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This snake got stuck where?

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Bart the python gets stuck in his owner's earlobe! She tells CNN's Jeanne Moos how ER doctors extricated the snake.

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The Army Corps is allowing the final section of the Dakota Access Pipeline to be built.

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Killer fruit? Lychee cause of mysterious disease that plagued Indian town

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Breitbart reporter removed from CAIR presser

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Trump on travel ban: 'Call it what you want'

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Story highlights

The President responded to criticism Wednesday: 'Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN'

The executive order blocks refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days

President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that debate about what to call his executive order preventing travelers from seven majority Muslim countries and temporarily barring refugees are irrelevant.

"Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN. Call it what you want, it is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country," he tweeted.

Trump signed an executive order Friday to block refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim nations away for three months. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia are the countries impacted.

Trump travel ban: Here's what you need to know

White House press secretary Sean Spicer dismissed the idea that Trump imposed a ban.

"A ban would mean people can't get in, and we've clearly seen hundreds of thousands of people come into our country from other countries," he said Tuesday.

But both Spicer and Trump have recently referred to the executive order as a ban. Trump tweeted earlier this week in defense of his order, "If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the 'bad' would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad 'dudes' out there!"

If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the "bad" would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad "dudes" out there!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2017

Spicer used the term ban to describe the order when describing it Monday while speaking at an event at George Washington University recorded on C-SPAN.

"One, the ban deals with seven countries that the Obama administration had previously identified as needing further travel restrictions," Spicer told School of Media & Public Affairs Director Frank Sesno, comments that were spotlighted by the Huffington Post. "Two, in the 24-hour period following the implementation of the executive order, 325,000 people came to this country through our airports in 24 hours: 109 of them were stopped for additional screening, 109 out of 325,000."

The administration has been criticized for suggesting that the ban will guarantee safety that statistics do not support.

The chances of a refugee killing you - and other surprising immigration stats

There have been no people accepted to the US as a refugee that have been implicated in a major fatal terrorist attack since the Refugee Act of 1980 put systematic procedures in place for accepting refugees, according to an analysis of terrorism immigration risks by the Cato Institute.

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Trump on travel ban: 'Call it what you want'

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The President responded to criticism Wednesday: 'Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN' The executive order blocks refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that debate about what to call his executive order preventing travelers from seven majority Muslim countries and temporarily barring refugees are irrelevant.

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Organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics say metal from discarded electronic devices will be used in the production of the medals that will be awarded to athletes

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Milky Way galaxy is being pushed across the universe

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Iran's President Hassan Rouhani dismissed his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump as a political novice on Wednesday, stepping up criticism of the Republican's immigration policies including a temporary travel ban on Iranians.

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Fox News posted a tweet last night that reported some false information about the Quebec suspect.  Fox News has since apologized for the tweet.

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Amid pressure from the Canadian prime minister, Fox News has apologized for a tweet that inaccurately identified the suspect in Sunday night's Quebec mosque terror attack as a man of Moroccan origin.

"FoxNews.com initially corrected the misreported information with a tweet and an update to the story on Monday. The earlier tweets have now been deleted," Refet Kaplan, the managing director at FoxNews.com, said in a statement. "We regret the error."

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office called on Fox News to "either retract or update" the "false and misleading" tweet, noting that the suspect had been identified as a French Canadian, not someone of Moroccan origin.

Alexandre Bissonnette, 27, faces six counts of first-degree murder and five attempted murder charges in Sunday's shooting, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Quebec.

Authorities have not released a possible motive, but Trudeau denounced the attack as an act of terrorism.

"These tweets by Fox News dishonor the memory of the six victims and their families by spreading misinformation, playing identity politics, and perpetuating fear and division within our communities," Kate Purchase, the prime minister's director of communications, said in a statement.

"We need to remain focused on keeping our communities safe and united instead of trying to build walls and scapegoat communities," Purchase continued. "Muslims are predominantly the greatest victims of terrorist acts around the world. To paint terrorists with a broad brush that extends to all Muslims is not just ignorant -- it is irresponsible."

"If we allow individuals and organizations to succeed by scaring people, we do not actually end up any safer," she wrote. "Fear does not make us safer. It makes us weaker. Ramping up fear and closing our borders is not a solution. It distracts from the real issues that affect people's day to day life."

CNNMoney (Los Angeles) First published January 31, 2017: 8:01 PM ET

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Fox News apologizes for erroneous Quebec terror tweet amid pressure from Canada

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"FoxNews.com initially corrected the misreported information with a tweet and an update to the story on Monday. The earlier tweets have now been deleted," Refet Kaplan, the managing director at FoxNews.com, said in a statement. "We regret the error."

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A fruit called lychee has been linked to a sickness that has circled around India since the 90's.

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lychees behind mystery killer disease in india

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Lychee cause of mysterious killer disease, researchers say

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A new report published in The Lancet Global Health medical journal claims to have discovered what's behind a devastating disease affecting children in the town of Muzaffarpur in Bihar, India.

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Army Corps ordered to approve final step to finish Dakota Access Pipeline

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Al-Qaeda Fighters in Yemen Seemed Ready for SEAL Raid: Source

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A snake got caught in a womans earlobe.

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Army corps is allowing the final section of the Dakota Access Pipeline to be built

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Cyclist dangles from bridge after crash.
Quick reflexes may have saved the life of a cyclist that nearly tumbled off a bridge during a race near Santa Barbara, California.

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Cyclist dangles from bridge after crash - CNN Video

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Quick reflexes may have saved the life of a cyclist that nearly tumbled off a bridge during a race near Santa Barbara, California.

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Man who stabs 3 in Hollywood restaurant killed by police

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A man who stabbed at least three people, two critically, was shot and killed by police Tuesday inside a fast-food restaurant on Hollywood's famous Sunset Boulevard.

911 calls sent police to the Jack in the Box about 2 p.m., police said.

Cellphone video aired on KABC-TV showed police bending over a man in a purple shirt lying on the floor inside the restaurant with an apparently injured man sitting nearby.

The attacker died at the scene, and three stabbing victims were taken to hospitals, two in critical condition and one with non-life threatening injuries, LAPD Officer Tony Im said.

A woman was examined at the scene, but she declined to be taken to a hospital, Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said.
TOOTH INFECTION LEADS TO 26-YEAR-OLD CALIFORNIA DAD'S DEATH
The block contains a busy corridor of restaurants, coffee shops and other businesses, including CNN's West Coast tower, the landmark Cinerama Dome theater, and the heavily trafficked Amoeba Music store.

There was no immediate word on what prompted the stabbing rampage but some witnesses said the man appeared to be mentally unstable.

Before he was shot, the man "tried to come into our face coffee place w/ his knife, but customer held glass door shut, blocking him," CNN reporter Maeve Reston posted on Twitter.

Reston reported seeing a person rolled out of the restaurant on a stretcher and others taken away in an ambulance. "Just that kind of day where some guy was reportedly walking down street stabbing people outside your office," she tweeted.

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Man who stabs 3 in Hollywood restaurant killed by police

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A man who stabbed at least three people, two critically, was shot and killed by police Tuesday inside a fast-food restaurant on Hollywood's famous Sunset Boulevard. 911 calls sent police to the Jack in the Box about 2 p.m., police said.

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scientists discover technology that can help communitcate with 'locked-in' patients.

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Our home galaxy, The Milky Way, is being pushed by a large unseen force.

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The U.S Army is looking into using more biodegradable ammunition.

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The US army is seeking proposals for biodegradable ammunition to replace the existing rounds used in training -- including grenade and tank rounds - citing environmental concerns.

"Components of current training rounds require hundreds of years or more to biodegrade," states the Department of Defense brief. "Some of these rounds might have the potential to corrode and pollute the soil and nearby water."

The DoD stipulates that the new ammunition should, instead, contain seeds that produce food for animals: "This effort will make use of seeds to grow environmentally friendly plants that remove soil contaminants and consume the biodegradable components developed under this project. Animals should be able to consume the plants without any ill effects."

This eye-catching proposal may seem far-fetched, but the brief goes on to claim that US army researchers have already succeeded in embedding seeds into biodegradable material to flower months later.

Ripe targets

Military facilities account for 900 of the 1300 most polluted sites in the US, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A comprehensive clean-up could cost $165 billion, according to the DoD.

Much of the damage is historic, pre-dating awareness of environmental issues.

"(Military bases) tend to have older buildings with lead paint and asbestos problems," says Skip Kazmarek, an environmental lawyer who has studied military sites. "If a base was operating in World War Two it might have burn pits for waste oil and solvents, and it can be a pretty nasty area."

But modern sites also generate toxic waste; from burning explosives to chemical leaks and heavy metal deposits -- including massive lead pollution.

Lead poisoning can cause serious health conditions including brain damage, as well as polluting the environment. Millions of lead bullets are fired each year on military firing ranges, which rapidly reach high levels of contamination according to an Environmental Working Group report.

"The lead in ammunition tends to build up over years and it can leach into groundwater and pose threats to wildlife," says Kazmarek. "You could improve environmental quality with a change from lead bullets."

The future's green?

Efforts to produce sustainable ammunition are intensifying, and producing a series of innovations.

The US army has experimented with tungsten bullets, but reverted to lead over health risks. Canada recently unveiled a new " green" bullet designed to reduce contamination.

"This idea of reducing toxic metal poisoning has been gaining traction for the past 25 years," says Nic Jenzen-Jones, director of the Armament Research Services. "Particularly over the last 10 years there has been a push towards assessing the projectiles of different weapon systems to see if they can be made less harmful to users and the environment."

Western militaries are scaling up research and development of ammunition with a neutral or positive environmental impact, says Jenzen-Jones, citing the progress of Norwegian company Nammo in producing lead-free bullets that have been adopted by the Swedish army.

There are hurdles to overcome -- such as cost, performance and compatibility with existing equipment -- but the arms expert believes that sustainability has become a priority.

"Militaries understand the cost trade-off of going green (and) they are happy to spend a little more to receive the environmental benefits," says Jenzen-Jones. He points to the DoD's increasing role in conservation and species protection as a sign of intent.

Military practices could follow the example of sport shooting, which has pioneered sustainable ammunition. Nations such as Denmark have banned lead bullets for hunting, and former President Obama made one of his final commands a crackdown on their use in wildlife refuges.

Hunters are also leading civil society campaigns against lead pollution.

The edible grenades may be some time in arriving, but the US army appears ready to do battle with its toxic footprint.

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us army pursues 'biodegradable' bullets - cnn.com

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The US army is seeking proposals for biodegradable ammunition to replace the existing rounds used in training -- including grenade and tank rounds - citing environmental concerns. "Components of current training rounds require hundreds of years or more to biodegrade," states the Department of Defense brief.

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Mr. Kohl- President Trump tapped federal appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the empty seat on the Supreme Court.

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Mr. Kohl- President Trump tapped federal appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the empty seat on the Supreme Court.

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Within minutes of President Trump's nomination of federal judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, several hundred demonstrators had converged on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. to protest his selection.

Waving signs proclaiming, "Gorsuch: Extreme and Dangerous" and "#NoWall #NoBan," the protesters and a stream of speakers linked the conservative nominee to the administration's unconstitutional ban on immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, and pledged to defy both.
"This is the most egregious insult in the history of Supreme Court nominations," declared Terry O'Neil, president of the National Organization of Women, triggering a chant of "Stolen seat, stolen seat!"

"Until this administration begins to respect the U.S. Constitution, it would be unconscionable to consider an extremist nominee to the court," said Ben Wikler, Washington director of MoveOn.org.

"Leave it to Trump to distract the country from a constitutional crisis by appointing a right-wing litmus test judge to the court," said Nancy Schoolmacher of College Park, Maryland. "We just had to come down and do something," added her friend, Barb Considine, standing in the throng of people and TV cameras.

The night began when Trump, in a short White House speech, nominated Judge Gorsuch from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to the court. Calling his nomination process the "most transparent" ever, President Trump picked an ultraconservative who is expected to follow in the footsteps of the justice he is replacing, Antonin Scalia, the court's most ideological right-winger, who died last February.

Gorsuch's nomination sets the stage for one of the biggest domestic political fights in years, after Senate Republicans spent nearly a year willfully ignoring their constitutional responsibility to consider President Obama's nominee to the court, Merrick Garland. Gorsuch, despite a reportedly mild-mannered temperament, is known for his anti-choice and anti-LGBT stances, pro-employer rulings in labor disputes, anti-regulatory attitudes, dismissal of scientific expertise, and pro-police bias in brutality cases, according to statements from public interest groups issued after the announcement.

The nomination comes amid unprecedented political and popular resistance to Trump's presidency. In recent days, there have been escalating protests over Trump's anti-Muslim executive orders, his firing of the acting attorney general late Monday night after she said that Trump's decrees were unconstitutional and violated the Justice Department's historic civil rights mission, and after Democratic senators refused to attend confirmation hearings Tuesday for two Trump cabinet nominees they said had lied to them.

"During his over 10 years on the federal bench, Judge Gorsuch has proven to be a conservative ideologue who has consistently ruled against civil rights, women's rights and workers' rights. And he has expounded a judicial philosophy that would prevent the federal government from properly enforcing countless acts of Congress," said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "The president could have nominated an independent or consensus candidate for this seat, someone like Merrick Garland, whose record has proven to be unimpeachable. Instead, he chose Neil Gorsuch to be a rubber stamp and another 'yes man' for this administration."

Michael Keegan, president of People for the American Way, was also quick to criticize Gorsuch as an extreme right-winger. "Over the course of his career, he's turned his back on fundamental American rights, from shutting down claims of gender discrimination in the workplace, to trying to limit Americans' ability to join class-action lawsuits to challenge corporate wrong-doing, to ruling in the original Hobby Lobby [Obamacare] decision that corporations are people and can refuse to offer their employees birth control, to claiming that a police officer could not be sued for using excessive force when his stun gun killed a young man running from police simply because he was growing marijuana plants," he said. "That's appalling."

"Over the past 10 years... Gorsuch has written at least 15 labor and employment rulings," said National Nurses United's statement. "Gorsuch's opinions aligned with employers in eight of the 12 cases. Additionally, Gorsuch wrote three opinions upholding National Labor Relations Board rulings against both employers and unions."

"With Judge Neil Gorsuch, the stakes couldn't be higher when it comes to women and our lives," said NARAL Pro-Choice America's president Ilyse Hogue. "Gorsuch represents an existential threat to legal abortion in the United States and must never wear the robes of a Supreme Court justice."

Indeed, virtually every issue and concern that is in the public interest is threatened by the Supreme Court nomination. After Scalia died in early 2016, the court was left with a four-four conservative-liberal split on most contentious social and economic issues. The GOP, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, refused even to hold hearings for Obama's nominee, a federal appeals court chief judge who sailed through nomination hearings for that post several years before.

Supreme Court justices typically serve for a quarter century or more, meaning that the court's ideological center was poised to move to the left. The Republicans essentially stole Obama's final appointment, hoping that a Republican president would be elected in 2016 and keep the court as a right-wing majority.
Day of Growing Rage On the Hill
Trump's announcement comes against a backdrop of mounting opposition by Democrats in Congress and large swaths of the public in both blue and red states. Even before he fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates late Monday, Senate Democrats had flocked to airports and attended rallies to protest Trump's decree that the U.S. would take no more war refugees from Syria and would block travelers from seven Muslim counties for 90 days. (He also issued orders to ramp up the domestic deportation machinery and to penalize sanctuary cities that would not cooperate with immigration police.)

On the Supreme Court steps Monday night, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY; Sen. Ben Cardin, D-MD; Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA; Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-VT; Sen. Al Franken, D-MN; and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CN all held forth against the executive order banning travelers from Muslim countries, including, initially, legal residents who hold green cards.

What was notable in their statements was their determination to resist Trump's right-wing policies.

"We now must be determined to fight for the long haul," Booker said.

"We stand with our fellow human beings who flee terrorism," Warren said. "We will band together to fight Donald Trump as he tries to put himself above the law of the United States."

"We do not hate the Muslim people and we want them to know that," Sanders said. "So we say to President Trump, rescind that ban."

Those protests were a prelude to Tuesday's boycott by Democrats of the Senate Finance Committee's proceedings to vote on Steve Mnuchin's nomination for Treasury Secretary and Rep. Tom Price's nomination for Health and Human Services Secretary, denying the a quorum needed to vote on their nominations and bring them before the full Senate. The Democrats cited Mnuchin's and Price's false statements, with Mnuchin denying that the mortgage lending giant he oversaw had not abused borrowers, and Price denying that he cashed in on stocks in healthcare companies under his congressional jurisdiction.

The Democrats' absence forced the GOP to postpone voting on those nominees. At the same time in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrats railed against Trump's firing of Sally Yates and said that Trump's pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-AL, helped design the Muslim travel ban that Yates called unconstitutional and refused to implement.

"Yesterday, early in the evening, we saw what a truly independent attorney general does," the panel's top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, said. "That is what an attorney general must be willing and able to do. I have no confidence that Sen. Sessions will do that. Instead, he has been the fiercest, most dedicated and most loyal promoter in Congress of the Trump agenda, and has played a critical role in the clearinghouse for policy and philosophy to undergird the implementation of that agenda."

The Democrats managed to postpone the Judiciary Committee's vote on Sessions on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, ran into new opposition when Democrats discovered that some of her answers to their questionnaire had apparently been plagiarized, according to the Washington Post.

Elsewhere, however, Senate committees confirmed Elaine Chao-Mitch McConnell's wife-to beTrump's transportation secretary, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to be energy secretary and Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-MT, for interior secretary.

At the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-UT, told a half-empty room that the Democrats do not have the votes to stop any of Trump's cabinet appointments. That is because the GOP needs only a simply majority to confirm them.

"I'm really disappointed that my friends on the other side, Democrats on the other side, are deliberately boycotting," he said. "Why that's an important thing for them, I'll never understand, because these two nominees are going to go through regardless."

"I think this is a completely unprecedented level of obstruction... We did not inflict this kind of obstructionism on President Obama," Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, R-PA, chimed in. "This is not what the American people expect of the United States Senate."

Both of those statements-and others like them from Republican senators-are utterly disingenuous, especially in light of the Senate GOP's obstruction and theft of Obama's Supreme Court nomination. Under the Senate's current rules-which the Republicans may yet jettison-Trump's nominee needs 60 votes to be confirmed. This is Trump's only appointment that Senate Democrats have the power to block, and the stakes could not be more consequential.

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Neil Gorsuch: President Trump's anti-choice pick for the Supreme Court

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Within minutes of President Trump's nomination of federal judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, several hundred demonstrators had converged on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. to protest his selection.