| Legalize it, marijuana advocates tell Congress Posted: 10 Jul 2019 12:47 PM PDT  Marijuana, the subject of a Wednesday hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, has become increasingly uncontroversial, with even a majority of Republicans in a 2018 poll saying they wanted the drug made legal.
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| Dad drowns after saving daughter from riptide in Florida Posted: 10 Jul 2019 05:04 PM PDT  Thomas Zakrewski helped rescue his 8-year-old daughter but then was swept away in the outgoing riptide, authorities in Florida say.
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| INSIGHT- When the U.S. puts a border between migrant kids and their caretakers Posted: 11 Jul 2019 03:00 AM PDT ![INSIGHT- When the U.S. puts a border between migrant kids and their caretakers]( "INSIGHT- When the U.S. puts a border between migrant kids and their caretakers") On June 12, Gerardo, a 41-year-old indigenous bricklayer from Guatemala, appeared before a U.S. immigration judge in El Paso, Texas. Since crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally two months earlier with his 14-year-old son, he had been separated from the boy and forced to wait in Mexico for his hearing. After they crossed into the United States, a border patrol agent declared the boy's photocopied birth certificate to be fake, casting doubt on their father-son relationship.
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| Ex-education secretary, 5 others held in Puerto Rico probe Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:28 AM PDT ![Ex-education secretary, 5 others held in Puerto Rico probe]( "Ex-education secretary, 5 others held in Puerto Rico probe") Puerto Rico's former secretary of education and five other people were arrested Wednesday on charges of steering federal money to unqualified, politically connected contractors, federal officials said. The alleged fraud involves $15.5 million in federal funding between 2017 and 2019.
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| Some of Putin’s Top Cops Are Mobsters. Even KGB Vets Are Ashamed. Posted: 10 Jul 2019 01:35 AM PDT  Michael Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin/ReutersMOSCOW—Crime scandals involving Russia's most powerful law enforcement agency have rocked this capital, exposing some phenomenal corruption at the heart of President Vladimir Putin's power structure. Ranking officers of the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, are allegedly involved, as are members of some of its most elite units. In April, authorities arrested three officials from the FSB's Department K, which deals with economic crimes and financial counterintelligence. Kirill Cherkalin, the former head of the unit, and Andrey Vasilyev and Dmitry Frolov, his associates, were jailed on suspicion they took huge bribes from banks and other commerce they were supposed to supervise. A video purported to show the equivalent of $185.5 million being hauled out of Cherkalin's residence. The initial charge against him involved a single bribe worth $850,000.The Liberation of Ivan Golunov Felt Like a Burst of Freedom in Russia, but Not for LongOne might think those arrests made by the internal affairs division of the FSB would make other criminals in the security force lie low. But no. Others were allegedly robbing banks. Last week RBC, one of Russia's most respected newspapers, reported the arrests of four FSB agents from the Alfa and Vympel special forces units, and two more from Department K. The number has since grown to 15 suspects, according to press reports. But the FSB has confirmed only two arrests.While supposedly conducting legitimate searches, or shepherding shipments of currency, the accused are supposed to have removed the heavy ballistic plates from their bullet-proof vests and stuffed them with money instead, but such details have not been confirmed officially.There must be massive turmoil in the depths of the gloomy FSB headquarters, the nerve center of Russia's police power located just across Lubyanka Square from the buildings of the Kremlin's administrative offices. All of Russia's leading newspapers reported that Instead of providing security, FSB agents robbed the Metallurg Bank, reportedly controlled by a former officer in Military Intelligence (the GRU) named Yury Karasev. If true, that's an interesting wrinkle since the FSB and GRU are rival secret services.Moscovskij Komsomolets, a newspaper with a circulation approaching one million copies, says in its Friday report: "Generals of the special services were shocked to hear about the arrests of FSB agents accused of a bank robbery on Ivan Babushkin Street and of stealing 140 million rubles ($2.2 million.)" Veteran agents of the Soviet KGB, the predecessor of the FSB, said they were disgusted by the scandal."This is the first time in the entire history of the Russian secret police when we see the triumph of greed that surpasses greed—so many officers of elite departments committing crimes," retired Maj. Gen. Aleksei Kandaurov told The Daily Beast. "The FSB is not a security service any longer, it has changed its status completely: it is now a service that enforces Putin's rule, and in exchange abuses its authority for purposes of enrichment."Gen. Kandaurov remembers the last days of the KGB, which had an infamous heritage dating back to the Cheka at the time of the revolution, and the NKVD under Joseph Stalin. As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 there was popular rage against the Communist regime's symbols and its obsession with secrecy, but the officers of the KGB—among them one Vladimir Putin—saw themselves as defenders of a regime and indeed an empire that they had served all their lives. They worked on fixed salaries.On the night of August, 22, 1991, Kandaurov watched from the window of his office as thousands of protesters demanded the removal of the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the Bolshevik leader Vladmir Lenin appointed to be the director of the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage (Cheka). Dzerzhinsky is seen as the symbol of the Bolseviks' political repressions and mass killings. "We represent in ourselves organized terror—this must be said very clearly," Dzerzhinsky proclaimed during the period known as the Red Terror that began in 1918.The modern state security agency, FSB, has been reviving the memory of Dzerzhinsky just as Putin has burnished the reputation of Joseph Stalin. Today many officials hang portraits of the secret police founder on their walls. In 2017 the agency celebrated the 100th anniversary of Cheka-NKVD-KGB-FSB, as a proud successor. But veterans see the current organization as an inglorious pretender to the fame of the older ones."FSB agents should stop hiding behind the KGB reputation, behind Dzerzhinsky. If he were alive, he would have executed most of these corrupt officers as his ideological enemies," Kandaurov told The Daily Beast. When the KGB Wanted You Dead, This Is How They Killed YouRussia has glorified "Alfa" and "Vympel" as legendary, heroic special operators who saw service in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s and many other more secretive theaters. At the Balashikha Cemetery near Moscow there are sad rows of tombstones where each is marked with an "A" or "V" for the soldiers of these units who gave their lives rescuing hostages during the Beslan school siege in September 2004. In the past few years Russian special operators have died anonymously in secret operations in Ukraine."Today's thugs in the special forces put shame on all the past heroes," a retired KGB officer and corruption fighter, Gennady Gudkov, told The Daily Beast. "The FSB violates its authority for 'operative activities,' which was given to them to stop transactions for terrorism or drug deals. Now a group of elite FSB and special forces units used their authority to rob a bank; but the bank informed Moscow police investigators and the organized criminal group was arrested."A channel on the Telegram messaging service covering the latest news about Russian gangsters, oligarchs and bureaucrats, said on Monday that authorities fired the head of Moscow's FSB Directorate, Alexey Dorofeyev.Last month police tried to stop an investigation by a Medusa Project reporter, Ivan Golunov, into Dorofeyev's links to a corrupt funeral business. After spending months researching figures and beneficiaries of the funeral industry, Golunov discovered some links connecting shadowy figures and senior FSB officers. But somebody decided to stop the reporter from publishing: police planted drugs on Golunov and kept him behind bars for five days, while thousands of people joined protests in support of the journalist.Russian veterans of secret services gossip about three "towers" of FSB power: the richest one is allegedly supported by the almighty Putin's ally, Igor Sechin, the head of the vast Rosneft energy company; the second one also enjoys enormous financial resources and is backed by another of Putin's long-time friends, Sergey Chemizov, the head of the Russian arms export agency; the third, the weakest financially, nonetheless has the best network of secret agents and is backed by the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin. Some see a connection between these rivalries and the revelations about high-level criminality."It feels like everything is falling down," a major general of the FSB reserve, Alexander Mikhailov, told reporters last week. "I want to tell you that all the old employees are shocked by what is happening. During my entire service in the Moscow KGB, and I worked there for 20 years, there were only three criminal cases.""None of the people from the old guard understands where that number of criminals in the system came from," said Mikhailov. "It is also disturbing that today we are confronted with the widest range of units that are involved in criminal activity. We repair it in one spot and it breaks down in another one."There are no checks and balances at FSB management, Gudkov pointed out. "The Soviet KGB was massively repressive, you can blame that service for anything, but not for corruption. The worst we could hear about was a colleague sleeping with somebody's wife or some secret agent bringing a pair of sneakers for a colleague from abroad—that was already a big enough scandal to write a report," Gudkov remembered. "Even in our worst nightmare we could not imagine officers stealing millions of dollars, robbing banks. What will we hear next? The Russian Federal Security Service robbing the Kremlin's treasury or the Central Bank's reserves?" 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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| The Limits of the Alliance Between China and Russia Posted: 10 Jul 2019 08:58 AM PDT  China's President Xi Jinping recently visited Russia to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), a Russian economic forum that hosts various important global economic players, to discuss "the key economic issues facing Russia, emerging markets and the world as a whole." He was also there to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the two countries' bilateral ties by holding talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.Although it was Xi's first trip to Russia in 2019, the visit to Russia came at a time of tensions between China and the United States on multiple fronts. These include tensions over trade, technology, and freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. And, due to its tensions with Russia on some regional and strategic stability issues, the current U.S. administration has called both China and Russia "revisionist powers" that seek to challenge the preponderance of the United States. This comes at a time when China and Russia are closer to each other "than any time in the history of their relationship." Although it is not the determinant factor, the current U.S. posture towards both China and Russia could contribute to their rapidly growing partnership.
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| Ex-White House Counsel Gregory Craig Asks Judge to Toss Lobbying Case Posted: 10 Jul 2019 12:22 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Gregory Craig, the former White House counsel accused of misleading the U.S. about work he did for a pro-Russia government in Ukraine, asked a judge to throw out the two-count criminal indictment against him.Craig's lawyers told U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Wednesday the charges are technically flawed and their client is being accused of failing to disclose information he hadn't been asked about and had no duty to reveal to enforcers of the Foreign Agents Registration Act."You can't prosecute somebody for not saying something they were not asked," defense lawyer William Taylor told Jackson during a nearly three-hour hearing.Prosecutors claim Craig, while a partner at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, failed to truthfully describe the extent of the work he did for the regime of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych after it came under fire for prosecuting political rival Yulia Tymoshenko.Craig, who worked in the White House under President Barack Obama, is the only prominent Democrat indicted on charges arising from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's two-year probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Warning TimeIn court on Wednesday, prosecutors pushed back on Craig's assertion that he didn't receive adequate warning of what information was sought by the government's Foreign Agents Registration Act unit."The FARA unit was very specific about the information it was requesting," Justice Department lawyer Molly Gaston told Jackson at the Wednesday hearing. Over time the unit became more and more specific about the information they needed under a disclosure statute, she said."What notice did Mr. Craig have that he was under an obligation to provide every jot and tittle" the FARA unit wanted to know about, Taylor's co-counsel, William Murphy, later asked. Craig's lawyers also assert that prosecutors waited too long to bring one charge and that the statute underlying the other charge isn't clear enough to be enforceable.Craig and his firm had been recruited by Paul Manafort to produce a favorable assessment of the Tymoshenko case. Manafort, who lobbied for Yanukovych and his party, would go on to work as campaign chairman for President Donald Trump. He was convicted last year on bank and tax fraud charges and later pleaded guilty to illegal lobbying and other crimes. He is serving a 7 1/2-year prison sentence.In Thrall to Manafort?In January, Skadden paid $4.6 million and agreed to register as a lobbyist for a foreign government as part of a Justice Department settlement. The firm admitted it should have registered earlier for the work it did to benefit Ukraine. Craig no longer works at Skadden.Craig, 74, was charged in April and is scheduled to stand trial next month. He faces as many as five years in prison on each count if convicted.While Jackson didn't rule on the motion to dismiss the case, she did grant the defense's request to bar prosecutors from introducing certain evidence at trial. That is evidence supporting their claim that Craig was so in thrall to Manafort that he got his daughter a job in Skadden after it had rejected her.Prosecutors argued the episode showed the lengths to which Craig was willing to go to satisfy his client. Jackson ruled the issue was more prejudicial than likely to be useful as evidence.The case is U.S. v. Craig, 19-cr-125, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Jeffrey, Steve StrothFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Afghan warrior Massoud's image becomes national icon Posted: 09 Jul 2019 07:11 PM PDT  In Kabul, it is hard to miss the late Ahmad Shah Massoud. More than 17 years since his assassination, the legendary fighter who battled the Soviets and the Taliban has become something of an Afghan icon. The feats of the "Lion of Panjshir", named for his home valley north of Kabul, has earned him a devoted following in war-weary Afghanistan.
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| Pete Buttigieg unveils agenda to help black Americans Posted: 11 Jul 2019 07:35 AM PDT  Facing dismal poll numbers among black voters, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released a multipronged plan addressing everything from promoting black history and culture and ensuring Washington, D.C., statehood to tackling the racial wealth gap.
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| EU threatens Turkey with sanctions over Cyprus drilling: draft Posted: 11 Jul 2019 01:45 AM PDT  The European Union is set to curb contacts and funding for Ankara in retaliation for what it calls Turkey's "illegal" drilling for gas and oil off Cyprus and stands ready to ramp up sanctions further, a draft statement seen by Reuters shows. In trying to take Ankara to task over what the EU sees as Turkish interference with Cyprus' exclusive economic zone, the bloc is walking a thin line, careful not to antagonize an important partner. "Despite our best intentions to keep good neighborly relations with Turkey, its continued escalation and challenge to the sovereignty of our Member State Cyprus will inevitably lead the EU to respond in full solidarity," Donald Tusk, president of the European Council of ministers, said on Wednesday.
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| Bosnian Muslims mark 1995 massacre of thousands with burials Posted: 11 Jul 2019 06:55 AM PDT  SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Thousands of mourners gathered in Bosnia on Thursday to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II. Relatives of the more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys killed by Bosnian Serb troops were among those attending a ceremony at a memorial site that included the burial of 33 newly identified victims of the July 11-22, 1995 massacre.
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| The Burr vs. Hamilton duel happened 215 years ago today Posted: 11 Jul 2019 03:00 AM PDT  Today marks the anniversary of the deadly duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. What caused the sitting vice president to duel a Founding Father on the cliffs overlooking New York City?
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| Super Weapon? The Air Force Wants a (New) Nuclear Armed Cruise Missile Posted: 10 Jul 2019 04:02 AM PDT  Should major global powers be immersed in a high-stakes, dangerous escalation of tension, raising the possibility of a nuclear confrontation, could the existence of a long-range nuclear-armed cruise missile provide that unique additional variable necessary to keep the peace?Such is the Air Force thinking when it comes to the current developmental trajectory for its emerging Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO) -- a new, aircraft-launched nuclear cruise missile engineered to prevent nuclear conflict by holding enemy targets at risk potentially inaccessible to other methods of attack.The LRSO 'will allow the Air Force to 'counter adversaries' ever-improving integrated air defense with a lethal, tailorable, standoff nuclear strike capability," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, told an audience at a recent Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Nuclear Deterrence event, according to transcripts.The LRSO will be operational by 2030, Goldfein said.The weapon will provide commanders with a wider range of options, as a bomber-launched nuclear cruise missile brings the prospect of deterring nuclear attack without needing to have a stealth bomber actually penetrate the airspace. Naturally, this lowers risk and also increases the deterrence posture by virtue of letting a potential adversary know there are a wide range of methods through which a response might be possible. Interestingly, the existence of nuclear weapons, according to Goldfein and other U.S. Air Force senior leaders, - is entirely based upon the notion of deterrence -- bringing the prospect of massive destructive power to achieve the opposite effect - stopping nuclear war before it happens.
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| The Jeep Gladiator Has No Competition Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:00 AM PDT  It's a four-door convertible. It's a pickup truck. It'll tow a boat. Now let me tell you which one to get.
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| Armoured van spills thousands of dollars in cash across major highway. Police are asking for it back Posted: 10 Jul 2019 11:23 PM PDT  An armoured truck spilled thousands of dollar bills onto a busy highway, prompting chaos as commuters pulled over to pick up fistfuls of money.On Tuesday before sunset, a fluttering swirl of cash blowing through the air brought traffic to a halt and people into the street when a side door of an armoured Garda truck suddenly opened on a highway.About $175,000 (£140,000) in bills spilled out and were carried away by the wind over a section of Interstate 285, which encircles Atlanta, Georgia, police said.The bills scattered to the shoulder of the six-lane westbound section of the highway. Some floated across the divider into eastbound lanes. Bills blew into the woods or sank into storm drains.More than a dozen commuters screeched to a halt or veered off to the shoulder of the highway near the Dunwoody Road exits, police said. They scooped up bills from the pavement and returned to their vehicles with fistfuls, and sometimes armloads, of cash.One of them was Randrell Lewis, an Uber Eats driver who was en route to Alpharetta, Georgia."I just saw a cloud full of what looked like leaves," he said in an interview. "No, it was money. I could not believe my eyes. I am not going to lie. The first thing I did was I pulled over and started picking up some money. Everybody started pulling over and it was crazy."Within minutes, Mr Lewis said, he had snatched up about $2,000 in singles, fifties and hundreds. He returned $2,094 on Wednesday, police said."I just wanted to really make sure I am not going to get in trouble for this," he said.As investigators from the Dunwoody Police Department scoured videos on social media of the spontaneous cash grab, reports filtered in on Wednesday of people stopping on their morning drives on the half-mile stretch of highway to see if there was anything left to scavenge, Sergeant Robert Parsons, a department spokesperson, said."If the temptation is there, and you see money falling from the sky, most people would probably take the money," he said.The nation's highways have been accidentally generous before. In 2004, an armoured truck carrying $2 million flipped over on the New Jersey Turnpike during the evening rush, spilling tens of thousands of dollars in coins.Last year, the back door of a Brink's armoured truck swung open during the morning rush on Interstate 70 near Indianapolis, Indiana, losing an estimated $600,000 in cash onto the highway. A few months later, a Brink's armoured truck was driving on Route 3 in East Rutherford, New Jersey, when one of its doors malfunctioned and money blew out onto the roadway.Some returned the money to police, while others made off with sacks of cash. In the East Rutherford incident, police recouped about $6,000.As authorities did elsewhere when the highways were unexpectedly giving, the police in Dunwoody, a suburb north of Atlanta, were watching on Wednesday to see how the limits of ethical behaviour would play out."Heads up Dunwoody, it's cloudy with a chance of cash," the department said on Facebook, adding, "While we certainly understand the temptation, it's still theft and the money should be returned."In an interview, Mr Parsons said that officers received a 911 call around 8pm on Tuesday about people "frantically" scooping up the money near the Ashford Dunwoody Road exit along the highway, which is bordered by creek beds, trees and office towers."Multiple callers said there was cash flying all over the road," he said.By the time officers arrived, people who had pulled over to grab the bills were nowhere to be seen, Mr Parsons said."People likely saw the police lights coming over the highway," he said. "'Oops, time to go! Police are here! Party's over!' "Officers spoke to the Garda employees, who had stopped the truck on the shoulder after passing drivers had gestured to them that a door was open.About $200 was retrieved from the highway and surrounding woods — a small fraction of the estimated $175,000 believed to have gone missing, or into peoples' pockets, he said.Detectives were trying to contact drivers by looking for license plate numbers on mobile phone videos that had been posted on social media. But Mr Parsons said authorities had no intention of prosecuting anyone who returns the money."No harm, no foul," he said. "But you need to turn that money in."The New York Times
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| Pelosi reportedly scolds progressives in closed-door meeting, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fires back Posted: 11 Jul 2019 05:29 AM PDT  The House speaker reportedly tells Democrat lawmakers to come to her with complaints instead of tweeting about them.
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| French supermarket managers ousted over safari hunting snaps Posted: 10 Jul 2019 08:39 AM PDT  It was meant to be a trophy picture, showing their success on safari, but the photo of a French couple posing beside a lion they had shot ended up costing them their jobs. Managers of a supermarket in L'Arbresle, a small town in eastern France, the pair had in 2015 taken part in a so-called captive hunt that involves shooting at animals kept inside an enclosed area. Such a set-up virtually guarantees a kill for private trophy hunters.
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| Mexican President Warns Others May Leave Government After Urzua Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:15 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, under pressure after the resignation of his finance minister, warned other officials may quit his government as part of the deep policy changes he is leading."In a democratic government there are always differences and disagreements," Lopez Obrador said Wednesday at his daily press conference. "You have to get used to the changes and there could even be other resignations."The Mexican peso dropped as much as 0.8%, leading emerging markets currency losses for a second straight session. It fell 0.4% to 19.2344 per dollar at 9:01 a.m. in New York.AMLO, as the Mexican leader is known, said the resignation of Carlos Urzua on Tuesday stems from disagreements over the country's national development plan. Urzua also disagreed about the management of Mexico's state-owned banks, the president said, adding that the former finance minister had clashed with his Chief of Staff Alfonso Romo and with the head of Mexico's tax collection agency."This is a government of free men and women. Suddenly someone can say 'I don't agree with the government's path'," AMLO said, adding that no other resignation has been presented to him so far. "What I want to make clear is that the way of doing politics won't change at all."To contact the reporters on this story: Carlos Manuel Rodriguez in Mexico City at carlosmr@bloomberg.net;Cyntia Barrera Diaz in Mexico City at cbarrerad@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Walter BrandimarteFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Intruders jump fence at U.S. nuclear reactor with bomb-grade fuel Posted: 11 Jul 2019 08:33 AM PDT ![Intruders jump fence at U.S. nuclear reactor with bomb-grade fuel]( "Intruders jump fence at U.S. nuclear reactor with bomb-grade fuel") Two people jumped a security fence at a GE Hitachi research reactor near San Francisco, the U.S. nuclear power regulator said on Thursday, raising concerns over a plant that is one of the few in the country that uses highly enriched uranium, a material that could be used to make an atomic bomb. The intruders jumped a security perimeter fence at the Vallecitos reactor in Alameda County on Wednesday afternoon, a 1,600-acre (647.5-hectare) site about 40 miles (64 km) east of San Francisco, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on its website in a security threat notice. The NRC notice did not say that the plant is one of the few in the country to use highly enriched uranium, or HEU.
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| How Epstein's secret deal could affect sex trafficking case Posted: 11 Jul 2019 09:06 AM PDT  Financier Jeffrey Epstein awaits a bail hearing after pleading not guilty this week to sex trafficking charges in a case brought a decade after he secretly cut a deal with prosecutors to dispose of nearly identical allegations. Epstein is accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them at various locations, including homes in Palm Beach, Florida, and New York from 2002 through 2005. WHO IS JEFFREY EPSTEIN?
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| Mackenzie Lueck case: Gruesome details revealed in slaying of Utah college student Posted: 11 Jul 2019 08:36 AM PDT  The charred body of slain University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck was discovered bound in a shallow grave, prosecutors said Wednesday as formal charges were filed against her suspected killer.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Posted: 10 Jul 2019 05:00 PM PDT |
| Meet India's BrahMos II: The World's Fastest Supersonic Cruise Missile? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 12:47 AM PDT  With the BrahMos II venture put on indefinite hold, the Indian military is forging ahead with new, long-range and deep-dive versions of their BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.Earlier this week, BrahMos CEO Sudhir Kumar Mishra announced that vertical deep-dive and 500 kilometer-range BrahMos variants are ready to enter India's missile arsenal: "India has successfully test-fired a vertical deep dive version of BrahMos, the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile, that can now change the dynamics of conventional warfare...the upgraded version of the missile with enhanced range of up to 500 km is also ready." Both of these new variants will feature the Mach 2.8 speed of the original BrahMos missile, roughly three times the speed of sound.As the name implies, vertical deep-capability allows the missile to be fired at a "near-vertical" trajectory of 90 degree, climbing fourteen 14 kilometers before making making a steep dive toward its target. Mishra asserts that this will make BrahMos more effective on mountainous terrain and against bunkers as well as large surface vessels, suggesting that these improvements are aimed at bolstering Indian missile strike capability vis-à-vis China amid ongoing tensions over the Tibet region.
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| How one freshman congresswoman plans to save the Affordable Care Act Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  Nobody in Washington seems to like the Affordable Care Act. Republicans want to repeal it, claiming it gives too much power to the federal government. Democrats argue that it doesn't go far enough: Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to replace the ACA with Medicare for All, which would get rid of private insurance entirely.
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| California quakes left a crack in the Earth so big it can be seen from space Posted: 09 Jul 2019 11:59 AM PDT  Satellite images show a massive rupture in the Earth's surface left behind by the two earthquakes that rocked southern California last week.
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| Hayabusa2: the asteroid probe seeking solar system secrets Posted: 11 Jul 2019 12:47 AM PDT  Japan's Hayabusa2 space probe made its second touchdown on a distant asteroid on Thursday, in a bid to collect mineral samples that could reveal more about the solar system's evolution. What is Hayabusa2's main goal? Scientists hope samples from Ryugu will shed light on the birth of the solar system and its evolution, including whether elements from space helped give rise to life on Earth.
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| New Orleans Is Flooding — and There's a Potential Hurricane Coming This Weekend Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:00 AM PDT  There's a chance a hurricane could form in the Gulf by Saturday
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| Senate leader McConnell says no chance of U.S. default on debt Posted: 09 Jul 2019 11:31 AM PDT  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined on Tuesday to predict when the U.S. Congress would act to approve a new U.S. debt ceiling, but said he saw no chance of default on debt payments. "There will not be any question that we will raise the debt ceiling," McConnell told reporters. Meanwhile, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday discussed ways to reach agreement on extending U.S. borrowing authority and spending limits for the 2020 fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.
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| 'Criminal act' caused Crete death of likely American victim Posted: 10 Jul 2019 10:08 AM PDT  Antonis Papadomanolakis told The Associated Press Wednesday that final confirmation was still needed to confirm the identity of the body found Monday outside the port city of Chania, but he added it was highly likely it was Suzanne Eaton, a 59-year-old molecular biologist, who was reported missing last week. "The only thing we can say is that the (death) resulted from a criminal act," the coroner said. Eaton, who worked at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany, had been attending a conference in Crete.
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| Tourist says she was raped, thrown off resort balcony in Dominican Republic Posted: 10 Jul 2019 08:21 AM PDT  A New York City woman claims she was raped and thrown off a second-floorbalcony in the Dominican Republic last month, according to WABC
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| Ilhan Omar calls Tucker Carlson a 'racist fool' Posted: 10 Jul 2019 10:25 AM PDT  After cable news host Tucker Carlson claimed Representative Ilhan Omar "hates" America and is "dangerous to this country", Ms Omar responded by calling the pundit a "racist fool".During a segment on his Fox News show titled "Dems want you to believe America is an awful place", Mr Carlson cited the freshman representative as an example of how modern immigration laws have become harmful to America.Mr Carlson said: "Virtually every public statement she makes accuses Americans of bigotry and racism. This is an immoral country, she says. She has undisguised contempt for the United States and for its people." "That should worry you, and not just because Omar is now a sitting member of Congress. Ilhan Omar is living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country. A system designed to strengthen America is instead undermining it."Mr Carlson mentioned a recent profile of Ms Omar in the Washington Post, saying that Ms Omar believes America has "failed to live up to its founding ideals, a place that had disappointed her and so many immigrants, refugees and minorities like her."The pundit continued, claiming: "After everything that America has done for Omar, and for her family, she hates this country more than ever."He also pondered if "maybe we are importing people from places who are simply antithetical to ours."Ms Omar was born in war-torn Somalia, and spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp before arriving in the United States at 12. Now, at 37, she serves in the House of Representatives as one of the first Muslim women elected to congress.The politician responded via Twitter soon after the segment aired, saying: "Not gonna lie, it's kinda fun watching a racist fool like this weeping about my presence in Congress", adding two crying emojis. Ms Omar continued: "No lies will stamp out my love for this country or my resolve to make our union more perfect. They will just have to get used to calling me Congresswoman!"
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| Whoops: India's Navy Left Nearly Sunk Its Own $3 Billion Nuclear Submarine Posted: 09 Jul 2019 09:00 PM PDT  Call it a lesson learned for the Indian navy, which managed to put the country's first nuclear-missile submarine, the $2.9 billion INS Arihant, out of commission in the most boneheaded way possible.The modern submarine is not a simple machine. A loss of propulsion, unexpected flooding, or trouble with reactors or weapons can doom a sub crew to a watery grave.Also, it's a good idea to, like, close the hatches before you dive.(This article originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter. This article first appeared in 2018.)Call it a lesson learned for the Indian navy, which managed to put the country's first nuclear-missile submarine, the $2.9 billion INS Arihant, out of commission in the most boneheaded way possible.The Hindu reported yesterday that the Arihant has been out of commission since suffering "major damage" some 10 months ago, due to what a navy source characterized as a "human error" — to wit: allowing water to flood to sub's propulsion compartment after failing to secure one of the vessel's external hatches.
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| US-made missiles found at base used by Libyan rebels to attack Tripoli are ours, France admits Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:31 AM PDT  France on Wednesday admitted that it is the owner of American-made anti-tank missiles found at a rebel military base in Libya, raising awkward questions about European involvement in the civil war. France's Army Ministry said the four Javelin missiles discovered at a base used by General Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army were intended for "self-protection of a French military unit deployed to carry out intelligence and counter-terrorism operations." "Damaged and unusable, the armaments were being temporarily stocked at a depot ahead of their destruction," it said in a statement on Wednesday. It said the weapons, found in the mountains south of Tripoli by forces loyal to the UN-backed government, were never intended for sale or transfer to any party to Libya's conflict. The missiles were discovered on a rebel base in Gharyan when UN-recognised government forces recaptured the city Credit: Anadolu Agency The statement did not explain how many French soldiers are in the country or why they were operating in close proximity to Gheryan, the LNA's main headquarters for its controversial assault on Tripoli. The discovery of javelin missiles at Gheryan was first reported by the New York Times. Chinese-made shells with United Arab Emirates markings were also discovered. At least 1,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced since Gen Haftar launched his assault on Tripoli in a bid to overthrow the UN-backed government of national accord in April. France, like all permanent members of the UN Security Council, officially recognises the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). But Fayez Al-Sarraj, the prime minister of the GNA, has publicly protested French support for Gen Haftar since the battle began. Some observers have also accused Paris of providing the general with diplomatic cover by watering down European Union statements about his attack on Tripoli. Jalel Harouchi, a Libya analyst at the Clingedael Institute, said the discovery made it "impossible for Paris to credibly deny its deep preference" for Gen Haftar's faction in the civil war. "For several years now, it has sought to prop up Marshal Haftar, help him defeat his opponents and take power in Libya," he said. "In any event, other foreign states, such as the UAE, violate the Libya arms embargo much more egregiously than France does." Gen Haftar, who heads a rival administration in the east of the country, has sought to portray himself as a potential secular strongman able to deal robustly with the threat of Islamist extremism in Libya. He is believed to enjoy backing from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, and has also visited both Paris and Moscow to seek support. He has courted the United States, which provided him with asylum after he fell out with Muammar Gadaffi in the 1980s. Last week the United States blocked a British-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution that would have condemned an LNA airstrike on a migrant holding centre that killed at least 40 people. The FGM 148 Javelin is a US-manufactured shoulder-launched missile designed to destroy modern tanks by striking them from above, where their armour is thinnest. They cost about £135,000 a piece.
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| UK Labour Party in turmoil over new anti-Semitism claims Posted: 11 Jul 2019 05:58 AM PDT  Britain's main opposition Labour Party was in turmoil Thursday after a television documentary renewed allegations that anti-Semitism is rife within its ranks. In the BBC program, former staff members of the left-of-center party recounted receiving anti-Semitic abuse and alleged that senior party officials interfered in complaint investigations. Accusations of hostility toward Jews have riven Labour since left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime supporter of the Palestinians, became party leader in 2015.
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| 10 Best Vehicles for Tackling the Apocalypse Posted: 09 Jul 2019 12:25 PM PDT |
| Six tourists killed by tornadoes and hailstorms in Greece Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:54 PM PDT  Tornadoes and violent hailstorms killed six tourists in northern Greece late Wednesday, police said. Dozens more were injured when strong winds hit the region of Halkidiki, near the city of Thessaloniki, authorities added. "Six tourists were killed and at least 30 people were injured during this cyclone," Charalambos Steriadis, head of civil protection in northern Greece, said.
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| UPDATE 1-Hezbollah: New sanctions widen U.S. assault on Lebanon Posted: 11 Jul 2019 06:52 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Hezbollah: New sanctions widen U.S. assault on Lebanon]( "UPDATE 1-Hezbollah: New sanctions widen U.S. assault on Lebanon") Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Thursday that new U.S. sanctions against three of its officials, including two MPs, have widened Washington's assault on Lebanon. The move marks the first time the United States has targeted lawmakers of the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which is part of Lebanon's coalition government. "It has widened the assault on Lebanon and its people.
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| Small leak found from nuclear Soviet sub that sank in 1989 Posted: 11 Jul 2019 02:06 AM PDT ![Small leak found from nuclear Soviet sub that sank in 1989]( "Small leak found from nuclear Soviet sub that sank in 1989") A small radiation leak from a Soviet nuclear submarine that sank 30 years ago has been found, Norwegian researchers said Thursday, but it poses no risk to people or fish. The institute said that findings were around 100 Becquerel (Bq) per liter as opposed to around 0.001 Bq per liter elsewhere in the Norwegian Sea. Several samples taken in and around a ventilation duct on the wreck of the submarine contained far higher levels of radioactive cesium than you would normally find in the Norwegian Sea, the institute said in a statement.
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| A Missouri suspect was hiding from police. A loud fart gave him away Posted: 10 Jul 2019 08:24 AM PDT ![A Missouri suspect was hiding from police. A loud fart gave him away]( "A Missouri suspect was hiding from police. A loud fart gave him away") Law enforcement officers in Missouri managed to find a suspect they were looking for after he farted and gave away his position.
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| Delta airlines flight makes emergency landing after broken plane part flies into engine after takeoff Posted: 09 Jul 2019 01:03 PM PDT  A flight made an emergency landing after a piece of the plane broke off and flew into the engine. The malfunction occurred nearly an hour into Delta flight number 1425, after the plane had departed from Atlanta to Baltimore on Monday. Passengers described smoke filling the cabin area before a tense emergency landing in North Carolina."After we heard the boom, we just saw all this smoke come up into the cabin and that's when we really started freaking out," one passenger told Baltimore's WMAR-TV. Another passenger said the pilot announced mid-flight that the plane had lost an engine and "they were making preparations to have an emergency landing." All 150 passengers aboard the flight reportedly managed to get on another plane later Monday evening to Baltimore. They also received food vouchers and an apology for the inconvenience. No injuries were reported.The Delta plane in use at the time of the incident was an MD-80 model, which at least one passenger complained was "too old" during an interview with WMAR, adding, "Delta needs to retire those MD-80's". "The flight crew of Delta flight 1425 from Atlanta to Baltimore elected to divert to Raleigh, N.C. after receiving an indication of an issue with one of the aircraft's engines," Delta said in a statement sent to The Independent. "The flight landed without incident and customers were re-accommodated on an alternate aircraft. We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience this diversion may have caused."A Facebook user by the name Becca Montouth shared a video of the incident to her Facebook on Monday afternoon, writing, "I'm never gonna take my life for granted again."The video, shot from within the cabin, appears to show the detached piece of the plane swirling around in the engine. "I was on a plane 10,000 feet in the air when this happened," the user added.
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| Fewer F-35s? Air Force Looks to Buy 80 F-15Xs Instead Posted: 11 Jul 2019 05:00 AM PDT  Nevertheless as Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group of Fairfax, Virginia, said in an email to Bloomberg "The U.S. Air Force fighter budget is unlikely to grow by much, so the fear is that replacing the F-15 fleet, rather than upgrading the old F-15s, would take cash away from F-35 procurement."As we have reported, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) is reportedly requesting an upgraded version of the Boeing F-15 Eagle fighter jet in its 2020 budget, despite pushback from lawmakers and earlier skepticism from top USAF officials.The first batch of eight F-15X Advanced Eagle aircraft (fewer than the expected 12 fighters) could be proposed in the fiscal 2020 budget that will be unveiled next month.However the USAF is planning to acquire as many as 80 F-15Xs over a period of five years.According to Bloomberg, the Air Force will propose buying the F-15X without reducing the fleet of 1,763 F-35s that it has long planned, the people said. The service would purchase 48 of the 84 F-35s that were called for last year in the Pentagon's plan for 2020, with the remainder going to the Navy and Marines, according to program documents.
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| From Kamala Harris and Biden to Nancy Pelosi and AOC, the Democratic Party is a mess Posted: 10 Jul 2019 12:15 AM PDT  Fault lines are deeper than ever between the young socialists and the old establishment figures who run the Democratic Party, Scott Jenning says
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| DeVos sued over student loan forgiveness program that denies 99 percent of applicants Posted: 11 Jul 2019 08:23 AM PDT ![DeVos sued over student loan forgiveness program that denies 99 percent of applicants]( "DeVos sued over student loan forgiveness program that denies 99 percent of applicants") The AFT's lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of arbitrarily and capriciously rejecting loan forgiveness applications.
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| Viking bones and DNA will decay quickly as Greenland thaws Posted: 11 Jul 2019 06:00 AM PDT  Viking settlers abandoned Greenland some 600 years ago. But the frozen ground has preserved centuries of the seafarers' hardy existence on the western shores of the remote landmass, including bones and DNA. The Vikings, though, didn't first step foot on Greenland. The Saqqaq people arrived there first, around 3,800 years before the Vikings, as did other nomadic peoples. Yet now, all of their culturally invaluable organic remains are under threat from amplified Arctic warming -- the fastest changing region on Earth. Archaeologists, geochemists, and climate scientists traveled to Greenland and collected soil samples from seven archaeological areas to determine how vulnerable the sites are to warming. Their research, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, found these organic archaeological remains (also known as organic carbon) will accelerate their decay as they become exposed to increasingly warmer climes and hungry microorganisms."If temperatures go up, degradation rates will increase," said Jørgen Hollesen, lead author of the research and a senior researcher at the National Museum of Denmark.> "Arctic Amplification" ---> temperatures in the Arctic are warming more than twice as fast as the global mean temperature > > For more info: https://t.co/eJxuGk9tXr pic.twitter.com/rAtcO47Euq> > -- Zack Labe (@ZLabe) June 29, 2019Global temperatures are certainly expected to go up. Eighteen of the 19 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and Greenland specifically is now melting at rates Arctic scientists have called "off the charts." What's more, dwindling Arctic sea ice this year is on pace to either break or nearly break its record for lowest extent. On the shores of Greenland inhabited by the Vikings, warmer summers allow the ground to thaw and exposes the soil to oxygen, allowing microbes to thrive and consume previously preserved remains. "The higher the temperature, the higher the rate of consumption," Hollesen said succinctly."They'll decay very rapidly," agreed Christopher Rodning, an archaeologist at Tulane University who had no involvement in the research. There are some 6,000 archaeological sites around Greenland, and they are invaluable relics of the Viking past, and of peoples before and after them. "The archaeological sites have a lot to teach us about those [historical] episodes," said Rodning. Especially if these sites have preserved organic remains, like food stored in a freezer."As an archaeologist I can say it's really exciting when we do find an object made out of wood, or animal bone," Rodning said. These materials can reveal the contents of ancient diets, the diseases people carried, and rare genetic material. "They have huge potential to help understand the lives of these people," he said.Brattahlid, a Viking colony.Image: Werner Forman Archive / ShutterstockHollesen and his team are keenly aware of this reality, so they're now working to gauge which sites around Greenland are most vulnerable to warming, in order that the remains be preserved or excavated before they're gone. It's like archaeological triage.If temperatures keep trending as they are today, a scenario climate scientists call "business as usual," up to 70 percent of the organic carbon inside the coastal remains could decay over the next 80 years (by 2100). Even if humanity begins ambitiously slashing its carbon emissions by mid-century, some 30 percent of these organic remains could degrade by then, according to the research. And farther inland, where many Viking settlers were buried, over 35 percent of organic material could be lost by 2050. SEE ALSO: Choose your future Greenland, EarthlingsAfter collecting soil from different Greenland sites, Hollesen and his team exposed the soil to different temperatures in a laboratory, and measured the oxygen consumption by microbes, because the microbes need oxygen to survive. Then, his team projected how much degradation these microbes would achieve at different climate scenarios -- climate scenarios that are based specifically on how much heat-trapping carbon humans emit into the atmosphere this century.Centuries ago, the Vikings came and went from Greenland, while other peoples, the Inuit, didn't leave. Answers about why some cultures continued to adapt to the harsh Arctic, while others left, are likely stored in the warming, decaying, Greenland soil."As archaeologists, these are questions we still need to be asking," said Rodning. WATCH: Ever wonder how the universe might end?
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| Media watchdog slams Pakistan curbs on TV broadcasters Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:22 AM PDT  A global media watchdog has slammed Pakistani authorities over the removal of three television channels from the country's airwaves, saying the move was "indicative of disturbing dictatorial tendencies" as pressure mounts on journalists in the South Asian nation. The statement from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) comes days after AbbTakk TV, 24 News, and Capital TV all had their broadcasts cut, after screening a press conference with opposition leader Maryam Nawaz. Pakistani authorities say the channels were unavailable due to "technical issues", but RSF described the outage as an act of "brazen censorship".
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| Sour note: Sistine Chapel Choir director resigns after fraud allegations Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:50 AM PDT  The director of the Sistine Chapel Choir, which has provided the musical backdrop to papal events for centuries, has resigned following allegations of fraud and embezzlement. Monsignor Massimo Palombella has "concluded his service" after Pope Francis approved his request to end his tenure, the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday. Palombella, 51, has held the post for nine years.
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| GOP senators introduce bill allowing victims of crime to sue over sanctuary city policies Posted: 11 Jul 2019 03:49 AM PDT  Bill allows victims of crime by illegal immigrants to sue over sanctuary city policies; Angel mom Sabine Durden weighs in.
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| Cambodian police arrest 7 marking death of government critic Posted: 10 Jul 2019 05:37 AM PDT ![Cambodian police arrest 7 marking death of government critic]( "Cambodian police arrest 7 marking death of government critic") Seven people in Cambodia have been detained in connection with activities marking the third anniversary of the killing of a prominent government critic, police said Wednesday. Political analyst Kem Ley was shot dead at a convenience store in the capital, Phnom Penh, on July 10, 2016. The killing took place shortly after he spoke on radio about a report alleging that long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen's family had taken advantage of its connections for financial gain.
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