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69 Canadians Giving Up Holidays to Fight Fires Down Under

GOP Senators Balk at House Democrats’ Plan to Hold Impeachment Articles

Several Republican senators have questioned the strategy employed by House Democrats to stall sending articles of impeachment to the Senate. Over the past few days, top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), have suggested holding the articles until the Senate comes up with rules on the pending impeachment trial. But Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said he believes that Pelosi doesn’t have the power to hold up the trial on the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. “The Speaker has a lot of power,” Blunt told CNN on Sunday before adding that he doesn’t think she has the authority to hold the articles once “the House has spoken,” meaning voted, on articles of impeachment. “I think it’s a mistake on the Speaker’s part. I think…

69 Canadians Giving Up Holidays to Fight Fires Down Under

TORONTO—Sixty−nine Canadians are giving up their holidays at home to join the battle for the first time against the deadly wildfires devastating vast tracts of several Australian states. 

The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre says a contingent of 21 highly trained staff from a variety of agencies left Canada on Dec. 3, for a 38-day deployment in New South Wales after the centre received an official request for assistance.

On Dec. 19 a second group of 30 Canadians was sent in for a 38-day deployment in the fire zone, and a further 18 are leaving on Dec. 30 for about a month.

Kim Connors, the executive director of the Winnipeg based CIFFC, says that Canada has called on Australian firefighters four times since 2015, and the “agreements are reciprocal in nature so it was the first time that Australia has needed help from Canada.”

“Our Canadian firefighters and their families have volunteered their time to be away for the holidays, which is different for the northern hemisphere to be dealing with wildland fires over Christmas and New Year’s so we’re very proud of them for doing that,” he said in an interview.

The CIFFC says crews from Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Yukon, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and B.C. are assisting with a variety of tasks including roles in command, aviation, planning, logistics, and operations.

“So they’re not on the front line, they’re in the overall management of the fires,” said Connors.

“They’ve been in a period of drought for quite a long period and it’s not a very good situation down there and obviously their summer is just started as our winter starts.”

Record high temperatures and strong southerly winds are fanning more than 100 fires in New South Wales alone.

Two volunteer firefighters have been killed and dozens of homes have been lost since Dec. 19 in the massive fires, including the Gospers Mountain blaze, which covered more than 460,000 hectares.

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ICE Releases Footage Proving Migrants Knew They Were Enrolling in Fake University

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has defended itself amid claims it unfairly enticed migrants into enrolling at fake universities during an undercover investigation run by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The federal law enforcement agency shared video footage on Dec. 20 proving students acknowledged that they wouldn’t be taking any classes at the fake university and that the scheme was also illegal. In an accompanying press release, Acting Deputy Director, Derek Benner, said he hoped to address the public’s misconceptions about the ICE’s undercover investigation and “set the record straight.” “Over the past few weeks, the University of Farmington (Farmington), an undercover investigation run by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), has been the focus of several media reports,” he wrote. “These reports mischaracterized the purpose and rationale for the investigation, and I…