SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 24, NEAR MOSQUE IN PAKISTAN
A car bomb exploded Friday near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the town of Parachinar in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 24 people and wounding more than 100, officials said.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Pakistani Taliban militants, claimed responsibility. Spokesman Asad Mansoor said the attack was carried out by one of the group’s members and targeted minority Shiites, considered heretics by the militants.
TRUMP SIGNS ORDERS TO REVERSE TRADE DEFICIT
President Trump promised to crack down on “foreign importers that cheat” Friday, signing two executive orders that he said would lead to a historic reversal of the nation’s trade deficit. The two executive orders will:
a report on the causes of the trade imbalance within 90 days. That report will focus on 16 countries with which the United States had a significant trade deficit in goods last year: China, Japan, Germany, Mexico, Ireland, Vietnam, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, India, Thailand, France, Switzerland, Taiwan, Indonesia and Canada. The administration plans public meetings to hear from manufacturers, service providers, workers, farmers, and consumers.
for a strategy for customs agents to use legal tools to collect anti-dumping duties already owed to the United States. The White House is proposing to require new importers — or those already found guilty of abusive trade practices — to post a bond before their goods are permitted through U.S. ports. The Government Accountability Office says importers have racked up more than $2.3 billion in uncollected anti-dumping and countervailing duties since 2001.
3 PLANES IN NEAR-MISSES WITH DRONES AT HEATHROW
Three planes narrowly missed colliding with drones near London’s Heathrow Airport in the space of three weeks last year.
A report Friday by the U.K. Airprox Board offered new details on the close calls that took place in October and November. In the most unusual incident, the pilots of an A320 passenger plane descending into Heathrow noticed a gadget with multiple arms and rotors passing below the plane’s right wing at 10,000 feet.
The separation between drone and plane was just 100 feet vertically and 650 feet horizontally.