Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has cancelled a visit to Israel for a high-level summit, a government spokesperson told AFP on Sunday, after uproar in Poland over reported comments by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu about the Poles and the Holocaust. Netanyahu -- who was initially quoted in Haaretz newspaper as saying that "The Poles collaborated with the Nazis" -- has been condemned in Poland for appearing to accuse all Polish people of cooperating with Germany during World War II. Warsaw has long been at pains to point out that Poland, which was occupied by Nazi Germany, could not have and did not collaborate in the Holocaust although individual Poles may have done so.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday the United States was asking European allies to "take back over 800" Islamic State fighters captured in Syria and put them on trial. "The Caliphate is ready to fall," he said in a Tweet. "The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them..." U.S.-backed fighters in Syria are poised to capture Islamic State's last, tiny enclave on the Euphrates, the battle commander said on Saturday, bringing its self-declared caliphate to the brink of total defeat.
The spat between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gov. Andrew Cuomo lays bare a growing divide over Amazon's decision to pull out of New York City.
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on Sunday praised Representative Ilhan Omar's (D., Minn.) recent endorsement of an anti-Semitic trope and urged the freshman lawmaker not to bow to pressure from critics.“Ms. Omar from Somalia – she started talking about ‘the Benjamins' and they are trying to make her apologize. Sweetheart, don't do that. Pardon me for calling you sweetheart, but you do have a sweet heart. You sure are using it to shake the government up, but you have nothing to apologize for,” Farrakhan said during his annual Saviour's Day address in Chicago, in comments first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.“Israel and AIPAC pays off senators and congressmen to do their bidding, so you're not lying. So if you're not lying, stop laying down. You were sent there by the people to shake up that corrupt House,” he added.Farrakhan, who has long engaged in anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongering, went on to mock Omar's Democratic allies, who have defended her remarks as the result of inexperience and lack of knowledge regarding the historic plight of the Jewish people.“‘Oh she's just young. She just got here. Don't be so hard on her,’” he said, mocking Omar's defenders. “My beautiful sisters, you were sent there to shake that House up. Your people voted you in, but God is the overseer.”Omar argued in a series of tweets sent last week that the pro-Israel stance held by many of her colleagues can be attributed to the nefarious influence of jewish donors and organizations, such as the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She subsequently apologized after being publicly urged to do so by Democratic leadership.Since being elected in November, Omar has been confronted with allegations of anti-Semitism by critics who cite both her past tweets, one of which accused Israel of "hypnotizing the world," and her more-recent statements and associations with noted anti-Semitic pro-Palestinian activists.Farrakhan has managed to maintain ties with a number of prominent Democratic lawmakers and activists despite his extensive record of bigotry. Women's March co-chair Tamikah Mallory was roundly criticized for praising Farrakhan as the "GOAT” or “greatest of all time" on social media following his 2018 Saviour's Day address, during which he labeled Jews “satanic.”“I didn’t call him the greatest of all time because of his rhetoric. I called him the greatest of all time because of what he’s done in black communities,” Mallory said during an appearance on ABC's The View last month when asked about the Instagram post.
Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner has been released from federal prison after being convicted of having illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl in 2017. The Federal Bureau of Prisons website shows the 54-year-old New York Democrat is currently in the custody of its Residential Re-entry Management office in Brooklyn, New York. The prison bureau, federal prosecutors in New York and Weiner’s lawyer didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.
Emails obtained by the Detroit Free Press offer a glimpse into how a fake university in Detroit may have convinced students it was real.
It's not too late for Ford to change its mind about bringing this hot hatch to America, is it?
A group of prisoners in Florida put their criminal skills to good use on Valentine’s Day – breaking into a car, to free a baby locked inside. The prisoners, on work-release, were repairing parking meters in Pasco County, north of Tampa, when they spotted the family in distress. The one-year-old child was trapped inside the car, with the keys inside. The family was unable to afford a locksmith and so, in the 56 degree Fahrenheit heat, the father was preparing to break the window. That is when the prisoners, in their black and white uniforms, offered to help, and worked in a team to pry open the front door just enough for one inmate to use a coat hanger to push a button that unlocked the 4x4’s door. In a video, which has gone viral, police are heard telling the father to "pop his head in the window" so "strange faces" would not scare the baby. Another person in the video, filmed by the baby’s mother Shadow Lantry, can be heard commenting on the "hilarious situation," with police watching the crew unlock the car. The whole endeavour took about two minutes, and ended with the group cheering. Ms Lantry said the child was "just sitting there happy" throughout the ordeal. The parents thanked the crew, deputies and firefighters for their help.
A look at some of the key business events and economic indicators upcoming this week:
Yemen's government and Huthi rebels have agreed on the first phase of a pullback of forces from the key city of Hodeida, in a deal the United Nations described Sunday as important progress. The redeployment from Hodeida is a critical part of a ceasefire deal reached in December in Sweden that calls on the government and Huthis to move forces away from ports and parts of city. The fragile truce deal marks the first step toward ending a devastating war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.