| Britain warns Iran of 'serious consequences' if British-flagged oil tanker not released Posted: 20 Jul 2019 08:28 AM PDT  Iran's seizure of a British oil tanker potentially marks a major escalation in tensions between Iran and the West since they began rising in May.
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| Mueller probe witness now faces child sex trafficking charge Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:29 PM PDT  A businessman who served as a key witness in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation now faces a charge of child sex trafficking in addition to transporting child pornography. An indictment made public Friday in federal court in Alexandria charges Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, 60, with transporting a 14-year-old boy from Europe to Washington, D.C., in February 2000 and engaging in sex acts with him. It details his efforts to serve as liaison between a Russian banker close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of President Donald Trump's transition team.
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| Alleged American ISIS Sniper Brought Home by the Defense Department to Face Charges Posted: 20 Jul 2019 01:49 AM PDT  An American citizen who allegedly served as a sniper for ISIS and became a leader for the terrorist group is expected to appear in federal court on Friday after being returned to the United States by the Defense Department, officials said.Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, who was born in Kazakhstan and became a naturalized U.S. citizen, is charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to ISIS, the Justice Department announced on Friday.A U.S. official confirmed to Task & Purpose that the Defense Department had transported Asainov from Syria to the United States. Asainov had been in the custody of Syrian Democratic Forces.No further information about the military's role in transporting Asainov, to the United States was immediately available.Asainov is accused of leaving Brooklyn in December 2013 to fight for ISIS in Syria, a Justice Department news release says. After becoming an ISIS sniper, he was promoted to become an "emir" in charge of training fighters how to use weapons and also tried to recruit someone else to leave the United States and become an ISIS fighter.Prosecutors claim Asainov tried to buy a scope for his rile by paying roughly $2,800 to a confidential informant, the news release says."Asainov subsequently sent the confidential informant two photographs depicting the defendant holding an assault rifle fitted with a scope," the news release says. "He messaged one associate exclaiming, in reference to ISIS, 'We are the worst terrorist organization in the world that has ever existed' and stating that he wished to die on the battlefield."
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| Ex-NRA Ad Firm: Um, Wayne LaPierre is Lying Posted: 19 Jul 2019 10:46 AM PDT  Lucas Jackson/ReutersIn a new filing against the National Rifle Association, lawyers for ad agency Ackerman McQueen suggest that longtime NRA executive Wayne LaPierre is lying about a critical moment in the gun rights group's recent leadership shake up. At issue is multi-million-dollar litigation between the NRA and its ex-ad firm. In court filings of its own, the NRA has alleged that Oliver North, the groups's former president, was ousted in part because he withheld information from the NRA about payments he took from Ackerman McQueen, which had served as the gun rights group's primary ad contractor until just months ago. The NRA claims North kept the nature of his deal with Ackerman McQueen a secret from LaPierre and the gun group's leadership. But in a July 16 filing that was reviewed by The Daily Beast, Ackerman McQueen alleges that LaPierre himself helped negotiate the deal between their firm and North. And they hint that they have documentation to prove it. In a statement, the NRA denied the suggestions. "The facts are clear – Mr. LaPierre and the NRA had no idea that Col. North was negotiating to become an employee of Ackerman McQueen," said Andrew Arulanandam, managing director of NRA Public Affairs. "And to the extent Col. North was pushing a contrived narrative about Mr. LaPierre and the NRA, he was conflicted. He was an employee of Ackerman at the time he was allegedly scheming with the agency to unseat Mr. LaPierre." It's a messy new chapter in the months-long legal battle between the NRA and the ad firm it used for more than three decades. And it comes as the gun group has jettisoned senior staff and faced revolts from grassroots activists and donors. "LaPierre negotiated the terms of the North Contract directly with Lt. Col. North and a detailed term sheet was sent to AMc [Ackerman McQueen] for completion of the formal agreement," the filing reads. The NRA's then-treasurer, Wilson "Woody" Phillips, also reviewed and approved North's contract with the firm, according to the filing, and the NRA board's audit committee green-lit the contract as well. "On at least two occasions, counsel for the NRA has reviewed the North Contract," the filing adds. NRA Pulls the Plug on NRATVAckerman McQueen's insistence that NRA officials were aware of the contract with North is directly at odds with the contention the NRA made in a suit it filed against the ad agency in April. North was ousted from the NRA that month during the group's annual meeting and has since accused LaPierre of gross mismanagement and making highly questionable expenditures. The NRA, meanwhile, has alleged that North tried to oust LaPierre in a coup. And in a separate suit in May, it accused Ackerman McQueen of breach of contract by leaking information about both LaPierre and the NRA's finances. Ackerman McQueen had been a central force behind the NRA's evolution from a gun rights group to a conservative cultural institution. As part of that mission, the ad firm helped launch and manage NRATV, the NRA's recently shuttered internet-video arm. The NRA has alleged in court that Ackerman McQueen had refused to share its analytics with the gun group. But In its July 16 filing, Ackerman McQueen claims that the opposite is true. "Two days before the lawsuit was filed, LaPierre was in AMc's office and was in attendance for the presentation of the NRATV analytics," it reads. "LaPierre walked out of the meeting." A spokesperson for the NRA's legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The filing indicates that the fight between the NRA and Ackerman shows no signs of losing steam. Earlier this week, longtime NRA director of public affairs Jennifer Baker left the group. And a month ago, the group parted ways with its longtime top lobbyist, Chris Cox. 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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| Brazil's Petrobras refuses to refuel Iran ships due to US sanctions Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:03 AM PDT  US-listed Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras said Friday it will not refuel two Iranian vessels that have been stuck for weeks at a Brazilian port for fear of violating American sanctions. Washington has imposed a slate of sanctions on Tehran and companies with ties to the Islamic republic since President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of a landmark nuclear pact last year. The ships Bavand and Termeh, which reportedly belong to Iranian company Sapid Shipping, arrived at Paranagua port in the southern state of Parana early last month, an official at the port told AFP.
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| A Passenger Was Fined $105,000 and Banned for Life for 'Extremely Disruptive Behavior' on an Airplane Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:09 PM PDT  She was also banned for life by British budget carrier Jet2
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| 2020 Vision: Democratic candidates raise funds off 'Send her back' chant at Trump rally Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:48 AM PDT  Amid outrage over the chant, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke and other Democratic groups are using the episode in their fundraising emails.
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| Irish, EU governments sound out Johnson to avoid no-deal Brexit: Sunday Times Posted: 20 Jul 2019 03:16 PM PDT  Ahead of Boris Johnson's likely election next week as Britain's prime minister, EU countries are secretly wooing him in a bid to thrash out a new Brexit plan that would avoid a no-deal disaster, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. German and French figures as well as the Dutch and Belgian governments have also established contact with Johnson's team and signaled an intention to do a deal, it added. In a limited extract released on Saturday evening ahead of publication, the paper reported that Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has indicated Dublin is prepared to compromise.
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| California father drowns in Oregon river after trying to help his daughter Posted: 19 Jul 2019 10:58 AM PDT  A California man drowned Thursday afternoon after he jumped in the Santiam River to save his daughter in Marion County.
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| Hong Kong police seize explosives ahead of weekend protests Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:54 AM PDT  Police in Hong Kong discovered a stash of a powerful homemade explosive as the semi-autonomous Chinese city readied for another major pro-democracy protest on Sunday. Materials voicing opposition to an extradition bill that has sparked more than a month of demonstrations in Hong Kong were found at the site, local media said, but a police spokesman said no concrete link has been established and that the investigation is continuing. In a rally that aimed to counter the pro-democracy movement, thousands of people filled a park in central Hong Kong on Saturday to support the police, who have been accused of using rough tactics on protesters.
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| Twice-Deported Illegal Alien Charged With Three Murders — Two Were Children Posted: 20 Jul 2019 01:10 AM PDT  An illegal immigrant from Guatemala, who has twice been deported, was arrested Tuesday in connection to the murders of an Iowa woman and her two children.Marvin Oswaldo Escobar-Orellana, 31, was arrested after he allegedly shotthe family with which he lived in Des Moines, Iowa, and called 911 on himself. Orellana is the suspect in the murder of 29-year-old Rossibeth Flores-Rodriguez and her two children, Grecia Daniela Alvarado-Flores, 11, and Ever Jose Mejia-Flores, 5, according an Associated Press report.Orellana was deported in both 2010 and 2011, and convicted of illegal entry. He crossed the border around Laredo, Texas, was sentenced to 15 days in jail and ordered not to return — a command by which he did not abide, ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer confirmed with AP. (RELATED: ICE Released List Of Illegal Immigrants Accused of Crimes After Local Police Ignored Detainers)Orellana allegedly killed the family after an argument ensued in their shared home, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office. He then dialed 911 and allegedly fabricated a story about Rodriguez killing the two children, saying he had to kill her in self-defense, the AP reports.Investigators are uncertain about why the murders occurred, but they did not buy Orellana's story.
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| For Planned Parenthood, No Doctors Need Apply Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:30 AM PDT  Poor Leana Wen. She took Planned Parenthood's propaganda a little too seriously. And now she's out of a job.For the longest time, Planned Parenthood has insisted that it's a health-care organization, and it only cares about abortion — supposedly a tiny share of its business — insofar as it's a function of health care.Whenever Republicans have threatened Planned Parenthood's funding over abortion, the response was, Abortion? Don't be silly. We are all about Pap tests and breast exams.The hiring of Wen as president seemed the natural extension of this line of argument. How serious is Planned Parenthood about health care? For the first time in a half a century it had a physician, with "Dr." in front of her name, one who was once the health commissioner of Baltimore, leading the organization.BuzzFeed wrote a mostly favorable piece on Wen's ascension eight months ago headlined, awkwardly in order to honor the trope that abortion is health care, "Planned Parenthood's New President Wants to Focus on Nonabortion Health Care."The first sign of trouble should have been that Wen felt compelled to immediately tweet that the headline misconstrued her vision. "Our core mission," she wrote, presumably under internal pressure, "is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care."But Wen, it turns out, wasn't single-mindedly devoted to abortion enough. With her ouster, Planned Parenthood's mask, never very firmly in place to begin with, has slipped. No matter its political spin during fights over its funding, no matter what its glossy printed materials say, no matter how dishonestly it presents the statistics related to its services, the organization is about abortion first and last, now and forever.In a letter tweeted after her firing, Wen cited "philosophical differences" with the leadership of the board. Namely, she had come to Planned Parenthood "to run a national health care organization." The board wanted "to double down on abortion rights advocacy."It's truly extraordinary to have this breach out in the open, given how vested Planned Parenthood has been in its image as a mere health-care provider. When Barack Obama became the first — and one hopes, the last — president to address a Planned Parenthood conference in 2013, he talked almost entirely about health care. In fact, he didn't mention the word "abortion" once.Planned Parenthood always says abortion is only 3 percent of its services, an absurd factoid designed to mislead. Providing pregnancy tests and performing abortions are both Planned Parenthood services, although one is obviously much more consequential and central to its mission than the other.The more telling way to look at it is that Planned Parenthood performs roughly a third of all abortions in the country, about 330,000 a year, according to its annual report.If performing a significant share of the country's abortions were merely incidental to its mission, it would gladly give it up. If you told any other federally funded group that it might have to forswear a small sliver of its business to continue to get public dollars, it wouldn't be a difficult choice. Or, if Walmart had to decide between, say, selling Bounty paper towels and everything else on its shelves, it wouldn't be a close call.The internal complaint about Wen was that she was too concerned with what is, if we take Planned Parenthood's spurious accounting seriously, 97 percent of its business. So what's wrong with that? The context of her ouster is the continued pressure on Planned Parenthood from the Trump administration and in Republican states, which, if nothing else, is smoking Planned Parenthood out. The firing of Wen, coupled with the decision to forgo Title X funding rather than stop providing abortion referrals in keeping with a new Trump administration rule, makes the group's true priority obvious, if there were any doubt.An interim president has been named, and the implicit guideline for filling the permanent role will surely be: No doctors need apply.© 2019 by King Features Syndicate
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| British-flagged tanker seized by Iran in escalation of Gulf tensions as second ship also veers off course Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:07 AM PDT  A British-flagged oil tanker was seized by Iran on Friday night, in a major escalation of tensions along one of the world's most vital oil shipping routes. The Stena Impero had been en route to Saudi Arabia but made an abrupt change of course and began moving towards the Iranian island of Qeshm, according to data relayed by maritime tracking services. The ship "went dark", meaning its identification system was turned off, at 16:29 UK time and nothing has been heard from her or her 23 crew since. Northern Marine, a Clyde-based subsidiary of the ship's Swedish owner Stena AB, confirmed that a "hostile action" had preceded the vessel's change of course on Friday afternoon. They issued a statement saying it had been "approached by unidentified small crafts and a helicopter during transit of the Strait of Hormuz while the vessel was in international waters." The ship turned suddenly into Iranian waters Credit: marinetraffic.com/PA Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that they stopped the tanker at the request of the maritime authority in the Iranian province of Hormozgan on suspicion it has "violated international maritime law", but did not elaborate. There were also concerns about a second oil tanker, the British-operated, Liberian-flagged Mesdar, which turned sharply north towards Iran's coast, about 40 minutes after the Stena Impero's course shift. There was no immediate word from the Guards about the second tanker or from the operator of the second tanker on what had prompted the change in direction along the vital international oil shipping route. Tracking data showed the Stena Impero was in the same area where a United Arab Emirates-based vessel was detained on Sunday and where a British vessel, the British Heritage, was blocked by Iranian forces earlier this month. A Cobra meeting was held between officials from the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and other Government departments on Friday night to determine the UK's response. A Whitehall source told the Telegraph of the Stena Impero: "It does look like it has been hijacked. Ships don't follow that pattern. It turned right and straight into Iranian waters. It is really concerning that this has happened. "It looks on the face of it as though the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have boarded and taken a UK-flagged ship. It appears to be linked to events around the Grace 1 tanker." British authorities seized the Iranian Grace 1 supertanker off the coast of Gibraltar on July 4, on suspicion it was carrying crude to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions. The fate of the tanker has been at the centre of escalating tensions between the UK and Iran and seen as a pawn in the standoff between the Islamic Republic and the West. Jeremy Hunt, Foreign Secretary, had hinted last Saturday that the UK would release the ship if Iran promised its cargo would not go to the Syrian regime. He said talks between him and counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif had been productive. However, a court in Gibraltar on Friday extended for 30 days the detention of the vessel, which was carrying two million barrels of oil. Revolutionary Guards have been threatening retaliation for its impounding and the move would likely have aggravated an already-tense situation. Tensions have been building for weeks in the Persian Gulf. On 10 July, a British warship, the HMS Montrose, intervened to drive three Iranian military vessels that were attempting to divert the British Heritage. Iran seized a Panama-flagged ship on Sunday, it alleges, for "smuggling oil to foreign countries". However, mystery has surrounded the capture as no country has come forward to claim the ship or its cargo. The vessel, however, was only carrying a very small amount and it had been thought Iran had seized it as merely a show of strength. The US then on Thursday claimed to have downed an Iranian drone that had been flying too close to one of its navy ships. The USS Boxer, an amphibious assault craft, destroyed the drone after it came within 1,000 yards in the Strait of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Gulf However, Iran denied the claims and released footage on state TV to proof it was still in possession of the drone. The latest incidents will only increase fears for security along the Strait of Hormuz, through which almost one-fifth of the world's oil passes. Oil prices rose on Friday night in reaction to the news. After one of the worst performing weeks since May, oil started the day firmer but slipped as the US and Iran continued to trade brickbats. The later rise initially still left it well down on the previous week. Oil was down more than 8pc this week overall when markets in London closed. Iran has threatened to close the Strait if it cannot export its oil. The Trump administration is trying to block Iran's exports as a way to pressure it to renegotiate the landmark 2015 nuclear deal it abandoned last year. The UK, which is understood to have seized the Grace 1 after a request from the US, is trying - alongside the EU - to keep the accord alive, believing it is the best chance to stop Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapon.
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| US offers $7 mn to find Hezbollah agent wanted for Argentina attack Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:35 AM PDT  The United States on Friday offered a $7 million reward to find a Hezbollah operative accused of masterminding a deadly 1994 attack on a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, as it vowed to bring together Latin American nations to fight the militant group. The United States also imposed sanctions on the Hezbollah figure, Salman Raouf Salman, in tandem with Argentina's announcement on the 25th anniversary of the attack that it is designating the Lebanese Shiite movement as a terrorist group. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting Argentina to commemorate the attack and lit a candle at the site of the devastated Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, known by its Spanish acronym AMIA.
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| Trump fumes over Ilhan Omar's 'welcome home' crowd Posted: 19 Jul 2019 06:46 AM PDT  After claiming he wasn't happy that his supporters broke into a "send her back" chant at his rally in North Carolina, President Trump on Friday fumed over the media coverage of Rep. Ilhan Omar's return to Minnesota.
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| EU plans to offer Boris Johnson no-deal Brexit extension: The Guardian Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:02 AM PDT  "It will be described as a technical delay to save Boris from political embarrassment but then we will have time to find an agreement," a senior EU diplomat told the newspaper http://bit.ly/2xWScq9. Johnson could maintain the stance of being on course to leave EU without an agreement while keeping open the option of coming to a deal with the bloc, according to the proposal cited by the Guardian. EU leaders are discussing steps to be taken in the event Johnson presses ahead with exiting the European Union without a transition deal on Oct. 31, the newspaper said.
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| Gabbard, AOC join lawmakers to call on Puerto Rican governor to resign over corruption scandal Posted: 20 Jul 2019 09:19 AM PDT  Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has joined a growing chorus of lawmakers calling for the resignation of the Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.
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| 41 Low-Carb Breakfasts You'll Actually Want To Eat Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:20 PM PDT |
| 1 killed, 4 injured when Alaska flight aborted on takeoff Posted: 19 Jul 2019 06:53 PM PDT ![1 killed, 4 injured when Alaska flight aborted on takeoff]( "1 killed, 4 injured when Alaska flight aborted on takeoff") A Maryland man visiting Alaska with his family was killed and one of his three children was critically injured Friday after their floatplane's takeoff was aborted. Alaska State Troopers identified the deceased man as Joseph Patenella, 57. The critically hurt child was flown to Anchorage for treatment, along with two other family members.
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| Will Taiwan Get the New F-16V Fighters It Desperately Wants? Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  On July 8, the U.S. State Department announced it would approve a $2.2 billion arms deal with Taiwan including 108 Abrams main battle tanks and 250 Stinger man-portable surface-to-air missiles—a deal which elicited new sanctions from Beijing on the companies involved. But the announcement was more notable for what the approval didn't include—a nearly done-deal for sixty-six F-16V jet fighters built fresh off the F-16 production line in Greenville, South Carolina.This would have been the first sale of new Western combat jets to Taiwan since 1992—a fact not unrelated to Beijing's claims that sales of jet fighters to the "renegade province" constitute a redline.This stance caused three prior U.S. presidents to shy away from additional jet sales, but from the beginning, the Trump administration has proven consistently willing to disregard Beijing's sensitivities regarding Taiwan. The absence of the F-16V deal from the July 8 approval was likely linked to U.S.-China negotiations to end a simmering trade war. Perhaps the Trump administration delayed or canceled the F-16V approval to avoid sabotaging the talks, or is withholding the jets as a possible bargaining chip to extract concessions from Beijing.For now, the deal's fate remains uncertain as Taipei and its allies in Congress lobby strongly for it to proceed.Taiwan's Precarious Status
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| Bernie Sanders campaign reportedly resists unionized staff demands for $15 per hour Posted: 19 Jul 2019 05:55 AM PDT  Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders has pledged that he will raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour if he wins the White House in 2020.
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| Dems ask whether DOJ memo prevented prosecuting Trump for hush payments Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:49 AM PDT  "The Office of the President should not be used as a shield for criminal conduct," Cummings says.
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| Arizona Dem. Joins Republicans in Effort to Expedite Deportation of Migrants with Invalid Asylum Claims Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:15 AM PDT  Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) has joined a bipartisan group of nine colleagues proposing a pilot program that would expedite the deportation of migrants who make invalid asylum claims.The senators outlined the Operation Safe Return program, which would allow the deportation of migrants within 15 days if their asylum claims are not credible, in a letter sent to acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan on Wednesday."We write to urge you to use authorities in use as of June 30, 2019, to implement Operation Safe Return, a pilot program to rapidly, accurately, and fairly determine those families who have crossed the southern border that clearly do not have a valid legal claim and safely return them to their home countries," the senators wrote. "Through this program, we expect that we can meet our commitments to humanitarian protections while ensuring proper efficiency, timeliness, order, and fairness in the credible fear screening process."Sinema and Republican senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin led the effort to develop the program in response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis that has arisen at border-detention facilities in recent months due to overcrowding.The freshman Arizona Democrat began devising the program after realizing that the Trump administration's proposed solutions, which involve rewriting asylum laws and doing away with the Flores consent decree, were inadequate, according to the Arizona Republic."This pilot program would apply to families who aren't claiming 'credible fear,' which of course is the first threshold in seeking asylum," she said. "If someone says 'I left my country because I can't make a living,' [or] 'it's hard to take care of my family' — that's what we call an economic migrant.""I just felt those weren't the right answers," Sinema added. "We wanted to solve the problem. We wanted to protect the asylum process for valid applicants . . . and we want to respect the Flores decision," which limits to just 20 days the length of time that a migrant minor can be held in federal custody.Under the current system, asylum-seekers typically wait months or even years for their hearing, which as many as 90 percent of them fail to appear for, according to a recent pilot program that tracked asylum-seekers. Under Sinema's proposal, migrants would receive an expedited hearing and would be immediately deported if they failed to meet the "credible fear" standard established under U.S. immigration law.Sinema and Johnson are joined by Republican senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso of Wyoming, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Rob Portman of Ohio, and John Cornyn of Texas, as well as Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Doug Jones of Alabama. The group plans to meet with McAleenan in the coming weeks to explain the program in further detail.
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| Kentucky host Matt Jones yanked amid speculation he'll challenge Mitch McConnell Posted: 20 Jul 2019 08:27 AM PDT ![Kentucky host Matt Jones yanked amid speculation he'll challenge Mitch McConnell]( "Kentucky host Matt Jones yanked amid speculation he'll challenge Mitch McConnell") Sports radio host Matt Jones is being pulled from his "Hey Kentucky!" anchor job until he makes a decision on running for U.S. Senate in 2020.
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| Pittsburgh marks its 4th alligator sighting since May Posted: 19 Jul 2019 02:09 PM PDT  A baby alligator was found far from the tropics in the parking lot of a grocery store outside Pittsburgh on Friday morning, the fourth alligator discovered near the city since May. An employee found the 2-foot-long (60-centimeter-long) creature near a garbage can at the Giant Eagle grocery store in Shaler, about 10 miles (15 kilometers) north of Pittsburgh. "It looks like a little baby alligator," Shaler Township Police Lt. Dave Banko told the Tribune Review newspaper.
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| Baby's family mad about hospital bills in cut-from-womb case Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:17 PM PDT ![Baby's family mad about hospital bills in cut-from-womb case]( "Baby's family mad about hospital bills in cut-from-womb case") A Chicago-area hospital says it regrets sending bills to the family of a baby boy who died about seven weeks after attackers cut him from his mother's womb. Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn sent bills for Yovanny Lopez's care that totaled about $300,000, said the family's lawyer, Frank Avila. Some bills even referred to Yovanny as "Figueroa, boy" — the last name of Clarisa Figueroa, who is accused of orchestrating the attack on the baby's mother so that she could claim him as her own.
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| El Chapo: Mexico president calls life sentence ‘inhumane’ as drug lord moved to supermax prison Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:21 AM PDT  The Mexican president has described Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's life sentence as "inhumane" after the notorious drug lord was sent to live out his remaining years in a supermax prison in Colorado.Guzman was sentenced to life behind bars in the US plus 30 years after being found guilty of running a murderous criminal enterprise, having already escaped Mexican prisons twice.In his home country, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador referred to sentences like the one handed to Guzman to be served in a "hostile jail" as "hard" and "inhumane", adding that it made life no longer worth living.The 62-year-old had been protected by an army of gangsters under the Sinaloa cartel, which he founded in 1989, up until his most recent incarceration.In 1993 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico, however he was able to bribe guards to receive favourable treatment while also managing the cartel from inside his cell through his brother, who ran the cartel in his absence.In 2001 he escaped from the maximum-security Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, reportedly in a laundry basket.Some 13 years later he was imprisoned for a second time, but escaped again through a tunnel running 30ft beneath the Toluca prison showers to a house under construction a mile away.In 2016 he was arrested after a gunfight in Los Mochis before being extradited to the US, where he has remained since.Guzman has lodged frequent complaints about the conditions of his detention in the US, describing it as "torture".Just hours after his sentencing, Guzman was flown by helicopter to USP Florence Admax, a top security prison in Colorado dubbed the "Alcatraz of the Rockies".His fellow prisoners include the "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and Terry Nichols, who was convicted of being an accomplice in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing."I drink unsanitary water, no air or sunlight, and the air pumped in makes my ears and throat hurt," he said at his sentencing. "This has been psychological, emotional and mental torture 24 hours a day." It comes as the Mexican president, who took office in December last year, introduces a militarized police force to help limit violence across the country as cartels splinter and smaller groups fight to consolidate territory.In 2016 the drug wars in the country made it the second deadliest place in the world, while in 2018 Mexico broke its own homicide record with 28,816 murder cases opened across the year.Mr Obrador added: "I also have many victims in mind, it's something very painful."An opinion poll hosted by Mexican newspaper Reforma found that 52 per cent of people surveyed believed Mr Obrador's attempts to limit crime in the country were lacking, while 55 per cent said they believed he was failing to reduce violence in the country.
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| S. Korean man kills himself as dispute with Japan escalates Posted: 19 Jul 2019 02:52 PM PDT  An elderly South Korean man died on Friday after setting himself on fire outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul as a bitter diplomatic dispute over wartime forced labour compensation took a fatal turn. The row has seen Tokyo restrict exports of chemicals vital to Seoul's world-leading chip and smartphone industry in an escalation of a decades-long dispute over Japanese forced labour during World War II.
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| 'Horrific for all': Pentagon intelligence chief says Iran does not want war Posted: 19 Jul 2019 04:19 PM PDT  A U.S. Marines helicopter takes off from the flight deck of the USS Boxer during its transit through Strait of Hormuz. ASPEN, Colo. — As tensions in the Persian Gulf continued to ramp up on Friday afternoon amid news that Iran had seized a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Army Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, concluded that Iran does not want to start a war with the U.S. or its allies. Answering a question posed by CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto in Aspen, Colo., about the latest incident, Ashley declined to give a specific response to the news, but later said that none of the United States' major adversaries or competitors, including Iran, China and Russia, wants to start a war.
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| Nigeria president condemns latest killings in northwestern Sokoto state Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:23 PM PDT  Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari condemns the killing of 37 people by bandits in the northwestern state of Sokoto, his spokesman said in a statement. Armed gangs have killed hundreds of people in northwest Nigeria this year and forced at least 20,000 to flee to neighboring Niger, adding to security problems in a country also struggling with an Islamist insurgency in the northeast and clashes between farmers and herders in central states. "President Muhammadu Buhari strongly condemns the killing of 37 innocent people by bandits in the Goronyo Local Government Area of Sokoto State," the presidency said in the statement.
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| Dozens of whales wash up on Icelandic beach Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:07 AM PDT  Dozens of beached whales have been discovered on a secluded stretch of sand in west Iceland where people rarely tread. The eerie photographs show what appears to be around 20 pilot whales, partially buried in the sand and rotting on Löngufjörur beach. A pilot from Reykjavík took the photographs while ferrying American tourists around the island. The morbid discovery was only made this week by air as the area is inaccessible by car and has few visitors, except the occasional hiker. Edda Elísabet Magnúsdóttir, a marine biologist and whale specialist, told local news website Iceland Monitor that it was hard to confirm when the mammals washed up on the beach. "The most important thing to look at is that these are deep-sea whales, common at the continental margin," she said. "They mainly feed on squid, which is why they're good at diving deep. When they enter shallow waters, most of them have a tendency to become disoriented. They use echolocation for orientation, for finding one another, estimating the depth, and so on. "But a sloping, sandy bottom appears to increase their disorientation. There are numerous examples of them having beached where there is such a sandy, sloping bottom." She added that pilot whales tend to swim in close-knit groups, which increases the risk of a large number being beached at once. It comes after 145 pilot whales were found stranded on an island in New Zealand, of which half were already dead. The other half had to be put down.
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| Lawsuit: North Dakota officers used 'violence' on protester Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:08 PM PDT  Marcus Mitchell, 24, filed the lawsuit Thursday against Morton County, the city of Bismarck and state Highway Patrol officers. Highway Patrol spokesman Wade Kadrmas declined comment, citing pending litigation. A Morton County official didn't immediately respond to the Bismarck Tribune's request for comment Thursday.
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| Private Investigator Says He Shared Two Epstein Female Fixer Names with Feds Posted: 20 Jul 2019 07:28 AM PDT  Private investigator Michael Fisten first started digging into financier Jeffrey Epstein's alleged sex trafficking crimes more than a decade ago when attorney Brad Edwards hired him. After Epstein signed a non-prosecution deal with federal prosecutors in 2008, Edwards had sued Epstein in civil court on behalf of a number of alleged victims who had been blindsided by the plea deal (which a judge later ruled to have violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act). Fisten was tasked with finding as much incriminating information on the financier as he could.Fisten, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, said he was shocked and disgusted by what he uncovered. In a wide-ranging interview with CNN, the P.I. said that he was able to identify two young women who have arranged access to girls for Epstein in recent years. He and Edwards have handed over the names and "associated information" over to federal authorities, he said, though he did not name the alleged fixers to CNN.Judge Who Denied Bail to Jeffrey Epstein Calls Him 'Uncontrollable' and a 'Danger'Fisten also said that his investigations led to the discovery of countless lapses in security during the time Epstein was on work release from the Palm Beach county jail—in a cushy deal that allowed the convicted sex offender out of confinement 12 hours a day, six days a week. On Friday, the Palm Beach sheriff's office announced that it had opened its own internal investigation into whether deputies, who often referred to Epstein as a "client" instead of an inmate in logs kept at the sheriff's office, had broken with procedure. Fisten told CNN that he was angered that Epstein was allowed to go to a luxury office instead of remaining behind bars. Fisten said he was disgusted when he saw "lavish lunches being brought into the office and a parade of young females going in and out of the place."The Palm Beach sheriff's office now admits that Epstein was also allowed to go to his luxury mansion and spend time there unsupervised. Fisten tried to obtain the sheriff's office logs that should have documented the names and ages of everyone who came into contact with Epstein during work release, but the logs "have inexplicably vanished," he said to CNN. "We wanted to get those logs so we could see who the girls were," Fisten said. "They're missing. No one knows where they are."Fisten also repeated previous claims that Epstein wielded his power to silence his accusers during and after his incarceration, even hiring his own private investigators who were paid to harass his victims. "They were former Miami cops," Fisten told CNN. "He paid an extremely large retainer to them and all their job to do was to follow the girls around and intimidate them."Fisten even ran into Epstein's private investigators first hand. Once, when driving one of Epstein's accusers home, he told CNN he saw one of Epstein's detectives parked across from her house filming her comings and goings. Fisten said the father of another of Epstein's accusers was "run off the road" by one of the former cops in Epstein's employ.Of Epstein's alleged victims, Fisten noted, "Once these girls lost their braces and their pubescent look and started becoming 16-years old or 17-years old, they were too old for him.""So then he started using them as recruiters to bring the younger girls." Epstein was denied bail on Thursday as he faces federal sex trafficking charges in New York. Fisten says the victims finally feel that justice could be served. "They couldn't be happier," he told CNN. "It's all they ever wanted."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet 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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| School Board Votes to Paint Over George Washington Mural In San Francisco Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:05 AM PDT  The San Francisco Board of Education unanimously voted last month in favor of painting over a George Washington mural series on a school wall depicting Washington standing over a Native American's corpse and another in the company of slaves on his Mount Vernon estate."This is reparations," Education Board Commissioner Mark Sanchez said in a KQED report when asked about the estimated $600,000 price tag for its removal. It could reportedly take a year to complete. The 1,600-square-foot mural series titled "Life of Washington" was painted on San Francisco's George Washington High School in 1936 by a Russian-American artist and Stanford University art professor Victor Arnautoff.It was funded by the New Deal's Works Progress Administration and shows a variety of scenes from Washington's life. School district spokeswoman Laura Dudnick confirmed that although only two mural pieces stand out as offensive to members of the community, the board's decision would apply to all 13 panels of the mural. School board members had to decide whether to cover and preserve the painting using panels or textile, or completely erase it by painting over it. Buckling under pressure from those who find the images offensive to certain members of the school community, the board decided to paint over it. Advocates for removing the mural included local high school students, George Washington High School graduates, and Native Americans.
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| Costa Rica on alert after 19 die from tainted alcohol Posted: 20 Jul 2019 03:05 PM PDT  San José (AFP) - Alcohol tainted with potentially toxic levels of methanol has killed 19 people in Costa Rica, where authorities issued an alert against drinking some half-dozen brands. The Ministry of Health issued the national warning Friday while also updating the death toll. Authorities warned that it was not known how much alcohol had been adulterated, but have confiscated some 30,000 bottles and are carrying out a countrywide investigation.
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| Biden's son Hunter makes his 1st 2020 campaign appearance Posted: 19 Jul 2019 05:11 PM PDT  Joe Biden's son Hunter made his 2020 presidential campaign trail debut with his father Friday, two weeks after the former vice president praised him for battling through "tough times," including years of drug and alcohol abuse. The younger Biden's appearance at a fundraiser in Southern California on Friday was a sign the former vice president and his campaign see him as an asset to the campaign despite a series of personal problems that had kept him in the background. Hunter Biden, 49, attended the event with his new wife, Melissa Cohen, and his daughter Finnegan at the home of Pasadena City Councilmember John Kennedy.
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| Trump impeachment 'wishful strain of thinking' by Democrats, Steve Kornacki says Posted: 19 Jul 2019 10:30 AM PDT  Democrats who think impeachment is a political winner are overinterpreting the lessons of the Clinton impeachment in the late '90s, said a journalist who wrote a book on the era.
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| Woman Calls 911 on Black Family Falsely Claiming They`re a Gang Posted: 19 Jul 2019 04:45 PM PDT  A confrontation between a woman and a neighbor in Michigan led to a false police report of alleged gang activity.
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| Thousands protest in Moscow after opposition figures barred from city council ballot Posted: 20 Jul 2019 12:10 PM PDT  As many as 25,000 protesters turned out in central Moscow Saturday to protest the refusal by city election officials to allow several opposition figures to run for the Moscow city council.
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| World Bank pulls funding for new state capital in India after Delhi drops support Posted: 19 Jul 2019 04:45 AM PDT ![World Bank pulls funding for new state capital in India after Delhi drops support]( "World Bank pulls funding for new state capital in India after Delhi drops support") The World Bank said on Friday it had withdrawn $300 million of funding for a new capital in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh after the central government dropped support for the project. The Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), that was due to finance $200 million of the project, then said it was reviewing its involvement. The construction of the city, known as Amaravati, is the brainchild of the state's former chief minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, who lost power in elections in May.
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| The 12 Best Home Decor Deals from the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:30 AM PDT |
| Philippine police seek sedition charges against VP, Duterte critics Posted: 19 Jul 2019 06:14 AM PDT  Philippine police have recommended sedition charges against the vice president and other opposition figures, a move slammed Friday as an attempt to stifle dissent under President Rodrigo Duterte. Police allege Vice President Leni Robredo, Catholic Church leaders and opposition politicians plotted to destabilise the Duterte government by implicating him in the narcotics trade. Duterte launched a war against the drug trade when he came into power three years ago.
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| Facebook’s Former Security Chief Says It’s ‘Reasonable’ To Assume China Is Infiltrating Google Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:32 AM PDT  Facebook's former security chief Alex Stamos suggested Tuesday that it is very possible that China and Russia have subverted Google's employees."It is completely reasonable to assume that MSS and SVR have subverted employees at all the major tech companies," Stamos said in a Twitter threadTuesday, noting tech billionaire Peter Thiel's accusations that China's Ministry of Security "likely" infiltrated Google."This is part of the threat model for all competent tech security teams when building internal controls, monitoring and response," he added. Thiel, a high-profile supporter of President Donald Trump, criticized Google's work with the Chinese during a speech Sunday to the inaugural National Conservatism Conference."How many foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated your Manhattan Project for AI? Does Google's senior management consider itself to have been thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese intelligence?" Thiel asked at the conference.He added: "Is it because they consider themselves to be so thoroughly infiltrated that they have engaged in the seemingly treasonous decision to work with the Chinese military and not with the U.S. military." Thiel, who sits on the board of Facebook, suggested his questions warrant the attention of federal investigators.
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