1A Nov 30, 2018 - Free Audiobook

Domestic Roundup

Thirteen federal agencies signed off on a landmark climate change report last week. The report notes that Americans are already experiencing the effects of climate change and warns of devastating consequences for the environment and economy if the issue remains unaddressed. The report was released on the Friday after Thanksgiving, causing many critics to believe that the Trump administration was trying to bury it. When asked about it, President Trump said he didn’t believe the report.

And border tensions heated up this week as well. ProPublica reported that children were still being separated from their family at the border, even though the Trump administration says that part of their “zero tolerance” policy is over.

President Trump also resurfaced the border wall debate, and threatened a government shutdown over funding for his pet project in an interview with Politico.

The Mueller probe also hasn’t gone away. President Trump’s former fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen pled guilty on Thursday to lying to Congress. Cohen also admitted that discussions about a planned Trump Tower in Moscow occurred well into the 2016 campaign.

Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort also made headlines this week, after Trump said a pardon for him was not off the table. The Mueller team also said this week that Manafort had broken his plea agreement by repeatedly lying to investigators, a charge which Manafort denies.

And The Guardian reported this week that Manafort met secretly with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2013, 2015 and 2016.

On Friday, Marriott announced that 500 million guest accounts had been compromised. Here’s what to know about your cyber safety.

International Roundup

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate advanced a bill to consider ending all U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen. The vote is a bipartisan rebuke to President Trump, who has made Saudi Arabia the cornerstone of his strategy in the Middle East.

The president recently dismissed the CIA’s conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman likely ordered the execution of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But not every Republican agrees … and it affected their vote.

The Senate vote came the same day the president boarded a flight to this year’s G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. President Trump is scheduled to meet with more than a half-dozen world leaders – including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The United States and China have been locked in a costly trade war since July. If no deal is made by January, U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are expected to increase from 10 percent now to 25 percent in 2019.

One world leader Trump will not be sitting down with? Russian President Vladimir Putin. The president tweeted on Thursday that he had canceled a planned meeting with Putin, due to a recent naval clash between Russia and Ukraine.

We’ll bring you the latest on these stories, as well as other news from around the globe, with our panel of journalists.