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Gov. Eric Holcomb last month joined a growing list of governors endorsing refugee resettlement in their states, rejecting an opportunity to close their doors to any of the 18,000 refugees the Trump administration will allow in 2020. An executive order requires state leaders to provide written consent for resettlement by Jan. 21.

Our long tradition of welcoming and helping to resettle refugees with support from our federal partners, shows the world the compassion of Hoosiers and our willingness to give others the ability to grow and prosper in the great state of Indiana, Holcomb wrote in a Dec. 13 letter.

The Indiana governoris among 30-pluswho have now issued letters in support of resettlement. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio has also sent a letter of consent. While16 governors have yet to respond to this month's deadline, none have specifically said they will reject refugees. Daniel Horowitz, writing for the Conservative Review, called out Holcomb and other GOP governors for quietly undermining Trump's promise to shut down the refugee resettlement racket.

Indiana resettled 865 refugees in fiscal 2019, according to federal data. That was close to 3% of all refugees resettled in the U.S.

In Fort Wayne, Catholic Charitiesoversees resettlement. In the last fiscal year, the agency assisted 208 refugees in resettling here: 176 Burmese, 14 from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 10 from Russia, five from Ukraine and three from Burundi.

The requirement for written consent to continue participatingis also required by local government, which the Allen County commissioners also have submitted. In Marion County, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett submitted a letter of consent.

In 2015, Gov. Mike Pence shut the door on Syrian refugees fleeing violence in their war-torn country. Hoosiers spoke loudly against his heartless response to a humanitarian crisis. In enthusiastically approving refugee resettlement, his successor better reflects our values.

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The Hoosier heart | Opinion - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

ZOOLOGISTS USE a mild-sounding termdisplacementsfor moments when a strong, young mountain gorilla confronts the dominant male in his group. Behind the jargon lies a brutal reality: a drawn-out, bloody conflict looms. Chinas leaders similarly use prim, technical-sounding terms to describe their confrontation with America. In closed-door briefings and chats with Western bigwigs, they chide the country led by President Donald Trump for responding to Chinas rise with strategic anxiety (ie, fear). They insist that Chinas only crime is to have grown so rapidly.

However, behind that chilly, self-serving analysis lurks a series of angrier, more primal calculations about relative heft. These began before Mr Trump came to office, and will continue even if an initial trade truce is made formal (Mr Trump says he will sign one on January 15th). They will endure long after November, when American voters next choose a president. China has spent decades growing stronger and richer. It already senses that only one countryAmericacan defy Chinese ambitions with any confidence. Its leaders have a bleak worldview in which might makes right, and it is a fairy tale to pretend that universal rules bind all powers equally. Increasingly, they can imagine a day when even America ducks a direct challenge, and the global balance of power shifts for ever.

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China does not seek a fight now. Like a powerful juvenile warily sizing up a silverback gorillahis age and status marked by the silvery fur on his back, and his mighty muscles and teethChina knows that America can inflict terrible damage, as it wields still-unrivalled economic, financial and military might. But officials and scholars in Beijing no longer bother to conceal their impatience and scorn for an America they viewwith a perilous mix of hubris and paranoiaas old, tired and clumsy.

When addressing foreigners, Chinas leaders talk piously of their commitment to free trade, market opening and globalisation. Their domestic actions betray a different agenda: namely, to make Chinese companies dominant in high-value manufacturing sectors, and to hasten the day when they no longer depend on America for vital technologies. Long before Mr Trump was elected, China pursued such policies as indigenous innovation and civil-military fusion. Since Mr Trumps tariff war with China began in 2018, President Xi Jinping and his underlings have accelerated efforts to make China self-sufficient in high-value sectors, creating supply chains that are autonomous, controllable, safe and effective, in Mr Xis words.

For decades Chinese officials have seen bilateral relations swinging, pendulum-like, between periods of hostility (notably during American elections, when candidates promise to shield workers from unfair Chinese competition) and a profit-driven willingness to engage. Now Chinese and American insiders talk of a downward spiral. Both countries have become quick to assume the other has malign motives. Where relations were once balanced between co-operation and competition, and Chinas rise seemed on balance to benefit both countries, Chinese officials accuse Mr Trump and his team of seeking co-operation only when it serves a coercive, short-sighted America First agenda. They do not see this changing soonfar from it. They view relations with sour fatalism, and America as a sore loser.

Chinese experts talk wistfully of the scores of dialogues and mechanisms that used to underpin co-operation with Americas government before Mr Trump scrapped most of them. But, when pressed, they struggle to explain what a useful agenda for future talks might be. Instead, they prefer to count the ways in which America is to blame for todays tensions. In Chinas telling, American companies became accustomed to making fat profits in China, but see Chinese rivals catching them up and potentially setting global standards for future technologies. Now American businesses are crying cheat, and demanding that trade rules designed for the rich world be used to keep China down.

Populist election victories in the West are ascribed to domestic failures in the countries concerned. Chinese officials say that America failed to educate workers, allowed inequalities to yawn and never built social safety-nets to help victims of globalisationand is now scapegoating China for those ills.

In public, Chinese officials call Mr Trumps tariffs self-defeating and stress their countrys economic resilience. In private, they are both less confident and less focused on tariffs than they pretend. They are less bullish because economic sentiment in China was fragile before the trade war. Worse, the tariff feud has planted seeds of uncertainty about the country in the heads of every chief executive pondering where to place a new factory.

Chinese officials are less focused on tariffs than they maintain in public because they believe Mr Trump will lose his leverage over time, as he frets about the impact on American farm states and other places where he needs votes. Chinese officials fear other forms of competition more than any tariff fight. In Beijing leaders do worry about the consequences of a technology war with America or of an all-out struggle for global influence.

It is not just a figure of speech when officials in Beijing divide foreign grandees into friends of China, and anti-China forces. Chinas rulers take an intensely personalised view of foreign relations. Communist Party bosses have learned over decades that individual foreign envoys, CEOs and political leaders can be turned into reliable advocates for China with the right blend of high-level access and reasoned appeals, financial incentives and flattery.

But Chinese officials feel sadly short of influential friends in the corridors of American power. Within the Trump administration, only the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, is seen as representing the old, familiar American approach of putting profit first when engaging with China. There are firms that rely heavily on China as a supply base and market, from Apple to General Motors, which sells more cars in China than in America. But the profit motive itself is under suspicion in the new, populist Washington, where even Republican members of Congress urge businessmen to weigh Americas national interests in dealings with China, and not just their shareholders dividends.

After much study, leaders in Beijing have decided that Mr Trump is neither a friend of China nor a traditional anti-China hawk, in the sense of someone who disapproves of the partys policies on grounds of principle. In essence, Mr Trump is seen as a friend of Mr Trumpa man whose self-interest is his only reliable guiding instinct. Famous scholars at elite universities in China who have studied America for years tut-tut about how that makes Mr Trump unpredictable and liable to break any promise he makes to Mr Xi. More cynical figures, including some close to the national security bureaucracy, unblushingly root for Mr Trump to win re-election in 2020, so that he can continue to upset allies and cast into doubt decades-long American security guarantees in Asia. Their great fear is that Mr Trump may be captured by sincerely hawkish aides. That includes economic nationalists with trade portfolios, like Robert Lighthizer and Peter Navarro. But unique animus is aimed at the two Mikes: the vice-president, Mike Pence, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. In Beijing both are called anti-communist, evangelical Christian zealots, with ambitions to succeed Mr Trump in 2024.

China is sure it is in a worldwide influence war, in which its propaganda about Xinjiang, Hong Kong or Huawei is pitted against an anti-China story. Mr Pence and Mr Pompeo are semi-openly reviled as crazy, ignorant warriors in that conflict. They are accused of slandering China over its iron-fisted rule in the western region of Xinjiang, and of egging on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, whom China calls terrorists and separatists. Mr Pence and Mr Pompeo are also condemned for leading a diplomatic charge to warn smaller countries to beware of Chinese loans and technology (the results have been mixed). Chinese officials have not missed the factor that links all successful efforts at American arm-twisting. Countries have proved most tractable when America has real co-operation to offer or to withhold, whether that involves Poland and its yearning for a permanent garrison of American troops to act as a tripwire against Russian aggression, or Brexit Britain dreaming of a free-trade deal with Mr Trump. Where American envoys merely nag countries to shun Chinas investments without offering concrete alternatives, they have fared less well. As one Chinese insider crows, America under Mr Trump looks self-isolating.

Chinese officials who favour Mr Trumps re-election hope that he will feel free in his second term to disavow hawks around him and pursue transactional policies. They fret that a Democratic president may place more weight on human, labour and environmental rights.

All this fulminating does not mean that China seeks to match the hawks in Washington and drag their two countries into a new cold war, in which the world is divided into rival camps. China believes that most other nations do not want to choose between it and America, at least for now. China is playing for time, as it builds its strength and tries to construct alternatives to such potent tools of American power as the dollar-denominated financial system. Chinas interest in developing its own blockchain technology and international payment systems is in part a sign of its fear of American sanctions that would expel Chinese banks from American markets.

Some Chinese voices say their country has not lost interest in an offer China made to Mr Trumps predecessors, involving a new model of great-power relations: code for carving the world into spheres of geopolitical influence, and an end to American carping about Chinas ways. Others stress Chinas right to help write the rules of globalisation. That would be reasonable, were it not that Chinas aim is to make the world safe for techno-authoritarian state capitalism. Chinese officials want to avoid confronting America for now. But few silverbacks gracefully retire. Increasingly, America is seen as an obstacle to Chinas rise. That means trouble looms.

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China views Donald Trumps America with growing distrust and scorn - The Economist

Workshop open to Coldwater Area Chamber of Commerce members only

Friday, January 03, 2020 7:46 a.m. EST by Jim Measel

COLDWATER - (WTVB) - The Coldwater Area Chamber of Commerce and Ascension Michigan at Work will be hosting a workshop for Chamber members only next Thursday, January ninth that shows the importance of wellness in the workplace.

The workshop at the Chamber office on South Division starts at 12:00 noon and space is limited to 16 registrants.

The workshop is designed to show how creating a positive company culture focused on well being can create cohesiveness in a company.

There are still a few spots left. Chamber members can register on line at http://www.coldwaterchamber.com.

Jim Measel

Jim Measel is a Detroit native and a proud 1975 Redford Thurston High School graduate. He first came to WTVB in 1991 and has nearly 40 years of broadcasting experience in news and sports. Besides covering local high school sports, Jim has also covered Western Michigan University basketball and hockey as well as Hillsdale College football games. Some professional stops include working at radio stations in Indiana, Charlotte and Lansing as well as the Michigan Radio Network. He has also earned Associated Press awards for news coverage and sports play-by-play. Jim's favorite career highlights include interviewing such figures as Gordie Howe, Sparky Anderson, Tom Izzo, Bo Schembechler, Isiah Thomas, Vice-President Mike Pence, Lee Greenwood and Regis Philbin. When he is not working, Jim enjoys watching the Chicago Cubs and can rest in peace as they won the World Series. He also hopes the Lions will be able to get a chance to win a superbowl.

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BUSINESS BEAT: Chamber and Ascension Michigan hosting wellness workshop - WTVB News

Touching down at Baghdad international airport shortly after midnight Friday, Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was welcomed by an old friend, Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Also waiting to greet Soleimani, however, was an American MQ-9 Reaper drone loitering miles overhead.

Upon disembarking from the plane that an Iraqi security official said arrived from either Syria or Lebanon, Soleimani and Mohammed Ridha, a senior figure in the Hashed Al-Shaabi paramilitary force, were whisked away from the airport in two cars.

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As the vehicles headed down the airport access road, the drone unleashed four hellfire missiles that obliterated the cars and those inside them.

Surveillance footage aired on Iraqi television appeared to show the moment of the strike, in which a large explosion could be seen as one of the vehicles was apparently hit.

Ten people were killed in the blasts, according to Irans state TV, including five members of Irans elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Soleimanis son-in-law.

Soleimani, who was ripped to pieces by the strike, was identified only by a large ring with a red stone he wore on his hand, photos of which were widely published.

Hashed Al-Shaabi officials said they were unable to find the body of Muhandis, according to the Daily Mail.

It would not have been difficult for the US to track Soleimani, who since 1997 has headed the Quds Force, the overseas branch of the IRGC.

Image circulating on line reportedly shows Iranian general Qassem Soleimanis severed hand following his death in a US airstrike in Baghdad, January 3, 2020. (Social media)

Though long a shadowy presence, the military chiefs public profile had risen dramatically in recent years, with him visiting Iran-backed militia fighters on the front lines and becoming a national hero.

He didnt hide or live in a cave. On the contrary, he routinely traveled openly around the region, his face in full view, seen by the media.

Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force commander, Qassam Soleimani, in an Iranian TV interview, October 1, 2019 (YouTube screenshot)

Three months ago, he gave his first major Iranian TV interview, in which he claimed that Israeli aircraft targeted him and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

US President Donald Trump said Friday he was responsible for killing and wounding thousands of Americans and many more in the region and was plotting to kill many more.

Soleimani had an outsized influence in Iraq, where in November AFP quoted sources saying he had chaired meetings in Baghdad and Najaf to rally Iraqi politicians amid mass anti-government protests, which have seen demonstrators rail against Irans role in the country.

Soleimanis killing came a week after an American contractor was killed in a rocket attack on a base in Kirkuk, which the US blamed on the Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah militia.

In response, the US carried out airstrikes on Kataeb Hezbollah bases in Iraq and Syria, killing 25 of the groups fighters.

A reaper drone is displayed behind Vice President Mike Pence as he speaks to troops at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

On Tuesday, pro-Iran militiamen and their supporters broke into the US embassy in Baghdad, causing damage to the enormous compound but no American injuries, before withdrawing a day later.

President Trump subsequently warned Iran it would pay a BIG PRICE for the embassy attack, a threat he appeared to make good on with the strike the Pentagon said he ordered on Soleimani.

The US had closely followed Soleimanis movements over the last few months and could have targeted him before.

Iran Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani attends an annual rally commemorating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, in Tehran, Iran February 11, 2016. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

It appears the US had been planning the strike for several days, even before the Tuesday storming of the embassy.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News he was informed by Trump while he visited him in Florida on Monday. The two played golf together.

I was briefed about the potential operation when I was down in Florida. I appreciate being brought into the orbit, Graham said. I really appreciate President Trump letting the world know you cannot kill an american without impunity.

Trumps son Eric also appeared to have had advanced knowledge, posting a tweet Tuesday that said Bout to open a big ol can of whoop ass, #DontMessWithTheBest #USAUSAUSA, before quickly deleting it.

And some world leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have been briefed ahead of the strike.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Netanyahu late Wednesday night, ostensibly to thank him for Israels support in efforts to combat Iran and after the attack on the US embassy in Iraq.

Tweeting Thursday morning, Netanyahu alluded to very, very dramatic things happening in our region.

I want to make one thing clear: We fully support all of the steps that the US has taken as well as its full right to defend itself and its citizens, Netanyahu wrote.

Moreover, we know that our region is stormy; very, very dramatic things are happening in it. We are alert and are monitoring the situation. We are in continuous contact with our great friend the US, including my conversation yesterday afternoon, the Israeli leader said.

Pompeo later said Soleimani was planning a big action that would have put dozens if not hundreds of American lives at risk.

We know it was imminent, Pompeo told CNN. This was an intelligence-based assessment that drove our decision-making process.

The killing of Soleimani, who was often described as the second most powerful person in Iran, has opened a period of uncertainty for both the Middle East and the US.

Iran has promised to avenge his death. Its close ally, Lebanons Hezbollah terror group, said punishment for those responsible will be the task of all resistance fighters worldwide.

Many pro-Iranian groups in the region have the capacity to carry out attacks on US bases in the Gulf as well as against petrol tankers and cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz which Tehran could close at any moment.

In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, meets family of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in the U.S. airstrike in Iraq, at his home in Tehran, Iran, January 3, 2020. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

They could also strike US troops and bases currently in Iraq, Syria, other American embassies in the region, and target Washingtons allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia even countries in Europe.

The US has sent more than 14,000 troops to the region as reinforcements over recent months.

Washington announced 500 more would be sent after a pro-Iranian mob laid siege to its embassy in Baghdad this week.

And on Friday, a Pentagon official said another 3,000 to 3,500 troops would be deployed to the Middle East.

The US currently has 5,200 soldiers deployed in Iraq, officially to assist and train its army and ensure Islamic State does not reemerge as a force.

Israel was also bracing for a potential retaliation attack, with Israeli television reporting that the Defense Ministry put Israeli embassies and offices on high alert worldwide in the wake of Soleimanis killing and amid Iranian threats of revenge, some of which were directed at the Jewish state.

More:
Four hellfire missiles and a severed hand: the killing of Qassem Soleimani - The Times of Israel

WASHINGTON Vice President Mike Pencemay be "purposefully misleading" Congress about a September conversation betweenPence andUkraine's president, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee told Pence Tuesday.

In a letter to Pence, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., renewed the committee's request for the vice president to declassify information about the conversation that has been provided to the panel by Jennifer Williams, a foreign policy adviser to Pence.

Pence's office previouslyrefused the request in a Dec. 11 letter, saying it would serve no purpose.

But Schiff wrotethat if Williams' description of the Sept. 18 call between Pence and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is accurate, it "raises profound questions about your knowledge of the President's scheme to solicit Ukraine's interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election."

"And it would mean that the representation of your communications with President Zelensky, as described in your office's December 11 letter, may be purposefully misleading," Schiff wrote.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence wave to the crowd during the Trump rally in Giant Center in Hershey, Pa, Dec. 10, 2019.(Photo: Cameron Clark, York Daily Record Searchlight via USA TODAY Network)

A spokeswoman for Pence did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Marc Short, Pence's chief of staff, told MSNBC that "theres really not much value in releasing a transcript" of the call.

"We may end up releasing the vice presidents transcript," Short said. "But right now, why would we participate in this charade of a process?"

Live updates: McConnell rejects Democrats' proposal for Senate impeachment trial

Even as the House is expected to consider Wednesday whether to impeach President Donald Trump over the withholding of military assistance to Ukraine,House Democrats are continuing to pursue information they say may be relevant.

Williams, a State Department employee on loan to Pence's office, initially testified during a Novemberclosed-door briefing that Pence's Sept. 18 conversationwith Zelensky was a "very positive call." Pence reiterated to Zelensky that the delayed military aid had been released, according to Williams. She also testified that there was no discussion of the investigations that Trump had asked Zelenskyto undertake in aJuly 25 conversation.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, left, shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, in Warsaw, Poland on Sept. 1, 2019. A Washinton Post article published on Oct. 2, 2019 reported President Donald Trump used Pence in his attempt to pressure the new Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, but is not conclusive on how much Pence knew about Trump's efforts.(Photo: Petr David Josek, AP)

When Williams was preparing for her Nov. 19 public hearing, she recalled additional information about the Sept. 18 call that she wanted to disclose "for the sake of completeness," according to the Intelligence Committee. But Pence's office told her the additional information was classified.

While Williams submitted the supplemental material to the committee in writing,it can't be publicly released unless it is declassified.

Jennifer Williams, a foreign policy aide to Vice President Mike Pence, 2nd from left, and Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine expert for the National Security Council, arrive to testify on Nov. 19, 2019 before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in a public hearing in the impeachment inquiry into allegations President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY)

Schiff wrote in Tuesday's letter that the information is directly relevant to the two articles of impeachment the House will considerand is relevantto the committee's ongoing investigation of Trump.

In the hot seat: Democrats in Trump districts wrestle with vote of conscience on impeachment

Pence's unwillingness to declassify the information, Schiff wrote, suggests he's protecting not just Trump, but himself.

Schiff asked Pence to respond to the letter by Thursday.

Democrats have so far not subpoened Pence for any information, despite their complaints that he has yet to provide a single document they've requested.

How much did Mike Pence know: Testimony suggests effort to flag concerns

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Democrats suggest Mike Pence may be 'misleading' Congress about his call with Ukraine - USA TODAY