Austria conservatives agree coalition with Greens

The deal follows months of negotiations after a scandal brought down the government in May.

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Barcelona's car-free smart city experiment

Superblocks is a radical plan to reclaim the streets from the noise and pollution of traffic.

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PHOTOS: #MenToo: The hidden tragedy of male sexual abuse in the military

Award-winning photojournalist Mary F. Calvert has spent 6 years documenting the prevalence of rape in the military and the effects on victims. She began with a focus on female victims but more recently has examined the under-reported incidence of sexual assaults on men and the lifelong trauma it can inflict. Last March, Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., a retired Air Force combat pilot, disclosed that she had been the victim of multiple sexual assaults by fellow officers, putting the issue of sexual assault in the military on the national agenda. Two months later, a required biannual Department of Defense report found that sexual assault within the ranks had increased by 38% over two years.

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Ex-Bosnian Serb general indicted for aiding genocide

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnia's war crimes prosecutor on Tuesday charged a former Bosnian Serb general with aiding genocide in the 1995 massacre at the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica. More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed when Bosnian Serb troops captured the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995 during the Bosnian war.

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In Leaked Memo, Andrew Yang Asks DNC for More Debate Polls

Andrew Yang is urging the Democratic National Committee to take an unorthodox step in its debate oversight process: commission more polling over the next several days. In a letter sent to DNC Chairman Tom Perez on Dec. 21, obtained by The Daily Beast, the Democratic contender calls for the DNC to commission four early-state polls before Jan. 10 as part of an effort to encourage more diversity on the debate stage in Iowa. “With the upcoming holidays and meager number of polls currently out in the field, a diverse set of candidates might be absent from the stage in Des Moines for reasons out of anyone’s control,” Yang wrote. “This is a troubling prospect for our party. Regardless of the DNC’s best intentions, voters would cry foul and could even make unfounded claims of bias and prejudice.”Yang, who qualified for the first six debates but has yet to reach the polling threshold for the seventh, was the only candidate of color on stage at the recent Los Angeles event. Andrew Yang Goes Mainstream in New Million-Dollar Ad CampaignSo far, the five candidates who have qualified for the CNN-hosted Jan. 14 event at Drake University—former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg—are all white.Yang has met the individual donor requirement and one qualifying poll, but has three left before he can clear the criteria, and believes commissioning more qualifying polls would be a “simple solution.” Yang, an entrepreneur who’s had flashes of momentum throughout the Democatic primary in some early states, contends the biggest barrier to allowing “a diverse set of candidates” to debate at the next event is the lack of recent qualifying polls that meet the committee’s specifications.It’s been over a month since a poll in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina has been taken, the letter contends, which would not take into account any potential polling bumps from candidates’ recent performances at the sixth debate earlier this month. “As you know, big shifts can happen within short periods in this race, as we’ve already witnessed multiple times,” Yang wrote.Democrats Must Not Have an All-White Debate—and the White Candidates Should Say SoMore polls, “would provide an accurate snapshot of the current state of the race and where voters’ hearts and minds are, thus getting ahead of an imminent problem,” he wrote. A DNC official pointed to 26 total qualifying polls for the December debate. For the January event, the qualifying window was one week longer, in part to account for holidays, the official said.    “The DNC has been more than inclusive throughout this entire process with an expansive list of qualifying polls, including 26 polls for the December debate, more than half of which were state polls,” the official told The Daily Beast. “The DNC will not sponsor its own debate-qualifying polls of presidential candidates during a primary. This would break with the long standing practice of both parties using independent polling for debate qualification, and it would be an inappropriate use of DNC resources that should be directed at beating Donald Trump.”The correspondence is the first time Yang has written Perez. A senior campaign official said the team has not heard back from the chairman directly, but did receive an acknowledgement that it was received from DNC staff. “Andrew Yang has managed to create a broad coalition for the future of our country and we, as a party, need to keep bringing more people into the fold instead of trying to keep people out of the political process,” a senior Yang campaign official said, noting that the team now has nearly 400,000 donors and 1 million contributions, figures first shared with The Daily Beast. Yang’s campaign expects to raise at least $12.5 million in the fourth quarter, 25 percent more money than in the previous one, his campaign said. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Greta Thunberg said it would be a waste of time for her to talk to Trump about climate change

President Donald Trump, who is withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accord, has a long record of expressing skepticism on climate science.

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Churchgoers kill gunman who shot two during Texas service

Worshippers in the US state of Texas shot dead a gunman who opened fire during a livestreamed Sunday service, ending an attack that killed two parishioners, authorities said. The latest US shooting at a house of worship took place in the suburban Fort Worth community of White Settlement on Sunday morning when the gunman entered West Freeway Church of Christ, officials said. "A couple of members of the church returned fire, striking the suspect who died at the scene," White Settlement Police Chief J.P. Bevering told reporters.

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Immigration in 2019: Trump restricts asylum and overhauls legal immigration

2019 was arguably the Trump administration's most successful one in its quest to severely restrict asylum and overhaul the legal immigration system.

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FBI Agents: McCabe Apologized for Changing His Story on Leak

Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe faced scorching criticism and potential criminal prosecution for changing his story about a conversation he had with a Wall Street Journal reporter. Now newly released interview transcripts show McCabe expressed remorse to internal FBI investigators when they pressed him on the about-face. The FBI released the documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). They provide fresh details about the investigation into a leak to the Journal, McCabe's role in it, and the reaction of agents who investigated it.In the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, the Journal broke news about an FBI investigation involving then-candidate Hillary Clinton, describing internal discussions among senior FBI officials.Emails Show McCabe Scrambling to Handle Stories About Hillary ProbeThe apparent leak drew scrutiny from the bureau’s internal investigation team, which interviewed McCabe on May 9, 2017, the day President Donald Trump fired James Comey from his post as FBI director. The agents interviewed him as part of an investigation regarding a different media leak to the online publication Circa, and also asked him about the Journal story. In that interview, McCabe said he did not know how the Journal story came to be. But a few months later, his story changed after he reviewed his answer. On Aug. 18, FBI officials met with McCabe in an attempt to work through what they said was “conflicting information” they had gathered about the possible leak to the Journal.“I need to know from you,” an agent said he told McCabe in a sit-down meeting, “did you authorize this article? Were you aware of it? Did you authorize it?” McCabe then looked at the story he had reviewed months earlier. The FBI investigator described his response this way: “And as nice as could be, he said, yep. Yep I did.”Ex-FBI Head Andrew McCabe Sues, Says Trump Ordered His FiringThe investigator then said that “things had suddenly changed 180 degrees with this.” The interviewers stopped taking notes on what McCabe was saying, and the agent indicated their view of McCabe had changed: He was no longer a witness or victim. “In our business, we stop and say, look, now we’re getting into an area for due process,” the agent said.But the agent said that the team did not raise that line of thought with McCabe. “I was very careful to say… with all due respect, this is what you told us. This has caused us some kind of, you know, sidetracking here now with some information other people have told us.”The agent’s next comments to McCabe took on a frustrated tone.“I remember saying to him, at, I said, sir, you understand that we’ve put a lot of work into this based on what you told us,” the agent said. “I mean, and I even said, long nights and weekends working on this, trying to find out who amongst your ranks of trusted people would, would do something like that. And he kind of just looked down, kind of nodded, and said yeah I’m sorry.”McCabe’s lawyer has said his story changed because in the initial interview he wasn’t prepared for the question. The question surprised him, and he didn’t give his answer a second thought because Comey was fired shortly after the interview concluded and his world turned upside down. McCabe, who became acting director of the FBI after Trump fired Comey, was fired in March 2018, two days before he was expected to retire. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he was axing McCabe because of the leak investigation’s findings. McCabe, who had been assailed by Trump over and over again on Twitter over the Russia investigation, denied wrongdoing and alleged his firing was politically motivated. In August, he sued DOJ for wrongful termination and has since accused the Trump administration of withholding evidence that would help his case.The DOJ Inspector General, meanwhile, later accused McCabe of lying to investigators multiple times. After that report came out, McCabe’s lawyer said it was “far less fair than he deserved,” and “utterly failed to support the decision to terminate Mr. McCabe.” Lying to federal investigators is a crime, and the Inspector General referred its investigation of McCabe to the U.S. Attorney’s office for Washington D.C. McCabe has not been charged with any crime––despite numerous Trump tweets calling him a criminal. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Drones are appearing in the Colorado and Nebraska skies

Mysterious groups of giant drones have appeared in the Colorado and Nebraska night sky since last week, the Denver Post reported.

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