This is a crushing defeat for the Obama White House, as the President is hopeful to leave a legacy on the Supreme Court that could spend the next 20-40 years enacting his radical left-wing agenda: “We believe the American people need to decide who is going to make this appointment rather than a lame duck president,” said Majority Whip John Cornyn.

When asked if they would start the process after the new president took office or if they would consider doing it in the lame duck session, Cornyn replied “No, after the next president is selected. That way the American people have a voice in the process.”

The Republican members of the Judiciary Committee were unanimous in agreeing not to move forward with any Obama nominee for the Supreme Court, said Cornyn, who was in the meeting. Senator Bob Corker (Republican for Tennessee), who was not in the meeting, later said that GOP senators were told at their weekly lunch that the Judiciary Committee Republicans were in unanimous agreement on the strategy.

Senator Lindsey Graham said that “there’s no use starting a process that’s not going to go anywhere and we are going to let the next president decide,” when asked why there would be no hearings.

Because it is huge, some in the UK feel we would be safer and economically stronger in the EU. This is wrong. We now have the opportunity to jump ship to safety. An opportunity we are never likely to have again. Not a leap into the dark, but for those able to look ahead, a move to safety.

Brexit allows the UK to address directly the areas that the EU has rendered us rudderless in. These include returning sovereignty and having a meaningful immigration target that can be met. We can focus attention on what is needed for small firms and for ordinary workers across the whole country. Outside the EU we can position the UK to be outward looking.

Consider this. Of the $215 million spent by Super Pacs – the cash-guzzling, arm's-length organisations that do the dirty work of a campaign – so far only $9.2 million has been spent on attacking Mr Trump, according to The New York Times. Peanuts. And that's for the thinnest skinned candidate in the race. A glance at his Twitter feed is evidence enough of how badly he takes criticism. A toddler would be embarrassed.

A bolder strategy is needed. It's time for the Republican party to start to love the Donald, to groom him as their candidate, rein in his excesses and curb his profanities. It is not as crazy as it sounds. In fact it has started. Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, is among the establishment figures who have begun quietly advising Mr Trump in something of a kitchen cabinet.

The country has changed. Donald Trump offers the Republican Party a chance to change with it. This is no longer about whether he is the best candidate. That was last year's question. He is simply the candidate.

They are set to proceed with plans to make London the domicile for the new holding company, despite the looming June 23 referendum on British membership of the EU, in a boost to the City’s role as Europe’s dominant financial centre.

Carsten Kengeter, a former banker in charge of the German exchange for just over eight months, would be the chief executive of the enlarged company, which would be chaired by Donald Brydon, chairman of the LSE, people close to the talks said. The potential deal, which both sides confirmed on Tuesday, would pave the way for LSE’s head Xavier Rolet to depart after a seven-year run that has re-established the company among the world’s leading exchanges.

The two companies have already outlined what they call an all-share “merger of equals” that would create a European champion, an indication of the heightened political and regulatory sensitivities of any agreement. Neither side has revealed crucial details, such as future management and the domicile of the combined group.

People close to the matter said a deal could come within two weeks but warned that discussions were not finalised and there was no certainty a deal would go ahead. Both companies declined to comment.

Ya’alon, speaking in Cyprus, said Iran is aiming to destabilize the Middle East and other parts of the world and is training, funding and arming “emissaries” to spread a revolution. He called Tehran the anchor of a “dangerous axis” that includes Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Saana and other cities in the region.

In 2012, a Lebanese man was arrested in Cyprus and accused of plotting a Hezbollah attack against Israelis.

Israel considers Iran the biggest threat to the region, citing its support for anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as efforts to use the power vacuum in Syria to set up cells to attack Israel from the Golan Heights.

She wondered how Muslims would have reacted if Christians had committed suicide bombings among them, or tried to force their faith on them and called on the Muslim world "to be introspective and enact reforms, instead of condemning Western attitudes towards it," said MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute.

"Imagine a Western youth coming here and carrying out a suicide mission in one of our public squares in the name of the Cross," wrote Al-Budair.

"Imagine that two skyscrapers had collapsed in some Arab capital, and that an extremist Christian group, donning millennium-old garb, had emerged to take responsibility for the event, while stressing its determination to revive Christian teachings or some Christian rulings, according to its understanding, to live like in the time [of Jesus] and his disciples, and to implement certain edicts of Christian scholars…

"Imagine hearing the voices of monks and priests from churches and prayer houses in and out of the Arab world, screaming on loudspeakers and levelling accusations against Muslims, calling them infidels, and chanting: 'God, eliminate the Muslims and defeat them all.'

"Imagine that we had provided an endless number of foreign groups with visas, ID cards, citizenships, proper jobs, free education, free modern healthcare, social security, and so on, and later a member of one of these groups came out, consumed by hatred and bloodlust, and killed our sons on our streets, in our buildings, in our newspaper [offices], in our mosques and in our schools.

"Imagine a Frenchman or a German in Paris or Berlin leading his Muslim neighbor [somewhere] in order to slaughter him and then freeze his head in an ice box, in a cold and calculating manner… as one terrorist did with the head of an American in Riyadh years ago.

"Imagine that we visited their country as tourists and they shot at us, blew up car bombs near us, and announced their opposition to our presence [there] by chanting: 'Remove the Muslims from the land of culture.'

"After all these farces, some Arab analyst comes out touting a pathetic message, and reciting the same words in his friend's ear that he has repeated millions of times: 'Those Muslims who commit terrorism do not represent Islam, but only themselves.' This is all we know how to do – absolve ourselves of guilt."

The head of the interior ministry’s election headquarters, Mohammad Hossein Moghimi, said on Thursday that 4,844 hopefuls would contest the 290 seats, meaning 1,385 candidates have withdrawn. Polls will open at 0430 GMT and are scheduled to close at 1430 GMT but voting could be extended if required, Iranian media quoted him as saying.

His comments followed a state television appearance late Wednesday by Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli who revealed the fall in numbers. “It now leaves around 17 people competing for each parliamentary seat,” Fazli said. Iranian politics is dominated by factions rather than political parties and Friday’s poll will see conservatives up against moderates and reform-minded candidates on a series of lists.

Dependent almost entirely on foreign aid, Afghan security forces are struggling to secure the country amid a rising insurgency. As the NATO-led coalition's military presence dwindled last year, Afghan leaders reached out to Moscow, which fought a war of its own in Afghanistan during the 1980s, for more Russian-made weapons, including small arms, artillery and attack helicopters.

"This donation represents a deep friendship between two nations," Afghan national security adviser Hanif Atmar said at an event marking delivery of the arms shipment. "This important donation is from an important friend of Afghanistan in a crucial time for Afghanistan and the region." Wednesday's delivery comes as Russian officials say they have become impatient with the failures of Washington's policies in Afghanistan.

Twenty months into the worst oil price crash since the 1980s, well-heeled residents of the world's oil capital are among the hardest hit largely because tanking energy firm shares make up much of oil and gas executives' compensation.

In River Oaks, a neighborhood of palatial mansions and lush gardens, the average sales price of a home has tumbled to $1.3 million from $2 million in the middle of 2014 when oil began its more than 70 percent slide, according to data from the Houston Association of Realtors and Keller Williams. Median property prices in the area have already fallen further in this downturn, which is not yet over, than the 16 percent drop in the previous oil slump in 2008 and 2009.

"When oil does well, River Oaks does well. When oil does bad River Oaks does bad," said Paige Martin, a Keller Williams broker who specializes in the neighborhood. "Not everybody can afford a $10 million house." In a nod to the downturn, Ouisie's Table, a River Oaks institution, is now offering its "Oil Barrel Bargain," a three course dinner for the price of a barrel of oil, now around $30.

According to MEPs and diplomats, the measures are being kept quiet for fear they could alienate Britain for good. Debates and parliamentary hearings on the EU budget are scheduled for July - just after the vote - and could see demands for €20 billion more cash. An unnamed French official said bureaucrats are confident they can get their way once the referendum is over.

He said: "These proposals can be discussed after June without creating too many difficulties. In fact, it would be more problematic if we had to negotiate under the pressure of the UK." David Cameron once boasted about forcing Brussels to cut its budget by three per cent. But the proposed increase of €20 billion would dwarf that sum and drag the EU back into spiralling spending. MEPs say they need extra cash to deal with the migrant crisis engulfing the continent.

They are set to demand the sum to spend over three years, in addition to their annual budget of around €160 billion. The cover-up was meant to be kept quiet to stop the issues coming to the attention of UK voters. But MEPs have started to speak out over the budget, saying they need to debate the extra cash as soon as possible.

A poll conducted by the Bild newspaper shows the AFD has sent tremors through the coalition government of the CDU and SPD which is reeling as public anger over unchecked refugee immigration continues to soar. The AFD has the support of 17 percent of voters in the state, a spike of 12 points since September. If the numbers crunch badly for Mrs Merkel in elections in three weeks time she could face a vote of no confidence among her party chieftains.

The AFD is the worst nightmare for a country that has struggled to keep a lid on right-wing populism since the fall of Nazism in 1945. It is drawing support from the middle class which feels betrayed by Mrs Merkel's open-door policy towards refugees which has seen over a million pour into the country in the last year.

There is General Electric's sale of its appliance business to Qingdao-based Haier, Zoomlion's bid for the heavy-lifting-equipment maker Terex Corp, and ChemChina's record-breaking deal for the Swiss seeds and pesticides group Syngenta, valued at $48 billion.

Most recently, a unit of the Chinese conglomerate HNA Group said it would buy the technology distributor Ingram Micro for $6 billion. And the most contentious deal so far might be the Chinese-led investor group Chongqing Casin Enterprise's bid for the Chicago Stock Exchange. To date, there have been 102 Chinese outbound mergers-and-acquisitions deals announced this year, amounting to $81.6 billion in value, according to Dealogic. That's up from 72 deals worth $11 billion in the same period last year.

And they're not expected to let up anytime soon. Slow economic growth in China and cheap prices abroad due to the stock market's recent sell-off suggest the opposite. Given the recent volume of deals, though, it would appear that the Chinese government is supportive of the foreign-buying spree. That may be exactly what has folks so worried.

“For five years they [Syrian opposition] have not been able to have a dialogue, because each party of this opposition belongs to a different country and is paid by different countries. They are not an opposition that have a political party in Syria and that have grown from the Syrian people. This is the only opposition in the world that are agents of foreign countries against their own country,” Bashar Assad’s political adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, said in an interview with RT.

Direct talks between the opposition and the government will be held “whenever the opposition is able to get together and be at the table,” she said, adding that while the government is ready for dialogue, their opponents have so far failed to even agree on their own delegation. “We are running the country according to its constitution… We are fighting terrorism as we should, and we are forthcoming in pursuing any political solution,” she said, adding that both in Syria and Iraq the armies have been “trying their very best” to defeat Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

However, the interference of some regional players has hampered the success of the process, Shaaban said. “If it were not for the support [of militant groups] by regional parties – in particular Turkey and Saudi Arabia, it would not be difficult to defeat ISIL. But the money, the resources, the facilitation comes from these countries to IS,” she told RT. Islamic State “doesn’t live in a vacuum,” she added, saying that the militants have been receiving support not only from countries in the region, but also “political support of the United States and the West.”