WASHINGTON: On the eve of almost-certain impeachment, President Donald Trump fired off a furious letter Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denouncing the "vicious crusade” against him, while Democrats amassed the votes they needed and Republicans looked ahead, vowing to defend Trump at next month's Senate trial.
Trump, who would be just the third US president to be impeached, acknowledged he was powerless to stop Wednesday's vote. He appeared to intend his lengthy, accusatory message less for Pelosi than for the broad audience of citizens — including 2020 voters — watching history unfolding on Capitol Hill.
He accused the Democrats of acting out of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” still smarting from their 2016 election losses. "You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish, personal political and partisan gain.”
Portraying himself as a blameless victim, as he often does, Trump compared the impeachment inquiry to the "Salem Witch Trials." Asked later if he bore any responsibility for the proceedings, he said, “No, I don’t think any. Zero, to put it mildly.”
Pelosi, who warned earlier this year against pursuing a strictly partisan impeachment, nonetheless has the numbers to approve it. According to a tally compiled by The Associated Press, Trump is on track to be formally charged by a House majority on Wednesday.
“Very sadly, the facts have made clear that the President abused his power for his own personal, political benefit and that he obstructed Congress,” Pelosi wrote to colleagues. “In America, no one is above the law.”
“During this very prayerful moment in our nation’s history, we must honor our oath to support and defend our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic," she said.
No Republicans have indicated they will support the the two articles of impeachment, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, setting up a close-to-party-line vote.
One by one, centrist Democratic lawmakers, including many first-term freshmen who built the House majority and could risk their reelection in districts where the president is popular, announced they would vote to impeach.
Rep. Abby Finkenauer, D-Iowa, referred to the oath she took in January as she was sworn into office as guiding her decision. She announced support for both articles of impeachment to “honor my duty to defend our Constitution and democracy from abuse of power at the highest levels.”
Republicans disagreed, firmly.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set the partisan tone for the next step, as attention will shift to the Senate which, under the Constitution, is required to hold a trial on the charges. That trial is expected to begin in January.
“I'm not an impartial juror,” McConnell declared. The Republican-majority chamber is all but sure to acquit the president.
Trump is accused of abusing his presidential power in a July phone call in which he asked the newly elected president of Ukraine, a US ally facing an aggressive Russia at its border, to “do us a favor” by investigating Democrats, including his potential 2020 rival Joe Biden. At the time, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was hoping for a coveted White House meeting that would bolster his standing with Ukraine's most important ally. He also was counting on nearly $400 million in military aid Congress had approved to counter Russia. The White House had put the money on hold — as leverage, the Democrats say.
In his letter on Tuesday, Trump defended his “absolutely perfect” phone call that sparked the impeachment inquiry. He also tried to justify anew the Ukrainian investigations he wanted into Biden. And he disputed the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress’ investigation.
Conceding the House vote, he said he wanted to set his words down “for the purpose of history.”
Asked on CNN about Trump's lengthy complaints about his treatment, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California dismissed what he called a ”childish, whiny letter."
House Democrats continued to march toward Wednesday's debate and votes.
“It's unfortunate that we have to be here today, but the actions of the president of the United States make that necessary,” said Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., gaveling the Rules Committee, which met through the day, with lawmakers arguing over the parameters for the debate.
McGovern said, “Every day we let President Trump act like the law doesn’t apply to him, we move a little closer” to rule by dictators.
The top committee Republican, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said, “When half of Americans are telling you what you are doing is wrong, you should listen."
Lawmakers crossing party lines face consequences. One freshman Democrat, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, is indicating he will switch parties to become a Republican after opposing impeachment. Earlier this year, Michigan conservative Rep. Justin Amash left the GOP when he favored impeachment.
One new Democratic congressman, Jared Golden of Maine, said he would vote to impeach on abuse of power but not obstruction.
Hoping to dispatch with lengthy Senate proceedings, McConnell rejected Senate Democrats' push for fresh impeachment testimony and made a last-ditch plea that House Democrats “turn back from the cliff" of Wednesday's expected vote.
“Impeachment is a political decision,” McConnell said. "The House made a partisan political decision to impeach. I would anticipate we will have a largely partisan outcome in the Senate. I’m not impartial about this at all.''
McConnell's remarks Tuesday effectively slapped the door shut on negotiations for a deal proposed by the Democratic leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, who wants to call top White House officials for the Senate trial.
Schumer's proposal was the first overture in what were expected to be negotiations between the two leaders. Trump wants a relatively broad, perhaps showy, Senate proceeding to not only acquit but also vindicate him of the impeachment charges.
McConnell and most other GOP senators prefer a swift trial to move on from impeachment. Many centrist House Democrats also are ready to vote and move on. Still, Schumer wants to hear from John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney and other current and former Trump officials who were instructed by the president not to appear in the House proceedings.
“Why is the leader, why is the president so afraid to have these witnesses come testify?” asked Schumer from the Senate floor. “They certainly ought to be heard.”
Trump “betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections,” the impeachment resolution says. ”President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.”
Trump has promoted lawyer Rudy Giuliani's investigation of Biden and a widely debunked theory that it was actually Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election, a conspiracy-laden idea that most other Republicans have actively avoided.
House nears impeachment as Trump decries ‘vicious crusade’
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House nears impeachment as Trump decries ‘vicious crusade’
- Trump, who would be just the third US president to be impeached, acknowledged he was powerless to stop Wednesday's vote
- No Republicans have indicated they will support the the two articles of impeachment, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress
South Korea to release preliminary report of Jeju Air crash by Monday
- One area under investigation is what role a bird strike played in the Dec. 29 crash of flight 7C2216
- It will take several months to analyze and verify flight data and cockpit voice recordings
SEOUL: South Korea will release by Monday a preliminary report on last month’s Jeju Air plane crash that killed 179 people, the deadliest air disaster on the nation’s soil, the transport ministry said on Saturday.
One area under investigation is what role a bird strike played in the Dec. 29 crash of flight 7C2216 as it arrived at Muan International Airport from Bangkok, according to a ministry statement.
The report will be sent to the International Civil Aviation Organization as well as the United States, France and Thailand, the ministry said. Seoul has been cooperating with investigators from the US National Transportation Safety Board and France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety.
It will take several months to analyze and verify flight data and cockpit voice recordings, which stopped recording four minutes and seven seconds before the crash, and communication recordings with the control tower, the ministry said.
At 08:58:11 a.m., the pilots discussed birds flying under the Boeing 737-800, then declared mayday at 08:58:56, reporting a bird strike while the plane was on a go-around, the statement said. Airport CCTV footage also showed the plane making “contact” with birds during the go-around, it said.
Previously the ministry had said the pilots issued the distress signal due to bird strikes before going around.
The jet crashed at 9:02:57 a.m., slamming into an embankment and bursting into flames that killed everyone aboard except for two crew members in the tail section.
The surveillance footage was taken from too far away to see if there was a spark from the bird strike but it “confirmed the plane making contact with birds, though the exact time is unclear,” a ministry official told Reuters.
Duck feathers and blood were found in both of the plane’s GE Aerospace engines, the ministry said.
The ministry said it would conduct a separate analysis of the role of the concrete embankment that supported navigation antennas called “localizers.” The ministry said on Wednesday that it would remove the embankment, which experts said likely made the disaster more deadly.
India probes mystery illness after 17 die: reports
SRINAGAR: Authorities in India-administered Jammu and Kashmir were investigating a mysterious disease that has claimed the lives of 17 people, local media reports said Saturday.
The deaths, including those of 13 children, have occurred in the remote village of Badhaal in Jammu’s Rajouri area since early December.
The village was declared a containment zone earlier this week with around 230 people quarantined, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
All of the fatalities had damage to the brain and nervous system, Amarjeet Singh Bhatia, who heads Rajouri’s government medical college, said.
“The winter vacations have also been canceled to deal with the medical alert situation,” PTI quoted Bhatia as saying.
The victims were members of three related families.
The federal government has launched an investigation with health minister Jitendra Singh saying an initial probe suggested the deaths were “not due to any infection, virus or bacteria but rather a toxin.”
“There is a long series of toxins being tested. I believe a solution will be found soon. Additionally, if there was any mischief or malicious activity, that is also being investigated,” PTI quoted Singh as saying.
In a separate medical incident, authorities in the western city of Pune recorded at least 73 cases of a rare nerve disorder.
Those infected with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) include 26 women and 14 of the patients are on ventilator support, PTI quoted an official as saying.
In GBS, a person’s immune system attacks the peripheral nerves, according to the World Health Organization.
The syndrome can impact nerves that control muscle movement which may lead to muscle weakness, loss of sensation in the legs of arms and those infected can face trouble swallowing and breathing.
Apartment building collapses in central Turkiye, trapping 2 people
ISTANBUL: Rescuers were battling to reach two people trapped under a collapsed apartment building in central Turkiye on Saturday, officials said, with three others had already been rescued. No deaths were reported.
The collapse comes as there is renewed focus on building safety following the deaths of 78 people in a hotel fire Tuesday.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 79 people were registered as living in the four-story apartment block in the city of Konya, some 260 kilometers (160 miles) south of the capital Ankara.
TV images showed emergency workers sifting through a large pile of rubble Saturday morning following the building’s collapse Friday evening.
Those remaining under the debris were Syrian nationals, Yerlikaya said, adding that the cause of the building collapse was not immediately known. “If there is a fault, negligence or anything else, we will learn it together,” he told journalists.
The incident occurred just three days after a fire ripped through a 12-story hotel at a ski resort in northwestern Turkiye, killing 78 people. The investigation into the blaze is examining whether proper fire prevention measures were in place.
Questions over building safety have resurfaced two weeks before the second anniversary of an earthquake that hit southern Turkiye and north Syria, killing more than 59,000. The high death toll was due in part to building safety regulations being ignored.
In 2004, a 12-story apartment building collapsed in Konya, claiming the lives of 92 people and injuring some 30 others. Structural flaws and negligence were blamed for the collapse.
Nearly 250 million children missed school last year due to extreme weather— UNICEF
- Heatwaves, cyclones and other extreme weather interrupted schools in 85 countries in 2024, says report
- Around 74 percent of the total children affected in 2024 were in middle- and low-income countries, says UNICEF
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: At least 242 million children in 85 countries had their schooling interrupted last year because of heatwaves, cyclones, flooding and other extreme weather, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a new report Friday.
UNICEF said it amounted to one in seven school-going children across the world being kept out of class at some point in 2024 because of climate hazards.
The report also outlined how some countries saw hundreds of their schools destroyed by weather, with low-income nations in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa hit especially hard.
But other regions weren’t spared the extreme weather, as torrential rains and floods in Italy near the end of the year disrupted school for more than 900,000 children. Thousands had their classes halted after catastrophic flooding in Spain.
While southern Europe dealt with deadly floods and Asia and Africa had flooding and cyclones, heatwaves were “the predominant climate hazard shuttering schools last year,” UNICEF said, as the earth recorded its hottest year ever.
More than 118 million children had their schooling interrupted in April alone, UNICEF said, as large parts of the Middle East and Asia, from Gaza in the west to the Philippines in the southeast, experienced a sizzling weekslong heatwave with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
“Children are more vulnerable to the impacts of weather-related crises, including stronger and more frequent heatwaves, storms, droughts and flooding,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “Children’s bodies are uniquely vulnerable. They heat up faster, they sweat less efficiently, and cool down more slowly than adults. Children cannot concentrate in classrooms that offer no respite from sweltering heat, and they cannot get to school if the path is flooded, or if schools are washed away.”
Around 74 percent of the children affected in 2024 were in middle- and low-income countries, showing how climatic extremes continue to have a devastating impact in the poorest countries. Flooding ruined more than 400 schools in Pakistan in April. Afghanistan had heatwaves followed by severe flooding that destroyed over 110 schools in May, UNICEF said.
Months of drought in southern Africa exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon threatened the schooling and futures of millions of children.
And the crises showed little sign of abating. The poor French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean off Africa was left in ruins by Cyclone Chido in December and hit again by Tropical Storm Dikeledi this month, leaving children across the islands out of school for six weeks.
Cyclone Chido also destroyed more than 330 schools and three regional education departments in Mozambique on the African mainland, where access to education is already a deep problem.
UNICEF said the world’s schools and education systems “are largely ill-equipped” to deal with the effects of extreme weather.
US migrant deportation flights arrive in Latin America
- A total of 265 Guatemalans arrived on three flights – two operated by the military, and one a charter
- Donald Trump promised a crackdown on illegal immigration during the election campaign
GUATEMALA CITY: US military planes carrying dozens of expelled migrants arrived in Guatemala, authorities said Friday, as President Donald Trump moved to crack down on illegal immigration.
A total of 265 Guatemalans arrived on three flights — two operated by the military, and one a charter, the Central American country’s migration institute said, updating earlier figures.
Washington also sent four deportation flights to Mexico on Thursday, the White House press secretary said on X, despite multiple US media reports that authorities there had turned at least one plane back.
The Mexican government has not confirmed either the arrival of flights or any agreement to receive a specific number of planes with deportees.
But Mexico’s foreign ministry said Friday it was ready to work with Washington over the deportation of its citizens, saying the country would “always accept the arrival of Mexicans to our territory with open arms.”
The flights came as the White House said it had arrested more than a thousand people in two days with hundreds deported by military aircraft, saying that “the largest massive deportation operation in history is well underway.”
Some 538 illegal immigrant “criminals” were arrested Thursday, it said, followed by another 593 on Friday.
By comparison, under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden deportation flights were carried out regularly, with a total of 270,000 deportations in 2024 — a 10-year record — and 113,400 arrests, making an average of 310 per day.
The Guatemalan government did not confirm whether any of the migrants arrested this week were among the deportees that arrived Friday.
“These are flights that took place after Trump took office,” an official in the Guatemalan vice president’s office said.
A Pentagon source said that “overnight, two DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft conducted repatriation flights from the US to Guatemala.”
Early Friday the White House posted an image on X of men in shackles being marched into a military aircraft, with the caption: “Deportation flights have begun.”
And Trump told reporters that the flights were to get “the bad, hard criminals out.”
“Murderers, people that have been as bad as you get. As bad as anybody you’ve seen,” he said.
Friday’s deportees were taken to a reception center at an air force base in Guatemala’s capital, away from the media.
Trump promised a crackdown on illegal immigration during the election campaign and began his second term with a flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling entry to the United States.
On his first day in office he signed orders declaring a “national emergency” at the southern border and announced the deployment of more troops to the area while vowing to deport “criminal aliens.”
His administration said it would also reinstate a “Remain in Mexico” policy under which people who apply to enter the United States from Mexico must remain there until their application has been decided.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Friday on X that program had been reinstated, and that Mexico had deployed some 30,000 National Guard troops to its border.
The Mexican foreign ministry did not confirm either claim in its statement.
The White House has also halted an asylum program for people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Central and South America, leaving thousands of people stranded on the Mexican side of the border.
