USA

USA (AP) — The Samples were a black Chicago family, with six children and few resources. The priest helped them with tuition, clothes, bills. He offered the promise of opportunities — a better life.

He also abused all the children.

They told no one. They were afraid of not being believed and of losing what little they had, said one son, Terrence Sample. And nobody asked, until a lawyer investigating alleged abuses by the same priest prompted him to break his then 33-year silence.

“Somebody had to make the effort,” Sample said. “Why wasn’t it the church?”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate seems certain to keep President Donald Trump in office thanks to the overwhelming GOP support expected in his impeachment trial. But how that trial will proceed — and when it will begin — remains to be seen.

Democrats are pushing for the Senate to issue subpoenas for witnesses and documents, pointing to reports that they say have raised new questions about Trump’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — Hundreds of U.S. soldiers deployed Saturday from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Kuwait to serve as reinforcements in the Middle East amid rising tensions following the U.S. killing of a top Iranian general.

Lt. Col. Mike Burns, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, told The Associated Press 3,500 members of the division’s quick-deployment brigade, known officially as its Immediate Response Force, will have deployed within a few days. The most recent group of service members to deploy will join about 700 who left earlier in the week, Burns said.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Iran on Saturday, threatening to hit dozens of targets in the Islamic Republic “very fast and very hard” if it retaliates for the targeted killing of the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — At the midway point of his annual Christmas vacation, President Donald Trump huddled at his Florida club with his top national security advisers. Days earlier, a rocket attack by an Iranian-funded group struck a U.S.-Iraqi base, killing an American contractor and wounding several others.

Trump’s advisers presented him with an array of options for responding, including the most dramatic possible response: taking out Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force and the man responsible for hundreds of Americans deaths.

04 Jan 2019; MEMO: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday reiterated Washington’s commitment to de-escalation with Iran, following the killing of an Iranian top commander in a US airstrike in Iraq’s capital Baghdad, Anadolu Agency reports.

“I spoke today with Chinese Politburo Member Yang Jiechi to discuss [US President] DonaldTrump’s decision to eliminate [Qasem] Soleimani in response to imminent threats to American lives,” Pompeo said on Twitter.

WASHINGTON, January 3. /TASS/: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has placed the Shi’a paramilitary group Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) active in Iraq on the list of foreign terrorist organizations, claiming that the group has ties to Tehran, the US State Department informed in a statement on Friday.

"AAH and its leaders are violent proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Pompeo said. "Acting on behalf of their masters in Tehran, they use violence and terror to further the Iranian regime’s efforts to undermine Iraqi sovereignty," he claimed.

WASHINGTON, January. /TASS/: The US has already identified all targets if Americans are threatened in response to Washington’s killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, US President Donald Trump said in a statement on Friday.

"The US has the best military by far anywhere in the world. We have the best intelligence in the world. If Americans anywhere are threatened, we have all of those targets already fully identified. And I am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary. And that in particular refers to Iran," Trump said.

WASHINGTON, January 4. /TASS/: President of Iraq Barham Salih agreed with the necessity of reducing tensions in the region in the telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, Spokesperson of the US State Department Morgan Ortagus said.

"Secretary Pompeo discussed President Trump’s recent decision to take defensive action in response to imminent threats against American personnel. The Secretary made clear that the United States remains committed to de-escalation. President Salih agreed on the need to reduce tensions in the region," the Spokesperson said.

WASHINGTON DC, January 4. /TASS/: The US denies reports of airstrikes in the area of Al-Taji north of Baghdad, Colonel Miles Cuggins, the official representative of the Inherent Resolve twitted on Saturday.

"The coalition Inherent Resolve did not conduct airstrikes near Camp Taji (north of Baghdad) in recent days," he wrote.

As As-Sumariya television channel reported earlier, on Saturday night, the US Air Force attacked a Shiite militia column Al-Hashd al-Shaabi, which carried medical personnel.