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MADRID (AP) — The five separatist leaders on trial for Catalonia's 2017 secession attempt who were elected to the Spanish Parliament last month picked up their official credentials under police escort on Monday.

POSTED MAY 20, 2019 7:12 AM

Qatari state-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera suspended two journalists on Sunday over a video they produced claiming the extent of the Holocaust was being misrepresented by Jews. The clip, posted by Al Jazeera's online AJ+ Arabic service, claimed "the narrative" that the Nazis killed six million Jews was "adopted by the Zionist movement". The video said that "along with others, the Jews faced a policy of systematic persecution which culminated in the Final Solution".

POSTED MAY 19, 2019 2:00 PM

Joe Biden may be leading national polls among Democratic voters, but a new poll shows his dominance doesn’t necessarily extend to Iowa.Mr Biden is matched by Bernie Sanders in the state, a sharp drop from his 11 point lead in a separate poll last month. Both candidates can claim 24 per cent support in the state, which will vote first in the nominating process next year.Mr Biden and Mr Sanders are followed in the new poll by several candidates with significant showings, including Pete Buttigieg (14 per cent), Elizabeth Warren (12 per cent), and Kamala Harris (10 per cent).Reading into the polls just a bit more, Mr Biden has more to worry about than just Mr Sanders, too.Ms Warren stands out as the most liked candidate in the race, with a favourability rating at 78 per cent — the top in the race. She is followed by Mr Sanders, who is the next closest with 71 per cent.“Good news for Elizabeth Warren: her favourability exceeds that of any other candidate in the race and her name recognition is near universal,” said principal pollster Jane Loria in a news release.She continued: “In some states, we see a large spread between the front-runners and the so-called second-tier in the excitement barometer, but in Iowa the candidates are all pretty tightly clustered. When we ask respondents to identify the five candidates they’re most excited about, 54% say Warren, followed by Biden (53%), then Harris (53%), Sanders (49%), and Buttigieg (46%)The terrain looks much better for Mr Biden when looking at the other states that follow close after Iowa, however. In New Hampshire, Mr Biden beats Mr Sanders 36 per cent to 18 per cent. In South Carolina, meanwhile, Mr Biden recently got 46 per cent support compared to Mr Sanders’ 15 per cent.But, any fragility in Iowa could have real consequences for Mr Biden’s third presidential race. The state has an outsized influence on the presidential nominating process, and a loss there would show potentially significant vulnerabilities for the former vice president.The Iowa Starting Line/Change Research Poll was released on Monday, and the Iowa caucuses will be held in January.

POSTED MAY 20, 2019 1:04 PM

The Tomahawk and its controversies might make headlines, but as the U.S. Navy re-arms for high-tech warfare, the SM-6 is the missile to watch.The U.S. Navy in late January 2019 confirmed the designation of its newest cruise missile, in the process clarifying its long-term plan for arming its growing fleet of warships.The plan heavily leans on one missile, in particular. It's the SM-6, an anti-aircraft weapon that quickly is evolving to perform almost every role the Navy assigns to a missile.(This first appeared earlier in the year.)The Navy dubbed the newest version of the venerable Tomahawk cruise missile the "Block V" model, Jane's reported. There are two separate variants of the Block V missile, one with an anti-ship warhead and another with a warhead the Navy optimized for striking targets on land.Raytheon's Tomahawk has been the subject of controversy in Washington, D.C. In order to save money the Obama administration wanted to pause production of the long-range missile, which since the 1980s has been the Navy's main weapon for striking land targets from the sea.Congress overruled the Obama administration and continued buying Tomahawks for roughly $1 million apiece, adding potentially hundreds of the missiles to the thousands the fleet already possesses.

POSTED MAY 19, 2019 1:00 PM

An explosion struck a tourist bus on Sunday near Egypt's famed pyramids, injuring 17 people including foreigners, security and medical sources said. South Africans and Egyptians were among those injured when an explosive device went off, hitting the bus in Giza, according to the sources. Sunday's incident comes after three Vietnamese holidaymakers and their Egyptian guide were killed when a roadside bomb hit their bus as it travelled near the pyramids outside Cairo in December.

POSTED MAY 19, 2019 10:05 AM

Incendiary message follows disavowals of intent from both sidesOpinion: Trump supporters don’t want war with Iran In a picture released on Friday, the USS Abraham Lincoln sails in the Arabian Sea near the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge. Photograph: Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brian M Wilbur/AP Donald Trump has issued one of his most direct threats yet to Tehran, warning that “if Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran”. The US president emerged from his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, on Sunday to tweet belligerently at around 4.30pm, thereby risking a quickening of tension that is already rising. “Never threaten the United States again!” he wrote. The tweet will do little to assuage jitters in the Middle East and in Washington about aggressive language coming out of the White House. Concern is already running high that Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, who played a key role in instigating the invasion of Iraq under George Bush, might be nudging the administration towards military action. In 2015, Bolton wrote a New York Times op-ed entitled “To stop Iran’s bomb, bomb Iran”. Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal last year. On the other hand, Trump has a way of blowing hot one minute and cold the next. As with so many of his social media missives, the precise import of his Sunday tweet was hard to read. It directly conflicted with reports of just three days ago that the president had been telling the Pentagon he did not want to go to war and wanted to find a way to wind down tensions. Those reports were also subject to qualification. In response to reports about a draft plan for the deployment of 120,000 troops, Trump said that though he did not want war, if it came to it he would send “a hell of a lot” more soldiers than that. Earlier on Sunday, the Utah senator and former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had joined the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in dismissing the threat of war. “Going to war with Iran?” Romney asked on CNN’s State of the Union. “Not going to happen.” According to the Fars news agency, Maj General Hossein Salami followed foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif by saying Iran was not pursuing war either. But both men offered caveats. Romney, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, said the threat to US interests was “real” and added: “We’re going to make sure they understand that if they take action against our people, against our allies and against our friends, there will be consequence and it will be far more severe than the initial action taken by Iran.” Salami said Iran was ready to fight, as the difference “between us and them is that they are afraid of war and don’t have the will for it”. The White House has not said what is behind its claim of an increased threat. Romney said the “intelligence community says there’s a great deal of risk” but did not elaborate. It has been reported that US intelligence believes Iranian commercial vessels have carried missiles and ammunition, which some analysts say indicates preparations to defend against a US attack. Saudi Arabia is the major US ally in the region. Four oil tankers, two of them Saudi, were attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Iran-allied rebels in Yemen claimed a drone attack on a Saudi oil pipeline. Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, told reporters on Sunday his country also “does not want war … but at the same time, if the other side chooses war, the kingdom will fight this with all force and determination”. The US has sent an aircraft carrier strike group and cautionary moves include an evacuation of personnel by the oil firm ExxonMobil and a warning from the US to commercial air traffic of increased risk in the region. The Associated Press reported on Sunday that Democrats in Congress will be briefed by former CIA director John Brennan, a stringent Trump critic, and Wendy Sherman, a former state department official who helped negotiate the Iran deal. Among Democratic presidential hopefuls on Sunday, the presumption was that Trump either wanted war or was behaving irresponsibly. The Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a military veteran, told ABC’s This Week Trump was “leading us down this dangerous path towards a war in Iran”. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, another veteran, said war with Iran would be “exactly what John Bolton wants”. But David Petraeus, a retired general who led US troops in Iraq in 2003 and later led the CIA, told ABC it was “pretty clear” Trump “doesn’t want to go to war with Iran. He’s not after regime change”. Romney agreed. “I don’t believe for a minute,” he said, “that either the president or John Bolton or anyone else in a serious senior position of leadership in the White House has any interest in going to the Middle East and going to war. That’s just not going to happen … barring some kind of attack from Iran or something of that nature which I don’t think anyone anticipates. “Look, the president made it very clear that he thinks the greatest foreign policy mistake probably in the modern age was the decision by President Bush to go into Iraq. The idea that he would follow that by going after Iran, a more difficult enemy if you will, that’s just not going to happen.” Famously, Trump said at the time that he supported George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He has since vehemently denied that he did so.

POSTED MAY 19, 2019 5:46 PM

Rescuers successfully talked down a man who scaled the upper heights of the Eiffel Tower on Monday, forcing the monument's evacuation, and handed him over to police. Television channels ran live shots as rescuers perched on the 324-metre (1,063-foot) tower's wrought-iron struts, just below the highest viewing platform, tried to persuade the unknown man to give himself up. The lattice tower, named after its designer and builder Gustave Eiffel, is one of the world's most recognisable landmarks.

POSTED MAY 20, 2019 6:38 PM

The Soundcore Liberty Neo Truly-Wireless Earbuds by Anker are a tremendous value at their full retail price of $65, especially when you consider the fact that they improve upon Apple's $159 AirPods in every conceivable way. The graphene drivers produce better sound and deeper bass, the silicone tips fit better in your ears, and the IPX5 rating provides better water-resistance. They're among the best cord-free earbuds we've ever tested in this price range, and they just dropped to an all-time low of $44.99! Definitely pick up a pair before this excellent deal is done.Here are the bullet points from the product page: * Breathtaking Sound: Exceptional clarity delivered via Graphene drivers with deep, resonant bass. * Smaller & Lighter: Each bud weighs only 0.2 oz for incredible comfort and seamless sound that sits effortlessly in your ears. * 12-Hour Playtime: Get 3.5 hours' playtime from a single charge and 9 extra hours in the compact charging case. * Ultra-Fast Pairing: Push and Go Technology simplifies the setup: process so the last-paired device automatically connects on startup. * IPX5 Protection: Resists liquids for workouts in the sun or songs in the rain. * Hand-Free Calls: A built-in microphone ensures easy on-the-go phone calls.

POSTED MAY 20, 2019 1:01 PM

A second take on a quick review shows settings that have too many options and can't be read well in bright sunlight. But camera offers many great features.

POSTED MAY 20, 2019 5:25 PM

AUBURN, Ala. (AP) — The Latest on shootings of police officers in Auburn, Alabama (all times local):

POSTED MAY 20, 2019 12:35 PM