The newly elected treasurer of a small city in western Pennsylvania asserted in a lawsuit Wednesday that city officials plotted to block her from taking office because she is black.

Uniontown Treasurer-elect Antoinette Hodge alleged that a city councilman, Martin Gatti, took action to prevent her from being sworn in as scheduled this week and called her a “colored girl” in a discussion with officials at a bonding agency.

Gatti, a defendant in the lawsuit, has adamantly denied using racist language, saying at a council meeting Monday that he had legitimate questions about Hodge’s financial background.

The federal suit, which also names as defendants the city of Uniontown and its clerk, Kimberly Marshall — Gatti’s sister-in-law — seeks to force the city to seat Hodge and to prevent city officials from interfering with her ability to do the job, Hodge’s lawyer, Joel Sansone, said at a news conference Wednesday. The suit also seeks unspecified money damages.

“We will not allow the raci..

Now that Tehran and Washington have openly exchanged fire, the conflict between the two nations will continue in the shadows where it has been fought for 40 years — and where Iran’s Revolutionary Guard still seeks to exact revenge for the U.S. killing its top commander.

But after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, Iran now knows that any attack that even its proxies launch could trigger another American strike. President Donald Trump’s backers say the raised stakes have restored “big stick” deterrence that American enemies and allies had begun to doubt after Trump failed to respond militarily to repeated Iranian aggression. His critics say he has ushered in a new era that makes every American a target for kidnapping and assassination across the Middle East, and beyond.

Trump seemed satisfied on Wednesday that Tehran had learned its lesson, saying in a televised address that he was “ready to embrace peace with all who seek it,” after the overnight barrage of ballistic missiles fire..

(RIO DE JANEIRO) — A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered Netflix to stop showing a Christmas special that some called blasphemous for depicting Jesus as a gay man and which prompted a gasoline bomb attack on the satirists behind the program.

The ruling by Rio de Janeiro judge Benedicto Abicair responded to a petition by a Brazilian Catholic organization that argued the “honor of millions of Catholics” was hurt by the airing of “The First Temptation of Christ.” The special was produced by the Rio-based film company Porta dos Fundos, whose headquarters was targeted in the Christmas Eve attack.

Netflix told The Associated Press it would not comment on the ruling.

Porta dos Fundos also declined to comment on the judge’s decision, which contradicted an earlier decision rejecting censorship of the program. The ruling is valid until another court orders otherwise.

Abicair said the program’s withdrawal “is beneficial not only to the Christian community, but to Brazilian society which is m..

Australian actress Yael Stone announced on Tuesday that she plans to give up her United States green card to reduce the environmental impact of living in two countries simultaneously.

Stone starred in Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black — which was shot in the U.S. — and lived primarily in New York between 2012 and 2019. She most recently performed in the play The Beauty Queen of Leenane in Sydney, Australia.

Stone tells TIME in an email that, while living in the U.S. she flew back home to Australia roughly twice a year. “When you live a long way from home you fly often to maintain some kind of connection,” she explains, adding that she’s felt “sick about the gap between my beliefs and my behavior.”

According to environmental nonprofit myclimate, a one way flight from New York to Sydney emits 2.8 metric tons of CO2 per person (in economy class). That’s roughly the same as driving 6,948 miles in a car, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Read more: Why TIME Devoted an En..

Following a period of speculation by royals fans over what would be next for Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the couple has announced they plan to step back as “senior members” of Britain’s royal family.

In a statement shared on their official Instagram page Wednesday, the Sussexes announced they will be transitioning away from their roles as “senior” royals and will begin splitting their time between the U.K. and North America in 2020.

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“After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution. We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen. It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we feel prepared to make this adjustment. We now plan to balance our time between ..

In 1981, at the outset of the Iran-Iraq War, Qassem Soleimani witnessed his country’s first use of human wave-style tactics. That costly practice would become one of the hallmarks of a conflict that would claim nearly a million lives on both sides and would see a return to First World War style trench warfare and the widespread use of chemical weapons. When the UN eventually negotiated a ceasefire, both sides claimed victory. A key result of the conflict was Iran’s adoption of a national security strategy that relied on the more economical practice of asymmetric warfare (terrorism, wars by proxy). The Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, led by Soleimani for more than twenty years, played a crucial role in the implementation of this strategy, which ensured that Iranian society would never again experience such a bloodletting. For leaders in Tehran, the Iran-Iraq War would become “the war to end all wars”—sort of.

Now Soleimani is dead. A lot has been written in recent days about “war with..

(TEHRAN, Iran) — Weeping amid wails from a sea of mourners, Iran’s supreme leader on Monday prayed over the remains of a top Iranian general killed in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, an attack that’s drastically raised tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The targeted killing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qasem Soleimani drew a crowd, said by police to be in the millions, on Monday in Tehran, where Soleimani’s replacement vowed to take revenge. Additionally, Tehran has abandoned the remaining limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in response to the slaying while in Iraq, the parliament has called for the expulsion of all American troops from Iraqi soil.

Read more: How Qasem Soleimani’s Assassination in Iraq Comes at a Fraught Moment for Trump

The developments could bring Iran closer to building an atomic bomb, set off a proxy or military attack launched by Tehran against America and enable the Islamic State group to stage a comeback in Iraq, making the Middle E..

(LONDON) — A man described as “the most prolific rapist in British legal history” has been sentenced to life in prison with a possible release after 30 years following his conviction for sexual offenses against 48 men.

Authorities said the evidence against 36-year-old Reynhard Sinaga indicates he had many more victims, with roughly 195 men apparently having been filmed while being abused when they were in his apartment. Many were unconscious at the time.

Judge Suzanne Goddard said in Manchester Crown Court the true number of Sinaga’s victims may never be known.

“You are an evil serial sexual predator who has preyed upon young men who came into the city center wanting nothing more than a good night out with their friends,” she said. “One of your victims described you as a monster. The scale and enormity of your offending confirms this as an accurate description.”

She said the courts had rarely if ever seen such a prolonged “campaign of rape.” Reporting restrictions that had prevente..

A British lawmaker has criticized the U.K.’s tabloid press, saying journalists threatened to reveal her same-sex relationship without her consent.

Layla Moran, a lawmaker from the Liberal Democrat party representing the constituency of Oxford West and Abingdon, announced she is pansexual and in a relationship with a woman in a tweet posted on Jan. 2. (Moran’s partner, Rosy Cobb, is a former head of media for the Liberal Democrats. She left her position after a scandal in which she allegedly forged an email.)

Moran is believed to be the first openly pansexual lawmaker in the United Kingdom.

“Pansexuality, to me, means it doesn’t matter about the physical attributions of the person you fall in love with, it’s about the person themselves,” Moran told PinkNews, a British LGBT publication. (“Being pansexual means being attracted to all gender identities,” as per a GLAAD definition, “or attracted to people regardless of gender.”)

But she criticized a British tabloid newspaper for its rol..

An unidentified form of pneumonia has broken out in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, prompting authorities to quarantine those infected and raise hospital alerts. Wuhan’s health bureau announced Sunday that close to 60 patients have been diagnosed with the virus, and neighboring Hong Kong has announced suspected cases. (A suspected case in Singapore turned out to be a false alarm.)

The mysterious strain has been linked to a seafood market which has been closed for sanitation since Jan. 1. Medical experts are attempting to identify the illness. While they say it is unlikely that this new strain of pneumonia could cause a repeat of 2003’s deadly SARS outbreak in 2003, which killed hundreds in mainland China and spread as far as the U.S. and Canada, they stress that vigilance should not be relaxed.

Here’s what to know about the virus.

How serious is the pneumonia outbreak?
According to Wuhan’s health bureau, 59 patients have been diagnosed with the virus, including seven in critical ..

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Mudslides and power blackouts hampered the search for people missing in massive floods in Indonesia’s capital, where more than 60 people have died and some of the tens of thousands of evacuees were living in damp, cramped emergency shelters.

More than a thousand soldiers and health workers sprayed disinfectant in hard-hit areas on Sunday to fend off diseases that could spread in the floods. Monsoon rains and rising rivers submerged a dozen districts in the greater Jakarta area after extreme New Year’s Eve rains, causing landslides in hilly areas on the outskirts of the capital that buried scores of people.

It’s the worst flooding in the area since 2007, when 80 people were killed over 10 days. More rain is in the forecast, and the potential for more extreme rainfall is possible for the next month.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said Monday the death toll from flash flood and landslides in and around Jakarta rose to 66 and rescuers..

As the only place in the Chinese-speaking world where people can choose their top political leader, it’s unsurprising that elections in Taiwan embody democracy at its unbridled messiest: febrile, rambunctious and dripping in color. This year is no different. The island of 23 million heads to the ballot box on Saturday following a campaign dominated by fake news from malevolent actors, sexist personal attacks and fist-pumping speeches.

The growing clout of Beijing looms large over the island. China’s strongman President Xi Jinping has been blunt about the need to politically reunite self-governing Taiwan with the mainland. The past four years has seen seven diplomatic allies switch to Beijing—only 15 nations still recognize the government in Taipei—and repeated threats of invasion.

How best to safeguard the island’s democratic way of life has dominated the election, which pits the anti-China incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen against the more pro-Beijing challenger Han Kuo-yu.

Deterior..

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran said Sunday it would no longer abide by any of the limits of its unraveling 2015 nuclear deal with world powers after a U.S. airstrike killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad, abandoning the accord’s key provisions that block Tehran from having enough material to build an atomic weapon.

Iran insisted in a state television broadcast it remained open to negotiations with European partners, who so far have been unable to offer Tehran a way to sell its crude oil abroad despite U.S. sanctions. It also didn’t back off of earlier promises that it wouldn’t seek a nuclear weapon.

However, the announcement Sunday represents the clearest nuclear proliferation threat yet made by Iran since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord in May 2018. It also further raises regional tensions, as Iran’s longtime foe Israel has promised never to allow Iran to be able to produce an atomic bomb.

The announcement came Sunday night after another Iranian official said it..

The Iraqi parliament approved a draft bill Sunday requiring the government to ask Washington to withdraw American troops from the country. The move is largely symbolic, as it sets no timetable for withdrawal and is subject to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s approval. But it reflects mounting volatility facing U.S. forces in the region, and the uncertainty of U.S. strategic interests there in the wake of the American drone strike that killed a top Iranian official Thursday.

During the Iraqi parliament’s emergency session, in which some members repeatedly chanted “no to America,” Mahdi revealed new information about the run up to the American drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, a prominent Iranian military leader who commanded the country’s elite Quds Force. Mahdi said President Donald Trump called him and asked him to mediate with Iran even as the American president was secretly ordering Soleimani’s killing. Mahdi also said he was set to meet Soleimani, who was carrying a..

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that Iranian cultural sites were fair game for the U.S. military, dismissing concerns within his own administration that doing so would constitute a war crime under international law. He also warned Iraq that the U.S. would levy punishing sanctions if it expelled American troops in retaliation for a U.S. strike in Baghdad that killed a top Iranian official.

Trump’s comments came amid escalating tensions in the Middle East following last week’s strike on Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds force. Iran has vowed to retaliate and Iraq’s parliament responded by voting Sunday to oust U.S. troops based in the country.

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from a ho..

(BAGHDAD) — Iraq’s Parliament called for the expulsion of U.S. forces from the country in reaction to the American drone attack that killed a top Iranian general, raising the prospect of a troop withdrawal that could cripple the battle against the Islamic State group and allow a resurgence of the extremists.

Lawmakers approved a resolution asking the Iraqi government to end the agreement under which Washington sent troops more than four years ago to help fight ISIS. The bill is nonbinding and subject to approval by the Iraqi government but has the backing of the outgoing prime minister.

But the vote was another sign of the blowback from the U.S. airstrike Friday that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and a number of top Iraqi officials at the Baghdad airport. Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s proxy wars across the Mideast and was blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in roadside bombings and other attacks.

Speaking to lawmakers in Parliament, Prime Minister Adel Abdu..