The Department of Homeland Security "might" prohibit laptops as carry-on items for all international flights in and out of the United States, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Sunday in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.
The United States being a "free and open society" is "one of our vulnerabilities," Kelly said. "There's a real threat — numerous threats against aviation. That's really the thing that they're obsessed with, the terrorists: the idea of knocking down an airplane in flight, particularly if it's a U.S. carrier, particularly if it's full of mostly U.S. folks." Electronic carry-ons are already limited for flights from 10 Muslim-majority countries in the Mideast and North Africa.
Kelly also said he would "likely" expand nationwide a new TSA policy of requiring passengers to more substantially unpack their carry-on bags at the checkpoint, separating food and paper items into different bins. A 2015 DHS investigation found TSA officers failed to detect 95 percent of explosives and weapons passed through airport security in an internal test. Terrorism experts say the long lines caused by slow TSA checkpoints are themselves a security risk. Bonnie Kristian
Over the course of a decade, the late George H.W. Bush sponsored a boy living in the Philippines, who had no idea that the money, letters, and gifts coming to him from the United States were being sent by a former president.
Bush learned about Compassion International, a nonprofit that connects sponsors with children from poor communities, in 2001, the organization's former president, Wess Stafford, told CNN on Tuesday. His security team did some digging, and after vetting Compassion International, agreed that Bush could sponsor 7-year-old Timothy. There were some rules, though; he had to use a pseudonym, to protect Timothy from someone who might target him due to his link to Bush.
For 10 years, Bush sent letters — signed "George Walker" — and funds that paid for Timothy's education, activities, and food. Stafford screened Bush's letters, describing them to CNN as being "the most sweet, spirited letters I have read from any sponsor, but he kept giving hints as to who he could be. He was really pushing the envelope." Bush sent photos of his dog, Sadie, and told Timothy that he was invited to the White House for Christmas. Timothy drew pictures for Bush, who in turn sent him sketch pads, colored pencils, and paint, even though gifts were not allowed.
Timothy didn't find out who his sponsor was until he turned 17 and graduated. He was stunned, Stafford said, never having a clue that his pen pal and benefactor was once the president of the United States of America. Catherine Garcia
A panel of eight federal judges on Tuesday dismissed 83 complaints filed against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh by "lawyers, doctors, professors, and concerned citizens, among others."
The complaints lodged against him stem from his heated Senate confirmation hearings, accusing Kavanaugh of misconduct and making disrespectful statements to senators, Reuters reports. The panel threw out the complaints because the federal law governing judicial conduct does not apply to Supreme Court justices, only lower court judges.
Kavanaugh was a federal appeals court judge when President Trump announced in July he was nominating him for the Supreme Court. Before he was confirmed in October, Kavanaugh was accused by several women of sexual misconduct, allegations that he denied. Catherine Garcia
The U.S. State Department granted a visa on Tuesday to a Yemeni mother fighting to see her dying two-year-old son at a hospital in San Francisco.
Shaima Swileh's son, Abdullah, has a genetic brain disorder. Her husband, Ali Hassan, is a U.S. citizen, and he brought Abdullah to California in the fall for treatment. As a Yemeni citizen, Swileh was not able to get a visa under the Trump administration's travel ban, and was not allowed to travel to the U.S. with her family. They filed for a waiver, but Abdullah's health began to worsen, and he was put on life support last week.
Hassan wanted his wife to be able to kiss their son one final time, but also didn't want the toddler to suffer, and had given up hope that the waiver would come through. A social worker at the hospital contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Sacramento, and their lawyers sued this week. "This will allow us to mourn with dignity," Hassan said in a statement. Swileh will fly to San Francisco on Wednesday.
Waivers are granted on a case by case basis, with applicants having to prove they are not security threats and that their entry is in the national interest. "We hope this case makes the administration realize the waiver process is not working," Basim Elkarra of CAIR told The Associated Press. "Thousands of families have been split apart, including families who have loved ones who are ill and are not able to see them in their final hours. I'm sure there are more cases like this." Catherine Garcia
No one could find evidence of the middle-class tax cut plan President Trump kept promising before November's midterms. Now, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin won't even confirm it ever existed.
In a Tuesday interview, Mnuchin told Bloomberg the administration's top priority for next year is fixing 2017's tax overhaul. And as for the mysterious tax cut, well, Mnuchin said he was "not going to comment on whether it is a real thing or not a real thing."
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed last December and lauded in a documentary series from House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) released Tuesday. But its final form largely neglected promised tax cuts for the middle class, instead largely benefiting high-income Americans while raising the federal deficit by an projected $1.4 trillion in 10 years. Mnuchin didn't mention those issues when talking to Bloomberg, but said the administration will issue "some minor technical corrections" in early 2019.
Flash forward to October, just weeks before the midterms, and Trump again starts mentioning "a major tax cut for middle-income people." Mnuchin also affirmed he and House Republicans were working on a new tax plan to be released "shortly," Bloomberg says. Republicans, meanwhile, didn't know what Trump and Mnuchin were talking about.
When Bloomberg asked about that October hint on Tuesday, Mnuchin simply said "we have other things we're focused on." Which seems to be a fancy way of saying it's very, very far on the back burner. Kathryn Krawczyk
Saturn's iconic rings will one day be no more. The ring formation around the sixth planet from the sun is experiencing "ring drain," says James O'Donoghue of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
The planet's magnetic field is causing the rings to be pulled inward by gravity, creating a dusty rain of ice particles. Every half hour, enough water is drained from the rings to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, O'Donoghue said in a NASA press release.
This revelation, along with information from Cassini spacecraft research, led scientists to estimate that the rings will cease to exist in fewer than 100 million years — a short time relative to Saturn's 4-billion-year existence, O'Donoghue says.
Saturn's rings are made of chunks of water ice varying in size — some are microscopic while others are several yards wide. The particles are balanced between Saturn's gravity and their orbital velocity, creating rings, per NASA.
But scientists aren't sure whether Saturn has always had rings. New research supports the idea that they formed later in the planet's existence and are unlikely to be more than 100 million years old. If this is the case, the rings may have formed when the gravitational pull from a comet or asteroid caused small, icy moons that were orbiting the planet to collide, says NASA.
O'Donoghue notes that humans are lucky to be around during the lifetime of Saturn's ring system, but that, if rings are temporary, we may have missed out on seeing the beauty of ring formations around Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, too. Taylor Watson
