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Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Fox News Is Now a Threat to National Security

The network’s furthering of lies from foreign adversaries and flagrant disregard for the truth have gotten downright dangerous.

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6 Best TV Streaming Devices You Can Buy (4K and HD)

We've tested and these are our favorite media-streaming devices for 4K or HD TVs—Roku, Amazon, Chromecast, and more.

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Women's World Cup 2023: South Africa pulls out of race to host tournament

South Africa pulls out of the race to stage the 2023 Women's World Cup and will not submit a bid book to Fifa by Friday's deadline.

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MIT Skoltech collaboration enters its third phase

MIT has renewed its relationship with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech). The collaboration, among MIT, Skoltech, and the Skolkovo Foundation, began in 2011 with the goal of launching and developing Skoltech as a leading graduate research university in Moscow, with opportunities for scientific and educational exchange between faculty and students at the two universities.

The third phase of the collaboration, governed by a five-year agreement, will build on the most successful aspects of its second phase, supporting joint activities between MIT and Skoltech in research, graduate education, and innovation. The focus will continue to be on strengthening research collaborations between individual faculty members at the two institutions.

“Skoltech has developed rapidly and has recruited excellent faculty and outstanding students,” says MIT Professor Bruce Tidor, faculty lead of the MIT Skoltech Program. “The support, commitment, and engagement of more than 75 MIT faculty has led to the success of the MIT Skoltech collaboration. Faculty and students at both schools will benefit from continuing to work together.”

An ecosystem built for innovation

During the second phase of the MIT Skoltech collaboration, almost 60 research projects were initiated at MIT on a wide range of topics, either as faculty-to-faculty research projects together with Skoltech, or through MIT Skoltech Seed Grants.

One of the collaborative research projects, headed by Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, led to a new approach to eliminate carbon emissions from cement production, a major global source of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

“The most valuable aspect of our collaboration with Skoltech is that it gave my students and me the freedom to take on a risky topic in which we had no prior track record: low-GHG cement,” Chiang says. “That eventually opened up an entirely new research area that we plan to develop with our colleagues in Russia.” 

As another example, a collaborative project led by Kamal Youcef-Toumi, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, laid the foundation for RecyBot, a low-cost robot under development to dismantle mobile phones and to remove and separate their component parts, which in turn could be used to create new phones or be otherwise processed.

Another valuable aspect of the collaboration is the support of the MISTI-Russia program, which has brought dozens of MIT students to Russia to study, conduct research, and immerse themselves in Russian culture.

“The MIT Skoltech collaboration has made the very existence of the MISTI-Russia program possible,” says Elizabeth A. Wood, professor of history at MIT and co-director of the MISTI-Russia program. “It has supported the program since the beginning and sponsored the revival of Russian language teaching at MIT after a 16-year hiatus. Since its inception, it has sent many MIT students to Skoltech and other Russian institutions to work in a wide range of fields, from nuclear physics to cancer modeling, and from robotics to aerospace engineering and architecture.”  

Joint research projects will continue to be the focus of the collaboration’s third phase. Other important features include new entrepreneurship and innovation programs, the continued collaboration with MISTI to connect MIT and Skoltech students, and a joint annual conference.

Guided by MIT’s mission, values, and priorities

The decision to continue the MIT Skoltech Program drew on the input of several MIT sources, including the MIT Skoltech Faculty Coordinating Committee, the faculty-led International Advisory Committee, and the Senior Risk Group, a group of senior MIT administrators charged with evaluating proposed MIT engagements with entities in several countries, including Russia.

“We share many intellectual and practical interests with our Skoltech colleagues, yet collaborations like this also exist in the context of complicated and dynamic international relations. The broader U.S.-Russia relationship was necessarily a factor in our review and planning of the MIT Skoltech collaboration,” says Richard Lester, associate provost for international activities at MIT. “In the rapidly changing global environment, MIT’s international collaborations must remain aligned with our core mission and values. Learning about the world, helping to solve the world’s greatest problems, and working with colleagues around the world who share our curiosity and com­mitment to rigorous scientific inquiry and to free and open exchange are core values for MIT.”  

As the next chapter of the MIT Skoltech collaboration begins, faculty members who have been involved over time are pleased to see the collaboration continue. As Institute Professor Phillip A. Sharp observes, “The MIT Skoltech relationship serves many positive societal purposes even though we may not agree with the policies of the Russian government. The scientific exchange helps citizens of the two countries to become better acquainted, making it more difficult for people to demonize one another. This includes exchange of students, collaboration between Russia and U.S./MIT scientists, and participation in meetings in both countries. Note that even during the darkest days of the Cold War, there was scientific exchange.”



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Toys “R” Us Is Back—Now With More Surveillance\!

Reports about the toy store using cameras to track shoppers caused an uproar, but the companies behind the tech insist their systems are trained to ignore kids.

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Harry Potter and the Curse of Technology

Wizards, with their wands and fancy enchantments, feel sorry for muggles and their pitiful technology. Or do they?

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The Gospel of Wealth According to Marc Benioff

The Salesforce founder has donated a fortune to right capitalism's wrongs, and he thinks his fellow billionaires should too. Why can't we just be grateful?

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Why the Herero people's special dress is worn with pride in Namibia

Herero people commemorate their battle with their German colonial rulers with a ceremonial dress.

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Mohamed Salah's goal for Liverpool at Red Bull Salzburg: 'Mo, you can't do this'

How did Mohamed Salah score his toughest chance of the night at Red Bull Salzburg? Jurgen Klopp does not know.

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Algeria's serial protesters: 'Why I give up my weekends to march'

Algerian students put their lives on hold as they call for a poll boycott and complete political change.

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Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Red Bull Salzburg 0-2 Liverpool: Reds reach Champions League knockout stages with win

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says he loves that his side are "so smart" as they beat Red Bull Salzburg 2-0 to reach the Champions League last 16.

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Is there dark matter at the center of the Milky Way?

MIT physicists are reigniting the possibility, which they previously had snuffed out, that a bright burst of gamma rays at the center of our galaxy may be the result of dark matter after all.

For years, physicists have known of a mysterious surplus of energy at the Milky Way’s center, in the form of gamma rays — the most energetic waves in the electromagnetic spectrum. These rays are typically produced by the hottest, most extreme objects in the universe, such as supernovae and pulsars.

Gamma rays are found across the disk of the Milky Way, and for the most part physicists understand their sources. But there is a glow of gamma rays at the Milky Way’s center, known as the galactic center excess, or GCE, with properties that are difficult for physicists to explain given what they know about the distribution of stars and gas in the galaxy.

There are two leading possibilities for what may be producing this excess: a population of high-energy, rapidly rotating neutron stars known as pulsars, or, more enticingly, a concentrated cloud of dark matter, colliding with itself to produce a glut of gamma rays.

In 2015, an MIT-Princeton University team, including associate professor of physics Tracy Slatyer and postdocs Benjamin Safdi and Wei Xue, came down in favor of pulsars. The researchers had analyzed observations of the galactic center taken by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, using a “background model” that they developed to describe all the particle interactions in the galaxy that could produce gamma rays. They concluded, rather definitively, that the GCE was most likely a result of pulsars, and not dark matter.

However, in new work, led by MIT postdoc Rebecca Leane, Slatyer has since reassessed this claim. In trying to better understand the 2015 analytical method, Slatyer and Leane found that the model they used could in fact be “tricked” to produce the wrong result. Specifically, the researchers ran the model on actual Fermi observations, as the MIT-Princeton team did in 2015, but this time they added a fake extra signal of dark matter. They found that the model failed to pick up this fake signal, and even as they turned the signal up, the model continued to assume pulsars were at the heart of the excess.

The results, published today in the journal Physical Review Letters, highlight a “mismodeling effect” in the 2015 analysis and reopen what many had thought was a closed case.

“It’s exciting in that we thought we had eliminated the possibility that this is dark matter,” Slatyer says. “But now there’s a loophole, a systematic error in the claim we made. It reopens the door for the signal to be coming from dark matter.”

Milky Way’s center: grainy or smooth?

While the Milky Way galaxy more or less resembles a flat disk in space, the excess of gamma rays at its center occupies a more spherical region, extending about 5,000 light years in every direction from the galactic center.

In their 2015 study, Slatyer and her colleagues developed a method to determine whether the profile of this spherical region is smooth or “grainy.” They reasoned that, if pulsars are the source of the gamma ray excess, and these pulsars are relatively bright, the gamma rays they emit should inhabit a spherical region that, when imaged, looks grainy, with dark gaps between the bright spots where the pulsars sit.

If, however, dark matter is the source of the gamma ray excess, the spherical region should look smooth: “Every line of sight toward the galactic center probably has dark matter particles, so I shouldn’t see any gaps or cold spots in the signal,” Slatyer explains.

She and her team used a background model of all the matter and gas in the galaxy, and all the particle interactions that could occur to produce gamma rays. They considered models for the GCE’s spherical region that were grainy on one hand or smooth on the other, and devised a statistical method to tell the difference between them. They then fed into the model actual observations of the spherical region, taken by the Fermi telescope, and looked to see if these observations fit more with a smooth or grainy profile.

“We saw it was 100 percent grainy, and so we said, ‘oh, dark matter can’t do that, so it must be something else,’” Slatyer recalls. “My hope was that this would be just the first of many studies of the galactic center region using similar techniques. But by 2018, the main cross-checks of the method were still the ones we’d done in 2015, which made me pretty nervous that we might have missed something.”

Planting a fake

After arriving at MIT in 2017, Leane became interested in analyzing gamma-ray data. Slatyer suggested they try to test the robustness of the statistical method used in 2015, to develop a deeper understanding of the result. The two researchers asked the difficult question: Under what circumstances would their method break down? If the method withstood interrogation, they could be confident in the original 2015 result. If, however, they discovered scenarios in which the method collapsed, it would suggest something was amiss with their approach, and perhaps dark matter could still be at the center of the gamma ray excess.

Leane and Slatyer repeated the approach of the MIT-Princeton team from 2015, but instead of feeding into the model Fermi data, the researchers essentially drew up a fake map of the sky, including a signal of dark matter, and pulsars that were not associated with the gamma ray excess. They fed this map into the model and found that, despite there being a dark matter signal within the spherical region, the model concluded this region was most likely grainy and therefore dominated by pulsars. This was the first clue, Slatyer says, that their method “wasn’t foolproof.”

At a conference to present their results thus far, Leane entertained a question from a colleague: What if she added a fake signal of dark matter that was combined with real observations, rather than with a fake background map?

The team took up the challenge, feeding the model with data from the Fermi telescope, along with a fake signal of dark matter. Despite the deliberate plant, their statistical analysis again missed the dark matter signal and returned a grainy, pulsar-like picture. Even when they turned up the dark matter signal to four times the size of the actual gamma ray excess, their method failed to see it.

“By that stage, I was pretty excited, because I knew the implications were very big — it meant that the dark matter explanation was back on the table,” Leane says.

She and Slatyer are working to better understand the bias in their approach, and hope to tune out this bias in the future.

“If it’s really dark matter, this would be the first evidence of dark matter interacting with visible matter through forces other than gravity,” Leane says. “The nature of dark matter is one of the biggest open questions in physics at the moment. Identifying this signal as dark matter may allow us to finally expose the fundamental identity of dark matter. No matter what the excess turns out to be, we will learn something new about the universe.”

This research was funded in part by the Office of High Energy Physics of the U.S. Department of Energy.



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Why Volcanologists Didn't Predict New Zealand's Deadly Eruption

Scientists knew White Island was showing signs of “volcanic unrest,” but their arsenal of data and sensors couldn't prepare them for tragedy.

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Jared Green: ‘The Dreamer’ Serves New Orleans As A Nonprofit Founder

BE Modern Man: Jared Green

Nonprofit founder, author, speaker; 25; Executive Director, Sunny With A Chance of Love; Special Assistant, Mayor’s Office, City of New Orleans

Twitter: @jaredthedreamer; Instagram: @j.r._green

I’ve been doing community work since the age of five. As I grew older, I continued to have a passion for leading and serving others, so I continued to volunteer via community service in many different capacities. Most recently, I released my children’s book There’s A Creature In My Belly, which teaches young children about the greatness within them. I wanted to create something that young children of color can see and smile at. Representation matters. To have someone that looks like you and comes from where you come from can change a person’s outlook on life. I raised just enough money to print 1,000 copies of my book, which is $15,000 in product. I then donated those copies and more to mostly underprivileged children housed within various schools and organizations throughout the city of New Orleans. I was able to get this done through my nonprofit organization, Sunny With A Chance Of Love, which aims to create innovative social and economic change throughout the city of New Orleans.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF IN LIFE?

First and foremost I am a proud father of my 4-year-old son, Jayce. He is my biggest inspiration and the force behind my everyday drive. Secondly, I am proud that I am still here and that I still have hope. In the world we call home today, the life of a young black male seems fragile. Every day is lived cautiously, even when trying to do positive work. As a nonprofit founder, I wish to continue to help this to change, and to continue to build a platform that can be used to change lives.

HOW HAVE YOU TURNED STRUGGLE INTO SUCCESS?

I used to measure my success by others’ ruler, but I now know that was a big mistake. Life hit me hard. There are so many stories I could tell, but I’ll sum it up by saying that I was depressed, badly. My depression was built up over the course of years, and I didn’t even realize it. Year after year voids and holes were created within myself that I could not fill. One day those voids caught up to me, life pushed me over the edge, and my suicidal thoughts began. I no longer wanted to be on this earth, and I cried out to God, letting him know I was ready to come home. God spoke back to me and told me that everything I needed was within me. I began to feel encouraged as I wrote the words to my first children’s book There’s A Creature In My Belly! This book has already touched the lives of thousands and has encouraged so many to believe again. This book has caused me to not only receive a proclamation from my city but also be flown out by the Obama Foundation because of my work in my community as a nonprofit founder. I have been on multiple local news and radio stations and I have also been featured in multiple magazine articles.

WHO WAS YOUR GREATEST MALE ROLE MODEL AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM HIM?

My greatest role model is my Dad. The list of things I’ve learned is extensive, as he taught me a lot. What I reflect on the most are the intangibles. My dad never misses a beat, and his family will always eat. When his businesses were up and running, I watched him go above and beyond for not just his clients, but also his employees. He always goes the extra mile, for nothing more but to see the smile on your face, even when he knows you won’t appreciate it. He prays every morning before he walks out the door that God allows him to touch someone’s life if he can that day. His critical thinking skills are legendary, as he always has a solution for any problem. All of these things, and so much more is what I have learned and continue to learn from my Dad.

WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

You are the only thing that’s stopping you. You are the biggest hurdle you have to face. The sooner you get out of your own way, the sooner you’ll reach your desired destination.

HOW ARE YOU PAYING IT FORWARD TO SUPPORT OTHER BLACK MALES?

As a nonprofit founder, I am creating innovative programs and initiatives that will affect the minds of young black males. I have created a children’s book that is already changing lives, and I donated over 1,000 of my books to underprivileged children around my city. I will continue to create children’s books and products that will inspire and drive young minds for generations to come. I am growing the brand “Jared The Dreamer,” which gives me the platform to speak and influence young men through the journey I’ve been on and my life experiences. I am showing my peers how to create something from nothing.

HOW DO YOU DEFINE MANHOOD?

Manhood is responsibility and maturity. With responsibility and maturity comes independence. Manhood is the ability to stand alone and be confident in yourself and where you are in life.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT BEING A BLACK MAN?

The challenge. The levels. The appreciation for who I am and the work I do from my own people. I love my history, my ancestors, and where I come from. I love my culture and I appreciate the ability to disprove the stigma that comes along with being a black male.


BE Modern Man is an online and social media campaign designed to celebrate black men making valuable contributions in every profession, industry, community, and area of endeavor. Each year, we solicit nominations in order to select men of color for inclusion in the 100 Black Enterprise Modern Men of Distinction. Our goal is to recognize men who epitomize the BEMM credo “Extraordinary is our normal” in their day-to-day lives, presenting authentic examples of the typical black man rarely seen in mainstream media. The BE Modern Men of Distinction are celebrated annually at Black Men XCEL (www.blackenterprise.com/blackmenxcel/). Click this link to submit a nomination for BE Modern Man: https://www.blackenterprise.com/nominate/. Follow BE Modern Man on Twitter: @bemodernman and Instagram: @be_modernman.

 



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Jay-Z Releases Entire Catalog to Spotify for His 50th Birthday

We got a birthday present we weren’t expecting! According to Rolling Stone, for his 50th birthday, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter blessed us with his entire discography by allowing it to be streamed on Spotify.

Spotify notified everyone about the good news of Hov‘s return via its Twitter account. Now every one of Jay-Z’s 13 studio albums can be heard on its platform. Previously, the only albums that were available on Spotify were Reasonable DoubtIn My Lifetime Vols. 1 and 2 and Collision Course, his 2004 album with Linkin Park. This news comes after his wife, Beyoncé Carter, made a similar move in April when her album Lemonade was made available on Spotify and Apple Music after only being available on Tidal previously.

Although Jay-Z earned $81 million and was crowned as hip-hop’s first billionaire earlier this year, he still wound up in second place behind his mentee and “younger brother” Kanye West. Earlier this year, the NFL announced a long-term partnership with Roc Nation, Carter’s sports and entertainment agency, as the league’s official Live Music Entertainment Strategists. The partnership, which went into effect at the start of the 2019-20 season, will serve to strengthen community through music and the NFL’s Inspire Change initiative.

The Shawn Carter Foundation was founded as a public charity in 2003 by Jay-Z and his mother, Gloria Carter. It supports initiatives to empower youth and communities in need through the following programs: Scholarship Fund, College Prep and Exposure, International Exposure, Professional Development, Scholar Support, and Community & Goodwill Programs. In April, Jay-Z announced a partnership with Toyota for the Shawn Carter Foundation annual black college bus tour. The program gives students the opportunity to visit several historically black colleges and universities around the country. You can find out more information about The Foundation on its website.



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This Alleged Bitcoin Scam Looked a Lot Like a Pyramid Scheme

Five men face federal charges of bilking investors of $722 million by inviting them to buy shares in bitcoin mining pools. 

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Democrats unveil 2 articles of impeachment against Trump

By LISA MASCARO and MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats announced two articles of impeachment Tuesday against President Donald Trump — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — pushing toward historic votes over charges he corrupted the U.S. election process and endangered national security.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, flanked by the chairmen of the impeachment inquiry committees, stood at the Capitol in what she called a “solemn act.” Voting is expected in a matter of days in the Judiciary Committee and by Christmas in the full House.

“He endangers our democracy, he endangers our national security,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the Judiciary chairman announcing the charges before a portrait of George Washington. “Our next election is at risk… That is why we must act now.”

The charges unveiled Tuesday stem from Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rivals as he withheld aid to the country.

Trump tweeted ahead of the announcement that impeaching a president with a record like his would be “sheer Political Madness!”

The outcome, though, appears increasingly set as the House prepares for voting, as it has only three times in history against a U.S. president.

In drafting the articles of impeachment, Pelosi is facing a legal and political challenge of balancing the views of her majority while hitting the Constitution’s bar of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Some liberal lawmakers wanted more expansive charges encompassing the findings from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Centrist Democrats preferred to keep the impeachment articles more focused on Trump’s actions toward Ukraine. House Democrats have announced two articles of impeachment charging President Donald Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats are expected to unveil two articles of impeachment Tuesday against President Donald Trump — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — pushing toward historic votes as the president insists he did “NOTHING” wrong.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said ahead of the morning announcement that Trump tried to “corrupt our upcoming elections” and remains a “threat to our democracy and national security.”

Pelosi said in a tweet that the House was taking next steps to “defend’ the democracy.”
Democratic leaders are laying out next steps after their impeachment inquiry determined Trump put U.S. elections and national security at risk when he asked Ukraine to investigate his rivals, including Democrat Joe Biden, while withholding needed military aid. They say he then tried to obstruct Congress’ investigation.

Trump, meanwhile, insisted he did “NOTHING” wrong and that impeaching a president with a record like his would be “sheer Political Madness!”

Democrats have not public released their plans. Details were shared by multiple people familiar with the discussions but not authorized to discuss them and granted anonymity.
Pelosi declined during an event Monday evening to discuss the articles or the coming announcement. Details were shared by multiple people familiar with the discussions but not authorized to discuss them and granted anonymity.

When asked if she has enough votes to impeach the Republican president, Pelosi leader said she would let House lawmakers vote their conscience.

“On an issue like this, we don’t count the votes. People will just make their voices known on it,” Pelosi said at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council. “I haven’t counted votes, nor will I.”

The outcome, though, appears increasingly set as the House prepares to vote, as it has only three times in history against a U.S. president.

Trump, who has declined to mount a defense in the impeachment proceedings, tweeted Tuesday just as the five Democratic House committee chairmen prepared to make their announcement.

“To Impeach a President who has proven through results, including producing perhaps the strongest economy in our country’s history, to have one of the most successful presidencies ever, and most importantly, who has done NOTHING wrong, is sheer Political Madness! #2020Election,” he wrote on Twitter.

The president also spent part of Monday tweeting against the impeachment proceedings. He and his allies have called the process “absurd.”

Pelosi convened a meeting of the impeachment committee chairmen at her office in the Capitol late Monday following an acrimonious, nearly 10-hour hearing at the Judiciary Committee, which could vote as soon as this week.

“I think there’s a lot of agreement,” Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee, told reporters as he exited Pelosi’s office. “A lot of us believe that what happened with Ukraine especially is not something we can just close our eyes to.”

At the Judiciary hearing, Democrats said Trump’s push to have Ukraine investigate rival Joe Biden while withholding U.S. military aid ran counter to U.S. policy and benefited Russia as well as himself.

“President Trump’s persistent and continuing effort to coerce a foreign country to help him cheat to win an election is a clear and present danger to our free and fair elections and to our national security,” said Dan Goldman, the director of investigations at the House Intelligence Committee, presenting the finding of the panel’s 300-page report of the inquiry.

Republicans rejected not just Goldman’s conclusion of the Ukraine matter; they also questioned his very appearance before the Judiciary panel. In a series of heated exchanges, they said Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, should appear rather than sending his lawyer.

From the White House, Trump tweeted repeatedly, assailing the “Witch Hunt!” and “Do Nothing Democrats.”

In drafting the articles of impeachment, Pelosi is facing a legal and political challenge of balancing the views of her majority while hitting the Constitution’s bar of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Some liberal lawmakers wanted more expansive charges encompassing the findings from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Centrist Democrats preferred to keep the impeachment articles more focused on Trump’s actions toward Ukraine.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., was blunt as he opened Monday’s hearing, saying, “President Trump put himself before country.”

Trump’s conduct, Nadler said at the end of the daylong hearing, “is clearly impeachable.”
Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the committee, said Democrats are racing to jam impeachment through on a “clock and a calendar” ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

“They can’t get over the fact that Donald Trump is the president of the United States, and they don’t have a candidate that can beat him,” Collins said.

In one testy exchange, Republican attorney Stephen Castor dismissed the transcript of Trump’s crucial call with Ukraine as “eight ambiguous lines” that did not amount to the president seeking a personal political favor.

Democrats argued vigorously that Trump’s meaning could not have been clearer in seeking political dirt on Biden, his possible opponent in the 2020 election.

The Republicans tried numerous times to halt or slow the proceedings, and the hearing was briefly interrupted early on by a protester shouting, “We voted for Donald Trump!” The protester was escorted from the House hearing room by Capitol Police.

The White House is refusing to participate in the impeachment process. Trump and and his allies acknowledge he likely will be impeached in the Democratic-controlled House, but they also expect acquittal next year in the Senate, where Republicans have the majority.

The president was focused instead on Monday’s long-awaited release of the Justice Department report into the 2016 Russia investigation. The inspector general found that the FBI was justified in opening its investigation into ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia and that the FBI did not act with political bias, despite “serious performance failures” up the bureau’s chain of command.

Democrats say Trump abused his power in a July 25 phone call when he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a favor in investigating Democrats. That was bribery, they say, since Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in military aid that Ukraine depended on to counter Russian aggression.

Pelosi and Democrats point to what they call a pattern of misconduct by Trump in seeking foreign interference in elections from Mueller’s inquiry of the Russia probe to Ukraine.
In his report, Mueller said he could not determine that Trump’s campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia in the 2016 election. But Mueller said he could not exonerate Trump of obstructing justice in the probe and left it for Congress to determine.
___
Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Laurie Kellman, Matthew Daly and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

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How the Mandalorian Might See Through Walls

Mando's sci-fi ability might not be as crazy or outlandish as you think.

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Peter Olayinka: From earning $100 a month to facing Europe's elite

Seven years ago Nigeria's Peter Olayinka was earning $100 a month in Albania now he is taking on the likes of Inter Milan, Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund.

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