Author: Himalaya Post

The Senate impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump is likely to begin in seven days with key players sworn in later this week, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday. McConnell said he expected the House of Representatives to deliver the articles of impeachment against Trump to the upper chamber on Wednesday. “We believe that if that happens — in all likelihood — we’ll go through preliminary steps here this week which could well include the chief justice coming over and swearing in members of the Senate and some other kinds of housekeeping measures,” McConnell told reporters. “We hope to achieve that by consent which would set us up to begin the actual trial next Tuesday.” Trump faces charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and the 100 senators will be his judge. On Thursday or Friday this week, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is expected to be sworn in to preside over the trial, which should last at least two weeks, and could run through mid-February. – ‘People deserve the truth’ – Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, called for a fair trial and demanded the Senate subpoena witnesses and documents from the White House that will be crucial in the trial. “The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial… The president and the senators will be held accountable,” she added....

At least 62 people were killed, 53 injured while 28 went missing in separate incidents of avalanches and rainfall in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, officials said. A total of 58 houses were fully destroyed while 82 others got partially damaged in separate snow and rain-triggered accidents in the territory, a handout by the disaster management authority of the Pakistan-controlled Kashmir said. The Neelum Valley area was the worst hit where 59 people were killed and 53 others injured when over 50 houses were buried by avalanches. While the rescue operation continues in the area, 28 people are still missing and the search continued during the day, but slowed down because of the darkness of the night, which created a major hurdle for the rescue teams to carry out their job, Ahmed Raza Qadri, a disaster management official of the Pakistan-controlled Kashmir explained. Qadri said that heavy rains and snow had been pounding Neelum Valley for the last few days, and the weather condition not only wreaked havoc on some of the residential colonies, but also blocked the main thoroughfares, making it hard for rescue teams to provide fast rescue and relief services to the trapped people. He said that Rescue 1122, a state-owned rescue agency, Pakistani military and other non-governmental organizations carried out the rescue and relief operations during the day. The military dispatched helicopters to the affected areas to recover...