10 things you need to know today: February 5, 2018

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1. Eagles beat Patriots 41-33 for first Super Bowl win
2. Democrats press for new House panel vote on releasing rebuttal memo
3. Amtrak train that crashed in S.C. was on wrong track
4. McCain and Coons to introduce bipartisan immigration bill
5. Italian police find white supremacist literature in home of shooting suspect
6. U.S. stock futures lose more ground after last week's big decline
7. Shootout trial starts for Paris terror attacks suspect
8. Tillerson: U.S. considering oil sanctions against Venezuela
9. Samsung heir freed after appeals court reduces jail sentence
10. North Korea sending high-level delegation to Winter Olympics opening ceremony

published 5 February 2018

1. Eagles beat Patriots 41-33 for first Super Bowl win

The Philadelphia Eagles upset the New England Patriots 41-33 to win Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis on Sunday night. The Eagles lost a lead they had held for most of the game with 9:22 to go, but quickly came back. Eagles quarterback Nick Foles threw for three touchdowns and caught a pass on a trick play to score another. He was named Super Bowl MVP, out-dueling Patriots superstar QB Tom Brady, who threw three touchdowns and 505 yards for a Super Bowl record. Brady and the Patriots were going for their sixth Super Bowl win. It was the Eagles' first. The last time they won a professional football championship was in the pre-Super Bowl era, when they beat iconic coach Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, led by Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr, in 1960.

The House Intelligence Committee on Monday is expected to consider Democrats' call to release their rebuttal to the Republican memo accusing the FBI and the Justice Department of bias against President Trump, Reuters reported Sunday, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter. Republicans, led by committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), made their memo public on Friday after Trump declined to block it despite the objection of FBI Director Christopher Wray, who said it was inaccurate. The GOP memo said the FBI and Justice Department relied on opposition research by a British spy, and funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign, to get a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court warrant to monitor communications by former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

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The Amtrak train that crashed into a parked CSX freight train in South Carolina, killing two people and injuring more than 100, was traveling on the wrong track, authorities said Sunday. Amtrak officials said CSX dispatchers managed train movements in the area. "They weren't supposed to be meeting like that, clearly," South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said. Amtrak Train 91 was heading from New York to Miami when it slammed into the CSX train at about 59 miles per hour, killing the Amtrak engineer and conductor. There were 139 people on board the Amtrak train; 116 were taken to hospitals. Investigators were examining the trains' event data recorders for indications of what caused the fatal accident, Amtrak's third in less than two months.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) plan on Monday to introduce bipartisan immigration legislation that gives Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients a pathway to citizenship and calls for a study to determine what border security measures are needed, The Wall Street Journal reports. It does not contain immediate funding for President Trump's proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Last month, the government shut down for three days after lawmakers were unable to reach a deal on a spending bill, with Democrats saying they couldn't agree to a budget unless DACA was addressed. Funding is once again set to run out on Friday.

Italian police said Sunday they found a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, other Nazi publications, and paraphernalia popular with white supremacists in the home of a right-wing extremist accused of wounding six Africans in a shooting spree in central Italy. The suspect, Luca Traini, was "lucid and determined, aware of what he had done," and showed no remorse, an Italian law enforcement official said a day after the drive-by attack that took place over two hours. Five men and one woman from Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, and Mali, were wounded. A law-enforcement commander said "this crazy gesture" might have been "retaliation, a sort of vendetta" for a recent brutal murder of an 18-year-old woman that was blamed on an African immigrant.

U.S. stock futures fell on Monday morning, pointing to a lower open after last week's big losses. The turmoil came as a stronger-than-expected January jobs report fueled inflation fears and concerns that the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates faster than previously forecast to keep the economy from overheating. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which plunged by 665 points or 2.5 percent on Friday, dropped by as much as 250 points before regaining some of the lost ground, but remained down by about 100 points. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 edged down, too. Three of the major U.S. stock indexes had their worst week in two years last week, with the Dow pulling back by 4.1 percent, and the S&P 500 by 3.9 percent.

Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving suspect in the 2015 Paris attacks, went on trial in Brussels on Monday. Abdeslam, 28, is charged with shooting and wounding Belgian and French police officers who were searching for him and his co-defendant, Sofien Ayari, in southern Belgium four months after the Paris and St.-Denis attacks, which left 130 people dead. Abdeslam refused to stand in court, saying he was tired after the journey from a prison in France. He said he would defend himself by staying silent. "Muslims are judged and treated without pity, there is no presumption of innocence," he said during the hearing.

The U.S. is weighing whether to restrict imports of Venezuelan oil, as well as exports of refined fuel to Venezuela, to pressure the South American nation's socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, to "return to the constitution" and end the country's political crisis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday. Tillerson is on a tour of Latin America that will take him to Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and Jamaica. Tillerson said the U.S. is considering oil sanctions as "a step that might bring this to an end more rapidly," while trying to make sure the U.S. does nothing to harm U.S. business interests. Tillerson made the comments in a news conference with Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie, who said any sanctions "must never harm the Venezuelan people."

A South Korean appeals court on Monday reduced the sentence of Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong to two and a half years from five and suspended the remaining sentence, allowing Lee to walk free after a year in jail on bribery, embezzlement, perjury, and other corruption-related charges. Prosecutors had sought a 12-year sentence for Lee, arguing that he bribed foundations operated by Choi Soon-sil, a friend of then-President Park Geun-hye, for political favors. Park was later impeached and removed from office in a broader corruption scandal. Lee's case will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court. Samsung shares reversed earlier losses on the news of Lee's release, closing up by 0.5 percent.

North Korea is sending high-level government representatives to the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in South Korea this week, The New York Times reported Sunday, citing South Korean officials. Kim Yong-nam, the president of the Presidium of North Korean Parliament, will lead the 22-member delegation on a three-day visit, starting Friday. The 90-year-old Kim, who is not related to Pyongyang's leader, Kim Jong Un, serves as the isolated communist nation's ceremonial head of state, while Kim Jong Un exercises complete control over the government. Kim Yong-nam is expected to meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has worked on starting talks to ease tensions between the two countries since taking power in May.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.