Highlights

More than 2,000 people braved icy rain in sub-freezing temperatures in Illinois on Sunday for a vigil paying respects to five people killed and five police officers wounded by a factory worker Gary Martin who opened fire on Friday after losing his job. Martin was a violent felon with a 1995 conviction for aggravated assault in Mississippi, which reportedly involved the bludgeoning and stabbing of a girlfriend. He obtained a state permit to buy a firearm despite being legally barred from owning one, officials said.

Activists have called for nationwide protests today to demonstrate against President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency. Trump invoked the emergency powers on Friday after Congress declined to fulfill his request for $5.7 billion to help build a border wall. The move was designed to let him spend money appropriated by Congress for other purposes. Democrats have vowed to challenge it as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. “Come and voice your outrage,” said the organizers of the demonstrations.

North Carolina election officials will begin hearing evidence on allegations that absentee ballots unlawfully collected by a Republican operative may have tipped a tight November U.S. congressional election in favor of a Republican candidate.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden won a standing ovation at the Munich Security Conference by promising that “America will be back” once Donald Trump leaves office. Biden’s words were a comfort to delegates who find the president’s brusque foreign policy stance hard to like. But their elation also exposed the weakened state of Western diplomacy in the face of Trump’s assertiveness.

Deeply troubled by military housing conditions exposed by Reuters reporting, the U.S. Army’s top leadership vowed Friday to renegotiate its housing contracts with private real estate firms. The Reuters reporting described rampant mold and pest infestations, childhood lead poisoning, and service families often powerless to challenge private landlords. “It is frankly unconscionable that our soldiers and their families would be living in these types of conditions,” said the Secretary of the Army Mark Esper.

World

Seven lawmakers have quit Britain’s main opposition party, saying the party had been 'hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left'. Their departure also underlines the mounting frustration with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s reluctance to change his Brexit strategy and start campaigning for a second referendum. The seven will continue to sit as lawmakers in parliament under the banner ‘The Independent Group’.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was meeting with senior members of the ruling All Progressives Congress party on Monday over the postponement of Nigeria’s presidential election, the party said. The electoral commission, which announced the delay five hours before polls were due to open last Saturday, said the election would now be held this coming Saturday.

The Vatican will gather senior bishops from around the world later this week for a conference on sex abuse. The meeting is designed to guide them on how best to tackle a problem that has decimated the Church’s credibility, but critics say it is too little, too late.

Singapore’s first soccer player signed to the English Premier League faces charges that carry up to three years in jail for missing his compulsory military service. Singapore’s refusal to allow Ben Davis, 18, to defer his national service sparked a debate last year over whether the country’s rigid conscription law is stifling its youth from pursuing their dreams.

.@Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been imprisoned in Myanmar for 434 days. Follow updates on the case: https://reut.rs/2SETD9A

6:10 AM - 18 Feb 2019