| Iran tanker seizure linked to earlier act by UK marines Posted: 20 Jul 2019 06:10 AM PDT  Taken on its own, Iran's seizure of a British-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz may seem like a brazen act of aggression, a provocative poke in the nose to both Britain and its ally, the United States. While Britain says it acted near Gibraltar because the Iranian tanker Grace 1 was busting sanctions by delivering oil to Syria, Iran says it intervened because the British-flagged tanker hit an Iranian fishing boat.
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| Ex-NRA Ad Firm: Um, Wayne LaPierre is Lying Posted: 19 Jul 2019 10:46 AM PDT  Lucas Jackson/ReutersIn a new filing against the National Rifle Association, lawyers for ad agency Ackerman McQueen suggest that longtime NRA executive Wayne LaPierre is lying about a critical moment in the gun rights group's recent leadership shake up. At issue is multi-million-dollar litigation between the NRA and its ex-ad firm. In court filings of its own, the NRA has alleged that Oliver North, the groups's former president, was ousted in part because he withheld information from the NRA about payments he took from Ackerman McQueen, which had served as the gun rights group's primary ad contractor until just months ago. The NRA claims North kept the nature of his deal with Ackerman McQueen a secret from LaPierre and the gun group's leadership. But in a July 16 filing that was reviewed by The Daily Beast, Ackerman McQueen alleges that LaPierre himself helped negotiate the deal between their firm and North. And they hint that they have documentation to prove it. In a statement, the NRA denied the suggestions. "The facts are clear – Mr. LaPierre and the NRA had no idea that Col. North was negotiating to become an employee of Ackerman McQueen," said Andrew Arulanandam, managing director of NRA Public Affairs. "And to the extent Col. North was pushing a contrived narrative about Mr. LaPierre and the NRA, he was conflicted. He was an employee of Ackerman at the time he was allegedly scheming with the agency to unseat Mr. LaPierre." It's a messy new chapter in the months-long legal battle between the NRA and the ad firm it used for more than three decades. And it comes as the gun group has jettisoned senior staff and faced revolts from grassroots activists and donors. "LaPierre negotiated the terms of the North Contract directly with Lt. Col. North and a detailed term sheet was sent to AMc [Ackerman McQueen] for completion of the formal agreement," the filing reads. The NRA's then-treasurer, Wilson "Woody" Phillips, also reviewed and approved North's contract with the firm, according to the filing, and the NRA board's audit committee green-lit the contract as well. "On at least two occasions, counsel for the NRA has reviewed the North Contract," the filing adds. NRA Pulls the Plug on NRATVAckerman McQueen's insistence that NRA officials were aware of the contract with North is directly at odds with the contention the NRA made in a suit it filed against the ad agency in April. North was ousted from the NRA that month during the group's annual meeting and has since accused LaPierre of gross mismanagement and making highly questionable expenditures. The NRA, meanwhile, has alleged that North tried to oust LaPierre in a coup. And in a separate suit in May, it accused Ackerman McQueen of breach of contract by leaking information about both LaPierre and the NRA's finances. Ackerman McQueen had been a central force behind the NRA's evolution from a gun rights group to a conservative cultural institution. As part of that mission, the ad firm helped launch and manage NRATV, the NRA's recently shuttered internet-video arm. The NRA has alleged in court that Ackerman McQueen had refused to share its analytics with the gun group. But In its July 16 filing, Ackerman McQueen claims that the opposite is true. "Two days before the lawsuit was filed, LaPierre was in AMc's office and was in attendance for the presentation of the NRATV analytics," it reads. "LaPierre walked out of the meeting." A spokesperson for the NRA's legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The filing indicates that the fight between the NRA and Ackerman shows no signs of losing steam. Earlier this week, longtime NRA director of public affairs Jennifer Baker left the group. And a month ago, the group parted ways with its longtime top lobbyist, Chris Cox. 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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| Five guys arrested for fighting at Five Guys burgers in Florida Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:09 AM PDT  An appropriate number of guys were arrested when a fight broke out at a FiveGuys restaurant in Florida on Wednesday
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| Court documents tie Trump, Hicks to 2016 hush money payoff Posted: 18 Jul 2019 03:42 PM PDT  Court documents released Thursday closely tied President Donald Trump and his former top aide Hope Hicks to hush money paid to a porn actress ahead of the 2016 election. The FBI warrant requests released Thursday show the law enforcement agency believed Trump and Hicks were intimately involved in arranging the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels -- the screen name for Stephanie Clifford. The documents map out a flurry of phone calls and text messages in October 2016, when Cohen was arranging the payment to Daniels to keep her from going public with her claim of an affair years earlier with Trump.
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| California father drowns in Oregon river after trying to help his daughter Posted: 19 Jul 2019 10:58 AM PDT  A California man drowned Thursday afternoon after he jumped in the Santiam River to save his daughter in Marion County.
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| Gibraltar extends detention of Iranian tanker for a month Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:23 AM PDT  Gibraltar was granted the power on Friday to detain Iran's Grace 1 oil tanker for another month, keeping the vessel at the center of a big-power quarrel between Iran and the United States and its allies. Gibraltar said the Iranian vessel, seized by marines in a daring landing in darkness off the coast of the British territory on July 4, was suspected of smuggling oil to Syria in breach of European Union sanctions. Iran has repeatedly called for the ship's release, denies the allegation that the tanker was taking oil to Syria in violation of sanctions and says Gibraltar and Britain seized the vessel on the orders of Washington.
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| Palm Beach Sheriff Investigating Handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s 2009 Work Release Posted: 19 Jul 2019 08:26 AM PDT  The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office has launched an internal investigation into why financier Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to use his own private driver and make unsupervised stops at his private residence during his work release from the county jail when he served time in 2008 and 2009, according to a new report by West Palm Beach Contact 5 News. Epstein, who pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor in Palm Beach County in a secret non-prosecution agreement in 2008, was given carte blanche when it came to how he conducted his work-release program, according to documents seen by the news organization. REVEALED: We Found Billionaire Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's Secret CharityAmong the 464 pages of deputy logs scrutinized by Contact 5 are countless examples of how Epstein was able to spend unsupervised time at his private mansion, where he stands accused of running a child-sex-trafficking ring, when he should have been at his office. The work-release guidelines stipulate that a deputy in charge of his supervision was supposed to be with Epstein at all times when he was out of the county jail, which clearly did not happen, according to the logs seen by Contact 5.The logs also show that deputies left him alone in his home for as much as three hours at a time on at least nine occasions despite the clear regulation that the perpetrator "is not to leave his designated workplace for any reason, with the exception of returning to the PBSO stockade, or for emergency medical treatment."Epstein was allowed to leave his cell for 12 hours a day six days a week after Sheriff Ric Bradshaw signed off on his petition for work release after he acted as a "model prisoner" during his initial months of lockdown, which he spent in a single cell often relegated to those who have testified against others or who are under threat. Epstein was such a good inmate, he was elevated to the role of houseman, Chief Deputy Michael Gauger told the Palm Beach Post, referring to the special status that would allow him to leave his single cell to carry out duties like sweeping and mopping floors, collecting food trays, and delivering linens. "He never complained," Gauger said.After Contact 5 questioned the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office about its investigation, spokeswoman Teri Barbera admitted that deputies did not follow Epstein from the jail to his office on Australian Avenue, according to news reports.When asked for clarification, the spokesperson sent Contact 5 an email responding, "Don't forget that Epstein had a GPS ankle bracelet on him and we would know if he diverted from the route from the stockade to his office."But the logs show that, on several occasions, officers noted problems with Epstein's GPS bracelet, including at least two times when they escorted him out of his workplace to "test the system." On one occasion, officers wrote that they waited across the street from Epstein for a long period of time while the GPS system reset. The deputies were also asked to wear suits and act cordially with Epstein, who was not registered as a sex offender at the time despite the credible accusations against him.Bradshaw has now ordered the internal investigation into his department to "determine if any actions taken by the deputies assigned to monitor Epstein during his work-release program violated any agency rules and regulations, during the time he was on PBSO work-release program."At least one woman has accused Epstein of sexually propositioning her in his office while he was on work release. "Sheriff Bradshaw takes these matters very seriously," the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office said in a statement Friday. "All aspects of the matter will be fully investigated to ensure total transparency and accountability."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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| For Planned Parenthood, No Doctors Need Apply Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:30 AM PDT  Poor Leana Wen. She took Planned Parenthood's propaganda a little too seriously. And now she's out of a job.For the longest time, Planned Parenthood has insisted that it's a health-care organization, and it only cares about abortion — supposedly a tiny share of its business — insofar as it's a function of health care.Whenever Republicans have threatened Planned Parenthood's funding over abortion, the response was, Abortion? Don't be silly. We are all about Pap tests and breast exams.The hiring of Wen as president seemed the natural extension of this line of argument. How serious is Planned Parenthood about health care? For the first time in a half a century it had a physician, with "Dr." in front of her name, one who was once the health commissioner of Baltimore, leading the organization.BuzzFeed wrote a mostly favorable piece on Wen's ascension eight months ago headlined, awkwardly in order to honor the trope that abortion is health care, "Planned Parenthood's New President Wants to Focus on Nonabortion Health Care."The first sign of trouble should have been that Wen felt compelled to immediately tweet that the headline misconstrued her vision. "Our core mission," she wrote, presumably under internal pressure, "is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care."But Wen, it turns out, wasn't single-mindedly devoted to abortion enough. With her ouster, Planned Parenthood's mask, never very firmly in place to begin with, has slipped. No matter its political spin during fights over its funding, no matter what its glossy printed materials say, no matter how dishonestly it presents the statistics related to its services, the organization is about abortion first and last, now and forever.In a letter tweeted after her firing, Wen cited "philosophical differences" with the leadership of the board. Namely, she had come to Planned Parenthood "to run a national health care organization." The board wanted "to double down on abortion rights advocacy."It's truly extraordinary to have this breach out in the open, given how vested Planned Parenthood has been in its image as a mere health-care provider. When Barack Obama became the first — and one hopes, the last — president to address a Planned Parenthood conference in 2013, he talked almost entirely about health care. In fact, he didn't mention the word "abortion" once.Planned Parenthood always says abortion is only 3 percent of its services, an absurd factoid designed to mislead. Providing pregnancy tests and performing abortions are both Planned Parenthood services, although one is obviously much more consequential and central to its mission than the other.The more telling way to look at it is that Planned Parenthood performs roughly a third of all abortions in the country, about 330,000 a year, according to its annual report.If performing a significant share of the country's abortions were merely incidental to its mission, it would gladly give it up. If you told any other federally funded group that it might have to forswear a small sliver of its business to continue to get public dollars, it wouldn't be a difficult choice. Or, if Walmart had to decide between, say, selling Bounty paper towels and everything else on its shelves, it wouldn't be a close call.The internal complaint about Wen was that she was too concerned with what is, if we take Planned Parenthood's spurious accounting seriously, 97 percent of its business. So what's wrong with that? The context of her ouster is the continued pressure on Planned Parenthood from the Trump administration and in Republican states, which, if nothing else, is smoking Planned Parenthood out. The firing of Wen, coupled with the decision to forgo Title X funding rather than stop providing abortion referrals in keeping with a new Trump administration rule, makes the group's true priority obvious, if there were any doubt.An interim president has been named, and the implicit guideline for filling the permanent role will surely be: No doctors need apply.© 2019 by King Features Syndicate
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| National Border Patrol Council official says Rep. Cummings is 'not telling the truth' about migrant facilities Posted: 19 Jul 2019 07:13 AM PDT  Art Del Cueto says Rep. Elijah Cummings is 'not telling the truth' about how migrant children are treated at border detention facilities, calls out Congress for not coming up with solutions to fix the crisis at the southern border.
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| See the 2020 Chevy Corvette C8 Driving on the Road Undisguised Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:37 PM PDT |
| Philippine police seek sedition charges against VP, Duterte critics Posted: 19 Jul 2019 06:14 AM PDT  Philippine police have recommended sedition charges against the vice president and other opposition figures, a move slammed Friday as an attempt to stifle dissent under President Rodrigo Duterte. Police allege Vice President Leni Robredo, Catholic Church leaders and opposition politicians plotted to destabilise the Duterte government by implicating him in the narcotics trade. Duterte launched a war against the drug trade when he came into power three years ago.
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| Iraqi refugee Nadia Murad to Trump: ISIS killed family. Trump responds: 'Where are they now?' Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:30 AM PDT  Nadia Murad, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, was one of 27 survivors of religious persecution that visited with President Trump on Wednesday.
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| Hong Kong police seize explosives ahead of weekend protests Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:54 AM PDT  Police in Hong Kong discovered a stash of a powerful homemade explosive as the semi-autonomous Chinese city readied for another major pro-democracy protest on Sunday. Materials voicing opposition to an extradition bill that has sparked more than a month of demonstrations in Hong Kong were found at the site, local media said, but a police spokesman said no concrete link has been established and that the investigation is continuing. In a rally that aimed to counter the pro-democracy movement, thousands of people filled a park in central Hong Kong on Saturday to support the police, who have been accused of using rough tactics on protesters.
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| An Open Secret: Russia Will Never Become a Stealth Fighter 'Superpower' Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:09 PM PDT  Speaking on May 15, 2019, Putin said the Kremlin would buy scores of Su-57s over the next eight years. If Putin is serious and the Russian defense ministry follows through on the pledge, Russia soon could possess a meaningful number of stealth fighters. But there are good reasons to be skeptical.But buying into the Su-57 program won't magically solve the program's problems. The Su-57 is an immature design whose production line is small and inefficient. That won't quickly or cheaply change.Russian president Vladimir Putin made a big show on May 14, 2019 of visiting the 929th Chkalov State Flight-Test Center in Russia's Astrakhan region.(This first appeared in May 2019.)Six Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighters -- fully half of the Su-57s that Sukhoi has built since the type first flew in 2010 -- escorted Putin's Il-96 VIP plane on the trip from Moscow to Astrakhan.Speaking on May 15, 2019, Putin said the Kremlin would buy scores of Su-57s over the next eight years. If Putin is serious and the Russian defense ministry follows through on the pledge, Russia soon could possess a meaningful number of stealth fighters.But there are good reasons to be skeptical. The Su-57 still isn't a mature design. It lacks key combat systems. Sukhoi hasn't set up a big, efficient production line for the type. And Moscow almost certainly doesn't have the money to buy a large number of stealth fighters.
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| Brazil's Petrobras refuses to refuel Iran ships due to US sanctions Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:03 AM PDT  US-listed Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras said Friday it will not refuel two Iranian vessels that have been stuck for weeks at a Brazilian port for fear of violating American sanctions. Washington has imposed a slate of sanctions on Tehran and companies with ties to the Islamic republic since President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of a landmark nuclear pact last year. The ships Bavand and Termeh, which reportedly belong to Iranian company Sapid Shipping, arrived at Paranagua port in the southern state of Parana early last month, an official at the port told AFP.
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| Jon Stewart Eviscerates Rand Paul for Blocking 9/11 Victim Funding: ‘It’s an Abomination’ Posted: 18 Jul 2019 12:41 PM PDT  One month ago, former Daily Show host Jon Stewart went on Fox News to shame Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for failing to protect 9/11 first responders. Wednesday afternoon, he was back on that network to give the other Republican senator from Kentucky a piece of his mind. In an interview with Bret Baier, Stewart immediately took aim at Rand Paul who, along with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), blocked a Senate bill that would extend the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, making the case that it should be offset by other spending cuts. Responding directly to Paul, Stewart called his objection "absolutely outrageous," adding, "Pardon me if I'm not impressed in any way by Rand Paul's fiscal responsibility virtue signaling." Jon Stewart Fires Back at Mitch McConnell on 'Colbert': Stop 'Jacking Around' 9/11 First RespondersStewart went on to condemn Paul for supporting President Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cut that "added hundreds of billions of dollars to our deficit" and now trying to "balance the budget on the backs of the 9/11 first responder community." "Bret, this is about what kind of society we have," a clearly furious Stewart continued. "At some point, we have to stand up for the people who have always stood up for us, and at this moment in time maybe cannot stand up for themselves due to their illnesses and their injuries. And what Rand Paul did today on the floor of the Senate was outrageous." "He is a guy who put us in hundreds of billions of dollars in debt," he said of Paul. "And now he's going to tell us that a billion dollars a year over 10 years is just too much for us to handle? You know, there are some things that they have no trouble putting on the credit card, but somehow when it comes to the 9/11 first responder community—the cops, the firefighters, the construction workers, the volunteers, the survivors—all of a sudden we've got to go through this." Appearing next to Stewart was 9/11 first responder and activist John Feal, who thanked the host and Fox News as a whole for being so "generous" with their time on this issue before calling Senators Paul and Lee "bottom-feeders" who "lack humanity" and "lack leadership."Stewart said survivors like Feal and others shouldn't have to "drag themselves back to Washington, put their hats in their hands and beg for something that this country should have done 14 years ago," adding, "It's an abomination." 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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| Laws banning gay sex under challenge in tiny Caribbean nation Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:31 PM PDT ![Laws banning gay sex under challenge in tiny Caribbean nation]( "Laws banning gay sex under challenge in tiny Caribbean nation") A gay man in the tiny Caribbean nation of Dominica filed a legal claim challenging its laws that ban gay sex and punish same-sex relations with prison terms and psychiatric confinement, a Canada-based rights group said on Friday. Dominica is one of nine Caribbean countries that outlaw gay sex, and taking down its ban could build momentum to address the anti-gay laws throughout the region, supporters said. The challenge seeks to prove the law violates Dominica's constitution that guarantees rights to freedom of expression, privacy and freedom from inhumane or degrading punishment.
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| Israeli ambassador says Omar and Tlaib will be allowed in country Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:30 AM PDT  Omar said the pair are set to visit the country in the coming weeks and has introduced a new resolution supporting the right of Americans to boycott Israel.
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| Pittsburgh marks its 4th alligator sighting since May Posted: 19 Jul 2019 02:09 PM PDT  A baby alligator was found far from the tropics in the parking lot of a grocery store outside Pittsburgh on Friday morning, the fourth alligator discovered near the city since May. An employee found the 2-foot-long (60-centimeter-long) creature near a garbage can at the Giant Eagle grocery store in Shaler, about 10 miles (15 kilometers) north of Pittsburgh. "It looks like a little baby alligator," Shaler Township Police Lt. Dave Banko told the Tribune Review newspaper.
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| Two Delta Air Lines planes clip wings at Boston Logan International Airport Posted: 20 Jul 2019 07:30 AM PDT ![Two Delta Air Lines planes clip wings at Boston Logan International Airport]( "Two Delta Air Lines planes clip wings at Boston Logan International Airport") Two Delta Air Lines planes touched wings at Boston Logan International Airport as a flight was arriving to its gate Friday night.
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| Crowd at Trump rally yells 'Send her back' amid continuing attacks on Democratic congresswomen Posted: 18 Jul 2019 11:43 AM PDT  Trump played to voters' grievances, drawing a chant from the crowd of "Send her back! Send her back!"
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| 41 Low-Carb Breakfasts You'll Actually Want To Eat Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:20 PM PDT |
| Michelle Obama says diversity ‘truly makes’ US great in rebuke of Trump's racist tweets Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:50 AM PDT  Former US first lady Michelle Obama appeared to weigh in on President Donald Trump's racist attacks on four minority Democratic lawmakers, tweeting that diversity is "what truly makes our country great"."Whether we are born here or seek refuge here, there's a place for us all," she added. "We must remember it's not my America or your America. It's our America."While Mrs Obama, who was the world's most admired woman in 2019 according to a YouGov poll, did not directly reference Trump, her words appeared to echo Trump's campaign slogan "Make America great again".The tweets appear to be a rebuke of Trump's attacks on congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar, who are all women of colour.President Trump had tweeted last Sunday that the four lawmakers should "go back" to their home countries "and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came".However, all four are US citizens and three were born in the United States. Michelle Obama's mention of those who "seek refuge" in the US appears an message of support to Ilhan Omar was born in Somalia but moved to the US as a child refugee almost three decades ago and is a naturalised US citizen. She and Mrs Tlaib are the only Muslim women in the US House of Representatives.Trump has recently attacked Mrs Omar, tweeting that immigrants "should 'go back' to other countries". Just a few days later, Trump let his supporters chant "send her back" for some 13 seconds after he mentioned Ms Omar at a North California rally.His actions have caused outrage among Democrats. Senator Bernie Sanders said Mr Trump was "the most dangerous president in the history of our country".The Democratic-led House of Representatives responded to Trump's attacks by voting largely along party lines to condemn his comments as racist. The vote on Tuesday afternoon, which passed 240 – 187, approved a resolution saying "Donald Trump's racist comments have legitimised fear and hatred of new Americans and people of colour".
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| Bosnia buries 86 victims of 1992-95 war recovered from grisly ravine Posted: 20 Jul 2019 04:40 AM PDT ![Bosnia buries 86 victims of 1992-95 war recovered from grisly ravine]( "Bosnia buries 86 victims of 1992-95 war recovered from grisly ravine") Thousands of relatives from Bosnia and across Europe gathered in the village of Hambarine for the burial of 86 Bosniak Muslims on Saturday, 27 years after they were killed and dumped in a ravine in one of the most gruesome incidents of the Bosnian war. The victims, mainly prisoners from the war-era detention camps for non-Serbs near the town of Prijedor, were told they were being released in a prison exchange but instead were driven to the Koricani Cliffs in central Bosnia, lined up by the edge of the ravine and shot by Bosnian Serb forces in August 1992. Jasna Elezovic, standing by five coffins draped in green cloth which held the remains of her father, brother, two cousins and uncle in the nearby Kamicani graveyard, said their bodies were found only last year.
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| Venezuelan teen blinded by police fire still wants to study Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:50 PM PDT  A Venezuelan teenager who lost his eyesight when he was hit by police buckshot during a protest said Friday that he wants to continue studying. Wearing reflective sunglasses, 16-year-old Rufo Chacón also spoke about difficult living conditions in his home state of Táchira, where he was injured during a demonstration over a lack of cooking gas early this month. "You see continuous darkness," Chacón told journalists outside the Caracas office of Foro Penal, a human rights group.
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| Private Investigator Says He Shared Two Epstein Female Fixer Names with Feds Posted: 20 Jul 2019 07:26 AM PDT  Private investigator Michael Fisten first started digging into financier Jeffrey Epstein's alleged sex trafficking crimes more than a decade ago when attorney Brad Edwards hired him. After Epstein signed a non-prosecution deal with federal prosecutors in 2008, Edwards had sued Epstein in civil court on behalf of a number of alleged victims who had been blindsided by the plea deal (which a judge later ruled to have violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act). Fisten was tasked with finding as much incriminating information on the financier as he could.Fisten, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, said he was shocked and disgusted by what he uncovered. In a wide-ranging interview with CNN, the P.I. said that he was able to identify two young women who have arranged access to girls for Epstein in recent years. He and Edwards have handed over the names and "associated information" over to federal authorities, he said, though he did not name the alleged fixers to CNN.Judge Who Denied Bail to Jeffrey Epstein Calls Him 'Uncontrollable' and a 'Danger'Fisten also said that his investigations led to the discovery of countless lapses in security during the time Epstein was on work release from the Palm Beach county jail—in a cushy deal that allowed the convicted sex offender out of confinement 12 hours a day, six days a week. On Friday, the Palm Beach sheriff's office announced that it had opened its own internal investigation into whether deputies, who often referred to Epstein as a "client" instead of an inmate in logs kept at the sheriff's office, had broken with procedure. Fisten told CNN that he was angered that Epstein was allowed to go to a luxury office instead of remaining behind bars. Fisten said he was disgusted when he saw "lavish lunches being brought into the office and a parade of young females going in and out of the place."The Palm Beach sheriff's office now admits that Epstein was also allowed to go to his luxury mansion and spend time there unsupervised. Fisten tried to obtain the sheriff's office logs that should have documented the names and ages of everyone who came into contact with Epstein during work release, but the logs "have inexplicably vanished," he said to CNN. "We wanted to get those logs so we could see who the girls were," Fisten said. "They're missing. No one knows where they are."Fisten also repeated previous claims that Epstein wielded his power to silence his accusers during and after his incarceration, even hiring his own private investigators who were paid to harass his victims. "They were former Miami cops," Fisten told CNN. "He paid an extremely large retainer to them and all their job to do was to follow the girls around and intimidate them."Fisten even ran into Epstein's private investigators first hand. Once, when driving one of Epstein's accusers home, he told CNN he saw one of Epstein's detectives parked across from her house filming her comings and goings. Fisten said the father of another of Epstein's accusers was "run off the road" by one of the former cops in Epstein's employ.Of Epstein's alleged victims, Fisten noted, "Once these girls lost their braces and their pubescent look and started becoming 16-years old or 17-years old, they were too old for him.""So then he started using them as recruiters to bring the younger girls." Epstein was denied bail on Thursday as he faces federal sex trafficking charges in New York. Fisten says the victims finally feel that justice could be served. "They couldn't be happier," he told CNN. "It's all they ever wanted."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Mother wrongly diagnosed with breast cancer has double mastectomy before doctors realise their mistake Posted: 19 Jul 2019 10:29 AM PDT  A mother who was wrongly diagnosed with breast cancer underwent a double mastectomy and chemotherapy before the NHS hospital realised its mistake. Sarah Boyle has been left traumatised after doctors at Royal Stoke University Hospital misdiagnosed her with triple negative breast cancer at the end of 2016. The hospital only recognised the error several months later in July 2017, by which time the 28-year-old had already received several rounds of gruelling treatment and major surgery. The mother of two also had to cope with the knowledge that the breast implants may put her at added risk of developing cancer. Her lawyers said the mistake occurred because a biopsy sample was incorrectly recorded. Mrs Boyle has suffered psychological trauma as a result the ordeal and also continues to endure ongoing symptoms caused by the unnecessary treatment. She was initially told that her cancer treatment may harm her fertility. The patient was ultimately able to have a second child, who is now seven months old, but she was unable to breastfeed him due to the treatment. The trust has since admitted liability and apologised to Mrs Boyle, although legal proceedings are continuing. "The past few years have been incredibly difficult for me and my family," she said. "Being told I had cancer was awful, but then to go through all of the treatment and surgery to then be told it was unnecessary was traumatising. "And while I was delighted when I gave birth to Louis, it was really heartbreaking when I couldn't breastfeed him." "As if that wasn't bad enough, I am now worried about the possibility of actually developing cancer in the future because of the type of implants I have and I am also worried about complications that I may face because of my chemotherapy." Mrs Boyle worries her breast implants may increase her future cancer risk Credit: SWNS The case emerged weeks after health chiefs warned that 11,000 patients a year may be dying as a result of NHS blunders. A new strategy was unveiled last month with an aim of saving 1,000 lives a year within five years by ensuring all staff, however, junior, are trained to act if they spot risks. Mrs Boyle was aged 25 when she was misdiagnosed. She was later informed by her treating doctor, Mr Sankaran Narayanan, that her biopsy had been incorrectly reported and that she did not have cancer. Sarah Sharples, from Irwin Mitchell solicitors, which is representing Mrs Boyle, said: "This is a truly shocking case in which a young mother has faced heartbreaking news and a gruelling period of extensive treatment, only to be told that it was not necessary. "The entire experience has had a huge impact on Sarah in many ways. "While we welcome that the NHS Trust has admitted to the clear failings, we are yet to hear if any improvements have been put in place to prevent something like this happening again. "We are also deeply concerned following reports surrounding the type of implants Sarah has, with suspicions over their potential link to a rare form of cancer. A spokesman from the University Hospital of North Midlands NHS Trust said: "A misdiagnosis of this kind is exceptionally rare and we understand how devastating this has been for Sarah and her family. He added: "Ultimately the misreporting of the biopsy was a human error so as an extra safeguard all invasive cancer diagnoses are now reviewed by a second pathologist." The trust said it had shared the findings of its investigation with Mrs Boyle.
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| Ramush Haradinaj, Kosovo's 'Rambo' ex-PM and Serbian antagonist Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:50 AM PDT  Ramush Haradinaj, who resigned as Kosovo's prime minister on Friday, is hailed as a hero at home -- where he is nicknamed "Rambo" -- but considered a war criminal by Belgrade, which has long sought to see him behind bars. The controversial 51-year-old, who was a wartime commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), stepped down after being summoned as a suspect by a war crimes court in the Hague. It is the second time he has resigned after being called before a war crimes court over crimes allegedly committed by the ethnic Albanian KLA separatists during the 1998-99 war.
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| Journalist reporting on immigration released from ‘inhumane’ US migrant detention centre after 15 months Posted: 19 Jul 2019 02:22 AM PDT  There were bugs, and the showers were cold. Air conditioning was not available, but the heat was turned on inexplicably.If you didn't have family in the United States to send money for food, you would go hungry.Those are just some of the conditions Manuel Duran described after he was released from a US immigration detention centre.As a journalist in Memphis, Tennessee, Mr Duran had been reporting on immigration enforcement officials and sordid conditions for more than a decade by the time they took him into custody last year.Now, he says he's experienced the neglect himself."I've seen the cruelty of the mass detention of immigrants firsthand," Mr Duran told reporters in Spanish on Wednesday, "and it is unnecessary and inhumane."Mr Duran, a native of El Salvador, had been working for the Spanish-language news outlet Memphis Noticias.After being released last week from 15 months in detention, Mr Duran, 43, decried what he called the brutal treatment of immigrants by Donald Trump's administration.Detention centres have faced severe overcrowding in the past several months, prompting outrage and calls for change.Unlike many reporters who focus on immigration, Mr Duran has lived through the detention conditions he covers.Migrants did not get enough food at any of the four facilities where Mr Duran was held, he said at the news conference on Wednesday.They had to buy rations with money sent by their families, and if they didn't have relatives in the United States, the migrants would go hungry.The holding facilities were infested with cockroaches and spiders, Mr Duran said. At Etowah County Detention Centre in Alabama, he said he had to bathe with cold water from hoses for two months.The air conditioner was being repaired for most of the spring, Mr Duran said, and the heat was turned on at one point, making it difficult to sleep."I've seen the disastrous effect of Trump's anti-immigrant policy," Mr Duran said. "I've seen working men, businessmen, who have lived their whole lives in this country and who haven't committed crimes crying and longing to reunite with their families."Mr Duran alleged that ICE had singled him out for detention because he was a journalist from El Salvador.His attorneys at the Southern Poverty Law Centre also argued in a court document that law enforcement had arrested and detained Mr Duran in an attempt to suppress his reporting critical of immigration enforcement."In the US, we are made to believe that freedom of the press is valued, but I can tell you all that under the Trump administration, this isn't true," Mr Duran said.He was released from detention on bond on 11 July while the Board of Immigration Appeals considers whether to grant him asylum because journalists face dangerous conditions in El Salvador, his attorneys said.Gracie Willis, a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Centre, said Mr Duran decided to speak to reporters about his experience in detention because he considers journalism a form of advocacy."I think for him, it was important for him to speak to the press, who are his brothers and sisters in his vocation – to inform them about the things that he saw," Ms Willis said.On 3 April 2018, Mr Duran was reporting on a protest of local police helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when Memphis police arrested him while they were trying to clear people from the street, according to Mr Duran's attorneys.Mr Duran was charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of a highway, the lawyers wrote in the court document, but the charges were dropped two days later.Instead of releasing Mr Duran from jail, his attorneys said he was turned over to ICE and brought on an eight-hour bus ride to the LaSalle detention centre in Jena, Louisiana – without access to a bathroom and with his wrists, ankles and waist in shackles.Mr Duran migrated to the United States in 2006, when his television reporting in El Salvador subjected him to death threats, his attorneys wrote.He missed an immigration court hearing the next year because he was not told about it, according to his lawyers, causing a judge to issue a removal order for him.ICE on Thursday did not respond to a request for information about his case and for a response to his criticisms of the detention centres.Mauricio Calvo, the executive director of advocacy group Latino Memphis, said many other immigrants face the same conditions that Mr Duran described.Attorneys from Latino Memphis, an organisation that provides services and advocates for policies that benefit Latinos, were part of Mr Duran's legal team."This guy had a lot of support because he's a journalist and all these different things," Mr Calvo said, "but we have 500 cases at Latino Memphis, and most people cannot get the attention that Manuel did."Mr Duran is not the first foreign-born journalist to be detained by ICE.Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, a Mexican reporter, migrated to the United States in 2008 after he says soldiers broke into his home and took his identity documents.He and his son Oscar were denied asylum in 2017 and temporarily detained. Their immigration cases are ongoing.Washington Post
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| Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin complains about current U.S. lunar ability Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:48 PM PDT  When President Donald Trump asked Buzz Aldrin, the second human ever to walk on the moon, what he thought about the United States' current ability to operate in space 50 years after the Apollo 11 mission, the ex-astronaut had a ready response. "Actually, I've been a little disappointed over the last 10 or 15 years," Aldrin told Trump on Friday. With the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing being celebrated this week, Trump brought into the Oval Office the surviving astronauts from that mission, Aldrin and Michael Collins, and relatives of the late Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.
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| Army Recruiters Signed Off On Hundreds of Recruits Who Hadn't Passed a Required Fitness Test Posted: 19 Jul 2019 05:00 PM PDT  Over 300 soldiers were found to have enlisted after either failing a required fitness test, or never taking it at all, according to documents obtained by Army Times.In 2017, the Army was straining to meet its goal of 476,000 active-duty soldiers, meaning the service had to bring in 68,000 recruits. The Occupational Physical Assessment Test was new, and Army Times reports that recruiters implicated in the investigation — 297 of them — "figured the recruits would sort out their fitness levels at basic."According to the report obtained by Army Times, recruiters "perceived that they were under pressure by the mission increase and the requirement to fill training seats during a historically low period of accessions into the Army to ship recruits as quickly as possible."The investigators who looked into the issue also wrote in their report that many of the recruiters "did not fully grasp how to administer the OPAT or the significance of the testing requirements."The investigation involved 38 of the Army's recruiting battalions, excluding only New York City and Richmond, Virginia. Per Army Times, the worst offender was Dallas, Texas, passing through 38 untested recruits who never took the fitness test.Overall there were 318 soldiers who said they either never took the test, or that they failed it; 228 allegations were substantiated, and U.S. Army Recruiting Command spokeswoman Lisa Ferguson told Army Times that "appropriate action was taken in each case."
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| Iran state TV: Iranian forces seize foreign oil tanker, crew Posted: 18 Jul 2019 10:50 AM PDT  Iran said Thursday its Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign oil tanker and its crew of 12 for smuggling fuel out of the country, and hours later released video showing the vessel to be a United Arab Emirates-based ship that had vanished in Iranian waters over the weekend. The announcement solved one mystery — the fate of the missing ship — but raised a host of other questions and heightened worries about the free flow of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical petroleum shipping routes. The incident happened with tensions running high between Iran and the United States over President Donald Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal.
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| 9-year-old girl dies after bounce house blown into power lines Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:27 AM PDT ![9-year-old girl dies after bounce house blown into power lines]( "9-year-old girl dies after bounce house blown into power lines") A 9-year-old Reno girl has died from injuries she suffered when strong winds blew an inflatable bounce house with three children inside into power lines last weekend.
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| Iraq Kurds arrest two suspects in killing of Turkish vice consul Posted: 20 Jul 2019 09:19 AM PDT  Iraqi Kurdish authorities announced Saturday they had arrested two suspects involved in the murder of three people, including a Turkish diplomat, in the regional capital Arbil this week. The autonomous region's security council first said its counterterrorism unit had arrested "the main perpetrator" Mazloum Dag, a 27-year-old from Turkey's Diyarbakir region. The council had put out a wanted notice for Dag a day earlier in connection to Wednesday's killing of Turkish Vice Consul Osman Kose and two Iraqi nationals.
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| Poll: 38 Percent of Democrats Say American Dream Is Unattainable for Them Posted: 18 Jul 2019 11:57 AM PDT  38 percent of Democrats say they do not believe they will achieve the American dream in their lifetimes, compared to just 11 percent of Republicans, according to a new Gallup poll.Two-thirds of independents said they see the dream as attainable, compared to 31 percent who said they do not. Overall, about 70 percent of Americans feel that American dream could be grasped, the poll reported, while 29 percent disagree.The 38 percent of Democrats who said they did not believe they could achieve the American dream represented a sharp increase from a decade ago, when 29 percent of Democrats said the same. President Trump has described the Republican party as "the party of the American Dream," perhaps contributing to the increasing partisan split on the matter."The American dream is back," the president said after taking office in 2017. "We're going to create an environment for small business like we haven't had in many, many decades."
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| Kevin McAleenan pushes back as House Democrats grill the acting DHS chief over border crisis Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:48 AM PDT  McAleenan says border agents are doing their 'level best in a very challenging situation.'
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| U.S. intelligence chief creates election security position Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:37 AM PDT  Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who has drawn criticism from President Donald Trump for assessments that countered his policies, said on Friday he was creating a new position to focus solely on U.S. election security. "Election security is an enduring challenge and a top priority for the IC (international community)," Coats said in a statement. Coats said he had tapped Shelby Pierson, the DNI's crisis manager for election security during the 2018 congressional elections, for the job.
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| How China Could Sink an American Aircraft Carrier In a Bloody Battle Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:00 PM PDT  That carrier-killer imagery resonates with Western audiences comes as little surprise. Ah, yes, the "carrier-killer." China is forever touting the array of guided missiles its weaponeers have devised to pummel U.S. Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs). Most prominent among them are its DF-21D and DF-26 antiship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has made a mainstay of China's anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) defenses.(This first appeared several years ago. It is being republished due to reader interest.)Beijing has made believers of important audiences, including the scribes who toil away at the Pentagon producing estimates of Chinese martial might. Indeed, the most recent annual report on Chinese military power states matter-of-factly that the PLA can now use DF-21Ds to "attack ships, including aircraft carriers," more than nine hundred statute miles from China's shorelines.Scary. But the U.S. Navy has carrier-killers of its own. Or, more accurately, it has shipkillers of its own: what can disable or sink a flattop can make short work of lesser warships. And antiship weaponry is multiplying in numbers, range, and lethality as the navy reawakens from its post-Cold War holiday from history. Whose carrier-killer trumps whose will hinge in large part on where a sea fight takes place.
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| This Porsche 911 Turbo Is Said To Have Been Mario Andretti's Own Posted: 19 Jul 2019 10:35 AM PDT  This stunning 1985 Porsche 935 has 500-horsepower on tap and a lightweight body, making it one heck of a driver's carMario Andretti is a name synonymous with high performance vehicles and a passion for driving. The fact that this beautiful blue turbocharged Porsche is branded as 'Built for Mario Andretti' is little surprise, and you could feel like the man himself if you have an extra $375,000 laying around to bring it home to your garage.Listed on eBay with the hefty Buy It Now price, this Porsche is currently located in Miami, Florida. The A DP Motorsports tag in the door jamb that states 'built for Mario Andretti' heavily eludes to this car being personally owned by the icon, but we cannot definitively confirm as much.It started out life as a 930, but was then heavily upgraded by Kremer and DP Motorsports, both inside and out. The exterior has lightweight body modifications that include a slant nose front, shaved fenders, intercooler air inlets, hot air extractors, wider rear fenders, flush fitted side mirrors, a new lower rear valance, and custom large rear spoiler - all coated in the head turning dark blue paint with gold accent stripes. Gold spoke BBS three-piece wheels bring the look of the sports car together.Naturally, all that bodywork wasn't done just to leave the 930 engine stock. An intercooler from DP Motorsports was custom made for the setup, and the rest of the modifications come from Kremer and include a set of Group B camshafts and customized K27 turbocharger to produce a total of 500-horsepower.The interior is very much still that of a 930, but is mostly flawless. It has power leather seats, power windows, and plush carpeting. An item not typical to the 930 would be the fire extinguisher that's bolted to the passenger side floor pan, and an aftermarket radio takes place of the original unit.A leather Momo steering wheel, leather wrapped roll bar, and Simpson racing harness signal to its racing potential. The new owner will have to do very little to take this lightweight and powerful Porsche to the track and out lap much newer cars.
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| Lawsuit: North Dakota officers used 'violence' on protester Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:08 PM PDT  Marcus Mitchell, 24, filed the lawsuit Thursday against Morton County, the city of Bismarck and state Highway Patrol officers. Highway Patrol spokesman Wade Kadrmas declined comment, citing pending litigation. A Morton County official didn't immediately respond to the Bismarck Tribune's request for comment Thursday.
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