| Biden hopes to escape the shadow of Obama's immigration policies Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:00 AM PDT  Joe Biden sees himself as a champion of an aspirational, yet pragmatic, immigration policy, but Latino activists think he needs to apologize for millions of deportations while he was vice president. Can he escape the shadow of the Obama administration's record on deportations?
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| Yang and O'Rourke propose decriminalizing opioids, including heroin Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:59 PM PDT  Two Democrats suggested making small amounts of heroin legal as a way to combat the drug epidemic.
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| U.S. Supreme Court wrestles over 'D.C. Sniper' life sentence appeal Posted: 16 Oct 2019 11:45 AM PDT  U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday questioned whether a lower court sufficiently considered that a man convicted in the deadly 2002 "D.C. Sniper" shooting spree in the Washington area was a minor at the time of the crimes when he was sentenced to life in prison. The nine justices heard arguments in an appeal by the state of Virginia objecting to the lower court's decision ordering that Lee Boyd Malvo's sentence of life in prison without parole be thrown out. The most likely contender based on questions he asked during the argument would be Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
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| School suspends girls, says rape-awareness note was bullying Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:38 PM PDT  A 15-year-old girl was suspended for bullying after trying to draw attention to what she believed was an unaddressed problem of sexual assaults involving students at her high school. Aela Mansmann, a 15-year-old sophomore at Cape Elizabeth High School outside Portland, has been at odds with Cape Elizabeth Schools for a month after posting a note in a bathroom that said: "There's a rapist in our school and you know who it is." She and two other students who left similar notes were ordered suspended. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine is taking on Mansmann's case and calling on federal court to stop her suspension.
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| Buttigieg, O'Rourke clash over assault-rifle buyback plan Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:57 PM PDT  At Tuesday night's Democratic primary debate, presidential candidates Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg escalated their disagreement over O'Rourke's proposal for mandatory buybacks of assault weapons.
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| Yahoo Could Owe You Up to $358 for Data Breaches. Here’s How to File Your Claim Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:28 PM PDT  Yahoo has reached a $117.5 million class-action settlement after data breaches that affected 3 billion users accounts
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| One dead in strong 6.4-magnitude Philippines quake: mayor Posted: 16 Oct 2019 09:45 AM PDT  A child was killed in a strong 6.4-magnitude quake that hit the southern Philippines on Wednesday, a local mayor said, as houses collapsed, power was knocked out and a shopping mall burst into flames. Residents evacuated homes and buildings across the Mindanao region including a mall that caught fire in the city of General Santos shortly after the quake struck in the evening, officials said. The child died in a house collapse in the town of Datu Paglas, while four residents of nearby Tulunan town were injured when at least two other houses fell down, Tulunan Mayor Reuel Limbungan told AFP.
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| Warren Deletes Infamous DNA Test Tweet One Year After Reveal Posted: 16 Oct 2019 08:48 AM PDT  Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) deleted from her Twitter and YouTube accounts a now-infamous video announcing the results of her DNA test on Wednesday, one year after its initial unveiling was met with heavy bipartisan criticism.A story titled "Happy Anniversary to Elizabeth Warren's DNA Test!" by Jim Treacher, a columnist at PJ Media, revisited the reveal by Warren on Tuesday, a year to the day after the initial video was posted. Treacher then later went to look for the tweet, but found it deleted."My family (including Fox News-watchers) sat together and talked about what they think of @realDonaldTrump's attacks on our heritage. And yes, a famous geneticist analyzed my DNA and concluded that it contains Native American ancestry," the text of the tweet read.The test, which was analyzed by Stanford professor Carlos D. Bustamante, found Warren to be between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American and prompted further criticism from President Trump, who began calling Warren "Pocahontas" during the 2016 campaign.Following Warren's announcement, Trump mocked the Massachusetts Senator after the Cherokee Nation criticized Warren's use of the test as "making a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven.""Now Cherokee Nation denies her, "DNA test is useless." Even they don't want her. Phony!" Trump tweeted.Though Warren had initially said in March 2018 that she would not undergo a DNA test, she responded to criticism in the aftermath by saying "I believe one way that we try to rebuild confidence [in government] is through transparency."In February, Warren apologized to Bill John Baker, the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, for her public advertising of the test. "The chief and secretary of state appreciate that she has reaffirmed that she is not a Cherokee Nation citizen or a citizen of any tribal nation," Cherokee Nation spokeswoman Julie Hubbard said in the aftermath.
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| 'They were sent to the slaughter': Mexico mourns 13 police killed in cartel ambush Posted: 15 Oct 2019 03:20 PM PDT  Ambush the latest in string of brazen attacks by Mexico's drug cartels, as President Amlo defends strategy to halt the violenceFamily members and fellow officers mourn pay tribute to the officers killed in an ambush on Monday. At least 30 gunmen opened fire on the convoy of state police officers. Photograph: Enrique Castro/AFP via Getty ImagesWith an AR-15 assault rifle in his hand and six spare magazines across his chest, the burly policemen looked nothing if not intimidating as he prepared to attend a memorial service for 13 fellow officers who were killed in an ambush in western Mexico on Monday.Inside, he didn't feel so tough."We feel impotent, we feel alone," the officer said, asking for his name not be used for fear of reprisals from his superiors. "We don't have any support."At least 30 gunmen opened fire on the convoy of state police officers as they drove along a rural road in the municipality of Aguililla in the state of Michoacán early on Monday morning.The ambush was the latest in a string of brazen attacks by the Jalisco New Generation cartel (known by its Spanish initials CJNG), and represents a direct challenge to Andrés Manuel López Obrador's promise to end Mexico's security crisis while avoiding direct conflict with organized crime groups.President López Obrador, widely known as Amlo, insists the military-led offensives against the cartels pursued by his two predecessors have only made things worse, and has instead focused on crime prevention. Meanwhile, a 70,000-strong militarized police force called the National Guard has drawn criticism for being used heavily to keep migrants from reaching the US border.Asked about the ambush on Tuesday, Amlo said the government would continue with its strategy. "This is a violent area, and we are going to continue attending to the causes of this kind of social decomposition," he said.According to Falko Ernst, Mexico analyst of the Crisis Group, the problem is that this focus on the long term is allowing entrenched conflicts, like the one in Michoacán, to spin out of control."There is no short-term strategy," he said. "At the very least, these groups are getting the message that the leash is loose – and it makes sense for them to test how far they can go."Monday's ambush was claimed by the CJNG, which is currently fighting to seize the region known as Tierra Caliente – the Hot Land – from a litany of other armed groups.These include the remnants of older cartels partially dismantled by government offensives of the past (such as the once-dominant Knights Templar), former armed vigilante groups and the different police forces – all of which are deeply corroded by links to organized crime.The memorial service in Morelia. Photograph: Enrique Castro/AFP via Getty ImagesTwo active officers and one former officer at Tuesday's memorial services, speaking on condition of anonymity, accepted that the state police force is riddled with corruption.They blamed the commanders who they said gave their subordinates no choice but to follow orders – even if these were orders meant acting in ways that favoured the interests of criminal groups.They also said that they suspected senior commanders knew of an impending attack when they sent the officers to Aguililla to serve a a warrant related to a dispute in a family court.One officer said it was almost unheard of for police to go into that area without an army escort because it is known to be so dangerous."They were sent to the slaughter," she said. "There is a lot of anger."While the police officers at the memorial service held in the state capital Morelia remained stony-faced, several grieving relatives were not so restrained.A speech by Governor Silvando Aureoles – who called for all Mexico to stand together to against criminals "who are on the lowest rung of the human ladder" –was greeted with tepid applause.But as he left a smattering of female voices screamed out "¡Asesino!" and a small group began a chant of "Justicia." Though their voices faded, their sentiment prompted mumblings of agreement throughout the crowd."This ceremony is a mockery – a chance for the bosses to pretend that they care," said the brother of one officer, whose death leaves his five-months pregnant wife and one-year-old child without support. "We are only here so that he is not forgotten."
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| Texas woman killed by officer pointed gun after hearing noises Posted: 15 Oct 2019 10:56 AM PDT  Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew around 2:30 am on Saturday when she heard sounds in her backyard, according to the warrant for former Fort Worth Police Officer Aaron Dean's arrest for alleged murder. The noises were Dean, 34, and his partner moving around the back of her home, without announcing their presence, after they were sent to investigate why her front door was open. Dean resigned on Monday before he could be fired for breaching a string of police policies by shooting Jefferson dead with a single shot through a bedroom window, according to Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus.
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| Shooting kills 6 in Puerto Rico, leads to emergency meeting Posted: 15 Oct 2019 05:00 PM PDT  Puerto Rico's governor called an emergency meeting Tuesday after six people were killed in a mass shooting in a San Juan housing project and gunfire left two people dead a day earlier in the island's north. A police statement said the violence left five men and one woman dead. The brazen murders led Gov. Wanda Vázquez to convene a gathering of her security team, led by public security chief Elmer Román and justice secretary Dennise Longo Quiñones.
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| Andrew Yang eschewed the usual American flag lapel pin for one that said 'math' instead at the debate Posted: 16 Oct 2019 08:10 AM PDT  Yang has broken the mold before when it comes to debate fashion, after wearing the flag pin on the wrong side and going tie-less for the first debate.
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| Democratic presidential candidate Wayne Messam appears to raise $5 over the last quarter Posted: 15 Oct 2019 04:06 PM PDT  Wayne Messam has spent no money over the last quarter and has struggled in fundraising over the campaign cycle, only raising a total of about $94,000 so far.
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| One dead as strong 6.4-magnitude quake hits Philippines Posted: 16 Oct 2019 08:22 AM PDT  A child was killed in a strong 6.4-magnitude quake that hit the southern Philippines on Wednesday, a local mayor said, as houses collapsed, power was knocked out and a shopping mall burst into flames. Residents evacuated homes and buildings across the Mindanao region including a mall that caught fire in the city of General Santos shortly after the quake struck in the evening, officials said. The child died in a house collapse in the town of Datu Paglas, while four residents of nearby Tulunan town were injured when at least two other houses fell down, Tulunan Mayor Reuel Limbungan told AFP.
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| Meet USS Barb: The Navy's Special World War II Submarine That Terrified Japan Posted: 15 Oct 2019 03:00 PM PDT  It sank the most Japanese vessels by tonnage.
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| 5 key takeaways from the Democratic debate in Ohio Posted: 15 Oct 2019 09:24 PM PDT  Warren is treated like the front-runner, a "healthy" Bernie returns to the debate stage with key endorsements in his pocket and more.
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| Kenya opens Chinese-built railway linking Rift Valley town to Nairobi Posted: 16 Oct 2019 01:47 AM PDT ![Kenya opens Chinese-built railway linking Rift Valley town to Nairobi]( "Kenya opens Chinese-built railway linking Rift Valley town to Nairobi") Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta is due to open a new $1.5 billion Chinese rail line on Wednesday linking the capital Nairobi to the Rift Valley town of Naivasha, despite delays in establishing an industrial park there to drive freight traffic. The development of Kenya's railways has been part of China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, a multi-billion dollar series of infrastructure projects upgrading land and maritime trade routes between China and Europe, Asia and Africa. Kenya had planned to open an industrial park in Naivasha, offering companies tax breaks for investing in manufacturing, and preferential tariffs for electricity generated in the nearby geothermal fields.
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| New Jersey police are looking for a possible witness to the kidnapping of a 3-year-old girl 30 days ago Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:35 AM PDT  Five-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez disappeared from Bridgeton City Park in New Jersey on September 16.
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| 'Just a matter of time' before president removed following impeachment testimony: Former Trump aide Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:39 AM PDT  President Trump's ex-national security adviser, John Bolton, reportedly urged former Russia adviser Fiona Hill to warn the White House about a campaign to pressure Ukraine directed by the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, describing the latter as a "hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up."
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| Judge says lawsuit against Harvard law professor can proceed Posted: 16 Oct 2019 04:02 PM PDT ![Judge says lawsuit against Harvard law professor can proceed]( "Judge says lawsuit against Harvard law professor can proceed") A woman who went public with claims she was a teenage victim of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring can move toward trial with her defamation lawsuit against Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a judge ruled Wednesday as she disqualified a law firm from representing her. U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska rejected Dershowitz's effort to toss out the lawsuit, but she granted his request to disqualify Boies Schiller Flexner LLP from the case. Dershowitz had sought to toss out the case on several grounds, including that the statute of limitations had passed.
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| Three US diplomats held near Russian test site where mystery blast killed five Posted: 16 Oct 2019 10:18 AM PDT  * Russian foreign ministry says trio 'obviously got lost' * August explosion caused radiation levels to surgeA Russian navy official works on the Akula nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine at the Severodvinsk site in July. The August explosion there killed at least five people. Photograph: Sergei Bobylev/TassThree American diplomats were briefly detained in Russia near the military test site where a mysterious explosion released radiation in August, several Russia state news agencies have reported.The US embassy has confirmed the incident, the Interfax news service reported, but said the three diplomats had filed the proper paperwork to travel in the area.The Russian foreign ministry said the diplomats had named a different city as their destination and had "obviously got lost".The report comes just days after the United States said the accident was caused by a nuclear reaction when Russia tried to retrieve a nuclear-powered cruise missile from the Barents Sea.The diplomats were detained on Monday on a train in the city of Severodvinsk, near where Russian authorities said they had been testing a rocket engine with a nuclear component before the accident took place.The diplomats, who have been identified by Interfax as military attaches, were later released, but could face administrative charges for traveling in a restricted military area, agencies reported.In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry confirmed that the diplomats were on an official trip and had informed the Russian defence ministry of their plans."Only, they said their intention was to visit Arkhangelsk and they ended up en route to Severodvinsk," the ministry said."They obviously got lost. We are ready to give the US embassy a map of Russia," the ministry added.The blast at the military test site in August killed at least five people and caused panic after radiation levels jumped to 16 times their normal levels in nearby Severodvinsk.Russian authorities have given little information about the accident. But a US diplomat this week said that the accident took place when Russia attempted to retrieve a nuclear-powered cruise missile called Burevestnik from the Barents Sea."The United States has determined that the explosion near Nyonoksa was the result of a nuclear reaction that occurred during the recovery of a Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile," Thomas DiNanno, the diplomat, said during a speech at the UN.Russia's plans for a nuclear-powered cruise missile that could in theory fly indefinitely were first revealed by Vladimir Putin during a speech last year. The missile is still undergoing testing, and some weapons experts doubt if it can ever be made operable.Russia's military was attempting to retrieve the missile from another failed 2017 test when the accident took place.It was not immediately clear whether the diplomats were traveling to or from Nyonoksa, the village near the military testing site, when they were detained. But train timetables would indicate they were returning from the village when they were arrested close to 6pm in Severodvinsk.Russia has maintained a shroud of secrecy around the incident, closing off waters in the White Sea to foreign ships to prevent them from collecting information about the explosion.
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| Hiker Digs Up 1,000-Year-Old Iron Weapon Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:49 AM PDT  Climate change melted away the ancient arrowhead.
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| 35 foreigners dead in Saudi bus crash: state media Posted: 16 Oct 2019 08:05 PM PDT  Thirty-five foreigners were killed and four others injured when a bus collided with another heavy vehicle near the Muslim holy city of Medina, Saudi state media said on Thursday. The accident on Wednesday involved a collision between "a private chartered bus... with a heavy vehicle (loader)" near the western Saudi Arabian city, a spokesman for Medina police said, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. The accident comes after four British pilgrims were killed and 12 others injured in Saudi Arabia when their bus collided with a fuel tanker in April 2018.
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| How Nazi Germany Crushed France During World War II (It Wasn't Luck) Posted: 15 Oct 2019 11:00 PM PDT  Leadership was critical.
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| 'Five Eyes' in the dark: Will Trump and Barr destroy trust in U.S. intelligence? Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:11 AM PDT  The effort by President Trump and his attorney general to enlist foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies in their smear of Joe Biden may do lasting damage to relationships with their counterparts in other countries and the critical "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing agreement.
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| Boston pension votes to fire money manager Fisher, withdrawals surge toward $1 billion Posted: 16 Oct 2019 12:48 PM PDT  The City of Boston's retirement board on Wednesday voted unanimously to end its relationship with money manager Kenneth Fisher, whose firm has lost almost $1 billion in assets after allegations he made disparaging remarks about women last week. In addition, on Wednesday evening an official of the Los Angeles pension system for police and firefighters said it will review the roughly $500 million it has invested with Fisher's firm. "As with other pension funds, we are very concerned with the inappropriate comments made by Mr. Fisher," said the Los Angeles system's general manager, Ray Ciranna, via e-mail.
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| A Florida man called the sheriff's office to report stolen marijuana. The deputy's response: 'Stop calling' Posted: 16 Oct 2019 06:49 AM PDT ![A Florida man called the sheriff's office to report stolen marijuana. The deputy's response: 'Stop calling']( "A Florida man called the sheriff's office to report stolen marijuana. The deputy's response: 'Stop calling'") The Pasco County Sheriff's Office in Florida told a man to stop calling 911 to report $20 worth of stolen weed.
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| US weather: 'Bomb cyclone' expected to lash northeast with fierce winds and rain Posted: 16 Oct 2019 12:44 PM PDT  A potential bomb cyclone is expected to hit the Northeast of the US Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service in Boston.New York City, Boston, and Maine will be affected, among other New England locations. It follows last week's storm in the same area, which brought strong winds to beach's along the East Coast.
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| U.S. Indicts Turkish Bank With Ties to Giuliani Client For Evading Iran Sanctions Posted: 16 Oct 2019 08:30 AM PDT  The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday indicted Turkey's second-largest bank on charges of fraud and money laundering, accusing it of helping Iran evade sanctions implemented to curb its nuclear program.Halbank was reportedly involved in the largest Iran sanctions violation to date, sending billions of dollars in gold and cash to Iran in exchange for oil and gas."This is one of the most serious Iran sanctions violations we have seen, and no business should profit from evading our laws or risking our national security," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in a statement released by the Justice Department. The statement further alleged that senior Turkish government officials received tens of millions of dollars in bribes to hide the violations from U.S. regulators.Earlier this month it was reported that Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in 2017 pushed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to ask the Justice Department to drop a case against his client Reza Zarrab. An Iranian-Turkish gold trader who himself evaded Iran sanctions, Zarrab went on to testify against Halbank head of international banking Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who was convicted of helping Iran evade sanctions through money laundering and served 28 months in U.S. prison.Zarrab had also alleged that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan knew of Atilla's laundering operation, which Erdogan has denied.The charges against Halbank came as the Trump administration is trying to negotiate its relationship with Turkey, which recently launched an invasion of northeastern Syria after Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region. The invasion is in part intended to combat Kurdish groups that Turkey considers terrorist organizations, some of which were instrumental in the U.S.-led fight against ISIS in Syria.Trump authorized sanctions on the Turkish economy on Monday, however the impact of the sanctions was less damaging than initially assumed.
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| Wisconsin jury awards $450,000 in Sandy Hook defamation case Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:08 AM PDT  A jury in Wisconsin has awarded $450,000 to the father of a boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting after he filed a defamation lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers who claimed the massacre never happened. A Dane County jury on Tuesday decided the amount James Fetzer must pay Leonard Pozner, whose 6-year-old son Noah was among the 26 victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012. Fetzer, a retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor now living in Wisconsin, and Mike Palacek co-wrote a book, "Nobody Died at Sandy Hook," in which they claimed the Sandy Hook shooting never took place but was instead an event staged by the federal government as part of an Obama administration effort to enact tighter gun restrictions.
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| Cory Booker wants $90m a year to prevent urban gun violence Posted: 16 Oct 2019 04:00 AM PDT  New bill would focus federal dollars on public health approaches to gun violence Senator Cory Booker gives a speech on gun violence at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, known as Mother Emanuel, in Charleston, South Carolina, in August. Photograph: Randall Hill/ReutersFor more than a decade, faith leaders from black and brown communities have come to Congress with the same request: spend more money on local strategies to prevent gun violence.Now, the New Jersey senator Cory Booker is introducing legislation that would devote $90m a year to programs that prevent urban gun violence.Booker's new grant program would focus federal dollars on helping the cities with the highest gun homicide rates, and it would prioritize funding for strategies that do not contribute to mass incarceration.series boxInstead of simply directing more federal money to local law enforcement, the new legislation would require cities to give at least half of their federal grant dollars to community organizations that provide services to high-risk people, or to a public department "that is not a law enforcement agency".Booker's bill does not include any gun control provisions: it's focused on strategies that prevent shootings by focusing on the people, not the guns."We're in a tough political climate," said Pastor Michael McBride, a California-based activist who has spent the last decade campaigning for more resources for local gun violence prevention. "This approach charts a way forward that does not bog us down in these intense debates over the second amendment or gun control."Booker's legislation is designed to fund programs that have shown success in reducing gun violence in cities such as Oakland and Richmond, California; Boston, Massachusetts; and New York City. The legislation would devote $90m a year over 10 years to evidence-based approaches to gun violence reduction.In the past decade, as they have invested public dollars into expanding community-based strategies, Oakland has seen a 44% decrease in its gun homicide rate, and nearby Richmond has seen a 67% decrease in its gun homicide rate.The decreases in Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco have driven a 30% decrease in the overall gun homicide rate across the greater San Francisco Bay Area, even as the number of people living in poverty in the region has increased, and as property crime has spiked in some areas. The decrease in the area is much larger than in the nation overall.The successful local strategies highlighted in Booker's legislation include investing in street outreach workers or "violence interrupters", trusted community members who intervene in local gang conflicts to keep violence from spreading; funding intervention programs in hospitals to help shooting victims change their lives; and supporting "group violence intervention" strategies, such as Boston's Operation Ceasefire, that bring together law enforcement, community partners, and faith leaders to intervene with the small number of men in each city who are most likely to shoot or be shot.Booker's Break the Cycle of Violence Act is co-sponsored by the US representative Steven Horsford, a Nevada Democrat whose father was shot to death during a robbery when he was 19."These deaths are preventable," Horsford said in a statement.Mass shootings are usually the focus of America's gun control debate. But the majority of America's gun homicide victims are killed in smaller daily shootings in neighborhoods that have struggled with gun violence for decades.Black men and boys, who make up just 6% of America's overall population, represent more than 50% of the country's gun homicide victims.A 2015 Guardian investigation found that half of the country's gun homicides were concentrated in just 127 cities and towns. Experts have argued for years that American gun violence is highly concentrated, and that one of the best ways to save lives is to devote more resources into the neighborhoods with the greatest need.Black and brown activists have often felt "invisible" and "erased" from the American gun control debate, McBride said."Our communities are used as props, but never really given serious consideration on how to scale up strategies that save our lives and heal our communities," he said.The new legislation focuses resources on the majority of America's gun violence victims – and it also focuses on solutions that are less politically controversial than gun control laws, McBride said."We think Republicans, historically, have been huge supporters of these kinds of strategies, because of the role that faith communities and redemption and healing play," he said.
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| Putin signals Russia's return to Africa with summit Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:08 PM PDT  President Vladimir Putin hosts dozens of African leaders next week as Russia seeks to reassert its influence on the continent and beyond. The heads of some 35 African countries are expected for the first Africa-Russia Summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi next Wednesday and Thursday. For Putin, the summit is a chance to revive Soviet-era relationships and build new alliances, bolstering Moscow's global clout in the face of confrontation with the West.
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| Donald Trump pours gasoline on Syria. Now Turkey-Kurds-Russia blowup may one day burn USA. Posted: 16 Oct 2019 04:10 PM PDT  Surrendering to Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan has yielded in 10 days a humanitarian crisis and wins for Bashar Assad, ISIS and Iran: Our view
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| Is the U.S. Army In Decline? Posted: 16 Oct 2019 04:00 PM PDT  What is the Army doing to stay at the top of the pack?
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| The Amelia Earhart Mystery Stays Down in the Deep Posted: 15 Oct 2019 05:22 AM PDT  For two weeks in August, a multimillion-dollar search from air, land and sea sought to solve the 80-year mystery of Amelia Earhart's disappearance.Robert Ballard, the ocean explorer famous for locating the wreck of the Titanic, led a team that discovered two hats in the depths. It found debris from an old shipwreck. It even spotted a soda can. What it did not find was a single piece of the Lockheed Electra airplane flown in 1937 by Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan, which vanished during their doomed voyage around the world.Ballard and his crew don't consider it a failure. For one thing, he says, they know where the plane isn't. And in the process, they may have dispensed with one clue that has driven years of speculation, while a team of collaborating archaeologists potentially turned up more hints at the aviator's fate."This plane exists," Ballard said. "It's not the Loch Ness monster, and it's going to be found."Ballard had avoided the Earhart mystery for decades, dismissing the search area as too large, until he was presented with a clue he found irresistible. Kurt Campbell, then a senior official in President Barack Obama's State Department, shared with him what is known as the Bevington image -- a photo taken by a British officer in 1940 at what is now known as Nikumaroro, an atoll in the Phoenix Islands in the Republic of Kiribati. American intelligence analysts had enhanced the image at Campbell's request and concluded a blurry object in it was consistent with landing gear from Earhart's plane.Motivated by this clue, and by 30 years of research on Nikumaroro by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, Ballard and his crew set a course for the island in August. They were joined by archaeologists from the National Geographic Society, which sponsored and documented the journey for "Expedition Amelia," which will air on the National Geographic Channel on Sunday.Ballard and Allison Fundis, the Nautilus' chief operating officer, coordinated an elaborate plan of attack. First, they sent the ship five times around the island to map it with multibeam sonar and deployed a floating autonomous surface vehicle to map shallower areas off the island's shore. They also used four aerial drones for additional inspections of the surrounding reef.Nikumaroro and its reef are just the tip of a 16,000-foot underwater mountain, a series of 13 sheer escarpments that drop off onto ramps, eventually fanning out at the base for 6 nautical miles.If Earhart crashed there, they believe, rising tides would have dragged her plane over the reef and down the escarpments. Fragments should have collected on the ramps, especially heavier components like the engine and the radio.In deeper water the team deployed the Hercules and the Argus, remotely operated vehicles equipped with spotlights and high-definition cameras. These robots descended 650 feet around the entire island and found nothing.At that point, the crew focused on the northwest corner of the island near the S.S. Norwich City, a British freighter that ran aground on the island in 1929, eight years before Earhart's disappearance. That is the area where the Bevington photo was taken.While they searched there, crew members found so many beach rocks consistent in size and shape with the supposed landing gear in the Bevington image that it became a joke on the ship."Oh look," Ballard would chuckle, "another landing gear rock."Fundis said, "We felt like if her plane was there, we would have found it pretty early in the expedition." But she said they kept up their morale because Ballard reminded them that it took four missions to find the Titanic and that one of those expeditions missed the ship by just under 500 feet.The crew mapped the mountain's underwater drainage patterns and searched the gullies that might have carried plane fragments down slope, to a depth of 8,500 feet. Crew members even searched roughly 4 nautical miles out to sea in case the plane lifted off the reef intact and glided underwater as it sank.Each time a new search tactic yielded nothing, Ballard said, he felt he was adding "nail after nail after nail" to the coffin of the Nikumaroro hypothesis.Still, Ballard and Fundis confess that other clues pointing to Nikumaroro have left them with lingering curiosity about whether Earhart crashed there. For instance, Panamerican Airway radio direction finders on Wake Island; Midway Atoll; and Honolulu, Hawaii; each picked up distress signals from Earhart and took bearings, which triangulated in the cluster of islands that includes Nikumaroro.For years, many Earhart historians have been skeptical of the Nikumaroro theory. And Ballard, Fundis and their team's return to the island will now depend on whether the archaeologists from the National Geographic Society came up with evidence that Earhart's body was there.Fredrik Hiebert, the society's archaeologist in residence, has some leads. His team awaits DNA analysis on soil samples taken at a bivouac shelter found on the island.The camp, known as the Seven Site for its shape, was first noticed by a British officer in 1940. Thirteen bones were gathered then and sent to a colonial doctor in Fiji, who determined they belonged to a European man. The bones were subsequently lost.Decades later, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or TIGHAR, tracked down the doctor's analysis. Richard Jantz, director emeritus of the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee, determined that the bones most likely belonged to a woman and that Earhart's build was "more similar to the Nikumaroro bones than 99% of individuals in a large reference sample."Since the 1980s, Tighar has conducted 12 expeditions to Nikumaroro in an effort to find more skeletal remains. It turned up other items from a castaway's existence at the camp but never any bones or DNA.Hiebert's team is hoping to use new techniques to identify evidence of mitochondrial DNA with similarities to Earhart's living relatives in the 22 soil samples they collected.Before the expedition, Hiebert and Erin Kimmerle, a forensic anthropologist, visited the National Museum in Tarawa, Kiribati's capital. On an unmarked shelf, Kimmerle spotted remnants of a female skull. The team now awaits DNA analysis of the specimen.In 2021, the Nautilus will be in the South Pacific fulfilling a contract to map underwater U.S. territories. That will bring the ship to the area around Howland Island, Earhart's intended destination for refueling before her plane disappeared. Ballard and Fundis plan to make time to explore the alternate theory favored by some skeptics of the Nikumaroro hypothesis: that Earhart crashed at sea closer to Howland.Fundis considers Earhart a role model, which gives her the "fuel to keep going," she said.And Ballard explained his own motivation to continue the search."In many ways, I'm doing this for my mother," he said, describing her as a "brilliant woman" who grew up in Kansas, like Earhart, but dropped out of college to raise three children and care for her sister.His mother, Hariett Ballard, admired Earhart and hoped she might pave the way for her children, or perhaps grandchildren, to pursue adventurous careers. Robert Ballard's daughter, Emily Ballard, was among the crew of the Nautilus, hunting for Earhart's plane."I'm not giving up," he said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Sleep Soundly Outdoors by Saving on Klymit Sleeping Pads Posted: 15 Oct 2019 11:26 AM PDT |
| Texas pastors seek federal action after police shoot black woman in her home Posted: 16 Oct 2019 03:07 PM PDT  Jefferson's killing on Saturday by a rookie Fort Worth officer was the latest in a string of fatal shootings that has made the city's African American community wary of police, said Pastor Kyev Tatum.
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| Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement of Bernie Sanders is a huge win for him and a way for her to hit back at the Democratic Party Posted: 16 Oct 2019 01:19 PM PDT  Bernie Sanders gets a political rock star's endorsement. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets to prove her left-wing credibility to the progressive wing.
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| A N.J. school district wants to ban students from attending prom if they have more than $75 in school lunch debt Posted: 16 Oct 2019 03:47 PM PDT  A school district in New Jersey passed a new policy this week that will allow schools to bar students from attending prom if they have a school lunch debt above $75.
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| The Latest: Authorities seek cause for California fuel fire Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:51 AM PDT  Officials are trying to determine if a 4.5 magnitude earthquake triggered an explosion at a fuel storage facility in the San Francisco Bay Area that started a fire and trapped thousands in their homes for hours because of potentially unhealthy air. The earthquake struck about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast from the NuStar Energy fuel storage facility in the Bay Area community of Crockett 15 hours before the fire started Tuesday. Randy Sawyer, Contra Costa County's chief environmental health and hazardous materials officer, tells KQED News that quake caused malfunctions at two nearby oil refineries operated by Shell and Marathon oil.
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| Nigeria town celebrates claim as 'twins capital' of world Posted: 15 Oct 2019 08:00 PM PDT  To celebrate its self-proclaimed title the town hosts an annual festival, now in its second year, that draws hundreds of sets of twins from around the country. Donning different traditional clothes and costumes, the twins -- male and female, old, young and even newborns -- sang and danced at the latest edition this weekend to the appreciation of an admiring audience.
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| Ukraine Policy and the ‘Three Amigos’: Impeachment Update Posted: 15 Oct 2019 06:36 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Investigators in the House impeachment probe of President Donald Trump are questioning George Kent, a State Department official who tried to defend then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch against accusations from Rudy Giuliani and others.Here are the latest developments:Top Diplomat Testifies of 'Three Amigos' (9:35 p.m.)Read the letter from Jon SaleGeorge Kent, a senior State Department official, told House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney organized a meeting in May after which a team of "three amigos" were designated to bypass formal U.S.-Ukraine policy.Kent did not personally attend that meeting on May 23, but department officials were informed afterward that then-Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, would be in charge of the policy.Neither Secretary of State Michael Pompeo nor other officials who would normally form the diplomatic channels of American foreign policy in Ukraine were to be involved, according to a recounting of Kent's testimony by Representative Gerald Connolly of Virginia, a senior Democrat on the Oversight and Reform Committee.Connolly added that Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of State, referred to the trio as the "three amigos."Obstruction Case is Building, Democrat Says (7:15 p.m.)House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff told reporters, "the case for obstruction of Congress continues to build" as three House panels pursue their impeachment investigation.He cited a "complete effort by the administration to stonewall" the probe.Schiff said he expects the committees to release transcripts at some point and to call some witnesses back for open hearings.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed that the full House won't vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry at this point, repeating her argument that there is "no requirement" for there to be a floor vote for the investigation to continue.Ex-Lawmaker Cooperating With Giuliani Probe (7:03 p.m.)Former Representative Pete Sessions is cooperating with the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan in its investigation of Giuliani and his associates, his spokesman said Tuesday night.Sessions, a Texas Republican who was defeated for re-election last November, "will be providing documents to their office related to this matter over the next couple of weeks as requested," according to the spokesman, Matt Mackowiak.Mackowiak said he could not confirm or deny a report in the Wall Street Journal that Sessions, who has been trying to revive his political career, had been subpoenaed for documents relating to the inquiry into the activities in Ukraine of Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump's personal lawyer, and his associates.No Vote Planned Yet on Inquiry, Democrats Say (6:48 p.m.)House Democrats haven't decided whether to hold a vote on formally authorizing an impeachment investigation, lawmakers said after a closed-door caucus meeting on Tuesday.Representatives Steve Cohen and Alcee Hastings said lawmakers aren't ruling out such a vote at some later time.Asked whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had foreclosed the possibility of ever holding such a vote, Representative Joe Kennedy said: "Certainly not forever." -- Billy House, Erik WassonPence Rebuffs House Document Requests (5:58 p.m.)Mike Pence's counsel told House lawmakers in a letter Tuesday that the vice president's office isn't cooperating with a request for documents related to the probe of Trump's relations with Ukraine."The Office of the Vice President encourages the committees to forgo their request to the Office of the Vice President, or hold it in abeyance, pending your discussion with the White House Counsel's Office concerning compliance with constitutionally mandated procedures," Pence's counsel Matthew Morgan wrote to Democratic Representatives Elijah Cummings, Adam Schiff and Eliot Engel.In the letter, Morgan repeated claims the White House has already made, including that the investigation isn't legitimate because there hasn't been a full vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry. -- Billy HouseBudget Office Won't Provide Ukraine Records (5 p.m.)The White House Office of Management and Budget won't turn over documents about withholding military aid to Ukraine, said a senior administration official. The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees asked the budget office on Oct. 7 to provide the documents by Tuesday.The official also indicated that acting budget director Russell Vought won't comply with the committees' request that he testify on Oct. 25. The official said OMB won't participate in a process the White House views as a sham.The House is looking into whether Trump ordered a delay in military aid to Ukraine to pressure the country to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son.Earlier Tuesday, Giuliani's lawyer told the House that the president's personal attorney will defy a subpoena issued as part of the inquiry.Democrats could go to court to enforce the subpoenas and are talking about re-activating a dormant congressional power to directly impose fines and punishments to enforce subpoenas. -- Billy HouseGiuliani Defies House Subpoena for Documents (3:54 p.m.)Giuliani will not turn over the documents demanded by the House committees leading the impeachment inquiry, according to a letter from Jon Sale, the attorney who represented Giuliani until Tuesday. Sale wrote that the subpoena Giuliani received was "overbroad, unduly burdensome and seeks documents beyond the scope of legitimate inquiry.""Mr. Giuliani will not participate because this appears to be an unconstitutional, baseless and illegitimate 'impeachment inquiry,'" Sale's letter says. "Moreover, documents sought in the subpoena are protected by attorney-client, attorney work-product, and executive privileges."The letter follows a pattern of stonewalling from the White House, as Trump continues to denounce the impeachment inquiry as a "witch hunt" against him. House committees have, however, secured the testimony of former and current officials by issuing subpoenas to compel them to appear. -- Jordan FabianGiuliani Parts Ways With His Own Attorney (3:16 p.m.)Attorney Jon Sale says he is no longer representing President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on impeachment-related matters.Sale said in a brief phone interview that he was hired by Giuliani solely to respond to the Democrats' subpoena and the task has been completed."That was the extent of it," Sale said, adding that the parting was not acrimonious. He said parting at this point was the plan all along.Sale said he sent a letter to Capitol Hill earlier Tuesday responding to the subpoena, but he declined to reveal its contents. Tuesday is the deadline set by the three committees leading the impeachment inquiry for Giuliani to provide documents and records demanded in a subpoena.Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.ABC News reported that Giuliani said he won't comply with a congressional subpoena and said "we will see what happens" if Congress tries to enforce it. -- Jordan FabianHouse Democrats Meet Tuesday on Inquiry Plan (2:48 p.m.)Speaker Nancy Pelosi will meet with House Democrats at 6 p.m. Tuesday behind closed doors to discuss their plan for the impeachment inquiry, according to a congressional aide.Congress has been in recess for two weeks and returns to Washington for votes Tuesday evening. Republicans have dismissed the impeachment process as invalid until the full House votes to open the inquiry, although Democrats say that step is unnecessary. -- Erik WassonWhite House Budget Director Asked to Testify (11:23 a.m.)House impeachment investigators asked acting White House budget director Russell Vought to testify on Oct. 25 about the withholding of military assistance to Ukraine and any possible efforts to cover up those actions.Vought, who runs the Office of Management and Budget, was given the request in a letter dated Friday from the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs committees."The committees are investigating the extent to which President Trump jeopardized U.S. national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere with our 2020 election and by withholding a White House meeting with the president of Ukraine and military assistance provided by Congress to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression, as well as any effort to cover up these matters," states the letter.The chairmen wrote to Vought, "Based upon public reporting and evidence gathered as part of the impeachment inquiry, we believe you may have information relevant to these matters."The House is investigating whether Trump ordered the aid to be withheld to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son.The three committees on Oct. 7 had asked OMB for information related to the withholding of military assistance and gave the office a deadline of Tuesday to respond.The budget office on Oct. 3 turned over some documents related to the Ukraine aid to the Appropriations and Budget committees, according to two House Democratic aides. The committees are still reviewing the partial disclosure. -- Billy HouseState Official Kent Arrives for Testimony (19:03 a.m.)Kent arrived Tuesday morning to give testimony behind closed doors to the three House committees conducting the impeachment investigation.The deputy assistant secretary in the European and Eurasian bureau overseeing policy toward Ukraine had warned in emails to colleagues in March that Yovanovitch was the target of a disinformation operation.That message and other documents were turned over to Congress by State Department Inspector General Steve Linick early this month. Copies were obtained by Bloomberg.Yovanovitch was recalled from her post in in May, earlier than expected, after being accused by Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, of trying to undermine the president and blocking efforts to spur an investigation by Ukrainian authorities into Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden.In a March 27 email to colleagues, Kent pointed to what he said were holes in one theory against her outlined in a Capitol Hill newspaper column. The column focused on an alleged list of people she gave to Ukraine officials to not prosecute, in order to protect Biden and others.Kent wrote that it was "a totally manufactured/fake list of alleged untouchables." He said "one key sign of it being fake is that most of the names are misspelled in English -- we would never spell most that way." -- Billy HouseKey EventsInvestigators heard on Monday from former National Security Council Russia expert Fiona Hill, who left the administration last summer, before the controversial July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Republicans objected that she shouldn't be testifying behind closed doors.This could be a pivotal week in the probe, with at least three other witnesses scheduled to appear before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Reform committees.Trump said on Twitter that the whistle-blower who raised concerns about his July 25 call with Ukraine's president "must testify" to explain why his interpretation of the conversation was "sooo wrong, not even close."\--With assistance from Jack Fitzpatrick, Billy House and Jordan Fabian.To contact the reporters on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net;Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie AsséoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Iran's So-Called New Fighter Jet Is Most Likely a Scam (Sort Of) Posted: 15 Oct 2019 09:00 PM PDT  Or just another F-5 ripoff?
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| ‘Barbaric’: DLA Piper Partner Who Said Boss Assaulted Her Four Times Has Been Put on Leave Posted: 16 Oct 2019 12:16 PM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photos HandoutThe junior partner at top-grossing law firm DLA Piper who claimed she was sexually assaulted four times by her boss in 2018 has been placed on paid administrative leave.Vanina Guerrero, who works out of the multinational firm's Silicon Valley corporate practice, filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this month, claiming that the $2.84-billion firm discriminated against her and retaliated when she complained of the alleged assaults. The complaint identified her boss, DLA Piper partner Louis Lehot, as the man who allegedly assaulted her in Shanghai, Brazil, Palo Alto, and Chicago."During my entire career I was known for my intellect, tenacity and confidence," Guerrero, who is married with children, wrote in an open letter to the firm earlier this month. "In less than nine months at DLA Piper... I became a shell of my former self." In her letter, Guerrero asked the firm to allow her to litigate the matter in court instead of through forced arbitration. A spokesman for the law firm has said the company took appropriate steps to investigate the allegations against Lehot as soon as they were reported and that the company "takes them seriously."Lehot has since left the firm, the company said last week."Despite the fact that the allegations have not been substantiated by the investigation to date, the firm has concluded for various reasons that it is in the best interest of the firm that we part ways with Louis Lehot," three executives wrote in a memo, Bloomberg Business reported.But on Tuesday, the firm sent a letter to Guerrero claiming that "during the course of our investigation of your allegations against Louis Lehot, another individual at the firm alleged that you engaged in inappropriate behavior toward, and harassed, that individual.""DLA Piper takes allegations of harassment seriously, regardless of the position or gender of the individual making those allegations or against whom they are made," said the letter, which was provided to The Daily Beast by Guerrero's attorney. "Unfortunately, you continue to refuse to cooperate with that investigation, including refusing to discuss the allegations that have been made against you. Indeed, you refused to do so despite our stated willingness to allow your counsel to be present during the interview."The memo states that Guerrero is barred from going to the Silicon Valley office or engaging in any of the firm's business until the investigation has concluded—and that DLA Piper has retained an outside firm to probe the matter.Guerrero's attorney, Jeanne Christensen, said in a statement on Wednesday that the letter was sent overnight to media outlets "across the country" in an attempt "to publicly smear" Guerrero "for daring to complain about being sexually assaulted."Christensen called the move "barbaric" and unprecedented."To be clear, as of the writing of this email, our firm and Ms. Guerrero have no knowledge or information about the purported 'harassment,'" she added. "The message is loud and clear: MeToo movement or not—speaking out about gender motivated violence will result in untold harm, damage and pain to you personally and professionally."Junior Partner at Silicon Valley Law Firm DLA Piper: Boss Sexually Assaulted Me 4 Times, Company Ignored ItRead 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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| Otters nearly drown large pet dog in group attack Posted: 15 Oct 2019 12:46 AM PDT  A pet dog has nearly drowned after reportedly being attacked by a group of otters.The alleged attack happened in Alaska, when Kenny Brewer went out for an evening walk with his wife, Kira, and their dog, Ruby – a 50lb husky mix.
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| Dark web child porn bust leads to 338 arrests worldwide Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:38 AM PDT  Law enforcement officials said on Wednesday they had arrested hundreds of people worldwide after knocking out a South Korea-based dark web child pornography site that sold gruesome videos for digital cash. Officials from the United States, Britain and South Korea described the network as one of the largest child pornography operations they had encountered to date. Called Welcome To Video, the website relied on the bitcoin cryptocurrency to sell access to 250,000 videos depicting child sexual abuse, authorities said, including footage of extremely young children being raped.
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