| White House tells Democrats it will not cooperate with impeachment inquiry Posted: 08 Oct 2019 03:00 PM PDT  In a letter to House Democrats, White House counsel Pat Cipollone calls the impeachment inquiry "constitutionally invalid" and indicates the White House won't cooperate with it.
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| Warren Defends Claim She Lost 1971 Teaching Job Due to Pregnancy Posted: 08 Oct 2019 06:47 AM PDT  Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren pushed back against allegations that she had lied about losing a teaching position in 1971 due to her pregnancy during an interview with CBS News on Monday night."All I know is I was 22 years old, I was six months pregnant, and the job that I had been promised for the next year was going to someone else. The principal said they were going to hire someone else for my job," Warren told CBS News, referring to job as a speech pathologist with in Riverdale, N.J.Her comments come in the wake of pushback that Warren has been untruthful about her discussion of the situation on the campaign trail. Warren has repeatedly described the story as one where she was "shown the door" because she became pregnant after one year teaching at the school. The Massachusetts Democrat has also repeatedly referenced the event as crucial for her path to politics, as it dashed her dreams of becoming a public school teacher and prompted her shift into public service.But in Warren's first known public discussion of the event, during a 2007 interview at the University of California, Berkeley, she gave a different account, saying "I worked in a public school system with the children with disabilities. I did that for a year … I went back to graduate school and took a couple of courses in education and said, 'I don't think this is going to work out for me.' I was pregnant with my first baby, so I had a baby and stayed home for a couple of years."Warren told CBS News that while she did not realize she had changed the phrasing in her discussion of the incident, she was moved to share more details about the incident due to her move into public life. "After becoming a public figure I opened up more about different pieces in my life and this was one of them. I wrote about it in my book when I became a U.S. Senator," she said in a statement released by her campaign.According to records obtained by The Washington Free Beacon on Monday, the Riverdale Board of Education approved a second-year teaching contract for a young Elizabeth Warren. Minutes from a board meeting two months later show that Warren offered a resignation instead, which was "accepted with regret."But Warren disputed the record, telling CBS News that she was in fact offered the job, but when her pregnancy was revealed the offer was rescinded."I was pregnant, but nobody knew it. And then a couple of months later when I was six months pregnant and it was pretty obvious, the principal called me in, wished me luck, and said he was going to hire someone else for the job," Warren said.
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| Polish politician rescues child and father from burning car Posted: 08 Oct 2019 04:45 AM PDT  A left-wing party leader in Poland has rescued a 2-year-old boy and his father from a burning car, winning praise across the political spectrum days before a national election. The car collided with a truck and began to burn Monday evening in Tabor, south of Warsaw. Robert Biedron witnessed the crash and helped the father and child until rescue officials arrived, fire officials reported.
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| Germany holds Syrian crash truck hijacker for attempted murder Posted: 08 Oct 2019 11:34 AM PDT  German authorities Tuesday held on suspicion of attempted murder a Syrian man who hijacked an articulated lorry and smashed it into cars stopped at a traffic light in the city of Limburg, injuring several people. The 32-year-old will remain in custody, suspected of attempted murder and bodily harm as well as a traffic offence, Frankfurt prosecutors told AFP. Unconfirmed media reports said the Syrian national arrived with the massive migrant influx to Germany in 2015 and that his residency permit had expired on October 1.
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| The Russian Navy is Building New (Heavily Armed) Nuclear-Powered Submarines Posted: 08 Oct 2019 01:10 PM PDT  How should NATO respond? Would the same old Cold War tactics work?
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| Ex-U.S. envoy Huntsman urges rethink of Russia sanctions in WSJ op-ed Posted: 08 Oct 2019 04:51 AM PDT  Days after ending his term in Moscow, former United States ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman has urged Washington to review its sanctions-dominated approach to Russia, questioning its efficiency and calling for dialogue. The U.S. has placed multiple layers of sanctions on Russia, its senior officials and largest companies, as well as businessmen it views as connected to the Kremlin, the bulk of them linked to Moscow's role in the Ukrainian crisis which began in 2014 and has yet to be resolved. In a column https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-needs-dialogue-with-moscow-11570488054 for the Wall Street Journal published on Monday, Huntsman argued that "sanctions have become our go-to foreign policy tool to admonish misbehavior" but not all of them are having the desired effect.
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| Conor McGregor's entourage have been accused of forcing a nightclub bottle service girl into their car after a booze-fueled evening in LA Posted: 08 Oct 2019 05:06 PM PDT  Insider uncovered the story while investigating Los Angeles nightlife company The H.wood Group, which is popular among celebrities.
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| Police bust multi-billion pound drug smuggling gang after 50 tonnes of product are brought into the UK Posted: 08 Oct 2019 11:37 AM PDT  Britain's biggest ever drug smuggling gang has been smashed after billions of pounds worth of narcotics was brought into the UK, the National Crime Agency believes. Officers arrested 13 men aged between 24 and 59 on Tuesday across the country in dawn raids. The NCA seized 351 kilos of cocaine, 92 kilos of heroin, 250 kilos of cannabis and 1,850 kilos of hemp/hashish, with a total street value of more than £38 million, in three consignments in September 2018. Investigators believe more than 50 tonnes of drugs worth billions of pounds were imported from the Netherlands, between February 2017 and October 2018, hidden in lorries carrying vegetables and juice. Jayne Lloyd, NCA Regional Head of Investigations, said: "We suspect these men were involved in an industrial-scale operation - the biggest ever uncovered in the UK - bringing in tonnes of deadly drugs that were distributed to crime groups throughout the country. "By working closely with partners here and overseas, in particular the Dutch National Police, we believe we have dismantled a well-established drug supply route." The gang are believed to have imported billions of pounds worth of drugs Credit: AFP The arrests were made in London, Manchester, Stockport, St Helens, Warrington, Bolton, Dewsbury, and Leeds. Four men and two women from the Netherlands, who were arrested in April this year as part of the same investigation, are awaiting extradition to the UK. "We have got the top people in the group," said Ms Lloyd. "We believe it's probably the biggest conspiracy that's been seen in the UK." Investigators believe the arrests have disrupted the flow of drugs into the UK to be sold on by "county lines" gangs, who often use children as dealers. "Taking out this suspected organised crime group... will make, hopefully, a huge impact in relation to protecting the public and the economy," said Ms Lloyd. "You can see from where they've been arrested that the potential was that significant amounts of drugs coming into the UK would go to various areas in the UK. "We would be looking at vulnerable individuals who would then supply the commodity on behalf of other organised crime groups." The investigation is linked to an earlier NCA operation where 13 people were jailed after the seizure of more than 100kg of heroin in 2015.
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| Kurdish forces in Syria fear Turkey will launch attacks rapidly to take advantage of 'confusion' caused by Trump's US troop withdrawal plan Posted: 08 Oct 2019 08:16 AM PDT  Uncertainty caused by Trump's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria is likely to lead to Turkish aggression in the short term, sources say.
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| Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower: Google Boss’ Daughter Scrubbed From Guardian Exposé Posted: 07 Oct 2019 12:18 PM PDT  Fairfax Media/GettyLONDON—Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, claims that Sophie Schmidt, the daughter of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, successfully campaigned for The Guardian to scrub her name from one of their bombshell data-abuse stories.In a memoir that will be published Tuesday, he says that The Guardian's willingness to back down in the face of Schmidt's legal threats—and "water down" a story that had already been published—convinced him that he could no longer trust the British newspaper alone to publish his allegations about Cambridge Analytica.Wylie had helped The Guardian report on Cambridge Analytica anonymously for months, but he said he was shocked when the newspaper amended a May 2017 story. That story originally claimed it was Sophie Schmidt who suggested to Alexander Nix, the former director of Cambridge Analytica's parent company SCL, that he should get in touch with Peter Thiel's Palantir and look into using data mining techniques to bolster their political operations."Any trust I had in The Guardian was wrecked when the paper failed to stand by its own reporting," he wrote, according to an excerpt of Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America seen by The Daily Beast.A Guardian news & media spokesperson said, "We are disappointed that this book appears to contain factual inaccuracies about the Guardian which were not put to us prior to publication."We have raised a number of concerns with the publishers and are talking to them about how they plan to rectify this."The reporter who wrote the story, Carole Cadwalladr, said it was incredibly difficult for British media organizations to stand up to well-resourced legal threats. "Schmidt bullied a British newspaper using British privacy laws. It's extraordinary that the daughter of Eric Schmidt—the man who says that privacy is dead—would be using U.K. privacy laws to get herself taken out of the piece," she told The Daily Beast."News organizations have difficult choices to make, don't have an endless pot of money, and have to make hard choices. It's a measure of the difficulty of publishing this work that The Guardian decided they couldn't defend that one."Schmidt was an intern at SCL when Wylie writes that she "introduced Alexander to some of the executives at Palantir." The New York Times later reported on Schmidt's alleged suggestion. Palantir, a secretive tech company, was co-founded by Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire and major Trump donor, who also sits on the board of Facebook."The idea that Cambridge Analytica had dealings with Palantir suggested by the daughter of Eric Schmidt the chairman of Google just seemed like a really massive deal because the whole piece was about the power of these Silicon Valley tech companies," Cadwalladr said.Wylie wrote that he was not one of the sources who had spoken to Cadwalladr about Schmidt, but he said he did know of Schmidt's role in the history of the company."The story wasn't remotely libelous. Schmidt threw a battalion of lawyers at The Guardian, with the threat of a time-consuming and expansive legal battle. Instead of fighting an obviously spurious lawsuit, the paper agreed to remove Schmidt's name several weeks after publication," he said. Cadwalladr emphasized that it was privacy concerns rather than libel that were raised. "Then Cambridge Analytica threatened to sue over the same article," Wylie writes. "And even though The Guardian had documents, emails, and files that confirmed everything I had told them, they backed down again. Editors agreed to flag certain paragraphs as 'disputed,' to appease Cambridge Analytica and mitigate the paper's liability. They took Cadwalladr's well-sourced story and watered it down. At this point, my heart sank. I thought, All right, I've just moved back to London, I haven't got a job, and I'm being asked to put my neck on the line for a newspaper that won't even defend its own journalism."Wylie had been in discussions about going public with his full story but now began to re-think.He said he was put in touch with Gavin Millar, a well-known London lawyer who had worked on the Edward Snowden case. Wylie said the lawyer suggested he give the story to a U.S. newspaper because the First Amendment provided a stronger defense against accusations of libel and "The New York Times was far less likely to back down than The Guardian had been, and it would never delete parts of articles after the fact."Wylie said he then gave The Guardian an ultimatum. "I reiterated to the paper's editors that I would not be cooperating or handing over documents until there was an agreement with The New York Times."Cadwalladr said: "He's right to say that it did dent his confidence in publishing in Britain but it was actually The Guardian's Katharine Viner who reached out to Dean Baquet at the New York Times to help set up the partnership."Wylie's revelations were published jointly by The Guardian and The New York Times. It eventually emerged that more than 87 million Facebook profiles had been compromised as part of a vast data collection operation. Cambridge Analytica, which worked for the Trump campaign in 2016, was bankrupted and Facebook was fined a record $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission.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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| Trafficker: Honduran president sought money for campaign Posted: 08 Oct 2019 06:18 PM PDT |
| Epic Games sued for not warning parents 'Fortnite' is allegedly as addictive as cocaine Posted: 07 Oct 2019 03:19 PM PDT  Quebec parents sued "Fortnite" publisher Epic Games for a third-person shooter they allege is as addictive and dangerous as cocaine.
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| Mystery oil spills blot more than 130 Brazilian beaches Posted: 08 Oct 2019 11:05 AM PDT  The source of large blots of oil staining more than 130 beaches in northeastern Brazil remained a mystery Tuesday despite President Jair Bolsonaro's assertions they came from outside the country and were possibly the work of criminals. Tamar, a group dedicated to the protection of sea turtles, said the oil spill was "the worst environmental tragedy" it has encountered since its formation in 1980. The patches of oil began appearing in early September and have now turned up along a 2,000 kilometer (1,200 mile) stretch of Atlantic coastline.
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| Iran's Drones Are Getting Deadlier by the Day Posted: 07 Oct 2019 05:46 AM PDT  What should Washington do about it?
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| Fat is fabulous for bears in Alaska's Katmai National Park Posted: 07 Oct 2019 12:50 PM PDT  Alaska grizzly bears packing on pounds (kilos) for the winter are competing for more than the season's last salmon. Fat Bear Week has become a national internet sensation, pitting individual bears against each other in an online voting contest. At Katmai, a park in southwestern Alaska known for its bountiful salmon runs and the huge grizzlies - Alaskans call them "brown bears" - that feed on them, Fat Bear Week is an annual highlight.
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| 2020 Subaru Legacy vs. 2019 Honda Accord in Photos Posted: 07 Oct 2019 04:59 AM PDT |
| White House Says It Won’t Cooperate With Impeachment Inquiry Citing ‘Lasting Institutional Harm’ Posted: 08 Oct 2019 03:37 PM PDT  The White House on Tuesday wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the chairmen of three Democratic committees informing House Democrats that the Trump administration does not intend to cooperate with the "unconstitutional" impeachment inquiry against President Trump."You have designed and implemented your inquiry in a manner that violates fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process," White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in the eight-page letter.The White House lawyer launched a slew of accusations at Democrats, saying they have violated due process by denying Trump access to witnesses for cross-examining and the right to have counsel present and have withheld evidence and transcripts of testimony from the executive branch."Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it," Cipollone wrote. "Because participating in this inquiry under the current unconstitutional posture would inflict lasting institutional harm on the Executive Branch and lasting damage to the separation of powers, you have left the President no choice."The president also "cannot permit" the rest of his administration to participate in such a "partisan inquiry," Cipollone said.Democrats have also violated the separation of powers and led the country in an "unprecedented" and "dangerous" direction, Cipollone charged, by attempting to use impeachment to overturn the results of the 2016 election.The letter comes the same day Trump blocked Gordon Sondland, the U.S. European Union ambassador and a key witness in the impeachment probe, from testifying behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee, riling Democratic lawmakers.Trump has been criticized by both sides of the aisle over his July phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump asked Zelensky to help his administration investigate allegations that the former vice president used his position to help a Ukrainian natural-gas company avoid a corruption probe soon after his son was appointed to its board of directors.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month announced the opening of a formal impeachment inquiry into allegations that President Trump withheld Ukrainian military aid unless Ukraine investigated Biden.
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| US F-16 warplane crashes in Germany with pilot taken to hospital Posted: 08 Oct 2019 07:58 AM PDT  An American F-16 fighter jet crashed Tuesday near the city of Trier in western Germany, the German air force told AFP, with the pilot surviving after using the ejector seat. After multiple emergency calls around 3:15 pm local time, emergency services reached the scene near the village of Zemmer, police said in a statement. The airman was taken to hospital. Police said it was not immediately clear how seriously he was injured in the crash. Authorities blocked off a large zone around the crash site including several roads, the police statement added, urging drivers to avoid the area. A spokesman for the nearby US military airbase at Spangdahlem told AFP he had no further information about the crash, its causes or the health of the pilot. Germany is no stranger to military aircraft crashes, including in its own shortage-plagued Bundeswehr armed forces. In June this year, two of the air force's Eurofighter jets crashed after colliding in mid-air in northeastern Germany. One of the pilots was killed, while the other ejected to safety. Less than a week later, a helicopter pilot died when his aircraft crashed near an army training centre. The last American military crash in Germany dates back to 2015, when one of the Spangdahlem base's F-16 fighters went down in northern Bavaria. In that incident, the pilot surviving after ejecting from the plane.
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| The Latest: Police called to bar 2 hours before shootings Posted: 07 Oct 2019 02:23 PM PDT  The Kansas City, Kansas, police chief says officers responded to reports of a disturbance at a bar two hours before a shooting left four people dead and five wounded. Interim police Chief Michael York said Monday that officers could not find the man suspected of causing the disturbance and had no information that he planned return to the Tequila KC bar. Police said Javier Alatorre, 23, and Hugo Villanueva-Morales, 29, were each charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
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| Passenger forcibly removed from American Airlines plane by police at Miami airport Posted: 07 Oct 2019 01:18 PM PDT  On Monday morning, a man was removed from an American Airlines plane by Miami-Dade Police using force.
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| Israel unveils the remains of 5,000-year-old city Posted: 08 Oct 2019 01:25 PM PDT  Israeli archaeologists on Sunday unveiled the remains of a 5,000-year-old city they said was one of the biggest from its era in the region, including fortifications, a ritual temple and a cemetery.
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| Russia warns against actions that 'inhibit peace process' in Syria Posted: 08 Oct 2019 10:30 AM PDT  Russia's security council said on Tuesday it was important to avoid hindering the peace process in Syria, following discussions with President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. The influential council discussed the creation of a constitutional committee in the country and "remarked that at this stage everyone should avoid any actions that can inhibit the peace process in Syria," he said. Peskov said earlier Tuesday that Russia "is following very closely how the situation is developing" and was not informed about the withdrawal of the United States from the region -- something that has sparked fears of a Turkish attack on Kurdish forces.
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| China Knows It Can't Protect Every Island It Builds (Think South China Sea) Posted: 07 Oct 2019 08:15 PM PDT  But Beijing is building them anyway.
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| 12 Power Strips and Surge Protectors to Keep You Organized and Powered Up Posted: 08 Oct 2019 10:37 AM PDT |
| EU tells British PM Johnson to stop playing 'stupid' Brexit blame game Posted: 08 Oct 2019 12:17 AM PDT  LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union accused Britain of playing a "stupid blame game" over Brexit on Tuesday after a Downing Street source said a deal was essentially impossible because German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made unacceptable demands. With just 23 days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the bloc, the future of Brexit remains deeply uncertain as both London and Brussels position themselves to avoid blame for a delay or a disorderly no-deal Brexit.
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| House Democrats are so afraid Trump allies will expose the whistleblower that they might mask the person's voice and face during testimony Posted: 07 Oct 2019 01:41 PM PDT  The debate comes as President Donald Trump's allies amplify his claims that the whistleblower broke the law and is guilty of espionage.
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| Sexual abuse of slaves by students at Founding Father’s university revealed by historians Posted: 07 Oct 2019 04:59 AM PDT  The two young, white University of Virginia students had a secret.It was September 1826, and the men, both scions of wealthy southern slaveholding families, were suffering from the same sexually transmitted disease.
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| 2 ex-nursing home workers charged with bilking 98-year-old Posted: 07 Oct 2019 07:34 PM PDT ![2 ex-nursing home workers charged with bilking 98-year-old]( "2 ex-nursing home workers charged with bilking 98-year-old") A Cook County state's attorney's office spokeswoman said Monday that Tameeka Wolfe and Christina Wright were each charged with one felony count of financial exploitation of an elderly person. The charges stem from an investigation into allegations that employees at Symphony Residences of Lincoln Park cashed checks, made ATM withdrawals and transferred money from several of Grace Watanabe's bank accounts for about a year. Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert took emergency custody of the woman and removed her from the facility last year.
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| Judge clears record of 21-year-old jailed 10 days for oversleeping jury duty: 'Totally rehabilitated' Posted: 08 Oct 2019 10:17 AM PDT  Deandre Somerville, 21, spent 10 days in jail after he overslept and missed jury duty. The Palm Beach County Circuit Judge since cleared his record.
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| 'They told me that I was going to die': The US says El Salvador is safe for migrants, but transgender women living there fear for their lives Posted: 08 Oct 2019 06:35 AM PDT  A transgender woman living in El Salvador says MS-13 killed her friends and went after her next. She's been waiting for the US to grant her asylum.
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| Doomed Kiribati ferry crew drunk, victims died horribly: official report Posted: 08 Oct 2019 12:33 AM PDT  Crew members of an overloaded Kiribati ferry which sank in the Pacific claiming 95 lives were drunk, leaving passengers to die slow deaths from starvation and hypothermia, a damning report has found. "Most, if not all, victims died from hunger, dehydration and hypothermia," it found. The deaths of 84 passengers and 11 crew was the worst maritime disaster ever in Kiribati, a collection of 33 atolls and reefs scattered over an area the size of the continental United States.
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| Kurdish general anticipates Turkish assault in Syria, says watching ISIS prisoners is no longer top priority Posted: 07 Oct 2019 06:18 PM PDT ![Kurdish general anticipates Turkish assault in Syria, says watching ISIS prisoners is no longer top priority]( "Kurdish general anticipates Turkish assault in Syria, says watching ISIS prisoners is no longer top priority") With the Syrian Democratic Forces preparing for attacks by Turkish troops in northern Syria, fighters are being moved to the border, leaving a limited number of guards to keep watch over thousands of Islamic State prisoners, a commander told NBC News.The Syrian Democratic Forces are the United States' Kurdish allies in the region, and General Mazloum Kobani Abdi told NBC News that the ISIS prisoners are now a "second priority," due to the White House's Sunday announcement that U.S. troops will "no longer be in the immediate area," paving the way for a Turkish operation. Mazloum said this is a "very big problem," as there are about 12,000 prisoners -- 10,000 from Syria and Iraq, and 2,000 from other countries.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan considers Kurdish forces to be terrorists. Despite being the opposition, Mazloum told NBC News "one of the options that we have on the table" is to partner with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to fight against Turkey. He is hopeful that the American public will call on Trump to reverse course, so it doesn't have to come to this, saying, "The people who fought with you against international terrorism, against ISIS, are under risk right now and they are facing a big battle alone."
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| See This Picture? This Was the U.S. Navy's World War II Battleship 'Drone' Posted: 08 Oct 2019 02:18 AM PDT  On December 7, 1941, one of the first attacks conducted by Japanese aircraft was launched against the former battleship USS Utah, a radio-controlled target ship. Today, USS Utah remains at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, a memorial to those lost in the surprise attack.
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| UPDATE 2-Ethiopian Airlines flight makes emergency landing in Dakar, no casualties Posted: 08 Oct 2019 10:37 AM PDT ![UPDATE 2-Ethiopian Airlines flight makes emergency landing in Dakar, no casualties]( "UPDATE 2-Ethiopian Airlines flight makes emergency landing in Dakar, no casualties") An Ethiopian Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing minutes after taking off in Senegal on Tuesday because an engine had caught fire, an airport spokesman said. None of the 90 passengers or crew were injured, spokesman Tidiane Tamba told Reuters. The airline confirmed on Twitter that its Boeing 767 aircraft had to land unexpectedly at Senegal's Blaise Diagne International Airport near the capital Dakar because of "a technical problem" without providing more detail on the cause.
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| Trump reportedly told allies that he's worried impeachment will ruin his resume Posted: 06 Oct 2019 07:26 PM PDT  Sources told Axios that Trump thinks impeachment could actually help him boost support before 2020, but he's also worried about it ruining his legacy.
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| Elon Musk paid convicted fraudster to spread false paedophile claims about British cave rescue hero, court documents allege Posted: 08 Oct 2019 09:33 AM PDT  Elon Musk paid a convicted fraudster to smear a British diving hero who he baselessly called a paedophile, according to court documents.The billionaire technology entrepreneur allegedly orchestrated a "malicious, false, and anonymous leak campaign" in a bid to trash the reputation of Vernon Unsworth, who helped to rescue a schoolboy football team trapped in a cave in Thailand last year.
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| Pastor: I hope Supreme Court agrees LGBTQ people should be free from job discrimination Posted: 07 Oct 2019 12:11 PM PDT  When we talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all, there should be no ambiguity in what the word "all" means.
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| New York bomber convicted in shootout with New Jersey police Posted: 08 Oct 2019 02:28 PM PDT  An Islamic terrorist already serving a life prison term for a bombing in New York City was convicted Tuesday of multiple counts of attempted murder and assault stemming from a shootout with police three years ago. Ahmad Khan Rahimi , a U.S. citizen who was born in Afghanistan but grew up in New Jersey, sat quietly during the reading of the verdicts Tuesday. Among the spectators in the gallery was Angel Padilla, the Linden police officer who was the first to encounter Rahimi as he slept in a doorway in September 2016, two days after a bomb exploded in New York.
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| Chicago teens stage 'die-in' to demand action on climate change; one man arrested Posted: 07 Oct 2019 07:24 PM PDT  Dozens of Chicago teens gathered across from Trump International Hotel and marched to City Hall Monday to demand action on climate change.
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| Johnson urges US to give up diplomat's wife over fatal crash Posted: 07 Oct 2019 10:38 AM PDT  Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged the United States on Monday to reconsider granting immunity to a diplomat's wife suspected of killing a teenager in a British road crash. Johnson said he was prepared to intervene with President Donald Trump to secure the woman's return to Britain to face investigation over the death of 19-year-old Harry Dunn. "I do not think that it can be right to use the process of diplomatic immunity for this type of purpose," the prime minister told reporters on a visit to a hospital.
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| US restricts visas for Chinese officials over internment of Muslim minorities Posted: 08 Oct 2019 03:36 PM PDT  * More than 1 million Uighurs and other minorities detained * Move is seen as victory for Pompeo and Pence over MnuchinParamilitary policemen stand in formation as they take part in an anti-terrorism oath-taking rally, in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, in 2017. Photograph: China Stringer Network/ReutersThe US has imposed visa restrictions on Chinese government and Communist party officials accused of being involved in the mass internment of more than a million Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang province.The restrictions, announced by the state department on Tuesday, come a day after the US commerce department imposed export restrictions on US companies preventing them from selling their products – particularly face recognition and other surveillance technology – to 28 Chinese entities, including the Public Security Bureau and firms involved in surveillance in Xinjiang."China has forcibly detained over one million Muslims in a brutal, systematic campaign to erase religion and culture in Xinjiang. China must end its draconian surveillance and repression, release all those arbitrarily detained, and cease its coercion of Chinese Muslims abroad, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said in a statement.The US punitive measures mark the first time China has been held to account internationally for its programme of mass incarceration and persecution of religious minorities.The sanctions prompted a furious response from Beijing's embassy in Washington, which said that the US was using "the excuse of human rights" to interfere in the China's internal affairs.In a string of tweets the embassy said the move "seriously violates the basic norms governing international relations, interferes in China's internal affairs and undermines China's interests".The embassy said: "The counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang are aimed to eradicate the breeding soil of extremism and terrorism. They are in line with Chinese laws and international practices, and are supported by all 25 million people of various ethnic groups in Xinjiang."Inside the administration, the sanctions mark a victory for Pompeo, Vice-President Mike Pence, the administration's ambassador at large for international religious freedom, Sam Brownback, and the new deputy national security adviser, Matthew Pottinger, over the treasury secretary, Stephen Mnuchin.Mnuchin reportedly argued against sanctions that would further derail difficult trade talks. News of the sanctions drove stock prices lower on the assumption that it would make a trade deal less likely.Donald Trump himself has sought to avoid direct criticism of the Chinese government for its treatment of the country's Muslims, as well as its attempts to crush pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, so as to avoid a breakdown in his personal relations with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.At a meeting on religious freedom last month at the start of the UN general assembly, scheduled at the same time as a global climate action summit, Trump gave the keynote speech but did not mention China or the events in Xinjiang, leaving it to Pence, Pompeo and Brownback.The fact that these long-planned measures have been taken may reflect Trump's awareness of his reliance on the religious wing of the Republican party for his re-election bid next year.The state department announcement did not name the Chinese officials that had been targeted, but officials had previously pointed to the Xinjiang party secretary, Chen Quanguo, a member of the politburo.
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| Nazi Germany's Me-262 Jet Fighter Was Revolutionary but Too Late Posted: 07 Oct 2019 07:15 PM PDT  The Allies would quickly learn from the design.
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| Kazakh president orders investigation into China-linked transport project Posted: 08 Oct 2019 05:16 AM PDT  NUR-SULTAN (Reuters) - Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Tuesday ordered an investigation into former senior officials who initiated a struggling $1.5 billion Chinese-led project to build a light rail network in the capital. While Tokayev mentioned no names, his order could mean that he is targeting former and current members of his patron and predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev's inner circle - challenging the widespread notion that the president is only No.2 in the Kazakh political hierarchy. Tokayev's criticism could also hurt the image of Beijing's Belt and Road infrastructure development initiative, of which the troubled project was part.
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| Evangelical Christian leaders are 'absolutely appalled' Trump would 'betray' Syria's Kurds Posted: 07 Oct 2019 09:04 PM PDT ![Evangelical Christian leaders are 'absolutely appalled' Trump would 'betray' Syria's Kurds]( "Evangelical Christian leaders are 'absolutely appalled' Trump would 'betray' Syria's Kurds") President Trump may believe his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria to let Turkey invade the area, currently held by America's Kurdish allies, is wise, but few of his regular allies agree with him. Top Republicans in Congress publicly criticized Trump for betraying the de facto U.S. ground forces that routed the Islamic State, and even stalwart supporters like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee rebuked Trump for abandoning the Kurds. Huckabee wasn't the only prominent evangelical Christian to slam Trump's move.Pat Robertson, the 89-year-old host of 700 Club and an evangelical ally of Trump's, had maybe the most biting response. "I am absolutely appalled that the United States is going to betray those democratic in northern Syria, that we possibly are gonna allow the Turkish to come in against the Kurds," he said Monday.Robertson called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "a thug" and criticized Saudi Arabia's leaders as well, but his focus was Trump. "The president who allowed [Jamal] Khashoggi to be cut in pieces without any repercussions whatsoever is now allowing the Christians and the Kurds to be massacred by the Turks," he said. "And I believe -- and I want to say this with great solemnity -- the president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen"Tony Perkins, the head of the prominent evangelical group Family Research Council, also chimed in.> An invasion by Turkey into NE Syria would pose a grave threat to the region's Kurds and Christians, endangering the prospects of true religious freedom in the Middle East.https://t.co/zBuf2sCErX> > -- Tony Perkins (@tperkins) October 5, 2019As did David Brody, chief political analyst at the Trump-friendly Christian Broadcasting Network News.> Analysis on @realDonaldTrump decision to withdrawal troops from NE Syria: The Trump Administration just threw a PUNCH TO THE GUT of the evangelical community. The Kurds are left as sitting ducks and scores of religious & ethnic Minorities could be slaughtered by Erdogan. Sad day!> > -- David Brody (@DavidBrodyCBN) October 7, 2019White evangelicals are Trump's most enduring base of support. It is probably an inopportune time for Trump to alienate them.
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| UFO seekers are flocking to a huge Buddha statue in Thailand saying it is home to a wormhole that aliens use to travel to different dimensions Posted: 08 Oct 2019 02:19 AM PDT  A group of Buddhist worshippers on a remote hilltop in Thailand believe that aliens from Pluto communicate with people in the area.
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| Trump reportedly told GOP allies that he's worried an impeachment will ruin his résumé Posted: 07 Oct 2019 11:00 AM PDT  President Trump reportedly told his close allies and confidants that he's worried about how an impeachment will look on his résumé.
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| View 2020 BMW M8 Gran Coupe Photos Posted: 08 Oct 2019 04:01 PM PDT |
