the Museum of Fine Arts will explore, through 50 works of art, how the work of machines and humans have become intertwined over the past couple of centuries, and from March through June, the Museum of the Printing Arts will feature photos from as early as 1900 that document the effects of industry. Throughout the year, the city will offer tours of six areas where forced labor took place during the Nazi era. On the lighter side, a symposium in May with experts from Vienna, Berlin and London will highlight the history of how abandoned factories have been transformed into clubs and live music venues, and in the summer, seven bridges in the neighborhood Leipzig West, once home to many factories, will become stages for open-air theater.-- VALERIYA SAFRONOVA36\. Lima, PeruA city of extraordinary food has a rich history and art as well.Lima today is arguably the culinary epicenter of South America, a city dotted with celebrity chefs and extravagant plates of extraordinary food. This exciting scene serves as an antidote to what in the past kept travelers from sticking around: gloomy skies, dilapidated corners, traffic jams and economic inequality. But those who give the place a chance are rewarded not only with world-class dining, but also with a rich historic and cultural capital filled with picture-perfect squares like Plaza Mayor, museums filled with ancient treasure like Museo Larco and artisan-dotted mansions like Dedalo Arte y Artesania. And new nonstop flights from the United States and Latin America make it easier to get to Lima than ever before. Tourists usually orbit around the Miraflores neighborhood, with its cliffside boardwalk for bike riding and its tidy shops like Morphology, not to mention restaurants like Maido and Central, both in the Top 10 of the World's 50 Best Restaurants ranking. But there is shopping to be done at the local boutiques along Calle de los Conquistadores in San Isidro as well, just as there is a pre-Incan pyramid to explore in the center of town. Don't get bogged down by the gray: Lima in 2020 is shining bright.-- SHANNON SIMS37\. Molise, ItalyIf you're in search of untrammeled, traditional Italy, you've found it.Never heard of Molise? Don't be embarrassed. Even many Italians haven't been to this region in south-central Italy. But those who make the pilgrimage have discovered one of the most spectacular parts of the country and its youngest region; it was part of Abruzzo-Molise until 1963. Among the draws: Roman settlements like Saepinum (a complex of baths and a forum that rival those in Italy's capital, but without the crowds); a pristine coastline that includes towns like Termoli, overlooking the Adriatic, with a Swabian castle; and mountains like Campitello Matese, home to a wide network of slopes for skiers. Hikers will also want to explore the routes of transumanza, the centuries-old tracks, along which sheep and oxen were herded, from Abruzzo through Molise into Puglia in the colder months. The festivals here are essential to the region's culture. In the Christmas season, during the Ndocciata festival, torches are lit in towns like Agnone; the Carrese festival in the spring features an oxcart race through Ururi. Ditch your car and view the landscapes by train. Called the Trans-Siberian of Italy because of its remote and spectacular route, it has carriages from the 1920s carrying passengers from Abruzzo's Sulmona to Molise's Isernia, past forests and mountain villages.-- ONDINE COHANE38. Copenhagen, DenmarkA green city gets even more sustainable and connected.A slew of innovative developments are nudging Denmark's capital city closer to its carbon-neutral 2025 goal. The world's first waste-to-energy plant topped by a ski slope, CopenHill opened in time for the 2019-20 season. The ski hill, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, sits in the city's emerging Refshaleoen neighborhood. This year sees the opening of the five-star hotel Villa Copenhagen, housed in a former postal center next to Copenhagen Central Station, the city's main train station. It's one of a few luxury hotels to meet the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals. In November, riding the wave of New Nordic Cuisine's success, chef Kamilla Seidler (Gustu) opened her new restaurant, Lola, which employs refugees, ex-convicts and disabled people, all with an eye toward social sustainability, creating an increasingly inclusive dining scene. And perhaps the biggest change is the giant new electric M3 subway loop (City Ring). Linking the neighborhoods of Norrebro and Frederiksberg with 17 brand-new subway stations, it opened in late 2019. An additional subway line will open this year, making inner-city transport even more sustainable.-- ADAM HARNEY GRAHAM39. Richmond, VirginiaA once-quiet Southern city now shines as a true cultural destination.Richmond, long known as a sleepy capital steeped in Confederate history, has morphed into a dynamic cultural center on the cutting edge of the arts, food and recreation. Within easy driving distance from Washington, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Virginia Beach, the city is a magnet for Washington expats, millennials and college students. The entrance of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, on the newly christened Arthur Ashe Boulevard, features Kehinde Wiley's massive "Rumors of War" statue, which was designed to challenge the narrative of heroism in a city where Civil War monuments still loom. The Belleville, the city's first food hall, will open later this year in Scott's Addition, a longtime industrial neighborhood turned urban hot spot. The food hall will be anchored by The Veil Brewing Co., a popular local craft brewery, along with 18 vendors and three bars. Newer dining standouts include the Spoonbread Bistro, which blends Southern fare with French cuisine, and Parterre, a quaint restaurant offering comfort food at the historic Linden Row Inn. For outdoor enthusiasts, the mighty James River offers challenging Class III and IV white-water rafting, a rarity within a U.S. city.-- JOHN L. DORMAN40\. Mount KenyaOn a volcanic mountain, wildlife thrives and glaciers are disappearing.The second-tallest mountain in Africa (after Kilimanjaro), Mount Kenya -- a massive, sleeping volcano that last erupted about 3 million years ago -- lies just south of the equator and dominates the landscape of central Kenya. The mountain is also home to some of the world's last remaining tropical glaciers. But not for long: A recent assessment found that permanent ice on Mount Kenya could disappear completely before 2030. Now is the time to go. Getting to the mountain's rocky summit, which tops out at more than 17,000 feet, requires technical climbing skills, but fit, motivated hikers can make the trek to Point Lenana, which, at 16,355 feet, is the ridgeline's third-highest peak. Over the course of the four- to six-day expedition, hikers travel through a panoply of ecosystems: from tussock grasslands to bamboo forests; from boggy heathlands to the high, wild landscape of the Afro-Alpine zone. Along the way, they might come across elephant tracks in the bamboo, hear hyenas whooping in the night and spot hornbills, sunbirds and hawk-eagles. Hikers either camp or stay in the moderately priced mountain shelters along the route. Guides are strongly recommended, and permits are required; they cost $52 a day for international visitors and can be purchased on arrival at the park.-- PAIGE MCCLANAHAN41. Minorca, SpainA sustainable and art-driven future for a UNESCO heritage island.Beloved for its wild landscapes and unspoiled beaches, Minorca, the second-largest of Spain's Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea (only Majorca is larger) and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, is preparing to draw an artistic crowd in 2020. Hauser & Wirth, among the world's top contemporary galleries, will open an arts center on Isla del Rey, an islet tucked into the port of Mahon, within a defunct 18th-century naval hospital and its outbuildings. The gallery promises to contribute to the hospital's full restoration and preserve the area's ecosystem through gardens designed by landscape artist Piet Oudolf. With rotating exhibitions, educational activities, a residency program and a locavore restaurant, the gallery's arrival complements the island's strict focus on conservation and slow tourism. In lodgings, visitors have more choice as boutique hotels are sprouting that put sustainability at heart, too. Opened late last summer, Menorca Experimental is a 43-room farmhouse surrounded by wild gardens, while Torre Vella and Santa Ponsa are two secluded fincas (agricultural estates with ancient farmhouses) that have been restored. Spanning 740 acres of working farmland that produce olive oil, aromatics and organic vegetables, both make for stylish bases to explore as locals do -- slowly.-- LINDSEY TRAMUTA42\. Oberammergau, GermanyA once-a-decade Passion Play approaches its 400th year.The Bavarian village of Oberammergau has a population of 5,400, but it is expected to pull in half a million visitors in 2020 with its once-a-decade Passion Play, which runs from May 16 through Oct. 4. The first performance was held in 1634 and, for the first time in the play's nearly 400-year history, an equal number of men and women will participate this year in various roles. The five-hour narrative focuses on the last days of Jesus' life -- from the Last Supper to the crucifixion -- and taps into the talents of more than 2,000 residents born and raised in the village. Christian Stuckl, who directs the play for the fourth time, hopes to tell the story in a novel way with refreshed tableaux vivants, or "living pictures," and an edited script that portrays Jesus as a figure "relevant to today's world, who is with those marginalized by society," he said. A partnership with the train operator Deutsche Bahn ensures late-night departures back to Munich, and there are specially discounted performances for younger visitors on May 8 and 9. Oberammergau is also known for its woodcarving legacy, and whittlers, or "Herrgottschnitzer," take great pride in making wooden Christian motifs.-- CHARU SURI43\. Plymouth, EnglandRevitalized, this port city marks a historic occasion.This is the 400th anniversary year of the Mayflower's voyage from Plymouth to the New World, and this fascinating city in southwest England will mark the occasion with more than 100 events. Highlighting both the Pilgrims' and Native Americans' perspectives, they will include music, art, theater, dance, comedy and historical reenactments. (Plymouth, Massachusetts, and other places will also take part.) Plymouth, which bills itself as Britain's Ocean City, has been enjoying a resurgence in recent years. High-profile chefs have opened restaurants and wine bars on the waterfront, like Pier One Bistro, the Honky Tonk Wine Library and Bonne Sante, and the once-quiet Barbican district is now full of cafes and bars. There are hundreds of old buildings, including the recently restored 16th-century Elizabethan House, once a "slum house" where as many as 58 people lived. (A new Mayflower Digital Trails app is available to guide visitors to the sites). And this spring brings the opening of The Box, a striking new cultural precinct featuring a regional archive, a history museum and contemporary art exhibitions. The city has a huge art deco swimming pool next to a stunning lighthouse and an intact 17th-century fortress; nearby is England's oldest gin distillery.-- DAVE SEMINARA44. Atlantic Forest, BrazilA vast ecosystem gets a new hiking trail to highlight its importance.Much of the world watched in helpless alarm last summer as unchecked deforestation sent huge swaths of Brazil's Amazon rainforest up in smoke. Protecting more of Brazil's -- and the planet's -- precious resources is the premise behind a major, multitiered conservation effort now underway in the country's Atlantic Forest. One of the richest ecosystems on the planet, the Atlantic Forest biome hugs Brazil's eastern coastline, and is home to Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and more than 3,400 cities and towns. The effort, a proposed 2,485-mile hiker-friendly trail -- half of which is complete -- would formalize a continuous trail by connecting existing hiking paths through five states and raise public awareness of the Atlantic Forest's importance and vulnerability. The conservation group WWF Brazil, which is leading the project along with private and public sector partners, believes attracting visitors will create more interest in protecting a public heritage and shoring up conservation efforts that have been weakened by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. And these days it's easier for citizens of the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan to travel: Last summer, Brazil waived visa rules for those visitors for up to 90 days.-- VIVIAN SONG45. Belle-Île, FranceA pristine artistic haven inspires a new wave of visitors.The aptly named Belle-Île-en-Mer ("Beautiful Island in the Sea"), the largest island off the coast of Brittany, is on the cusp of a new wave of popularity. One of the greenest and most pristine destinations in France, it has recently had several excellent locavore restaurant openings, like Japanese-born chef Haruka Casters' Restaurant AO, and stylishly renovated hotels, including the 1880-vintage Hotel du Phare, whose refurbishment was led by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte. A favored late19th-century hideaway for artists like Claude Monet, who made its dramatic beaches the subject of many paintings, and the actress Sarah Bernhardt, who created a summer house from a disused stone fort at the Pointe des Poulains, Belle-Île is 45 minutes from Quiberon by ferry. An electric-rental-car service, inaugurated in 2019, is the latest in a variety of eco-responsible initiatives intended to preserve its natural beauty. (Others include a specialized team that maintains the island's 56 miles of hiking trails and rebuilds the dunes along its magnificent and strictly protected coastline.)-- ALEXANDER LOBRANO46. Val d'Aran, SpainA once-remote Pyrenean valley gets adventurous.Strapping on snowshoes used to be one of the few ways into this plunging Pyrenean valley during the winter. Access is now easier -- it's a pine-fringed 200-mile drive from Barcelona, thanks to improved roadways and a tunnel -- but the Val d'Aran is still a culture apart. The centuries-long isolation preserved its medieval villages, Aranese language and pristine wilderness, which serves as the magnificent backdrop for an emerging outdoor adventure scene that remains largely eclipsed by the dazzle of Barcelona and the coast. The soaring Baqueira-Beret ski resort now has more than 100 miles of runs, with a recent expansion to its highest peak, Cap de Baciver, as well as off-piste terrain around Escornacrabes ("Where Goats Fall"). Refuel at lively wine bars and restaurants (this is Spain, after all) like Cinco Jotas Baqueira, where you can feast on ham made from acorn-fed pigs. The valley is also newly claiming summer, with hiking and biking trails that fan out across the Pyrenees, including an upgraded section of the Camino de Santiago and a new cycle path along the Garonne River. In July, the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB), among the world's most challenging foot races, is bringing its international competition to the Val d'Aran for the first time, along with festivities like the music-filled Baqueira-Beret Trail Festival.-- ANNELISE SORENSEN47\. MongoliaCatch a glimpse of Mongolia before the rest of the tourists get there.If you're looking for the one spot on earth to discover before mass tourism does, visit Mongolia in 2020. It might be hard to imagine this sparsely populated country becoming spoiled -- but its tourist numbers are on the rise, and so is its infrastructure. Last year Mongolia attracted 530,000 tourists, up from 150,000 in 2000. Ulaanbaatar, the capital, is opening a new airport, scheduled for completion by the end of May. Financed by the Japanese government, it will accommodate triple the passengers of the current one. More direct routes from Asian destinations are expected, too. Today, Mongolia has more than 400 travel companies, 300 hotels and 600 resorts and tourist camps. The government is giving tax breaks to companies building hotels and has abolished licenses for tourism businesses. It even has a tourism slogan: "Mongolia -- Nomadic by Nature." Some popular activities include trekking, climbing, birding, horseback riding, camel trekking and yak caravans. Nearly every travel company includes the Gobi Desert on its itinerary. One great cultural event is the Naadam sports festival held in July. It includes Mongolia's three most popular sports: Mongolian wrestling, archery and long-distance horse racing.-- JOHN HENDERSON48\. Juliana Trail, SloveniaA sustainably focused hiking loop showcases a green country's epic beauty.Slovenia is arguably the world's most environmentally conscious nation. In 2016, its chief city, Ljubljana, was named European Green Capital. In 2017, Slovenia became the first country certified as a "green destination." So it comes as no surprise that this mountainous swath of land -- the size of Massachusetts with a population of two million -- recently put the final touches on the new sustainability-focused Juliana Trail, in time to receive trekkers for spring 2020. The 166-mile hiking loop, which circumnavigates Triglav National Park (and its 9,395-foot Mount Triglav) and connects villages throughout southeastern Europe's Julian Alps, has a twofold raison d'etre. One is obvious: to provide adventurers with a route traversing the country's scenic highlights -- like the photo-op-friendly Lake Bled, the emerald-green Soca River and the glacial Lake Bohinj. But the path will also spread out visitor traffic, reduce tourist bottlenecks and bring more travelers to overlooked spots along the way. Responsibility, after all, is at the heart of Slovenia's master plan for tourism. "It's not enough to love a landscape today," says Janko Humar, director of the Soca Valley Tourist Board. "You have to proactively manage to preserve the future."-- ALEX CREVAR49. Addis Ababa, EthiopiaA hot economy is bringing eco-tourism to the capital.Ethiopia, where coffee is said to have originated, where Stone Age ancestors first carved flint into tools and where churches were hewn into rock and perched atop cliffs, is Africa's fastest-expanding economy. Nowhere is its rise more evident than in bustling Addis Ababa. Ethiopia's capital has been named a 2020 World Capital of Culture and Tourism and for good reason: Its treasures include Aksum, which, according to tradition, is the birthplace of the Queen of Sheba; a national museum housing traditional crafts and prehistoric fossils, and cathedrals including the copper-topped, neo-Baroque Holy Trinity and massive, mural-filled Medhane Alem, the second largest in Africa. The city has the first light-rail system in sub-Saharan Africa and an industrial and transportation sector humming with new eco-conscious energy. Public spaces have turned greener, and there are more eco-friendly lodges for tourists. Now Bole International Airport, once a tiny, chaotic transit hub, has had a $363 million renovation. Three times the size of its predecessor, the airport has a nearby five-star hotel and the capacity for 22 million passengers a year.-- DEBRA KAMIN50\. Transylvanian Alps, RomaniaA celebration of old-growth forests in Europe.To experience a piece of real wilderness without having to go to the ends of the earth, look no farther than Romania. Of all the old-growth primary forest that remains in Europe, 65% of it is there. These forests, home to bears, wolves and an incredible array of flora and fauna besides, are found all around the country, but you could do worse than head to the Southern Carpathian Mountains, also known as the Transylvanian Alps, for the full experience. A visit to the Domogled-Valea Cernei National Park, or the Fagaras mountain ranges farther east, offers thousands of acres of truly untouched nature alongside opportunities for hiking, camping, swimming under waterfalls and more. Romania's very decent roads (one of which, the Transfagarasan, is a destination in itself for motoring enthusiasts) make it possible to reach all of this, even on shorter trips. There's never been a more important moment to see and celebrate these forests: Despite the efforts of conservationists including Britain's Prince Charles, who called them "a priceless natural treasure in a continent that has long since destroyed most of its wildernesses," logging continues, some of it illegal. Travelers coming in greater numbers could have a real impact, sending the message that these trees are worth more alive than dead.-- GABRIEL LEIGH51\. Urbino, ItalyPaying tribute to the life and work of a great Renaissance artist.This year is the 500th anniversary of Raphael's death. One of Italy's greatest Renaissance painters, Raphael lived in Urbino -- in a perfectly preserved house just down the street from romantic Piazza di San Francesco. On the first floor is one of his first frescoes. In the 15th century, the house was a gathering place for some of the best artists and writers from around Italy. A show displaying some of Raphael's greatest works in context with some other Renaissance artists began in October at Urbino's Galleria Nazionale delle Marche and continues through Jan. 19. From April through the end of 2020, the city will hold trade shows, conferences and spaces dedicated to literature and dance. Today, Urbino's artistic vibe is alive and well. In addition to boasting one of the world's oldest universities (the University of Urbino was founded in 1506), Urbino is also considered Italy's book capital because of its Institute for Book Decoration and Illustration. There's a jazz festival in August. A walled city on a hill with numerous views of the underrated countryside of Le Marche, Urbino has everything Tuscany has -- but at half the price and with half the tourists.-- JOHN HENDERSON52\. Glacier National Park and Whitefish, MontanaA changing landscape in a warming world.When Glacier National Park was created in 1910, there were 150 glaciers; today, only 25 still exist. As harsh winters and scorching summers continue to change the landscape of the park, it still offers jaw-dropping natural beauty, with 762 lakes, 175 mountains, 200-plus waterfalls and more than 700 miles of trails. And this summer will see the reopening of the Sperry Chalet, a beloved century-old wilderness lodge that's been rebuilt after a destructive wildfire in 2017. To enjoy the nearly $9 million reconstruction of the 17-room dormitory, be prepared to make a reservation months in advance and then plan for a rugged hike up the side of a mountain to get there. While the chalet and other historic lodges are great base camps, those wanting to stay closer to civilization should head to Whitefish, an old railroad stop turned resort town, about 30 minutes west. Award-winning restaurants like Cafe Kandahar and boutique lodgings such as the Firebrand Hotel have opened in recent years, but this lakeside town still maintains its frontier spirit.-- JUSTIN FRANZThis article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Why This Weekend Is So Important In Astrology Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:23 PM PST  Has this past week seemed particularly chaotic to anyone else? From international news (rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran) to celebrity gossip (Megxit), the headlines are so OTT that all I can think of is that infamous @Horse_ebooks tweet: "Everything happens so much."There's a reason for this, says astrologer Lisa Stardust. Mercury, Saturn, and Pluto are all in Capricorn, and on Sunday, January 12th, they'll align in what's called a conjunction — meaning they're all lined up in the same sign. During this day, we can expect big things to happen all over the world."On January 12th, we have a series of events that will shake up our lives due to the stellium (a cluster of planets in the same sign) of planets linking up in Capricorn," Stardust explains. "First, we start off the day with Mercury aligning with Saturn and then Pluto."The fact that it's these three particular planets lined up matters. "Whenever Mercury and Saturn come together, there's a big story with authority and power. This sentiment is exemplified by Pluto's connection to Mercury," Stardust says. "These planets, especially in the cardinal sign of Capricorn, will force us to take action against those who aim to control us or hold us back. Finally, later in the day, Saturn and Pluto come together."This Saturn-Pluto conjunction is particularly important. "This is the fight. The rage against the machine. This is where we will unchain ourselves from the constraints or status quo of society and speak our minds," Stardust says. "With the political climate being super heated, we can expect protests against the government and the patriarchy. This energy will set off the birth chart of the U.S.A., and force voices throughout the country to be heard."Pay attention to the headlines this weekend. "All of these planets want to expose the abuses of power in order to transform the world," Stardust says.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?Here's When Mercury Will Be In Retrograde In 2020Your X-Rated Horoscope For 2020 Is HereYour January Horoscope, Revealed
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| 'Chaos Is the Point': Russian Hackers and Trolls Grow Stealthier in 2020 Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:12 PM PST  The National Security Agency and its British counterpart issued an unusual warning in October: The Russians were back and growing stealthier.Groups linked to Russia's intelligence agencies, they noted, had recently been uncovered boring into the network of an elite Iranian hacking unit and attacking governments and private companies in the Middle East and Britain -- hoping Tehran would be blamed for the havoc.For federal and state officials charged with readying defenses for the 2020 election, it was a clear message that the next cyberwar was not going to be like the last. The landscape is evolving, and the piggybacking on Iranian networks was an example of what America's election-security officials and experts face as the United States enters what is shaping up to be an ugly campaign season marred by hacking and disinformation.American defenses have vastly improved in the four years since Russian hackers and trolls mounted a broad campaign to sway the 2016 presidential election. Facebook is looking for threats it barely knew existed in 2016, such as fake ads paid for in rubles and self-proclaimed Texas secessionists logging in from St. Petersburg. Voting officials are learning about bots, ransomware and other vectors of digital mischief. Military officials are considering whether to embrace information warfare and retaliate against election interference by hacking senior Russian officials and leaking their personal emails or financial information.Yet interviews with dozens of officials and experts make clear that many of the vulnerabilities exploited by Moscow in 2016 remain. Most political campaigns are unwilling to spend what it takes to set up effective cyberdefenses. Millions of Americans are still primed to swallow fake news. And those charged with protecting American elections face the same central challenge they did four years ago: to spot and head off any attack before it can disrupt voting or sow doubts about the outcome.It is a task made even more difficult by new threats to the election from other American rivals, such as Iran, which has more motive than ever to interfere in 2020 after a drone strike killed its top security and intelligence commander last week in Iraq.The Russians were sloppy in 2016 because they could be: They caught Americans off guard. Now hackers and trolls, who have seen their tradecraft splashed across the pages of American intelligence assessments and federal indictments, are working far harder to cover their tracks. They are, as one American intelligence official put it, "refreshing" their operations.One of the two Russian intelligence units that hacked the Democrats in 2016, known as "Fancy Bear," has shifted some of its work to servers based in the United States in an apparent attempt to thwart the NSA and other American spy agencies, which are limited by law to operating abroad, according to federal officials tracking the moves. The other unit, known as "Cozy Bear," abandoned its hacking infrastructure six months ago and has dropped off the radar, security analysts said.The trolls at the Internet Research Agency -- the now-indicted outfit behind much of the Russian disinformation spread in 2016 -- have ditched email accounts that were being tracked by Western intelligence agencies and moved to encrypted communication tools, like ProtonMail, that are much harder to trace. They are also trying to exploit a hole in Facebook's ban on foreigners buying political ads, paying American users to hand over personal pages and setting up offshore bank accounts to cover their financial tracks, said an official and a security expert at a prominent tech company.At the Department of Homeland Security, there is renewed anxiety about a spate of ransomware attacks on American towns and cities over the last year. The attacks, officials say, revealed gaping security holes that could be exploited by those looking to disrupt voting by locking up and ransoming voter rolls or simply cutting power at critical polling centers on Election Day. And while large-scale hacking of voting machines is difficult, it is by no means impossible.There are also weak points up and down the long chain of websites and databases used to tally and report votes, officials said. Run by states or counties, the systems that stitch together reports from thousands of polling centers are a hodgepodge of new and old technologies, many with spotty security.With the first primaries just weeks away, officials are keeping a watchful eye for hints about what to expect come November. The widespread expectation is that hackers, who may have only a single shot at exploiting a particular bug or vulnerability, will wait until the general election rather than risk wasting it on a primary.Some of the meddling is homegrown. Americans have been exposed spinning up fake websites for Democratic front-runners and paying Macedonians to promote divisive political views. Facebook, the most important digital platform for political ads, also made it clear this week that it would not police political messaging for lies or misleading claims.With Americans so mistrustful of one another, and of the political process, the fear of hacking could be as dangerous as an actual cyberattack -- especially if the election is close, as expected. That is what happened last November in Kentucky, when talk of a rigged election spread online after it became clear that the governor's race would come down to the wire."You don't actually have to breach an election system in order to create the public impression that you have," said Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks Russian disinformation efforts."Chaos is the point," she added. "You can imagine many different scenarios."Still, officials say, the deepest challenges come from abroad. Iran, under harsh sanctions that were not in place four years ago, nosed around the election system in 2018. More recently, Iranian hackers have been caught trying to compromise President Donald Trump's campaign and impersonating American political candidates on Twitter.For his part, Trump has already warned North Korea against "interference," though he appeared to be referring to missile launches meant to embarrass him.The president has shown far less concern about Russian interference. He has repeatedly questioned the idea that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election, viewing such talk as a challenge to his legitimacy. In his zeal to find another culprit, Trump eagerly embraced a Russian-backed conspiracy theory that shifted the blame to Ukraine, and set in motion the events that led to his impeachment.American officials, however, are nearly unanimous in the conclusion that Russia interfered in 2016, and that it remains the greatest threat in 2020. Unlike other countries, which are seen as eager to influence American policy, Russia appears, above all, to be interested in undermining confidence in America's democratic institutions, starting with the voting process.Then and now, officials and experts said, the Russians and others could bank on one constant: America's partisan divide, which engenders deep cynicism among Democrats and Republicans alike."Our adversaries, including Russia, China, Iran and others, are persistent: They focus on our politics and try to take advantage of existing fissures and American sentiment, particularly if it may weaken us," said Shelby Pierson, who monitors election threats at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence."They'll try many tactics and can adapt," she added. "If it doesn't work out, they try something else."Looking for WeaknessesIn the public imagination, the defining elements of Moscow's interference in the 2016 election were disinformation and the hacking of Democratic Party emails. But as they look to 2020, many election security officials and experts say the most worrying piece of the Russian meddling was the hacking of state election systems.Election systems in all 50 states were targets of Russian hackers in 2016, though voting went smoothly in most places. In the estimation of many officials and experts, the effort was probably a trial run meant to probe American defenses and identify weaknesses in the vast back-end apparatus -- voter-registration operations, state and local election databases, electronic poll books and other equipment -- through which American elections are run.One expert told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia was "conducting the reconnaissance to do the network mapping, to do the topology mapping, so that you could actually understand the network, establish a presence so you could come back later and actually execute an operation."Of particular concern is the Russians' hacking of three companies that provide states with the back-end systems that have increasingly replaced the thick binders of paper used to verify voters' identities and registration status.Current and former officials say American intelligence agencies determined in 2017 that the companies' systems had been penetrated. But officials still cannot say how far the hackers got or whether any data was stolen or corrupted.The companies operate without federal oversight -- it is states, after all, that run American elections, yet most lack the resources or expertise to oversee what are essentially tech firms. As a result, little is known about the companies' security, employee requirements or supply-chain practices, experts said.One of the targeted companies, VR Systems, provided e-poll books to Durham County, North Carolina, where malfunctions with the electronic systems in 2016 led to scores of voters being told incorrectly that they had already cast ballots or were ineligible to vote.Though officials concluded last week that configuration errors, not an attack, were to blame for the problems in Durham, experts say the Election Day chaos there highlighted the risk of an attack or ordinary malfunction that blocks voters from casting their votes in swing states.The rise of ransomware -- which typically locks a system until victims pay the attackers in a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin -- has given another weapon to attackers looking to sow chaos and digitally disenfranchise voters.American cities and towns faced a record number of ransomware attacks last year, with more than 100 federal, state and municipal governments hit.Homeland Security officials are investigating whether Russian intelligence was involved in any of the attacks, according to two department officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. They are looking into whether cybercriminals, who appeared to be motivated by greed, were used as decoys to test the defenses of states and cities that might make ideal targets closer to the election. Among the towns hit hardest by ransomware last year was Riviera Beach, Florida, in Palm Beach County -- which played an outsize role in deciding the contested 2000 presidential election.Manipulating MachinesIn the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, there was an intense focus on America's voting machines, particularly the pricey touch-screen devices that lack the paper trail necessary to audit random samples of the tallies or conduct a reliable -- if slow -- manual recount.Yet many machines remain vulnerable, as J. Alex Halderman, a professor at the University of Michigan, often demonstrates when he runs fake elections between George Washington and Benedict Arnold, and manipulates the software that prepares the ballots to assure a victory for America's most famous traitor."In every single case, we found ways for attackers to sabotage machines and to steal votes," he told the Senate Intelligence Committee, describing his research.A study published in December by Interos, a risk-management firm, raised questions about the security of the hardware used in the machines, as well. Two-thirds of the companies that supply critical components for voting machines maintain offices in Russia and China, where foreign companies are regularly required to give security officials sensitive technical information, including software code in some cases. Chinese-owned companies make about a fifth of the voting machine components.Each of those parts presents an opportunity for foreign interference. "There has been insufficient attention to the potential problems of the actual voting machines being hacked," said David Dill, founder of the Verified Voting Foundation.Come November, eight or so states will still be without full paper backup. These include battleground states, like Pennsylvania, that are out of funds to replace paperless machines.Baiting OutrageMuch as 20th-century militaries learned to combine soldiers, sea power and airplanes to mount a coordinated assault, Russia has proved adept at meddling in elections by blending different types of digital malfeasance into one larger operation. The 2016 election exemplified the playbook: Russian hackers stole sensitive material, starting with Democratic Party emails, then used trolls to spread and spin the material, and built an echo chamber to widen its effect.Now, as the next election approaches, hackers appear to be laying the groundwork for a repeat. But this time they are employing techniques that are more sophisticated -- and dangerous -- in their attempts to steal potentially embarrassing material from political campaigns.Security experts say they are witnessing a significant ramp-up in attempts to hack Democratic front-runners. In just the last two months, there were roughly 1,000 phishing attempts against each of the leading Democratic candidates, according to Area 1, a Silicon Valley security firm, which did not name the candidates.Most were attempts to replicate the 2016 hack of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, who was successfully baited into turning over his email credentials, said Oren Falkowitz, Area 1's chief executive. But in about a fifth of the attacks, hackers compromised the accounts of campaign consultants and affiliates, and used those to send malicious lures to people inside the campaign. It is an extra step for hackers, but individuals are softer targets than the campaign, and people are far more likely to click on a link if they know the sender.An episode during the run-up to Britain's recent parliamentary election highlighted the potential, but also the limits, of disinformation campaigns based on real information.In November, an anonymous Reddit user -- who has since been linked to a wide-ranging Russian disinformation campaign -- posted internal British government documents that detailed preliminary talks with the United States on a trade deal. Though the post did not gain much attention initially, it eventually made its way to the opposition Labour party, which said it offered proof that the Conservatives, if reelected, planned to privatize the National Health Service as part of a deal with the United States.News of the documents forced Prime Minister Boris Johnson to deny that his party planned to privatize the health service, though his government acknowledged that the leaked materials were genuine.But with the Conservatives well ahead in the polls, the episode did nothing to alter the election's outcome. Johnson won a commanding majority in Parliament and a clear mandate to proceed with Britain's exit from the European Union -- and cut a trade deal with the United States.The other pieces of the Russian campaign, which targeted a number of Western countries between 2016 and 2019, had even less impact, according to a report last month by Graphika, a firm that tracks social media activity. Called Secondary Infektion, the campaign was run by trolls who used hundreds of social media accounts to spread 44 stories in at least six languages. The stories ranged from fictitious claims about the 2016 American election to an article that sought to link President Emmanuel Macron of France to Islamist militants.Most were demonstrably false and based on faked interviews or manufactured documents. The trade-deal story appears to have been the only one based on real material, and the only one that made international headlines."Some were openly mocked by real users; many were simply ignored," Ben Nimmo of Graphika wrote in the firm's report."As the 2020 U.S. presidential election approaches," Nimmo added, "it is vital to be wary of potential interference, but it is equally important to understand what forms of interference are most damaging."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| The imminence ploy Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:12 PM PST  The Trump administration's assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was necessary, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a Fox News interview Thursday night, because the Quds Force leader would have attacked us at any moment. "There is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks being plotted by Qassem Soleimani," Pompeo said. "We don't know precisely when and we don't know precisely where, but it was real."That's not what "imminent" means.If you do not know the timeline of an attack, by definition you do not know whether it is imminent. A reporter mentioned as much to Pompeo at a press briefing Friday morning, but he refused to concede the point, pretending he'd been asked to provide a precise timestamp — "I don't know exactly which minute" — immediately before admitting he couldn't even say what day an attack may have occurred.Between Pompeo's obfuscation, a memo on the strike from the White House to Congress, and the total lack of specific evidence provided by the Trump administration (President Trump said in a Fox interview Friday the threat was "probably" against the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and three other embassies), it seems pretty clear there was never an attack imminent. Indeed, The Washington Post reports, "[l]awmakers left classified briefings with U.S. intelligence officials ... saying they heard nothing to suggest that the threat posed by the proxy forces guided by Soleimani had changed substantially in recent months" — months Pompeo reportedly spent pushing Trump to authorize this very strike.So why pretend there was an imminent threat if there wasn't? The answer helps explain how American foreign policy became a dangerously unchecked region of the president's domain.The Constitution gives the power to "declare war" to Congress. As we know from James Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention, this was a deliberate word choice intended to permit the president "the power to repel sudden attacks" as commander-in-chief but to forbid the executive branch authority to "commence war." (This is grade school civics stuff, I know, but it bears rehearsing as we never have a chance to see the process in action.) The delay this built into the war-starting process was a feature not a bug. It was a means, in Madison's words, of "clogging rather than facilitating war [and rather] facilitating peace."The War Powers Act of 1973 formally ceded some of the power to commence war which the executive branch had functionally usurped already. The president could start wars of his own accord, the act provided, so long as he told Congress about it within two days and ended the war within 90 days unless Congress declared war or passed an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) before the deadline hit.Even this minimal limit, which — with the help of political inertia and facile equation of war funding with support for the troops — is really no limit at all, proved unacceptable to American presidents. Congress passed an AUMF in 2001 to go after the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and an AUMF in 2002 for the war in Iraq. In the last two decades, those documents have been stretched beyond all plausibility to cover U.S. military interventions across the Middle East and North Africa. Incredibly, the administration claimed this week that the Iraq AUMF, which literally never uses the word "Iran," somehow authorized the Soleimani strike.Here's where "imminent threats" come in. The president has always been permitted to defend the country against incoming attacks. If the Pentagon detects a missile heading for Times Square, the president does not have to ask Congress if he can do something about it. So the obvious strategy, for a president eager to dispense with congressional involvement in foreign policy altogether, is to make every situation an imminent threat.The tactic is effective. After all, you wouldn't want to be the member of Congress whose whining about constitutional procedure and other nerd crap like that got Americans killed, would you? Fears and false claims of imminent threats thus undergird the entire shift toward executive war-making. Congress is too slow, the argument goes, so waiting for congressional deliberation and approval makes us unsafe.The Trump administration and its allies have leaned hard into this rationale since the Soleimani assassination. Besides Pompeo's incoherent and evolving story of an imminent threat, Trump retweeted a thread from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) declaring he would "oppose any War Powers resolution ... so as to allow this president to have the latitude he needs as commander-in-chief" because the "last thing America needs is 535 commanders-in-chief." Graham has gone on to note that most "military engagements in our history have been conducted without a formal declaration of war" — as if past lawlessness could justify present lawlessness — and announced his laughable belief that the War Powers Act is "unconstitutional" because it reserves too much foreign policy authority to Congress. Meanwhile, former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders graced us with the revelation that she "can't think of anything dumber than allowing Congress to take over our foreign policy" by exercising its constitutional authority.This imminence ploy is clever, but it is a ploy we need to reject. If the executive branch can use "imminent threats" as a universal excuse for commandeering congressional war powers, those powers do not meaningfully exist and the president is less commander-in-chief than warlord-in-chief.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Trump reportedly admitted impeachment played a big role in his Soleimani decision Rush's Neil Peart dies at age 67 Donald Trump is behaving like the guiltiest man alive
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| Ukraine Plane Crash: Roulette in the Sky Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:09 PM PST  Why did Iran not ground flights as its air space became a war zone? And why would a missile battery be so close an international airport? Those are just a couple of the questions surrounding the crash of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752.How the Hell Do You Shoot Down a Passenger Jet by Accident?Well over 1,000 people flew out of Tehran on the night when Iran launched its cruise missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq early Wednesday morning local time, and they were on exactly the same flight path, but only PS752 turned into a fireball and crashed minutes after takeoff.Airlines from seven different countries had flights leaving Tehran between midnight, local time, and 6:12 a.m. when the Ukranian Boeing 737 took off.Western intelligence experts believe that Flight PS752 was hit by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. If so, the 176 people who died seem to have been the victims of a grim game of Russian roulette–why would this jet be targeted when nine others that preceded it were not?And this is just one of the pressing questions raised in the midst of the disputes raging around the disaster.The missile strike on Iraq was launched at around 2 a.m. Wednesday, Iranian time, from sites in western Iran. And yet there was no attempt by the Iranians to close down their commercial air space once it became part of a war zone—when it was most likely that the U.S. would launch a retaliatory strike on Iran.It was left until after the event for individual airlines to cancel their flights into and out of Iran and to avoid flying over Iranian air space, which most international airlines did on Wednesday—the FAA banned all U.S. airlines from Iranian air space, citing "heightened military activities and increased military tensions."According to data provided to The Daily Beast by the tracking site Flightradar24, the air traffic out of Tehran that night covered a wide range of airlines and destinations. The Ukrainian jet was preceded 22 minutes earlier by the largest jet to leave Tehran that night, a Boeing 777 of Qatar Airways, an all-cargo flight to Hong Kong.The other flights, all carrying passengers, included two by Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, one by Turkish airline Atlas Global to Istanbul, Qatar Airways to Doha, Aeroflot to Moscow, Austrian Airlines to Vienna, Lufthansa to Frankfurt and Azerbaijan Airlines to Baku. Seven of the flights were Airbus airplanes, five single-aisle jets and two larger wide-body jets. The Azerbaijan flight was on the smallest of the airplanes, an Embraer 190. Totaling up the capacity of these airplanes, and assuming, conservatively, that the flights were around 80 percent full, around 1,500 people left Tehran that night without knowing how close they came to disaster.The only possible reason why a civilian airliner might mistakenly be targeted by a missile battery is if its transponder, the automatic system that continuously transmits the identity of the airplane, was not working and the airplane appeared to be a "rogue" intruder.But Flightradar24 confirms that the Ukranian 737's transponder was working throughout taxiing, takeoff, and climb and stopped transmitting only at the time it began its fiery descent. Its radar track to that point was identical to the other earlier flights climbing to cruise altitude.Tehran's air traffic controllers were responsible for directing all the flights out of Iranian air space until they were accepted by the controllers in neighboring countries. They would have been the first to see that Flight PS752 had abruptly disappeared from their radar while following its designated heading.Why a military missile unit familiar with its location so close to a continually used international airline route would ever be activated, let alone fire a missile, without first contacting the air traffic controllers and without being overseen by a competent command and control regime is completely baffling.If this did occur–and Iranian authorities are still insisting that it did not–then it is inexcusable. Meanwhile the Iranians have implied that the crash investigation will meet international standards by inviting the participation of both the National Transportation Safety Board, representing the U.S., and the French Bureau d'Enqueues et d'Analyses, BEA, one of the world's most experienced and highly regarded crash investigation teams.Team Trump Goes Back To Sanctions PlaybookRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Kushner's Global Role Shrinks as He Tackles Another: The 2020 Election Posted: 10 Jan 2020 12:08 PM PST  WASHINGTON -- When senior administration officials gathered in the Situation Room on Tuesday for a meeting to discuss the repercussions of the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Vice President Mike Pence had a seat at the table. So did Robert O'Brien, the national security adviser, and Mark T. Esper, the defense secretary.But the White House aide whose portfolio is the Middle East was notably absent from the meeting.Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, was sitting for a photo shoot for a planned Time magazine cover story. He was also absent from the Situation Room later in the day when it was clear Iran was launching an attack on U.S. forces and the same officials rushed back, joined by Trump and West Wing aides like Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, and Stephanie Grisham, the press secretary.Over the past two weeks, Kushner has had little visible part in what has been Trump's most high-stakes moment as commander in chief, the starkest example of how much his role in the White House is changing as the Trump presidency enters its fourth year.Kushner has also served as the peacemaker in trade negotiations with Mexico and China, smoothing over disputes and serving as a mediator between foreign officials and Trump. But with the North American trade deal expected to become law within weeks, and the president poised to sign a first-phase China trade deal on Wednesday, that role will be less of a focus.Instead, Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, the president's older daughter, is positioning himself to be the overseer of something of even greater personal interest to his father-in-law: Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.Unlike the behind-the-scenes role he played in the 2016 campaign -- where he was seen as a key figure but, campaign aides said, never took a title and avoided blame -- Kushner is positioning himself now as the person officially overseeing the entire campaign from his office in the West Wing, organizing campaign meetings and making decisions about staffing and spending. His more prominent role comes after much of 2019 was spent bogged down by the Russia-related investigations that had dogged the president since he took office.The portfolio marks a sharp departure from Kushner's focus in the early days of the administration, when he sought to be a central driver of administration Middle East policy, acting at times as a shadow secretary of state who circumvented official channels of power within the State Department.Back then, Kushner's influence in the region extended far beyond his stated portfolio of negotiating peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, setting an early tone by bypassing Cabinet members to persuade Trump to make Saudi Arabia his first stop abroad as president."Since Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has come in, you've seen Jared's role narrow to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," said Ilan Goldenberg, the director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, who worked under former Secretary of State John Kerry on Middle East issues. "It's been a gradual move, and it's very striking right now."Kushner declined to comment on his change in focus, but his allies in the White House say he sees no reason to involve himself as extensively in international issues now that the State Department is run by Pompeo, whom he sees as far more competent than his predecessor, Rex Tillerson. They also pointed to the fact that Trump's national security team now includes many Kushner allies, like O'Brien and Brian Hook, the special representative for Iran who has also worked with Kushner on the peace process.Kushner's status as a member of the president's family has also made it possible for him to choose the moments and issues where his role is highly visible.He played a critical role in persuading Trump to support a criminal justice overhaul, which he has also promoted as a way to help Trump win over African American voters. But he has never unveiled a peace plan whose delivery date has been delayed indefinitely. And with Israel in its own political limbo, the expectations that Kushner's plan would form the basis of a deal are low.In recent months, Kushner has been directing the construction of the president's wall along the southern border, telling associates he has a timetable for getting a portion completed by the election and holding regular meetings with status updates on how much mileage has been built. Kushner's wresting of control over the issue has generated criticism from some administration officials, who said he dives into other people's policy areas with abandon and little foresight.Last week, he was involved in the Trump campaign's decision to spend $10 million on a 60-second ad that will run during the Super Bowl, an announcement that came out after the campaign of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York signaled it would make the same buy, a person familiar with his role said.But ever since Trump entered office with his son-in-law at his side, Kushner has been trailed by questions about what it is that he really does or has accomplished. His portfolios -- streamlining the government's information technology systems, brokering peace in the Middle East -- have at times seemed so large that they are meaningless. His floating "senior adviser" status that functions outside of any formal chain of command has given him a role that seems simultaneously all-powerful and make-believe.His expectations for winning an election, however, are higher.During Trump's vacation at Mar-a-Lago, his private Florida club, Kushner arranged meetings with campaign officials to discuss messaging. He made a rare appearance at a campaign briefing in December with members of the news media, where the former Democrat declared that he was now a card-carrying Republican.Kushner spent the holidays with Trump, and it is unclear what private conversations he had with his father-in-law there about the situation in Iran. Trump, who personally granted his son-in-law a security clearance by overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House counsel, often seeks Kushner's counsel on issues he is not directly involved with, and they spent many hours together during the week.Aides, however, would not say what Kushner's view of the strikes was."Jared's Middle East portfolio is primarily focused on developing a peace plan between the Israelis and the Palestinians," said Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman. "He gets involved in other matters where appropriate to further President Trump's objectives."While he was not in any Situation Room meetings, Kushner pushed his father-in-law to deliver some kind of statement about the Soleimani strike from the White House rather than at a political rally later, despite concerns from other senior officials about the president speaking about a crisis that did not appear to be over.And there are issues in the Middle East and on the international stage where Kushner still asserts himself: He was present for a meeting on Monday in the Oval Office with Khalid bin Salman, a member of the Saudi royal family. The meeting was not on Trump's schedule, and officials have declined to give a summary of what was discussed; its existence was acknowledged by the White House only after the Saudis posted photos on Twitter.After Trump met with the prime minister of Greece on Wednesday, it was Kushner he turned to in the Oval Office, an aide said, asking him to walk him out.Among Trump critics, Kushner's many roles have not instilled confidence. "It seems like he just bounces around based on whatever issue intrigues him at any given moment, without regard for his past track record, or inexperience on any given issue," said Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton's spokesman during her 2016 campaign against Trump.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| EU warns Iran nuclear deal may collapse Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:52 AM PST  The EU's diplomatic chief warned Friday that it may not be possible to save the Iran nuclear deal, as the bloc's foreign ministers held emergency talks on the Middle East. Europe has led efforts to save the 2015 accord, gravely undermined by Trump's unilateral withdrawal in 2018 and Iran's subsequent winding down of its compliance, but to little effect. After an afternoon of talks with ministers, Josep Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, reiterated Europe's continuing support for the deal but warned it may be doomed.
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| All The Signs That Meghan McCain Might Be Leaving The View Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:51 AM PST  Meghan McCain has quite the knack for controversy — especially when it comes to her roundtable talk. The 35-year-old co-host of The View is well-known for her contrarian opinions and non-answer answers, often to the point of visibly irritating her fellow co-hosts. Just last month, after a heated on-air debate about Trump's impeachment, the usually-collected Whoopi Goldberg bluntly told McCain, "Girl, please stop talking. Please stop talking right now." On the show, McCain seemed taken back and simply responded, "No problem, I won't talk for the rest of the show." The very next day, she took to Twitter to draw comparisons between herself and Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. Which, was a stretch, to say the least. These days, it looks like McCain's future on the show that made her a household name might be in question. For starters, there's a literal petition to replace her, specifically with another conservative commentator like Ana Navarro or Jedediah Bila (who actually left The View back in 2017). As of press time, the petition had more than 8,300 signatures. Complicating matters even more are several unsubstantiated claims that McCain's co-hosts are not currently on speaking terms with her. On Thursday, she was mysteriously absent from the live taping of the show. This drew further criticism considering the recent tensions with both co-hosts and guests.Namely, her being MIA comes just two days after her on-air confrontation with Senator Elizabeth Warren. The Democratic presidential nominee appeared on The View to talk about her platform and the ongoing military crisis with Iran. McCain accused Warren of flip-flopping her description of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and said, "I don't understand why it was so hard to call him a terrorist, and I would just like you to explain the change."For the record, Warren called Soleimani a "murderer responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans," but that response clearly didn't satisfy McCain. McCain badgered Warren to refer to Soleimani as a "terrorist," which led the senator to clarify her perspective on the whole situation. "Of course he is [a terrorist]," Warren said. "He's part of a group that our federal government has designated as a terrorist. The question, though, is, 'What's the right response?' And the response that Donald Trump has picked is the most incendiary and has moved us right to the edge of war — and that is not in our long-term interests."> Warren outright ignoring Meghan McCain is the energy I need for 2020. https://t.co/ioFi1iCr3P> > — Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) January 8, 2020That response effectively shut down additional retorts from McCain, though it didn't save her from getting criticized on social media. Many felt that Warren not only made her points very clear during her appearance on the show, but that she also expertly ignored McCain's other attempts to interrupt her while she was speaking. Now, McCain's career as a commentator and co-host on The View seem to hang in the balance as so many speculate her absence and possible dismissal.Related Content:Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?Meghan McCain Compares Herself To Queen Of DragonsMeghan McCain & Whoopi Goldberg Fight On The ViewMeghan McCain Had Words For Trump At Dad's Funeral
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| White House considering dramatic expansion of travel ban Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:50 AM PST  The White House is considering dramatically expanding its much-litigated travel ban to additional countries amid a renewed election-year focus on immigration by President Donald Trump, according to six people familiar with the deliberations. A document outlining the plans — timed to coincide with the third anniversary of Trump's January 2017 executive order — has been circulating the White House. The most recent iteration of the ban includes restrictions on five majority-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, as well as Venezuela and North Korea.
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| Egyptian restores historic synagogue, but few Jews remain Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:47 AM PST  Egypt reopened a historic synagogue on Friday in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria after a yearslong government renovation. The country's Jews largely left more than 60 years ago amid the hostilities between Egypt and Israel. The two-story Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue in Alexandria partially collapsed in 2016.
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| Trump ordered Soleimani attack to appease Republicans he views as important for impeachment, report says Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:40 AM PST  Donald Trump ordered the airstrike that killed an Iranian general last week at least in part due to fears about his upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate, according to a new report.An article in the Wall Street Journal indicates that Mr Trump has told associates that he ordered the killing of Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani amid pressure from Republicans who wanted him to take a stronger stance towards Iran.
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| Commercial Flights Rerouted Away From Middle East Amid U.S. and Iran Tensions Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:24 AM PST  U.S. Reroutes Flights Away From Middle East Amid Iran Tensions
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| Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe 'having panic attacks’ in Iran prison since Soleimani's death Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:21 AM PST  Jailed British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has suffered panic attacks since the US killing of Iranian general Qassim Soleimani, her husband has revealed, amid fears the assassination could harm her case. Richard Ratcliffe said rising tensions in Tehran are taking a toll on the mental health of his wife, who spent a night in a medical clinic at Evin prison after experiencing heart palpitations. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is midway through a five-year sentence, accused of spying, which she denies. The UK Government has been attempting to secure her release after affording her diplomatic protection last year. The 40-year-old is among as many as five people with dual British-Iranian nationality, or with UK connections, believed to be in prison in Iran at present. Several others have expressed their fears that the latest escalation will harm any possible chance of release. Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Friday morning, Mr Ratcliffe said: "This is a situation where there is a lot of anger in Iran and a lot of vulnerability, and it's very stressful for the people involved. "I mean, Nazanin was taken down to the clinic overnight two nights ago, through palpitations and panic attacks. "So I think it's important for the Government to just do what they can." He added: "She was put on beta blockers to calm down. We usually expect things to happen a week or 10 days later, so there is a sense of foreboding which is affecting all the prisoners." Mr Ratcliffe, whose daughter Gabriella started school in London this week after returning from several years in Tehran, added: "There's certainly concerns, I think it's a very tough time, and you have heard on the news this morning about other events in Iran, it's just really sad. "(We are) really pressing up on the media for a meeting with the Prime Minister. "So we will be calling to find out when we can do that."
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| US tried to take out another Iranian leader, but failed Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:09 AM PST  The U.S. military tried, but failed, to take out another senior Iranian commander on the same day that an American airstrike killed the Revolutionary Guard's top general, U.S. officials said Friday. The officials said a military airstrike by special operations forces targeted Abdul Reza Shahlai, a high-ranking commander in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps but the mission was not successful. Officials said both Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Shahlai were on approved military targeting lists, which indicates a deliberate effort by the U.S. to cripple the leadership of Iran's Quds force, which has been designated a terror organization by the U.S. Officials would not say how the mission failed.
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| Here's what Iran might be up to in the US's neighborhood after lobbing missiles into Iraq Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:00 AM PST  Tehran's sprawling network of proxies and assets raise concerns it could try to damage US interests far from Iran's own borders
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| North Korea's 5,000 Metric Tons Of Chemical Weapons Is a Threat Posted: 10 Jan 2020 11:00 AM PST  North Korea has a robust WMD program.
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| Nonprofit's heartbreaking 2014 ad goes viral again: 'Imagine it happening to a little white girl' Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:58 AM PST  A nonprofit's 2014 advertisement has gone viral again amid U.S.-Iran tensions and Syria's ongoing civil war.
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| False images and facts are being shared on the internet following Iran attacks Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:45 AM PST  Since the death of top Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, misinformation in posts and images regarding tensions in Iran have circulated widely across social media.
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| Nonprofit's heartbreaking 2014 ad goes viral again: 'Imagine it happening to a little white girl' Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:44 AM PST  A nonprofit's 2014 advertisement has gone viral again amid recent tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
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| Iranian accused in 1994 Argentina bombing steps into debate Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:41 AM PST |
| Crash of PS752 in Iran: Was the aircraft shot down? Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:38 AM PST  A Boeing passenger jet crashed in Iran early on January 8, hours after Tehran had launched a barrage of missiles at bases housing American troops in Iraq, in retaliation for the killing of commander Qasem Soleimani in a US strike. All 176 on board the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 -- mainly Iranian-Canadian dual nationals but also Ukrainians, Afghans, Britons and Swedes -- were killed. Speculation immediately emerged that the juxtaposition of the timing of the Iranian reprisals against the United States and the plane crash was no coincidence.
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| IS gloats at Iran general's death, says it pleased Muslims Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:38 AM PST |
| Bernie Sanders in Trump's crosshairs in wake of Iran crisis Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:36 AM PST  The Iran crisis collided with the Democratic presidential race this week as Sen. Bernie Sanders and President Trump battled over the circumstances of the U.S. strike that killed a prominent Iranian general.
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| Energy Lag: Sector Earnings Seen Sagging Despite Crude Prices Rising In Q4 Posted: 10 Jan 2020 10:24 AM PST |
