In a video message Friday, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch responded to a spike in hate crimes that the federal government found in 2015, saying the increase should be "deeply sobering" to Americans.
The FBI reported a six-percent increase in hate crimes nationally in 2015, with anti-Muslim crimes increasing by a staggering 67 percent, Lynch said on the video.
"These numbers should be deeply sobering for all Americans," Lynch said.
She also mentioned of recent news of a spate of reported hate crimes in the U.S., and encouraged Americans to report the incidents to the police, saying it is the "right and just thing to do."
"Some of these incidents have happened in schools. Others have targeted houses of worship," Lynch said on the video. "And some have singled out individuals for attacks and intimidation."
She continued, "We need you to continue to report these incidents to local law enforcement, as well as the Justice Department, so that our career investigators and prosecutors can take action to defend your rights."
Lynch acknowledged that people were concerned about the more recent incidents, which the government does not yet have statistics on, but she noted enforcing hate crime laws is "about staying true to our highest ideals and most cherished principles" of equal protection under the law.
"I want the American people to know that as long as that work is necessary, the Department of Justice will continue to carry it forward," Lynch said.
A New Jersey woman called 911 to say she shot an intruder in her home Thursday, but investigators say the intruder was a friend who'd been trying to surprise her.
The incident that left Kelvin Watford dead in Hamilton Township played out inside the unidentified woman’s home along Genesee Street around 11:20 p.m. Thursday, said Mercer County prosecutors.
The woman told prosecutors that Watford, 50, was on the phone with her and said he was not in the area as he returned from a trip.
As they spoke, the woman heard a dog barking and noises outside her house, causing her to grab her gun, investigators said.
“She heard someone inside of her house and walked to her bedroom door, still on the phone,” according to a news release from prosecutors. “She then opened her bedroom door, observed the shadow of a person in the dark on the stairs, and fired one gunshot.”
Watford died at the scene from a gunshot wound to his chest.
Prosecutors said an initial investigation found the shooting was accidental and no charges were filed, though the incident remained under investigation.
A North Philadelphia teacher's motivational message telling her students to "push through" tough situations to excel has gone viral online, earning her a trip to the "Today" show.
Jasmyn Wright, a third grade teacher at Frederick Douglass Mastery Charter School, starts every single class with a call-and-response mantra she performs with her students.
On Nov. 9, following the presidential election, Wright said some of her students were feeling discouraged and overwhelmed. In an effort to comfort them, she recited a self-affirmation chant with her class remind them that they can achieve anything as long as they’re persistent.
Wright recorded the mantra, and uploaded a video on her Facebook page where it quickly took off.
“What if it’s too hard?” She asks in the video.
“I’m gonna push through!” The kids shout.
“What if it’s too rough?” Wright questions.
“I’m gonna push through!” They reaffirm.
“What if you’re confused?” Wright asks.
“I’m gonna push through!” They answer.
Although she hopes the message galvanized her students, Wright found it unexpected for scores of people to feel inspired as well.
“Thank you for teaching, thank you for sharing, and thank you for reminding me that we can push through,” said one of the Facebook users who have racked up at least 3.4 million views on the video. It has been shared more than 48,000 times.
Just over a week later, Wright was coaching Savannah Guthrie, Matt Lauer and Carson Daly how to push through their challenges.
"You're awesome," Guthrie said, giving Wright a hug, before the teacher told Lauer that her biggest inspiration was her mother.
Ultimately, Wright wants her students to never doubt themselves.
“I want them to know that they’re capable and equipped to overcome any adversity,” she said. “If you change your thoughts, you can change your world.”
Jason De León spoke to a Mexican man before the election who asked if he thought a mass deportation was likely. Like most pundits and political analysts, De León, assistant professor at the University of Michigan and founder of the Undocumented Migration Project, couldn’t fathom a Donald Trump presidency. He told the man it was “an impossibility.”
Now, he’s eating his words.
Since the election results rolled in, undocumented U.S. immigrants and their sympathizers have had to accept the reality of President-elect Trump. For many of them, the election symbolized a possible revolution in policy, with their fates hanging in the balance.
Building a wall along the Mexican-American border was a focal point for Trump’s campaign, and the president-elect has promised to get tough on undocumented immigration to the interior when he takes the Oval Office in January.
Despite deporting 2.4 million undocumented immigrants between 2009 and 2014, President Barack Obama has been criticized by the GOP, and Trump especially, as being too easy on those who came to America "improperly," or without legal status.
An estimated 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants now live in the United States. On CBS' "60 Minutes," Trump said he plans to deport or incarcerate two to three million undocumented immigrants who have criminal records or are gang members or drug dealers.
The claim that there are up to three million undocumented immigrants who are dangerous criminals is an exaggeration, according to FackCheck.org. A 2013 federal report said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimated there were "1.9 million removable criminal aliens" in the U.S. But "criminal aliens" also includes green card holders or those on temporary visas who have committed a crime. The number of undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanor is closer to 690,000, according to a July 2015 report by the Migration Policy Institute.
“I don’t know how possible, whether he’s going to be able to do all of it. But certainly he can make an effort,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Improper entry into the United States is considered a misdemeanor and is punishable by up to six months imprisonment. Reentry is a felony, which means that anyone who tries to cross the border again after being deported has a criminal record. Many of those who attempt reentry want to reunite with their family despite American laws that restrict deportees from applying for visas for up to 20 years after their removal from the country.
Of the remaining undocumented immigrants without felonies, Trump said he would make a determination "after the border is secured and everything gets normalized."
He called those individuals "terrific people."
Andy J. Semotiuk, a U.S. and Canadian immigration lawyer who works out of Los Angeles and Toronto, said it may take politicians a while to get to immigration because “thankfully, we all know how slow government works.”
He hypothesized that the Trump administration will have to first focus its efforts on repealing the Affordable Care Act, reforming tax policies for businesses, and resolving existing wars in the Middle East.
A mass deportation that rid the country of all undocumented immigrants would require a lot of resources. "Deporting 11 million people is a mission impossible,” Semotiuk said. “It’s just a fact, whether you like it or not.”
Another factor that slows mass deportation: America has due process, which means anyone who’s been accused of illegal activity gets a trial.
“You can’t just pick someone up and send them back to Mexico,” Semotiuk said. “You have to give them a chance to explain themselves, or defend themselves.”
Trump would have to increase the number of judges, prosecutors, clerks, coordinators, and other officials in the court system to meet demand. That would be expensive and time-consuming. Semotiuk said that even if the accused immigrant cooperated completely with his or her trial and didn’t make any arguments to remain in the U.S., a court would at the most be able to process 10 cases a day. For two million cases, that’s 200,000, or about 548 years, of court days. Trying 11 million cases would require over a million court days.
“If a dictator was in charge of a country, even then it would be hard for someone to marshal all the resources,” Semotiuk said.
According to The Associated Press, the U.S. judicial branch now has a "backlog of more than half-a-million cases already pending in immigration court." The holding cells where undocumented immigrants stay until their hearings are also overfilled and overflowing, and immigrants have brought a lawsuit against the Border Patrol in Arizona because of the cells' crowded, unclean, and cold conditions. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security told the AP that there were 41,000 immigrants in detention centers across the U.S.
On CNN's "State of the Union," House Speaker Paul Ryan came out against erecting a deportation task force. He said that plans in Congress were to concentrate on securing the border, a virtual continuation of Obama’s policy.
Still, Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, is “confident that there will be a reduction in the size of the illegal population,” partly because “the career immigration personnel (will be) allowed to do their job,” and partly because undocumented immigrants, fearing arrest, will leave on their own. “Most people don’t want to be subject to enforcement,” she said. Mehlman called this exodus “induced voluntary compliance.”
But Vaughan emphasized that deportations won’t be cartoonish, with officials knocking on doors and rounding up undocumented immigrants in box cars.
Trump has also promised to get rid of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals system, Obama’s solution to protect immigrants who came over improperly as children. Mehlman called DACA an “inducement for illegal immigration” that “carves out a lone exception” to policy toward misdemeanors.
To repeal it, Trump wouldn’t need congressional support, just a stroke of his pen. Obama used an executive order to put DACA into practice in 2012, and it is not law. “He can definitely rescind that,” said Cesar Vargas, an undocumented immigrant in New York who fought for four years to become an attorney despite his legal status. Without DACA, undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children would not have exceptional means to petition to stay here.
Vargas tried to put a positive spin on Trump’s immigration reform, noting that the president-elect has claimed that he doesn’t want to deport people who have lived here for years. DACA was always meant to be temporary, Vargas said, and he’s hoping that Trump’s plans may actually help the immigrant community by creating a more direct path toward citizenship.
“It’s unpredictable,” he said. “So I think that while there is concern, there is an opportunity there.”
Meanwhile, Vargas is holding free consultations to inform undocumented people of resources at their disposal. For example, he spoke with a couple whose children are in the military -- if you’re a member of the service and your family is undocumented, you can request that they receive a special immigration status. He also said that for those in a healthy relationship with an American citizen, a green card marriage is a viable option.
Resource centers for undocumented immigrants are experiencing an influx of concerned people who fear deportation. The AP reports that phones are ringing off the hook at Chicago's National Immigrant Justice Center and the New York Legal Assistance Group as immigrants try to find ways to protect themselves before the President-elect takes office.
According to the AP, 740,000 young people who benefit from DACA have the "most urgent inquiries" about the effects of Trump's presidency.
"We're operating with a lot of unknowns, and a certain amount of fear comes with that," Vanessa Esparza-López, a managing attorney at the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center, told the AP.
Semotiuk remembered undocumented immigrants he had met over the years through his work. At first, he “had no sympathy,” but then he listened to why they were here.
“It’s worthwhile to get to know some of them… and once you get to know them, how they got to the United States, it’s one sad story,” he said.
Between 2007 and 2014, 164,000 Mexicans have been victims of homicide, Frontline reported. Many undocumented U.S. immigrants who come from Mexico are fleeing cartel violence in search of a better, safer life.
While undocumented immigrants come from around the world, during his campaign Trump zoomed in on the 59 percent who are originally from Mexico, calling them “rapists” and “killers” and posing them as threats to national security. In fact, the overwhelming majority of migrants coming through the border with Mexico have been people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the Obama administration said earlier this year.
De León said that in Michigan, there seems to be “a conflation between Latinos and undocumented people.”
“As a documented, overeducated male, I’m still a Latino,” he said. “I have never in my life feared for my safety -- the safety of my kids and my friends -- and I have in the last couple of days. I’ve never in my life felt afraid to speak Spanish in public until yesterday.”
Mayors of cities across the United States, from Los Angeles, to New York, to Burlington, Vermont, have declared their jurisdictions "sanctuaries" for immigrant communities. What the term "sanctuary" means varies by city. In some cases that means refusing to let ICE know when an undocumented immigrant is about to be released from custody.
Offering such shelter comes with possible retaliations, as Trump has threatened to pull federal funding from areas that don't follow his immigration policy.
Federal surveyors found an additional 36 million dead trees across California since its last aerial survey in May, bringing the total number of dead trees found in the last six years to over 102 million in the state's drought-stricken forests, the government on Friday.
Sixty-two million trees have died in 2016 alone, a 100 percent increase in dead trees across the state from 2015, according to a joint statement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service. Millions of additional trees are weakened and expected to die in the coming months and years, officials said.
"This is sad for the state," US Forest Service Tree Mortality specialist Stephanie Gomes said on Friday from her base in Vallejo, California. "Forests provide water, electricity and cleaner air for everyone in the state. This impacts everyone in California.
She is on a team that has been surveying the dead trees, and they all knew that there would be more to report to the public. Her team discovered that 36 million dead trees in the last five months, and 102 million dead trees have been tracked since 2010.
To that end, USDA spokesman Mike Illenberg said Friday in a phone interview from Washington, D.C, that the agency wants to re-classify large wildfires as natural disasters, to be able to draw from an emergency fund of federal money. Currently, the fires are fought with "restoration" money, Illenberg said.
“Instead of treating catastrophic wildfires as a normal agency expense," Illenberg said, "we must treat them more like other natural disasters, such as tornadoes or hurricanes.”
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Forest Service officials said finding this money is crucial if California residents don't want to be continually hammered and evacuated by devastating wildfires. This year, California had a record-setting wildfire season, officials said, with the Blue Cut fire in the Inland Empire alone scorching over 30,000 acres and triggering the evacuation of 80,000 people.
"These dead and dying trees continue to elevate the risk of wildfire, complicate our efforts to respond safely and effectively to fires when they do occur, and pose a host of threats to life and property across California," Vilsack said in a statement. "We can't break this cycle of diverting funds away from restoration work to fight the immediate threat of the large unpredictable fires caused by the fuel buildups themselves."
The majority of the 102 million dead trees are in ten counties in the southern and central Sierra Nevada region. The Forest Service also identified increasing mortality in the northern part of the state, including Siskiyou, Modoc, Plumas and Lassen counties.
They are dying, officials note, because of five consecutive years of severe drought in California, a dramatic rise in bark beetle infestation and warmer temperatures on the planet.
Illenberg said that by 2025, the cost of fire suppression is expected to grow to nearly $1.8 billion. And if nothing changes, he said, the Forest Service will be forced to take an additional $700 million over the next 10 years from all the other programs.
Buckingham Palace will receive a major facelift at a cost of £369 million ($458 million), officials revealed Friday.
Miles of aging cables, lead pipes and electrical wiring will be replaced at the London home of Queen Elizabeth II, many for the first time in 60 years.
The U.K. monarch will remain in residence as the work is carried out over several phases spread over a 10-year period, the statement said.
Although the cost given for the works is listed as $458 million, royal officials said that is expected to be reduced to $275 million when benefits, efficiencies and adjustments for inflation are taken into account.
The work will be funded by a temporary 10 percent uplift in the Sovereign Grant, the mechanism by which the U.K. government funds the official running costs of the queen's household, official royal travel and maintenance of occupied royal households.
A 91-year-old veteran who was discharged from the U.S. Air Force because of his sexual orientation filed a lawsuit in Federal Court on Friday seeking a change to his military record.
Hubert Edward Spires was discharged from the Air Force with an undesirable designation in 1948 because he is gay, according to the Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic.
Spires’ husband, who is a U.S. Army veteran, spoke on behalf of his partner of 58 years at a press conference at the Yale Law School because he is still recovering from pneumonia.
"Despite the discrimination I faced, I left the military with an honorable discharge," Spire’s husband David Rosenberg said. "It is an injustice that the military has treated Ed and me so differently, despite our equal honorable service."
In 2011, Spires became eligible to apply for a discharge upgrade a year after the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Clinton-era policy that banned gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. His application was denied twice, once in 2014 and again in 2016, Yale's VLSC said.
The Air Force cited the destruction of his military records in a 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis as the reason for not changing Spires' discharge status to honorable, according to the legal clinic.
"The treatment of him in denying an upgrade of his discharge simply adds to insult to injury, he has suffered too long," Senator Richard Blumenthal said at Friday’s press conference.
For decades, Spires did not discuss his service as a Chaplain’s Assistant at Texas Air Force base from 1946 to 1948.
"He avoided telling anyone of the inquisition he faced before superior officers when he was told to pack his bags and go home because he was gay," said Erin Baldwin, one of the law student interns representing Spires.
Spires, who is in poor health and nearly died of pneumonia several weeks ago, wishes to have a military burial — a benefit he is not entitled to because of his current undesirable discharge status, the clinic said.
"We hope in doing so the us military may send a message to other gay veterans that the service was appreciated and is recognized with equality under the law," Rosenberg said
A spokesman for the Department of Defense, Maj. Ben Sakrisson, provided general information on discharge updates but said "due to privacy laws, I cannot provide information on a particular individual's status."
Sakrisson provided a link to a letter sent to veterans, encouraging those who served and their families who may have been unjustly discharged to seek a correction.
For a moment on Friday, it looked like a slice of Santa Clara was covered in snow, and just in time for the holiday season.
Turns out the bubbling white froth was a sea of foam that spilled onto Martin Avenue and beyond, after a fire suppression system malfunctioned at an airplane hangar at San Jose Mineta International Airport.
The fire alarm at the Signature Flight Services hangar went off just after 11 a.m., according to San Jose Fire Department Chief Mitch Matlow. Soon after waves of foam covered cars and street signs.
The airplane hangar's fire suppression system is designed to fill the building with foam to knock down the fire. There was no fire at the building, Matlow said.
"It was an accidental discharge of the system," Matlow said. "Why the system went off here I don't know."
Authorities said the suds are not dangerous, but asked people to stay away because the foam could irritate their eyes.
While crews worked to clean the area, dozens of people who work nearby appreciated the distraction.
"Looks like snow time, Christmas time," Gerado Medel said.
One bicyclist rode through the snow, er, foam, for fun. And onlookers and camera crews descended on scene.
Instantly the jokes poured in with the hashtag "#FoamBlob" trending on Twitter. The San Francisco Chronicle called it "Foamnado," and Dennis Romero turned the mysterby blob into a political joke.
"Relax people," he tweeted. "The #BayAreaBlob is just the Trump nation slowly making America white again."
An off-duty police officer was shot while shielding his young son from gunfire along a North Philadelphia street Friday evening.
Angelo Romero, an officer in the department's 15th District, and the 2-year-old were standing along Parrish Street near 10th around 4:45 p.m. when two or three teens come around the corner with guns.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said the teens, who could be between 15 and 18 years old, began firing at each other.
Romero was struck by at least one bullet in the thumb, Ross said. Bullet fragments also peppered his legs and buttocks.
The officer, who was not armed, ran his son into a relative's home and tried to take himself to the hospital, Ross said. The boy was not physically injured.
A highway officer on patrol nearby rushed to the scene and took Romero to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
Ross said it appears Romero was caught in the crossfire and not the intended target.
"He was just so, so lucky. We are so glad that his 2-year-old was not struck and that he took immediate action to protect his son," Ross said.
"We've got these young guys out here with these guns, just wanting violence. It makes no sense," he said.
Investigators combed lawns for evidence using flashlights as twilight took hold over the neighborhood, which is made up of single-family and duplex homes owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority. The development, named Richard Allen Homes, is just south of Girard Avenue in lower North Philadelphia.
Officers identified several surveillance cameras in the area which they hope caught the shooting on video. Romero believes he can identify at least one of the suspects, Ross said. They remain at large.
Romero is in pain, but is expected to be OK, Ross said. He could be released from the hospital late Friday.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Philadelphia Police tipline at 215.686.TIPS.
Congress has been stuck in a numbing gridlock for six years, due to a Republican majority, Democratic White House and widening ideological gap between the parties.
But in Congress' first session since President-elect Donald Trump's victory, leaders in both parties were talking about immediate action, NBC News reported.
It just isn't clear on what.
Republicans are now in charge across the board, opening up the possibility of major legislation passing. But some Republican lawmakers opposed Trump and his policies have at times been vague, contradictory or extreme.
Now both parties can foresee a best-case scenario in which Trump pushes shared policy goals and a worst-case scenario where they are bitter political enemies.
President-elect Donald Trump's most powerful adversary in the Senate will be incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Both men appear to have at least one thing in common: they both rooted for the Democrat when he was up for elections from 1996-2010.
According to the Federal Election Commission's filings, Trump has given Schumer about $9,000 in political donations over a 14-year span. Trump's three oldest children, Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka have also donated a combined $6,800 to Schumer. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has given Schumer $4,000.
“The Trump family campaign contributions to Sen. Schumer – like most sizable campaign contributions – are often intended to curry access if not favor with a sitting lawmaker who has some oversight authority over their business interests,” said Craig Holman, a public affairs lobbyist with the government watchdog group Public Citizen. “Schumer has generally shown an independent streak not easily influenced by such contributions, but he is now in a situation of directly negotiating one-on-one with President-elect Trump and the Trump family.”
Holman said that if Schumer were to compromise with Trump those past contributions could give the appearance of "undue influence," adding that the U.S. senator from New York would do himself a great favor by returning the donations.
"Senator Schumer had no problem standing up to Trump during his campaign and will have no problem doing so in the future," Matt House, Senator Schumer's communications director said.
In April 2011, Trump went on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show to talk about his donations to Democrats when he was considering a run for the Oval Office five years ago, Politico reported. Up until that point, Trump had given the majority of his political donations to Democrats.
“I’ve contributed to Schumer ... I’ve known Schumer for many, many years,” Trump said. “And I have a good relationship with him. The fact is, that I think it is time that maybe we do all get along.”
Starting with the 2012 election cycle, however, Trump exclusively donated to Republicans at the federal level.
Just last month at the Al Smith dinner in New York, Trump jokingly made the remark that Schumer “used to love me when I was a Democrat.”
After Schumer was voted the senate minority leader on Wednesday, he told reporters that he plans to work with Trump when possible.
“When we can agree on issues, then we're going to work with them," Schumer said. "But I've also said to the president-elect on issues where we disagree, you can expect a strong and tough fight."
Wisconsin police say they have a suspect in the fatal beating of a Saudi college student more than two weeks ago, NBC News reported.
The Menomonie Police Department said Friday investigators have found no evidence indicating the death was a hate crime. Police are withholding the suspect's name until prosecutors decide whether to charge the suspect.
Hussain Saweed Alnahdi, 24, died after being beaten near a pizzeria in downtown Menomonie early Oct. 30. Alnahdi was from Saudi Arabia and was a junior majoring in business administration at University of Wisconsin-Stout.
UW-Stout spokesman Doug Mell thanked police for their efforts, and said it continues to send thoughts and prayers to Alnahdi's family and friends.
The cast of Broadway’s “Hamilton” spoke directly to Vice President-elect Mike Pence as he sat in the audience after a show Friday night, saying they hope the production inspired him to govern in a way that protects a diverse America -- a statement President-elect Donald Trump took issue with on Twitter Saturday morning.
"Vice President-elect Pence, we welcome you and truly thank you for joining us here tonight at Hamilton, we really do," said actor Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, with the cast assembled behind him.
"We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our unalienable rights, sir," said Dixon.
"But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us," he continued. "We truly thank you for sharing this show, this wonderful American story told by a diverse group of men, women of different colors, creeds and orientation."
The audience clapped and cheered as Dixon spoke. 'Hamilton' creator Lin-Manuel Miranda responded online later in the evening that he was proud of Dixon and the cast.
"Proud of @HamiltonMusical. Proud of @BrandonVDixon, for leading with love. And proud to remind you that ALL are welcome at the theater," he tweeted.
Trump responded to the cast on Twitter Saturday morning, claiming they “harassed” Pence.
In another tweet, Trump demanded the cast apologize for the statement.
Dixon responded to the President-elect on Twitter, writing he appreciated Mike Pence listening to the cast's message and told Trump that "conversation is not harassment."
Pence also drew boos from the audience before the show as he was taking his seat in the theater.
Video posted to social media shows the audience at the Broadway show reacting boisterously as Pence walked into the theater with Secret Service in tow.
"Here's Pence getting booed as he gets to his seats at Hamilton," tweeted an audience member who captured the loud reaction on video.
Ron Rawlings, who was visiting from Dallas, Texas, later told NBC 4 New York, "Everything was calm, and then we heard almost a hysterical booing, went on for a long time. As my daughter and I stood up to see what was going on, we saw Vice President-elect Pence coming in."
"It was the most gross display of disrespect I've ever seen. It was awful," Rawlings continued.
Rawlings said of Pence's reaction: "He was very dignified, and there were a couple of people that showed support, he acknowledged them. He took his seat, he was very kind, he was very gracious."
Hannah Blau, visiting from Columbus, Ohio, said, "Some people were clapping, but the boos were overwhelming." She added that she thought it was "cool" that "people are still vocalizing their opposition."
"I thought LeBron Game 6 in Boston was the emotionally charged performance until this Hamilton performance with Mike Pence in audience," tweeted Noah Coslov, a digital sports editor.
Iraqi troops faced stiff resistance Saturday from Islamic State militants as they pushed deeper into eastern Mosul, backed by aerial support from the U.S.-led international coalition, a senior military commander said.
At dawn, troops moved into the Muharabeen and Ulama neighborhoods after fully liberating the adjacent Tahrir neighborhood on Friday, said Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi of the Iraqi special forces. Al-Aridi said IS militants were fighting back with snipers, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds.
Thick black columns of smoke were seen billowing from the two areas, while dozens of civilians were seen fleeing to government-controlled areas. Shortly before noon, a suicide bomber emerged from a house in the Tahrir neighborhood and attacked security forces, wounding four troops. Another suicide car bomber hit the troops in Aden neighborhood afternoon, killing a soldier and wounding three others.
Late on Friday, a group of IS militants attacked the village of Imam Gharbi south of Mosul, controlling most of it for hours before airstrikes from the U.S.-led international coalition were called in, an officer said. The clashes and multiple suicide bombings left three policemen dead, including an officer, and four others wounded, he said. Nine IS fighters were killed, he added. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to brief media.
To the west of Mosul, government-sanctioned Shiite militias took full control of the Tal Afar military airfield Friday night, said Jaafar al-Husseini, spokesman for the influential Hezbollah Brigades. Al-Husseini said the clashes almost destroyed the airport and that it will be an important launching pad for the troops in their advance.
The extremist group captured Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, in the summer of 2014.
The offensive to retake the city, which was launched on Oct. 17, is the biggest military operation in Iraq since American troops left in 2011. If successful, the retaking of Mosul would be the strongest blow dealt to IS' self-styled caliphate stretching into Syria. The Shiite militias are leading an assault to drive IS from Tal Afar, which had a majority Shiite population before it fell to the militants in the summer of 2014, and to cut IS supply lines linking Mosul to Syria.
According to the United Nations, more than 56,000 civilians have been forced from their homes since the operation began out of nearly 1.5 million civilians living in and around Mosul.
In the heavily damaged town of Bashiqa, about 13 kilometers (8 miles) northeast of Mosul's outskirts, Christians rang the bells of Saint George's church for the first time to celebrate its liberation from IS, which was driven out earlier this month. Much of the town has been reduced to rubble from artillery strikes and air raids.
Parishioners, peshmerga fighters and Kurdish officials sang hymns and played band music as they walked in procession into the church, which was heavily vandalized by IS fighters. Men prepared a large cross to mount on the rooftop, replacing one destroyed by the extremists.
"The first thing they did was break the cross, we want to replace it and tell Daesh that the cross is still here and we are not leaving at all," said Rev. Afram al-Khoury Benyamen, using the Arabic acronym to refer to the group.
Bullet holes marked the walls inside the church courtyard, strewn with garbage and graffiti left by the extremists, including some of their names. Much of the church's inside had been smashed, with rubble strewn across the ground and holy inscriptions covered with black paint. In an upper level, pews had been pushed back to make room for cushions and carpet beneath a broken window that had been used as a sniper's nest, marked out by scattered spent bullet casings.
Broken brass instruments and a torn bagpipe from the church's boy scout band lay scattered across the site, with pills and syringes on the floor in one area. The church graveyard was desecrated, with graves broken into and tombstones smashed and painted over.
"It's good they're gone but how happy can we be — look at this mess," said 22-year old Youssef Ragheed, a drummer from the band who had fled the town when IS controlled it, but returned for Saturday's ceremony.
The grandson of U.S. Rep. Danny Davis died after he was shot Friday evening in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, a spokesperson for the congressman told NBC 5.
About 6:45 p.m., the boy, 14, was inside his home in the 5600 block of South Princeton Avenue when a group of males forced their way inside, police said. During a dispute that followed, possibly over gym shoes, one of the males pulled out a gun and shot the teen in the head, police said.
"We have very good leads on suspects and we'll be following those throughout the night," Anthony Guglielmi, a Chicago Police Department spokesman, said in an email.
Family identified the boy as Jovan Wilson, a sophmore at Perspectives Charter School, whose grades had recently improved.
Davis gave a statement hours after the shooting, confirming that his grandson had been killed.
"I do know that I grieve for my family," he said. "I grieve for the young man who pulled the trigger, I grieve for his family, his parents, his friends, some of whom will never see him again."
Davis said two of Wilson's brothers, 14 and 8, a sister, 16, and an uncle were all in the home at the time of the shooting. Wilson's mother had left the house to get some food, he said.
Davis questioned where the gun came from and how the shooter was able to obtain it. He said better education, supervision and parenting might have prevented his grandson's killing.
"Here he was in the house, in his home, minding his own business and some intruders would come and snuff his life away," Davis said.
Stacey Wilson, father of the slain teen, also spoke of the emotional strife he and his family were enduring.
"I'm very saddened and I'm very hurt right now," he said. "I have other children and I need to be strong for them."
Area South detectives were investigating Friday night.
Thousands of mourners — including first lady Michelle Obama — remembered and celebrated veteran Washington journalist Gwen Ifill on Saturday, recalling her as a standard bearer, cherished friend, devoted mentor and woman of abiding faith.
Ifill died Monday at 61 after a yearlong battle with cancer. Mrs. Obama did not speak at the service, but several journalists and political figures offered reflections.
"We didn't look like other anchor pairs — and we loved that," said Judy Woodruff, half of the history-making team that became the first female co-anchors of a major news broadcast in 2013. The two co-hosted PBS' "NewsHour." Woodruff added that Ifill is needed "more than ever."
"Never have we faced tougher challenges, and no one would've risen to them better," she said. Ifill, she added, will "be our compass."
Former Attorney General Eric Holder read a letter from President Barack Obama, who was in Peru. Holder likened Ifill to "a comet" and challenged the colleagues she leaves behind to honor her legacy with their work by holding those in power accountable.
"Will you cower? Will you normalize that which is anything but?" Holder asked in a veiled reference to the incoming administration of Donald Trump.
The service, held at the historic Metropolitan A.M.E. Church — where Ifill was a longtime member — was also a grand display of her faith and roots as the daughter of Caribbean immigrants whose father was a leader of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Her pastor of many years, Bishop James L. Davis, recalled Ifill as "brilliance cloaked in humility."
A former reporter for The New York Times and The Washington Post, Ifill transitioned to television in the 1990s, covering politics and Congress for NBC News. She moved to PBS in 1999 as host of "Washington Week" and also worked for "NewsHour." She moderated vice presidential debates in 2004 and 2008.
John Dickerson, host of CBS' "Face the Nation" who joined Ifill as a regular panelist on "Washington Week," said Ifill "wore her grace like a garment," but added her infectious laugh came with a withering scowl.
"I'm not going to say it in church, but there's a very specific word for what Gwen could detect," Dickerson said.
The pews were filled with journalists, politicians, her mentees, family and friends, including civil rights attorney Vernon Jordan, interim Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, veteran journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, New York Times columnist David Brooks, former CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, Donald Trump surrogate Omarosa Manigault, and NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilynn Ifill, the journalist's younger cousin.
"She was the shining star in our family," Sherrilynn Ifill said of Gwen. "She was the most American of success stories. Her life and her work made this country better. She did the hard work for us for so long ... It's time to take her example and do what she did."
Ifill took a leave from "NewsHour" last spring for health reasons, but kept the details of her illness private.
Donald Trump's criticism of the "Hamilton" cast on Twitter sparked debate on social media Saturday about the president-elect's motives for the tweets and the Broadway show's decision to address Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
The cast spoke directly to Pence as he sat in the audience after a show Friday night, saying they hope the production inspired him to govern in a way that protects a diverse America.
"We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our unalienable rights, sir," said actor Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, with the cast assembled behind him.
Trump accused the cast of "harassing" Pence and demanded an apology on Twitter Saturday morning.
Trump's supporters called for a boycott of the wildly-popular Broadway show on social media. The hashtag #boycotthamilton began trending on Twitter Saturday afternoon.
But, Trump's critics argued his tweets were a smokescreen to distract the media's attention from his settlement of the lawsuits brought against Trump University.
Other Twitter users chose no side in the debate, but looked to benefit if #boycotthamilton actually spread off Twitter.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg urged world leaders meeting in Peru on Saturday to help get more people online to improve global living standards while separately announcing new measures to cut down on fake news stories on the social network that some suggest could have helped sway the U.S. presidential election.
The Facebook founder took on the role of an evangelist for "connectivity" as he spoke at an Asian-Pacific trade summit, lamenting that half the world has no access to the online world and is being deprived of its economic potential as well as advances in science, education and medicine. He urged leaders to work with his company and others to close that gap.
"If we can connect the 4 billion people who aren't connected we can lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty," Zuckerberg said as he addressed business and government leaders at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum.
But as he was promoting the benefits of the online world in the speech, he took to his Facebook page to address one of the downsides of the internet: the rapid dissemination of bogus news stories on social networks.
Zuckerberg said in a post late Friday that his company was taking measures to curb what he said was a "relatively small" percentage of deliberately false stories. The measures include developing new tools to detect and classify "misinformation" and to make it easier for users to report the material.
He said the company also is looking into the possibility of working with established fact-checking organizations to evaluate content and into the feasibility of warning labels for stories flagged as false.
Critics have complained that a surge of fake news stories on Facebook may have swayed some voters to back President-elect Donald Trump. The company said on Monday that it was clarifying its advertising policy to emphasize that it won't display ads — thus cutting revenue — for sites that run information that is "illegal, misleading or deceptive, which includes fake news." That followed a similar step by Google, which acknowledged that it had let a false article about the election results slip into its list of recommended news stories.
"The bottom line is: we take misinformation seriously," the Facebook CEO said in his post. "Our goal is to connect people with the stories they find most meaningful, and we know people want accurate information.
Zuckerberg's comments came after President Barack Obama, who is also attending the APEC summit, and others have been sharply critical of the spread of fake news online.
In a news conference Thursday in Berlin, Obama called bogus stories disseminated on Facebook and other social media platforms a threat to democracy. The president decried "an age where there's so much active misinformation and it's packaged very well and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television."
Zuckerberg called the problem "complex, both technically and philosophically." It is also sensitive issue for a company that does not want to censor content such as legitimate political satire that some people find offensive. Facebook sees itself not as a traditional publisher, but as a facilitator of global communication.
It was that lofty vision of the company that was on display as Zuckerberg spoke at the APEC forum.
He described Facebook efforts in artificial intelligence programs that could lead to advancements in medicine and education, as well as a high-altitude solar-powered drone, still in the development stage, to provide online access to places with none. He also described a program to work with local operators around the world to provide free basic internet.
"We can't afford to leave anyone behind," he said.
Two teenage suspects have been charged in the fatal shooting of U.S. Rep. Danny Davis' grandson, Chicago police announced Sunday.
A 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl were each charged with first degree murder, according to a release, in connection with the death of 14-year-old Javon Wilson.
Wilson was shot and killed Friday evening in a "dispute over gym shoes," according to Chicago police. He was inside his home in the 5600 block of South Princeton Avenue in the Englewood neighborhood on the city's South Side around 6:45 p.m. Friday when two teenagers forced their way inside, authorities said.
During a confrontation that followed, police said one of the teens pulled out a gun and shot Wilson in the head. Officials initially investigated the incident as a home invasion, but CPD spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi tweeted Saturday morning that the shooting was "not random," confirming that it was a dispute over shoes.
Wilson was a sophmore at Perspectives Charter School whose grades had recently improved, according to his family.
"I do know that I grieve for my family," Davis said in a news conference after the shooting. "I grieve for the young man who pulled the trigger, I grieve for his family, his parents, his friends, some of whom will never see him again."
Davis said two of Wilson's brothers, ages 14 and 8, a 16-year-old sister and an uncle were all in the home at the time of the shooting, while his mother had left the house to get some food.
"Here he was in the house, in his home, minding his own business and some intruders would come and snuff his life away," Davis said, adding that better education, supervision and parenting might have prevented the killing.
