Donald Trump has been President for 30 weeks – or 210 days if you are counting. He’s had a handful – two-ish? – weeks that could reasonably be described by neutral observers as “good.” The rest of his weeks as President fall somewhere between not very good and disastrously bad. But what are the absolute worst weeks Trump has endured? Below, I’ve ranked Trump’s six worst weeks. (I am defining a week for the purposes of this discussion as Monday-Sunday.) What weeks did I miss? Send me an email at cillizza@cnn.com and I’ll add to this post if need be! On March 2, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the ongoing FBI probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election – a decision that not only caught Trump by surprise but made him very angry. (Months later, Trump would still be fuming at Sessions for that decision, believing, wrongly, that it led to the appointment of a special prosecutor.) “This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed to win,” Trump tweeted. “The Democrats are overplaying their hand. They lost the election, and now they have lost their grip on reality.” Two days later, Trump – on an early Saturday morning at Mar-a-Lago, tweeted this: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” He went on to tweet that President Obama was a “bad (or sick) guy.” Thus began a months-long (and still ongoing) attempt by Trump’s senior staff to find something (anything!) that backed up this claim. So far: Nothing. The week began with Trump undermining his own administration – and his own past assertions – on the so-called “travel ban.” Tweeted Trump: “The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.” Trump also attacked London Mayor Sadiq Khan for his response to the terror attacks on June 3 in his city. “Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!,” tweeted Trump. (Trump misinterpreted Khan’s comments; the mayor was trying to calm Londoners by telling them not to be alarmed by the increased police presence in the wake of the attack.) Then came the big, bad moment of the week for Trump: Fired FBI Director James Comey’s testimony in front of Congress. Comey’s written testimony delivered a series of body blows to Trump – including that the President asked for Comey’s loyalty at a January 27 dinner at the White House and urged Comey to “let go” of the FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn at a White House meeting on Feb. 14. Comey, pre-firing, testifies on Capitol Hill and says two very bad things for Trump: 1) He confirms that the ongoing FBI investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election includes looking into whether any Trump campaign aides aided the foreign government in its efforts and 2) He says, in stark terms, that there is zero evidence for Trump’s claim that Obama ordered Trump Tower be wire-tapped in the 2016 election. Trump’s approval rating also hits a low ebb, dipping to 37% in Gallup’s daily tracking. Perhaps the biggest blow falls on Friday, March 24, when House Republicans pull the legislation aimed at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act in an acknowledgment that it lacks the votes to pass. “ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!,” tweets Trump. Trump fires Comey on Tuesday May 9, a decision that is met with stunned surprise, which quickly turns to condemnation on all sides. Talk of obstruction of justice in the Russia probe goes from a whisper to a scream.  The firing leads – 9 days later – to the appointment of Bob Mueller as special counsel to take over the Russia investigation. After his White House works to trace the Comey firing to a memo outlining his many mistakes in the 2016 election penned by deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Trump does an interview with Lester Holt in which he tells the NBC anchor: “What I did is I was going to fire Comey, my decision. I was going to fire regardless of recommendation. (Rosenstein) made a recommendation. He’s highly respected. Very good guy, very smart guy, the Democrats like him, the Republicans like him, he made a recommendation. But regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.” Trump then tweets this: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” It will be several months before Trump admits there is no recording system in the White House. Trump meets with Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office. Pictures emerge of the three men looking positively jovial. We later learn that Trump not only shared privileged intelligence regarding ISIS’ bomb-making capabilities with the two Russians but also told them that a “great weight” had been lifted by firing Comey, who he called a “nut job.” Trump starts his week with a series of tweets attacking Sessions for recusing himself on the Russia investigation. In one, he refers to Sessions as “beleaguered.” On Monday night, Trump jets to West Virginia to address the Boy Scouts. He delivers a rambling and heavily political speech, which the Boy Scouts head later apologizes for. Rumors of widespread staff departures circulate.  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is forced to go on the record to make clear he is staying put. (One plus: That speculation gives birth to the amazing term “Rexit.”) By Thursday, newly installed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has become a massive national story – thanks to an off-the-rails interview with CNN’s “New Day” and then an even more explosive interview with the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza. In the Lizza interviews, Scaramucci calls chief of staff Reince Priebus a “paranoid schizophrenic” and alleges that chief strategist Steve Bannon is way more flexible than he looks. Early Friday morning, three Republican senators vote against health care reform, dooming the legislation and almost certainly ending Republicans’ 7-plus year campaign to repeal and replace the ACA. Later that day, Trump travels to Long Island where he delivers a speech to law enforcement officers in which he openly condones rough(er) treatment of criminals. When he returns to Washington later that day, Trump announces Priebus has been fired and John Kelly, the secretary of Homeland Security, has been installed as his new chief of staff. Technically, this week isn’t over yet – Trump still has 48 hours to make it even worse. But, even if he does nothing bad between now and Sunday, the damage done to not only to his presidency but also the Republican party and the country is significant. Trump’s “on many sides” initial response to the violence involving white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia was bad enough. But Trump’s off-the-rails press conference Tuesday in which he doubled down on the idea that “both sides” deserved blame for Charlottesville was the single lowest point of his presidency. It took “bad” and made it “truly horrible.” On Wednesday, Trump is forced to dissolve several executive councils populated by high profile CEOs after a series of resignations after his Charlottesville remarks. By Thursday, Trump was defending the “culture” being destroyed by those who push to remove Confederate statues. “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” he tweeted. Also on Thursday, following a terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, Trump tweets a reference to a false story about General Pershing murdering 49 Filipino POWs by shooting them with bullets dipped in pig’s blood. On Friday, Trump got rid of Bannon.


When you think of Rome, the Pope and Vatican City often come to mind. But the Italian capital is also home to one of the most historic and vibrant Jewish quarters in Europe. Though Catholicism has dominated the country, the history of the Jews in Rome stretched back long before Jesus’ era. Like many immigrants, the Jews came to Italy looking for a better life, while some were prisoners of war when the Romans invaded Judea. For the most part, the Jewish community lived freely and peacefully until the Dark Ages when they were forced into the Jewish ghetto and walled up until the late 1800s. It’s this very ghetto, in the area near Campo dei Fiori that’s become the lively Jewish quarter today with locals welcoming tourists to learn about their history and culture. So, you know when Hanukkah rolls around (beginning December 12 in 2017), the famous neighborhood goes all out by hosting several festivities. “The combination of great food and a chance to celebrate with a community which owes its origins to the Hanukkah story makes Rome the perfect place to celebrate this year,” Rome expert, Amiel Lindenbaum of Post Haste Travel Service, a Virtuoso Agency, says. Here he reveals the five ways to celebrate the Festival of Light when you travel to The Eternal City. Even if you weren’t trying to find a Hanukkah celebration, you can’t miss the one in Piazza Barberini. It’s here that every year a giant (we’re talking 20 feet tall) menorah is lit every night. The illuminated spectacle attracts huge crowds and has become a hot spot during the festive holiday. The ceremony take place around 6 p.m. each night or 4 p.m. on the Sabbath and at the end of Hanukkah, there’s usually a big party with food, dancing, and, of course, wine. If crowds aren’t your thing, you can head over to Piazza Bologna where a smaller menorah and lighting ceremony take place. Both menorahs can be reached by Rome’s Metro. Related article 10 of the best Italian restaurants in Rome On December 17, the party really heats up. At 3 p.m., head to Via del Portico d’Ottavia in Rome’s Jewish Ghetto for a Hanukkah party where the entire Jewish community comes together for a lively street party. “There is dancing and revelry as the different local Jewish organizations set up booths and march in procession, creating an intimate small-town atmosphere,” says Lindenbaum. The Great Synagogue of Rome hosts dreidel playing, arts and crafts, and children singing Hanukkah songs. Everything in the ghetto stays open for the proceedings. Linger a while for a public Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony at 5:45 p.m. in Piazza San Bartolomeo all’Isola (in front of the Great Synagogue) for a chance to hear the Great Synagogue’s choir. “Rome has no shortage of classic dishes cooked in oil,” says Lindenabaum. “But, it’s even more special during Hanukkah.” While in the Ghetto, visit restaurants serving delicious kosher Roman fare. Be sure to try the famed carciofi alla giudia (fried artichoke) or eggplant fried in garlic and olive oil at one of the kosher eateries like Bella Carne or Ba’ghetto Meat. For dessert, Rome has its own version of the jelly doughnut enjoyed during Hanukkah. Fritelle de Chanuka is a sweet dough fritter mixed with raisins and anise seeds, fried in oil and topped with hot honey. This definitely makes for a decadent holiday treat and can be enjoyed at Yotvata Dairy. Bella Carne 51 Via del Portico d’Ottavia Ba’ghetto Meat 57 Via del Portico d’Ottavia Yotvata Dairy 70 Piazza Cenci Great Synagogue  Lungotevere de’ Cenci, 00186 Jordi Lippe-McGraw is a freelance writer covering travel, food and wellness, and is also an avid truffle lover. Follow her on Instagram at @welltraveler.


Editor’s Note: Jeffrey Hornung is the fellow for the Security and Foreign Affairs Program at Sasakawa USA, a US nonprofit institution providing research and analysis of the US-Japan relationship. The views expressed are his own. Jeffrey Hornung: Japan, South Korea were shaken by statements Donald Trump made while campaigning Washington's alliances with Seoul and Tokyo will be critical in managing challenges posed by China and North Korea, he says The cavalry is coming! Not exactly, but the sentiment of reassurance is the same. This week, US Defense Secretary James Mattis arrives in Asia to visit South Korea and Japan. Two stalwart US allies, policymakers in both capitals have nevertheless been shaken by statements Donald Trump made while campaigning for President. None of these was more dramatic than the suggestion that these allies should pay more for US troops or risk having these forces withdrawn. Statements like this played to the worst fears in Seoul and Tokyo that the United States might no longer be a committed ally. It is now Mattis’ job to reassure them of US commitments and return the trajectory of alliance relations back to pre-2016 presidential campaign rhetoric. Of course, the Trump administration is still less than two weeks old, and specific policies pertaining to the Asia-Pacific security realm are nonexistent. But Seoul and Tokyo are understandably anxious because the closest thing they have to gauge the White House’s intentions are memories of what was said on the campaign trail. Indeed, even statements such as presumptive Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s suggestion that he would consider blocking Chinese access to the artificial islands in the South China Sea, and President Trump’s vow that he will not allow North Korea to develop missiles that are capable of striking the United States, raise more questions than answers. It is therefore up to Mattis to bring a message of reassurance to reaffirm US commitment to the alliances and to US engagement in the region. And he is arguably the best placed to deliver this message, not only because of his illustrious military career, but because at his confirmation hearing he spoke to the two issues troubling South Korea and Japan the most when he stressed the importance of alliances and the importance of the Pacific theater. The decision for Mattis’ first official travel to target South Korea and Japan reinforces both the notion that the United States prioritizes the Asia-Pacific region and that it considers the security ties it maintains with South Korea and Japan to be important. Meanwhile, reaffirming the importance of robust alliance relationships signals that, despite all the campaign rhetoric by candidate Trump, these crucial alliance relationships might not deviate all that far from the relations we have known heretofore. Still, setting aside the symbolic messaging, there are significant issues that the new secretary of defense needs to discuss with his counterparts. Related video Operations resuming on North Korea reactor? Mattis’ first stop will be South Korea. Here, his agenda is simple. Mattis needs to reaffirm the decision to deploy the THAAD anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea. Similarly, the allies will need to reaffirm the alignment of their policies vis-à-vis North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. Of these, none is more important than Mattis reiterating the US nuclear guarantee. Given the severity of the North Korean threat, it is crucial they hammer out any possible differences that may have arisen since Trump became president. From Seoul, Mattis will travel to Tokyo, where his agenda will focus on a separate set of alliance issues. As a former Marine, it will be hard for Mattis to avoid a discussion on Okinawa and questions over the value of seeing the current Futenma Replacement Facility through to the end. Assuming both governments still agree this is the case, he should be clear that the US position under President Trump has not changed in regards to Henoko. More importantly, Mattis needs to explicitly reaffirm that the disputed Senkaku Islands (claimed by both Japan and China) fall under Article 5 of the US-Japan Security Treaty. As the most capable military in the region, with new legislation enabling a broader set of missions,  Mattis should also approach Japan about expanding the role of its self-defense forces abroad to provide logistical assistance in noncombat missions. While helping serve South Korean and Japanese interests, the trip also serves US interests. Chinese activities in the South and East China Seas have been increasing in their audacity for the past few years. Likewise, although on a low boil for almost two decades, North Korea’s ever-increasing missile and nuclear capabilities promise to threaten the US mainland. There is no time to lose on addressing these issues. In this light, it is crucial for Mattis to hear directly from South Korean and Japanese stakeholders on these specific concerns so the United States is on the same page with its allies should they need to quickly respond over the coming weeks as the Trump administration settles in. Getting China and North Korea right is a function of getting right the US alliances with Japan and South Korea. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook Finally, Mattis should also advocate for further US-Japan-South Korea security cooperation. Seoul and Tokyo have taken significant steps in recent years, the most notable being the signing of the General Security of Military Information Agreement last year. Yet, although “virtual allies” by sharing a common ally, South Korean and Japanese relations remain mired in history, despite a historic agreement on the most contentious comfort women issue by the governments in December 2015. Because the nature of the regional challenges are only expected to get more difficult with time, Mattis should lay down clarity on expectations that the Department of Defense hopes for these two important allies to continue strengthening this crucial trilateral security relationship. Stability of the Asia-Pacific region will be a function of how the challenges presented by China and North Korea are handled. In this effort, Washington’s alliances with Seoul and Tokyo will be critical. Having Mattis visit these allies as his first overseas trip sends a powerful message to regional challengers. It may not completely erase all the anxieties felt in both capitals, but at the very least it should moderate some of the more extreme fears of US disengagement.

United States alliances with South Korea and Japan


They may appear morbid by today’s standards, but at the turn of the 16th century, they were the height of fashion: palm-sized ivory carvings of skulls, mirrored by human faces, that represent status, wealth and the looming specter of death. Commonly referred to as “memento mori,” the objects take their name from a Latin phrase (meaning “remember you must die”) that informed popular thinking during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. They were collected by social elites – from upwardly mobile merchants to Europe’s most powerful monarchs – across France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. 500-year-old secrets of boxwood miniatures unlocked Institutions from around the world, including London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, have contributed examples of the carvings to an impressive collection now being exhibited at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine. Stephen Perkinson, an associate professor of art history at Bowdoin College and the guest curator of “The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe,” describes the 15 carvings on display as “miniature masterpieces.” “They have a basic message, which is the memento mori message: To remind the viewer that we are all mortal and that, in the end, death equalizes all of us,” he said in a phone interview. “What’s interesting about these objects (though) is that the theme doesn’t explain their intricacy, their complexity, their interest.” Although the 15th and early 16th centuries – when most of these pieces were made – were times of relative social and political stability, ivory memento mori were part of a larger cultural moment that emphasized humility, reflection and moral obligation. Traveling preachers would deliver sermons on mortality to peasants in Paris cemeteries, the working class would buy prints on the theme (some of which feature in “The Ivory Mirror”) and the rich had their ivory carvings. “In a lot of respects, people (were) living better then,” Perkinson said. “So in some ways, these things are not so much responses to the fragility of life, but rather the comforts that people are feeling, and a way of saying, ‘Don’t get too caught up in the ways in which your life is better than what your grandparents experienced.’ “They’re a response to the fact that people might (have been getting) distracted from their faith, from their moral duties. They might be distracted into obsessing over luxury goods and treasures instead of remembering the fragility of life.” On examination, it seems inevitable – if ironic – that the ivory devotionals would become the very luxury items they were designed to warn against. The use of ivory suggests long-distance trade and a taste for the exotic, while the surprising anatomical correctness (which Perkinson says reflects “information about the structure of bone that was cutting-edge knowledge in their day”) would have been appealing to collectors looking to show off their worldliness and wealth – the way an alligator-strap, Swiss-crafted watch might do today. But the metaphor of the anonymous skull, stripped of all markers of identity, was pervasive, and could be taken as a comfort or warning, depending on your status. “At the time, people were very fixated on this idea that your individual identity is conveyed through your face and your appearance – your costume, your heraldry and your insignia of office … (So) that message that, in the end, everybody is indistinguishable and the same on some level, social differences are erased, is a pretty powerful one,” Perkinson said. While this message reinforced the Christian sentiments of the time, Perkinson believes that memento mori transcend religion, tapping into fundamental questions about morality and forcing people to think about their actions on Earth. Even if we don’t discuss death as openly or plainly today, this preoccupation remains, he said. Golden Kingdoms: How our ancestors defined luxury “One of the interesting things about this exhibition is that we’ve had people come through from all different faith traditions (and) we’ve had people who don’t have any particular faith tradition,” Perkinson said. “It has resonated with them beyond matters of faith or any of that stuff. It’s a set of issues that people – almost everybody – is thinking about on some level, and finds this information reassuring. “People have been dealing with (death) for a long time, and it is something you can’t avoid in the end. The question is: What do you do with that?” “The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe” is on at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art until Nov. 26, 2017.

The Ivory Mirror exhibition at Bowdoin College Museum of Art


NEW: US soldiers "stand united on Polish soil to deter and defend," senior officer says Troops will conduct exercises with NATO allies to send a message to Russia Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo welcomed US troops to her country at a formal ceremony Saturday, saying it was a “great day” that would help ensure Poland’s security. Some 4,000 US soldiers have been deployed as part of troop rotations to Europe that the Pentagon has said are intended to bolster ties with NATO allies and send a clear message to Russia. Russia has criticized the continuous deployments as a threat to Russian security. “It’s a great day today when we can welcome, here in Zagan, American soldiers who represent the best, the greatest army in the world,” Szydlo said at the ceremony in the snowy western town of Zagan. Speaking after the Polish leader, Paul Jones, the US ambassador to Poland, said the troops arriving in Poland were “America’s most capable force,” embodying an “iron-clad commitment” to defend NATO allies. Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said the US troops would help ensure “freedom, independence and peace in Europe and the whole world” and that Poland was proud of “joint efforts that guarantee the security of Europe and of the eastern flanks of NATO.” American soldiers “stand united on Polish soil to deter and defend,” said Maj. Gen. Timothy McGuire, deputy commander of US Land Forces in Europe. He added that the troops’ arrival was a “concrete sign of the continued US commitment to the defense of Poland and the NATO alliance.” The 3rd Armored Combat Brigade Team of the 4th Infantry Division “is a highly capable and ready force with the best equipment, leadership and training of any combat force in the world,” he said. To maintain combat readiness, the soldiers will conduct “realistic exercises” with allies in locations across Poland and Europe, McGuire added. A convoy of US troops and military equipment crossed the border into Poland on Thursday, having arrived earlier in the week in Bremerhaven, Germany. Having assembled in Poland, the brigade combat team, deployed from Fort Carson, Colorado, will disperse across seven locations in Eastern Europe for training and exercises with European allies. It will serve as part of a rotation of American military assets in the region and is part of an effort to demonstrate the US commitment to European allies in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Ukraine, according to Lt. Gen. Tim Ray, deputy commander of US European Command. Deploying the troops and military hardware is the latest in a series of moves by the United States to ramp up its land, sea and air presence in Europe against a backdrop of concern over potential Russian aggression. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on a conference call Thursday that Russia’s response was a natural reaction to an increase in military strength by a neighbor. Related article A new cold war in Norway “We see it as a threat to us. This is an action that threatens our interests, our security; moreover, this is a third nation (apart from Russia and Poland) that is increasing its military presence near our borders in Europe, and it’s not even a European nation. “One thousand or 10,000 – we’re talking about the increase of military presence. There’s nothing to add.” US President-elect Donald Trump has said that he would like to improve US relations with Russia. But Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski warned in an interview Friday with Poland’s RMF radio that any warming of the US-Russia relationship should not come at his country’s expense. FM #Waszczykowski: Americans think about the world and relations with #Russia much like we do. We have nothing to fear. Posting on Twitter, Waszczykowski said he had spoken with Trump’s advisers in the United States. “Americans think about the world and relations with Russia much like we do. We have nothing to fear,” he said. Poland and other NATO allies in the region are keen to show their support for the US deployment, which comes at a time of uncertainty over the incoming Trump administration’s commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly questioned the utility of NATO and its members’ financial contributions to the alliance, which many see as a bulwark against Russia. However, his nominee for defense secretary, retired Gen. James Mattis, a former supreme allied commander of NATO, voiced unequivocal support for the alliance in confirmation hearings this week and said he had said as much to Trump. A significant portion of the 4,000-strong US force will be garrisoned at Polish military bases in Zagan, Boleslawiec, Swietoszow and Skwierzyna, the US Embassy in Poland said. While on a nine-month deployment, the US troops will carry out training and exercises in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, the embassy said. Related video What is life like for NATO troops in Norway “We’re here to deter any aggression that would threaten peace and security in this region,” said Col. Christopher R. Norrie, commander of the 3rd Armored Combat Brigade Team, 4th Infantry Division, in a statement. Along with the troop increase, 2,400 pieces of military equipment including tanks, armored fighting vehicles, artillery, trucks and containers have been deployed. They were transported using three cargo ships, rail, commercial line-haul and a military convoy, US Army Europe said. The US troop deployment to Europe was agreed to following NATO summits in 2014 and 2016 dominated by deep concern over Russia’s increased assertiveness and military power. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the war waged by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have particularly unnerved NATO members in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. CNN’s Atika Shubert reported from Zagan, and Laura Smith-Spark wrote and reported from London. CNN’s Radina Gigova, Schams Elwazer and Mansur Mirovalev contributed to this report.

US troop deployment to Poland and NATO allies


First lady Melania Trump visited a children's hospital on Wednesday A child she met got some good news after the visit A young boy awaiting a heart transplant received good news following a visit with first lady Melania Trump on Wednesday. “Upon landing in Belgium, I learned a young boy and his family who had been waiting for a heart transplant was informed that the hospital has found a donor,” the first lady said in a statement. “I read a book and held hands with this special little one just a few hours ago, and now my own heart is filled with joy over this news.” A little boy who I visited today & had been waiting for a heart transplant will be receiving one! #Blessings #Faith pic.twitter.com/DZU3ojxXVC She later tweeted: “A little boy who I visited today & had been waiting for a heart transplant will be receiving one! #Blessings #Faith.” Trump visited the Bambino Gesu children’s hospital in Rome following an audience with Pope Francis. “The hospital was struck by the timing of it all,” East Wing communications director Stephanie Grisham told CNN. Grisham said the first lady personally wrote a letter to Pope Francis asking to go to the children’s hospital, where both Princess Diana and Mother Theresa have visited. It is the largest pediatric hospital and research center in Europe and it is known as the hospital of the Pope, per its website. Her visit to the Bambino Gesu intensive care unit was “very emotional,” per the pool report. She also spent time coloring with the children in a separate room, taking selfies and speaking in Italian. Trump, who was born in neighboring Slovenia, once lived in Milan. Thank you @bambinogesu for the heroic work you do. I ask that everyone keep these amazing children in your thoughts & prayers. pic.twitter.com/UfVAc9lXv2 “My visit to Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital today was very moving. To spend time speaking to and coloring with children who have such a positive spirit despite illness was an amazing gift,” she said in the statement. Trump is now in Brussels, Belgium, where she will attend spousal programs at the NATO and G-7 summits, per the White House. Later in the trip, she will deliver remarks to US military personnel and families in Italy.

Melania Trump's visit to Bambino Gesu children's hospital


Clapper portrayed the increased Russian support for close ally President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's roiling civil war as impulsive President Barack Obama said earlier this month that Russia was heading for a "quagmire" in the country Moscow’s escalating militancy in Syria comes not because of careful strategic decisions but rather because Russian President Vladimir Putin is “winging this,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told CNN Thursday in an exclusive interview. Clapper said Putin was “very impulsive and opportunistic” as he increased Russian support for close ally President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s roiling civil war. “I personally question whether he has some long-term strategy or whether he is being very opportunistic on a day-to-day basis,” Clapper told CNN’s Jim Sciutto. “And I think his intervention into Syria is another manifestation of that.” When asked if Putin had a plan for Syria, Clapper said Putin didn’t. “What his long term plan is, I’m not sure he has one,” Clapper said. “I think he is kind of winging this day to day.” Clapper said the Obama administration anticipated Russia’s involvement with Syria. “We had that down pretty well, knew when the operations were going to start well before they did,” Clapper said. But he said it is much tougher now to track ISIS in Syria and Iraq than it was five years ago. Without a human presence on the ground in Syria, Clapper said the U.S. has to use “a robust set of capabilities” to monitor activity. ISIS is too dangerous to have people on the ground, Clapper said. The terrorist group has been known to kill people just because they suspect people of spying. Clapper’s comments come as Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to meet with Russian officials in Vienna Friday as part of international talks on a Syrian peace deal. U.S. officials have in the past called Russia’s airstrikes a “strategic blunder,” with President Barack Obama saying earlier this month that Russia was heading for a “quagmire” in the country. “It just won’t work, and they’re going to stay there for a while,” Obama said at a news conference.


Peña Nieto said he told Trump Mexico wouldn't pay for a wall The op-ed comes a day after Trump's visit to the country The president of Mexico explained Thursday why he invited Donald Trump to visit his country, pitching the trip as a chance to meet with someone important – even if the Republican nominee is widely disliked in the country. “I was very clear in public and in private to emphasize the fact that in Mexico, we feel offended and hurt by his statements about Mexicans,” Enrique Peña Nieto wrote in an op-ed for his El Universal. “I expressed that we deserve respect, that we are honest, hardworking people, that we value our families and the culture of effort.” Peña Nieto and Trump met in Mexico City Wednesday on a whirlwind visit ahead of Trump’s major immigration speech in Arizona. In public, Trump and Peña Nieto mostly struck a friendly tone, though acrimony later broke out over whether the pair had discussed Mexican payment for a US-Mexico border wall, a trademark Trump policy. “I was also very clear in my conversation with Trump on the border: Mexico will not pay for any wall,” Peña Nieto wrote. Trump has disputed Peña Nieto’s account, and in his speech on Wednesday he declared, “Mexico will pay for the wall. 100%. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for the wall.” Earlier on Thursday, Trump shared a video on Instagram of his arrival at the palace by helicopter. “Thank you to President Enrique Pena Nieto - for the invitation to meet with him in Mexico City, Mexico. Wonderful leadership and high quality people! I look forward to our next meeting. #TrumpTrain #MakeAmericaGreatAgain #TrumpPence16” Trump wrote in the post. A post shared by President Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) A Mexican government official and a source close to the Mexican government both tell CNN that the idea for the invitations for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto came from the Finance Ministry. According to the source close to the government, Mexico wants to show it can work with Trump if he wins. Finance Ministry officials hope that having Trump in Mexico will calm down investors who have been fleeing. The Mexican Central Bank registered more than $11 billion in capital outflows in the first half of 2016. The visit was seen as an attempt to prevent the peso from falling. Up to now, when Clinton leads in the polls, the peso strengthens; the opposite happens when the polls tighten. According to the Mexican government official, the Foreign Ministry was not aware of the invitations to Trump and Clinton. In fact, Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz and the undersecretary for North America, Paulo Carreño, were in Milwaukee on Tuesday opening the new Mexican Consulate, and she flew back Tuesday night when Trump posted his tweets. Peña Nieto has reiterated that Mexico will work with whoever gets elected. CNN’s Annie Rose Ramos contributed to this report.


A California Highway Patrol officer was injured when his motorcycle was involved in a crash while escorting the motorcade of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, authorities said. The officer’s motorcycle collided with a vehicle Friday in Simi Valley, according to spokesman Steve Swindle of the Ventura County Fire Department. Trudeau was not injured, a Canadian government source told CNN. The officer and a person aboard the vehicle were taken to the hospital with injuries that are not life-threatening. “The … officer was thrown off the motorcycle. The vehicle involved in the crash was not part of the motorcade,” Simi Valley Police Sgt. Chris Johnson said. The crash happened as the motorcade was leaving the Ronald Reagan Library, where  Trudeau delivered a speech  on the friendship and partnership between the United States and Canada. Trudeau is on a three-day trip to  the US to discuss economic and political ties between the two countries. He visited Chicago and San Francisco this week before traveling to Los Angeles on Friday. Trade between Canada & California has created millions of middle class jobs and economic growth on both sides of the border. My thanks to @GavinNewsom for a great discussion on how we can increase trade. pic.twitter.com/p0tRPoKfUZ In California, Trudeau  and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom discussed trade and economic growth, the Prime Minister tweeted. Great, far reaching conversation with @JustinTrudeau this morning about immigration, universal healthcare, and climate change. Plus, the guy’s got great hair! pic.twitter.com/XdPNrdpqv7 The leaders also talked about immigration, universal healthcare and climate change, according to Newsom. Simi Valley is about 40 miles from Los Angeles.


Menswear aficionado and street style icon Nick Wooster has worked with fashion’s finest, consulting for Thom Browne, Ralph Lauren, and Calvin Klein. But unlike many designers and consultants in the industry, he’s managed to build his own name without being wedded to a specific label. This month, the self-described “free agent” has flown in from New York as a special guest curator for Lane Crawford, a luxury retail space in Hong Kong that is celebrating its 165th anniversary. He’s debuting his newest collaboration with Italian fashion label Lardini – a collection of pocket squares, ties, pants, shirts and jackets. CNN Style met with Wooster to talk about the perks of travel, the Asian market, and the future of menswear. What’s in your carry-on? An iPad, Master & Dynamic headphones, chargers galore, pens, candy, duty-free cigarettes, passport and hotel and airline cards. Are there any travel perks to stocking your wardrobe? What I love about travel and shopping is seeing how different retailers in London, Paris and New York interpret the same collection. I like to find the best store in town and take a good look because there will always be a nuance that you just can’t get anywhere else. I think Hong Kong has always had this tradition of custom made suits which I’ve never done but love the idea of. What Asian designers excite you? Ziggy Chen and Yang Li. I’m not as well versed on this as I could be, so anytime I get the opportunity to meet new faces I think it’s important. What are some trends you see in Asia, that you might not see anywhere else? In Japan, the attention to detail in customer service is an experience that is unlike anywhere else. It’s really quite special. I think everyone who’s interested in fashion would do well to take a trip to learn about presentation and the way the merchandise is handed to you. These are skills that no one really thinks about. Right now, especially, menswear is going through a love affair with Japan. Japan has fitted prominently into most men’s editorial and all of us really crave those trips to Tokyo. Between Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, I think you really have to have your eye on the Asian market or you’re going to miss out. What do you add to the collaboration with Lardini? They make beautiful classic things so they didn’t need me to help them with that. Instead, it was like, alright I have a particular point of view. I almost always wear a jacket, but I like different jackets. I also like funny pants. I never like head to toe anything. I like the idea of it being a little bit messed up and this was a great playing field for that. What does the future of menswear look like? The job market is more competitive, the dating market is more competitive, everybody has kind of raised the bar, so looking better is a must. But the thing is, it’s not as scary as it maybe once was. That’s because of things like social media and the internet. I think now more than ever style has come out of the closet. Even publications like The New York Times are now expanding their coverage to really cover men’s style as an idea. I mean, this would have been unheard of 20 years ago. So the world is reacting. It’s a great time to be a man who’s interested in fashion. Where do you see fashion in 165 years? I’m sure you could have one set of clothes that could change color, one that could change shape, one that could change fabric and not ever have to be washed. It would be so great, and would make packing so much easier.


Researchers say a medieval remedy made of garlic, onion, wine, bile may be able to defeat MRSA superbug Ancient recipe was found in 10th-century medical book at the British Library It might sound like a really old wives’ tale, but a thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon potion for eye infections may hold the key to wiping out the modern-day superbug MRSA, according to new research. The 10th-century “eyesalve” remedy was discovered at the British Library in a leather-bound volume of Bald’s Leechbook, widely considered to be one of the earliest known medical textbooks. Christina Lee, an expert on Anglo-Saxon society from the School of English at the University of Nottingham, translated the ancient manuscript despite some ambiguities in the text. “We chose this recipe in Bald’s Leechbook because it contains ingredients such as garlic that are currently investigated by other researchers on their potential antibiotic effectiveness,” Lee said in a video posted on the university’s website. “And so we looked at a recipe that is fairly straightforward. It’s also a recipe where we are told it’s the ‘best of leechdoms’ – how could you not test that? So we were curious.” Lee enlisted the help of the university’s microbiologists to see if the remedy actually worked. The recipe calls for two species of Allium (garlic and onion or leek), wine and oxgall (bile from a cow’s stomach) to be brewed in a brass vessel. “We recreated the recipe as faithfully as we could. The Bald gives very precise instructions for the ratio of different ingredients and for the way they should be combined before use, so we tried to follow that as closely as possible,” said microbiologist Freya Harrison, who led the work in the lab at the School of Life Sciences. The book included an instruction for the recipe to be left to stand for nine days before being strained through a cloth. Efforts to replicate the recipe exactly included finding wine from a vineyard known to have existed in the ninth century, according to Steve Diggle, an associate professor of sociomicrobiology, who also worked on the project. The researchers then tested their recipe on cultures of MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a type of staph bacterium that does not respond to commonly used antibiotic treatments. The scientists weren’t holding out much hope that it would work – but they were astonished by the lab results. “What we found was very interesting – we found that Bald’s eyesalve is incredibly potent as an anti-Staphylococcal antibiotic in this context,” Harrison said. “We were going from a mature, established population of a few billion cells, all stuck together in this highly protected biofilm coat, to really just a few thousand cells left alive. This is a massive, massive killing ability.” Diggle said the team also asked collaborators in the U.S. to test the recipe using an “in vivo” wound model – meaning it’s in a live organism – “and basically the big surprise was that it seems to be more effective than conventional antibiotic treatment.” The scientists were worried they wouldn’t be able to repeat the feat. But three more batches, made from scratch each time, have yielded the same results, Harrison said, and the salve appears to retain its potency for a long time after being stored in bottles in the refrigerator. The team says it now has good, replicated data showing that the medicine kills up to 90% of MRSA bacteria in “in vivo” wound biopsies from mice. Harrison says the researchers are still not completely sure how it works, but they have a few ideas – namely, that there might be several active components in the mixture that work to attack the bacterial cells on different fronts, making it very hard for them to resist; or that by combining the ingredients and leaving them to steep in alcohol, a new, more potent bacteria-fighting molecule is created in the process. “I still can’t quite believe how well this 1,000-year-old antibiotic actually seems to be working,” Harrison said. “When we got the first results we were just utterly dumbfounded. We did not see this coming at all.” She added: “Obviously you can never say with utter certainty that because it works in the lab it’s going to work as an antibiotic, but the potential of this to take on to the next stage and say, ‘yeah, really does it work as an antibiotic’ is just beyond my wildest dreams, to be honest.” Lee, who translated the text from Old English, believes the discovery could change people’s views of the medieval period as the “Dark Ages.” “The Middle Ages are often seen as the ‘Dark Ages’ – we use the term ‘medieval’ these days … as pejorative – and I just wanted to do something that explains to me how people in the Middle Ages looked at science,” she said.


The Pentagon has denied Syrian claims the US attacked a Homs air base Sunday, hours after President Donald Trump tweeted “Animal Assad” would have a “big price to pay” for an alleged chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency claimed Syrian air defenses shot down eight missiles fired at the T-4 airbase early Monday morning local time, in an attack which killed and injured an unspecified number of people. The base, located in a strategic position between the cities of Homs and Palmyra in Syria’s west, has been a key staging ground for Syrian and Russian aircraft during the war. Earlier, Syrian State TV said the assault was a “likely attack by the US.” However, a senior US administration official told CNN Sunday that reports from the region claiming US Tomahawk missiles had struck targets in Syria were not true. The Pentagon also issued a statement denying the attack. “At this time, the Department of Defense is not conducting air strikes in Syria. However, we continue to closely watch the situation and support the ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable,” a Pentagon statement said. The Israel Defense Forces refused to comment on the attack Monday. Israel has launched attacks on sites in Syria in the past, most notably in February when it struck twelve targets including three aerial defense batteries, as well as four targets which the IDF described as Iranian. That attack came after the shooting down of an Israeli F-16 fighter jet by Syrian forces, and the infiltration of Israeli airspace by what the IDF said was an Iranian drone. On Sunday, Trump said there would be a “big price to pay” after an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, near the capital Damascus on Saturday, which the US blamed on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In a series of tweets, Trump also criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and Tehran, saying “Russian and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad.” It’s not clear what retaliatory action Trump has in mind, if any, but the issue is expected to be discussed at a “small group” meeting of the National Security Council Monday, led by John Bolton on his first day as White House national security adviser, two administration officials told CNN. In April of last year, the US launched Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base after the US and others accused Assad’s forces of perpetrating a deadly chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun, which the Syrian military denied. A United Nations joint report later blamed the Syrian government for the attack, which used the highly volatile nerve agent sarin to kill 80 people. Six people were killed in the retaliatory US airstrike, which US Secretary of Defense James Mattis claimed last year destroyed about 20% of the Syrian government’s operational aircraft. Syrian activist groups on Saturday said toxic gas inside barrel bombs dropped from helicopters over a rebel-held city in Syria killed dozens of civilians and wounded scores more. Related article Trump blames Putin, Obama for 'Animal Assad,' tweets 'big price' after reports of Syrian chemical attack Graphic images showed people, including children, apparently dead and injured – some with some kind of spittle or foam in their mouths in makeshift medical centers. CNN could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the images. Syrian state news said an “official source” denied Syrian authorities were behind the attack. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Sunday calling the reported chemical attack a “hoax” and an “information attack” aimed at shielding “terrorists.” “Information attacks about the use of chlorine or other poisonous substances by the Syrian government troops are continuing. Another such hoax about the chemical attack that supposedly took place in Douma emerged yesterday,” the statement said. Saturday’s attack came after talks collapsed between Russia and Jaish al-Islam, the last remaining rebel group in Douma, after which Syrian government air strikes resumed. Syrian forces are on the verge of reclaiming Douma, the last town held by rebels in Eastern Ghouta, which was besieged for six years and had been heavily bombarded since mid-February. The alleged chemical attack sparked international outrage. The United Nations Security Council will meet on Monday, after Russia called for a discussion on “international threats to peace and security,” and nine countries, including the US and France, requested a meeting on Syria. Trump spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron late Sunday. In a readout the White House said both leaders “strongly condemned the horrific chemical weapons attacks in Syria and agreed that the Assad regime must be held accountable for its continued human rights abuses.” The two leaders “agreed to exchange information on the nature of the attacks and coordinate a strong, joint response,” the White House said. In March, Macron said France was prepared to strike Syria if it used chemical weapons against civilians. CNN’s Lonzo Cook and James Griffiths contributed to this report.


Authorities say Russell Stendal gave rebels medical and communications aid The American missionary was once held hostage by the FARC rebels "Somebody set a trap for me, and I walked into it," he says in a video posted online An American missionary once held hostage by Colombian rebels has been accused by local authorities of collaborating with his former captors. Russell Martin Stendal was born in Minneapolis but has spent much of his life in Colombia. He was kidnapped in 1983 by the left-wing rebel group FARC, which has been locked in conflict with government forces for decades. Stendal was released by the rebels after five months and has continued his missionary work around the South American nation since then, including trips into rebel-controlled areas. But his activities appear to have run afoul of Colombian authorities, who announced Thursday that they had arrested Stendal, accusing him of supporting the FARC. Police alleged that he was posing as a missionary. A video posted online appeared to show Stendal speaking after his arrest. “Somebody set a trap for me, and I walked into it. And there was a secret order out for my arrest. And here I am,” he says in the video, which was purportedly filmed by one of his daughters. “They’re accusing me of rebellion for the missionary trips and the visits that I made into rebel-held territory, distributing Bibles and Galcom radios,” he says, referring to solar-powered portable radio sets that are fixed to receive Christian broadcasts. Colombian authorities described his actions differently, saying he installed mobile devices “to transmit propaganda about terrorist activities.” “He also transported those wounded in combat and gave medical help to members of the guerrilla group,” said the prosecutor’s office in the Colombian department of Cundinamarca. A judge ordered Stendal’s release late Thursday night in a court proceeding shown on CNN affiliate Cablenoticias. The judge said the prosecutor’s case against Stendal was lacking in proof and underdeveloped, ruling there was no reason to keep him in jail. But the judge cautioned that the American isn’t free of all charges and that authorities will continue their investigation. Stendal’s lawyer, Eder Castro, told the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo that his client was committed to “distributing Bibles and preaching the word to everyone.” The U.S. State Department wasn’t immediately available for comment on the matter Thursday. The Colombian rebels said authorities had got the wrong end of the stick. “It leaves much to be desired of the intelligence department of the police of Cundinamarca to confuse evangelizing with rebellion,” said the statement from the FARC, which is known in English as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. “This citizen always preached peace between armed and unarmed contestants, including insurgents, army and paramilitaries,” the rebels said. During his time as a FARC hostage, Stendal appears to have tried to provide spiritual succor to his kidnappers. He released a book about his experience entitled, “Rescue the Captors,” in which he talks about “how God worked in the hearts of the rebels,” according to the Colombia Para Cristo website. After his release, he took part in evangelical campaigns across Colombia and set up radio stations to broadcast gospel preaching and music into the conflict zones. The FARC, which started as an insurgency in 1964, has taken part in peace negotiations with the government in an effort to end more than half a century of fighting. Talks have stalled several times over the years, and the group has been accused of bombings, murder, extortion and kidnappings. CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet, Rafael Romo, Annie Rose Ramos, Marilia Brocchetto and Carloo Perez contributed to this report.


Wittingly or not, President Donald Trump spent the Presidents Day weekend doing the Kremlin’s work. It may be months before Americans learn whether special counsel Robert Mueller will validate or reject allegations that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Moscow’s election meddling operation. But Trump’s three days of Twitter venting against the FBI, his political opponents and the Russia investigation from his Mar-a-Lago resort are likely to further incite mistrust in the institutions of democracy and government, which the Russian intervention was designed to foment. Related article Democrats, Oprah and Russia: A wild weekend of Trump tweets In addition to lashing out against perceived political foes, Trump rejected the congressional and governmental investigations taking place under the checks and balances of the US system and undermined his own national security adviser’s warning to Russia at a key international forum. At the same time, Trump failed to condemn the audacious “information warfare” effort alleged in a comprehensive indictment against 13 Russians that Mueller unveiled on Friday. He also failed to promise to protect future US elections – even though intelligence chiefs have warned that an attempt to disrupt November’s midterms may already be underway. That reluctance is consistent with a pattern of unexplained conduct by the President involving the Russia question. People in his orbit have, for instance, repeatedly lied about the campaign’s contacts with Russians and the President is under investigation for possible obstruction of justice for firing FBI Director James Comey, who had been overseeing the election interference investigation. Trump has also often been strangely solicitous of Russian President Vladimir Putin, praising his strongman ethos and gravitating toward him at international summits. Related video Intel chiefs: Russia targeting 2018 elections But Mueller has not so far announced any findings that prove that the campaign colluded with Russia nor alleged that the President is compromised in any way or indicated whether Trump has anything to fear from the special counsel’s investigation. Friday’s indictment noted that Russian representatives interacted only with “unwitting” Trump campaign aides – a statement that the President’s supporters used to inaccurately claim he had been absolved of any wrongdoing by Mueller. There are several scenarios that do not include collusion, starting with Trump’s obsessive sensitivity to claims that his election win was illegitimate or concern that his personal finances may be in Mueller’s sights, that could also explain his bitter antipathy towards the probe. But that said, this past weekend did reveal a remarkable continuity of interest between Trump and the Russians who plotted the operation, and it shows how his reaction to its exposure is perpetuating the goals that Mueller’s indictment says Russia hoped to achieve. Moscow’s goal seems to have been to undermine public trust in the institutions of politics and government, which have made the United States a beacon of democracy. “The defendants allegedly conducted what they called information warfare against the United States, with the stated goal of spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told reporters on Friday. Some experts go further and argue that the indictment lifts the lid on an expansive Russian operation to undermine the fabric of US public life. “More than anything it was to sow discord in our political process … to degrade trust in our political institutions and then as well to agitate so that we would be at each other’s throats over this,” said Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA agent stationed in Moscow, on CNN’s “Smerconish” on Saturday. Related article Trump blames everyone but Russia But Russia is not alone in actively seeking to tarnish the institutions of American democracy – Trump has acted in a similar way during his presidency, from his jibes at the judiciary to his feuds with intelligence agencies and declaration that the media is an enemy of the people. His willingness to take on the establishment was an elemental part of his appeal in 2016 and it helps explain his enduring bond with his supporters. Before Trump became President, it would have been a major shock to see repeated, public attacks on the FBI from the occupant of the Oval Office. Now it happens so often that it is almost old news. The President took his assault on the bureau to a new level over the weekend by squarely blaming Florida FBI agents for the failure to stop the high school shooting in Broward County last week. “They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday. Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud! While the President’s constant assault on the FBI is obviously motivated by his anger at the Russia investigation and doesn’t necessarily indicate that he has something to hide, it comes with a bonus for Moscow. Any ebbing of public trust in the bureau as a result of Trump’s assaults can only be good news for Russia, since the FBI is responsible for detecting and preventing Russian espionage in the United States and depends on public support for its legitimacy. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that only 48% of Americans approve of the way the FBI is handling its mission, while 53% of Republicans do not approve of the job the bureau is doing. Trump’s weekend tweets also included attacks on the structure of the constitutional system set up to oversee a President’s power. “If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!” Trump tweeted. If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America! The tweet mirrored a statement by the President on Friday night, in which he maintained that distrust in the US system was in fact rooted in attempts to examine the extent of Russian meddling in 2016. “It’s time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and farfetched theories, which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors, like Russia, and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions,” Trump said. Trump’s former campaign adviser Michael Caputo on Tuesday bolstered this argument, maintaining that the Russia intervention was real but putting the blame for the post-election discord on the President’s political enemies at home. “I think a lot of the dissension that’s been sown since the election was entirely the responsibility of the Democrats,” Caputo told CNN’s “New Day.” “I think the Democrats have fed this bogus Russian collusion narrative to the media, (and) the media have gleefully swallowed it because it’s really good for ratings.” But Trump, in firing off a volley of tweets critical of his predecessor Barack Obama on Tuesday, ensured that the acrimony stirred by Russia’s operation will exacerbate the scars of an election that still haunts US politics. “There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections, there’s no evidence that that has happened in the past or that it will happen this time, and so I’d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and make his case to get votes.” ..... ....The President Obama quote just before election. That’s because he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win and he didn’t want to “rock the boat.” When I easily won the Electoral College, the whole game changed and the Russian excuse became the narrative of the Dems. The President quoted Obama’s call last year for him to stop “whining” – when Trump claimed that the election could be “rigged” against his Republican ticket. “The President Obama quote just before election. That’s because he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win and he didn’t want to ‘rock the boat.’ When I easily won the Electoral College, the whole game changed and the Russian excuse became the narrative of the Dems,” Trump tweeted. Since an iconic speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, in which he previewed a shift in policy toward the United States by complaining it acted as the world’s sole “master” and “sovereign,” Putin has emerged as a challenger to US global power. So it was significant that national security adviser H.R. McMaster chose this year’s Munich event to deliver a strong warning to Moscow. He said the Mueller indictments on Friday showed that evidence of a Russian election-meddling effort was “really incontrovertible,” but he warned that the operation had been counterproductive. “All that has done is appeal to those big fringes while uniting all of our politics actually against Russia and Russian interference,” he said. Trump quickly contradicted McMaster, raising new doubts about the level of confidence that the President retains in his national security adviser and undercutting his message that Americans were united against Russia. “General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems,” Trump tweeted. General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company! It was not the first time that Trump has appeared at odds with his own senior national security staff, which has largely taken a hawkish position toward Russia amid a plunge in relations between the former Cold War foes. Defenders of Trump often point to a decision by the administration to allow Ukraine to buy small arms and light weapons from US manufacturers to counter the narrative that the President is overly sympathetic to Russia. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders is seizing on complaints, even by some Democrats, that the previous administration did not do enough to punish Russian election subversion. “Unlike Obama, @POTUS isn’t going to be pushed around by Russia or anybody else,” she said on Twitter on Saturday. But Obama personally warned Putin against messing with the election, imposed sanctions on Russian individuals and entities, kicked out 35 Russian diplomats and closed two of the Kremlin’s compounds in the United States. While Obama’s critics demanded more, his action still far exceeds the steps Trump has taken in response to much more detailed and public accusations of interference by Russia. The President still has not imposed sanctions designed to punish election meddling by Moscow.


Bernie Sanders, like the four other remaining presidential candidates, spoke of his views on Israel on Monday night. But unlike his competitors, who flocked to Washington to lay out their positions to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Sanders declined to address the pro-Israel lobby in person. Instead, he stuck to the campaign trail in the western U.S. and gave a foreign policy speech that took stances likely to grate on the ears of Israel advocates as well as to please them. Though Sanders is the only Jewish candidate and one whose views were shaped in part by his time living on an Israeli kibbutz, he apparently saw little benefit in appearing at a forum that features few of his progressive constituents and might not be receptive to his positions on Israel. Sanders advisers told CNN’s Jeff Zeleny Monday that they made a decision that he would do better staying on the trail rallying voters ahead of Tuesday’s contests. Sanders has not spoke often of his heritage, his time in Israel or his views on the country now. Indeed, his speech Monday night in Salt Lake City represented some of his most extensive comments to date on the issue and they didn’t feature many applause lines for AIPAC activists, who take a harder line on Israel than that articulated in his address. RELATED: Bernie Sanders will not attend AIPAC conference “To my mind, as friends, we are obligated to speak the truth as we see it. This is what real friendship demands, especially in difficult times,” Sanders said Monday, before calling for a renewal of the peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. But he then delivered a stern speech – and one with rare details – criticizing Israeli settlements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. “Peace will require strict adherence by both sides to the tenets of international humanitarian law. This includes Israeli ending disproportionate responses to being attacked, even though any attack on Israel is unacceptable,” Sanders said according to his prepared remarks. Elsewhere he said, “It is absurd for elements within the Netanyahu government to suggest that building more settlements in the West Bank is the appropriate response to the most recent violence.” Those aren’t all positions pro-Israel advocates embrace, but some would have still have liked to have heard them from the candidate in person. And several Jewish leaders and members of the audience said they were chagrined that he didn’t come. “It’s certainly disappointing, and I think if Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and John Kasich can all show up, it’s not clear why Bernie sanders couldn’t fit it into his schedule,” said Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union’s Advocacy Center. “I think it’s a statement. I think it’s hurtful to the Israel-supporting community and the Jewish community. It’s a very significant statement and hurtful,” said Rabbi Philip Scheim, incoming president of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Jewish denomination. While Sanders has expressed his support for Israel, Scheim said, “You have to demonstrate it more than state it.” RELATED: Bernie Sanders is first Jewish candidate to win a primary. Does he care?Scheim said Sanders’ decision not to attend AIPAC was “probably” tied to not wanting to alienate segments of his progressive base of support. And he acknowledged that even if the Vermont senator had attended, he probably would have trouble peeling away Jewish support from Clinton, who Scheim said has had “longstanding, strong connections” to the Jewish community. An AIPAC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday about Sanders speech and his decision to skip the event. Some at the 18,000-strong gathering, though, understood why Sanders declined the invitation, given his politics. “If he talked about his ideas, which most people here would consider too far left, you know he wouldn’t win any supporters anyway. So he probably correctly recognized his time would be better spent campaigning out West,” said Joseph Ennis, a software architect from Buffalo, New York, as he walked out of an afternoon session. Ennis said it would have been “gutsy if he came and gave his true opinions based upon his record on the matter.” In addition to facing an uphill climb with the audience, Sanders might also have faced blowback among some of his supporters for attending. Some 5,000 people signed a petition last week calling on Sanders not to participate in AIPAC, charging that the conference is featuring “Islamophobes.” RELATED: Donald Trump tries to prove his Israel bona fides Yet some on the left, such as Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy and president of the board of directors of the liberal site Truthout, urged Sanders to do as members of the Obama administration – such as National Security Adviser Susan Rice – had done before and be a “truth-teller” at AIPAC by publicly opposing Israeli settlements and other policies. And many of Sanders’ positions do fit in the mainstream of Democratic politics, even though they are out of step with AIPAC. That includes his support of President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, which he cast in terms of military intervention in the Middle East and avoiding another Iraq war. “The test of a great nation is not how many wars it can engage in, but how it can resolve international conflicts in a peaceful manner,” Sanders said last August. His time in Israel, which he hasn’t discussed much publicly, seems to have influenced his economic views at least as much as his geopolitical ones. As a young liberal activist, he worked on a kibbutz, or collective community. He and his campaign have been largely mum about the details, but he mentioned it in his speech Monday to establish his bona fides. “Let me begin that I have a deep personal connection to Israel – and I am fairly certain I am the only U.S. presidential candidate to have ever lived on a kibbutz for a while,” Sanders said. In an interview with The Associated Press in 1991, he went into more detail explaining not of how it informed his views of his Judaism but instead how it reinforced his belief in socialism and democracy. “What I learned … is that you could have a community in which the people themselves actually owned the community,” Sanders told the AP. “Seeing that type of relationship exist, and the fact that these units in the kibbutz were working well economically, made a strong impact on me.”


The House could vote as early as this week on legislation on the issue "This is a moment where it is better to be safe than to be sorry," Ryan told reporters House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday called for a “pause” in the U.S. program accepting Syrian refugees after the terror attacks in Paris last week launched by ISIS, and the House will vote Thursday on legislation to mandate it. Related gallery Paris terror attacks “This is a moment where it is better to be safe than to be sorry, so we think the prudent, the responsible thing is to take a pause in this particular aspect of this refugee program in order to verify that terrorists are not trying to infiltrate the refugee population,” Ryan told reporters. “I, for one, don’t feel particularly comforted by the assertion that our government can vet these refugees,” McConnell said. “At the very least it strikes me that we need a pause or a moratorium because the American people are quite concerned and upset by the possibility of terrorist coming into our country through some sort of refugee program.” Republicans to Obama: Keep Syrian refugees out Ryan announced he was creating a task force made up of the Republican chairmen from the Homeland Security, Armed Services, Intelligence, Appropriations, Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees to fashion legislation to address the refugee issue and come up with additional homeland security recommendations. No vetting, no Syrian refugees, Rep. Peter King says “This is not about politics. This is about national security,” Ryan said, and called on all members of the House to address the situation quickly. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters on his way into a classified briefing that the House will vote on Thursday on a bill requiring a beefed up vetting system. The bill would suspend the U.S. program allowing refugees from Syria to enter the country until the Secretary of the Homeland Security Department certifies that those wanting to resettle in the U.S. do not pose a security threat. “This is just a start,” McCarthy said, noting members wanted to vote on something before the Thanksgiving recess. Drafted by North Carolina Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, the proposal also requires that the FBI certify that those applying to enter the U.S. have had background checks. More than half the nation’s governors say Syrian refugees not welcome So far one House Democrat, Rep. Brad Ashford, has signed on as a supporter of Hudson’s bill, and GOP aides expect the measure to have broader bipartisan support. In the Senate, several Democrats defended the program assessing Syrian refugees as painstaking and rigorous and pointed to as evidence the low number of Syrian refuges allowed into the country over the last four years. They also said many of the vetted refugees were rejected. But they also said lawmakers and the public need more information on exactly the program works before they can assess if changes are needed. Obama administration officials, who briefed House members Tuesday, are scheduled to brief senators on the intricacies of the vetting program in a closed session Wednesday afternoon. “I don’t think at this stage we should be pausing until we get all the facts,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Even top Republicans admitted they need to learn more about the vetting process. “We’re going to get a briefing about it,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the third-ranking Republican.  “What’s being done already?  What further can be done?  What steps might we take?  I think it’s all very much a subject of discussion.” But one Democratic leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, acknowledged a pause might be needed. “We’re waiting for the briefing tomorrow,” he said.  “A pause may be necessary. We’re going to look at it.” McCarthy is coordinating the speaker’s task force, which Ryan said is meeting daily. The speaker sidestepped questions on what new legislation would do or how long the pause he wants for the program should last, but he said there needs to be a more comprehensive plan in place to address homeland security issues. Obama unyielding on ISIS as criticism mounts “The intelligence community, as I’ve said numerous times, has been warning about this for over a year now so this didn’t come as any shock to us that something like this happened because we knew this was the strategic plan of radical Islamists,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told reporters. Christie on refugees: Not even 5-year-old orphans GOP Rep. Peter King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters he has serious doubts about the current system and argued that, “as a practical matter, there is no vetting” now of those refugees who want to resettle in the United States. Related gallery Syria's civil war in pictures Governors ‘last line of defense’ against ISIS, Palin says But DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson defended the vetting process after he conducted the classified briefing for all House members, saying it’s important the process is “thorough, careful.” “It’s better than it used to be, and were going to continue on this path because there is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the world, other nations are stepping up and we should do so to. We are looked to by other nations in the world for leadership in this area,” he told reporters. Ryan noted that he was sending President Barack Obama the annual defense bill to sign Tuesday. In a swipe at the President’s recent statement saying ISIS is “contained,” the speaker noted that the defense bill calls for the administration to lay out a plan to defeat the terror group. “A containment plan is not enough – that has failed.” When pressed whether Congress needs to vote on a new war authorization, Ryan said he believed the current measure in place now gives the administration the authority it needs but that the President needs to lay out a more comprehensive strategy to combat ISIS.


Here’s what you might have missed on CNN today: Prince Harry and American actor Meghan Markle are engaged! The couple made their first appearance hours after the news was announced, and revealed that they had gotten engaged during a cozy night at home while roasting chicken. (The royals: They’re just like you and me, amiright?) Watch the interview with the BBC here. At an event honoring Navajo code talkers, the President made a remark about “Pocahontas,” his nickname for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, though did not mention her directly. “This has been a shock,” the Minnesota Democrat said to reporters on his first day back on Capitol Hill. The billionaire said he has no recollection of an alleged sexual assault that a woman says occurred at his island home in 2010. Congressional Budget Office estimates of the Senate GOP’s tax plan show a $1.4 trillion increase in the deficit over 10 years. – If you haven’t yet realized that today is Cyber Money, here are some deals you can still snag. – Black Friday was huge … for gun sales. Amid a showdown over the consumer watchdog agency, both appointees (one by Trump and one by the outgoing director) showed up for work today and sent out competing emails to staff both signed “acting director.” One even brought in doughnuts. It’s not clear if the two interacted. The Justice Department says that hackers stole intellectual property from several companies. The homeless good Samaritan who received hundreds of thousands of dollars for an act of kindness said he will use the money to help others. Yes, it’s time to start with the 2017 superlatives. And if you think this year has been lousy for the world, you’ll agree with Dictionary.com’s choice for its word of the year.


Editor’s Note: Leroy Chiao is a former NASA astronaut. During his 15-year career, he flew four missions into space, three times on space shuttles and once as the copilot of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. On that flight, he served as the commander of Expedition 10, a six-and-a-half month mission. He has performed six spacewalks, in both US and Russian spacesuits, and has logged nearly 230 days in space. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. NASA has detected some building blocks for life on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter Leroy Chiao: There is likely intelligent life somewhere in universe, but humans will never breach distance to find it NASA announced this week exciting results from a spacecraft observing Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa. Equipment on the Cassini probe detected some of the required conditions and building blocks for life on both moons. For those like myself, who thrill at any discovery that suggests Earth’s creatures may not be alone in the universe, the findings capture our imagination anew. But does Cassini bring our imaginings closer to reality? Let’s look at what the discovery shows: Cassini dove through plumes erupting through the icy surface of the oceans of Enceladus. Plumes have also been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) erupting through the solid ice surface of Europa’s ocean. And previous thermal measurements by the Galileo spacecraft showed that the recent Europa plumes appeared directly over a hot spot in the moon’s ocean. We can infer that that these plumes are due to hot eruptions on the ocean floors. On Earth, scientists have detected life near the points of deep ocean eruptions. It was long thought that the environment at such great depths was far too cold and hostile to support life. But it turns out the eruptions provide enough heat to support “extremophile” microorganisms — life where we didn’t think it could exist. Thus it is reasonable to expect that the same thing could happen on other planets or moons. Related video Astronomers discover 7 Earth-sized planets During its Enceladus dives, Cassini determined that the plumes consist mostly of water. But the spacecraft also detected hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane and other chemicals. Hydrogen and carbon dioxide in the water could support a metabolic process called “methanogenesis.” In this process, a microorganism uses carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce energy and methane as a byproduct. So while Cassini did not find life per se, the data show that some of the critical chemical building blocks are there. Even more exciting is the fact that these observations were made within our own solar system. It is a short step, then, to predicting that conditions for life are likely in many places in the universe. While it would be very exciting to find actual microbial life on one or more extraterrestrial worlds, it would be a far cry from finding intelligent life. Even so, such a microbial discovery would still greatly open up the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Related article Elon Musk is changing the rules of space travel And this is why the Cassini announcement sparks the imagination so. Humans have been fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrial life ever since we became aware that there are other worlds out there. This has landed scientists in hot water, including the namesake of the Galileo spacecraft, who in the 17th century was placed under house arrest for daring to suggest that not only was the Earth not the center of the universe, but that it was not even the center of our solar system. Could there indeed be intelligent life out there? My spaceflight experiences have made me think about this quite a bit. My personal belief is that there is intelligent life all over the universe. The problem is that the distances in space are so vast, it is unlikely we will ever find each other. The nearest other intelligent life could be over 100 million light years away. So even if we figured out how to travel at the speed of light, it would still take 100 million years or more to get there. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook If you assume that the Big Bang theory is correct and that the universe all started at one instant, and if you assume that Earth and its inhabitants are “average,” then we will never find each other. This is because life here on the Earth will likely end before we have the technology to find life light years away. And for the same reason no other life will then find us either. Indeed it seems plausible — even likely — that life starts at places in the universe even as it simultaneously ends in other places. As belief systems go (and this is mine), this one is actually quite liberating once you accept it: Since we are unlikely to encounter any other life or life form than the ones we have now, we ought to make the most of what I call our One Orbit, our one life. Cassini’s discovery helps us to do that. It helps expand our knowledge of our corner of the universe and dream about the awesome potential that is out there beyond. UnIike those who persecuted Galileo, we are enlightened enough now to have an open mind to all possibilities. And to keep on dreaming, as we live our own lives to the fullest.


You may have thought the world had run out of superlatives to describe the misery that Hurricane Maria brought to Puerto Rico. Well now, here’s another one: second-largest blackout in history. Since the monster storm slammed into the American Caribbean territory in September 2017 and heavily damaged the power grid, more than 3.4 billion hours of electricity have been lost there. That makes it the second-longest blackout in world history, according to a report from the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm. The only blackout in world history bigger than Puerto Rico’s is the one that came after Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines in 2013. About 6.1 billion hours of power were lost after that massive storm. The Rhodium Group analysis largely relies on data on electricity loss provided to the Department of Energy, as well as news reports for storms prior to 2000, according to Trevor Houser, a partner at Rhodium who co-wrote the analysis with Peter Marsters. The analysis leaves out war-related destruction of electrical infrastructure. Houser said the group analyzes the economic impacts of weather and climate events, and they decided to dig in more deeply on the impacts of Maria on the Puerto Rican economy. “As we started looking at the scale of the blackout and try to put that in historical context, it became clear this was a record-breaking event and worthy of some attention and focus just from an electric standpoint,” Houser said. The blackout is already the worst in US history, beating out Hurricane Georges in 1998 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Right now, Rhodium estimates power has been restored to 96% of the island, meaning that 53,000 households – between 100,000 and 200,000 people – still don’t have electricity, some seven months after the storm. Houser and Marsters said their research shows that “making existing electricity supply more resilient to storm-related disruptions in both developed and developing countries is also important, particularly given recent and projected changes in the global climate.”


Afghan President Ashraf Ghani arrived in Washington on Sunday for his first official visit to the United States since taking office in January. The highly anticipated visit marks the latest chapter in an evolving U.S.-Afghan relationship – one that seems to be warming even as the governments seek to bridge the gap on key security issues. At the outset, U.S. officials say they hope to use the opportunity presented by this visit to build up the bilateral relationship, which has improved greatly since Ghani took over from his predecessor, former President Hamid Karzai. Related video Emergency alert issued for U.S. citizens in Afghanistan READ: Arrests after woman beaten, set ablaze in Afghanistan “This is a different relationship than we had under President Karzai,” Jeff Eggers, special assistant to the President for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told reporters in a conference call Friday. “It’s clearly more cooperative and better.” In particular, Ghani’s government has demonstrated a greater receptiveness to continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. In one of his first acts as president, Ghani signed a bilateral security agreement with the U.S., which allowed U.S. troops to remain in the country, and which Karzai had refused to sign. But the Ghani and Obama administrations are not entirely aligned when it comes to their security cooperation, and talks this week at both the White House and Camp David are likely to include a heavy emphasis on how the U.S. can best support Afghanistan’s continued war with the Taliban. Ghani is expected to press President Barack Obama to reconsider the pace of U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, seeking greater flexibility to counter the continued threat posed by violent extremists, just three months after the U.S. officially ended it’s combat mission there. Currently, there are 9,800 U.S. troops providing training and support in Afghanistan, as well as 3,000 troops from other NATO countries. Related video Obama reconsiders drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan SEE: Obama may not reduce troops in Afghanistan The Obama administration plans to reduce that number to about 5,500 by the end of this year before withdrawing completely by the end of 2016. But Ghani has made clear to Obama in recent conversations that such a timeline could jeopardize the security situation on the ground as Afghan forces continue to fight back the Taliban and al Qaeda. “Deadlines concentrate the mind. But deadlines should not be dogmas,” Ghani told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in January. “If both parties or, in this case, multiple partners, have done their best to achieve the objectives and progress is very real, then there should be willingness to re-examine a deadline,” he said. In an appearance aired Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Ghani again praised the U.S. troops and warned of what might come of their absence. “The result is that America has been secure, thank God,” he said. “There’s been no terrorist attack on mainland United States. We have been the front line. Meanwhile, what needs to be underlined is while tragedy brought us together, there are common interests that now can be articulated very clearly. The threats that we are facing on a daily basis, were they, God forbid, to overwhelm us, will threaten the world at large.” U.S. officials say Obama is considering Ghani’s request, but has not made up his mind. This week’s visit offers the opportunity for the Afghan president to make his case in person. Already, there are signs the U.S. might be willing to acquiesce to Ghani’s appeal in order to prevent a further spread of violence. Gen. John Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has presented Obama with recommendations for the U.S. to support the Ghani government’s security strategy, Eggers said. “So, absolutely, we expect some discussion of President Ghani’s request for flexibility,” he said. “I expect that the President will have something to say about that in his press conference at the back end of President Ghani’s visit to the White House on Tuesday, but no decisions have yet been made on that.” Last year was one of the deadliest years of the now 13-year-old conflict, with high casualty rates among Afghan security forces, police and civilians. And violence is likely to increase in the coming months as fighting intensifies. Campbell told lawmakers at a congressional hearing last month he is “concerned” about the summer season, when fighting with the Taliban typically reaches its highest levels. With coalition combat troops gone from Afghanistan, there is fear Taliban and al Qaeda fighters could seek to capitalize on their absence. “A lack of presence creates a vacuum, and we’ve seen what fills that vacuum in Syria and Iraq,” Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said at the same hearing. “The ungoverned spaces will allow terrorists to foment the same disaster in Afghanistan as we have seen in Iraq – growing instability, terrorist safe havens and direct threats to the United States.” Another parallel to Iraq: The emergence in recent months of Afghan extremists pledging alliance to the terror group ISIS. Lawmakers including McCain have expressed concern about this phenomenon, but so far, the administration is hesitant to play up their significance. In last month’s hearing, Campbell called the threat of ISIS in Afghanistan “nascent,” and “more of a re-branding of a few marginalized Taliban,” though he insists the administration is taking it seriously. “It is a concern to President Ghani, therefore, a concern to me,” he said. “But we continue to work that with our Afghan partners and to make sure that we understand where this is going inside of Afghanistan and Pakistan.” During a trip to Afghanistan last month, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said such groups are “in small numbers and aspirational.” Ghani, who is joined on this visit by Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, will meet with Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday night for a small dinner to set the agenda for the visit. He and Abdullah will visit the Pentagon on Monday morning to address before heading to Camp David for a full day of meetings with Kerry, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and others in the administration. On Tuesday, they will spend several hours at the White House, where Obama and Ghani will hold a joint press conference. The Afghan delegation will also meet with congressional and civil society leaders while in Washington, and will wrap up their trip on Thursday with meetings at the United Nations in New York.