5: HERE’S WHY BILL BARR IS FREAKING OUT OVER HIS UPCOMING HOUSE TESTIMONY
WASHINGTON — High-profile Congressional hearings have a way of degenerating into unruly spectacle, with members using their five minutes to grandstand for cable news instead of asking detailed questions on the topic at hand.
That may be just how Attorney General William Barr likes it.
Barr is threatening to bail on his scheduled appearance Thursday to discuss Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report after House Democrats proposed a format that would differ from typical hearings.
Vice News
4: Venezuela in crisis: All the latest updates
Venezuela has plunged into a major political crisis amid a growing row over President Nicolas Maduro’s future as the country’s leader.
Maduro started a second term on January 10, following a widely boycotted election last year that many foreign governments refused to recognise.
On January 23, Juan Guaido, leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, declared himself interim president.
Shortly after Guaido took an oath swearing himself in, US President Donald Trump publicly recognised him as the country’s leader.
Maduro accused Guaido of staging a coup and ordered his arrest.
Aljazeera
3:ELIZABETH WARREN CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION INTO MONITORING OF FAMILY SEPARATION PROTESTS
MASSACHUSETTS SENATOR and presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren is calling on the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security to open an internal investigation following revelations that a private intelligence firm provided the law enforcement agency with information on hundreds of protests against the Trump administration’s policy of family separation.
“This most recent reporting raises questions about the government surveillance of Americans exercising their constitutional rights to organize peacefully and protest a cruel and unjust policy that does not make America safer or improve our immigration system and asylum process,” Warren wrote in a letter to DHS acting inspector general John V. Kelly and shared with The Intercept Tuesday.
Documents published by The Intercept on Monday showed that LookingGlass Cyber Solutions, a Virginia-based firm, provided DHS with a list of more than 600 family separation protests across the country last June, pulling together the Facebook IDs and physical addresses of the demonstrations. A “Threat Analyst” shared the information with a network of state-level law enforcement fusion centers. It was also picked up by DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which then disseminated to staff, allowing the information to filter down to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the field.
The Intercept
2: Angela Davis & Barbara Ransby: We Stand with Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Courageous, Bold Black Woman
Two of the founders of Black Lives Matter, as well as professor Angela Davis and scores of other black women, are holding a rally today on Capitol Hill to defend Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and to urge Congress to censure President Trump for his attacks on her. Omar made history earlier this year when she and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan became the first Muslim women in Congress. She is also the first member of Congress to wear a hijab. Omar, who was born in Somalia and came to the United States as a refugee, has been at the center of numerous right-wing attacks since taking office. Omar recently said death threats against her have spiked in number since President Trump tweeted a video juxtaposing her image with footage of the 9/11 attacks. We speak to the academic and activist Angela Davis, as well as Barbara Ransby, historian, author, activist adviser to the Movement for Black Lives and one of the planners behind Black Women in Defense of Ilhan Omar.
Democracy Now
1: Trump not expected to address parliament during UK state visit
