The Daily Populous

Saturday January 4th, 2020 morning edition

image for Trump administration briefed Israel on the Suleimani attack before it briefed Congress: report

Speaking on Israel’s Channel 13, journalist Barak Ravid said that the “United States informed Israel” about the operation in Iraq to kill Iranian military leader Gen. Qassem Suleimani “a few days ago.”

Additionally, The Los Angeles Times reports that an “Israeli army officer with knowledge of Israeli military assessments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to reporters,” said that the attack that killed Suleimani “did not come as a surprise.”.

Also noteworthy is a Friday tweet from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who revealed that he discussed the attack with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as a means to “protect American lives.”.

“I emphasized that de-escalation is the United States’ principal goal,” Pompeo wrote.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and I discussed the decisive defensive action @realDonaldTrump employed in Baghdad to protect American lives.

I emphasized that de-escalation is the United States’ principal goal.

Read the full report over at The Los Angeles Times. »

US to deploy thousands of additional troops to Middle East following Soleimani killing

Authored by edition.cnn.com

The US will deploy thousands of additional troops to the Middle East as tensions with Iran mount following the airstrike that killed Qasem Soleimani, a US defense official told CNN.

The additional troops will come from the Immediate Response Force of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Following the disturbance at the US embassy in Baghdad, the US deployed 750 troops from the same unit and said that additional deployments were possible. »

Quebec Author Charged with Child Porn Over ‘Hansel and Gretel’ Retelling

Authored by vice.com

Last April, Quebec author Yvan Godbout and his publisher Nycolas Doucet were charged with producing and distributing child pornography.

Godbout’s book Hansel et Gretel was published in September 2017 by Éditions AdA as part of its series Contes interdits (Forbidden Tales).

But the Godbout case is the first time child pornography charges have been brought against a literary author for a work of prose. »

A new battery could keep your phone charged for five days

Authored by newscientist.com

A new lithium-sulphur battery with an ultra-high capacity could lead to drastically cheaper electric cars and grid energy storage.

Mahdokht Shaibani at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and her colleagues have developed a battery with a capacity five times higher than that of lithium-ion batteries.

The battery maintains an efficiency of 99 per cent for more than 200 cycles, and a smartphone-sized version would be able to keep a phone charged for five days. »