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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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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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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Democratic congressman John Lewis, an icon in the fight for civil rights, announced Sunday he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

“I have been in some kind of fight — for freedom, equality, basic human rights — for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now,” Lewis said in a statement.

“So I’ve decided to do what I know to do and what I have always done: I am going to fight and jeep fighting…we still have many bridges to cross,”

Lewis said he is “clear-eyed” about the prognosis and that his doctors tell him he has a fighting chance.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted that “generations of Americans” have Lewis in their thoughts and prayers, saying she knows he will be well.

The 79-year-old Lewis has represented the 5th Congressional District in Georgia since 1986 and has been a stalwart for liberal causes and human rights.

But Lewis is best known has a tireless fighter for civil rights — he marched with Martin Luther King in the early 1960s, sat down at segregated lunch counters, and was the victim of police nightsticks and billy clubs, suffering from a fractured skull.

Lewis was an original Freedom Rider, traveling on busses across the south as part of the battle for integration.

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“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” stayed on a strong glide path in North American theaters, taking in an estimated $73.6 million for the three-day weekend, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday.

The Disney film, marketed as a grand finale of the nine-film “Skywalker Saga,” has had mixed reviews and was down considerably from last weekend’s lofty $177.4 million opening.

But it has compiled a strong domestic total of $364.5 million.

It again maintained a big lead over the No. 2 film, Sony’s “Jumanji: The Next Level,” an action sequel starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart, which had $34.4 million in North American ticket sales for the Friday-through-Sunday period.

In third for the second straight week was Disney’s “Frozen II,” at $17 million. The animated musical film has Broadway star Idina Menzel voicing Queen Elsa in her latest adventures.

Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel “Little Women” has been brought to the screen many times — no fewer than seven, by Variety’s count — but the new version from director Greta Gerwig has drawn strong reviews and netted $16.2 million to place fourth in its debut this weekend.

The film stars Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Timothee Chalamet, Emma Watson and Laura Dern, in the story of the joys and struggles of four sisters during the US Civil War.

In fifth was new Fox/Disney release “Spies in Disguise,” at $13.4 million. The animated children’s film features the voices of Will Smith and Tom Holland.

Rounding out the top 10 were:

“Knives Out” ($9.9 million)

“Uncut Gems” ($9.4 million)

“Bombshell” ($4.8 million)

“Cats” ($4.8 million)

“Richard Jewell” ($3 million)
 

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Greece wants to be included in U.N.-sponsored talks in January on the Libya conflict, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Sunday, as tensions escalate with neighbors Turkey over the issue.

Libya has become another diplomatic front for Greece and Turkey as the traditional rivals jostle over Mediterranean maritime rights and the competing camps in the North African country’s conflict.

“We do not want a source of instability in our neighborhood. Therefore we want a say in developments in Libya,” Mitsotakis told To Vima weekly in an interview.

“We want to be part of the solution in Libya, as it concerns us too,” he said.

The U.N. has said an international conference will be held next month in Berlin to pave the way for a political solution to Libya’s ongoing conflict.

Libya has been beset by chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, with rival administrations in the east and the west vying for power.

“I have requested, and will do so again with greater insistence, that we participate in the Berlin process,” Mitsotakis said.

In November, Ankara signed a contentious maritime and military deal with the embattled U.N.-recognized government in Tripoli.

Greece immediately rejected it as baseless, arguing that Turkey and Libya share no maritime border.

“[Libya] is our natural maritime neighbor, not Turkey’s,” Mitsotakis said on Sunday.

The Turkish deal lays claim to much of the Mediterranean for energy exploration, conflicting with rival claims by Greece and Cyprus.

At the same time, Turkey is stepping up military aid to Tripoli, which is battling the forces of military strongman Khalifa Haftar for control of the capital.

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Halting production from Iraq’s southern Nassiriya oilfield on Saturday by protesters will not affect the country’s exports and production operations, the oil ministry said on Sunday.

Iraq will use additional output from southern oilfields in Basra to make up for the missing shipments from Nassiriya field and the closure of field’s operations are temporary, the ministry said in a statement.

A senior manager at the state-run Basra Oil Co. said they can increase production from Majnoon southern and other small oilfields operated by the state-run company.

The incident marks the first time protesters have shut an entire oilfield, though they have blocked entrances to refineries and ports in the past.

No foreign companies operate at the Nassiriya oilfield and state-run teams are managing the operations.

Production operations at Nassiriya, which produces 80,000-85,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), were stopped after protesters closed roads and prevented workers from reaching the field, said the ministry statement.

Protesters broke into Iraq’s southern Nassiriya oilfield on Saturday and forced employees to cut off electricity from its control station, taking the field offline.

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Hate crime in America’s five largest cities rose sharply in 2019, with New York, Los Angeles and Chicago all setting highs not seen since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a new report from California State University. 

The Jewish community was the most frequent target of hate crimes amid a resurgence in anti-Semitism, according to the report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. In the wake of at least five anti-Semitic attacks in New York during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah this week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that police will increase patrols in several neighborhoods with large Jewish communities. “Hate doesn’t have a home in our city,” de Blasio tweeted.

5 Stabbed at Hanukkah Celebration North of New York

Attack appeared to be the latest in a string targeting Jews in the region

Among the nation’s five largest cities:

* New York City will show an estimated 415 hate crimes for the year, up from 361 in 2018 and the highest level since 2001. Anti-Semitism incidents jumped more than 20%, to 213, accounting for more than half of all bias-motivated attacks. 

* Los Angeles will show 309 hate crimes, up from 290 in 2018 and also the highest since the Sept. 11 attacks. Anti-Jewish incidents more than doubled, to 58, while attacks targeting blacks jumped more than 18%, to 58.

* Chicago will show an estimated 96 hate crime incidents, up from 77 in 2018, and a post-9/11 high for the nation’s third-largest city. Anti-Jewish hate crimes rose more than 46% over the previous year to a total of 19 incidents.

* Phoenix will show a 25% increase in hate crimes over the previous year.

* Houston, however, will show a decline in hate crime incidents of 25 percent.

Collectively, hate crimes in the five biggest cities rose from 867 in 2018 to 988 in 2019, about a 14% increase, according to the report. For the nation’s 10 largest cities, however, the overall increase was slightly more moderate, at about 10%.

The overall surge in hate crime comes at a time of demographic change and hyperpolarized politics in America, and follows a slight decline in bias incidents in 2018.

“These data reflect several trends, including an escalating tribalism, where various prejudices like anti-Semitism, xenophobia and homophobia, among others, are widely shared across a diverse grouping of people,” Brian Levin, the report’s lead author, said. “Next, local demographic changes in densely populated cities means more people are coming into contact with each other right at a time when fearful stereotypes are increasingly become the kindling for violent behavior.”

This past year has also been the worst for hate crime homicides since 1992, partly due to a white supremacist massacre of Hispanic shoppers at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. In what was described as the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius killed 22 people and injured 24 others in August. That made Latinos the top target for extremist killings in 2019, according to the report.

In 2018, when 22 people were killed in hate crime incidents, Jews and African Americans were the top target. Of the 45 extremist-motivated homicides in 2019, 26 were committed by white supremacists, according to the report.

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A ballistic missile attack ripped through a military parade for a Yemeni southern separatist group that’s backed by the United Arab Emirates, killing at least six troops and three children, a spokesman said Sunday.      

The explosion took place while the separatists, known as the Resistance Forces, were finishing a parade for new recruits at a soccer field in the capital of Dhale province, said Maged al-Shoebi, a spokesman for the group, who spoke with The Associated Press by phone.
       
The southern separatists are allied with the Saudi-led coalition that’s been fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. But the UAE-backed southerners are currently at odds with Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is more closely allied with Saudi Arabia. Cracks within the anti-Houthi bloc have widened over the past several months.
       
Footage circulated online of Sunday’s attack showing a hole in a stage at the edge of the field, apparently from an explosion, while other footage showed dead bodies on the ground.
       
More than 20 people including civilians were wounded in the blast, al-Shoebi said. He blamed the Houthis for the attack. The rebel group did not immediately comment.
       
The Houthis have been trying to wrest Dhale province from the southern separatists for years, but without much progress.
       
The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of Sanaa by the Houthi rebels. They drove out the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, forcing him to flee to the south and eventually to Saudi Arabia, which entered the war in 2015.
       
The fighting in the Arab world’s poorest country has killed over 100,000 people and left millions suffering from food and medical shortages. The conflict has also pushed the country to the brink of famine.
       

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Health authorities say about two dozen people, mostly laborers, were killed Saturday when a minibus collided with a truck on a highway in Port Said in northern Egypt.

Officials said in a statement that the minibus, a vehicle widely used in Egypt as communal taxis, was bringing the laborers from a garment factory in Port Said. The city is around 200 kilometers (around 125 miles) north of the capital, Cairo.

At least 22 people were killed in the crash, which took place on a highway linking the cities of Port Said and Damietta, the statement said. The workers were from Damietta.

Eight others were injured, some of them severely. All the victims were taken to nearby hospitals and morgues for treatment and identification, the statement said.

Egypt has a history of serious bus and car crashes because of speeding, careless driving, poor road conditions and poor enforcement of traffic laws.

The country’s official statistics agency says more than 8,000 road accidents took place in 2018, leaving more than 3,000 dead and around 12,000 injured.

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A U.S. astronaut set a record Saturday for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, breaking the old mark of 288 days with about two months left in her mission.

Christina Koch, a 40-year-old electrical engineer from Livingston, Montana, arrived at the International Space Station on March 14. She broke the record set by former space station commander Peggy Whitson in 2016-2017.

Koch is expected to spend a total of 328 days, or nearly 11 months, on board the space station before returning to Earth. Missions are typically six months, but NASA announced in April that it was extending her mission until February.

The U.S. record for longest space flight is 340 days set by Scott Kelly in 2015-2016. The world record is 15 months set in the 1990s by a Russian cosmonaut aboard the former Mir space station.

Koch’s extended mission will help NASA learn about the effects of long spaceflights, data that NASA officials have said is needed to support future deep space exploration missions to the Moon and Mars.

Before breaking the endurance record for a woman in space, Koch set another milestone as part of the first all-female spacewalking team in October. It was Koch’s fourth spacewalk.

She previously said she took a lot of helpful advice from Kelly’s 2017 autobiography “Endurance.”

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