| Saudi shuts major oil pipeline after Huthi drone attacks Posted: 14 May 2019 12:38 PM PDT  Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemen rebels shut down one of Saudi Arabia's major oil pipelines Tuesday, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of several tankers. Washington and Tehran played down tensions after trading barbs as the Americans sent an aircraft carrier group and nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the region to counter alleged threats from Saudi arch-rival Iran. "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Sochi.
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| Five U.S. abuse victims sue Vatican to release names of predator priests Posted: 14 May 2019 07:23 PM PDT ![Five U.S. abuse victims sue Vatican to release names of predator priests]( "Five U.S. abuse victims sue Vatican to release names of predator priests") Three brothers and two other men claimed in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in St. Paul that the Church has kept secret the identities and records of more than 3,400 clergy accused of sexual abuse, including some top church officials. The men are asking the court to require the Vatican to make the information public and report all alleged crimes to law enforcement worldwide.
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| AOC, at Green New Deal rally, puts Joe Biden and other Democratic climate moderates on notice Posted: 14 May 2019 07:10 AM PDT  Speaking at Howard University, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other proponents of the Green New Deal, affirmed their progressive ideals while striking out at both conservative Republicans and moderate Democrats who have, according to her and other critics, done too little about global warming for too long.
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| A unique Porsche Type 64 going under the hammer in August Posted: 14 May 2019 01:32 AM PDT  The prestigious Sotheby's auction house is selling an exceptional Porsche Type 64 -- the forebearer of all the German brand's legendary sports cars -- in an auction in Monterey, California, August 15-17, 2019, held during Monterey Car Week, which culminates with the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Created in 1938, this model is considered by many to be the first car produced by what would become the Porsche company, or, in any case, the first model to bear the automaker's name. Post-World War Two, it went on to inspire all the automaker's legendary sports car series, from the 356 to the 911.
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| Pennyslvania sues maker of OxyContin, 'jet fuel' of America's opioid crisis Posted: 14 May 2019 04:39 PM PDT  Lawsuit is the first against Purdue Pharma to allege in detail a prolific and calculated scheme of pushing drugs on prescribers The Pennsylvania attorney general, Josh Shapiro, arrives at a news conference in Philadelphia, 14 May 2019. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP Dr Jeffrey Bado received his first sales visit from a Purdue Pharma representative in September 2005. In the next five years, his prescriptions of OxyContin – the "jet fuel" of America's opioid crisis, according to Pennsylvania's attorney general – increased by 600%, as Purdue reps visited two to three times a week. Now, a lawsuit in the state seeks to hold the company accountable. The lawsuit, filed 2 May by the state attorney general, Josh Shapiro, and announced on Tuesday, accuses Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut-based maker of OxyContin, of deceptive marketing and criminal negligence in pushing doctors to prescribe the opioid. "We've lost lives, we've lost money and we've squandered opportunity," said Shapiro in a press conference Tuesday. Meanwhile, opioids have been a "goldmine" for Purdue, which has made more than $35bn in revenue since OxyContin was released in 1996, he said. "While Purdue and its executives were profiting and lining their own pockets, they were leaving a path of loss, heartache and bills for someone else in Pennsylvania to pay," he added. Pennsylvania's suit follows a wave of legal action against the pharmaceutical giant, and in some cases, certain members of the multibillionaire Sackler family, who own the company. More than three dozen states have sued Purdue for underplaying the risks of addiction, and a consolidation of 1,500-plus lawsuits filed by US cities and counties is currently playing out in a federal courthouse in Cleveland. Pennsylvania's lawsuit, however, is the first to allege in detail a prolific and calculated scheme of pushing drugs on prescribers – a ruthlessly profitable "marketing blitzkrieg" targeting doctors such as Bado, who was convicted of fraud and drug distribution felonies in 2016. According to the complaint, Pennsylvania, one of the hardest-hit states in the opioid crisis, received half a million sales visits by Purdue reps since 2007 – the highest of any state except California. The complaint outlines a multi-pronged promotion strategy from Purdue involving unrelenting sales calls; branded and unbranded promotion; paying select "key opinion leaders" to make seemingly unbiased endorsements of Purdue products; and targeting its marketing efforts to vulnerable patient groups, such as the elderly and veterans. The complaint also alleges that Purdue knew of OxyContin's high addiction risk but continued to misrepresent or minimize it. Shapiro singled out Purdue's propagation of the term "pseudoaddiction", a condition it says the company invented to encourage more opioid prescriptions despite evidence of full-blown addiction. "The conduct is absolutely outrageous and unlawful," said Shapiro. Purdue said in a statement that it "vigorously denies the allegations filed today in Pennsylvania" and called the allegations "misleading attacks" that are "part of a continuing effort to try these cases in the court of public opinion rather than the justice system. "Such allegations demand clear evidence linking the conduct alleged to the harm described, but we believe the state fails to show such causation and offers little evidence to support its sweeping legal claims," it said. Shapiro said his office's efforts were on behalf of those lost to addiction – 12 Pennsylvanians every day in 2018, according to the CDC – and the loved ones left behind. Asked in a subsequent press call if he intended to add the Sacklers in name to the suit, Shapiro declined to outline future plans. But he added: "We are not done here. This lawsuit is just the first step."
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| Man pleads guilty in mall attack against boy, faces 19 years Posted: 14 May 2019 09:08 AM PDT  MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A man who reportedly told investigators that he went to the Mall of America "looking for someone to kill" pleaded guilty Tuesday to throwing a 5-year-old boy from a third-floor balcony and faces 19 years in prison.
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| Clarence Thomas Just Showed How Supreme Court Would Overturn Roe v. Wade Posted: 14 May 2019 02:22 AM PDT  Jason Reed/ReutersIn 1992, the Supreme Court looked poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case protecting abortion rights. They didn't, however, and the main reason was respect for precedent—specifically, the legal doctrine known as stare decisis, or "let the decision stand." Would it do the same today, with over 250 laws meant to test the case pending in states across the country?An otherwise obscure case decided this week, Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, suggests that a majority of the court would not. Hyatt was, in large part, about stare decisis. A 1979 Supreme Court case, Nevada v. Hall, held that citizens can sue a state in another state's court. In 1998, Gilbert Hyatt did just that as part of a tax dispute, with tens of millions of dollars at stake. This week, the court overruled its 1979 decision by a vote of 5-4 and tossed out Hyatt's claim. The split was on ideological lines, with the court's five conservatives in the majority and four liberals in the minority.Of the 18 pages in the majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, 17 are about the legal question in the case, which revolves around states' rights, sovereign immunity, and the Constitution. It's no surprise that Justice Thomas, in particular, wrote this opinion, as states' rights have been a focus of his for three decades.What was surprising is that stare decisis warranted only 318 words in Justice Thomas' opinion, almost like an afterthought, and that Justice Thomas summarily waved away this important judicial doctrine. If this is how the court's conservatives treat sovereign immunity, how will they treat abortion rights?That's what Justice Stephen Breyer asked in his dissent. Unlike the majority opinion, Justice Breyer's dissent devoted over a quarter of its space to stare decisis. And he concluded, "today's decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next."It's not hard to guess which cases Justice Breyer was wondering about. Because the same logic applied in Hyatt would overturn not only Roe v. Wade but also the court's precedent on same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges.How? Let's look at Justice Thomas' reasoning.First, Justice Thomas notes that stare decisis is "'not an inexorable command" and is "at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment." Now, some would say that stare decisis is at its strongest when fundamental constitutional rights are at issue. But for Justice Thomas, in cases like Roe and Obergefell, stare decisis is at its "weakest."Thomas then goes on to apply a version of the usual stare decisis test, taking into account "the quality of the decision's reasoning; its consistency with related decisions; legal developments since the decision; and reliance on the decision."The first prong is the most important. Here, Thomas finds that the 1979 precedent "failed to account for the historical understanding of state sovereign immunity." But that's not the same as the decision's being of poor quality—it's an imposition of Justice Thomas' specific, historically oriented "originalism" philosophy. There are, after all, many ways to evaluate the quality of a decision's reading: its principled analysis of the rights in question, its integration of constitutional norms with contemporary reality, and so on.Here, however Justice Thomas glosses over that jurisprudential debate and simply concludes that a Supreme Court precedent was badly argued—according to his standards.This is the central question in cases like Roe and Obergefell. No one denies that abortion was banned for much of our country's history, and that same-sex marriage would have been anathema to the Founders of the republic. The debate is over whether history gets a vote or a veto. Heartbeat Abortion Bills Were Once a Fringe Idea. Could They Overturn Roe v. Wade?If this same standard is applied to Roe and Obergefell, they would go down in flames.The fourth prong is also critical. People depend on the law being stable. Hyatt, for example, filed his suit exactly as the law provided. Now, the rug is pulled out from under him, and all Justice Thomas says is that "we acknowledge that some plaintiffs, such as Hyatt, have relied on Hall by suing sovereign States. Because of our decision to overrule Hall, Hyatt unfortunately will suffer the loss of two decades of litigation expenses and a final judgment against the Board for its egregious conduct."Unfortunately!Now multiply Hyatt's misfortune a millionfold. As Justice Breyer wrote, overturning Supreme Court precedents except in the rarest of cases "is to cause the public to become increasingly uncertain about which cases the Court will overrule and which cases are here to stay."Arguably, many more people rely on Roe and Obergefell than on Hall, and so the reliance prong would be more important in challenges to those cases.But that cuts both ways. For every woman seeking an abortion, there is someone who believes that abortion is murder. In at least a dozen states, a majority of democratically elected legislators are trying to ban or severely limit the practice. Just last week, Georgia became the fourth state this year (joining Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio) to ban abortions after only six weeks of pregnancy, in a direct frontal challenge to Roe. And, a future conservative justice might point out, women seeking abortions could simply travel to other states if need be (if, of course, they can afford it).Because Justice Thomas so readily dismisses the reliance claim in Hyatt, it's easy to see him doing the same in Roe. Likewise in Obergefell. For 12 years, we lived in a country in which same-sex marriage was legal in some states and illegal in others; is a return to such a world truly untenable? Anyway, unless marriages like mine were retroactively invalidated, who is really relying on same-sex marriage being legal? Prospective couples could, like victims of rape or incest, simply relocate to a state more favorable to their interests.In short, Justice Thomas' theory of stare decisis is like a roadmap for how to overrule decisions one disagrees with. First, frame the disagreement as one over "quality" rather than principle. Second, trivialize the ways in which people rely on the law as it stands.And third, with the stroke of a pen, wipe out constitutional rights that people like me mistakenly think we possess.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Alabama's governor defends near-total abortion ban bill, but doesn't commit to signing Posted: 15 May 2019 11:28 AM PDT  'All human life is precious,' Ivey says, as bill awaits her signature
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| Middle East Oil War Cometh: Pipelines and Tankers Under Attack (Is Iran To Blame?) Posted: 14 May 2019 07:01 AM PDT  The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia claims that drones attacked an oil pipeline on Tuesday, causing a severe fire that disrupted oil operations.The attack is just one of many recent assaults on oil industry in the region, coming not long after four oil tankers were sabotaged while anchored in the Mideast.Yemeni rebels are claiming responsibility for a drone attack, and Saudi officials report that two oil infrastructure sites near the capital of Riyadh were targeted at the time of the pipeline attack.In regards to the Saudi, Norwegian and Emirati oil tankers that were attacked, US military assessment indicated that Iranian-affiliated agents used explosives to blow holes in the ships.According to the New York Post, the US Navy's 5th Fleet, which patrols the region, has repeatedly declined to comment.Several B-52 bombers and the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike fleet were recently deployed to the region, and the US has considered sending up to 120,000 troops to the region in case Iran attempts to make a serious move against US allies and military bases.This first appeared in WarIsBoring here. Image: Reuters.
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| Photos of the 2019 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 Posted: 15 May 2019 05:00 AM PDT |
| Maleah Davis case: Missing 4-year-old's biological father shares heart-wrenching photos Posted: 15 May 2019 09:38 AM PDT  The father of a missing Houston girl took to social media to share heart-wrenching photos of his daughter amid a nearly two-week-long search for her
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| US claims of Iran threat to coalition forces in Middle East rejected by British general Posted: 14 May 2019 12:02 PM PDT  A British general has rejected claims from the White House that coalition forces in the Middle East are facing an increased threat from Iran or its allies.In recent days, Washington US has responded to what has claimed as a raised threat from Iran-backed militias to US and coalition forces fighting the remnants of Isis in Iraq and Syria, by dispatching an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles. National security advisor John Bolton, a longtime advocate of regime change in Iran, has ordered up a proposal to immediately dispatch 120,000 US troops should Iran attack American forces.But the British general who is second in command of the coalition operation named Inherent Resolve, Maj Gen Chris Ghika, told reporters at the Pentagon, there was no evidence of an increased threat."No, there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," he said, according to Reuters. "We are aware of their presence clearly and we monitor them along with a whole range of others because that is the environment we are in."More follows......
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| Anxiety, hope as church schools wait to reopen in Sri Lanka Posted: 14 May 2019 11:33 PM PDT  COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Catholic officials and parents in Sri Lanka are hopeful that church-run schools will begin to reopen soon for the first time since last month's devastating Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels.
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| Death toll rises after 2 sightseeing planes collide Posted: 14 May 2019 03:39 AM PDT  At least four people were killed and two others are missing when the two "float planes" crashed into each other in midair. ABC News' Janai Norman reports.
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| Russia tells Pompeo: Enough mistrust, let's reboot our ties Posted: 14 May 2019 08:11 AM PDT  Pompeo is in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with his Russian counterpart, and later on Tuesday will also hold consultations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ties between the two countries have been poisoned by allegations - denied by Moscow - that Russia tried to influence the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and by differences over Venezuela, Iran, Syria and Ukraine. ...Let's try, and see what happens." Pompeo's visit represents the first high-level contact between Moscow and Washington since U.S. Special Counsel Robert Muller submitted a report examining the nature of Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
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| Lost US passport in Austria? Go to McDonald's for help Posted: 15 May 2019 09:28 AM PDT  McDonald's. Under a new partnership, outlets of the US fast food chain throughout Austria will help American citizens from Wednesday to get in touch with their embassy, it said on Facebook. "Staff (at any McDonald's in Austria) will assist them in making contact with the US Embassy for consular services," the embassy wrote.
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| President Trump dismisses trade tensions as 'a little squabble with China' Posted: 14 May 2019 12:13 PM PDT  The ramped-up trade tensions between the U.S. and China have roiled markets in recent days, but President Trump dismissed concerns and predicted victory on Tuesday when he spoke to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before embarking on a trip to Louisiana. Trump began by declaring "we're having probably the greatest economy that we've had anywhere, any time in the history of our country."
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| Ford Fusion Recalled for Gear Selector Issue Posted: 15 May 2019 12:47 PM PDT  Ford is recalling 259,182 of its 2013 to 2016 Fusion sedans because a cable that links the gear selector to the transmission can fail, allowing the transmission to be in a different gear from wha...
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| Monsanto ordered to pay $2 bn in latest Roundup blow Posted: 14 May 2019 01:51 AM PDT  In a third major legal blow to Bayer-owned Monsanto and its weedkiller Roundup, a jury in California has ordered the chemicals giant to pay more than $2 billion in damages to a couple that sued on grounds the product caused their cancer, lawyers said. The ruling on Monday was the latest in a series of court defeats for Monsanto over the glyphosate-based product, but the company insists the weedkiller is not linked to cancer. The couple's legal team described the damages award as "historic," saying it totalled $2.055 billion (1.8 billion euros) after adding in slightly more than $55 million in compensatory damages.
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| Plan to arrest migrant families tabled due to a lack of resources Posted: 14 May 2019 02:28 PM PDT  White House officials considered a secret plan to arrest thousands of undocumented migrant parents and children in coordinated raids across the U.S., but the idea was tabled due to a lack of resources, reports the Washington Post and the Associated Press.
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| Every New Compact Crossover and SUV Ranked from Worst to Best Posted: 15 May 2019 06:17 AM PDT |
| Authorities ID hiker killed in Appalachian Trail attack Posted: 14 May 2019 07:32 PM PDT  RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — An Oklahoma man was stabbed to death in an attack on the Appalachian Trail in southwestern Virginia, federal authorities said Tuesday.
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| Alabama governor signs strict abortion ban into law Posted: 15 May 2019 04:39 PM PDT  U.S. abortion-rights activists had already vowed to go court to block enforcement of the Alabama measure, the strictest anti-abortion law yet enacted by abortion foes aiming to provoke reconsideration of the Roe v. Wade ruling. The decision by Governor Kay Ivey, a Republican abortion opponent, to sign the measure came a day after the Republican-controlled state Senate gave final legislative approval to the abortion ban.
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| Disabled man rebukes Southwest Airlines for failing to accommodate his medical device Posted: 15 May 2019 04:40 PM PDT ![Disabled man rebukes Southwest Airlines for failing to accommodate his medical device]( "Disabled man rebukes Southwest Airlines for failing to accommodate his medical device") A severely disabled man said that U.S. airlines do not provide appropriate lifts, so he brings his own, but Southwest still wouldn't let him fly.
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| Trump declares national emergency 'over Huawei' amid accusations he is risking 'devastating' conflict with Iran Posted: 15 May 2019 03:22 PM PDT  Donald Trump has been accused of "playing a very dangerous game" with Iran and risking dragging the US into a new war in the Middle East that could have "devastating" consequences.The warning came from Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran's ambassador to the UK, with the acting US defence secretary Patrick Shanahan tabling plans to send 120,000 troops to the region if needed as tensions soar between the two nations over economic sanctions and an increased American military presence in the Persian Gulf.A commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Maj Gen Hossein Salami, later warned the nation is "on the cusp of a full-scale confrontation with the enemy".Meanwhile, President Trump has signed an executive order declaring a national emergency that will ban American companies from using telecommunications equipment made by foreign firms posing a national security risk to the US.The move – thought to be aimed at China's Huawei – comes as tensions flare between the two countries, with Beijing and Washington failing to find consensus on trade and tariffs after months of negotiations.In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the emergency declaration by the president is"part of his commitment to protecting the information and communications technology and services of our Nation."In the latest US immigration news, the Trump administration is planning to redirect Transportation Security Administration staff to the Mexico border, the TSA said Wednesday."TSA, like all DHS components, is supporting the DHS effort to address the humanitarian and security crisis at the southwest border.TSA is in the process of soliciting volunteers to support this effort while minimising operational impact," TSA spokesman James Gregory said in a statement.The announcement came as Donald Trump spoke at the annual Peace Officers' Memorial Service in Washington DC, where he denounced illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border.Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
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| Russia Might Take the Biggest Submarine Ever and Add 200 Cruise Missiles Posted: 15 May 2019 01:54 AM PDT  Thus, while the idea of Russia reviving its cold war leviathans sounds compellingly scary, there's evidence it makes little practical or financial sense given more cost-efficient and survivable means to achieve the same ends. It could also be the project is being trumpeted for the propagandistic symbolism behind deploying super-submarines that are larger and carry more missiles than their American counterparts.On April 20, 2019, Russia's TASS Agency reported that Vice Admiral Oleg Burtsev announced Russia's intention to take two of its decommissioned Typhoon-class ballistic submarines and pack them full of hundreds of cruise missiles.(This first appeared last month.)"The dimensions of these submarines allow arming each of them with at least 200 cruise missiles [each]," he said.The Typhoon ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), famously featured in the film Hunt for Red October, are by far the biggest and most expensive submarines ever built. Cruise-missile-armed Typhoons would give Russia direct analogs of the United States' four Ohio-class cruise missile submarines (SSGNs), which had their launch tubes for nuclear-armed ballistic missiles replaced with vertical launch systems for 154 conventionally-armed Tomahawk cruise missiles.Burtsev made the missile-envy issue explicit:
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| Sri Lanka police arrest 23 for targeting Muslims after Easter bombings Posted: 14 May 2019 05:20 AM PDT  Soldiers in armored vehicles patrolled the towns hit by sectarian violence this week as residents recalled how Muslims had hid in paddy fields to escape mobs carrying rods and swords, incensed over the militant attacks. Mobs moved through towns in Sri Lanka's northwest on motorbikes and in buses, ransacking mosques, burning Korans and attacking shops with petrol bombs in rioting that began on Sunday, Muslim residents said. Police said they arrested 23 people from across the island for inciting violence against Muslims, who make up less than 10 percent of Sri Lanka's 22 million people who are predominantly Sinhalese Buddhists.
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| 10 Things to Know for Today Posted: 14 May 2019 03:07 AM PDT  Your daily look at late breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
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| 1988 Chevrolet Corvette C4 Callaway Twin-Turbo Four-Speed Is a High-Performance Love Letter from the '80s Posted: 15 May 2019 07:30 AM PDT  Revisit the high-livin' forced-induction era by bidding on this Callaway Vette, offered at no reserve on Bring a Trailer.
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| Ferrari 250 GTO sells for record $70 million (£52m) Posted: 15 May 2019 11:09 AM PDT  One of the best surviving GTOs has sold to American collector David MacNeil for the highest price ever paid for a classic car. A 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO has been sold to Ferrari collector and WeatherTech CEO David MacNeil for a rumoured $70 million – a new world record for a classic car. The Ferrari in question, serial number 4153 GT, is one of the most celebrated of the 39 250 GTOs produced, due to its competition history and its originality – unusually for a race car, it's never been crashed.
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| Which states are seeking to make abortion illegal and who is behind it? Posted: 14 May 2019 01:22 PM PDT  Alabama passed the most restrictive abortion ban in the US as more than a dozen states this year tried to outlaw the procedure A woman protests Georgia's six-week abortion ban at the state capitol in Atlanta, Georgia, on 7 May. Photograph: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters Alabama lawmakers passed the most restrictive abortion ban in the US on Tuesday night, outlawing abortion from the point of conception with exceptions only if the woman's life is seriously at risk. The law is one example of a severe clampdown on women's reproductive rights spreading across Republican-led states. The White House has stoked anti-abortion campaigners' fervor, with conservative court nominations and a litany of bureaucratic changes restricting reproductive freedom and related funding. This year, more than a dozen US states have sought to make abortion illegal after six weeks of gestation, including six states that successfully enacted the laws. Where is this happening? Anti-abortion campaigners have successfully enacted a ban on all or most abortions in seven Republican-led states: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio and Georgia. Alabama's law, which must be signed by the Republican governor, is the most severe. At least 61 bills like this have been introduced across the country, in states including Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, Minnesota, Texas and West Virginia. Even in states considered safe havens for abortion rights, such as New York and Illinois, anti-abortion lawmakers have introduced bills as a kind of protest. The wave of restrictions is due primarily to the Trump administration's judicial picks. Anti-abortion campaigners believe the chances of further restricting abortion through court cases are better today than they were a year ago. Who is behind it? Generally, the anti-abortion elements are made up of social conservatives. The Christian right has fought against abortion rights for decades, but some of its most extreme proposals have only recently started to pick up steam. The Christian right is also one of the Trump administration's most fervent bases of political support. In Ohio for example, the leader of one anti-abortion and anti-gay hate group, Janet Porter, pressed for a ban on abortions for nearly a decade. She only succeeded this year, after the Trump administration pushed the supreme court and lower courts to the right. Could these cases threaten Roe v Wade? That is the aim for many anti-abortion campaigners. The US supreme court legalized abortion across the country in 1973, through the landmark case Roe v Wade. Until then, states had been left to make their own laws on abortion, leaving a patchwork system where some women lived in places where abortion was illegal, and others where it was safe and accessible. That changed with Roe. The supreme court ruled that women have a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus can survive outside the womb, generally understood to be about 24 weeks gestation. A full term is 40 weeks. The supreme court is made up of nine justices. Until last year, there were four generally liberal judges, four conservative, and one swing vote, Anthony Kennedy. But when Kennedy retired last year Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh – a conservative and a Catholic. His confirmation, after a contentious series of hearings, has has tilted the court to the right, and although Kavanaugh does not have a long track record on abortion, experts believe he will support more restrictions. Will these cases end up in the Supreme Court? To pressure the supreme court to take up a case, anti-abortion campaigners have pushed for these clearly unconstitutional restrictions to be passed in the seven state legislatures. Civil rights groups are forced to challenge the laws in court to stop their implementation, setting up a fight and a chance to get to the highest court. Some groups want to use these cases to overturn Roe v Wade or severely restrict how it is interpreted. Unless and until the supreme court speaks on one of these cases, abortion remains legal to the point a fetus can survive outside the womb in the US. Could this plan actually work? Abortion providers are taking the threat seriously and making plans for the future, which could include using funding to shuttle women across state lines to obtain abortions. However, some civil rights lawyers are cautiously optimistic that the supreme court is not interested in revisiting Roe, even with new conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh in place. It is impossible to say for certain whether one of the new laws being passed by states will be considered. But even if states do not succeed in making abortion illegal, the pile-on of restrictions has had an impact. There are fewer abortion providers and the procedure is more expensive, making it ever more difficult for women to exercise their rights.
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| 5 budget-friendly summer vacation destinations Posted: 15 May 2019 05:33 AM PDT ![5 budget-friendly summer vacation destinations]( "5 budget-friendly summer vacation destinations") These affordable summer vacation spots around the world offer everything you'd want from a fancy trip.
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| William Barr Delivers Chilling Message to FBI for Trump Posted: 14 May 2019 02:39 PM PDT  Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Photos from Getty/APIf you come at the king, you best not miss. That's the message Attorney General William Barr is sending to FBI agents, whether intentionally or not. Barr has authorized yet another investigation into the FBI's conduct probing links between Russian election interference and the Trump campaign. Even though two other entities are already investigating the same matter, reports indicate that Barr has appointed Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia probe. In doing so, Barr is playing into the hands of President Donald Trump, who has already characterized Durham's assignment as an investigation into "how that whole hoax got started." The most charitable interpretation of Barr's behavior in defense of Trump is that he believes strongly in a "unitary executive," where the president can order any investigation he wants. But in his quest to protect the presidency, Barr is damaging our national security. His complicity in Trump's efforts to disparage the FBI will make it more difficult for agents to do their jobs and could discourage investigations of those in power. Certainly, the FBI, like any other government agency, should be subject to scrutiny. If you were to ask most FBI agents about internal investigations, they would tell you that they welcome such probes when done in good faith because they ensure not only accountability but also public trust. Following the FBI's aggressive surveillance of civil rights activists and war protesters in the 1960s and '70s, safeguards and approval requirements were created to prevent such abuses. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created to provide independent oversight of wiretaps conducted in the name of national security. The Domestic Investigations Operations Guide was created to provide detailed operational and approval requirements for each investigative step. FBI personnel are subject to DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates allegations of misconduct. The FBI also has its own inspection division to conduct routine audits of compliance with polices and practices. But the current outcry about the use of FISA surveillance and informants to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election is not sufficient predication for a criminal investigation. Those techniques are routinely and appropriately used in counterintelligence investigations against foreign adversaries. Former FBI general counsel James Baker has been speaking out about the FBI's work on the Russia investigation, stating that the investigation was not a "coup" against President Trump, but instead was "about Russia. It was always about Russia. Full stop." Failing to investigate Russian interference would have been a breach of the FBI's duty. Even use of the so-called Steele dossier in the FISA application for surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page is not the scandal that some describe. The dossier, compiled by a former British intelligence agent to be used as opposition research by Hillary Clinton's campaign against Trump, was properly described as such in the FISA application, such that the FISA court had complete and accurate information when it authorized the surveillance. Judges, including those on the FISA court, are capable of discounting information based on potential biases as long as they are disclosed in the application, as they were here. In addition, material from the Steele dossier provided only a portion of the facts included in the 66-page application that was used to establish probable cause to obtain surveillance authorization from the FISA court. Renewals of the application were approved from Trump-appointed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. There is no evidence in the public record that the FBI abused the FISA process in this investigation. Nonetheless, last year, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz to investigate potential abuses in the FISA process following complaints by Republican lawmakers. Sessions later asked Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber to pursue any criminal conduct relating to the same matter, along with other matters relating to Clinton. It is unclear why Barr does not simply await those results rather than appoint a new prosecutor to undertake another investigation. If Barr had wanted to expand the scope of the prior investigations, he could have done so without appointing a new investigator. If he were simply replacing Huber with Durham, who, by all accounts is a highly respected and experienced investigator, then he should say so. Forget Roy Cohn, Future Presidents Would Ask 'Where's My Bill Barr?'Instead, Barr has created the appearance that he is launching another investigation to appease Trump. But there is a significant downside to such a tactic. Barr's appointment of Durham advances the Trump narrative that the FBI is run by a "deep state" that is engaged in a witch hunt and a hoax. Barr has already contributed to the partisan conspiracy theory with the language he used at his press conference to announce the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report in April. Barr repeatedly used Trump's talking point of "no collusion," a term Mueller specifically said he was avoiding. Barr made things worse in his subsequent congressional testimony, when he used the word "spying" to describe the FBI's tactics in the Russia probe. Despite his protestations that the word is not a pejorative term, and that "spying" is a word used by the media, it is not a word that government officials use to describe court-authorized surveillance. Contrast Barr's performances with the recent congressional testimony of FBI Director Christopher Wray. Wray rejected Barr's use of the term "spying" as "not the term I would use." Wray also stated that he did not have any evidence of any illegal surveillance into the Trump campaign. Trump responded by tweeting: "The FBI has no leadership . . . The Director is protecting the same gang . . . that tried to . . . overthrow the President through an illegal coup."Even after seeing this treatment, Barr continues to appease Trump, who campaigns on the narrative that he is victim of the deep state. Trump has called the FBI "a disgrace" that is "in tatters." Harming the reputation of the FBI will make it more difficult for the FBI do the important work it does every day. When an agent knocks on a door for tips in a kidnaping case, will the resident help someone from an agency the president has warned him about? When an FBI agent testifies at the trial of a sex trafficker, will a juror trust that he is telling the truth? By disparaging the FBI, the president makes our country less safe. Barr is compounding the problem by contributing to this false narrative. In addition to harming the effectiveness of the FBI, Barr's complicity in Trump's tactics may also have a chilling effect. By advancing the "investigate the investigators" mantra, Barr may cause the FBI to flinch next time it perceives a threat from powerful people within the government. He is incentivizing the FBI to sit idly by in the face of national security threats. The risk is that under Barr's leadership, the FBI's new motto might become "he who does nothing does nothing wrong." Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Iran's So-Called 'Stealth' Fighter Is a Paper Tiger Posted: 15 May 2019 03:19 AM PDT  One should also bear in mind that back in 2003, Iran unveiled an earlier, more convincing fake subsonic stealth fighter called the Shafaq—revealed in 2014 to be a mock-up made of wood.There can be such a thing as posturing too hard.(This first appeared last year.)Iran's aviation industry has accomplishments to boast about despite operating under heavy sanctions for nearly forty years. It has managed to keep once state-of-the-art U.S.-built F-4 Phantom and F-14 Tomcat fighters in operational condition for decades, including nine years of high-intensity aerial warfare with Iraq, despite being cut off from spare parts from the United States. It has refurbished the rusting hulks of old F-5 Freedom Fighters into twin-vertical stabilizer Saeqeh fighters, reverse-engineered their J85 turbojet engines, and created a variety of viable capable drones.
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| Georgetown to expel two students over U.S. college admissions bribery scandal Posted: 15 May 2019 12:32 PM PDT  The expulsions were announced several hours after one of the students, Adam Semprevivo, sued Georgetown over his treatment, including its refusal to let him transfer to another school and keep his academic credits. Georgetown did not identify the expelled students or accuse them of wrongdoing. A lawyer for Semprevivo confirmed in an interview that the 21-year-old psychology major, who just completed his junior year, was one of them.
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| Palestinians mark anniversary of mass displacement Posted: 15 May 2019 08:28 AM PDT  GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinians on Wednesday marked the 71st anniversary of their mass displacement during the 1948 war around Israel's creation with protests across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
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| Tucker: Homelessness getting worse in California Posted: 14 May 2019 06:09 PM PDT  'Tucker Carlson Tonight' investigates the nation's homeless crisis and the decay of American cities.
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| Louisiana 'heartbeat' abortion ban nearing final passage Posted: 15 May 2019 03:46 PM PDT  BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A proposal to ban abortions in Louisiana as early as the sixth week of pregnancy continued to speed through the state legislature Wednesday, the same day Alabama's governor signed the nation's most restrictive law against the procedure.
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| Trump denies planning to send 120,000 troops to counter Iran Posted: 14 May 2019 09:11 AM PDT  President Donald Trump on Monday rejected a report that he is considering sending 120,000 troops to counter Iran, but didn't rule out deploying "a hell of a lot more" soldiers in the future. "I think it's fake news," Trump said of a New York Times report that the White House is considering a plan to send 120,000 troops to the region as part of a tightening pressure campaign against the Iranian government.
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| Google’s new travel portal will improve the way you plan your trips online Posted: 15 May 2019 04:06 PM PDT  Slowly but surely, Google has become a one-stop shop for everything travel related. Few sites (if any) offer a cleaner and easier approach to booking travel arrangements than Google, and now, a new travel portal for the web has made the process even easier. All you have to do to check it out is head to google.com/travel.While most of the functionality of this travel hub was previously available through Google's website, this unifies all of the various features and options into a single webpage where you can book flights and hotels, see all your upcoming trips, and scroll through all of the previous vacations and getaways from years past.This simplified hub made its way on to mobile devices more than a year ago, but if you prefer to book your trips on a bigger screen, you can now get the same experience while making travel plans on a desktop.> As you plan a trip, your research and reservations will be organized for you in Trips. As we continue to evolve Google Trips, we're making this information more accessible at google.com/travel, and in Google Search and Google Maps. We're also adding a few new features to make planning and organizing your trips easier.Building on some of the features introduced last year, Google now makes it possible to edit your trip timeline directly from the travel hub, and the ability to manually add reservations is coming in a few weeks as well. Google will also now show you the weather for all the days you are scheduled to be at a destination.Also worth noting: Hotel and restaurant reservations will be accessible in Google Maps in the coming months.
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| The 10 Best Buys in Motorcycles for 2019 Posted: 15 May 2019 08:00 AM PDT |
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