The McClatchy Co., the storied news publisher weighed down by pension obligations and debt, could file for bankruptcy within the next year, according to analysts.

The company faces a mandatory $124 million contribution to its pension plan in 2020.

"If they can't offload the pensions or get pension plan relief, they'll have to file for bankruptcy," said media analyst Craig Huber, founder of Huber Research Partners LLC, who has followed the company since 1995. In an interview, Huber estimated McClatchy would have free cash flow of less than $20 million next year, a fraction of what it needs to cover its pension obligations.

A representative for the company declined to comment. In its third-quarter earnings release last week, McClatchy said the pension contribution created "a significant liquidity challenge in 2020." It also warned in regulatory documents that it may not be able to continue as a going concern.

Newspaper Roster

The Sacramento, California-based company operates 29 newspapers including the Miami Herald, The Charlotte Observer and The Kansas City Star. Other large newspaper companies are also in turmoil, with tens of thousands of newsroom jobs cut over the past decade.

Turkish President Erdogan says he told Trump Turkey would seek other options if disagreement prevailed on F-35 fighter jets

Turkey would be forced to "look elsewhere" to satisfy its defense needs if the current dispute surrounding F-35 fighter jets from the U.S. continued, Turkey's president on Tuesday said he told his U.S. counterpart during a recent meeting.

"We said that if the current disagreement on F-35 fighter jets continues, Turkey must look elsewhere to meet medium term needs," Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party's parliamentary group about a meeting he had with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Nov.13.

Underlining that Turkey was a partner in the production of F-35 fighter jets, Erdogan said: "We are not a customer, we are a partner."

Earlier, reports emerged that Queen Elizabeth II did not approve of Prince Andrew's decision to give the BBC Newsnight interview, as the royal faces fallout from his ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and allegations of child sexual abuse that he has repeatedly denied.

Prince Andrew's recent claims he "never really partied" and avoided "public displays of affection" have been dealt a serious blow as footage of the Duke of York engaging in some serious partying with young women in St Tropez has been exclusively revealed by MailOnline today.

A US demand for South Korea to quintuple spending for hosting American troops earned a stiff rebuke from Seoul, to which Washington responded by walking out of "cost-sharing" talks to give Koreans time to "reconsider."

Some of the US' closest allies have bowed to pressure and agreed to pay more for the US-provided protection and deterrence, but the price tag is still an issue for Seoul. The US and South Korea found themselves at an impasse when the former demanded that Seoul spend $5 billion each year for hosting 28,500 American personnel on its soil.

The sum would compensate US troops for their labor, support their families, and fund rotational troop deployment, along with offshore training expenses, according to Yonhap. Previously, Seoul was only asked to pay for its workers hired by US forces, construction activities at American bases, and other minor expenses.


$5 billion is actually five times bigger than one of East Asia's biggest economies agreed to pay this year. Unsurprisingly, the cost-sharing meeting between American and South Korean negotiators abruptly ended one hour after starting, though it was scheduled to run throughout Tuesday.

Thousands of tons of Russian grain will be delivered to Syria next year, according to the head of the Crimean region Yuri Gotsanyuk. Exports from the Russia's Black Sea peninsula to the war-ravaged country started two years ago.

The first batch of grain will be delivered in early January, Gotsanyuk told reporters on Tuesday. He added that Crimea expects more citrus fruit shipments from Syria. "We are in talks on more supplies," he said, explaining that citrus from Syria arrived in early 2019.


On Monday, the first batch of olive oil from Syria was supplied to Crimea. It will be later sold in other Russian regions.

Syria, which is facing problems with grain supplies due to Western sanctions, has a desperate need for bread.

In April, the sides signed a memorandum on trade and economic cooperation. They have agreed to set up a joint trading platform and ship operator for ensuring regular maritime freight traffic.

On Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned that Ankara could resume its Syrian operation if the United States and Russia did not implement their commitments on the withdrawal of Kurdish militia forces from the so-called safe zone near the Turkish border.

The Russian military has announced that it has taken measures to beef up military police patrols in northern Syria with the aim of calming the situation along the Syrian-Turkish border.

"Additional Russian military police units are being deployed to normalize the situation along the border regions of Syria. Field hospitals are being deployed to provide medical assistance to civilians," defence ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov stated Tuesday.

Konashenkov noted that Russia's assistance has included humanitarian aid to the residents of northeast Syria, and that its forces have taken measures to help restore civilian infrastructure damaged or destroyed in the fighting.

The spokesman also stressed that Russia has "fully" fulfilled and will continue to fulfil its obligations under the Sochi memorandum on Syria, the Russian-Turkish agreement signed by Presidents Putin and Erdogan on October 22 with the aim of halting Turkey's military operation in Syria.

Democrats accidentally undermined their own case against President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning when one of their star witnesses, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, confirmed Ukraine felt no pressure from the administration.

The House Intelligence Committee's counsel, Daniel Goldman, tried to establish that President Trump had pressured Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden solely, or primarily, for the potential political benefit.

However, his questioning of Vindman did not quite go as planned:

"When a man unprincipled in private life[,] desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper . . . despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'" — Alexander Hamilton

By all means, let's talk about impeachment.

To allow the President or any rogue government agency or individual to disregard the rule of law whenever, wherever and however it chooses and operate "above the law" is exactly how a nation of sheep gives rise to a government of wolves.

To be clear: this is not about Donald Trump. Or at least it shouldn't be just about Trump.

This is a condemnation of every government toady at every point along the political spectrum — right, left and center — who has conspired to expand the federal government's powers at the expense of the citizenry.

For too long now, the American people have played politics with their principles and turned a blind eye to all manner of wrongdoing when it was politically expedient, allowing Congress, the White House and the Judiciary to wreak havoc with their freedoms and act in violation of the rule of law.

"We the people" are paying the price for it now.

We are paying the price every day that we allow the government to continue to wage its war on the American People, a war that is being fought on many fronts: with bullets and tasers, with surveillance cameras and license readers, with intimidation and propaganda, with court rulings and legislation, with the collusion of every bureaucrat who dances to the tune of corporate handouts while on the government's payroll, and most effectively of all, with the complicity of the American people, who continue to allow themselves to be easily manipulated by their politics, distracted by their pastimes, and acclimated to a world in which government corruption is the norm.

Don't keep falling for the Deep State's ploys.

This entire impeachment process is a manufactured political circus — a shell game — aimed at distracting the public from the devious treachery of the American police state, which continues to lock down the nation and strip the citizenry of every last vestige of constitutional safeguards that have historically served as a bulwark against tyranny.

Has President Trump overstepped his authority and abused his powers?

Without a doubt.

Then again, so did Presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton, and almost every president before them.

President Donald Trump on Monday suggested he would be open to testifying publicly or in writing as part of the House impeachment inquiry.

Trump's openness to participating in the probe of his efforts to push Ukraine to announce investigations of his opponents came in response to an invitation for him to testify extended by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an interview on CBS' "Face The Nation."

Pelosi, Trump tweeted Monday, "suggested on Sunday's DEFACE THE NATION that I testify about the phony Impeachment Witch Hunt. She also said I could do it in writing."

Chinese defense officials on Monday warned their U.S. counterparts against "flexing muscles" in the disputed South China Sea after a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, according to The Associated Press.

Ministry of Defense spokesman Wu Qian said the disputed area was one of several topics Esper and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe discussed earlier in the day.

"We agreed to keep talking and engaging frequently," Esper told reporters after the meeting, according to the AP. "We continue to make progress on any number of issues."

"The Chinese side also urges the U.S. side to stop flexing muscles in the South China Sea and do not provoke and escalate tensions in the South China Sea," Wu said through a Chinese interpreter, clarifying that the U.S. should "stop intervening in the South China Sea and stop military provocations."