Curator

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J Officials in Maryland and the US capital Washington will sue President Donald Trump for accepting payments and benefits from foreign governments through his business empire, news reports said Sunday night. The suit to be unveiled Monday centers on the so-called emoluments clause, which bans US officials from taking gifts or other benefits from foreign governments. An NGO that centers on ethics issues filed a similar suit in January. But this is the first one presented by government entities. The announced lawsuit adds to Trump’s woes as he grapples with congressional and a special prosecutor’s probes into his campaign’s alleged ties with Russia, which US intelligence agencies say meddled aggressively in the 2016 election to held Trump win. Since taking power in January, Trump has turned day to day control over his real estate empire and other assets to his adult sons, but not sold them off as many in America said he should to avoid conflicts of interest. ...

http://ift.tt/2ryTDFU Members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), walk in the town of Tabqa, about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of Raqa city, on May 18, 2017. On November 5, 2016, a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters began an operation to capture IS' de facto Syrian capital. On May 10, 2017, the SDF captured the city of Tabqa and an adjacent dam, the last big town before Raqa. / AFP PHOTO / DELIL SOULEIMAN Syria on Friday condemned a US-led coalition strike on pro-government forces as a “brazen attack” and said it would “not be intimidated” after the surprise assault. US-led warplanes carried out the Thursday strike in the east of the country against a convoy of pro-government forces headed towards a remote coalition garrison near the border with Jordan. “On Thursday at 16:30, the so-called international coalition attacked one of the Syrian Arab Army’s positions on the Al-Tanf road in the Syrian Badia region, producing a number of martyrs and causing material...