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The five-point Democratic advantage in this combined measure of party affiliation was the same in 2017 as in 2016, but higher than the three-point Democratic leads in 2014 and 2015. Since 1991, the average has been a five-point Democratic edge.

With this in mind, Trump’s poll numbers look much more daunting for him and the GOP. He continues to get about 80 percent of the GOP vote (27 percent of the electorate). But that amounts to a meager 21.6 percent of the electorate as a whole.

The presence of so many independent voters does not mean these are necessarily moderates. Most every poll shows the once-great center shrinking and more polarization at the extremes. If Democrats want to capitalize on the GOP woes and the general unpopularity of the president, they might want to consider running on his failure to carry through on populist economic reforms, his attacks on the health-care system, his self-deal and conflicts of interest and the Republicans utter failure to act as a restraint on the unhinged chief executive.

The war in Ukraine is far from over, but a consensus is forming in Chinese policy circles that one country stands to emerge victorious from the turmoil: China.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has avoided criticizing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but he has also tried to distance China from the carnage.

His government has denounced the international sanctions imposed on Russia but, so far at least, has hinted that Chinese companies may comply with them, to protect China’s economic interests in the West.

The only reason we do not currently have a financial crisis, with a crash and with bailouts, is because regulators have withstood enormous pressure to allow interconnection and linkages between the crypto activities and the core of the financial and banking system,” he said. Because of their regulators’ stance, American banks are not collateralizing loans with cryptocurrencies, for instance. They are not freely trading crypto derivatives.

Meanwhile, an aversion to U.S. regulation has kept crypto businesses, many of which are based offshore, from getting more deeply involved in American finance. “If you are registered with the SEC and regulated by the SEC, you are required to have segregation of customer accounts,” Kelleher explained. “You’re required to have books and records. You’re required to have codes of conduct that include prohibitions on or identification of conflicts of interest. You’re prohibited from commingling funds. You’re required to have margin capital, and you have liquidity requirements.” Crypto companies “did not want that,”

It’s a Ponzi scheme. When there was tulip mania, at least when you lost all your money, you still had a tulip.”

Israel’s interests are simple: a post-conflict Syria in which Iran has as little role as possible. No role is not possible. But Israel’s focus is to keep Iranian forces or Iranian proxies several tens of miles back from Israel’s borders at a minimum (50-60 kilometers, this article says)

The other just as critical goal is to keep Iranian missiles and air defense systems from anywhere on Syrian soil.

Entous’s article argued that UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel each want a rapprochment between the US and Russia because only that will make possible or give Russia an interest in pushing back or restraining Iran, most specifically in Syria

The Kremlin has upped the geopolitical ante by pledging to send a heavy aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean, as reported by Russian news agency Interfax

The warship holds several sea-based fighters and helicopters, missiles, anti-submarine systems and a crew of 2,000 people.

The carrier is the only one in Russia's fleet, so its deployment is an unmistakable signal of Moscow's seriousness about protecting their regional interests, some of which are directly tied to the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Syria port of Tartus.

Kremlin counts days to Trump's inauguration, blasts Obama

Exulted by Donald Trump's victory in the U.S., the Kremlin is counting the days to his inauguration and venting its anger at Barack Obama's outgoing administration, no holds barred.

Trump's open admiration of Putin has brought wide expectations of improved Moscow-Washington relations, but Trump has not articulated a clear Russia policy.

WHEN liberals are in a philosophical mood, they like to cast debates over the role of government not as a clash between the individual and the state, but as a conflict between the individual and the community. Liberals are for cooperation and joint effort; conservatives are for self-interest and selfishness.

In this worldview, the government is just the natural expression of our national community, and the place where we all join hands to pursue the common good.

“Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.”

The United States screwed up not because it picked the wrong side in the Vietnam conflict, but because it stuck its nose where it didn’t belong. It simply wasn’t for us to decide who were the good guys and who the bad guys.

The fate of Vietnam was an issue of negligible relevance to US national security. Had the United States allowed the Vietnamese to settle their differences on their own terms, everyone would have been better off. Almost certainly, far, far fewer people would have died.

why exactly the United States insisted on butting in and why it subsequently proved so difficult to get out. Their lack of interest in this central issue is all the more striking given the acute misgivings about a large-scale US intervention that Lyndon Johnson repeatedly expressed

halting the Justice Department's plans to reinstate the death penalt

"The public interest is not served by executing individuals before they have had the opportunity to avail themselves of legitimate procedures to challenge the legality of their executions,"

of replacing a three-drug lethal injection previously used in federal executions with a single drug, pentobarbital

Disobeying Mr. Trump’s wishes could be seen as tantamount to insubordination, among the military’s highest offenses.

Dr. Conley, who served as an emergency doctor in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant commander, said on Monday that while the president was “not out of the woods,” he agreed with Mr. Trump’s decision to leave the military’s health center in Bethesda, Md.

“He has never once pushed us to do anything,” the doctor added.

G.O.P. Lawmaker Hints at Investigating Ethics Chief Critical of Trump

The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee on Thursday issued a stern letter, including a veiled threat of an investigation, to the federal government’s top ethics monitor, who this week had questioned President-elect Donald J. Trump’s commitment to confront his potential conflicts of interest.

President Vladimir V. Putin said Monday that he would scrap Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline, a grandiose project that was once intended to establish the country’s dominance in southeastern Europe but instead fell victim to Russia’s increasingly toxic relationship with the West.

Russia had long presented the $22 billion South Stream project as a sound business move. But Washington and Brussels had dismissed it as a thinly veiled attempt by the Kremlin to cement its position as the dominant supplier in Europe while sidestepping Ukraine, where price disputes with Moscow twice interrupted supplies in recent years.

The Ukraine conflict also helped turn Mr. Putin away from the West. He signed a major and long-delayed deal to provide gas to China and began seeking other, non-European markets for his oil and gas. This, too, made the pipeline seem more expendable.

Pope Francis began his most risky foreign trip on Friday, flying into Iraq amid the tightest security ever seen for a papal visit to appeal to the country’s leaders and people to end militant violence and religious strife.

Iraq’s Christian community, one of the oldest in the world, has fallen to about 300,000 from about 1.5 million about 20 years ago.

Francis told reporters on his plane that he felt duty-bound to make what he called an “emblematic” trip despite the difficulties because the country “has been martyred for so many years”.

Juncker proposes EU military headquarters

Jean-Claude Juncker said the lack of a "permanent structure" resulted in money being wasted on missions.

The Brexit vote has given added impetus to plans for greater defence co-operation, because the UK has always objected to the potential conflict of interest with Nato.

Panama Papers Scandal Brings Down Iceland’s Prime Minister

Mr. Gunnlaugsson’s resignation was announced on television by Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, a government minister and the deputy chairman of his Progressive Party, and it was confirmed by the state broadcaster, RUV.

Mr. Gunnlaugsson had insisted on staying in office after the leaked documents revealed that he and his wealthy partner, now his wife, had set up a company in 2007 in the British Virgin Islands through the law firm, Mossack Fonseca.

President Obama’s approach on Iran has brought a bad situation to the brink of catastrophe.

Israel’s nuclear weapons have not triggered an arms race. Other states in the region understood — even if they couldn’t admit it publicly — that Israel’s nukes were intended as a deterrent, not as an offensive measure.

Extensive progress in uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing reveal its ambitions. Saudi, Egyptian and Turkish interests are complex and conflicting, but faced with Iran’s threat, all have concluded that nuclear weapons are essential.

12 January 2014 Last updated at 22:01 ET Share this page Email Print Share this pageShareFacebookTwitter Afghan 'suicide vest girl' reveals family ordeal The girl is thought to be the sister of a prominent Taliban commander Continue reading the main story Taliban Conflict Loya Jirga: Q&A Pakistan's interests Who are the Taliban? Q&A: Foreign forces An Afghan girl has told the BBC that her family forced her to a

The girl, known as Spozhmai, said her brother and father had beaten her, ordering her to put on a suicide vest.

she has appealed to Afghan President Hamid Karzai to put her in a new home