| Trump falsely claimed an incident where an election worker improperly discarded 9 votes shows widespread 'voter fraud.' Here's what happened. Posted: 26 Sep 2020 12:13 AM PDT  Luzerne County officials said a "temporary seasonal independent contractor" had "incorrectly discarded (the ballots) into the office trash."
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| A white supremacist gang member was killed during a shootout with police in California Posted: 26 Sep 2020 05:57 AM PDT  Christopher Michael Straub hid and then ambushed deputies after fleeing from a traffic stop, according to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.
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| First Black woman named interim police chief in Rochester following death of Daniel Prude Posted: 26 Sep 2020 12:54 PM PDT  Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan, a former police lieutenant, is currently deputy executive director at the Rochester Housing Authority.
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| Thousands of mosques in Xinjiang demolished in recent years: report Posted: 25 Sep 2020 01:03 AM PDT  Chinese authorities have demolished thousands of mosques in Xinjiang, an Australian think tank said Friday, in the latest report of widespread human rights abuses in the restive region.
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| Texas man charged with capital murder in deaths of Houston friends missing since 2016 Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:50 AM PDT  Harvey Lester Cyphers, 53, of Austin, Texas, was arrested and charged with capital murder in the 2016 deaths of friends Sidney Taylor and Krislyn Gibson, both 35, who were visiting Houston for the 2016 Urban Music Festival. They were last seen alive on April 2, 2016. Cyphers was taken to the Travis County Jail where his bond was set at $1.5 million. The U.S. Marshals Lone Star Fugitive Task Force and the Austin Police Department are investigating.
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| 'We are not done': Tropics likely to blossom again in early October Posted: 26 Sep 2020 08:47 AM PDT  AccuWeather meteorologists warn that another round of tropical activity is likely to return in October, despite the current and brief break in tropical systems across the Atlantic Ocean Basin."After what has been a very busy stretch of tropical activity in the Atlantic, things have seemed to quiet down for the time being," said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Rob Miller.There were no tropical cyclones spinning across the Atlantic on Thursday for the first time since Sept. 6, or the first time in 18 days. Additionally, the National Hurricane Center did not identify any areas that they were monitoring on Thursday for the first time since late August.Miller explained further that a shift in the jet stream, which is normal at end of summer and start of autumn, is partially to thank for the current lull in activity across the basin."When the jet stream starts to shift, it changes the weather pattern across the globe. In this case, high pressure over the central Atlantic has become stronger, helping to limit if not outright suppress thunderstorm activity across the tropical Atlantic for now," Miller added. This high pressure is helping to hold an elongated area of stronger wind shear in place across the middle of the Atlantic Ocean through next week. Wind shear, which is the change in direction and wind speed at increasing heights in the atmosphere. As a result, this is a major factor in suppressing tropical activity through the end of September.Tropical waves and disturbances, although typically less robust this time of year, will continue to push off the coast of Africa. But, the wind shear in place will squash most chances for those waves to become more organized.There will still be some small pockets of low wind shear and moisture scattered about the Atlantic basin, which could be just enough to allow pop-up tropical systems to take shape. However, no area in particular looks concerning at this time.CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APPThe current pause in tropical activity across the entire Atlantic Basin won't last long, forecasters warn."We are not done with tropical season, and there are some indications that the Atlantic Basin could come back to life in the western Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico the first week or two of October," said Miller.Warm waters east of the Yucatan Peninsula to Jamaica combined with ample moisture could make this a breeding ground for tropical activity in October. The absence of that strong wind shear across the Caribbean Sea is also part of the reason that tropical development will be possible.The Caribbean, from the Leeward and Windward Islands to Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, climatologically speaking, is a favorable zone for tropical development in early autumn.Should a gyre form in this zone, it will increase the chances for development in early October.A gyre is a slow-spinning wind pattern that rotates counterclockwise. The spin from the gyre tends to create an area of low pressure. Sometimes the low pressure area can become more organized and grow into a tropical system, especially if a tropical disturbance from Africa is injected into it, or a non-tropical weather system happens to stall nearby.Whether an organized tropical system develops in this zone or not, the tropical waves are likely to deliver rounds of heavy rainfall.Moisture will come from two sources, one being a stalled front from the Yucatan Peninsula to southern Florida, and the other from incoming tropical waves from the eastern Caribbean. These two factors combing over the western Caribbean Sea is expected to result in rounds of tropical downpours for Jamaica and Cuba all the way to eastern Mexico, Belize and northern Honduras.With more than one wave of heavy rain expected during the first week of October, enough rain could fall in some areas to prompt flash flooding and even mudslides in the higher elevations into the second week of October.Interests, especially from Central America, northward to the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. and Atlantic Canada, should not let their guard down. Forecasters urge those who live in hurricane-prone locations to have a plan in place and remain prepared should a system develop, especially during these uncertain times amid the pandemic, which has added challenges to storm preparations.The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season has already been one for the record books, including the number of storms that have formed so early in the season and the number of landfalls that have occurred in the United States. Forecasters say even more records may soon be broken, despite a brief lull in tropical systems churning across the basin.Storms have been forming at a record pace this year, with Tropical Storm Cristobal as well as every named storm from Edouard through Beta beating previous early formation records in the Atlantic. Most of the records that have been knocked off the list had been set during the historic 2005 hurricane season, which generated a record-setting 28 named storms in one year. The 2005 season was the only other year in which Greek letters had to be used, with storms Alpha to Zeta being named. This season is on pace to tie or perhaps break the record number of storms to achieve tropical storm status or greater. Thus far, there have been 23 such storms this year. AccuWeather meteorologists predicted that 2020 will tie the previous seasonal record set with a total of 28 named storms now projected. More storms are likely to be given Greek letters for names in the coming weeks and perhaps even into December, beyond the official end of the Atlantic hurricane season on Nov. 30.There is another troublesome record that the 2020 season has broken. The U.S. has already experienced nine landfalls from tropical systems so far this year, which ties 1916 for the most in one season.Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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| A voting advocacy group recorded over 40,000 new voter registrations in the 2 days after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Posted: 24 Sep 2020 08:27 PM PDT  Vote.org saw a 68% increase in voter registration the Saturday and Sunday following Ginsburg's death compared to the prior Saturday and Sunday.
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| 'Greatest threat we’ve faced so far’: Oregon declares state of emergency ahead of Proud Boys rally Posted: 26 Sep 2020 07:20 AM PDT  Officials warn 'imminent risk of civil disturbance' as thousands expected at far-right events
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| Kenosha shooting suspect Kyle Rittenhouse fights extradition charges Posted: 25 Sep 2020 12:05 PM PDT  A 17-year-old from Illinois accused of killing two Kenosha, Wis., protesters days after Jacob Blake was shot by Kenosha police fought his return to Wisconsin on Friday to face homicide charges that could put him in prison for life.
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| Fact check: Joe Biden did not botch the Pledge of Allegiance in speech Posted: 26 Sep 2020 08:00 AM PDT  An eight-second clip from a speech purports to illustrate another Joe Biden gaffe. But what is missing is the rest of the speech.
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| Kyle Rittenhouse's mom reportedly received a 'standing ovation' from the crowd at a Republican event in Wisconsin Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:09 AM PDT  Kyle Rittenhouse faces multiple felony charges, including homicide, after shooting three people at a Jacob Blake demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
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| Drivers Keep Running Over Protesters—and Getting Away With It Posted: 25 Sep 2020 01:14 AM PDT  When a blue Jeep sped down an Aurora, Colorado, roadway in July, narrowly missing protesters, some witnesses swore the driver had put their lives at risk."I saw him look straight at the crowd and hit the gas," Rebecca Wolff, a protester who spoke to police about the incident, told the Denver Post. Another protester broke a leg jumping off the raised highway to avoid the driver.But in an hour-long press conference on Wednesday, District Attorney George Brauchler announced that he would not press charges against the driver unless presented with more evidence against him. Also Wednesday, in neighboring Denver, a different man drove a car into a crowd that was protesting Kentucky prosecutors declining to charge any officers for fatally shooting Black 26-year-old EMT Breonna Taylor in March.As of Thursday evening, no charges had been filed in the Denver incident, either.Since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May, Americans have spent months in the streets protesting racism and police brutality. Those same streets have also become the site of a disturbing pattern of vehicle attacks, with drivers speeding toward and sometimes striking protesters. Complicating matters are calls by lawmakers to impose harsh penalties on those who block traffic—and even to grant immunity to drivers who hit protesters under certain circumstances.As The Daily Beast recently reported, such calls have been percolating in legislative chambers for years, their language sometimes curiously similar, like a right-wing fever dream playing on repeat. But drivers don't always need those immunity laws. A pattern of dropped or languishing cases across the country has already seen drivers duck charges for speeding at—and sometimes ramming into—protesters.Meanwhile, the attacks keep coming.Ari Weil, a PhD student studying terrorism at the University of Chicago, has been monitoring car attacks since racial justice protests swept the country in late May. Between those first days of protests and Sept. 5, he'd recorded 104 incidents of people driving into protesters: 96 of them civilians and eight of them law enforcement. Of those civilian drivers, 39 had been charged, Weil found.In other words, well under half of people who drove vehicles at protesters this year had been charged, he estimated.Not all of those cases are necessarily malicious, Weil stressed. Five of the 96 civilian cases appear to have stemmed from someone taking a wrong turn, or encountering a protest by accident. In 48 of those cases, Weil found, the driver's intent was not immediately apparent.But he estimated 43 of them to be overtly malicious acts based on the driver either having known extremist associations, yelling slurs at protesters, or deliberately swerving or turning to run people down.Other monitors of car attacks have offered slightly different figures. A protest-tracker by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a conflict-mapping non-profit, has logged 69 malicious ramming attacks from May 28 to Sept. 15. More recent incidents not captured in the Weil or ACLED dataset included collisions following Wednesday's announcement of no charges over Breonna Taylor's death. In addition to the Denver incident, a driver in Buffalo, New York, was filmed hitting protesters. Both cases were under investigation as of Thursday.The discrepancies in such tallies reflect the difficulty of determining whether a vehicle attack was attempted murder, an honest mistake, or something in-between. When Brauchler declined to press charges against the Aurora Jeep driver on Wednesday, he said the driver was trying to get away from protesters. He noted, correctly, that a protester has been charged with attempted murder for firing a gun at the Jeep, although, again, the details vary according to individual accounts. The protester fired the gun after the Jeep driver started moving through the crowd, accelerating toward a "wall of moms," two of those women told CBS4, accusing the driver of nearly killing them.It's the kind of murky situation that has plagued the George Floyd protests—by many accounts the largest American mass-mobilization in history.Car attacks "in prior years have been a lot more cut-and-dry," Weil said, noting the past use of car attacks by jihadists and the far right—most notoriously the murder of Heather Heyer at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. During the more recent protests, however, "there are many more opportunities for motorist-protester interactions, some of which are motivated by racism and some of which are not," he added.The threat of vehicular homicide often has protesters looking over their shoulders, according to Maggie Ellinger-Locke, a lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild, which monitors protests."This is a really dangerous trend that appears to be on the rise, where we're seeing far-right actors using vehicles as weapons, driving into protesters," she said, noting that, although anecdotal, car attacks do appear to be on the rise. "Protesters are aware of this. Legal support organizations like the National Lawyers Guild are aware of this, and they're very alarmed by it."Some car attacks have resulted in arrests. A driver who plowed through a Bloomington, Indiana, protest, striking at least two people, was arrested two days after the incident and charged with criminal recklessness and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in serious bodily injury. A self-proclaimed Ku Klux Klan member was convicted last month for an attack on Black Lives Matter protesters outside Richmond, Virginia. A Seattle man accused of driving onto a closed section of highway and striking two protesters (one fatally) has been arrested and pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide and reckless driving. A Long Island man accused of hospitalizing two protesters with his car was arrested in July, as was an alleged Iowa City car attacker who, during his arrest, told police that protesters needed an "attitude adjustment."But several high-profile cases have passed without charges. In Tampa, Florida, on June 21, the driver of a pickup truck was filmed cursing at protesters before driving over a median and onto the wrong side of the road to hit Jae Passmore, a prominent local activist. The driver has not been charged, although according to Passmore's attorney Ben Crump, police know the driver's identity.When Passmore held an event six days later, a second car ran into the group and drove away with an injured protester on the car's hood, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Police stopped the driver, but did not arrest them. Instead, the protester was with four counts, including felony criminal mischief.A spokesperson for the State's Attorney Office in the 13th Judicial Circuit on Thursday said the pickup incident was still under investigation. They added that the charges against the protester in the second incident were being dropped—but also that driver who struck them was off the hook."There is no evidence that either person intended to cause harm, and therefore charges are not appropriate," the spokesperson for prosecutors said in a statement. "Both people made decisions that escalated the situation, and basic courtesy by either person could have minimized or avoided this conflict."A slew of these incidents remain in a bizarre state of investigative limbo. When a car full of pro-police demonstrators drove through a crowd of Black Lives Matter activists in Manhattan's Times Square earlier this month, the news site Gothamist was quick to name the car's likely driver, who has posted the vehicle on pro-police pages. (A passenger also spoke to the media under her own name.) Several witnesses have gone to police about the incident. Nearly a month later, the incident remains under investigation, a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney told The Daily Beast."Oftentimes there's been a big delay by prosecutors deciding whether to charge people," Weil said.Prosecuting car attacks might become even more difficult under proposed legislation that would criminalize protesters blocking traffic or offer immunity to people who hit those protesters with cars. The most recent of those proposals, announced Monday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, would remove liability for people who strike or kill protesters with cars if the driver is "fleeing for safety from a mob." It's a claim made by many such drivers, including the neo-Nazi who killed Heyer in Charlottesville.Those proposals haven't passed yet, and have been rejected in states like Kentucky and North Carolina. But Ellinger-Locke said even the suggestion of such laws—and the legitimacy they offer attackers—can heighten the risk of further harm."I think they suggest to people engaging in that kind of dangerous, harmful, potentially murderous conduct, that it's something law enforcement supports," she said. "I think people are seeing the introduction of these bills and feeling emboldened to take action because of them. Not only does that chill the speech of demonstrators seeking to advance their message, but I think sends a clear message that that sort of conduct is okay."Would-be attackers are sometimes aware of such proposals, Weil said, pointing to a Discord messaging group that planned 2017's deadly Charlottesville rally. Some users, including the killer, James Fields Jr., spoke gleefully of the possibility of hitting anti-racist protesters, with another user writing, "I know NC law is on the books that driving over protesters blocking roadways isn't an offense." (The law was not, in fact, on the books, although that didn't prevent Fields' deadly attack.)Weil warned that language about hitting protesters is an active part of the far-right's meme vocabulary.It's also spread to conservative talk radio hosts.When a Denver woman was filmed in May driving through a crowd of protesters and making a U-turn, allegedly with the intent to hit another, the host of a morning show on Denver's 710 KNUS radio station reportedly said on air that the driver "ran your monkey rear-end down… You've got that coming."The apparent target of his comments, the man whom the driver allegedly made a U-turn to hit, was Black. On July 20, the driver was charged—nearly two months after the incident.Brauchler, the district attorney who on Wednesday declined to charge the driver of the Jeep in Aurora, hosts a different show on the same station.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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| Cadets among 26 people killed in Ukraine military plane crash Posted: 25 Sep 2020 07:16 PM PDT  A total of 26 people, most of them air cadets, have been killed in a military plane crash in Ukraine. Footage of the crash released by officials on social media showed the smouldering remains of the Antonov-26 transport plane. Most of the dead were students of the Kharkiv National Air Force University, the air force said in a statement. There were 27 people on board, 20 cadets and seven crew. On Saturday, the death toll rose after three more bodies were found under the charred remains of the plane and one of the two survivors died in hospital from extensive burns. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the crash as a "terrible tragedy". "We are urgently creating a commission to investigate all the circumstances and causes of the tragedy," he wrote on Facebook. Mr Zelensky visited the only remaining survivor in a military hospital in Kharkiv, posting a picture of the 20-year-old cadet lying in bed with a bandaged head and right arm. He said the cadet, Vyacheslav Zolochevsky, "came to his senses near the wreckage of the An-26." "The plane was destroyed, there was fire, darkness and bodies all around. One of the guys was burning," he said on Facebook, adding that Zolochevsky rushed to try and save him. The second cadet died in hospital. Doctors said that Mr Zolochevsky suffered a concussion but his life was not in danger.
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| Federal judge blocks Texas’ elimination of straight-ticket voting Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:59 AM PDT  Democrats sued the state in March to overturn the Texas Legislature's removal of straight-ticket voting.
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| Yitzhak Rabin memorial: AOC pulls out of event honouring former Israeli leader Posted: 26 Sep 2020 06:16 AM PDT  Memorial due to take place next month
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| The Trump Administration’s Obamacare Punt Posted: 25 Sep 2020 03:26 PM PDT  A group of states has brought a longshot lawsuit to invalidate Obamacare, and the Trump administration has largely supported their position. Democrats have seized the opportunity to charge that Republicans would eliminate legal protections for people with pre-existing conditions. President Trump's counter has been to promise that he will make sure that they have protection even after Obamacare. A new executive order puts that promise into writing without explaining how he would keep it. What Republicans are telling voters concerned about this issue is: Trust us. The flaw in the political strategy is that they generally don't.A significant number of people with chronic conditions had difficulty getting affordable insurance before Obamacare. The law dealt with the problem by prohibiting insurers from discriminating on the basis of health status. If you have a chronic condition, they have to sell you the same policy at the same rate they would offer someone in perfect health. That regulation raises the cost of health insurance for healthy people and thus discourages them from buying it. (It also creates an incentive for insurers to design policies that are more attractive to healthy than to sick people.)When they tried to legislate a replacement to Obamacare in 2017, Republicans sought to let states relax that regulation. Under their proposal, states could have required insurers to offer the same policies at the same rates to all customers, regardless of health status, so long as they had previously maintained coverage. That way, people would have had an incentive to purchase insurance while healthy, bringing premiums down. States would have been allowed to make this change only if they had shown that they had credible plans to take care of those who fell through the cracks.This would not have been a return to the pre-Obamacare situation. People would have had much greater ability to maintain continuous coverage than they did back then, thanks both to new forms of federal assistance (tax credits created under Obamacare and largely maintained under Republican replacements) and to the requirement that insurers offer affordable coverage to those who already had it. High-risk pools to assist the uninsured, which had been inadequate to handle the problem before Obamacare, would have much more easily helped a smaller population in need. But Republicans in Congress, largely unfamiliar with the ins and outs of health policy, did not make the case for their approach.Republicans now have three basic choices in answering the question of how they would help people with pre-existing conditions if they replaced Obamacare or courts invalidated it. The first would be to promise that they would reenact Obamacare's stringent regulation and provide subsidies for those who need it to afford the high premiums it necessitates -- essentially re-creating a lot of Obamacare. The second would be to promise to enact continuous-coverage protections of the type they proposed in 2017. And the third would be to do nothing, telling people with pre-existing conditions that they are on their own (even though the paucity of cheap, renewable catastrophic policies is largely the result of government policies).Our preference would be the second option. The Trump administration, unable to decide among these options, is instead, effectively, promising to choose among them at some future date when the courts have struck down Obamacare or Republicans have unified control in Washington. That refusal to choose lets the Democrats hang the third position around Republican necks while also doing nothing to dislodge Obamacare. It also lets Democrats say that Republicans are dodging the question instead of leveling with the voters. Which is, unfortunately, true.
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| Three men are accused of creating 'man cave' under Grand Central station Posted: 25 Sep 2020 11:02 AM PDT  Three railroad workers have been suspended for turning a storage room under New York's Grand Central Terminal into an unauthorized "man cave" with a television, a refrigerator, a microwave and a futon couch, officials said Thursday.
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| Fact check: Viral meme listing Breonna Taylor 'truths' includes misinformation Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:21 AM PDT  Lists claiming to spell out what is true about the Breonna Taylor case are not entirely right. We rate a viral meme with 7 claims to be partly false.
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| Jewish teens say life on TikTok comes with anti-Semitism Posted: 25 Sep 2020 09:08 AM PDT  Regardless of content, Jewish teens say they are bombarded. "It definitely affects me. It gets to me."
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| North Macedonia: Roma protest against police brutality Posted: 26 Sep 2020 12:32 PM PDT |
| Taiwan's armed forces strain in undeclared war of attrition with China Posted: 25 Sep 2020 10:59 PM PDT  Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen visited a low-key but critical maintenance base for fighter jet engines on Saturday, offering encouragement as the Chinese-claimed island's armed forces strain in the face of repeated Chinese air force incursions. This month alone, China's drills have included its jets crossing the mid-line of the sensitive Taiwan Strait and exercising near the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea. Beijing regards Taiwan as a wayward province and has never renounced the use of force to bring the democratic island under its control.
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| Wisconsin Republicans tried to stifle a plan for poll workers to collect absentee ballots in parks across Madison Posted: 26 Sep 2020 07:54 AM PDT  Poll workers in Madison, Wisconsin, are expected to allow people to fill out and turn in an absentee ballot at more than 200 parks in the city.
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| US-China feud escalates as American diplomat accuses Communist Party of turning ‘local epidemic into global pandemic’ Posted: 25 Sep 2020 07:34 AM PDT  Trump has repeatedly blamed America's geo-strategic rival over spread of coronavirus
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| Notre Dame profs push back on Amy Coney Barrett portrayals: Not just 'an ideological category' Posted: 26 Sep 2020 07:53 AM PDT  Law professor Paolo Carozza objected to "reducing Amy to an ideological category," when she she is an "intelligent, thoughtful, open-minded person."
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| ‘Let this sink into your hollow skull’: Rihanna condemns Daniel Cameron over Breonna Taylor decision Posted: 26 Sep 2020 01:38 PM PDT  Attorney general had called on public not to listen to celebrities' comments on Taylor case
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| A pregnant woman jumped into the ocean to save her husband from a shark attack 'without hesitation' after she saw blood in the water Posted: 26 Sep 2020 02:56 AM PDT  Margot Dukes-Eddy sprang into action after seeing the shark's dorsal fin and blood spilling into the water next to where her husband had gotten in.
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| Utah family sues police, claiming 'gratuitous violence' Posted: 25 Sep 2020 05:57 PM PDT  The family of a Utah man who was shot at nearly 30 times and killed as he ran from police filed a lawsuit Friday against Salt Lake City and its police department. The family of Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal family allege the officers engaged in "gratuitous violence" by shooting at him between 27 and 29 times after he was already on the ground and incapacitated. "Despite the family's attempts to negotiate, it is apparent that the SLCPD and the Salt Lake City Mayor's Office (are) not interested in real reform," the family's attorneys wrote in a statement.
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| American faces two years in prison for posting unflattering TripAdvisor review of Thailand island resort Posted: 26 Sep 2020 06:14 AM PDT  An American could face up to two years in prison after leaving a negative review for a hotel in Thailand on TripAdvisor. The Sea View Resort on Koh Chang island claims Wesley Barnes launched a barrage of complaints against them after his stay, forcing them to take legal action. "The Sea View Resort owner filed a complaint that the defendant had posted unfair reviews on his hotel on the Tripadvisor website," Colonel Thanapon Taemsara of Koh Chang police told AFP. Mr Barnes is accused of causing "damage to the reputation of the hotel", as well as arguing with them during his stay about a corkage fee for alcohol brought to the hotel. He was arrested by immigration police and returned to Koh Chang for a brief detention, but is now out on bail. Mr Barnes, who works in Thailand, had penned multiple reviews on different sites over the past few weeks, the hotel alleges. In one posted in July, he claimed to have encountered "unfriendly staff" who "act like they don't want anyone here". Another post, which accused the hotel of "modern day slavery", was removed by TripAdvisor for violating its guidelines. The Sea View Hotel said they only took legal action to discourage further reviews from being posted, and had attempted to contact Mr Barnes beforehand. "We chose to file a complaint to serve as a deterrent, as we understood he may continue to write negative reviews week after week for the foreseeable future," the hotel said. Thailand has notorious anti-defamation laws that have faced condemnation from human rights organisations in the past. They argue the laws can be used to stifle free expression. If found guilty for defamation, offenders can face two years imprisonment and a 200,000 baht (£4,965) fine. In December 2019, a Thai journalist was handed a two year sentence for libelling a chicken farm on Twitter. Suchanee Cloitre was convicted for a post she made about a legal dispute over working conditions at the Thammakaset farm. "I'm shocked and did not think the sentence would be so harsh," Ms Suchanee told Reuters after the sentencing.
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| As U.S., China squabble at U.N., a plea - and warning - from one of world's smallest states Posted: 26 Sep 2020 01:05 PM PDT  As China and the United States feuded at the United Nations this week over COVID-19 and climate, one of the world's smallest states pleaded for detente. "Micronesia asks our American and Chinese friends to reinforce their cooperation and friendship with each other ... to achieve what is best for our global community," the Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo told the U.N. General Assembly in a video address.
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| Here's where fire danger is highest in the Bay Area this weekend Posted: 25 Sep 2020 11:44 AM PDT  Wind gusts are expected to top 30 mph in areas that have been afflicted with wildfires since early August.
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| ‘Why Bother?’: Pelosi Suggests Biden Skip Presidential Debates Posted: 25 Sep 2020 02:13 PM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday defended her previous suggestion that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden should not debate President Trump, claiming the president has "no fidelity to fact or truth."Ahead of the first presidential debate next week, Pelosi doubled down during an appearance on "Morning on CBS" on comments she made last month that the former vice president should skip the debates so they don't become "an exercise in skullduggery."When asked if she still believed Biden should sit out the three presidential debates on September 29, October 15, and October 22, she said "Oh, I do.""Not that I don't think he'll be excellent," she continued. "I just think that the president has no fidelity to fact or truth and, actually in his comments the last few days, no fidelity to the Constitution of the United States.""He and his henchmen are a danger, with their comments, are a danger to our democracy," Pelosi added. "So I don't want to give him - I mean, why bother? He doesn't tell the truth."Last month Pelosi said she "wouldn't legitimize a conversation with [President Trump], nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States," though she acknowledged that the Biden campaign, who has rejected the California Democrat's suggestion, felt differently."As long as the commission continues down the straight and narrow as they have, I'm going to debate him," Biden said. "I'm going to be a fact-check on the floor while I'm debating him."Biden said Wednesday that he would begin to prepare "heavily" for the first debate, which will be hosted by Fox News's Chris Wallace in Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday.
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| Air Force Begins Live-Fire Testing on New Helicopter, Jolly Green II Posted: 25 Sep 2020 01:33 PM PDT  The Air Force's new HH-60W combat rescue helicopter, known as the "Jolly Green II," has begun live-fire ground testing.
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| Mexican farmers revolt over sending water to US during drought Posted: 25 Sep 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Country has one month to deliver outstanding 289m cubic metres and ensure water for 14 major cities and growersMexican farmers in the drought-stricken state of Chihuahua are pitted against riot squads from the national guard in an increasingly violent standoff over their government's decision to ship scarce water supplies to the United States.The confrontation has already led to bloodshed: earlier this month, a woman was shot dead and her husband was wounded after guardsmen opened fire on farmers wielding sticks and stones.The Mexican government, meanwhile, has accused protesters of being backed by opposition politicians and sabotaging La Boquilla dam, which holds some of the water it wants to send north.The standoff in Chihuahua underscores the severity of water shortages as the climate crisis provokes more severe droughts and puts agriculture under strain.It has also raised questions about why Mexico's nationalist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has put such a priority on repaying water debts to the US rather than going to bat for Mexican farmers."In all the history of Chihuahua, the army has never been sent to take the dams," said Mario Mata Carrasco, a federal lawmaker from Chihuahua. "Instead of fighting organised crime and narcotics traffickers, they're fighting our farmers."Disputes over water are nothing new on the high plains of Chihuahua state, where rainfall is becoming increasingly irregular. Neither is sending water to the US, which is required under the terms of a 1944 treaty.But the unrest has grown amid US demands that Mexico meets its five-year quota and completes the transfer of more than 100bn gallons by 24 October.Local farmers insist any shortfall on that quota can be repaid in the future, and argue that water held behind Mexican dams – for which they have concessions – has never been part of the agreement."When the government comes to steal our property, we don't have any other option but to defend it," said Raymundo Soto, a spokesman for the farmers. "The international water treaty clearly establishes alternatives for resolving these problems."Under the treaty, Mexico sends water from rivers in the Rio Grande basin to the United States, which in turn sends Mexico water in the Colorado River, further to the west.The treaty was negotiated when Mexico and the US were second world war allies and "is very favourable to Mexico", tweeted Lorenzo Meyer, a Mexican historian and commentator. "Not fulfilling our treaty obligations would be ending an agreement that would be impossible to improve upon."Both US and Mexican officials say water is flowing from Chihuahua to make up the deficit. But time is running out: Mexico still has to transfer almost a year's worth of water to meet the deadline.Mexico's president, commonly known as Amlo, insists Mexico will comply with the treaty. He also revealed that Texas' governor, Greg Abbott, had expressed impatience over Mexico falling behind in its water deliveries.Amlo has repeatedly alleged that big pecan farmers, backed by political interests, are behind the protests."They've been doing their best to get us into a conflict with the United States," Amlo recently told reporters. "It's all a plan to take electoral advantage of the situation."Mexico has fallen behind in its water payments for the current five-year cycle – and not for the first time, farmers say. They argue that Mexico can postpone payment in drought conditions – something Mexican and US officials say is off the table because Mexico was in deficit at the end of the last cycle in 2015.As of 24 September, the country had met roughly 86% of its treaty obligations, according to Roberto Velasco Álvarez, Mexican undersecretary for North America.Mexico now has a month to deliver the outstanding 289m cubic metres and ensure water for 14 major cities and growers in the lower parts of the Rio Grande, said Velasco."There are concerns for other water users, especially urban users," he said, adding: "Chihuahua is illegally retaining water in its dams."But farmers say they have already been forced to adjust to a drier environment by reducing planting. Meanwhile, the drilling of illegal wells is rampant.Many in Chihuahua fear that they may soon see a replay of a severe mid-1990s drought which forced many farmers to migrate, said Jesús Valenciano, a member of the legislature."They went illegally to the United States – and never returned," he recalled. "People don't want this to happen again. That's why there's such a conflict."
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| CDC Calls Off Minnesota COVID-19 Study After Reports of Racism and Intimidation Against Surveyors of Color Posted: 26 Sep 2020 10:08 AM PDT  The voluntary and in-person survey was developed by the CDC to examine the impact of public health emergencies
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| University police officer placed on leave after dragging female student down steps Posted: 25 Sep 2020 03:39 PM PDT  Incident described by university leaders as 'disturbing' and investigation launched
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| The CEO of air taxi firm Hopscotch Air sees the pandemic as an opportunity to replace airlines as they abandon regional routes – here's how he plans to do it Posted: 25 Sep 2020 09:16 AM PDT  Hopscotch CEO Andrew Schmertz is planning to use air taxis to fill the gaps left by airlines as they pull out of regional markets to save costs.
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| Trump administration proposes allowing new roads in Alaska's Tongass forest Posted: 25 Sep 2020 03:53 PM PDT  The Trump administration has proposed reopening the Tongass National Forest to road-building, setting the stage for more logging, mining and development in the heart of North America's largest temperate rainforest. The U.S. Forest Service on Thursday released a final environmental impact statement that said the state of Alaska should be exempt from a 2001 rule that bars new roads in national forests. The rule exemption option selected by the Forest Service "provides maximum additional timber harvest opportunities," the environmental impact statement said.
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| Iran FM demands protection for diplomatic missions in Iraq Posted: 26 Sep 2020 01:27 PM PDT  Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif on Saturday called for the protection of diplomatic installations in Iraq as he hosted his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein in Tehran.
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| Prestigious private New York City preschools face closure as parents rethink school, city life Posted: 25 Sep 2020 04:54 AM PDT  As 4-year-old children wrestle with online learning, parents are asking, "Why should I be spending this money?" said one education consultant.
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| Trump unloads on Fox News after network polls shows Biden ahead in key swing states Posted: 25 Sep 2020 08:51 AM PDT  "One of the worst polls in 2016 was the @FoxNews Poll," Trump tweets. "They were so ridiculously wrong"
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| Marine Lance Corporal Apprehended, Charged with Armed Robbery After Fleeing Camp Lejeune Posted: 25 Sep 2020 07:47 PM PDT  Lance Cpl. Shawn M. Miller was last seen around 6 p.m. Thursday in Jacksonville, the town outside Lejeune.
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| Justice Department seeks immediate ban on WeChat in US Posted: 25 Sep 2020 04:59 AM PDT  The Justice Department is seeking an immediate ban on downloads of WeChat in Apple and Google app stores, saying the Chinese-owned messaging service is a threat to the security of the United States. Last week the U.S. Commerce Department moved to ban WeChat from U.S. app stores but on Saturday, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in California agreed to delay U.S. restrictions, saying they would affect users' First Amendment rights. In a filing Friday, the Justice Department asked Beeler to allow for an immediate ban while the case works its way through court.
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