A former Army Special Forces officer is accusing retired Marine General James Mattis, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be defense secretary, of “leaving my men to die” after they were hit by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2001.
Mattis has not commented publicly on the incident, which was chronicled in a 2011 New York Times bestselling book, “The Only Thing Worth Dying For,” by Eric Blehm. The book portrays Mattis as stubbornly unwilling to help the Green Berets.
His actions, which were not formally investigated at the time, are now likely to get far more scrutiny during the retired general’s Senate confirmation process.
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James M. Mattis (2R), U.S. Marine General, aboard the USS Peleliu in 2001. JIM HOLLANDER / EPA
More than 2,300 American scientists, including 22 Nobel Prize winners, issued an open letter to President-elect Donald Trump and Congress Wednesday, urging them to respect science.
They are especially worried about government interference in their work and about policies that could reject scientific fact — notably climate science.
“From disease outbreaks to climate change to national security to technology innovation, people benefit when our nation’s policies are informed by science unfettered by inappropriate political or corporate influence,” the researchers, who come from dozens of fields in all 50 states, wrote.
“Congress and the Trump administration should ensure our nation’s bedrock public health and environmental laws — such as the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act — retain a strong scientific foundation, and that agencies are able to freely collect and draw upon scientific data to effectively carry out statutory responsibilities established by these laws. They should also safeguard the independence of those outside the government who provide scientific advice.”
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The Orbital ATK Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard stands on launch Pad-0A during sunrise at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Bill Ingalls/NASA / NASA via Getty Images
The photos of three year-old Buddy and his dog, Reagan never show a clear view of Buddy’s face for his protection, yet the two have more 100,000 instagram followers.
Alabama and Tennessee were assessing the damage Wednesday from severe storms overnight that killed five people and injured dozens across the two states.
Search and rescue teams were combing McMinn County, Tennessee, after a tornado touched down there and injured up to 23 people, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said.
More than 30 commercial and residential structures were damaged, McMinn County Mayor John Gentry said Wednesday afternoon.
He urged the public to stay away from areas affected by the storm and said a Red Cross shelter had been set up at a local Methodist church.
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Damage at Ider Daycare in Flatrock, Alabama. Jake Berent / WAFF
Three people have died in wildfires around Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, authorities said Tuesday, and firefighters were bracing for another round of lightning and high winds overnight.
The three people died in what Gov. Bill Haslam called “the largest fire in the last hundred years in the state of Tennessee.” Dozens of homes were destroyed, and thousands of residents had to flee in resort towns.
Fourteen people were transported to hospitals, Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon announcing the deaths. Three people were in critical condition with severe burns at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, the hospital officials said.
In 1996, Purdue Pharma introduced a new painkiller it said carried a low risk of abuse or addiction. It called the drug “OxyContin.”
In reality, of course, OxyContin was extremely addictive — and Purdue knew it. A decade later, three Purdue executives, and the company itself, pleaded guilty to criminal charges tied to OxyContin’s marketing and agreed to pay more than $600 million in fines.
But the executives dodged prison time, and the prosecution did little to slow the rise of opioid use. The pharmaceutical industry had spent the past 10 years and billions of dollars pushing the medical community to ramp up the use of OxyContin and other opioids. By 2013, the number of annual opioid prescriptions, including short term and multiple, had nearly tripled, topping 200 million — in a country of just over 300 million people.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
The fairy tale season of the professional Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense ended in tragedy when their plane crashed in Colombia, killing all but six of the 81 people aboard.
As Colombian investigators tried Tuesday to pin down the cause and retrieve the bodies, Brazilian President Michel Temer declared three days of national mourning and his countrymen braced for a series of wrenching funerals.
Meanwhile, in a show of sportsmanship, the Colombian club Atlético Nacional that the Brazilians were flying down to play in South America’s second biggest soccer tournament asked organizers to award the doomed team the title.
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Wreckage of the LaMia jet on Tuesday. Luis Benavides / AP
As a candidate, Trump’s often unsubstantiated attacks on political opponents, foreign governments, election officials, law enforcement, a federal judge, news outlets and Muslims shattered political norms and sowed division. As president, his decisions will carry the full weight of White House policy, raising concerns about where he gets his information and whether he might act on false or flawed reports.
Trump’s baseless claim that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with “millions” of illegal voters, for example, appears to have been popularized by Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has also claimed the 9/11 attacks were carried out by the government and that the Sandy Hook shootings were faked.
Every president makes difficult decisions on sensitive issues based on incomplete intelligence and competing advisers, making the ability to discern what news is credible critical to the job. This is especially important when it comes to national security, where presidents have broad latitude to order military action and direct negotiations with foreign leaders.
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Trump Pushes Baseless Claim That ‘Millions’ Voted Illegally in Election
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Monday asked the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), to look into President-elect Donald Trump’s financial entanglements and make sure he’s not breaking the law.
“The scope of Mr. Trump’s conflicts of interest around the world is unprecedented,” the 17 Democrats on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote. “Over the past two weeks, new revelations have raised serious concerns about the intermingling of Mr. Trump’s businesses and his responsibilities as president.”
Trump’s potential conflicts of interest are staggering, with business interests across the globe and no clear firewall between those businesses and the office of the presidency. Trump had said previously that he would enter into a blind trust, which would require him to sell many of his businesses and be unaware of his holdings, but he’s backed away from those promises. Trump also said he would step away from his dealings and have his children run day-to-day operations. But several of Trump’s children are intimately involved in his political operation ― Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. are all on the presidential transition team ― and simply handing over the businesses to his children wouldn’t disassociate Trump from his enterprises. He still knows what businesses he owns.
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Alex Wong/Getty Images
Committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) waits for the beginning of a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, July 7, 2016.
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