SIX CHILDREN DIE IN BALTIMORE FIRE
EX-BRITISH SPY BEHIND TRUMP DOSSIER IN HIDING
The former British spy believed to be the author of a report containing unverified, salacious allegations about President-elect Donald Trump has fled his home, U.K. media reported Thursday.
Christopher Steele, 52, left the property in Surrey, south of London, on Wednesday after realizing his name would soon become public, according to the Tele
graph. Other media outlets published similar reports.
Steele is a former officer for MI6 — which provides the government with foreign intelligence — and is the co-founder of Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, a corporate intelligence consultancy based in London, according to British media.
— Jane Onyanga- Omara
MOVE PUTTING U.S. TROOPS IN POLAND SPARKS KREMLIN’S IRE
Some 3,000 U.S. troops, under a NATO banner, are arriving in Poland and six other Eastern European countries in what a Kremlin spokesman calls a threat to Russia’s interest and security.
The deployment, which includes more than 80 main battle tanks and hundreds of armored vehicles, is part of NATO’s Operation Atlantic Resolve, which was launched in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The operation, representing the largest U.S. military reinforcement of Europe in decades, calls for a unit rotation every nine months.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that any country would regard a buildup of foreign military presence near its borders negatively. “This is precisely the way we see it,” he said, Russia’s TASS news agency reported. “We interpret this as a threat to us and as actions that endanger our interests and our security.”
— Doug Stanglin
ICE STORM FORECAST FOR 1,000-MILE SWATH OF USA
Residents in a 1,000-mile swath from the central Plains to the Mid-Atlantic are bracing for widespread freezing rain over the next several days, which will turn roads to sheets of ice and make travel dangerous or impossible.
The storm could also potentially cut power to hundreds of thousands of people from Friday to Sunday because of ice build-up on tree limbs and power lines, AccuWeather said.
Some of the big cities most likely to be hit by the ice over the weekend include Topeka; Oklahoma City; Kansas City, Mo.; St. Louis; Indianapolis; Columbus, Ohio; Pittsburgh; and Washington, D.C., AccuWeather said.
— Doyle Rice