HBO's Chernobyl was never going to be light, breezy TV show, but there's no way to prepare for what it does to you.
The five-part miniseries is an unmissable television event, but it is one that will harrow you, a horror story in the guise of a historical docudrama. Each second is riddled with nauseous anxiety. Knowing how this story ends does not in any way lessen the terror of watching it unfold in real time.
On April 26, 1986, a nuclear reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant outside of Pripyat in what was then the Soviet Union. The resultant fire in the reactor's graphite moderator led to massive amounts of radiation carrying across the local radius through smoke. The incident is regarded by many as the most catastrophic nuclear accident in history. Read more...
The Jonas Brothers were Saturday Night Live's musical guests on May 11, but they also popped up in a sketch.
"Judge Court" starred Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon, and host Emma Thompson as three daytime TV judges. They're best friends, they're all on the same show ("the only courtroom with three judges"), and they are all deeply bad at their jobs.
The Jonases show up near the end of the sketch. They're accused of destroying a man's home, which they admit to. (Nick, in fact, admits to arson.) The judges, however, find them all so cute that they call them their "sons" and invite them to dinner instead of sending them to prison. Read more...
Scrolling through @SighSwoon on Instagram is the equivalent of picking up a mysterious book at a thrift shop and falling into words that both enlighten and entertain.
Gabi Abrao, a 24-year-old Los Angeles native, is the mind behind one of Instagram's shiniest hidden gems. SighSwoon showcases self-reflective memes and guides on how to feel things, whether it's simple pleasures or a broken heart. It’s a treasure trove of content tailored for millennials navigating creative lives.
Sighswoon began in the summer of 2016, Abrao tells Mashable over email. Heartbreak and the desire to make some changes drove her toward the internet as a medium for creating and connecting with others, mainly through memes. With an ever-growing follower count of 62.3K, she's connected with a lot of people. Read more...
Emma Thompson hosted Saturday Night Live's Mother's Day episode on May 11, and fellow moms Tina Fey and Amy Poehler made a cameo to help her explain "mom speak."
"Sometimes it can be hard to decipher what our mothers are, in fact, saying," Thompson explained. "They do speak in code."
If your mom says she just wants to "relax in the backyard" this Mother's Day? She wants to smoke weed. If she says you look tired? She thinks you look bad. And when she announces she's heading off to book club, she's about to get wasted at her friend's house. You can't blame her — moms have lives, too, and Linda's got the good wine. Read more...
In a hefty New York Times report from May 7 we learned that Donald Trump — brace yourself, this might come as a shock — isn't actually the financial wizard he claims to be. In fact, during a 10-year period in the '80s and '90s, he lost, quote!, "more money than any American taxpayer."
This is also notably the period when he, uh, received a co-author credit on the bestselling book Trump: The Art of the Deal. This is a president, remember, who ran his election campaign in part on the promise that he's some kind of extraordinary dealmaker.
If you're wondering what catnip looks like when you're a Saturday Night Live Weekend Update writer, here it is. Read more...
Is there a joke here? Isn't this just what politics-as-usual looks like in 2019?
The latest Saturday Night Live cold open paid a visit to NBC's Meet the Press, as host Chuck Todd (Kyle Mooney) sits down with three key GOP legislators — Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Susan Collins, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — to ask an important question. What would it take to make you stop supporting Donald Trump?
The answer, in real life and in joke life, is absolutely nothing. This isn't so much a comedy sketch as it is a cold, hard slap in the face from reality. (Harder, daddy?) Read more...
Happy Mother's Day! And what a great way to start the day by checking out all the best deals around the internet. Ranging from flash storage, smart home, garden goods, gaming device, and many more. If you forgot to get your mom a gift for Mother's Day? Don't worry as you still have time. Simply download Amazon Prime Now app, as they are offering two-hour delivery.
With loads of great offers to pick from, here are some examples if you are struggling to think of somethingKindle Paperwhite for $89.99, Echo Dot for $29.99, Fire HD 8 tablet for $59.99.
In an electrified world that's increasingly on the go, it's challenging to wind down and get a full eight hours of shuteye. Not surprising, then, that the web is oozing with sleep hacks.
Popular hacks run the gamut from taking melatonin supplements in the evening to dozing off to binaural beats, to even turning off the tech an hour before bed. But might we suggest one more: the time-honored tradition of ensuring the bedsheets you sleep on are softer than a baby's butt.
Here's a great place to start: We've outlined 15 amazing bedsheet deals below that will outfit your sleeping arrangement so that you knock right out at night. (A note — some of the picks below are variations of the same brand in great colors, with pictures for quick and easy perusal.) Read more...
Outfitting your home with a state-of-the-art security system used to cost an arm and a leg, but not anymore. With the Internet of Things smart devices getting more sophisticated and cheaper by the year, you can now lock down 24/7 surveillance of your home for a fraction of the price and effort of older setups.
One seriously quality example is the Lizatech WiFi Home Alarm Security System, now available at a markdown of $50At $149.99, the Lizatech is a great deal when compared to comparable models from competing brands.
The Lizatech home security system may be more affordable than its big-name counterparts, but it performs just as capably. Its HD IP camera records constantly and features motion sensors that allow it to function like a discreet security guard (only a whole lot cheaper). You can access remote viewing anytime on your phone with the compatible app, plus comprehensive snapshots and video recording of any activity that transpires in front of your house. Read more...
"TIFU by asking Reddit which ethnic group to exterminate."
On Saturday, the Formula 1 auto racing subreddit r/Formula1 received some unexpected viral attention when one Redditor's poorly-worded post got wildly misinterpreted by the online community.
"If you could eliminate a race within the year, which would it be, and why?" the doomed post reads.
"From my perspective, and it’s not going to be a popular one, but it would have to be Monaco," OP continues.
"As years have gone by, it’s become too much of a procession/parade than a race for me, not enough space or opportunities to overtake on the circuit, making it more of a team tactics battle rather than a race." (!!!) Read more...
A playground scene: "Tesla, honey, please stop licking the slide."
That's right, 109 babies born in the United States were named Tesla in 2018, down from 143 in 2017. The Social Security Administration's annual data dump of baby names happened on Friday, giving numbers nerds and bored weekend writers (*raises hand*) the chance to look for interesting gems amongst the Liams, Emmas, and 2,545 girls named Arya.
The name Tesla — far more popular for girls than boys — started gaining popularity in the early 2010s. According to baby name site Nameberry, Tesla is of "Slavic, Serbian, Croatian origin meaning 'from Thessaly.'" Of course, it's also the name of Elon Musk's electric car brand and the surname of inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla, for whom the auto and energy company was named after. Read more...
Looking forward to the premiere of HBO's Euphoria? So are we!
At least, we think we are. The mysterious teen drama series dropped its first full-length trailer on Saturday — and, despite a two-and-a-half-minute length, managed to avoid answering any of our many questions from the similarly puzzling teaser.
Starring Zendaya, created by Sam Levinson, and sporting a mysterious executive producing credit from Drake, Euphoria appears to be taking the "confuse them into watching" approach to its pre-release press plan.
Other than that ominous "feel something" tagline, little is known about the series and its underlying plot. This first trailer reveals some specifics about the roles attached actors will play in the project (as does the show's Instagram), but beyond that HBO isn't sharing much. Read more...
It might surprise you to learn that many of Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí's greatest works can be found at a museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
What might surprise you even more? Thanks to artificial intelligence, the late painter, who died in 1989, now resides there too — and he'd love to snag a selfie.
The Dalí Museum, renowned for its extensive collection of surrealist works, debuted a permanent exhibit to the public on Saturday, titled Dalí Lives. At first appearing as a super sleek information kiosk, the interactive exhibit encourages guests to approach a human-sized screen and press a small, LED-lit button to summon the main attraction. Read more...
Apple's colorful line of iPhone XR phones could be in for a shift in the rainbow of options. The blog Macotakara cites "reliable information sources" in reporting a rumor that Apple will swap out the coral and blue iPhone XRs for green and lavender ones.
Lavender is a fairly specific shade of purple, but what can we expect of the more vague green hue? Are we talking a kelly green, a lime green, something in the family of a dusty Yoda green?
Beyond the coral and blue, the iPhone XR currently comes in black, white, yellow, and (PRODUCT) RED. When the iPhone XR debuted in September 2018, it was Apple's first splash back into bright colors since the iPhone 5C launched in 2013 with blue, green, yellow, pink, and white color choices. Read more...
When the next car-sized rover lands on Mars in 2020, the ultimate head of this extraterrestrial endeavor will be physicist Lori Glaze. She's leads NASA's Planetary Science Division.
And she's not alone. For the first time in history, three of NASA's four science divisions are now run by women, a milestone announced by NASA on Friday.
"I am proud to say that for the 1st time in #NASA's history, women are in charge of 3 out of 4 #NASAScience divisions. They are inspiring the next generation of women to become leaders in space exploration as we move forward to put the 1st woman on the Moon," NASA's associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen tweeted Friday. Read more...
HTC is doubling down on its blockchain phone idea.
The company has announced a new blockchain phone called the Exodus 1s. Compared to its predecessor, the $699 Exodus 1, the Exodus 1s is a cheaper phone, but it also brings an important feature that was promised from the get-go: full Bitcoin node capability.
Launched on Saturday by HTC's Decentralized Chief Officer Phil Chen (I just love that title) in New York, the HTC Exodus 1s will cost around $250 to $300 when it launches in the third quarter of 2019.
No specs were revealed, but the important news is that every Exodus 1s phone will have full Bitcoin node capabilities. This may sound somewhat arcane even for cryptocurrency users, the vast majority of whom don't run a full node, but it has important implications for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Read more...
We're a week out from the highly-anticipated release of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum — and critics are promising big things.
First reviews of the action franchise's new installment reveal a positive critical consensus, highlighting the film's meticulous world-building, all-star cast, and totally bonkers level of commitment.
Star Keanu Reeves and Wickverse-newcomer Halle Berry are celebrated in many reviews, although Berry's much-discussed attack dogs/co-stars, seen first at CinemaCon, steal plenty of press spotlight.
That being said, the Wick news isn't all positive. Numerous critics noted Parabellum's weak plot and use of excessive violence as a storytelling crutch. Read more...
You have four hours max to visit a galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the $1-billion Disneyland attraction set to open May 31, will employ Stormtroopers to enforce a strict time limit on visitors. The Los Angeles Times reports that the four-hour rule is only one part of the park's efforts to avoid overcrowding and a situation that feels as claustrophobic as being stuck in an Imperial trash compactor with a wookiee.
During the first three weeks after opening, guests will be required to make reservations and wear colored wristbands that designate their time slot. Once that four hours expires, the Galactic Empire forces will escort visitors out in a way likely more polite than normal Stormtrooper protocol. Read more...
Game of Thrones Season 8 has had no shortage of twists, good and bad. (Okay, mostly bad.) But the biggest one, in my book?
Bran Stark, he of Three-Eyed Raven nonsense, emerging as the most relatable character in all of Westeros.
No, really.
Up through Season 7, I was, like so many others, a Bran hater. I sighed theatrically whenever his scenes came up, I yelled at the TV as yet another kind-hearted Northerner sacrificed themselves for him, I took pleasure in dunking on him relentlessly.
Sophie Turner, aka Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones, stopped by The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Friday to chat about her recent marriage to Joe Jonas, promote X-Men: Dark Phoenix — and firmly point the finger at Emilia Clarke, aka Daenerys Targaryen, for thatcoffee cup.
"I mean, look who it's placed in front of," Turner joked, after firmly denying accusations that it was in fact her who left the cup on set. "Emilia Clarke! She's the culprit!"
Case closed? Not quite. Fans following the delightfully dumb investigation of so-called "cupgate" will recall Clarke providing her own seemingly exonerating evidence via Instagram on Thursday. Read more...
Lyft is looking for ways to diversify its business.
The ride-share company has already invested in scooter and bike rentals, and now it's looking like car rentals may be next. A test program is underway now in San Francisco, the company confirms, and it sounds more like a traditional rental service than, say, ZipCar.
"We've added bikes, scooters, and public transit info into the app in cities across the country, and we're currently testing a small-scale rental option for long-distance trips, like a weekend away," a Lyft spokesperson told Engadget.
While the company didn't get into specifics, reports from program participants suggest it could be a decent deal — assuming the pricing remains the same in a more widely available rental program. Customers can rent a standard-sized sedan for around $60 per day and an SUV for $100 per day. There's also possibly Lyft credit for those who use the ride-share service to get to or from a rental lot, as well as free add-ons like bike racks and tire chains. Read more...
The aging Hubble Space Telescope looks back into deep time, billions of years ago, before our sun was even born.
At the very limits of Hubble's viewing abilities lies a cluster of spiraling, disk-shaped galaxies, collectively called SPT0615. NASA posted an image of these ancient structures, one of which was born over 13 billion years ago, relatively soon after the Big Bang likely created the universe. Light left these faraway galaxies long ago, but Hubble can sleuth out this ancient luminosity.
"The light from distant objects travels to us from so far away that it takes an immensely long time to reach us, meaning that it carries information from the past — information about the time at which it was emitted," NASA wrote. Read more...
* The US military is deploying additional assets to the Middle East to deter a possible Iranian attack, the Pentagon announced on Friday. * The USS Arlington, an amphibious transport-landing dock used to move troops for expeditionary operations, and a Patriot surface-to-air missile battery are on their way to the US Central Command area of responsibility. * These assets will join the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and the B-52 bomber task force deployed to this region earlier in the week.
The US is sending even more firepower to the Middle East in response to unspecified threats from Iran, the Pentagon announced on Friday.
The USS Arlington, a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock used to move Marines, amphibious assault vehicles, conventional landing craft, and rotary aircraft, and a Patriot surface-to-air missile battery capable of eliminating certain types of incoming missiles and aircraft are on their way to the US Central Command area of responsibility.
According to a defence industry source, the 2B25 mortar is capable of silently destroying a target at a distance of over 1 km
MOSCOW, May 7. /TASS/. The Russian Army has started to receive the most advanced 2B25 'Gull' silent mortars, a source in the defense industry told TASS on Tuesday.
"The deliveries of 2B25 silent mortars to the troops have begun. In particular, special-purpose units received several dozen such mortars recently. During its operation, the Gull proved its worth as an easy-to-operate and reliable weapon, which is actually stealthy," the source said.
The 2B25 mortar is capable of silently destroying a target at a distance of over 1 km, the source added.
A guerrilla soldier aims a U.S.-built Stinger surface-to-air missile system at passing aircraft near a remote rebel base in the Safed Koh Mountains, in Afghanistan, on February 10, 1988. Robert Nickelsberg/Liaison
The official school of the United States' Special Operations Command has published a new paper detailing a decades-long history of Pentagon-backed interference around the world, hoping to provide insight on how best to approach such efforts in the present and future.
The 250-page study, "Support to Resistance: Strategic Purpose and Effectiveness," was compiled by Army Special Forces veteran Will Irwin and published earlier this week by the official Joint Special Operations University, where he was a resident senior fellow. Though the report notes that its views "are entirely those of the author," its findings present a comprehensive look at how the U.S. has supported efforts to pressure, undermine and overthrow foreign governments.
He is the global leader of opposition to the US position in international politics
At the last minute the Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping vetoed the trade deal with the United States, after his representatives had negotiated and agreed to it. Xi claimed that he will take the responsibility for 'all possible consequences.' This left President Trump no choice but to impose higher tariffs on some Chinese imports.
This battle over trade marks only the early rounds of the US struggle with China. China's economic success was achieved in large measure by taking advantage of the working people of both China and the US. It was made possible because the US allowed it to enter the world's free trade system.
"When Rome fell…." The expression seems designed to conjure the Tarot card Tower that illustrates it, a sudden attack, a reckoning. "Fell," in the case of most ancient empires, means declined, changed, and transformed over centuries. As all great cities do, Rome suffered many violent shocks during its fall, as it transitioned from a pagan to a Christian empire. The sacking of Rome in 410 left Romans reeling, trying to make meaning from upheaval. They found it in the pagan religion of their ancestors.
WNU Editor: Two things that I picked out from this post. Rome has been around for a long time. And the size of the city is directly related to the power it wields.
IRAN has warned US President Donald Trump the US fleet dispatched to the Persian Gulf will face "dozens of missiles" if it "attempts any move", raising the prospect of a direct, explosive military confrontation.
ELON MUSK is to stand trial over allegations he called a British diver who helped rescue Thai schoolboys from a flooded cave a paedophile, American officials have announced.
RABIES, plague, SARS and zoonotic influenza all have the potential to develop in to global pandemics, a US-based expert in infectious diseases has warned.
POLICE in France used tear gas during a violent clash with Yellow Vest protestors who took to the streets for the 26th consecutive weekend of demonstrations against Emmanuel Macron.
MOTHER'S DAY 2019 or "DÃa de la Madre" is celebrated on May 10 in Mexico and on May 12 in the USA. Here is a list of Mother's Day greetings, including how to say Happy Mother's Day in Spanish.
RESULTS from South Africa's general election are in and the ANC has held power, although with the smallest majority since taking office in 1994. So what next for the 'rainbow nation'?
THE USA remains at bitter loggerheads with Iran over the controversial nuclear deal. Now, as the agreement lies in tatters following President Hassan Rouhani's latest announcement, the Trump administration is sending a Patriot missile-defence system, B-25 bombers and a warship to the Middle East as tensions with Iran continue to rise.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó on Saturday said he’s instructed his political envoy in Washington to immediately open relations with the U.S. military in a bid to bring more pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to resign.
The leader said he’s asked Carlos Vecchio, who the U.S. recognizes as Venezuela’s ambassador, to open “direct communications” toward possible military “coordination.”
The remarks, at the end of a rally Saturday, mark one of his strongest public pleas yet for greater U.S. involvement in the country’s fast-escalating crisis. While Guaidó has repeatedly echoed comments from the Trump administration that “all options” are on the table for removing Maduro, few in the U.S. or Venezuelan opposition view military action as likely nor has the White House indicated it’s seriously considering such a move.
But with tensions between the U.S. and Maduro running high, the saber rattling is getting louder.
On Saturday, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino condemned what he said was an illegal incursion by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter into Venezuelan territorial waters. He provided no evidence to back the claim but said that the Venezuelan Navy vessels forced it to withdraw..
“I don’t know if other republics will accept actions like this in their jurisdiction, but we will not,” he said.
Army Col. Amanda Azubuike, a South Command spokeswoman, said a U.S. Coast Guard vessel was conducting a drug interdiction mission in the international waters of the Caribbean Sea. She declined to provide further comment.
In past days, Padrino also denounced what he said were attempts by the U.S. military to sow discord inside Venezuela’s barracks, inviting an angry response from U.S. Navy Adm. Craig Faller, the head of South Command, who said he “stands ready” to assist Guaidó.
“I look forward to discussing how we can support the future role of those (leaders of Venezuelan armed forces) who make the right decision, put the Venezuela people first & restore constitutional order,” Faller said.
As head of the embattled National Assembly, Guaidó launched a campaign in January to oust Maduro, gaining the support of the U.S. and more than 50 nations.
He announced Saturday a forthcoming meeting with U.S. military officials and said that new actions taken by the opposition will seek to “achieve the necessary pressure” to put an end to the Bolivarian revolution launched 20 years ago by the late socialist President Hugo Chávez.
Guaidó has said that as Venezuela’s rightful leader he reserves the right to invite foreign military actions in the same way independence hero Simon Bolivar hired 5,000 British mercenaries to liberate South America from Spain. He says any such help should be considered “cooperation,” instead of intervention, something he has accused Maduro of allowing in the form of military and intelligence support from allies Cuba and Russia.
In recent days, the government has sought to ramp up its own pressure on the opposition with the arrest of the No. 2 leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Edgar Zambrano. Several other anti-Maduro lawmakers have sought refuge in the embassies of foreign nations as the country’s top court announced investigations of Zambrano and nine other members of congress.
Meanwhile, noticeably diminished crowds at opposition protests reflected a growing fear and demoralization that has permeated Guaidó’s ranks of supporters after he led a failed military uprising on April 30. In previous months, thousands of demonstrators heeded his calls to protest.
On Saturday, a modest crowd of several hundred Venezuelans gathered in the capital of Caracas.
“We live in dictatorship,” Guaidó said, urging his supporters to press forward in their campaign to oust his foe. “We don’t have the option to stay at home waiting, but to keep demanding our rights in the streets.”
Guaidó argues that Maduro illegitimately won a second term in rigged elections and has boldly declared himself interim president of Venezuela.
Maduro has maintained control of the military by securing the loyalty of top commanders. He calls Guaidó a “puppet” of the Trump administration and says that the U.S. is supporting a coup to oust him to exploit the country’s vast oil wealth.
“The U.S. Empire aims to end the Bolivarian Revolution,” Maduro tweeted early Saturday, boasting of the country’s education and social security systems. “We show the world that we can do social justice.”
A once-wealthy oil nation, Venezuela has sunk into economic and social collapse marked by soaring inflation and a scarcity of basic goods that has sent an estimated 3.7 million of its citizens to emigrate.
U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo leaves for Moscow on Sunday, with President Donald Trump again calling for improved ties now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has finished his investigation.
Pompeo will meet U.S. diplomats at the American Embassy in Moscow on Monday before continuing to Sochi for talks with President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials. The secretary has 48 hours — the entire length of the trip — to cram in discussions of disputes between the two nations, involving Ukraine, Venezuela and Syria and other issues, along with continued accusations of election interference.
With the Mueller inquiry wrapped up, Trump has returned to signaling his interest in improving U.S.-Russia ties, speaking with Putin for more than an hour last week and tweeting that there is “tremendous potential for a good/great relationship with Russia.” The two leaders had kept their distance as Mueller’s probe into the 2016 U.S. election and allegations of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia heated up.
“Clearly since the Mueller report came out, Trump is feeling unconstrained about what he’s wanted all along — a new relationship with Moscow where all the bad issues get swept aside and the two leaders ‘get down to business,”’ said Andrew Weiss, the former director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs on the National Security Council who’s now a vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“What that means in practice is really fuzzy because the agenda largely consists of issues where the U.S. and Russia are at loggerheads,” Weiss said.
Trump spoke with Putin briefly on the sidelines of a Group of 20 meeting in Argentina in December. That meeting rekindled criticism of their summit last July in Helsinki, where the American president appeared to take Putin’s side over the conclusions of his own intelligence agencies when asked about evidence Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Pompeo could use his trip to start laying the groundwork for a meeting between Trump and Putin on the sidelines of a Group of 20 forum in Japan set for late June. Such an encounter would still be fraught, especially since Trump has appeared reluctant to confront Putin on the meddling accusations, which the Mueller report reaffirmed.
“The Mueller report confirmed accusations of Russian meddling,” said Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a Kremlin-founded think tank. “The report to some extent rehabilitates Trump but doesn’t rehabilitate Moscow at all. For Russia, nothing has really changed.”
A senior State Department official, speaking to reporters on Friday, said Pompeo would raise a range of topics, including continuing concerns about Russian election meddling, Moscow’s role in propping up Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the American desire for more sweeping arms control agreements that include countries like China, not just Russia and the U.S.
The official argued that U.S. policy is to seek a better relationship with Moscow while also acknowledging that Russia has been responsible for several acts of aggression on the world stage.
One challenge, as it’s been throughout Trump’s presidency, is that while he may want better ties with Russia, relations between the two countries have seldom been worse and show little prospect of improving.
Besides contesting support for Maduro, there is the issue of the U.S. withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in February. The administration is also angry at Russia over its detention of 24 Ukrainian sailors in the Sea of Azov last November and the poisoning of a former spy in the U.K. last year. In addition, American businessman Michael Calvey remains under house arrest in Moscow over allegations of fraud, a charge he rejects.
The president’s latest tweet on Russia also highlighted the dissonant tone the Trump administration has struck toward the country. While Pompeo blamed Russia for Maduro’s refusal to leave power despite pressure from the U.S., Trump said after his call with Putin that the Russian leader wasn’t looking to “get involved” in the crisis in Venezuela.
Trump’s calls will find a receptive audience. After the Mueller report came out, Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachyov urged the president to “take the risk” and seize the opportunity to reset relations.
“Putin has always bet personally on Trump, with whom he has a way of bonding to the point of manipulation,” said Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat and foreign policy analyst in Moscow. “Putin knows Trump likes him, while his administration does not. In Trump he trusts.”
NEW YORK — Democrats denounced a plan by President Donald Trump’s personal attorney to push Ukraine to open investigations that he hopes could benefit Trump politically, decrying it as an overt attempt to recruit foreign help to influence a U.S. election.
But Rudy Giuliani late Friday said he does not plan to go to the Ukraine because of concerns about who he would be dealing with there.
“I’ve decided … I’m not going to go to the Ukraine,” Giuliani told Fox News Friday night. “I’m not going to go because I think I’m walking into a group of people that are enemies of the president … in some cases enemies of the United States, and in one case an already convicted person who has been found to be involved in assisting the Democrats with the 2016 election.”
His statement left many unanswered questions about what Giuliani might do about his
Ukraine concerns.
Earlier, Giuliani had said he would to travel to Kiev in the coming days to urge the Ukrainian government to conduct a pair of investigations: one on the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller’s recently concluded investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the other on the involvement of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son in a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch.
Giuliani’s plan had seemed poised to create an unprecedented moment, that of the lawyer of the president of the United States seeking foreign assistance in damaging his political rivals. To Democrats, it was a blatant evocation of Russia’s meddling on behalf of Trump when he defeated Hillary Clinton.
“It’s stunning that the Trump administration is going down the same tragic path they did in 2016 seeking help from a foreign government again to influence an American presidential election. It’s appalling,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who chairs the House intelligence committee. He said Trump allies were indicating, “‘We’re going to do everything short of what’s downright criminal. Ethics don’t matter. Patriotism doesn’t matter.'”
Giuliani, a former New York City mayor who often acted as a smokescreen for Trump during the Mueller probe, pushed back against the criticism.
“Explain to me why Biden shouldn’t be investigated if his son got millions from a Russian loving crooked Ukrainian oligarch while He was VP and point man for Ukraine,” Giuliani tweeted at Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who criticized him. “Ukrainians are investigating and your fellow Dems are interfering. Election is 17 months away. Let’s answer it now.”
Giuliani’s trip, which was first reported by The New York Times, would have been the most high-profile effort yet by Republicans to call attention to growing talking points in conservative circles. They are trying to undermine the special counsel’s investigation, call into question the case against Paul Manafort, Trump’s imprisoned former campaign chairman, and wound Biden, the early Democratic front-runner in the 2020 presidential race.
Trump and Giuliani have urged scrutiny of Hunter Biden and have raised questions about whether the former vice president helped oust a Ukrainian prosecutor whose office was investigating the oligarch whose company paid his son. Some Trump allies have suggested they can tarnish Biden with questions about corruption, founded or not, much like they did to Clinton in 2016.
Giuliani has said he updated the president about his findings on Ukraine, a nation deeply reliant on the Trump administration for U.S. military and financial aid.
“I’m hearing it’s a major scandal, major problem,” Trump said on Fox News recently. “I hope for (Biden) it is fake news. I don’t think it is.”
The Biden campaign has denied that the candidate or his son did anything improper.
The president has also tried to push claims that Ukrainian officials tried to help Clinton by focusing attention on Manafort’s business in Ukraine. That attention forced Manafort to resign from the campaign, and he was later convicted of financial crimes and sentenced to prison. Ukrainian officials have denied involvement, but Trump has latched onto the idea that Kiev “colluded” with Democrats and that the origins of Mueller’s probe were fraudulent.
Meanwhile, the president’s re-election campaign distanced itself from Giuliani’s efforts, saying it had nothing to do with the lawyer’s inquiry. Giuliani himself downplayed, sort of, questions about whether what he was doing was inappropriate.
“We’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do,” Giuliani told The Times. “There’s nothing illegal about it. Somebody could say it’s improper.”
But the whole episode could trigger uncomfortable questions about foreign entanglements for the White House, which is still grappling with the aftermath of the special counsel probe.
“We’ve come to a very sorry state when it is considered OK for an American politician, never mind an attorney for the president, to go and seek foreign intervention in American politics,” Rep. Jerrod Nadler, D-N.Y., the head of the House Judiciary Committee, said to CNN on Friday.
Mueller did not conclude that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and did not determine whether or not Trump obstructed justice.
But House Democrats are pushing the inquiry further on a number of fronts, including issuing subpoenas for the probe’s witnesses and documents. Trump this week announced that he would invoke executive privilege to shield the material, certain to prompt a lengthy legal fight.
Throughout the investigation, Giuliani attacked Mueller’s credibility and often tried to change the public discourse by advancing conspiracy theories about the special counsel or Democratic investigators. In the probe’s final days, he began to zero in on the possible Ukraine connection.
Padmananda Rama contributed reporting from Washington.
You are subscribed to email updates from World – TIME. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.
Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States
Calibrated heating of the land beyond a threshold is churning up the atmosphere to generate and line up a series of thunderstorms across many parts of Source: BHT
As voting is underway for the sixth and penultimate phase of Lok Sabha elections, here are some interesting facts* 59 Lok Sabha constituencies across Source: BHT
Polling began Sunday morning for 59 Lok Sabha seats in the sixth and penultimate phase of Lok Sabha polls with Union ministers Radha Mohan Singh, Hars Source: BHT
Donald Trump is making a high-stakes bet on his 2020 re-election with his decision to impose new tariffs on China: that the U.S. economy is strong eno Source: BHT
The civil aviation ministry has told Air India that it should prepare 2018-19 financials for itself and its subsidiaries by end of June as the Prime M Source: BHT
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday said the PSLV-C46, on its 48th mission, would launch RISAT, a radar imaging earth observati Source: BHT
Pakistan government has banned 11 organisations for having links with the proscribed outifts Jaamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) Source: BHT
Trying to expand Sports viewership in the country, Sony Pictures Sports Network is betting on going beyond cricket and attract fans for Sports such as Source: BHT
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday came down heavily on the opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh for raising questions on his caste, asserting Source: BHT
