Australia will help some citizens leave Hubei province in China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, and quarantine them on Christmas Island, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Wednesday following a briefing by the Chinese government.

“We have taken a decision this morning to prepare a plan for an operation to provide some assisted departures for isolated and vulnerable Australians in Wuhan and the Hubei province,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

Morrison did not say how many of the 600 Australians registered in the Hubei region the government would be able to help, adding Australia would also be working to help New Zealand and Pacific island citizens in Hubei.

“But I stress there is rather a limited window here and we are moving very, very swiftly to ensure we can put this plan together and put the operation together,” he said.

The evacuations will be done on a last in-first out basis, Morrison added.

Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean 1,500km (900 miles) from the mainland, is home to a controversial immigration detention center.

Australia, which has five confirmed cases of coronavirus, Wednesday upgraded its travel advice to “reconsider all travel to China,” and warned its citizens not to travel to Hubei province and to avoid crowded areas.

…

The U.S. Justice Department is denying aNew York Times report about former national security adviser John Bolton and Attorney General William Barr having concerns about President Donald Trump and perceptions he was granting personal favors to the leaders of China and Turkey.

“There was no discussion of ‘personal favors’ or ‘undue influence’ on investigations, nor did Attorney General Barr state that the President’s conversations with foreign leaders was improper,” Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec tweeted Tuesday.

DOJ statement in response to tonight’s NYT story on John Bolton and Attorney General Barr. pic.twitter.com/WzekTSqY0f

— KerriKupecDOJ (@KerriKupecDOJ) January 28, 2020

The Times based its story on descriptions of a manuscript of Bolton’s upcoming book from people familiar with the text.

Bolton said that in private conversations with Barr, the attorney general discussed comments Trump made to Chinese President Xi Jinping about ZTE, a Chinese telecom company found by the U.S. Commerce Department to be violating sanctions by sending goods to Iran and North Korea.  Trump lifted those sanctions after a personal appeal from Xi, drawing anger from Congress.

According to the Times report, Bolton said he and Barr also discussed a conversation between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about an investigation of Turkish bank Halkbank.

The Times said Bolton wrote that Barr was worried the exchanges made it seem as if Trump had undue influence over independent investigations.

The newspaper said the accounts described in Bolton’s manuscript underscore the “unease about Mr. Trump’s seeming embrace of authoritarian leaders” among experts, Trump opponents and among some senior cabinet officers responsible for the nation’s foreign policy and  national security agendas.

Revelations about the contents of the Bolton book come as U.S. Senators consider calling Bolton as a witness in Trump’s impeachment trial.

…

Officials in Afghanistan say a pre-dawn Taliban in northern Afghanistan has killed at least 13 policemen.  The attack comes as the insurgent group is engaged in days of talks with the United States on a possible reduction in hostilities to advance their stalled peace process.

A local official told VOA Tuesday on condition of anonymity that insurgents raided a police post in Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, and overran it with the help of a suspected Taliban infiltrator.

Provincial police spokesman Javed Ahmad Basharat confirmed to VOA the attack left the post commander dead and both sides suffered “heavy casualties” in ensuing clashes. But he did not provide any number for police losses.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed in a statement sent to media the attack killed a total of 17 police personnel and captured another, though insurgent group often issues inflated claims.

Afghan security forces have also claimed killing dozens of Taliban fighters in operations in several provinces over the past few days, though the veracity of such claims is difficult to ascertain from independent sources.

The battlefield hostilities come as U.S. negotiators have been holding closed-door meetings with Taliban representatives in Qatar, trying to overcome recent challenges facing their year-long troubled peace dialogue on ending the 18-year-old war in Afghanistan.

Washington’s chief negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, wants the Taliban to commit to a “significant and lasting” reduction in violence for the two sides to finalize a long-anticipated peace agreement.

“Ambassador Khalilzad and his team are in Doha. They are encouraging the Taliban to make a commitment to a reduction in violence that would allow Afghans to sit at a negotiating table,” Alice Wells, the Trump administration’s chief regional diplomat, told reporters last week.

The Taliban has proposed a week-long reduction in violence to sign the deal with the United States.

The U.S.-Taliban deal, if reached, could set the stage for a gradual drawdown of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, closing America’s longest war. It would also open the way for Taliban-Afghan negotiations on governance-related matters. 

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The impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump resumed Monday amid reports of new evidence that could change Republican senators’ vote for witness testimony later this week. A New York Times report revealed former National Security Advisor John Bolton alleges Trump personally told him he conditioned aid to Ukraine on an investigation into his political rivals. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more on the potential turning-point in the impeachment case.

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U.S. President Donald Trump and visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are both touting the release Tuesday of a long-awaited Middle East peace plan as “the deal of the century.”  But Palestinians have already rejected it, saying the Trump administration is unfairly biased towards Israel, and are warning it could lead to new waves of resistance. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.

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Thailand has announced the 10th case of the coronavirus as government authorities say the outbreak is still under control. Meanwhile, Asian airlines such as Chinese Eastern Airline are still taking passengers home to China’s epicenter in Wuhan, despite a ban on outgoing flights from the epicenter. Steve Sandford speaks to Asian tourism workers and government officials about the evolving crisis in southern Thailand in the midst of celebrations of the Chinese New Year. 

…

A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to put in place a policy connecting the use of public benefits with whether immigrants could become permanent residents.

The new policy can be used to deny green cards to immigrants over their use of public benefits including Medicaid, food stamps and housing vouchers, as well as other factors.

The justices’ order came by a 5-4 vote and reversed a ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that had kept in a place a nationwide hold on the policy following lawsuits that have been filed against it.

The court’s four liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, would have prevented the policy from taking effect.

Federal appeals courts in San Francisco and Richmond, Virginia, had previously overturned trial court rulings against the policy. An injunction in Illinois remains in effect, but applies only to that state.

The lawsuits will continue, but immigrants applying for permanent residency must now show they wouldn’t be public charges, or burdens to the country.

The new policy significantly expands what factors would be considered to make that determination, and if it is decided that immigrants could potentially become public charges at any point in the future, that legal residency could be denied.

Roughly 544,000 people apply for green cards annually. According to the government, 382,000 are in categories that would make them subject to the new review.

Immigrants make up a small portion of those getting public benefits, since many are ineligible to get them because of their immigration status.

…

President Donald Trump stated falsely Monday that House Democrats never called his former national security adviser to testify in their impeachment inquiry. Actually they did.

Trump’s tweet about John Bolton came as the Senate enters the second week of the impeachment trial and followed a fresh disclosure that Bolton claims Trump told him directly that he wanted to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid from Ukraine until it helped with investigations into Joe Biden and Democrats.

Bolton’s assertion, in his forthcoming book, contradicts key assertions by Trump and his defense team’s argument that there is no evidence the president conditioned aid to Ukraine on an investigation of his political rivals. The disclosure prompted Trump to strike out on Twitter, where he misrepresented what happened in the impeachment inquiry.

As well, in their opening defense arguments on the weekend, Trump’s attorneys perpetuated a baseless claim that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election as they argued that Trump had good reason to withhold military aid to the country.

A sampling of recent statements where truth came up short:

TRUMP: “The Democrat controlled House never even asked John Bolton to testify. It is up to them, not up to the Senate!” — tweet Monday.

THE FACTS:  House Democrats asked Bolton to testify and he declined. He did not show up for his deposition. Trump is also incorrect in suggesting impeachment witnesses are the sole province of the House.

House Democrats decided not to pursue a subpoena compelling him to testify in the House proceedings because he threatened to sue, which could have meant an extended court fight. Afterward, however, Bolton signaled his willingness to testify at the Senate trial if he’s subpoenaed.

The Senate trial has yet to resolve if any witnesses will be called, much less who. It is empowered to do so if it chooses, contrary to Trump’s suggestion that “it is up to” the House only.

Bolton’s behind-the-scenes account intensified calls from Democrats to make him a witness. Bolton’s account of the Ukraine episode in his manuscript was first reported by The New York Times and confirmed to The Associated Press, on the condition of anonymity, by a person familiar with the draft.
___

From the defense and prosecution arguments

ELECTION INTERFERENCE

TRUMP LAWYER JAY SEKULOW: Rep. Jerry Nadler, a member of the prosecution, said “President Trump thought, `Ukraine, not Russia,’ interfered in our last presidential election. And this is basically what we call a straw-man argument. Let me be clear. The House managers over a 23-hour period kept pushing this false dichotomy that it was either Russia or Ukraine, but not both.” — impeachment trial Saturday.

THE FACTS: No evidence exists that it’s both — just Russia.

Trump has repeatedly shrugged off not only testimony of current and former aides at the House impeachment hearings, but advice going back months from officials who told him such assertions are invalid. As recently as December, FBI Director Christopher Wray rejected the idea of Ukraine’s involvement.

“We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election,” Wray told ABC News, adding: “Well, look, there’s all kinds of people saying all kinds of things out there. I think it’s important for the American people to be thoughtful consumers of information and to think about the sources of it.”

None of the witnesses who testified at the House hearings — including those the Republicans wanted to hear from — gave credence to Trump’s theory that Ukraine attacked the U.S. election and tried to make Russia look like the villain.

Even before his July phone call pressing Ukraine’s president to investigate the theory, Trump’s own staff repeatedly told him it was “completely debunked,” Trump’s first homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, said in September.

“Fictions,” a former senior director on the National Security Council for Russia and Europe, Fiona Hill, testified in November.
___

SEKULOW, on special counsel Robert Mueller: The Mueller report found “the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-related interference activities.” — impeachment trial Saturday.

NADLER: Trump “worked with the Russians to try to rig the 2016 election.” — speaking as a House impeachment manager on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Jan. 19.

THE FACTS: Sekulow omits some key findings from the Mueller report, while Nadler stretches the finding too far.

Mueller’s two-year investigation and other scrutiny did reveal a multitude of meetings with Russians. Among them: Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer who was said to have dirt on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016.

 And at one point, in a July 27, 2016, speech, then-candidate Trump called on Russian hackers to find emails from Clinton. “Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” Hours later, the Main Intelligence Directorate in Moscow appeared to heed the call — targeting Clinton’s personal office and hitting more than 70 other Clinton campaign accounts, according to a grand jury indictment in 2018.

Still, the special counsel looked into a potential criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign and said the investigation did not collect sufficient evidence to form criminal charges. So Sekulow is correct that Mueller “did not establish” conspiracy.

However, Mueller also noted some Trump campaign officials had declined to testify under the Fifth Amendment or had provided false or incomplete testimony, making it difficult to get a complete picture of what happened during the 2016 campaign. The special counsel wrote that he “cannot rule out the possibility“ that unavailable information could have cast a different light on the investigation’s findings.

The point is key as Democrats argue that Trump should be removed from office because he has a history of trying to cheat in elections and will do so again. But whether his behavior is illegal or an abuse of power is left unanswered by the Mueller report.
___

OBSTRUCTION

NADLER: “Is there a consequence for a president who defies our subpoenas absolutely; who says to all branches of the administration, do not obey a single congressional subpoena —  categorically, without knowing the subject of the subpoena — ‘just never answer a congressional subpoena,’ who denies Congress the right to any information necessary to challenge his power?” — impeachment trial Friday.

THE FACTS: To be clear, that accusation applies to the impeachment proceedings, not to everything involving the Trump administration. The president has not issued a blanket order that administration officials defy all subpoenas from Congress, though he’s seen to it that plenty have been defied on a variety of matters.

In early October, the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, sent a letter to House leaders branding the impeachment process invalid and saying the administration won’t participate. The letter signaled that Trump would seek to block administration witnesses from testifying if summoned. But a number of administration officials testified anyway, among them Trump’s ambassador to the European Union.

The White House has also pointed to Justice Department legal opinions that say close and senior advisers to the president cannot be compelled to testify before Congress about their interactions with the president, and that congressional committees cannot issue subpoenas in an impeachment inquiry if the full Congress has not authorized such an investigation.

Trump’s resistance to subpoenas in the Ukraine-impeachment inquiry gave rise to the impeachment article accusing him of obstructing Congress.
___

SEKULOW, on the findings of the Mueller report: “There was no obstruction, in fact.” — impeachment trial Tuesday.

THE FACTS:  The report did not exonerate Trump on the question of whether he obstructed justice.

Instead, it factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter or for prosecutors to do so once Trump leaves office.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller said after the report was released.
___

QUID PRO QUO

TRUMP LAWYER MIKE PURPURA: “Not a single witness testified that the president himself said that there was any connection between any investigations and security assistance, a presidential meeting, or anything else.” — impeachment trial Saturday.

THE FACTS: It’s true that no witnesses testified that they heard Trump admitting a quid pro quo, or exchange of favors. Still Purpura is incorrect in suggesting the impeachment inquiry is based purely on secondhand and thirdhand information.

As one of the officials most deeply involved in trying to get Ukraine to do Trump’s bidding, Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, said he “came to understand” that there was a quid pro quo and “everyone was in the loop.” Specifically, Sondland said it was understood that Ukraine’s new president would only get a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office if he publicly pledged to investigate Joe Biden and the Democrats.

“Was there a ‘quid pro quo?'”Sondland asked in his statement to the House Intelligence Committee. “As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
 
Testimony from Tim Morrison, a former National Security Council staffer, and text messages of discussions between William B. Taylor, then the acting ambassador to Ukraine, and Sondland and Kurt Volker, another envoy, also lay out the contours of a quid pro quo for a White House meeting.

Moreover, on the more serious matter of withholding military aid to Ukraine unless the country investigated Democrats, Sondland testified that a this-for-that explanation was the only one that made sense to him.

Meanwhile, the White House has sought to prevent those closer to Trump from testifying, including former national security adviser John Bolton and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who initially confirmed that Trump froze nearly $400 million in military aid to press the country into investigating Democrats. Mulvaney later denied making those comments but they are on the record.

More broadly, the rough transcript of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s leader does not clear Trump. It is largely in sync with the whistleblower’s complaint and the words of a succession of career civil servants and Trump political appointees brought before Congress.
___

MILITARY AID

PURPURA: “President Zelinskiy and high-ranking Ukrainian officials did not even know the security assistance was paused until the end of August, over a month after the July 25 call.” — impeachment trial Saturday.

THE FACTS:  That’s misleading. Ukrainians knew or at least suspected that hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid were frozen when the call took place, according to testimony heard by House investigators.

Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defense, told the House Intelligence Committee that her staff received an email on July 25 from a Ukrainian Embassy contact asking “what was going on with Ukraine’s security assistance.” That’s the same day Trump spoke by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and pressed for an investigation of Democrats.

Cooper said she “cannot say for certain” that Ukraine was aware the aid was being withheld, but said, “It’s the recollection of my staff that they likely knew.”

Republicans have argued there couldn’t be a quid pro quo — investigations into Democrats in exchange for military aid — if Ukrainians weren’t aware of a hold on the aid at the time. Even so, Zelenskiy knew months before the call  that much-needed U.S. military support might depend on whether he was willing to help Trump by investigating Democrats.
___

PURPURA: “The security assistance flowed on Sept. 11 and a presidential meeting took place on Sept. 25 without Ukrainian government announcing any investigations.” — impeachment trial Saturday.

THE FACTS: He’s omitting key context. The military aid was released on Sept. 11 after Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine for a political “favor” had been exposed. A whistleblower’s complaint alleging Trump abused his office had surfaced before that.

The Democrats opened a congressional investigation of the episode only a few days before Trump released the military assistance that Congress had approved early in the year.

It’s true Trump and Zelenskiy met Sept. 25. The meeting was in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. It did not carry the prestige of the White House meeting that Zelenskiy wanted and Trump tentatively offered in the July phone call. In that call, Zelenskiy thanked Trump for inviting him not only to the U.S. but “specifically Washington” and Trump said: “Give us a date and we’ll work that out.”
___

DUE PROCESS

TRUMP lawyer PAT CIPOLLONE: “Why would you lock everybody out of it from the president’s side? … It’s evidence they themselves don’t believe in the facts of their case.” — impeachment trial Saturday.

THE FACTS:  Trump wasn’t locked out. He rejected an invitation from the House Judiciary Committee to participate in the hearings that ultimately produced the articles of impeachment.

On Nov. 29, the committee’s chairman, Nadler, D-N.Y., sent a letter to Trump “to determine if your counsel will seek to exercise the special privileges set forth in the Judiciary Committee’s Impeachment Procedures … and participate in the upcoming impeachment proceedings. In particular, please provide the Committee with notice of whether your counsel intends to participate, specifying which of the privileges your counsel seeks to exercise. …”

On Dec. 6, Cipollone signaled Trump would not participate, telling Nadler in a letter that “House Democrats have wasted enough of America’s time with this charade.” Trump and his team did not take part.

The first round of hearings, by the House Intelligence Committee, was not opened to participation by Trump’s team. Those hearings resembled the investigative phase of criminal cases, when the subject of the investigation is ordinarily not brought in. Trump complained about not being invited, then said no when the next panel invited him.
___

DEMOCRATS’ EVIDENCE

CIPOLLONE: “The fact that they … hid evidence from you is further evidence that they don’t really believe in the facts of their case.” — impeachment trial Saturday.

THE FACTS: This is an iffy definition of hiding something. Cipollone spoke about the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s president, which is at the heart of the impeachment case, and cited certain passages that Democrats did not play up or mention in their prosecution argument.

The rough transcript of that conversation is a matter of public record, having been released by the White House, and is far from hidden.

The passages in question were when Trump complained about Germany and other European countries doing nothing to help Ukraine, putting the burden on the United States. For the record, his complaint, which he has voiced many times since, is inaccurate.

European Union institutions have given far more development assistance to Ukraine than the U.S. has provided, and individual countries in Europe as well as Japan and Canada have contributed significantly, too. The U.S. is the primary supplier of military aid.

In the July 25 phone call, after Zelenskiy said his country wanted more anti-tank missiles from the U.S. to help defend itself against Russia, Trump then and repeatedly pressed him to investigate Biden, Trump’s potential 2020 election rival, and Democrats.

Trump held up the military aid to Ukraine until Congress got wind of the freeze.
___

PURPURA: “The record that we have to go on today is based entirely on House Democratic facts precleared in a basement bunker.” — impeachment trial Saturday.

THE FACTS: That’s not true. The case also is based on text messages, emails and other documents provided to the House Intelligence Committee, which had public hearings. Many witnesses testified and Republicans on the committee attended and questioned them, just as Democrats, did.

As for the dark reference to a “basement bunker,” that’s a secure facility at the Capitol where, at times, dozens of members of the House, from both parties, attended depositions and meetings.

When Republicans controlled the House before the last elections, the Intelligence Committee held its entire Russia investigation in that “bunker.” 

…

Harvey Weinstein “got offended”  when his repeated advances were rebuffed, Mimi Haleyi testified Monday when she took the witness stand as one of the key accusers whose allegations of sexual assault led to charges and the trial of the former movie mogul.
    
Former production assistant Mimi Haleyi testified that before the alleged assault, Weinstein showed up at her apartment and begged her to join him on a trip to Paris for a fashion show. She said he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
    
“At one point, because I just didn’t know how to shut it down so to speak. …So I said, `You know you have a terrible reputation with women, I’ve heard,’ ” Haleyi said.
    
The then-revered Hollywood honcho “got offended,” she said. “He stepped back and said, `What have you heard?”’
    
Asked by prosecutor Meghan Hast if she had any romantic or sexual interest in Weinstein, Haleyi firmly answered: “Not at all, no.”
    
Weinstein, 67, is charged with forcibly performing oral sex on Haleyi in his New York City apartment in 2006 and raping another woman, an aspiring actress, in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013. He insists any sexual encounters were consensual.
    
The 42-year-old Haleyi, whose legal name is Miriam Haley, is the first of the two women whose accusations are at the heart of the charges against Weinstein to take the stand at the closely watched #MeToo-era trial, which is in its fourth day of testimony.
    
Last week, “Sopranos’”actress Annabella Sciorra testified  that Weinstein overpowered and raped her after barging into her apartment in the mid-1990s. While outside the statute of limitations for criminal charges, Sciorra’s allegations could be a factor as prosecutors look to prove Weinstein has engaged in a pattern of predatory behavior.
    
Haleyi went public with her allegations at an October 2017 news conference, appearing in front of cameras alongside lawyer Gloria Allred, who also represents Sciorra and other Weinstein accusers.
    
Haleyi, born in England and raised in Sweden, said she met Weinstein while in her 20s at the 2004 London premiere of the Leonardo DiCaprio film “The Aviator.”  They crossed paths again at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 and, when she expressed interest in working on one of his productions; he invited her to his hotel room and asked for a massage. She declined, saying she was “extremely humiliated.”
   
“I felt stupid because I was so excited to go see him and he treated me that way,” she testified.
    
More meetings followed, and Weinstein secured Haleyi a job helping on the set of “Project Runway,” the reality competition show he produced. Later, she said, he invited her to attend a fashion show in Paris, but she declined by bringing up his sketchy reputation.
    
The alleged assault occurred at Weinstein’s Soho apartment after he sent a car to pick Haleyi up for what she thought was a friendly meeting about her career, she said at the 2017 news conference.
    
Instead, she said, Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and forced his mouth onto her genitals. She said she tried to get him to stop, even telling him she was menstruating, but he wouldn’t relent.” I was mortified. I was in disbelief and disgusted,” she said.
    
In opening statements, Hast said there was a subsequent hotel room encounter that Haleyi didn’t reveal in 2017. Hast said that though Haleyi didn’t want to have intercourse with Weinstein, she kept still and “let him degrade her.”
    
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault, unless they agree to be named as Haleyi and Sciorra have.
    
In testifying, Haleyi will have to deal with a defense team that said it plans to confront Weinstein’s accusers with their own words, messages they exchanged with Weinstein well after the alleged assaults. Weinstein’s lawyers argue the positive-sounding emails and texts call into question the accusers’ accounts.
    
The jury of seven men and five women also heard testimony from Dr. Barbara Ziv, a forensic psychiatrist who said that most sex assault victims continue to have contact with their attackers, often under threat of retaliation if the victims tell anyone what happened.
    
Some of Haleyi’s messages were made public last year when Weinstein’s lawyers sought to get his case dismissed. One sent to Weinstein’s phone in 2007 reads: “Hi! Just wondering if u have any news on whether Harvey will have time to see me before he leaves? X Miriam.”

…

Performers including Lizzo, Lil Nas X, and Billie Eilish are among those expected to be named winners at the 62nd Grammy Awards Sunday night.

Singer/songwriter Alicia Keys will host the music award ceremony, which will air live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles at 8pm Eastern time.

Lizzo, who released her first major label album this year, has been nominated for eight awards including best record, best album, and best new artist. She will be performing at the ceremony as well as Eilish, who has also been nominated for best record, best album, and best new artist.

Lil Nax X has also been nominated in those three categories, namely for his 2019 hit with Bill Ray Cyrus “Old Town Road.”

The ceremony comes amid a scandal at the Recording Academy – CEO Deborah Dugan, the first woman to lead the institution behind the Grammys, was suspended last week after just five months on the job.

Dugan said she was suspended after filing complaints about harassment as well as misconduct including voting irregularities within the Academy.

Sunday’s show will also include a tribute to the late rapper Nipsey Hussle, who is posthumously nominated for three awards. Hussle was shot and killed last March.

…

The United States called on Iraq Sunday to protect American diplomatic facilities after the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad was hit by three rockets.

“We call on the Government of Iraq to fulfill its obligations to protect our diplomatic facilities,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.

The attack marked a dangerous escalation in a spree of rocket attacks in recent months that have targeted the embassy or Iraqi military bases where American troops are deployed.

None of the attacks has been claimed, but Washington has repeatedly blamed Iran-backed military factions in Iraq.

On Sunday, one rocket hit an embassy cafeteria at dinner time while two others landed nearby, a security source told AFP.

“Since September there have been over 14 attacks by Iran and Iranian-supported militias on U.S. personnel in Iraq,” the State Department spokesperson said.

“The security situation remains tense and Iranian-backed armed groups remain a threat. So, we remain vigilant.”

…

The third impeachment trial in American history enters a new phase this week.  Experts expect lawmakers in the Republican-majority Senate to vote on whether or not to allow witnesses and documents that so far have been blocked by the White House. As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, senators from the two major parties seem on opposite ends of the issue.

…