The pastor of a Miami megachurch that will host President Donald Trump at a rally this week is guaranteeing that parishioners who entered the U.S. illegally won’t risk deportation by attending.
During a Sunday Spanish language service, Pastor Guillermo Maldonado told the audience of hundreds that he’s heard people asking how he could bring Trump to the church if those attending include people who lack immigration papers, given the president’s hard-line immigration policy.
“I ask you: Do you think I would do something where I would endanger my people? I’m not that dumb,” Maldonado told parishioners.
The Miami Herald reported Maldonado also made an appeal to some of his congregation who feel apprehensive about attending Trump’s Friday visit to the King Jesus International Ministry church because of his administration’s increased immigration raids.
“I don’t think the president would do such a thing,” Maldonado said. “Don’t put your race or your nationality over being a Christian. Be mature. … If you want to come, do it for your pastor. That’s a way of supporting me.”
The church in West Kendall south of Miami was chosen by Trump to host about 70 Christian pastors during an event billed as an “‘Evangelicals for Trump’ Coalition Launch.”
Maldonado asked churchgoers from Venezuela and Cuba to raise their hands, and emphasized his own opposition to communist dictatorships, something Trump has also done at public rallies in South Florida as an appeal to Hispanic voters.
The pastor said the church isn’t organizing or financing the event, and that anyone seeking to attend the campaign rally had to pre-register at DonaldJTrump.com.
On Sunday, Secret Service agents were examining bags before the services, to prepare for the event. Every other church service during the week, except for a New Year’s Eve mass, is being canceled, Maldonado said.
 

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The last major storm of the year has created blizzard conditions in parts of the Upper Midwest and is bringing snow and ice to New England.
The sprawling storm, which began in the Pacific Northwest, is making its way across the country, affecting millions of people ahead of New Year’s celebrations.
The storm brought heavy snow Monday to parts of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, with up to 53 centimeters of snow accumulating in the hardest-hit areas, and caused hundreds of vehicle crashes and the closures of interstates.
As the storm moved east, strong wind gusts of over 80 kilometers per hour led to power outages in Michigan, Ohio and New York.
Parts of southern New England are seeing sleet and freezing rain, while northern New England is getting snow.
The storm began last week in the Pacific Northwest and brought more than 54 centimeters of snow to Northern California. Parts of Southern California had heavy rain, while snow affected areas of Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
 

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There’s no doubt that many people around the world see – in magazines and on social media – unrealistic beauty standards and end up feeling unhappy with how they look. But Jessamyn Stanley has never let her body image get in the way of her dream of teaching yoga. Karina Bafradzhian reports from Savannah, Georgia.

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Criticism mounted in Kyiv Monday over a controversial prisoner swap with Russian-backed separatists, as it emerged that among the captives exchanged by Ukraine were five riot policemen accused of killing protesters during the 2014 Maidan uprising.
The policemen were members of a Berkut militia unit that is now disbanded.
Relatives of those killed during the uprising had urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy not to include the policemen in the exchange. After the handover, which took place Sunday, the Ukrainian leader defended his decision, saying it was necessary in order for Ukraine to secure the return of several of its reconnaissance soldiers.
A total of 200 captives were exchanged between the two warring sides.
“It was a hard decision. It was a political decision,” Zelenskiy told reporters at Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport, as he met 76 freed Ukrainians.  
His remarks failed to assuage the relatives of protesters who were killed in 2014.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a ceremony to welcome Ukrainian citizens exchanged in a prisoner swap, at Boryspil International Airport, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec. 29, 2019.As the exchange began, 200 people protested at a detention center in the capital, Kyiv, where three of the riot police were held.
“This country has no future,” Volodymyr Golodnyuk, the father of a 19-year-old protester killed in the uprising, said on Facebook. In an open letter to Zelenskiy, the victims’ families warned the release of the suspects could lead to a “wave of protests.”
Nearly two dozen civil society groups were also critical of the policemen’s release, issuing a joint statement warning that “the decision at the request of the Kremlin undermines the values of the rule of law, justice and dignity, and can divide society by sowing hatred between different groups of Ukrainians.”
Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker who Russia handed over to Ukraine in a September exchange, criticized Sunday’s swap. He said Kyiv was giving up “real murderers” while other Ukrainians remained in captivity in Russia and rebel territory. “All that Ukrainians fought for is turning to ash,” Sentsov said.
About 100 demonstrators were killed during the monthslong 2014 revolution, which ended in the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

FILE – A man places flowers at a monument to the so-called “Heavenly Hundred,” anti-government protesters killed during Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Nov. 21, 2019.The Berkut was among militias accused of the worst violence. Members of the Russian-trained Alfa Team have also been accused of involvement in the killings. Many of the slain protesters died from precise shots to the head or neck, while others were gunned down in closer quarters by less expert shooters armed with AK-47 assault rifles.
A dozen Ukrainian soldiers were among those released by pro-Russian separatists.  They had been captured during skirmishes in the conflict, which started in 2014, and has so far claimed around 14,000 lives, making it the bloodiest war in Europe since the 1990s.
In order to gain the release of 76 captives — some of them pro-Kyiv activists and bloggers — Ukraine had to free 124 prisoners it was holding. Two contributors to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, VOA’s sister broadcaster, were also released.  
This is the second prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia this year.
The first swap in September of 70 captives prompted hopes that Moscow and Kyiv were ready for serious talks to end the more than five-year war in the Donbas region. That exchange included the release of 24 Ukrainian sailors captured in a naval clash.
When Zelenskiy was elected in April, he pledged to move quickly to engineer the release of Ukrainians held captive by Russian-backed forces. A former TV comedian, Zelenskiy won a landslide electoral victory on a promise to end the war.

Relatives of Ukrainian citizens, who were exchanged during a prisoner swap, surround an aircraft during a welcoming ceremony at Boryspil International Airport, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec. 29, 2019.Sunday’s prisoner swap was brokered during peace talks this month between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany amid renewed efforts to reach a cease-fire.
The exchange was made at a checkpoint on the front line of the conflict, overseen by armed troops from both sides.
Live footage streamed by Ukraine’s presidential office showed buses with prisoners parked at a crossing point. The office of Ukraine’s president tweeted, “The mutual release of detained persons is completed …76 of ours are safe in Ukraine-controlled territory … details later.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, who hosted the Paris talks, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the prisoner exchange. In a joint statement, they said “further work will still be necessary to allow the exchange of all prisoners linked to the conflict.”
In a statement published on Twitter, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv also welcomed the “return of liberated captives from Russian-controlled Donbas.” It added, “Recognizing that Russia’s ongoing aggression confronts Ukraine’s leadership with difficult choices, we stand in solidarity with our Ukrainian partners and the many Ukrainians who remain in captivity in Russia and Crimea.”

pic.twitter.com/ttcCVXdGCh
— U.S. Embassy Kyiv (@USEmbassyKyiv) December 29, 2019
This second prisoner swap is also viewed as an encouraging sign that the conflict can be brought to a peaceful conclusion. But seasoned analysts are skeptical, arguing that there is little incentive for the Kremlin to agree to a deal.
Zelenskiy’s peace strategy has been strongly criticized by Ukrainian war veterans and nationalists, but opinion polls suggest it still has strong backing by many Ukrainians.
“Today’s prisoner exchange in Donbass will bring relief to the persons involved and their families, but it will not bring the settlement any closer,” tweeted Dmitri Trenin, director of the Moscow Carnegie Center. “The conflict is much more likely to become frozen than resolved.”
 

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Bolivia’s interim president says her government is expelling the Mexican ambassador over an alleged attempt by members of Bolivia’s former government to leave refuge in the Mexican Embassy and flee the country.
Interim President Jeanine Anez said Ambassador Maria Teresa Mercado had been given 72 hours to leave the country.
A group of nine former officials in the government of deposed Bolivian President Evo Morales sought refuge in the Mexican embassy after Morales’ stepped down under pressure last month.
The acting Bolivian government has initiated criminal charges against the officials for sedition, terrorism and electoral fraud and has refused to allow them safe passage out of the country.
The Bolivian government has accused Spanish diplomats of trying to help the nine officials leave the Mexican embassy on Friday and says the Spaniards arrived at the embassy accompanied by a group of hooded men. Spain has denied the charges but the six Spanish diplomats departed Bolivia on Sunday after the Bolivian government asked them to leave.
“A serious violation has been committed against Bolivian sovereignty and democracy, which must be respected,” Anez said.
The Mexican government said Mercado had always followed the principles of Mexican foreign policy and international law.
“We consider this to be a political decision,” the government said in a written statement.
 

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Police in Turkey detained at least 124 people suspected of links to the Islamic State group, the state-run news agency reported Monday, in an apparent sweep against the militant group ahead of New Year celebrations.
At least 33 foreign nationals were detained in the capital Ankara in a joint operation by anti-terrorism police and the national intelligence agency, according to the Anadolu Agency.  In Istanbul, police raided 31 houses, detaining 24 suspects, including four foreign nationals.
Police conducted simultaneous, pre-dawn raids in the city of Batman, in southeast Turkey, where 22 suspects were detained, it said in a separate report. Raids were also conducted in the cities of Adana, Kayseri, Samsun and Bursa where 45 people, including six foreign nationals were detained.
Anadolu said the IS suspects apprehended in Ankara were from Iraq, Syria and Morocco. Police were searching for some 17 other suspects, the report said.
The country was hit by a wave of attacks in 2015 and 2016 blamed on IS and Kurdish militants that killed over 300 people.
The IS group also claimed responsibility for an attack at an Istanbul nightclub during New Year celebrations in the early hours of 2017. The attack killed 39 people, most of them foreigners.
Meanwhile, Turkey deported a total of 778 IS or other jihadists back to their home countries in 2019, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Sunday.
Turkey has stepped up its efforts to expel foreign fighters back to their countries of origin in recent months, accusing many European countries of not taking responsibility for their nationals and saying Turkey was “not a hotel” for foreign fighters.
 
 

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U.S. President Donald Trump regularly says his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un remains positive. But Trump may soon have little choice but to change his approach toward Kim, who within days may unveil a new, hardline policy toward the United States. 
Kim, who has given the U.S. an end-of-year deadline for nuclear talks, is set to deliver a New Year’s Day speech that may give major clues about North Korea’s direction in 2020. Kim is also presiding over a symbolically important meeting of the country’s ruling party this week.
While no one is sure what Kim will announce – there is always a possibility of a last-minute breakthrough in talks – North Korea has strongly hinted it will raise pressure on Trump in the new year, and Kim has vowed to take his country a “new way” if talks with the United States don’t advance.
Over the past several months, North Korea has threatened to resume intercontinental ballistic missile tests or other major provocations, even warning of an unspecified “Christmas gift” to the U.S. that so far remains undelivered. 
Trump has shown an unusual tolerance for North Korean provocations, at least by the standards of other recent U.S. presidents. But as evidence mounts that Trump’s personal outreach to Kim is not leading to progress in nuclear talks, many Trump critics and allies are calling for him to change course.
 
“From no angle – policy or political – does it make sense for Trump to keep things as they are,” said Rebecca Heinrichs, who focuses on nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the conservative Hudson Institute. 

This undated picture released by North Korea’s Central News Agency on Oct. 31, 2019, purportedly shows the launch of projectiles that landed in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.Change how?
The question is whether Trump should become more or less conciliatory.
Heinrichs, who has defended aspects of Trump’s unorthodox outreach to Kim, says the United States should expand sanctions on North Korea and reinstate U.S.-South Korea military exercises, which were scaled back to preserve the talks.
“In the course of giving Kim diplomatic space, sanctions enforcement and readiness with regional allies have slipped while Kim’s nuclear program and image have improved,” she says.
“The whole approach is on the thinnest ice.”
Another ideological camp prefers a less aggressive approach. They say there’s no evidence sanctions will convince Kim to give up his nuclear program, but will only further raise tensions.
Instead, Trump should work toward an interim deal, in which the United States offers limited sanctions relief, a formal suspension of military exercises, or both, possibly in exchange for a permanent moratorium on North Korean ICBM and nuclear tests, said Joshua Pollack, a North Korea researcher at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
“We’ve repeatedly suspended combined military exercises in South Korea, so why not finally put them on the table?” asks Pollack. “Then the two sides could take their time in talks.”
It’s not clear North Korea would accept an interim agreement. The country’s ambassador to the United Nations earlier this month declared that denuclearization is off the negotiating table and that talks with the United States are no longer needed. 

FILE – South Korean amphibious assault vehicles participate in a 2015 U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise.Trump downplays threats
There’s also not much evidence Trump is committed to drastic change in either direction.
Trump has rarely discussed North Korea in recent months, and when he has, it’s mainly been to stress his good relationship with Kim.
Asked about North Korea’s threat to deliver a “Christmas gift” to the U.S., Trump responded: “Maybe it’s a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test.”
Trump refused to criticize North Korea as it conducted 13 rounds of short-range missile tests in 2019, though the launches violated U.N. Security Council resolutions and threatened U.S. troops and allies in the region.
For Trump, North Korean provocations are potentially embarrassing, in part because he has already claimed to have solved the problem.
After their first meeting in Singapore, Trump said he knew “for a fact” that Kim would return home and start a process that would “make a lot of people very happy and very safe.”
“There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” Trump tweeted while returning from the summit.
U.S. officials, including Trump, have also repeatedly insisted that Kim agreed in Singapore to give up his nuclear weapons, though in reality the joint statement referenced the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” – a much vaguer description that indicates unspecified concessions from each side.
By one estimate, North Korea has produced material for about 10 more nuclear bombs since Singapore, meaning it now has enough for around 40 total bombs.

A view of what researchers of Beyond Parallel, a CSIS project, describe as specialized rail cars at the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center in North Pyongan Province, North Korea, in this commercial satellite image taken April 12, 2019.Would Trump admit defeat?
But Heinrichs insists it’s not too late for Trump to modify his North Korea policy, and that doing so doesn’t have to be a great political embarrassment.
“I don’t think he needs to or will say the approach failed,” Heinrichs says. “It’s more likely he’ll blame Kim and the previous (U.S.) administrations for passing along the compounding problem.”
Whereas Trump’s comments about Kim have been widely mocked in Washington for being contradictory or inaccurate, Heinrichs sees it differently. Such comments, she says, are an attempt to flatter Kim – essentially to soften him up for a big agreement. And Trump’s approach, she says, could easily be reversed. 
“Any other president would have a hard time going from ‘fire and fury’ to nice letters to a return to max pressure…I don’t think it would be as much of a challenge for Trump,” Heinrichs said. 
“He seems to be immune to the pressure of convention. Sometimes that creates rare openings for good things and sometimes it results in enormous headaches,” she added. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reads a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump, in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency, June 22, 2019.A bullet-point win? 
Others say Trump, a former reality television star and self-styled master negotiator, appears to be looking for a legacy-defining win on North Korea and won’t easily change course. 
“Absolutely he can’t admit failure,” said Pollack. “But he can spin it away.” 
According to Gwenda Blair, a Trump family biographer who has followed Trump’s real estate and other deals for decades, Trump has often prematurely declared victory or attempted deals even when victory is impossible.
“He wants to be able to do something that’s like a moonshot,” said Blair.
For Blair, Trump’s desire to reach a nuclear deal with North Korea – which has eluded U.S. diplomats for decades – is much like Trump’s recently declared wish to buy Greenland.
“This would be adding the biggest thing since Alaska,” she says. “But no one was interested in selling.”
So what will Trump do if Kim never agrees to denuclearize? Trump himself foreshadowed such a scenario in his post-summit press conference in Singapore.
“Honestly, I think he’s going to do these things. I may be wrong. I mean, I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong,’” Trump said, before adding: “I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of excuse.”

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This year was the hottest ever registered in Russia, the country’s weather chief said on Monday, as climate change pushes global temperatures to record highs.
“This year in Russia was the hottest for the entire period of instrumental observations,” the head of the Gidromedtsentr weather service, Roman Vilfand, told Russian news agencies.
He said Moscow’s average temperature for 2019 had hit 7.6-7.7 degrees Celsius (45.7-45.9 degrees Fahrenheit), beating the previous record by 0.3 degrees.
Weather records have been kept since 1879 in Moscow and since 1891 in Russia as a whole.
Global warming has sent temperatures rising around the world, with the United Nations saying earlier this month that 2019 was on course to be one of the three hottest years on record.
Known for its notoriously harsh winters, Moscow has seen its warmest December in a century this year.
While some flurries fell on Monday, the Russian capital — normally covered with a blanket of snow by mid-December — saw a largely snowless and cloudy last month of the year.
The city’s ski resorts were closed and spring buds were beginning to show on trees — three or more months too early.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has always been reluctant to acknowledge the link between human activity and global warming.
At his traditional year-end annual news conference earlier this month, Putin insisted that “nobody knows” the causes of climate change.
But he acknowledged the consequences of global warming could be catastrophic for a country that is one of the world’s biggest producers of carbon fuel and with a fifth of its land within the Arctic circle.
Putin said that the rate of warming for Russia was 2.5 percent higher than elsewhere on the planet.
And “for our country, this process is very serious,” he said.
 
 
 

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The Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City is celebrating its second baby giraffe of the year, already as tall as a full-grown human.
The female giraffe was unveiled last week after a mandatory quarantine period following her Oct. 23 birth. She will be named via a public vote to generate empathy with the little cow, zoo director Juan Carlos Sanchez Olmos said Sunday.
The 96-year-old zoo on the grounds of the capital’s central park has a knack for breeding creatures in captivity: This year it welcomed 170 baby animals, including six Mexican gray wolves, which are in danger of extinction.
“A new birth of a character as unique, as charismatic as a giraffe becomes emblematic – a flag for conservation, for the prestige of the zoo,” said Sanchez Olmos while four grown giraffes happily munched branches and leaves behind him.
Giraffes are considered “vulnerable” because the species faces significant habitat loss in the 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where they reside.
Unlike the wolves, which will be released into the Sierra de San Pedro Martir National Park in Baja California, the giraffes are expected to spend their lives under observation in a dusty patch of the Chapultepec Zoo.
A team of professionals – including nutritionists, veterinarians and biologists like Sanchez Olmos_ takes care of more than 1,000 animals in the zoo, which sits under the flight path of jetliners that roar overhead.
As Sanchez Olmos detailed the zoo’s mission to not just educate and amuse, but also conserve species, caretaker Alejandro Gonzalez offered long branches from a pomegranate tree to four hungry giraffes. The tallest of the pack eagerly yanked the branches from Gonzalez’s hands.
“What did I tell you?” the caretaker said, looking the tall giraffe square in the eyes. “Take it easy, please.”
If Gonzalez had his way, the new addition to the herd of giraffes would be called Sarita. At least, that’s what he calls her.
The long-necked creatures are a favorite fixture at the zoo. The public voted in April to name the first baby giraffe of the year Jirafifita, which translates as Uppity Little Giraffe – a play on the president’s favorite word for dismissing critics.
“Fifi” is slang for uppity or posh. Populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador frequently uses the word to describe opposition politicians and others who question his decisions.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with President Donald Trump on Sunday to thank him for information that Putin said helped Russia foil terrorist attacks over the New Year’s holiday, the Kremlin said.
Putin thanked Trump “for information transmitted through the special services that helped prevent the completion of terrorist acts in Russia,” the Kremlin said in a brief statement posted on its website.
Based on the U.S. information, the Russian security forces detained two Russians suspected of preparing to carry out terrorist acts in St. Petersburg during the upcoming holiday, state news agency Tass reported, citing the Federal Security Service.
The security service said it obtained the information from its “American partners.” It said it seized material from the suspects that confirms they were preparing terrorist acts, with no further details.
There was no immediate comment from the White House.

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Three researchers involved in the births of genetically edited babies have been sentenced for practicing medicine illegally, Chinese state media said Monday.
The report by Xinhua news agency said lead researcher He Jiankui was sentenced to three years and fined 3 million yuan ($430,000).
Two other people received lesser sentences and fines. Zhang Renli was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 1 million yuan. Qin Jinzhou received an 18-month sentence, but with a two-year reprieve, and a 500,000 yuan fine.
He, the lead researcher, said 13 months ago that he had helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies, twin girls born in November 2018. The announcement sparked a global debate over the ethics of gene editing.
He also was involved in the birth of a third gene-edited baby.

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Amid sudden changes in the upper echelons of Algeria’s government, the new President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is looking to establish stability and put his stamp on the country’s future.
On Saturday, Tebboune appointed Abdelaziz Djerad as the country’s prime minister,
FILE – Algerian chief of staff Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah arrives to preside over a military parade in Algiers, July 1, 2018.Throughout this time, the street protests that swept longtime leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika from power have continued. The opposition boycotted the December elections and denounced Tebboune as a continuation of the past regime and a puppet of Lt. Gen. Gaid Salah. Less than 40% of eligible voters took part in the election.
William Lawrence, a professor of political science at George Washington University, said the current president has work to do to win over the general Algerian public and protesting crowds. “He has an opportunity to make good with the protesters, for example, he could release all the leaders that have been arrested in recent months or lift other controls on freedom of expression or freedom to protest,” he said speaking to VOA’s Daybreak Africa radio program. “But so far, the gestures made by the new president have been fairly symbolic. For example, he’s asking the population to call him ‘Mr. President’ rather than ‘your excellency’ as if that was a major concession to the protesting crowd.”
Lawrence also said the appointment of General Said Chengriha as acting Army Chief could mark a break from the past. He is from the east of the country, not a traditional power center, and does not have a connection to some of the corruption past Army officials have been associated with.
“It will be interesting to see whether the new army chief has a little bit of a honeymoon period,” Lawrence said. “He’s sort of a strategy guy, an infantryman and not really connected to, let’s say, the army deals and other aspects of the military which tend to provoke the protesters.”
Lawrence said future concessions from the current government may involve bringing back some older figures who were associated with earlier democratic movements in Algeria. Much will depend on how strong and sustained the protest movement is in the coming months.  
“If you’re still getting a million people in the streets of various cities, that means the protest movement still has a lot of legs,” Lawrence said. “But if that starts to wane, if the crackdown seems to be working, if the protest crowds are smaller, then we’re probably seeing the beginning of the end of this round of protests.”
 

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday said airstrikes against a pro-Iran militant group in Iraq and Syria succeeded, and he did not rule out additional action “as necessary.”
“The strikes were successful. The pilots and aircraft returned back to base safely,” Esper told reporters after F-15 jet fighters hit five targets associated with Kata’ib Hezbollah in western Iraq and eastern Syria.
The targets were either command and control facilities or weapons caches for the Shi’ite militia group, he said, hours after the Pentagon announced the strikes.
The U.S. action followed a barrage of 30 or more rockets fired on Friday at the K1 Iraqi military base in Kirkuk, an oil-rich region north of Baghdad. That salvo killed a U.S. civilian contractor and wounded four U.S. service members as well as Iraqi security forces.
Esper said that he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had traveled to Florida, where President Donald Trump has been spending the Christmas holidays, to brief him on the latest Middle East events.
“We discussed with him other options that are available,” Esper said. “And I would note also that we will take additional actions as necessary to ensure that we act in our own self-defense and we deter further bad behavior from militia groups or from Iran.”
 

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