| Alyssa Milano’s 'facts are wrong': Andrew Yang refutes activist’s allegations of campaign staffer sexual misconduct Posted: 14 Dec 2019 08:58 AM PST  Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang denied allegations made by actress Alyssa Milano that an unnamed campaign engaged in sexual misconduct, saying the matter had been looked at promptly.
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| 9 Dem candidates demand DNC toss out current debate rules Posted: 15 Dec 2019 12:07 AM PST  Party officials signaled Saturday that they are unlikely to budge and change the rules.
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| Italian city evacuated as World War Two-era British bomb is defused Posted: 15 Dec 2019 11:09 AM PST  Italian authorities ordered the biggest peacetime evacuation in the country since World War Two on Sunday to defuse a massive unexploded British bomb that was partially damaged when discovered in the southern city of Brindisi. The historic evacuation displaced some 53,000 residents —more than half — of the coastal city on the Adriatic, due to the high risk that the 440-pound ordnance containing 40 kilograms of dynamite could explode. The chances of detonation were increased after the munition was damaged on November 2 by a bulldozer excavating for a remodel of a cinema.. The bomb is believed to have been dropped on the city in a 1941 air raid, during the period of World War Two when Italy was still allied with Germany and Royal Air Force bombers based in Malta were targeting Naples, Brindisi and Bari in order to disrupt Axis shipping lanes. According to the Italian defence department, it is just one of thousands of unexploded ordnances that still lie dormant and undiscovered throughout Italy. Earlier this month more than 10,000 Turin residents were evacuated for the deactivation of a similar British bomb, as were 4000 residents of the northern city of Bolzano in October. In the month and a half since the unexploded bomb was discovered in Brindisi, city officials put into place a strict evacuation plan with a 1,617 metre "red zone" around the damaged bomb, which was reinforced with an external structure last week. The city's airport, train station, hospitals and prison were shut down as part of the operation on Sunday. By mid-morning the bomb had been successfully defused by a team of more than a dozen Italian army explosives experts, who used a special metal key that was carefully turned with remote-controlled technology, as the mayor and other security officials watched drone footage of the operation from a nearby situation room. The bomb is expected to be set off tomorrow in a remote location outside the city.
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| FBI breaks up 2 illegal streaming sites – including iStreamItAll, with more subscribers than Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Posted: 15 Dec 2019 04:06 PM PST  Darryl Polo and Luis Villarino, both of Las Vegas, have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges for operating iStreamItAll and Jetflix.
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| Operation Plunder: How 1 Hellish Battle Slowed The Allies' Capture Of Nazi Germany Posted: 14 Dec 2019 06:30 PM PST  The battle was utter hell.
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| Purdue Pharma’s foreign affiliate now selling overdose cure Posted: 14 Dec 2019 09:34 PM PST  Some conference attendees were stunned when they saw the company logo: Mundipharma, the international affiliate of Purdue Pharma — the maker of the blockbuster opioid, OxyContin, widely blamed for unleashing the American overdose epidemic. "You're in the business of selling medicine that causes addiction and overdoses, and now you're in the business of selling medicine that treats addiction and overdoses?" asked Dr. Andrew Kolodny, an outspoken critic of Purdue who has testified against the company in court. As Purdue Pharma buckles under a mountain of litigation and public protest in the United States, its foreign affiliate, Mundipharma, has expanded abroad, using some of the same tactics to sell the addictive opioids that made its owners, the Sackler family, among the richest in the world.
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| Decades on, Soviet bombs still killing people in Afghanistan Posted: 15 Dec 2019 10:54 AM PST  Gholam Mahaiuddin sighs softly as he thinks of his 14-year-old son, who was killed in the spring by a bomb dropped last century in the hills of Bamiyan province in central Afghanistan. "We knew the mountain was dangerous," said Mahaiuddin, who found his son's remains after he didn't come home one day. Forty years after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan -- and three decades since the conflict ended -- the war's legacy continues to claim lives across the country.
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| Switzerland Plans to Send Its Old Fighter Jets Back to the U.S. Posted: 15 Dec 2019 08:34 AM PST ![Switzerland Plans to Send Its Old Fighter Jets Back to the U.S.]( "Switzerland Plans to Send Its Old Fighter Jets Back to the U.S.") (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is expected to buy 22 aging fighter jets from Switzerland, a country that's struggling to modernize its own air force.U.S. Navy representatives and the Swiss defense procurement agency, known as Armasuisse, discussed the deal in July, an agency spokesman said by email on Sunday. The contract is expected to be signed once U.S. lawmakers approve the fiscal 2020 defense budget, he said.President Donald Trump is seeking $718 billion in Pentagon funding for 2020, including $39.7 million for the F-5s, an aircraft first delivered to Switzerland in 1978. Nowadays, the U.S. uses the F-5 to simulate enemy planes in aerial combat training.Switzerland has been trying to buy new warplanes for years. Voters in 2014 rejected a 3.1 billion-franc ($3.2 billion) order for Saab AB Gripen fighter jets. Switzerland now plans to spend about 6 billion francs on new fighter jets, according to SonntagsZeitung newspaper and previous Swiss media reports."If the Americans want to take over the scrap iron, they should do it," Beat Flach, a Green Liberal lawmaker, told SonntagsZeitung, which reported on the planned sale on Sunday. "It's better than having the Tigers rot in a parking lot."To contact the reporter on this story: Albertina Torsoli in Geneva at atorsoli@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Beth Mellor at bmellor@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka, James AmottFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Boris Johnson's victory is 'catastrophic warning' to Democrats: Bloomberg Posted: 14 Dec 2019 08:37 AM PST  Boris Johnson's election victory is a 'catastrophic warning' to Democrats in the United States, presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg has warned.
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| New Zealand rescuers unable to locate bodies as volcano death toll rises to 16 Posted: 15 Dec 2019 09:14 AM PST  New Zealand recovery teams returned to the volcanic White Island on Sunday but were unable to locate two remaining bodies in their search, as the death toll from Monday's eruption rose to 16, police said. Authorities said eight police search and rescue staff were deployed for 75 minutes to an area in which their information suggested one body may remain. "I can say we have found no further bodies in that area," Deputy Police Commissioner Mike Clement told a media conference on Sunday. On Friday, six bodies were successfully retrieved from the island by a New Zealand military team and taken to the mainland for disaster victim identification. Police said they remained committed to recovering the two bodies and that police and military divers were continuing to scour the waters around the island. New Zealand's White Island volcano erupts, in pictures "Everyone went out there absolutely desperate to find bodies and return them to loved ones," Clement said. On Saturday, divers faced contaminated waters and low visibility as they searched the sea surrounding the island. The volcano, a popular destination for day-trippers, erupted on Monday, spewing ash, steam and gases over the island. Among the 47 people on the island at the time were Australian, U.S., German, Chinese, British and Malaysian tourists. The death toll rose to 16 on Sunday as one more person died in an Australian hospital. That death is the first to occur in Australia following the eruption, where many of the victims were from and have been transferred. The toll may rise further as more than two dozen people are still hospitalised across New Zealand and Australia, most with severe burn injuries. Police on Saturday began formally releasing the names and nationalities of those killed, with 21-year-old Australian Krystal Browitt the first person identified. On Sunday, police also released the names of New Zealander Tipene Maangi and Australians Zoe Hosking, Gavin Dallow and Anthony Langford. There has been criticism that tourists were allowed on the island at all, given signs of increasing tremor activity in the days before the eruption. A minute's silence will be observed in New Zealand on Monday, December 16 at 2.11 p.m. local time (0111 GMT), exactly one week after the fatal eruption occurred.
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| Is Congress Set to Open U.S. Banks to Drug Cartels? Posted: 15 Dec 2019 12:04 AM PST  Should we let them?
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| Wisconsin judge's ruling could purge 200,000 from voter rolls Posted: 14 Dec 2019 11:53 AM PST  * Voters must confirm address within 30 days or lose franchise * Trump won Wisconsin by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016A Wisconsin judge's order to boot more than 200,000 people from voter rolls in the battleground state spurred condemnation from Democrats, amid claims of voter suppression.If the decision stands, it could have an impact on the 2020 presidential election. In 2016, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by fewer than 23,000 votes. Subsequent contests have also returned tight margins."I won the race for governor by less than 30,000 votes," tweeted Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat who beat the former Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker last year."This move pushed by Republicans to remove 200,000 Wisconsinites from the voter rolls is just another attempt at overriding the will of the people and stifling the democratic process."Voting is a fundamental right, and we should be making it easier for folks to vote, not harder. It's time for Republicans to move on from the election we had more than a year ago and start working on the pressing issues facing our state."In October, the Wisconsin Elections Commission mailed a letter to 234,000 voters who it thought might have moved, requesting that they update registration information.As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (Will), a conservative group, then filed suit.The lawsuit said the voters contacted should have 30 days to confirm their addresses. If they did not do so, Will said, their registration status should be changed from "eligible" to "ineligible".Will asked county circuit judge Paul Malloy to grant an injunction that would require election authorities to purge the rolls. In his ruling on Friday, Malloy identified a legal obligation to strip the rolls in 30 days."I don't want to see someone deactivated but I don't write the law," said Malloy, who was appointed in 2002 by the then Republican governor, Scott McCallum, and has since been re-elected. "There's no basis for saying 12 to 24 months is a good time frame. It's not that difficult to do it sooner … If you don't like [it], you have to go back to the legislature."In a statement, the elections commission said it would analyze "the judge's oral decision and [consult] with the six members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission on next steps".Will's president, Rick Esenberg, said: "This case is about whether a state agency can ignore clearly written state law. Today's court order requires the Wisconsin Elections Commission to follow state law, and we look forward to making the case that they must continue to follow state law."Voting authorities and the League of Women Voters indicated they would fight the decision, which Malloy refused to stay pending appeals.According to the Journal Sentinel, the cities of Milwaukee and Madison – Democratic strongholds – are home to 14% of the state's registered voters but received 23% of letters sent out. Fifty-five percent of the mailings, meanwhile, went to areas where Hillary Clinton beat Trump.Eric Holder, US attorney general under Barack Obama, commented on Twitter."Here they go," he said. "Voter purge in Wisconsin that disproportionately targets Democrats, people of color and those who voted for Hillary in 2016. The expected unfairness. Fight this Wisconsin! Fight for a fair election."Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democratic congressman, wrote: "At a time when voter suppression [and] purging eligible voters from rolls is rampant nationwide, we should do everything in our power to ensure no one wrongfully loses their voice at the ballot box in Wisconsin or anywhere."Ben Wikler, chair of the state Democratic party, criticized the decision and called for action, writing: "A rightwing lawsuit triggered a 200,000-voter purge in Wisconsin yesterday. But we still have same-day registration in this state. So now our job is to organize harder than they can suppress."
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| China welcomes preliminary deal in trade war it blames on US Posted: 14 Dec 2019 12:27 AM PST  China expressed cautious optimism Saturday about a first-step trade agreement that dials down a trade war it blames the U.S. for starting. Chinese experts and news media joined government officials in saying the deal would reduce uncertainty for companies, at least in the short term. "It at least stabilizes the situation and lays a foundation for the next round of trade talks or canceling additional tariffs in the future," said Tu Xinquan, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.
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| Lebanon counter-protesters clash with police in Beirut Posted: 14 Dec 2019 10:05 AM PST  Late Saturday afternoon, young counter-protesters from an area of Beirut dominated by the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah and fellow Shiite movement Amal tried to raid a key anti-government protest camp in Martyrs' Square. The square, in central Beirut, has been at the epicentre of protests which flared in mid-October over perceived official corruption, poor services and economic woes. Both Amal and Hezbollah are partners in Lebanon's cross-sectarian government.
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| Zimbabwe vice president's wife arrested for suspected fraud, money laundering Posted: 15 Dec 2019 05:29 AM PST ![Zimbabwe vice president's wife arrested for suspected fraud, money laundering]( "Zimbabwe vice president's wife arrested for suspected fraud, money laundering") Zimbabwean authorities arrested the wife of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga on charges of money laundering, fraud and violating exchange control regulations, the country's anti Corruption Commission (ZACC) said on Sunday. Marry Mubaiwa was arrested on Saturday evening and will likely appear in court on Monday, ZACC spokesman John Makamure said. Appointed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa this year, ZACC is under pressure to show that it can tackle high-level graft, which watchdog Transparency International estimates is costing the country $1 billion annually.
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| Kentucky governor pardons killer whose family donated to his campaign days before leaving office Posted: 14 Dec 2019 05:27 AM PST  The outgoing Republican governor of Kentucky has sparked outrage after he pardoned a convicted killer whose family had hosted a fundraiser for the politician and given him money.Matt Bevin, who was defeated in his bid for re-election in November, has issued over 400 pardons in his final days in office.
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| A California Starbucks reportedly denied police officers service, in the latest of several alleged anti-cop acts at the coffee chain this year Posted: 14 Dec 2019 07:57 AM PST  In July, police officers were asked to leave an Arizona Starbucks. In November, a Starbucks employee was fired after writing "PIG" on a cop's order.
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| UN climate talks face failure Posted: 14 Dec 2019 09:25 AM PST  A UN climate summit in Madrid risked failing Saturday after all-night negotiations between countries left them more divided than ever over on how to fight global warming and pay for its ravages.
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| Mortal Enemy? How Does the People's Liberation Army View the United States? Posted: 14 Dec 2019 04:30 PM PST  Enemy or adversary?
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| Pelosi announces U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal Posted: 14 Dec 2019 11:30 PM PST  House Democratic leaders announced a deal on a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.
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| Mexico: 50 bodies among remains at farm outside Guadalajara Posted: 15 Dec 2019 02:31 PM PST ![Mexico: 50 bodies among remains at farm outside Guadalajara]( "Mexico: 50 bodies among remains at farm outside Guadalajara") Human remains discovered last month at a farm outside the city of Guadalajara have been confirmed as belonging to at least 50 people, authorities in Mexico's west-central state of Jalisco reported. Jalisco state prosecutors said recovery work at the farm in Tlajomulco de Zuniga, which began Nov. 22 after the initial discovery, concluded Friday as experts determined there was no more evidence to be gathered from the scene. The state is home to Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico's bloodiest and most ruthless drug cartels.
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| Malema re-elected as head of SAfrican radical left Posted: 15 Dec 2019 01:55 AM PST  The controversial head of South Africa's far left Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius Malema, was re-elected unopposed as at a party congress in Johannesburg. "For the position of president, it is Mister Julius Malema, may he please come forward," vote organiser Terry Tselane of the Institute of Election Management Services in Africa announced to some 3,000 delegates late on Saturday.
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| Anger erupts at U.N. climate summit as major economies resist bold action Posted: 14 Dec 2019 02:28 AM PST  Major economies resisted calls for bolder climate commitments as a U.N. summit in Madrid limped toward a delayed conclusion on Saturday, dimming hopes that nations will act in time to stop rising temperatures devastating people and the natural world. With the two-week gathering spilling into the weekend, campaigners and many delegates slammed Chile, presiding over the talks, for drafting a summit text that they said risked throwing the 2015 Paris Agreement to tackle global warming into reverse. "At a time when scientists are queuing up to warn about terrifying consequences if emissions keep rising, and school children are taking to the streets in their millions, what we have here in Madrid is a betrayal of people across the world," said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a climate and energy think-tank in Nairobi.
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| Jeremy Corbyn's humiliating defeat a 'canary in the coal mine' for Democrats warns Mike Bloomberg Posted: 14 Dec 2019 09:19 AM PST  Presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg has described Jeremy Corbyn's crushing defeat as a "canary in the coal mine" for the Democrats as the party gears up for 2020 election. With the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary only a couple of months away, Democrat centrists have seized upon the UK election results as evidence of the danger the party faces if it drifts too far to the left. In recent weeks divisions between the centrist and radical wings have been laid bare, particularly over health care. Leading left-winger Elizabeth Warren, who had been polling strongly, has come under attack for her blueprint which would eventually see America's private health insurance system replaced by a state-run Medicare system. Moderates have warned that her radical policies would make her unelectable. Speaking in Alexandria, Virginia, Mr Bloomberg, a former New York mayor and late entrant to the Democrat race, said the party should learn the lessons of Mr Corbyn's disastrous campaign. Democrat candidates "I think it's sort of a catastrophic warning to the Democratic Party to have somebody that can beat Donald Trump and that is not going to be easy. Americans want to change, but I think they don't want revolutionary change — they want evolutionary change." Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who is now leading in Iowa and New Hampshire, has emerged as the main hope of the centrists as Joe Biden's campaign shows signs of faltering. He also suggested there were lessons to be learned from the UK. "It means that you've got to be ready to build a coalition and gather that majority," Mr Buttigieg said. Another moderate Democratic candidate, John Delaney, urged the party to take on board what had happened in the UK election. "Despite the turmoil caused by Brexit, Boris Johnson just won a massive victory with the British electorate, which should be a wake-up call to Democrats," he said. "Johnson proved that mainstream voters will not embrace an extreme economic plan that will cause upheaval, just because they are not fans of the conservative leader." Meanwhile, Mr Biden, whose main pitch to has been his ability to beat Donald Trump, will rely on a bastion of states in the US South to see him to the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination - and potentially the White House. Although the former vice president is faltering in New Hampshire and Iowa, the latest polls show him building seemingly impregnable leads in the South. Mr Biden leads easily in South Carolina, which will the fourth state to vote. He is also comfortably ahead in Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee - in some cases by over 20 points. Mr Biden's base in the southern states relies on his support from black voters. In South Carolina two-thirds of the Democrat primary electorate is black. A Quinnipiac poll this week showed Mr Biden with 51 per cent support from black voters in the state, with his nearest rival Mr Sanders on 13 per cent.
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| China is cautiously welcoming the new 'Phase One' deal struck with the US, but the trade war is far from over Posted: 14 Dec 2019 12:27 AM PST  The "Phase One" deal will mean reduced tariffs on both sides, and China will buy up more American farm products.
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| Justin Trudeau moves forward with ban on LGBT+ conversion therapy across Canada Posted: 14 Dec 2019 10:18 AM PST  LGBT+ conversion therapy could soon be banned across Canada after Justin Trudeau made this one of the priorities for his new government.In a letter to the country's justice secretary on Friday, the prime minister stated that banning the controversial practice of attempting to forcibly change people's gender or sexuality must be a "top priority".
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| NATO Nightmare: A Russian Invasion of Iceland? Posted: 15 Dec 2019 06:22 AM PST  You've got to be kidding (but we're not).
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| Zambia Says Ambassador Should Leave After Defending Gay Couple Posted: 15 Dec 2019 10:16 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Zambia's President Edgar Lungu said he wanted the U.S. Ambassador to leave the country after the diplomat criticized the African nation for sentencing a gay couple to 15 years of imprisonment for having a consensual relationship."We have complained officially to the American government, and we are waiting for their response because we don't want such people in our midst," Lungu said Sunday in comments broadcast on state-owned ZNBC TV. "We want him gone."U.S. Ambassador Daniel Foote said last month that he was "personally horrified" after the high court sentenced the two men and called on the government to reconsider laws that punish minority groups.Read More: From Nov. 30, U.S. Rebukes Zambia for Jailing Two Men for HomosexualityTo contact the reporter on this story: Taonga Clifford Mitimingi in Lusaka at tmitimingi@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sebastian Tong at stong41@bloomberg.net, Nathan CrooksFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Tapper Grills Rand Paul on Ukraine: You Really Think Trump’s ‘Concerned About Rooting Out Corruption?’ Posted: 15 Dec 2019 10:17 AM PST  CNN anchor Jake Tapper's Sunday interview with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) quickly grew contentious and heated as the State of the Union host repeatedly confronted the conservative senator on his belief that President Donald Trump is actually concerned about corruption.The Kentucky lawmaker, who is one of the president's most vocal defenders in the Senate, told Tapper on Sunday morning that he'd already made up his mind to acquit Trump on impeachment despite the fact that the Senate trial hasn't even begun yet, calling it a "partisan exercise."The CNN host, meanwhile, noted that it didn't sound like the Senate impeachment oath that Paul will take "will mean very much" since the senator has already come to a conclusion. This prompted Paul to insist that this impeachment was only about a disagreement in foreign policy and that the president was seriously worried about corruption in Ukraine."So you're saying that you think that President Trump was actually doing this because he was combating corruption?" Tapper wondered aloud, causing the GOP senator to bring up allegations about Ukrainian gas company Burisma and Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter, who sat on the company's board.Tapper immediately pushed back, pointing out that a number of Trump's associates have recently been convicted of federal crimes and Trump himself has had to settle multiple fraud lawsuits. "You really think President Trump is concerned about rooting out corruption?" Tapper added."I think most of what you've listed and most of the people indicted or convicted were alleged to have been part of some sort of huge Russian conspiracy," Paul countered. "But I think what we found out from the inspector general report is that it was all based on a false premise."The CNN host fired back that it was Trump's own Justice Department who put all of these people in prison. After Paul brought up former Trump campaign aide Carter Page and the IG finding his FISA applications had serious errors, Tapper quickly responded: "That doesn't absolve Paul Manafort of money laundering."The two would continue to go back and forth over Ukrainian military aid and Paul's claim that Trump held it back due to legitimate concerns over corruption, finally resulting in Tapper taking the Kentucky senator to task over his grasp of the facts about Trump's infamous July 25 call with the Ukrainian president."You guys are not being honest with the facts here," Paul grumbled. "He does not call up and say 'investigate my rival.' He said investigate a person.""And Joe Biden is his rival," Tapper retorted, adding: "He said investigate Joe Biden. The word 'corruption' does not appear in the transcript. He said investigate Joe and Hunter Biden."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| NYC paying $625K to mom whose baby was ripped away by police Posted: 14 Dec 2019 09:58 AM PST ![NYC paying $625K to mom whose baby was ripped away by police]( "NYC paying $625K to mom whose baby was ripped away by police") New York City will pay $625,000 to resolve a lawsuit filed by a mother whose toddler was yanked from her arms by police in a widely seen online video, the city's Law Department said. Jazmine Headley sued the city in August alleging trauma and humiliation and seeking unspecified damages over the December 2018 incident at a Brooklyn benefits office. On Friday, the Law Department said the city will pay to resolve the lawsuit.
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| Delivering the goods: Drones and robots are making their way to your door Posted: 15 Dec 2019 02:47 AM PST  With companies offering free shipping to gain a competitive edge, radical new technologies are being tested to cut the cost of the supply chain's expensive "last mile"
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| Bolivia's interim leader says arrest warrant to be issued against Morales Posted: 14 Dec 2019 07:07 PM PST  Bolivia will issue an arrest warrant in the coming days against former leftist President Evo Morales, accusing him of sedition, interim Bolivian President Jeanine Anez said on Saturday. Morales is in Argentina, granted refugee status this week just days after the inauguration of new President Alberto Fernandez. Peronist Fernandez succeeded outgoing conservative Argentine leader Mauricio Macri, who lost his bid for re-election in October.
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| Israel eyes Dubai expo as 'portal' to Arab world Posted: 14 Dec 2019 07:43 PM PST  With the world's largest trade fair opening in an Arab country for the first time next year, Israel is stepping up preparations, hoping to boost nascent ties with regional neighbours. The Dubai Expo 2020 trade fair will gather nearly 200 countries vying for the attention of a projected 25 million visitors over nearly six months from October. Like most Arab countries, the United Arab Emirates has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
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| A 29-year-old mayor is giving his city's poorest residents $500 per month. He thinks his policy could work on a national scale. Posted: 15 Dec 2019 05:19 AM PST  Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs doesn't support a basic income program that has strings attached. That's why he is critical of Andrew Yang's plan.
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| Jeremy Corbyn should never have apologised over anti-Semitism claims, says French far-Left ally Posted: 15 Dec 2019 03:27 PM PST  French far-Left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon has sparked uproar by claiming Jeremy Corbyn should never have apologised over "churlish" anti-Semitism accusations, which he claimed were trumped up by the chief rabbi and Israeli Right. Mr Mélenchon, who came fourth in France's 2017 presidential election, claimed that the UK Labour leader lost a part of the electorate during his election campaign by showing "weakness" over such allegations. In a blog, he said: "(Corbyn) had to endure, unaided, churlish anti-Semitism claims from England's chief rabbi and various influence networks linked to Likoud (the hard Right party of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu". "Instead of riposting, he spent his time apologising and making pledges. In both cases, he showed weakness, which worried popular sectors (of the electorate)," he said. The Labour defeat "must serve as a lesson", said Mr Mélenchon, an MP who leads the France Unbowed party. "Corbyn spent his time being insulted and stabbed in the back by a handful of Blairite MPs. Instead of riposting, he took it on the chin." Jeremy Corbyn was personally accused of 11 counts of anti-Semitism in a leaked Jewish Labour Movement dossier this month Credit: TOBY MELVILLE/Reuters Earlier this month, Mr Corbyn was personally accused of 11 acts of anti-Semitism in an extensive leaked dossier detailing an alleged "cover-up" within the Labour Party over its treatment of Jews. The submission compiled by the Jewish Labour Movement alleges Mr Corbyn "has repeatedly associated with, sympathised with and engaged in anti-Semitism". But Mr Mélenchon dismissed such allegations and said that in France he would never let himself "be influenced by lobbies of any sort - be they financial or from a sectarian community." He then went on to slam what he called the "arrogant and sectarian dictates" of the Crif, France's Jewish umbrella group. The Crif slammed the claims, saying they were reminiscent of "Vichy rhetoric about the Jewish conspiracy". They were, it said, "a shocking and surprising hotchpotch: what link is there between the Crif and the British elections?," asked Crif president Francis Kalifat. The "media-hungry" Marxist's "conspiracy theory drift speaks volumes about his thought processes". The French government condemned Mr Mélenchon's comments, with education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer branding them "foul" and liable to "fuel anti-Semitism". French interior minister Christophe Castaner denounced Mr Mélénchon's comments as "foul" Credit: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP Christophe Castaner, the interior minister, called them "shocking and inappropriate". After winning almost 20 per cent of the vote in the first round of France's 2017 presidential elections, Mr Mélenchon's popularity has nosedived following a string of controversial outbursts. Last week, he was handed a three-month suspended prison term and an €8,000 (£6,700) fine for intimidating officials investigating his funding. In October 2018 prosecutors launched searches of his party offices and home. Mr Mélenchon was filmed shouting "I am the Republic!" at a police officer and shoving him. With colleagues he then tried to break into the party HQ.
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| Is marijuana linked to psychosis, schizophrenia? It's contentious, but doctors, feds say yes Posted: 15 Dec 2019 11:35 AM PST  Government health officials say excessive use of potent THC can lead to psychosis. Marijuana advocates say they can't be trusted.
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| Why is the president of the United States cyberbullying a 16-year-old girl? Posted: 14 Dec 2019 03:15 AM PST  What it says to girls is: no matter what you do, no matter how much you achieve, powerful men will try to cut you downThe morning after election day 2016, I got a call from a girls' school in New York where I was scheduled to speak. "We have to reschedule," said a representative from the school. "The girls are too upset."Girls across the country were upset when Trump was elected, but not simply on partisan grounds. They were upset because Donald Trump was a bully, a cyberbully, and he bullied girls and young women like them – women like the former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, who revealed that, when she was 19, he called her "Miss Piggy," a dig at her weight.In a New York Times poll in the run-up to the election, nearly half of girls aged 14 to 17 said that Trump's comments about women affected the way they think about their bodies. Only 15% of girls said they would vote for him if they could.And now Trump has a new target for his bullying: Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old environmental activist. Thunberg seems to be really making Trump upset, without meaning to. She doesn't fit into any of his ideas of how girls are supposed to act. She isn't trying to be a contestant in one of his beauty pageants. She's too busy trying to get world leaders like him to do something about the climate crisis. She's too occupied by giving speeches at places like the UN – where Trump was laughed at, when he gave a speech in 2018, and Thunberg was met with respect, despite slamming the entire body for "misleading" the public with inadequate emission-reduction pledges.In the last couple of weeks, while Trump was seemingly mocked by his peers at the Nato summit in London, and impeachment hearings against him began, Thunberg was named Time's person of the year, an honor Trump reportedly wanted. And so he did what he always seems to do, on Twitter, when he's upset: he lashed out by accusing the person upsetting him of the very things he's feeling, or is guilty of."Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend!" Trump tweeted on Thursday. "Chill Greta, Chill!"Poor Trump. This tweet didn't sound very chill. And Thunberg knew it. Like the majority of girls growing up in the digital age, she has been cyberbullied before – by Trump himself, who, after her celebrated speech before the UN General Assembly, sarcastically tweeted, "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!"Both times Trump has tweeted about her, Thunberg's responses have been jocular, and sarcastic in kind. This week, she changed her Twitter bio to: "A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend."In her handling of being cyberbullied by the president of the United States, at age 16, Thunberg has become an inspiration for girls two times over – first as a climate activist, then as a social media ninja.But that doesn't mean that Trump's cyberbullying of Thunberg is any less despicable, or dangerous. What it says to girls all over the world is: no matter what you do, no matter how much you achieve, powerful men can and will try to cut you down.This message is depressing, scary and not without potentially dire consequences. It's a message that has contributed to a precipitous rise in the suicide rate among girls. It's a message that has contributed to rising anxiety and depression among girls and young women. It's a message that Trump's wife, Melania, is supposed to be combatting, with her campaign against cyberbullying.But girls don't need Melania Trump to be their role model in fighting against online harassment. They have each other, and they have Thunberg. * Nancy Jo Sales is a writer at Vanity Fair and the author of American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers
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| Kentucky's new Democratic governor hits the ground running Posted: 14 Dec 2019 05:05 AM PST  Just days into his term as Kentucky's governor, Democrat Andy Beshear already has checked off some big priorities from his to-do list: a new state school board installed; the education commissioner gone; more than 140,000 nonviolent felons' voting rights restored. "This week's actions are pieces of cake compared to what he faces in terms of building a budget and getting a program through the legislature," longtime Kentucky political commentator Al Cross said. Beshear's aggressive start as governor was possible because he did most of it with executive orders, fulfilling promises he had made during the campaign.
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| Cholera kills over 27,000 pigs in Indonesia Posted: 14 Dec 2019 01:56 AM PST  More than 27,000 pigs have died in a hog-cholera epidemic that has struck Indonesia, with thousands more at risk, an animal welfare official said. Thousands of pigs have died in more than a dozen regencies across North Sumatra over the past three months, and the pace of deaths is increasing, authorities said.
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| Fox News poll on impeachment contradicts President Trump Posted: 15 Dec 2019 10:20 AM PST  A new Fox News poll on voter support for impeachment contradicted President Trump, who recently boasted major support in favor of "No Impeachment."
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| FACT: Immigration Made America Great Posted: 14 Dec 2019 11:57 PM PST  An American experience.
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