Saturday, Feb 21st
Last update02:37:51 AM GMT
We first dubbed President Donald Trump, then just a candidate, as “King of Whoppers” in our annual roundup of notable false claims for 2015.
He dominated our list that year – and again in 2016 – but there was still plenty of room for others. This year? The takeover is complete.
In his first year as president, Trump used his bully pulpit and Twitter account to fuel conspiracy theories, level unsubstantiated accusations and issue easily debunked boasts about his accomplishments.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) needs to implement an Obama-era rule on January 1, 2018 that enables low-income people to afford housing in high-opportunity areas with better schools, a federal judge ordered Saturday.
Under the leadership of Secretary Ben Carson, HUD announced in August it was delaying the rule for two years, saying the agency needed to further evaluate it. Several civil rights organizations — including the Legal Defense Fund — immediately filed a lawsuit against the agency’s decision. Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled against HUD Saturday evening, saying it did not provide “notice and comment or particularized evidentiary findings” to substantiate delaying the rule.
The rich aren’t just getting richer — they’re getting much, much richer.
Citing its Billionaires Index, Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the world’s 500 wealthiest people became almost $1 trillion richer ― that’s $1,000,000,000,000 ― in 2017, thanks largely to booming stock markets. For comparison, that’s over four times as much wealth as they gained last year.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, saw the biggest gain in wealth in 2017. He added $34.2 billion to his net worth, which now totals $100 billion.
You may have heard the expression: It's not the heat, it's the humidity. Researchers seem to agree, and are now warning that humidity is likely to increase the threat to human health from climate change-related temperature hikes in certain parts of the world.
Those areas include the southeastern United States, the Amazon, western and central Africa, southern areas of the Mideast and Arabian peninsula, northern India and eastern China, the study authors said.
An organization representing current and former FBI agents on Tuesday said it received more than $140,000 in donations to the group's two charities, amid ongoing criticism directed at the agency by President Trump.
The FBI Agents Association tweeted on Tuesday that the charitable donations will go toward improving the lives of the children of deceased FBI agents.
"This month, more than 2,000 donors contributed over $140,000 to our two charitable funds. This money will send the children of deceased Agents to college and help FBI families in need," the association tweeted.
Days before heading home for the holidays, Trump told White House reporters that the tax bill would be "one of the great Christmas gifts to middle-income people." However, Mar-a-lago's exclusive dinner guests would have paid a $200,000 initiation fee and $14,000 in annual dues to Trump's golf club and resort.
In a fit of anger during a June cabinet meeting in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump said Haitians entering the U.S. "all have AIDS" and that Nigerians would never "go back to their huts" once they saw America, according to The New York Times, which reported the comments in a bombshell article it published Saturday.
The White House denied the former reality TV star made the controversial remarks. “General Kelly, General McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Nielsen and all other senior staff actually in the meeting deny these outrageous claims,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told The New York Times. "It's both sad and telling The New York Times would print the lies of their anonymous ‘sources’ anyway."
Former NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless, the first person to fly untethered in space, died this week at 80 years old, the agency said Friday.
McCandless, who died Thursday, became the first astronaut to fly in space without being harnessed to a space vessel on Feb. 7, 1984, while on a mission aboard the space shuttle Challenger. Other astronauts on the mission used a 70mm camera to capture the moment in a now-iconic photograph, NASA said in a release.
More than 100 people have been killed and scores are missing in southern Philippines after Tropical Storm Tembin triggered mud slides and flash floods.
The storm hit the country's second largest island, Mindanao, on Friday, bringing torrential rain and winds of 80 kilometres per hour.
"We're really on our toes right now," Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippines Red Cross told Al Jazeera on Saturday. "And we're trying to figure out how to give help to so many people that are really in danger right now."
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