ISIS militants, under fire from Iraqi-led forces, are taking human shields as protection Asa'ad and his family were forced out of their homes and made to walk towards Mosul They managed to escape and returned to their village, which is now eerily empty “They told us, ‘You are going to have to walk to Hammam al Alil,’” says Asa’ad. “We knew that it would be long and we took blankets and bread.” This was the moment, late one afternoon last week, that ISIS militants came to Asa’ad’s village, rounding up families and forcing them onto the road north towards Mosul. Some of the ISIS fighters were foreigners, some Iraqi. The man who came to their door, he says, was Syrian. It has become an all-too-familiar story: As ISIS retreats from the villages it has occupied for the last two years, it forces civilians – including toddlers and the elderly – to leave their homes. They become human shields, frog-marched toward Mosul and used by the militants as cover from air strikes. Related article Human shields in Iraq: The new ISIS strategy in fight for Mosul Asa’ad is thin and prematurely grey; his rheumy eyes tell of a life of hard graft. He and his wife Sardiye and their three young daughters live in Tulul al Nasir, a modest farming community on the left bank of the Tigris River, 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Mosul. Some 600 families in Tulul al Nasir were marched out of the village, he says. Some were put in trucks and cars; many were on foot. ISIS fighters snapped at their heels, driving them onwards. Mosul: Iraqi forces on city’s doorstep Asa’ad climbs into our car – his youngest daughter Rahma on his lap – to retrace their horrific journey. He points to an area at the side of the road, where the ISIS fighters suddenly opened fire. “They killed three brothers and they took the fourth,” he says. “When we saw them being killed, we stopped and then they shot around us.” Related article Battle for Mosul: The Iraqi fighters closing in on ISIS As’aad didn’t know why the brothers had been shot; it may have been simply to terrorize the others. At other times, he says, the militants fired over the villagers’ heads. Later that night, Asa’ad and Sadiye decided to take an enormous risk: Out of sight of the ISIS fighters they slipped away from the road, taking cover in a broad ditch nearby. A few other families followed them. ISIS fighters came back on motorbikes to search for the missing group – firing into the air the whole time. Asa’ad says they were saved by the oil fires and another huge blaze from a nearby sulphur factory. The intense smoke obscured the moon and made for a pitch-black night. “It was a gift from God,” he says. Iraqi soldier reunited with family after 2 years For two nights they slept in the ditch, terrified that ISIS would come back to find them and surviving on bread. They had no idea how close Iraqi forces might be. Then the family took another risk – coming home. They sneaked into the village, locked all the doors in their house, and kept the children hidden under the staircase. They dared not venture out or make a noise in case ISIS had left fighters behind. Iraqi troops arrived in Tulul al Nasir early one morning, but the family wasn’t even aware that they had, at last, been liberated from their torturers until that evening. They had not dared move. “The neighbors came and said, ‘The army is in the streets.’ We went out to celebrate, we couldn’t believe it, we still can’t believe it. At night we are still scared they might come back.” Listening to her parents, eight-year old Mariam says she was frightened and began to cry when the shooting started. Now she has recovered her playful ways. Her eyes shine again and she tells her foreign visitors she wants to become a doctor. Her mother smiles and says, “She’s a dreamer.” Life after ISIS: Haircuts and cigarettes The family have few neighbors now – more than three quarters of the villagers are still missing. Many may have already arrived in the town of Hammam al Alil, the last ISIS stronghold south of Mosul. The UN’s Human Rights Commissioner estimates that ISIS has taken “tens of thousands of men, women and children” from outlying villages and forcing them toward Mosul “as human shields.” Asa’ad and Sadiye’s eldest daughter and her 4-month old baby may be among them; the family lost contact with her as the villagers were dragooned onto the road north. Sadiye doesn’t know what happened to her brothers either. Could Mosul sandstorm hand advantage to ISIS? The family has been freed from the nightmare of the last two years, but is left feeling alone in the eerily deserted village. Asa’ad sighs and says the only thing he cares about right now is for the rest of his family and the other villagers to return safely to Tulul al Nasir.


Donald Trump isn’t backing down. Univision dumped him. Then NBCUniversal did too. And now Macy’s has as well after more than 700,000 people called on the department store giant to do the same. Amid the backlash over his comments about Mexican immigrants who he said are “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists,” the billionaire and TV reality star is doubling down. “Mexico is killing U.S. on trade,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning. “They’re killing us at the border and they’re killing us on jobs and trade. FIGHT!” The Republican presidential candidate added that he loves “the Mexican people, but Mexico is not our friend” and that the U.S. must beef up its border security and stop illegal immigration. On Tuesday, he announced he was suing Univision, which dropped the Miss Universe beauty pageant that Trump runs, for $500 million. He hasn’t yet announced a suit against NBC – but said it could come too. I love the Mexican people, but Mexico is not our friend. They're killing us at the border and they're killing us on jobs and trade. FIGHT! Mexico isn’t taking the comments lightly either, with the country’s pageant director Lupita Jones announcing later on Tuesday that Mexico will pull out of the Miss Universe pageant because of what she called Trump’s “racist comments.” Related video Fmr. Miss USA: Trump wasn't talking about Mexicans The comments were no different from those Trump has made in the nearly two weeks since he launched his presidential campaign and first made the controversial remarks. He’s stuck to his rhetoric – with the addition that he loves Mexicans and Latinos – and continued to insist that undocumented immigrants pouring into the U.S. from Mexico are neither that country’s “best” nor their “brightest” – and that many are criminals, though not citing any specific statistics to back up that assertion. The revealing numbers though come in the form of recent polls in New Hampshire and nationwide that show Trump’s business acumen and no-B.S. appeal resonating with voters. Trump ranked second with 11% in a CNN/WMUR poll conducted of New Hampshire voters conducted after he launched his bid – just 5 points behind the frontrunner, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Trump’s comments drew a swell of outrage in the Latino community, which has called on Trump to apologize and on others to condemn the polarizing mogul and now presidential contender. His opponents, though, have done their best to steer clear of the Trump controversy, preferring to dismiss his seriousness than address his claims. Bush, whose wife is Mexican, came the closest to condemning Trump’s claims, telling reporters this weekend in Nevada that Trump is “wrong” and he doesn’t agree with him. Another Republican presidential contender with Latino connections, Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father is Cuban, instead chose to defend Trump. “I like Donald Trump. I think he’s terrific, I think he’s brash, I think he speaks the truth,” Cruz said Tuesday on Fox News, adding that he credits Trump “for focusing on an issue (illegal immigration) that needs to be focused on.” But nearly a quarter-million people rallied in the other direction, signing on to a petition that calls on Macy’s to drop Trump-branded merchandise from its stores. More than 728,000 people signed a petition on the progressive website MoveOn.org calling on Macy’s to “dump Trump” as of Wednesday morning. The petition, led by activist Angelo Carusone, drew more signatures than the identical effort to one led in 2012 after Trump pushed the false narrative that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and not the United States. Trump had threatened to sue Carusone for $25 million as a result of his previous campaign. There’s no lawsuit in sight for Carusone, so far, but Trump has already sued Univision and threatened NBC after they cut off ties to Trump and canceled their upcoming broadcasts of the Miss USA pageant – which Trump partially owns. Trump, though, is relishing the fight, which is bolstering the personal brand he says he would take to the Oval Office, and onto the world stage. “Nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump. Nobody,” he has said of the terrorist organization– just one of many groups Trump insists would feel the power of his iron fist, and will, if he were to become president.


Editor’s Note: Danny Cevallos (@CevallosLaw) is a CNN legal analyst and a personal injury and criminal defense attorney practicing in Pennsylvania and the US Virgin Islands. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. Danny Cevallos: Perjury charges against Attorney General Jeff Sessions are unlikely It would be difficult to prove willful intent to give misleading testimony, he says Did Attorney General Jeff Sessions perjure himself in testimony at his Senate confirmation hearing? On Thursday, Sessions recused himself from any investigation of the campaign and has indicated he will send a clarification note to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions met with a Russian diplomat twice last year in Washington – the same one that cost Michael Flynn his national security adviser job when Flynn failed to disclose the contact to Vice President Mike Pence. Here’s the reason this is suddenly controversial: Sessions did not mention his meetings with the Russian representative during his confirmation hearing, and testified that he knew of no contacts between Russians and Trump surrogates. Related video Sessions once criticized Clinton for perjury Even before the hearing, a questionnaire from Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, asked Sessions if he had “been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day.” The answer was “no.” At the Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Sen. Al Franken pointedly asked Sessions a hypothetical: What would he do if he learned that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government during the campaign? “Sen. Franken,” Sessions replied, “I’m not aware of any of those activities. … I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.” On Thursday, the attorney general recused himself from Trump campaign investigations. Related article Don't expect  'smoking gun' in investigation of Russia role in 2016 election Some are already intimating that Sessions might have perjured himself before Congress. Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois has called for the attorney general’s immediate resignation and suggested that Sessions should go to jail. Others are pointing to his accusations of perjury against President Bill Clinton from decades ago as a form of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy it may be.  Hypocrisy, however, is not illegal. In Washington, it’s practically a local dialect – a patois, if you will. Perjury, on the other hand, is a crime, and a serious allegation. So did Sessions perjure himself before Congress? Related article Trump's war on reality is truly baffling The reality is that false, inaccurate or incomplete testimony, whether in court or before Congress, is a common occurrence. More is required to support a perjury charge, and even when the additional elements are present, perjury is rarely prosecuted. Just as in court, it’s also illegal to lie under oath to Congress. The “general perjury” statute, or Section 1621, criminalizes testifying 1) under oath, 2) giving false testimony, 3) concerning a material matter, with the 4) willful intent to provide false testimony. Another criminal statute, known as Section 1001, does not even require an oath. It criminalizes false statements or concealment within the jurisdiction of any branch of the federal government. Criminal defense attorneys are very familiar with Section 1001. One of the FBI’s favorite tactics is to show up at a potential witness’s job, ask him a few questions it already knows the answers to, then, when the poor sap tries to massage the truth a little to protect himself – whammo. He’s just committed a federal crime. He may have done nothing else wrong, but the feds now have leverage to make him testify against his client, partner, Mafioso, etc. Related article It's time for a Watergate-style select committee on Russiagate As broad as the scope of these laws sound, there’s a lot of wiggle room, especially when you try to parse actual words, and try to guess at the intent behind them. For example, when a line of questioning is so vague it’s “fundamentally ambiguous,” the answers may be insufficient to support the perjury conviction. The same is true of fundamentally ambiguous statements in response to questions. Fundamental ambiguity means that reasonable people cannot arrive at a mutual understanding of the question or answer. In Sessions’ situation, some will think he meant that he had zero contact with the Russian diplomat whatsoever. Others will understand him to mean that he had no contact in his capacity as a Trump surrogate but possibly as a member of Congress.  If Franken’s question was equally ambiguous, then Sessions’ answers are even more insulated. But even if that statement about contact with Russians is considered “false,” he must have made it with the willful intent to provide false testimony, rather than as a result of confusion, mistake or faulty memory. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook Frankly, Franken’s exchange is less damaging to Sessions than the Leahy questionnaire. Leahy is a former prosecutor, and it shows. His interrogatory is clever: It uses no more words than necessary, yet it’s broad in scope and leaves few escape hatches. Had Sessions “been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?” Yes.  Yes, he had, right? Well, maybe not. He might have been “in contact,” but was it about the election? Would only a passing mention about this ubiquitous topic of conversation be considered contact “about” the election?   Moreover, what if Sessions’ “no” answer was just the result of confusion, mistake or ambiguity? The truth is, “truth” can be an elusive concept, just like “lies” or “fake.” The law recognizes that people will not always give complete statements, or that they will give incorrect or inaccurate answers under oath. The law also recognizes that self-preservation is such a powerful instinct that people unconsciously stretch the truth or tell the version they want to tell. Even under oath, in the most solemn of occasions, people will later argue their words meant something different – sometimes even the meaning and intent behind a word like “is” is debatable. It’s why perjury must remain a crime that is often threatened but rarely prosecuted.


You know you’re on vacation when you fall asleep to the sound of the waves lapping against the shore and wake up to the sun rising over a watery horizon. Just ask Sebastiaan Bedaux, a keen traveler who has compiled stunning ocean-based vacation rentals into a new book: “Ocean View: The Perfect Holiday Homes,” published by Lannoo, which showcases some stunning sea properties from across the globe. “I could get very philosophical or romantic and talk about the endlessness of the ocean, but the ocean – and especially these oceans – is pretty, isn’t it?” Bedaux tells CNN Travel. “All those different kinds of blue, the sound of the rolling waves, often a beautiful beach, or gorgeous cliffs, right in front of it…” Bedaux’s book is a follow-up to his treasury of elevated properties: “Mountain View: The Perfect Holiday Homes.” He drew upon years of exploring to compile a list of properties with envy-inducing panoramas, assessing both the seascapes on offer and how “visually striking, architecturally interesting” the properties were. “Most properties, and most architects in the book, have made an effort to effortlessly merge nature and architecture,” notes Bedaux. Spectacular vacation rentals with unforgettable mountain views There are glass walls offering floor-to-ceiling vistas and infinity pools that jut out over the rolling ocean – adding to the feeling of symbiosis between ocean and land. “I’m not an architect, so I’m not really familiar with their trade secrets, but as an admirer I do recognize and appreciate the strive for synergy,” says the author. Bedaux clarifies he hasn’t stayed at all the properties in his book, but he has got several favorites. “Personally I’m a big fan of Seascape, a romantic shelter in New Zealand and of Ocean Eye in Costa Rica,” says Bedaux. 21 of the world's most beautiful beachfront hotels Ocean Eye is a property blessed with views of the ocean and the jungle, so the architect built multiple terraces to ensure guests can enjoy all the panoramas on offer. A stay at Seascape, meanwhile, offers a bay all to yourself, with an outdoor hot tub to boot. It’s not the biggest property on offer, but it revels in its intimacy. Other striking properties include Villa Amanzi Kamala in Phuket, Thailand, which is midway between Kamala and Patong beaches and has an infinity pool. Bedaux says Italy is home to some of the best ocean properties. “You can probably write an entire ocean view book with properties in Italy, but that was not my intention,” he says. He has a particular affection for Casa del Forte in Syracuse, Sicily. Even in the cooler climates ocean-side views can be admired – take Manshausen in Steigen, Norway, where guests can watch the Northern Lights dance across the water. 100 best beaches around the world On Scotland’s Isle of Skye, you can watch the waves crash beneath you from the corrugated metal Tinhouse, which harks back to traditional Scottish architecture and offers incredible sunset vistas. A great ocean view is unforgettable – and Bedaux has his own favorite seaside memories. “I will never forget the ‘piscine naturelle’ – natural swimming pool–  on Île des Pins, a tiny island in the archipelago of New Caledonia,” he recalls. “Namibia and Taiwan have amazing coastlines as well. In Namibia the sand dunes just roll directly into the ocean, very impressive and picturesque.” Bedaux also namechecks Mexico’s beaches and the rugged Oregon coast. “In Europe I could recommend Montenegro and the British Isles of Scilly,” he adds. “As you can tell, it’s very difficult to choose.”


Trump pledged during his presidential campaign to move the US Embassy White House says no decisions yet The Palestine Liberation Organization will revoke its recognition of Israel if President Donald Trump moves the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the PLO’s chief negotiator tells CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Under no circumstances shall we recognize Israel (with the) United States saying east Jerusalem is annexed,” Saeb Erakat  said Thursday. Related video Israel: We would 'welcome' US embassy move Trump pledged repeatedly during his presidential campaign to move the embassy to Jerusalem, which would make the US the only country in the world to have its embassy there. On Monday, the White House spokesman Sean Spicer said there were “no decisions” on the move yet. Watch the full interview with Erekat Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital, and Erakat said that by moving its embassy, the US would be insinuating that the two-state solution was dead. Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations said he was not buying into the PLO threat. “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel – period,” Danny Danon told Amanpour Thursday, adding that his country “will welcome” a move of the embassy. Related article Why moving the US embassy to Jerusalem is so controversial The PLO would consider Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to then “be responsible for paying the salaries of teachers, doctors, garbage collection in the West Bank,” the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian east Jerusalem, he told Amanpour. Opinion: Could the US have two embassies in Jerusalem? The PLO would then also plan to ask the UN General Assembly to suspend Israel’s membership in the UN. The PLO first recognized Israel, and renounced terrorism, in 1988. “With no two-state solution, no possibility for a Palestinian state, (Palestinians) will demand equal rights” with Israel, Erakat said.


Forty-five years ago today, the last American ground troops left Vietnam after almost a decade-long military intervention. Even though the soldiers had gone, more than 7,000 civilian employees of the US Department of Defense stayed behind. “Our mission has been accomplished. I depart with a strong feeling of pride in what we have achieved, and in what our achievement represents,” American commander General Frederick Weyand said at the time. His threshold for accomplishment must have been lower than much of the American public’s. By January of 1973, shortly before a peace agreement was hammered out in Paris, Gallup polling found that 60% of respondents believed that the US had “made a mistake sending troops to fight in Vietnam.” In 1965, at the beginning of American involvement in the conflict, only 24% of respondents thought it was a mistake. “Now it becomes a matter of will and determination on the part of the South Vietnamese,” a soldier told the New York Times. This was before the 1975 fall of Saigon, which ended the conflict with the surrender of South Vietnamese forces. As a refresher, those were the guys the US went over there to aid. Vietnam is now a communist state, but the US normalized relations with the country under President Bill Clinton and entered into a trade agreement under President George W. Bush. President Barack Obama visited the country in 2016. By the end of the conflict, North Vietnam had withstood more bomb tonnage than Germany, Italy and Japan during World War II. According to the US Department of Defense, more than 2 million US troops served in South Vietnam. 58,220 Americans died, along with 1 million civilians. 1,601 American soldiers are still unaccounted for.


Turkish President says shooter is member of cleric Fethullah Gulen's movement Russia cautions against rush to conclusions about who supported ambassador's assassin The Kremlin has pushed back against Turkey’s allegations that a movement led by exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen was behind the assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Ankara. “We need to wait for results of a joint investigative group. You shouldn’t be in a rush to make conclusions until the investigation identifies who was behind the murder of our ambassador,” Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov said Wednesday. Russian and Turkish investigators are trying to learn more about the assassination of Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov, who was gunned down Monday evening while speaking at the opening of an art exhibit in Turkey’s capital. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that there are “leads regarding the foreign connections” of the shooter, who has been identified as Mevlut Mert Altintas. “The FETO connection of Russian Ambassador Karlov’s assassin is obvious. He is a member of FETO; there is no need to hide this,” Erdogan said on Turkish television, using the shorthand name for Fethullah Terrorist Organization, which is what the Turkish government calls Gulen’s movement. Gulen, a former ally and current rival of Erdogan, has been in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999. He leads a popular movement called Hizmet, which includes hundreds of schools, hospitals and relief agencies. But Turkey’s government accuses the movement of being behind a failed coup in July – an allegation Gulen denies. Ankara has demanded that the United States extradite the cleric. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin will delay his annual news conference in order to pay his respects to the slain ambassador, whose funeral will be held Thursday, Russian state-run news agency Sputnik reported. Police say Altintas was the 22-year-old Turkish police officer standing behind Karlov while the ambassador was speaking at the Cagdas Sanat Merkezi modern arts center in Ankara. Altintas, dressed in a dark suit and tie, fired several shots at Karlov, shouting, “God is greatest! Do not forget Aleppo! Do not forget Syria! Do not forget Aleppo! Do not forget Syria!” What do we know about the assassin? Turkish security forces eventually killed Altintas, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said. Related video What do we know about the Turkish assassin? Altintas was not on police duty at the time, having taken sick leave Monday, Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported. Investigators are checking whether he’d had any connection with Russian Embassy staff, according to Anadolu. Officials with Ankara’s Cankaya district, which operates the art center, said Wednesday that Altintas bypassed an X-ray machine at the center by showing his police identification. As a police officer, Altintas would have been permitted to carry a firearm at all times. “It was found out that the attacker was warned by the security staff when he didn’t go through the X-ray, and upon this (the attacker) entered by showing his official police ID,” the district’s council said. Turkish authorities have detained 12 people in the investigation of Monday’s shooting, Anadolu reported Wednesday. Anadolu also reported that books about al Qaeda and Gulen’s movement were found after a search of Altintas’ home. The 12 detainees include a man who police say led a network affiliated with Gulen at the Izmir-based Rustu Unsal Police Academy, from which Altintas graduated, Anadolu reported. The detainees also include Altintas’ parents, his sister, two other relatives, his roommate, an unidentified suspect and four police officers who were hired during the same term as Altintas, according to Anadolu. Opinion: An acrid whiff of 1914? A 13th person, Altintas’ uncle, was released under “judicial control,” or bail-like conditions, Anadolu quoted security sources as saying. According to Anadolu, the uncle was a former senior executive at a private school connected with Gulen. The school was shut down after the July coup attempt. Understanding Turkey’s deadly catalog of enemies The failed coup triggered a wave of arrests and detentions of those suspected of any involvement. Turkey also suspended or dismissed tens of thousands of people in various institutions who were perceived as being opposed to the government. That included the suspensions of more than 12,000 police officers who were accused of having links to Gulen. Putin said Karlov’s killing was a clear provocation aimed at undermining not just the normalization of Russian-Turkish relations but also a “peace process in Syria” promoted by Russia, Turkey, Iran and other countries. “The only response we should offer to this murder is stepping up our fight against terror, and the criminals will feel the heat,” Putin said in televised remarks. An 18-strong investigative team of Russia’s special agencies arrived in Turkey to help authorities with their inquiries. The Ankara Police Department has devoted 120 people, including anti-terror personnel and interpreters, to work with the Russian team, Anadolu reported. Erdogan echoed Putin’s sentiments, saying, “The Russian government and the Turkish republic have the will to not fall into that provocation.” Karlov’s assassination came at a time of improving relations between the two countries, which hit an all-time low after Turkish forces shot a Russian warplane out of the sky near the Syrian border in November 2015. Russia slapped a raft of sanctions on Turkey after the deadly incident, hurting Turkish exports and damaging its tourism industry. The relationship began to thaw in June when Erdogan wrote a letter expressing “regret” to the dead pilot’s family. After Erdogan faced down the attempted military coup in July, Putin was among the first world leaders to call and offer his support. Karlov’s body arrived in Moscow late Tuesday. The ambassador was honored at a ceremony attended by Russia’s foreign minister, the Turkish foreign minister and Karlov’s widow, according to Russia’s Foreign Ministry. Aleppo is the northern Syrian city that has been contested between rebels and Syrian government forces in the country’s years-long civil war. Russia, the most powerful ally of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, began airstrikes in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria last year to prop up the embattled leader. The Syrian regime is on the verge of retaking all of Aleppo from rebel groups who have controlled parts of the city since 2012. Moscow has carried out airstrikes since September 2015 to prop up Assad. Human rights groups and other countries have denounced Russia over its backing of the Syrian leader. Related article What you need to know about Aleppo As one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia has used its veto powers to block certain proposed political solutions to end the war. The bombardment in Syria has drawn criticism from Western powers, with President Barack Obama last week accusing Russia of slaughtering civilians in Aleppo in concert with the Assad regime. Moscow has recently tried to distance itself from the assault in eastern Aleppo. Turkey’s involvement in Syria is complicated. On one hand, the Turks are eager to help eradicate ISIS. On the other, Ankara is opposed to a group of Kurdish fighters battling ISIS inside Syria, saying those Kurds are linked to Turkey’s own Kurdish insurgents – the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Turkey has been fighting for years. Turkey fears that an entrenched Kurdish area in Syria would fuel momentum for an independent Kurdish state that could claim Turkish territory. Meanwhile, the United States supports Kurdish groups in both Syria and Iraq as critical partners in the battle against ISIS. CNN’s Sarah Sirgany, Onur Cakir, Alla Eshchenko, Nick Thompson, Sheena McKenzie, Sebastian Shukla, Gonul Ekmekci, Gul Tuyuz, Catherine E. Shoichet and Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.


Sit-down talks follow calls on Pyongyang-Seoul hotline last week Talks held at Peace House on the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea Negotiators from South and North Korea arrived at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) early Tuesday to sit down for the first time since December 2015, after a hotline between the two technically-still-at-war nations reconnected last week. The meeting is taking place at Peace House in the Joint Security Area, also known as Panmunjom or “truce village,” the only part of the 250 kilometer (160 mile), heavily fortified demilitarized zone where North and South Korean soldiers stand face-to-face. Talks began at 10 a.m. Seoul time (8 p.m. ET Monday). South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be able to monitor the talks in real time, and intervene if necessary. Both leaders will have a hotline at their disposal, direct to the Peace House. However, the South Korea’s Unification Ministry says only Moon will be able to watch as events unfold. “While President Moon can monitor CCTVs and discussions in real time, the North Korean side can only listen as the live CCTV feed is not provided to the North Korean side,” a spokeswoman said. The talks began in good spirits, with representatives laughing while entering the conference room where the day’s talks were to be held. The principal players, South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, and his North Korean counterpart, Ri Son Gwon, entered side by side. Discussing the cold weather, Ri said that “it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the inter Korean relationship is frozen more than the nature’s weather,” according to pool notes translated by CNN. He said it has been 18 years since a 2000 declaration of detente, adding that “we officials from both nations should approach these talks with sincerity and diligence, so we can give a valuable result, the first gift of this new year, to the entire Korean people who are watching us with a great anticipation.” Cho said the talks represented a good start for the re-engagement of inter-Korean relations, referencing a Korean expression, “A start is already half.” “I think it would be great if we can lead this talk with such mindset of ‘start is already half’, along with patience and strong will,” he said. He added that he hoped the talks would proceed “without haste, with patience,” and that the talks would be held “undisclosed” with a briefing for the media during a mid-talk break. Negotiators will be discussing North Korean participation in the upcoming Winter Olympics, to begin in Pyeongchang, South Korea early next month, as well as “inter-Korean relationships,” according to Seoul. Related article Ministry with 'intractable' task of reuniting North and South Korea North and South Korean negotiators have met multiple times in the past, without any permanent decrease in tensions or hostilities, and analysts advised caution on Tuesday’s talks. “I think prudence dictates that we be very cautious about these talks,” said Evans Revere, a former US diplomat in South Korea. “We’ve been down this road before … in almost every instance, ultimately we’ve been disappointed.” Last year was dominated by growing concern over North Korean missile and nuclear testing, and the angry, saber-rattling rhetoric both were inspiring in Washington. However, 2018 started off with a rare glimmer of optimism on the Korean Peninsula. Two employees of South Korea’s Unification Ministry – the sprawling government office which oversees all things North Korea – had been calling an inter-governmental hotline at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day since February 2016, when the North Koreans cut off communications. After almost two years, someone finally picked up, and within days, the two sides had agreed to meet in person. US President Donald Trump has attempted to claim credit for the breakthrough, saying it would not have happened “if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to commit out total ‘might’ against the North.” But Trump added “talks are a good thing,” and said “America supports (South Korean) President Moon 100%.” As a gesture of goodwill, South Korea and the US have agreed not to hold joint military drills during the Olympics, which are scheduled for February 9 to 25. The drills have long infuriated North Korea and been a sticking point with Pyongyang. “It is very much in the US interest that the talks be expanded to include tensions reductions mechanisms and nuclear and missile test freezes, but the Trump team seems hesitant to seize the opportunity,” said Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists for nuclear and defense policy, adding that “these talks have begun more despite Trump than because of him.” Evans Revere, a former US diplomat in South Korea, predicted Pyongyang may try to extract concessions from Seoul in exchange for North Korea’s participation in – and non-disruption of – the Winter Olympics. “Some sort of assistance package, some sort of sanctions relief,” he said. “Another thing that the North Koreans may be looking at is something more permanent in the area of a reduction of military exercises that South Korea engages in with the US.” Revere said from experience the first round of negotiations “is very tough.” “They lay out a position and they make it very clear they’re not going to back away from it, even if perhaps later they do,” he added. Sue Terry, former CIA analyst and senior fellow for Korea at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, said President Moon “will have to give some kind of concession to North Korea, for North Korea to send a delegation to the Olympics.” This, she added, may involve the reopening of the Kaesong industrial complex, a joint economic venture between the two Koreas that was closed by Moon’s conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye in 2016. “President Moon might have to cancel, or indefinitely postpone, US-South Korean joint military exercises,” she said. Chad O’Carroll, managing director of a research and consultancy firm called the Korea Risk Group, said the talks were starting off on a positive note, with little of the usual disagreement about whether to hold them on the North or South side of the Joint Security Area. “It definitely seems like something is in the air and we’ll see what that leads to,” he said. “For the North Koreans, the motivation to take part in these talks is undoubtedly due to the pressure that is building up on the country.” Sanctions on Pyongyang are at their highest level in history, with both US and United Nations restrictions taking their toll on the country’s economy, raising major concerns for a population that has suffered through multiple famines in the recent past. “Policy planners in North Korea are going to really start to struggle in the medium to long term in terms of being able to plan effectively and grow the economy with the amount of economic and diplomatic isolation there is right now,” O’Carroll said. “There is one small potential relief valve for Pyongyang, which is South Korea.” Under previous South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, Seoul advanced the “Sunshine Policy” of greater economic and diplomatic engagement with North Korea, including aid and other relief. President Moon was a key adviser to Roh, and during the election campaign last year, consistently supported improving ties with Pyongyang, though he has taken a harder line since coming to power. While some analysts predicted North Korea may attempt to gain tough concessions from South Korea for a peaceful Olympics, O’Carroll said it may be an ideal time for a reinvigorated Sunshine Policy to bear fruit. “It’s a gamble. It may not work. But it’s better than nothing. And North Korea doesn’t really have any other options right now in terms of reducing (sanctions) pressure,” he said. Correction: An earlier version of this story included a map with a graphical error concerning the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). CNN’s Jake Kwon, Will Ripley, Dugald McConnell, Stella Ko and Jamie Crawford contributed reporting.


Iran's rare moment of openness reveals missile units stored deep under a mountain Iran recently conducted a new long-range "smart" missile At first glance it looks like the set of a James Bond movie – a seemingly impregnable mountain base packed full of uniformed men and sinister-looking missiles on their launch vehicles parked along a long tunnel buried deep underground. But this is in fact a real-life missile facility in Iran, according to the country’s semi-official FARS news agency. In a rare moment of openness, Iran on Wednesday broadcast pictures from The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force of a tunnel reportedly dug some 1,640 feet (500 meters) under a mountain. The release of this footage comes just a few days after state media reported that Iran had test-fired new generation long-range ballistic missiles. The weekend test likely violated a U.N. resolution, a U.S. administration official told CNN. Based on information the administration has so far, the test appears to be in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, which stipulates that Iran cannot engage in any activities related to ballistic missiles. The U.S. official emphasized, however, that the test is not in violation of the nuclear agreement reached in July between Iran, the United States and five other world powers because that accord is focused on restricting Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. A newer U.N. Security Council resolution, number 2231, implementing the deal and banning Iran from engaging in activities related to ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads is not yet in effect. Iran is completely overhauling its missile technology, replacing the current stockpile with newer weapons, a senior general told state media. “As of next year, a new and advanced generation of long-range liquid and solid fuel missiles will replace the current products,” said Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh. “The missiles in various ranges are mounted on the launchers in all bases and (are) ready to be launched.” The underground facility shown on television was only one of “numerous missile bases” scattered across the country, according to Hajizadeh. Earlier this month in a speech at a university in Tehran, Hajizadeh said that all U.S. military bases in the Middle East were within range of Iranian missiles. The revealing of the underground bases comes in the wake of a major deal reached by Iran and the so-called P5+1 group of nations – the U.S., U.K., Russia, China, France and Germany – over its nuclear program. Under the deal, international sanctions on Iran will be lifted in return for restrictions on its nuclear program aimed at preventing it from being able to develop an atomic bomb. Iran is a major regional military power and Revolutionary Guards forces have been active in Syria, working to prop up the regime of close Tehran ally Bashar al-Assad with military aid and advisers. CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Tim Hume, Hamdi Alkhshali and James Griffiths contributed to this report.


Sen. Chris Murphy told The Washington Post Monday night that Republicans chose to "sell weapons to ISIS" "It's true," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, when asked if he agreed with the characterization Top Democrats on Tuesday stood by Sen. Chris Murphy and Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s accusations that Republicans chose to “sell weapons to ISIS” because they opposed a pair of gun control measures Monday. “It’s true,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, when asked if he agreed with the characterization. A visibly angry Murphy told The Washington Post Monday night that Republicans chose to “sell weapons to ISIS” as the gun control measure for which he had filibustered 15 hours was defeated on a party-line vote. The comment caught fire Monday night after Warren tweeted, “.@ChrisMurphyCT said it right: The @SenateGOP have decided to sell weapons to ISIS.” .@ChrisMurphyCT said it right: The @SenateGOP have decided to sell weapons to ISIS. And Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who has emerged as one of the sharpest critics of Donald Trump, threw some heat back at the Democrats Monday night. “This isn’t true. You know it isn’t true. But that probably doesn’t matter for your political purposes,” Sasse tweeted. This isn't true.You know it isn't true.But that probably doesn't matter for your political purposes. https://t.co/uYum6Qrocp Sen. John McCain walked back a comment he made last week when he said President Barack Obama was “directly responsible” for the Orlando attack. But Murphy and Warren found support from the White House on Tuesday for their heated comments. Asked by CNN about Warren’s tweet, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said he had not read the tweet but then knocked Republicans. “Republicans are protecting that loophole at the simple request of the (National Rifle Association). Those are facts of the situation. And again I’ll leave it to Republicans to try to defend that position. I don’t think it’s a position that many Americans are going to have sympathy for,” Earnest said. “I’ll let Senator Murphy and Senator Warren describe the situation as they see it. As we see it, it is without question possible for suspected terrorists to buy guns because Republicans are protecting their ability to do so.”


New York prosecutors looking into Paz de la Huerta’s rape allegation against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein appear to have hit a wall despite receiving ample evidence to bring before a grand jury, the actress’s attorney said Thursday. Carrie Goldberg, who has represented the actress for the past month, told CNN in an interview that the case has failed to move forward even though police investigators believe there is sufficient evidence to present to a grand jury and prosecutors have met with her client twice and  subpoenaed hundreds of financial, phone and therapy records. New York police investigators and prosecutors last met with de la Huerta in Paris earlier this month. “It takes a huge emotional toll on a rape victim to have to rehash this,” Goldberg said. “My client has put so much into this and if the case just gets dropped … that’s a real problem.” An NYPD source familiar with the investigation told CNN there is enough evidence in the case for the Manhattan District Attorney to present to a grand jury. “Detectives are completely satisfied that they have enough for probable cause and yet (Manhattan District Attorney) Cy Vance’s office won’t do it and, for as long as they don’t do it, then the answer is, ‘No, we’re not going to do it,” Goldberg said of proceeding with the case before a grand jury. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said the investigation is still active but declined further comment. Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, also declined comment on Thursday. Through a spokesman, Weinstein has repeatedly denied all allegations of non-consensual sex. “There’s a paralysis in this case,” Goldberg said. NYPD special victims detectives and district attorney investigators have held multiple meetings on the status of the case, including one this week, according to the police source, who did not provide further details. “There’s not really more evidence the detectives can provide,” Goldberg said. “The prosecutors have enough. It’s sort of now or never. What are you waiting for?” Goldberg said her client has been “holding it together” under the circumstances. “It’s been a brutal month for Paz,” she said. “She’s complied fully with the investigation but at times it actually seems she’s the one under investigation.” “If this (case) doesn’t move forward and they put her through this much – I’m going to call it torture – that’s a horrible thing for her to have to experience but it also sends a message to all rape victims,” the attorney added. De la Huerta’s claim that Weinstein raped her twice in 2010 represented “the strongest case we’ve had that fits within the statute of limitations,” an NYPD source familiar with the investigation told CNN earlier this month. NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told reporters earlier this month that de la Huerta’s case was credible because of her “ability to articulate each movement of the crime, where she was, where this happened.” It is unclear what may be causing the delay in keeping the criminal case from moving forward. De la Huerta, who has appeared in “A Walk to Remember” and the HBO drama “Boardwalk Empire,” alleges Weinstein raped her in her apartment on two separate occasions in 2010. De la Huerta, 33, had told CNN that she called the NYPD rape hotline in late October to report the alleged assaults. De la Huerta and her attorney have worked with detectives from the NYPD’s special victim’s unit and the district attorney’s office, she said. In October 2010, twelve years after first meeting Weinstein on the set of the film “Cider House Rules,” de la Huerta said she ran into the producer at a club in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, where both she and Weinstein lived. She accepted a ride home from Weinstein and when they arrived at her apartment, de la Huerta said he insisted on joining her for a drink. That’s when the first alleged assault occurred. “He pulled my dress up and unzipped his pants and raped me,” de la Huerta said. In an interview with CNN, de la Huerta recalled being in a state of shock, traumatized and in disbelief following the alleged rape. “He finished what he did, and he told me he’d be calling me,” she said. Nearly two months later, de la Huerta said Weinstein showed up in the lobby of her apartment one night. She said she reluctantly let him upstairs and he raped her again. “The first time I was in complete shock and it happened so quickly. The second time, I was terrified of him,” she said. “In a million ways I knew how to say no, I said ‘no.’” More than 60 women have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment or assault against Weinstein. New York police have told CNN they’ve fielded dozens of calls about Weinstein. Police in London and Los Angeles have also opened investigations By the end of 2010, de la Huerta said she started drinking heavily and fell into depression. She said she shared what happened with her best friend and her therapist. De la Huerta said she was hesitant to go public with her story, but hopes her word, along with the evidence she said she’s helped investigators collect, is enough to put Weinstein in jail. “I think he’s done it to too many women, and he’s gotten away with it for too many years,” she said. “It would be nice to know justice exists.” CNN’s Elizabeth Joseph contributed to this report.


Ruling comes after protests on Sunday Beijing uses rarely invoked power China has barred two recently elected lawmakers from taking office in Hong Kong’s legislature in an explosive ruling likely to fan fears about Beijing’s growing influence over the city. Critics – including protesters who poured onto the city’s streets Sunday  –  say the decision undermines Hong Kong’s own legal system and further erodes promises of autonomy made before the former British colony was returned to China in 1997. The two lawmakers, Sixtus “Baggio” Leung and Yau Wai-ching, had their oaths of allegiance rejected after inserting curse words and waving a flag bearing the words “Hong Kong is not China.” .@Youngspiration Yau Wai-ching refers to "People's Re-fu*king of Chee-na" at oath taking https://t.co/b6dmrmfxFP China’s top ruling body, invoking a rarely used power, said Monday that anyone who refuses to read the oath should be disqualified from holding office. “Reading the vows in any dishonest, ungraceful manner is also a refusal to the oath, and it shall be void,” the ruling said, according to state news agency Xinhua. Leung and Yau were among several young politicians elected in a September vote that attracted record turnout, who favor greater autonomy or even independence for Hong Kong. Their right to retake their oaths is also being challenged by the Hong Kong government in local courts. Hong Kong’s leader, CY Leung, said Monday that he would implement Beijing’s decision. Three other young pro-democracy lawmakers, elected at the same time as Yau and Leung, accused Beijing of “exploiting the controversy surrounding (the oaths) to trample on the Hong Kong legal system and the political rights of the people of Hong Kong.” Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, “no longer protects the democratic rights of Hong Kongers,” Nathan Law, Lau Siu Lai and Eddie Chu said in a joint statement. Hong Kong’s freedom fears Police used pepper spray to disperse thousands of protesters that had gathered outside China’s representative office in Hong Kong – a symbol of Beijing’s rule – on Sunday night ahead of the ruling. Clad in black and wielding umbrellas to protect themselves, they brought to mind the pro-democracy street protests that convulsed the city for two months in 2014. China has reacted angrily to calls for Hong Kong independence, with some senior officials calling for “separatists” to be prosecuted. On Monday, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress – China’s top ruling body – said it had “unanimously” passed its interpretation of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the document hashed out by China and the UK ahead of the handover, which is the city’s de facto constitution. The ruling focuses on Article 104, which says that members of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council “must swear allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China.” The Standing Committee has only invoked its power to interpret the Basic Law on four previous occasions, which have often drawn controversy. Rimsky Yuen, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Justice, dismissed concerns Monday that Hong Kong’s judiciary had been compromised. “Both judicial independence and interpretation can coexist, and they do under our constitutional framework,” he said. A top Hong Kong government lawyer, Benjamin Yu, said last week that it wouldn’t be necessary for Beijing to intervene, and the issue could be handled in the city’s courts. CNN’s Serenitie Wang in Beijing contributed to this report.


Growing evidence shows foreign governments used Twitter to try to influence public opinion during the 2016 US election There is a difference in how Facebook and Twitter are reacting to the reports of Russian election meddling Officials from Twitter will trek to Capitol Hill on Thursday to talk to congressional Russia investigators about how Russian-linked accounts may have used the social media platform to try to sway the 2016 election. Twitter officials are meeting behind closed doors with House and Senate intelligence committee staff to discuss Russian efforts to use Twitter during the 2016 election, as well as potential changes ahead of the next US election cycle, according to intelligence committee sources. Twitter is the second social media company to meet with the congressional panels investigating Russia’s election meddling, as Facebook also briefed the Senate and House intelligence committees. Facebook later disclosed it had discovered it sold $100,000 worth of election ads to Russian-linked accounts, which it has pledged to share with the congressional committees soon. Facebook, Twitter and Google parent company Alphabet have been invited to testify at a November 1 public hearing before the Senate intelligence committee, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The House intelligence committee also said it would hold an open forum with tech companies next month. Twitter’s meeting with the committees Thursday comes amid mounting pressure on regulators and Silicon Valley companies to open up the opaque world of online political ads. Twitter declined to comment about what it planned to tell the committees. The committees are eager to hear more from the social media company about how much Twitter knows about Russian activity on its platform. As with Facebook, there is growing evidence that foreign governments, including Russia, used Twitter to try and influence public opinion during the 2016 US election. Part of the Russian propaganda campaign during the election involved the creation of an entire army of trolls and automated “bots” on Twitter, which together overwhelmingly supported one candidate, according to two reports by US intelligence agencies. There is a difference in how Facebook and Twitter are reacting to the reports of Russian election meddling. While Facebook says it is working to prevent future misuse of its platform, Twitter says its plan is to let its open forum service fix itself. Twitter says it will not screen accounts based on political content – though it does shut down accounts tied to terrorism, hate-related violence, and child pornography. “Twitter’s open and real-time nature is a powerful antidote to the spreading of all types of false information,” Twitter’s vice president of public policy, Colin Crowell, wrote in a June blog post. “This is important because we cannot distinguish whether every single Tweet from every person is truthful or not. We, as a company, should not be the arbiter of truth.” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, said that the distinctions between Twitter and Facebook – namely anonymity on the site – mean the committee will have a different set of questions. “They have never tried to prevent fake accounts, use of bots. They don’t deny – they have allowed and expect more anonymity,” Warner said. “Since they’ve got a different business model, we’ve got different questions for them, but it’s still ultimately about people manipulating these platforms in a way that sways elections where Americans don’t know the source or funding of these campaigns.” Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Twitter needs to disclose how much they know about the accounts linked to Russian troll farms. “I think we need to understand how they keep their records, whether they know who’s been utilizing their platforms,” King told CNN. “We’re not invading anybody’s privacy, but if like Facebook they can somehow determine there were thousands of accounts from Russia, I think we should know that.” Facebook officials have already briefed the Senate and House intelligence panels, and lawmakers complained they were less than forthcoming in that session after Facebook later disclosed it had discovered it had sold 3,000 election ads to Russian-linked inauthentic accounts. Warner said he hoped Twitter would be more cooperative. “My hope is that they will be very forthcoming, because I think they can see that it took Facebook a while,” the Virginia Democrat said. “I hope they’ll be more forthcoming in their first visit.” Senate intelligence chairman Richard Burr said he hopes to have a public hearing with Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies in the next month to month and a half. “I think we’re looking at the space in trying to determine how many would be a good sampling that we need to talk to,” Burr said. “Clearly, it’s the bigger companies we think might have been used, and we’re working with them to acquire the type of data that we need to look at a public hearing that we can cover for the American people to disseminate for the purposes of the next election cycle what if any changes need to be made.” CNN’s Dylan Byers contributed to this report.


Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Russia was landlocked except in the north (it also has an eastern seaboard). We also reported that Russia has two warm water naval bases; there are at least five. The top of the line Russian aircraft seen in Syria are Flanker jets, not Fencers, as we initially reported. Changes have been made in the text to correct these inaccuracies. The war in Syria just got a little bit more complicated. As if the airspace over the war-torn country wasn’t already crowded enough, fighter jets announced Russia’s arrival on the ever-growing list of nations who have bombed Syria when it launched airstrikes on rebel targets in late September. A coalition of countries led by the U.S. has been bombing ISIS targets on a near-daily basis since last September, in the hopes of rooting out the terror group from its strongholds in Syria. But Russia’s arrival on the scene marks a new and uncertain chapter in a war that has now killed more than 250,000 people since 2011. Here’s everything you need to know about Russia’s military intervention in six graphics. For weeks Russian President Vladimir Putin prepared for airstrikes by flying equipment and personnel to locations around Syria – particularly on the Mediterranean coast – including the airport in Latakia, Russia’s naval base at Tartus, and the capital Damascus. Russia now has seven positions set up in Syria, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. The Russians say they will take the fight to ISIS and “other extremist groups” in Syria – but many of the targets they have hit appear to be hours away from the nearest ISIS strongholds. In early October a coalition made up of the United States, Britain, Turkey, France, Germany, Qatar and Saudi Arabia accused Russia of attacking the Syrian opposition and civilians, instead of fighting ISIS. Putin’s intervention isn’t just about bombing extremist groups. Russia has commercial and military interests in Syria it could lose if there’s a regime change, so it is trying to preserve the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a key ally in the region. Experts say Russia is also fortifying its long-established naval base at Tartus, which provides strategic access to the Mediterranean. And Putin’s deployment of fighter jets around Syria could also allow Russia to extend its military influence across the region – from Turkey (which Russian jets could reach within minutes) and Iraq to Jordan and Israel. Satellite photos taken over the past few weeks show top-of-the range Su-30 “Flanker” fighter jets and T-90 tanks, transport and attack helicopters, and armored vehicles appearing at Syrian bases. According to IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review, the photos show nearly 30 combat aircraft. The influx of advanced aircraft has raised eyebrows and prompted some observers to question exactly who Russia’s planning to fight in Syria. “Many of [the weapons] don’t seem to be well-suited to fighting ISIS. They’re built to battle adversaries like the United States,” the Daily Beast reported. Secretary of State John Kerry was similarly alarmed two weeks ago. He told CNN: “Clearly, the presence of aircraft with air-to-air combat capacity as well as … surface-to-air missiles raises serious questions.” The U.S. has announced it is suspending its program to train moderate Syrian rebels. The Pentagon plan called for between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters to be trained a year, but so far the U.S. has trained an estimated 75 rebels – some of whom were kidnapped as soon as they crossed into Syria. This follows on the news that 28,000 foreigners from 100 countries are now fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, according to the U.S.  That’s nearly double the figure from 2014. More than 250 Americans are now fighting with ISIS – more than half of whom left the U.S. in the past year. Despite the year-old U.S.-backed aerial campaign, ISIS hasn’t been beaten back from its key strongholds of Raqqa in Syria, or Mosul in Iraq – and since then the group has also seized Palmyra and Ramadi. But it appears progress is being made. According to IHS Jane’s Intelligence Group, the territory controlled by the terror group has shrunk by 9.4% in the first six months of 2015. CNN’s Tim Lister, Beth Brettingham, and Aaron Darveniza contributed to this report.


Slowly but steadily, caravan migrants who trekked across Mexico are pleading their cases to US authorities on why they should be granted asylum. More than half of them have now been accepted to begin processing by US authorities at the border with Mexico, Alex Mensing – whose group, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, organized the caravan – said Wednesday. Caravan organizers said 63 Central American migrants began asylum processing on Wednesday, bringing the total of those accepted for processing to 88. On Tuesday, 17 Central American migrants were taken in by US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) for asylum processing, said Viridiana Vidal with Pueblo Sin Fronteras. Related article Applying for asylum in the US takes at least 3 months The group was predominately made up of mothers and their children. However, CPB says it processed 28 between Monday and Tuesday. They are now in a detention center known as the “hielera,” or “cooler. They could be held for days, or even a week, as asylum officers question them and assess them for “credible fear.” The first eight migrants were selected by their peers to apply for asylum first. They included Gabriela Hernandez, a pregnant mother of two who fled Honduras. She and her two sons, ages 6 and 2, have battled hunger, exhaustion and chronic illness throughout the journey. But dozens of the migrants who traveled with the caravan keep waiting. It’s not clear when or on what day officials will see them. Some sit by the turnstiles of the processing center between Tijuana and San Diego, just feet away from US soil. Most are huddled together in tents on the Mexican side of the border, waiting their turn to apply for asylum. Migrant caravan, day 3 at the US-Mexico border. 8 people, 3 women/4 children/1 teen admitted for asylum processing. 100 wait in the cold, many women and children from Central America, fleeing unspeakable violence. pic.twitter.com/bwoA4FRQzF One organizer said the caravan would remain at the immigration processing center until “every last one is admitted into the United States.” Hernandez left her husband after suffering domestic abuse, but then gang members found her one day, demanding to know where her ex was. They gave her 12 hours to give him up or said they would kill her 6-year-old. Related article Pregnant mom gets her boys through sickness and 3,000 miles She left that night, with her sons. Her plan was to present herself to US officials to claim asylum given the danger to her life and her children in Honduras. She just doesn’t have the energy to think what would be next if she is not granted asylum. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. “I cannot go back to my country.” Tesla Rich, 19, and her 9-month-old daughter, Valentina, are also in the first group of eight selected to start their asylum claims. She’s leaving the rampant violence in Honduras – her uncle and sister were killed in recent years. Rich is looking for work, something she said is nearly impossible to find in her country. Her dream, if she gets to stay in the United States, is to bring her other daughter, whom she had to leave behind. Catherine Enamorado fled Honduras with her 12-month-old daughter, Ashly, after MS-13 gang members tried to recruit Catherine’s boyfriend, who is Ashly’s father. He said no, and gang members showed up later at her house, saying they would rape her and the baby if she didn’t convince him to join, Catherine said. Catherine said she left behind her 4- and 5-year-old sons with her father. Sarae Carrillo, 24, feared gang violence in El Salvador, so she left with her daughter, Daryelen, 2. They have extended family in the United States they hope to see soon. “We walked a lot,” Sarae said. “We got on the train called ‘La Bestia.’ We’re tired of waiting, but we have nowhere else to go.” Related article The 5 biggest myths about the migrant caravan President Donald Trump has tweeted that these migrants shouldn’t be allowed into the country. Vice President Mike Pence called the caravan “a deliberate attempt to undermine the laws of this country and the sovereignty of the United States.” But migrants from this caravan are at a port of entry and asking for asylum. And under international law, the United States and other countries must consider asylum claims. Trump has decried the practice of letting immigrants with pending cases leave detention in some cases – and vowed his administration will put an end to the policy, which he calls “catch and release.” But if history is an indicator, the odds of these migrants getting asylum are slim. Related article How bad is it in these migrants' countries? More than 75% of applicants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador between 2011 and 2016 were rejected, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. But parents in this caravan said they’re willing to take their chances. “I don’t have an option,” one 38-year-old woman told CNN. “If I stay in El Salvador, I’m going to be killed.” Khushbu Shah reported from Tijuana; Holly Yan reported and wrote from Atlanta; and Madison Park reported and wrote from San Francisco. CNN’s Kyung Lah, Eric Levenson and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.


Editor’s Note: Michael Bochenek is senior children’s rights counsel at Human Rights Watch. The views expressed are solely those of the author. Michael Bochenek: Children slipped through cracks as Calais migrant camp dismantled Arbitrary age assessments led some kids to being ejected based on their appearance Having spent most of the last two weeks in Calais, I can say that while the operation to clear the French migrant camp known as “The Jungle” may ultimately benefit adults, it has failed unaccompanied children. On Wednesday, police evacuated all remaining residents to the edge of the camp. Several hours later, the local prefecture announced it would be accepting no further registration for relocation of adults or unaccompanied children. The decision left hundreds of children and adults in limbo. Between 1,300 and 1,600 unaccompanied children – most from Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea – had been taking shelter in the camp, including hundreds who were eligible for transfer to the UK based on family ties. Many had been in the camp for months. Unaccompanied children were supposed to have a designated line to allow them to register and receive temporary accommodation in part of the camp while the French government sought longer-term solutions. But each of the three days of registration ended with large numbers of children still waiting to be seen. Related article Related story: Calais 'Jungle': Aid groups warn of children with nowhere to go On Wednesday, the authorities stopped registering children at about noon, telling at least 150 unregistered ones to return to the camp. Most had started lining up before dawn after being turned away at the end of the day Tuesday. Every day, their sense of safety diminished. More than 4,000 adults accepted relocation in the first two days, disrupting already fragile social support structures in the camp. As one volunteer told me: “Many of these adults were, in effect, raising other people’s children, and now they’re gone – leaving kids without the little protection they had.” That’s why nearly 100 children stayed in front of the warehouse serving as a reception point for registration until 9 p.m. Tuesday, pleading to register or, at least, to spend the night outside the gates to be first in line in the morning. Authorities rejected another obvious solution – the warehouse had 300 beds, and aid workers asked for permission to shelter the children there overnight. “‘They replied, ‘You know, it’s quite difficult looking after kids,’ ” one volunteer told me. Eventually, about 30 children slept in an informal school on the camp’s edge. Fifty or 60 more stayed at a mosque in the camp until fires forced them to move. They spent the remainder of the night underneath a bridge as volunteers watched over them in shifts. The registration of unaccompanied children was plagued by three other significant problems: First, accurate information didn’t reach all children. After two full days of registration, I was still speaking to children who didn’t know where to go so they would be sure they were recorded and assigned a safe place to spend the night. Second, kids faced practical barriers in registering. The designated line for children disappeared shortly after registration began Monday. Children told me they had no idea what to do when they saw hundreds of adults in line ahead of them. When aid workers asked authorities to allow children to wait in a specially designated area, police responded by “kettling” them – an imposing barrier of riot police in body armor pushed children tightly together and ordered them to sit down. As I watched, some children stood back up when police pressed up against them. Others followed suit, unsure if they were being asked to enter the warehouse. “Wait!” one officer bellowed in French. A few English-speaking officers eventually managed to clarify that the group wasn’t being asked to move. Third, arbitrary age assessments meant that police ejected some children based on their appearance – and in some cases for failure to follow barked commands in French, which most didn’t understand. “I’ve been working with migrants for 10 years, and I know what I’m doing,” one staff member told an aid worker who objected that children were being turned away. Age assessment is tricky, with a wide margin of error. Malnutrition, stress and exposure to the elements take their toll. The UN refugee agency and other authorities call for the benefit of the doubt in close cases. Age assessment is tricky, with a wide margin of error Michael Bochenek When we met with French Interior Ministry officials midway through the week, they assured us they would apply the benefit of the doubt principle. They also recognized that children were still slipping through the cracks and said they planned intensive outreach efforts the rest of the week to identify and register all remaining unaccompanied children. In the end, other considerations took priority over the children. Those included concerns that taking more time would have pulled more migrants to Calais and in all likelihood the desire to press the British government to take children as quickly as possible. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook There’s something to that. The British government has known for months that hundreds of children in the camps were probably eligible for transfer but had made little effort to admit them until last week. Another legal route for transfer to Britain, an amendment to the immigration law adopted this year to accept unaccompanied children on a humanitarian basis, wasn’t used until this month. In the last two weeks, the UK has accepted some 200 unaccompanied children from Calais. But on Wednesday night, many unaccompanied children were still unregistered in Calais, some of them sleeping outdoors. They arguably were even more vulnerable than before the operation began. The logjam in Calais may have been broken – but at a tremendously high price.


The royal family and President Donald Trump could not be less alike when it comes to custom, etiquette and breeding. Yet they share a profound political sixth sense: a recognition of how a partly mythic and glorious national past can serve as an antidote to the grim political crises clawing at the two flagship nations of the English-speaking world. Britain spent the weekend wallowing in the paraphernalia of a lost Empire, exporting its real-life fairy tale of princes and duchesses, castles and a class hierarchy presided over by a monarch, who in the words of the national anthem is “victorious, happy and glorious.” The royal wedding, a poignantly joyful ceremony with a jolt of diversity, given the new Duchess of Sussex’s mixed race American background, was beamed to a world that craved a good news story. “Two young people fell in love and we all showed up,” said African-American bishop Michael Curry in a stemwinding sermon that shattered the English emotional reticence typified by the royal family that its younger generation is trying to dilute. There’s not been much victory or glory for Britain lately. It’s trudging through an existential crisis over its exit from the European Union – a prospect that splits the nation and was ignited by the 21st century political time bomb issue in Western society – immigration. It’s a process that could tear the United Kingdom apart given pro-Europe sentiment in Scotland, and represents its gravest national challenge since Adolf Hitler’s armies massed on the other side of the English Channel in 1940. Much was made of how Meghan Markle’s arrival and her ethnic background means the royal family will never be the same again and how she boosts the “modernization” project of the future king, William, and her husband, Harry. “The royal family will always be different – the accent is still out of time – but with this marriage it begins to look a little more like that country it represents,” wrote the Sunday Times of London in an editorial. “It may help, at the margin to make the country more at ease with itself.” Related article Royal family website notes Meghan's 'proud feminist' credentials Polls show that a majority of Britons favor retaining the monarchy, and Queen Elizabeth, after 66 years on the throne, remains respected even by those who are not ardent royalists. Still, for all the euphoria of a good royal wedding, it’s difficult to see how the new duchess can alter the fundamentals of an institution that dates back more than 1,000 years. Though it has lost much of its political power over the centuries, at its core, it rests on the concept, that by virtue of birth, one person is more “noble” than the next. There’s not that much “modern” about that. The royal wedding also came at a moment when Britain is facing a political crisis on top of Brexit, as a crackdown on illegal immigration has ensnared members of the post-war “Windrush” generation of Caribbean migrants. Some immigrants, who have lived in Britain almost all their lives, have been struggling to show documentation of their legal status amid fears of mass deportations, in a scandal that claimed the job of a senior minister and hammered the government of Prime Minister Theresa May. Gigapixel: The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle This was one reason that the racial undertones of Curry’s sermon, and his quoting of Martin Luther King Jr. was so politically resonant, in a nation with significant black and South Asian populations which also wrestles with the societal questions raised by minority religions. Daljit Sidhu, who is of South Asian heritage and lives near Windsor, told CNN’s Aimee Lewis that the royal family’s new dash of diversity was important. “I was born and bred here, but you were always different. Ten years ago you wouldn’t have thought this would happen.” Still, that it took two Americans – Markle and Curry – to bring change to the royal family is rich in historical irony. If there’s anyone that loves a good show, it’s Trump, who is looking forward to his very own parade in Washington later this year – which might make up in military hardware what it lacks in British imperial pageantry. Perhaps the most incredible aspect of the royal wedding was that it was one global news story that did not revolve around America’s tweeting, disruptive President. Like Britain, America was a nation that needed cheering up, as the tragedy of yet another school massacre darkened the weekend but was for a while displaced by blanket television coverage of the royal wedding. Related video Watch Princes Harry and William greet fans on eve of wedding There was however significant breaking news out of the White House Saturday, as details emerged of a deal for China to buy significantly more US goods and services to cut the size of the trade imbalance between the two countries. It was not immediately clear what the agreement would mean — but it could turn out to be a victory for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign. The most significant word of that slogan is “Again.” If the royals offer a reminder of a time when Britain was “great” and ruled half the world, Trump is dedicated to restoring the power of the moment when America succeeded its former colonial master as the world’s preeminent, unchallenged power. His political project – and his populist economic policy – has all along rested on the idea of recreating a hallowed era, especially in the industrial Midwest, before US manufacturing was hollowed out by developing powers like China. If immigration was the driving force between Britain’s shocking vote for Brexit in 2016 – it was also the animating dynamic behind Trump’s convention busting election win a few months later. At the root of Trump’s appeal to his voters is a promise to check the disruptive forces of globalized economics and ethnic diversity that have been remaking the United States in recent decades. Almost every week brings a new controversy over Trump’s approach, from the failure to deal with undocumented migrants brought to the US as kids and his administration’s plans for a more selective legal immigration system. That’s where he and the royals differ. While Harry’s bride sees a chance to use ethnicity to reboot the magic of the monarchy, Trump has more often used diversity to divide. His rhetoric on Islam and race, his reported – and denied – complaints about “shithole” African countries and demands for more Norwegian immigrants, leave an impression he’s using fears about the changing face of America as a political tool. In his speech at the Republican National Convention in 2016, Trump painted a dark picture of a nation beset by a modern plague of crime and terrorism in the cities, and economic blight in its industrial powerhouse. But like the royals, he evoked a glorious past. “We will lead our country back to safety, prosperity and peace,” Trump said. “We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again, and we will make America great again.” To Trump’s critics, he has seemed to be evoking a more traditional, and whiter America equating to the Eisenhower post-war boom years of the 1950s when he was a boy. But while this vision is a popular one among Trump’s supporters and helped him win the election in 2016, it’s not yet clear whether it will be an enduring political message in a nation undergoing demographic changes that will make whites a minority within a quarter of a century and with no sign that mass re-industrialization is about to take hold. Americans will get to choose whether to keep their current head of state and the path on which he has set the nation in 27 months. The Queen’s health is robust, but since she’s 92, a changing of the guard is also approaching for the monarchy. The years to come may test, on both sides of the Atlantic, whether paying homage to a glorious past offers a template for taking on the struggles of the future or is just a pleasing distraction on a Saturday afternoon.


NEW: United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a draft resolution backing a ceasefire Both sides in the ceasefire agreement have reported violations of the truce Rebels in the Free Syrian Army have warned they will no longer adhere to Syria’s fledgling ceasefire if the regime continues to violate it, according to a statement seen by CNN. For now, the ceasefire remains in effect despite skirmishes and violations reported by both sides, according to the FSA statement and Syrian state-run SANA news agency. Airstrikes hit three villages Saturday in the Damascus suburb of Wadi Barada, an activist there told CNN. Two women were injured by Hezbollah sniper fire in another village, Abu Mohammad al-Bardawi, the activist, said. A day earlier, al-Bardawi said more than 20 airstrikes were reported in the area, which is home to a major water spring that supplies Damascus. CNN could not independently verify the reports. Syria’s state news agency, SANA, has not reported on military activity Saturday in Wadi Barada. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday that regime forces faced strong resistance from Islamist militants near Wadi Barada. On Friday, two opposition groups, the Syrian National Coalition and Syria’s High Negotiations Committee, claimed the truce was violated more than 30 times in the first 24 hours of its coming into force. SANA in turn cited the Russian Coordination Center, based at the Russian Hmeymim air base in Latakia, Syria, as saying Friday that “terrorist groups” had violated the ceasefire a dozen times. Related video Ceasefire in Syria appears to hold “Over the past 24 hours, terrorist groups breached the cessation of hostilities agreement in Syria 12 times in Damascus, Aleppo and Hama,” the SANA report said, with half of the instances occurring in Damascus. The report didn’t specify which rebel groups were allegedly involved but added that “terrorists from Jabhat al-Nusra targeted a number of towns and neighborhoods in Aleppo and its countryside with rocket and mortar shells.” Jabhat al-Nusra is another name for Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, which was excluded from the ceasefire agreement as an extremist group, according to Turkey and Russia. The FSA encompasses a number of predominantly moderate rebel groups across Syria. The fragile nationwide ceasefire, brokered by Turkey and Russia, began early Friday. It is the basis for planned peace talks between the opposition and the regime to be held in Astana, Kazakhstan, in the New Year. The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a draft resolution on Saturday proposed by delegations from Turkey and Russia that backs the ceasefire arrangement in Syria. The resolution supports a peace process with Turkey and Russia serving as guarantors. Related article How Russia and Turkey brokered peace in Syria -- and sidelined the US Russia’s Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said Saturday the resolution “speaks to the need for compliance with a cessation of hostilities … in Syria and of a very important meeting in the capital of Astana… where delegations of the opposition and the government will for the first time meet face to face.” The meeting backed by the UN in Geneva and outlined in the newly approved resolution is scheduled for February 8, 2017. US Ambassador to the UN, Michelle Sison, lauded the agreement but asked for more transparency, saying, “We are still learning more about this initiative, including details regarding its implementation.” “In this regard, we regret that the annexes to the agreements, which outline the ceasefire arrangement brokered by Russia and Turkey in detail, have not yet been made available,” said Sison. The latest effort comes after previous ceasefire attempts by the international community crumbled. A successful nationwide ceasefire hinges on many fighting factions laying down arms. Groups from Iraq, Iran and Lebanon also are fighting alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey and Russia previously said the ceasefire deal excludes groups considered “terrorist organizations” by the UN Security Council, ruling out ISIS and Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham. But alliances between different rebel groups make matters complicated. The Russian Defense Ministry said influential Islamist groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam had signed up to the process. But the Syrian army asserted that groups linked to Fateh al-Sham, of which Ahrar al-Sham has been the most prominent, would be excluded from the deal. The latest truce also follows several ceasefire agreements brokered by Turkey and Russia in the city of Aleppo this month. Most were broken, but one held long enough to allow the evacuations of tens of thousands of rebels and civilians from eastern Aleppo. Related article After Aleppo's fall, Syria's bloodshed may continue Eastern Aleppo had been under rebel control for four years and had been choked off by the Syrian regime, leading to shortages of food and supplies for civilians. The Syrian regime then gained full control of Aleppo, a major turning point that has limited the opposition’s military and political options. The brutal civil war has raged on for nearly six years and killed an estimated 400,000 people. CNN’s Ian Lee, Roba Alhenawi and Daniel Nikbakht contributed to this report.


Brian May, astrophysicist and Queen guitarist, helped start Asteroid Day in 2015 Global event raises awareness about the risk of asteroids and their impact on Earth Friday is International Asteroid Day. A 24-hour live broadcast will include everything you’ve ever wanted to know about these rocky bits of space debris, the threats they may pose to Earth and what we can gain from studying them. You can tune in live or find events near you. The date commemorates the Earth’s largest recorded asteroid impact in 1908 when a powerful asteroid struck the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in a remote Siberian forest of Russia. The event leveled trees and destroyed forests across 770 square miles, or three quarters of the state of Rhode Island. The impact threw people to the ground in a town 40 miles away. Four years ago, an asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia. It exploded in the air, generating brightness greater than the sun, exuding heat, damaging more than 7,000 buildings and injuring more than 1,000 people. The shock wave broke windows 58 miles away. It was undetected because it was coming from the same direction and path as the sun. And it explains why astronomers and the Asteroid Day group want people to be aware. Asteroid Day was created by Brian May, an astrophysicist better known as co-founder and lead guitarist of the rock band Queen, to bring awareness and educate the world about asteroids in 2015. Co-founders include film director Grigorij Richters, astronaut Rusty Schweickart and Danica Remy, chief operations officer of the B612 Foundation, a nonprofit to protect Earth from asteroids through early detection. The United Nations sanctioned it in 2016 as a global day of education to raise awareness. Last year, the organization launched the 100X Declaration, calling to increase the asteroid discovery rate 100 times – to 100,000 – within the next decade. To date, 22,000 people have signed it. Asteroid Day has grown in other ways. In 2015, there were 50 public events. More than 700 are planned this year in 190 countries. “It’s about global awareness of something that is globally important,” said astronaut Nicole Stott, who will speak at the main event in Luxembourg. “Everything about today is intended to facilitate international cooperation and unity in response to something that could impact us all.” So what are the odds of an asteroid striking the Earth? “One hundred percent – asteroids hit the Earth every day,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. “Most of them are small particles that burn up in the atmosphere. On average, multiple car-sized asteroids hit the Earth every year. However, most of the small asteroids that hit the Earth are undetected before collision. A Tunguska-scale event occurs every few hundred years on average.” The three asteroids with the highest probability of affecting the Earth are: 29075 (1950 DA), 101955 Bennu (1999 RQ36) and 410777 (2009 FD). NASA keeps a list of all potentially hazardous asteroids. “It’s a matter of size,” said Alan Fitzsimmons, astronomer at the Queen’s University Belfast Research Centre. “Very dangerous large asteroids of diameter 1 kilometers or larger only hit us every half a million years or so. But as there are many smaller asteroids, they hit us more often. An asteroid 18 meters across similar to the one that hit Chelyabinsk four years ago may come in every 20 or 30 years.” NASA operates a series of asteroid survey programs that scan the skies whenever possible to identify potentially hazardous asteroids, Lauretta said. The Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona has found two asteroids in advance of them colliding with the Earth. This year, Asteroid Day also coincides with the 100-day marker leading up to when OSIRIS-REx will receive a gravity assist from Earth’s orbital energy to send it out into space. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space probe will spend two years flying through space to catch up to an asteroid named Bennu, a big, roundish space rock that has made it onto NASA’s list of potentially hazardous asteroids. That means Bennu is one of the most dangerous space rocks we know of because it could one day collide with Earth. It launched in September. Related article Why is NASA chasing this asteroid? Missions such as this one, along with other programs at NASA, are informing researchers about asteroids in new ways. “NASA runs the Near-Earth Object Observation program, which … is dedicated to finding hazardous asteroids and identifying ways to mitigate potential impacts,” Lauretta said. “The OSIRIS-REx mission is developing critical technologies for rendezvous and study of near-Earth asteroids. These capabilities are essential for any future asteroid mitigation mission.” Other planned NASA missions to asteroids include Psyche, launching in 2022 to reach a unique metal asteroid, and Lucy, launching in 2021 to visit asteroids around Jupiter. Related video Asteroid to orbit Earth's moon? Researchers at NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing Division are also at work on the Asteroid Threat Assessment Project, using simulations and probable risk models to estimate damage caused by a potential asteroid strike. They share their findings with other agencies and teams to come up with a plan for the worst-case scenarios. But ultimately, there is no plan to stop an asteroid if it’s coming toward Earth. “Both NASA, (the European Space Agency) and individual teams like the European NEOShield-2 project have worked on proposals to test our ability to move an asteroid and prevent an impact,” said Fitzsimmons of the Queen’s University Belfast Research Centre. “Yet although the USA and Europe have recently come close to approving such a mission, funding and possibly politics have prevented this test to date. It is frustrating, knowing that we might have the ability to prevent a natural disaster, but not being able to work on it further.” CNN’s Amanda Barnett contributed to this report.

Asteroid Day and related asteroid awareness and mitigation efforts


Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday he was effectively blocking a vote on a spending bill ahead of a government shutdown deadline at midnight to put lawmakers on the spot over the national debt. “I can’t in all good honesty, in all good faith, just look the other way because my party is now complicit in the deficits,” Paul said on the Senate floor. The Senate was set to consider the spending agreement announced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, but an attempt by Paul to include his own amendment appeared to hold up a vote as of Thursday evening. Paul said he objected to the deal to lift budget caps over the next two years, which, alongside the GOP’s tax cuts passed late last year, will add further to the deficit, and blasted the process around the debate itself. “This is the most important debate we will have in the year over spending, and no amendments are allowed,” Paul said. Paul railed against members of both parties, including Republicans for what he termed hypocrisy over concern about deficit spending. “The reason I’m here tonight is to put people on the spot,” Paul said. “I want people to feel uncomfortable. I want them to have to answer people at home who said, ‘How come you were against President Obama’s deficits, and then how come you’re for Republican deficits?’” In an interview with Fox News before taking the floor, Paul seemed to indicate a willingness to let the government shut down over the issue. “I’m not advocating for shutting down the government,” Paul said. “I’m also not advocating for keeping the damn thing open and borrowing a million dollars a minute.” He said without McConnell granting him a vote on the bill, his options were limited. “I will make them listen to me,” Paul said. Paul said he told President Donald Trump as much and let the President know if he could get McConnell to allow a vote, then they would move forward. “I told him to call up the majority leader, Senator McConnell, and tell him I wanted 15 minutes to have a vote to make a point that conservatives are unhappy with this deal,” Paul said, adding later, “Give me 15 minutes to debate, 15 minutes to vote, and we could have been done by noon.” Trump has backed the deal, tweeting that the increased military spending “is so important.” The Budget Agreement today is so important for our great Military. It ends the dangerous sequester and gives Secretary Mattis what he needs to keep America Great. Republicans and Democrats must support our troops and support this Bill! Paul said bringing the nearly two-decade-long military presence in Afghanistan to an end would better serve the military than continuing to fund multiple, ongoing combat operations around the globe. “I could give a raise to every soldier out there if we just come home from Afghanistan,” Paul said. “It’s time to come home. There is no military victory there.” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, among the most prominent hawks in Congress, mocked Paul on Twitter for the call to withdraw from Afghanistan, saying that would not be a good idea. It appears ‘General’ @RandPaul is at it again.  He just called for the immediate withdrawal of all forces from Afghanistan as a way to give the US military a pay raise.Fortunately, only ‘General’ Paul – and the Taliban - think that’s a good idea. Republican leaders said earlier Thursday that Paul wants a vote on an amendment critical of the overall agreement, but they cannot give him the vote even if they wanted to do so because it requires consent from all senators. CNN’s Ted Barrett, Daniella Diaz and Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.


Police think the suspects were planning an anthrax attack They also say the extremists were recruiting university students to join ISIS Kenya’s police chief says the country’s security services have foiled a potentially major terror plot by an unnamed East African terror network with links to ISIS. The terror plot was aimed at “various targets in Kenya,” Inspector General Joseph Boinnet said Tuesday. Police in Kenya and Uganda have so far arrested three individuals: one, a medical student named Mohammed Abdi Ali who was interning at a Kenyan hospital, and the others – Ali’s wife and her friend – who are now in custody in Uganda. Ali was arrested on Friday. CNN has not yet been able to independently verify these claims. The Kenyan police are currently searching for two other medical interns in Kenya who police say are Ali’s accomplices. Police say the interns’ terror network contacts spread from Kenya to Somalia, Libya and Syria. “The suspects were planning large-scale terror attacks akin to the Westgate Mall attack, with the intention of killing innocent Kenyans,” Boinnet said in a statement. The 2013 attack at the Nairobi mall killed 67 people. How Westgate changed the lives of Kenyans “His network included medical experts with whom they planned to unleash a biological attack in Kenya using anthrax,” Boinnet said. A Kenyan court has allowed the Anti-Terror Police Unit to keep Ali for up to 30 days to complete their investigations, according to Boinnet. Kenya has long been a target and even at times a base for the al Qaeda-linked terror group Al-Shabaab, but ISIS has recently been attempting to gain traction in the region. Authorities fear that ISIS is trying to establish a presence in Kenya. Western governments also fear that if the terror group gains decent support and members, ISIS might use Kenya as a base from which to launch attacks on Westerners similar to the Westgate Mall attack or the al Qaeda-linked AQAP attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali in 2015. Police say at least 20 young Kenyans have traveled to Syria and Libya to join the ranks of ISIS. Kenyan authorities have long worried about radicalization and recruitment of young people in Kenya’s schools and universities. CNN’s Radina Gigova contributed to this report