| Rep. Cummings: 'No doubt' about President Trump being racist Posted: 21 Jul 2019 07:45 AM PDT  Rep. Elijah Cummings said on Sunday said he has "no doubt about it" that President Trump is racist.
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| Britain tells UN tanker seizure was 'illegal interference' Posted: 21 Jul 2019 10:01 AM PDT  A top British representative to the United Nations has declared in a letter to the Security Council that Iran's seizure of a British-flagged tanker amounted to "illegal interference," and he rejected Tehran's version of events. Iranian authorities impounded the Stena Impero with 23 crew members aboard after patrol boats of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized it Friday in the highly sensitive Strait of Hormuz.
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| Kenyan finance minister arrested on graft charges Posted: 22 Jul 2019 01:08 AM PDT  Kenyan Finance Minister Henry Rotich was arrested on Monday on suspicion of financial misconduct related to the construction of two dams, an unprecedented detention of a sitting minister for corruption in a country notorious for graft. Rotich denied any wrongdoing in a large newspaper advertisement in March. Rotich and 27 co-accused face eight charges, ranging from conspiring to defraud and financial misconduct, said Noordin Haji, the director of public prosecutions.
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| The Orion capsule for NASA's next moon landing is ready to rock Posted: 21 Jul 2019 09:25 AM PDT  The next trip to the moon isn't supposed to happen until 2024, but NASA is now ready to put living humans on the surface.On July 20, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, NASA confirmed that work on the Orion crew vehicle is complete. The reusable capsule, designed to carry four to six astronauts, is meant to offer a "sustainable" option for carrying humans to other worlds, including the moon and, later, Mars.NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine called the new development "an opportunity to take a giant leap forward for all of humanity." The Orion capsule is supposed to carry humans to the moon in 2024 as part of the larger Artemis program.Orion's first trip to space is planned for 2020/2021, and it's to be an uncrewed test flight in which the module will spend 10 days in orbit around the moon before returning to Earth. The Artemis 2 mission is expected to follow in 2022, this time bringing live astronauts out into space for a moon flyby.The 2024 mission will include an actual, crewed landing, with the module first visiting to to-be-built Lunar Orbital Platform - Gateway, a space station that's meant to remain in lunar orbit and serve as a staging ground for communications, scientific research, habitation, and exploration. NASA hopes that by 2028, humans will have a sustainable presence on the surface of the moon.SEE ALSO: Where are the lost Apollo 11 Moon landing tapes?Also completed is Orion's European Service Module, which will power the capsule and propel it through space. The ESM is a contribution of the European Space Agency.With the announcement of Orion's completion, all eyes are on the upcoming moon missions. But the capsule has a bigger future than that. Not only is it meant to eventually carry astronauts to Mars, it's also, according to NASA, the "backbone for [our] deep space exploration" in general. WATCH: Before Apollo 11, we almost went to the moon with the Russians
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| White man denies saying 'Go back where you came from' Posted: 21 Jul 2019 09:10 AM PDT  Eric Sparkes showed up during a WSB-TV interview with Rep. Erica Thomas of Austell on Saturday, outside the Atlanta-area Publix store where the incident occurred , the station reported . Thomas confronted Sparkes in front of reporters and said he had "degraded and berated" her. In a tearful Facebook video posted Friday, Thomas said she was in the express line because she is nine months pregnant and cannot stand for long.
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| French submarine lost in 1968 found at last in Mediterranean Posted: 22 Jul 2019 09:45 AM PDT  A French submarine that went missing in the western Mediterranean in 1968 has been found, officials said Monday, ending a 51-year wait for families of the crew who continue to seek answers to the naval disaster. The diesel-electric Minerve submarine was lost off France's southern coast with 52 sailors on board on January 27, 1968. "We found the submarine Minerve last night located 45 kilometres (30 miles) south of Toulon, about 20 kilometres further south than where it was searched for in 1968," the French maritime prefect of the Mediterranean, Vice Admiral Charles Henri du Che, told reporters in Toulon.
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| 2020 Candidates Delayed Paying Staff to Look Richer on Paper Posted: 22 Jul 2019 01:54 AM PDT  Drew Angerer/GettyFor months, Sen. Amy Klobuchar's (D-MN) presidential campaign made regular payments to its staff and vendors, with varying daily expenditures that never exceeded $335,000. But on April 1, 2019, the campaign's spending exploded.Whereas Klobuchar's campaign spent an average of about $55,000 per day through the end of June, according to FEC filings, it dropped a whopping $624,000 on the first day of April, including a $300,000 payment to the campaign's digital vendor. That massive uptick in expenses was likely due to the fact that April 1 marked the beginning of the new fundraising quarter. By putting off the payments until then, Klobuchar was able to put the best possible spin on her presidential campaign's financial position during the previous three months. If those expenses had come a day earlier, Klobuchar's cash on hand figure would have been roughly $6.35 million. Instead, the campaign was able to claim roughly $7 million in reserves—a sum that placed her among the better-positioned Democrats in the presidential race. A Daily Beast review of campaign finance records indicates that the delayed-expenses strategy has continued through the just completed cycle, and has involved payments to campaign staffers as well.Klobuchar Gets Barr to Defend Trump Over and Over AgainKlobuchar, whose campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment, is one of at least four Democratic presidential candidates who appear to have skipped a staff payday at the end of June, putting off that pay period until the beginning of the following month and hence transferring the expense to the next quarter's balance sheets.Virtually every campaign engages in forms of accounting gimmicks in order to enhance their financial standings. Veterans of past and current races say that it is common to try and delay spending to future quarters in order to bolster cash reserves that have to reported at filing deadlines. That pressure is particularly acute in elections with crowded fields (such as the 2020 Democratic primary) when reporters, donors, and voters are ever attuned to any signs of momentum or lack thereof.For some campaigns, the ability to put off a payroll payment—whether by design or coincidence—made a substantial difference. That's most true for the Klobuchar campaign, which reported $186,000 in salary expenditures on its last reported pay day, June 15.Federal Election Commission records indicate that the campaign was otherwise paying staffers on the 15th and last day of each month. But no paychecks went out at the end of June, according to its second quarter financial filing. Klobuchar didn't simply eliminate those expenses by postponing the last payroll payment of the second quarter. That's because her campaign appears to have put off its last pay period of the first quarter as well after writing salary checks on February 20, February 28, and March 15, the next payments went out on April 1. But her staff, and accompanying payroll expenses, were larger in June than in March. And at some point, she will either have to make all wage payments or simply not pay her staff. And by kicking the can down the road, she has been able to avoid taking the hit on a campaign finance filing for the time being. Three other campaigns also departed from previous payroll schedules by skipping end-of-month paychecks last month, according to a review of campaign finance records. Rep. John Delaney's (D-MD) campaign said the change in schedule was simply a product of switching to a new payroll management service that restructured that schedule.Sen. Michael Bennett (D-CO) and Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) both attributed it to the fact that June 30 was a Sunday, so checks went out the following day. But it's common practice for employers to send out paychecks on the preceding Friday when paydays fall on a weekend. The decision to do so the following Monday served, intentionally or not, to boost apparent cash-on-hand figures at the end of the quarter in a way that shrouded the campaigns' actual liabilities.There's nothing improper or problematic with structuring campaign payments in order to present the best possible picture of its financial situation. But an understanding that campaigns do so, and how they do so, can give the public a better grasp of the financial standing of the various political camps vying for the 2020 Democratic nomination.Delayed payroll payments can be relatively small fractions of total cash on hand figures. But campaign staffers are not heavily compensated employees to begin with. And the absence of a regular paycheck—even by just a matter of days—can cause life complications. "I haven't heard of this practice before but I am not surprised," said Kim McMurray, an executive council member of the Campaign Workers Guild and a former organizer for 2020 contender Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). "FEC timing deadlines are such an important moment for campaigns to show enthusiasm, support, etc. so campaigns want to show the largest number possible.""It is very disappointing if this came at the expense of the workers," McMurray added.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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| Trump says Mueller should not be allowed to testify about investigating possible obstruction of justice Posted: 22 Jul 2019 06:15 AM PDT  Donald Trump has said Robert Mueller should not be allowed to testify to congress about his investigation into the president's possible obstruction of justice and links to Russia."Highly conflicted Robert Mueller should not be given another bite at the apple," the president tweeted, after Mr Mueller appeared in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees on Wednesday."In the end it will be bad for him and the phony Democrats in Congress who have done nothing but waste time on this ridiculous Witch Hunt. Result of the Mueller Report, NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION!"The president has repeatedly hit out at Mr Mueller as "conflicted" – without evidence – as well as calling the investigation into Russia election interference a "witch hunt". The aim for Mr Trump has always been to undermine Mr Mueller's credibility throughout the two-year probe.Mr Mueller's report did not find sufficient evidence to establish charges of criminal conspiracy but did find evidence Mr Trump had potentially obstructed the investigation.Presenting his report in May, the then-special counsel indicated he was prevented from indicting a sitting president – saying such an action was "not an option" – because of the legal opinion of the Justice Department.He did not use the word "impeachment" but said it was the job of congress to hold the president accountable for wrongdoing.> Highly conflicted Robert Mueller should not be given another bite at the apple. In the end it will be bad for him and the phony Democrats in Congress who have done nothing but waste time on this ridiculous Witch Hunt. Result of the Mueller Report, NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION!...> > — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) > > July 22, 2019"But the questions should be asked," the president said in a second tweet on Monday. "Why were all of Clinton's people given immunity, and why were the text messages of Peter S and his lover, Lisa Page, deleted and destroyed right after they left Mueller, and after we requested them(this is Illegal)?"Mr Trump was referring to Peter Strzok, who led the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server. He also worked on Mr Mueller's probe into the president's possible campaign links to Russia. Mr Mueller is expected to testify before congress in back-to-back hearings on Wednesday in a move that could potentially lead the Democrat-led House of Representatives to begin formal impeachment inquiry proceedings. In a statement preparing for the upcoming testimony, house judiciary committee chair Jerrold Nadler said the testimony would provide "very substantial evidence" against Mr Trump."This is a president who has violated the law six ways from Sunday," said Mr Nadler, a New York Democrat, on Sunday. He added: "We have to present – or let Mueller present – those facts to the American people ... because the administration must be held accountable and no president can be above the law."Mr Mueller has said he does not intend to reveal anything more than what he laid out in his nearly 400-page report. But many Democrats in congress will hope the public testimony could push forward the case for impeachment when he is asked about the 10 examples of the president's alleged obstruction of justice. Republicans are likely to follow a similar line of questioning line to Mr Trump, and ask Mr Mueller about his team.
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| Rare new shark species squirts glow-in-the-dark liquid from its pockets Posted: 22 Jul 2019 08:34 AM PDT  Scientists from various universities and research groups identified the 5½-inch shark as the American Pocket Shark, or Mollisquama mississippiensis.
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| Millions of Barrels of Iranian Oil Are Piled Up in China’s Ports Posted: 22 Jul 2019 05:28 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Tankers are offloading millions of barrels of Iranian oil into storage tanks at Chinese ports, creating a hoard of crude sitting on the doorstep of the world's biggest buyer.Two and a half months after the White House banned the purchase of Iran's oil, the nation's crude is continuing to be sent to China where it's being put into what's known as "bonded storage," say people familiar with operations at several Chinese ports. This supply doesn't cross local customs or show up in the nation's import data, and isn't necessarily in breach of sanctions. While it remains out of circulation for now, its presence is looming over the market.The store of oil has the potential to push down global prices if Chinese refiners decide to draw on it, even as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies curb production as growth slows in major economies. It also allows Iran to keep pumping and move oil nearer to potential buyers."Iranian oil shipments have been flowing into Chinese bonded storage for some months now, and continue to do so despite increased scrutiny," said Rachel Yew, an analyst at industry consultant FGE in Singapore. "We can see why the producer would want to do so, as a build-up of supplies near key buyers is clearly beneficial for a seller, especially if sanctions are eased at some point."See also: Iranian Oil Tanker Daniel Enters Chinese Port: Ship TrackingThere could be more of the Persian Gulf state's oil headed for China's bonded storage tanks, Bloomberg tanker-tracking data show. At least ten very large crude carriers and two smaller vessels owned by the state-run National Iranian Oil Co. and its shipping arm are currently sailing toward the Asian nation or idling off its coast. They have a combined carrying capacity of over 20 million barrels.The bulk of Iranian oil in China's bonded tanks is still owned by Tehran and therefore not in breach of sanctions, according to the people. The oil hasn't crossed Chinese customs so it's theoretically in transit.Some of the crude, though, is owned by Chinese entities that may have received it as part of oil-for-investment schemes. For example, one of the Asian nation's companies could have helped fund a production project in Iran under an agreement to be repaid in kind. Whether this sort of transaction is in breach of sanctions isn't clear, and so the firms are keeping it in bonded storage to avoid the official scrutiny it would if it's registered with customs, according to the people.Nobody replied to a faxed inquiry to China's General Administration of Customs.Lack of ClarityThe build-up of Iranian oil in Chinese bonded storage has yet to be clearly addressed by Washington. The White House ended waivers allowing some countries to keep importing Iranian oil on May 2.There are currently no exemptions issued to any country for the import of Iranian oil, and any nation seen importing cargoes from the Persian Gulf producer will be in breach of sanctions, according to a senior Trump administration official, who asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the matter."The U.S. will now need to define how it quantifies the infringement of sanctions," said Michal Meidan, director of the China Energy Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. There's a lack of clarity on whether it would look at "financial transactions or the loading and discharge of cargoes by company or entity," she said.See also: China Buying Iran LPG Despite Sanctions, Ship-Tracking ShowsChina received about 12 million tons of Iranian crude from January through May, according to ship-tracking data, versus about 10 million that cleared customs over the period. The discrepancy could be due to the flow of oil into bonded storage. China will release June trade data that will include a country-by-country breakdown of oil imports in the coming days.One of the Iranian tankers that appears to have loaded oil after the U.S. waivers ended is VLCC Horse. It discharged at Tianjin in early-July after sailing from the Middle East, where shipping data showed it signaling its destination as Iran's Kharg Island on May 4.Several other Iran-owned tankers offloaded in China or were heading there, according to ship tracking data. VLCC Stream discharged at Tianjin on June 19, while Amber, Salina and C. Infinity offloaded crude at the ports of Huangdao, Jinzhou and Ningbo. Snow, Sevin and Maria III were last seen sailing in the direction of China.Putting crude into bonded tanks in China also means Iran can avoid having to tie up part of its tanker fleet by storing the oil at sea for months at a time. The Islamic Republic used floating storage in 2012 to 2016 and again in 2018 as buyers shunned its crude due to U.S.-imposed trade restrictions.Should the Iranian crude leave bonded storage and end up in the market, it could pressure oil prices, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. West Texas Intermediate plunged more than 20% from late April to mid-June as the U.S.-China trade war intensified. It's since recovered some of those losses, partly as a result of the rising tension between Washington and Tehran, and is trading near $57 a barrel."A further escalation in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods could jointly drive global economic growth a lot lower and encourage Iran-China cooperation," Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a June note. "If Chinese refiners start to purchase Iran oil in large volumes on a sustained basis as U.S. tariffs rise again, WTI could drop to $40 a barrel."(Updates with mention of June trade data in 12th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Nick Wadhams.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Serene Cheong in Singapore at scheong20@bloomberg.net;Sarah Chen in Beijing at schen514@bloomberg.net;Alfred Cang in Singapore at acang@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Serene Cheong at scheong20@bloomberg.net, Andrew JanesFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Putin gives Russian citizenship to Novatek's finance chief, a U.S. national Posted: 22 Jul 2019 07:38 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin handed Russian citizenship to gas producer Novatek's veteran finance chief Mark Gyetvay on Monday, a move that could potentially help the U.S. national bypass some sanctions restrictions. U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia in 2014 ban U.S. nationals and companies from helping organize long-term funding for some major Russian firms, including Novatek. When the U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions on Russia, executives with foreign passports at companies affected including Novatek - the country's largest non-state natural gas producer - and state bank VTB handed over responsibility for organizing new debt or equity issuance to colleagues without EU or U.S. passports.
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| Great white shark leaps from water to snatch fish off line in Cape Cod Bay Posted: 21 Jul 2019 04:09 PM PDT  The boat's captain said it was a "real-life episode of Shark Week."
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| Son of Australian police chief, US girlfriend found dead in Canada Posted: 20 Jul 2019 09:04 PM PDT  Two homicide victims found this week in western Canada are the son of a high-ranking Australian police official and the young man's US girlfriend, Canadian police said. The bodies of Lucas Robertson Fowler, a 23-year-old Sydney native, and Chynna Noelle Deese, 24, from the US state of North Carolina, were discovered Monday along a remote stretch of highway in northern British Columbia province, the police said in a statement late Friday. A blue Chevrolet minivan registered in neighboring Alberta province was found on the side of the road, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said, without confirming whether the van belonged to the couple.
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| 5 shot dead, 6 wounded in Acapulco bar near beach Posted: 21 Jul 2019 03:11 PM PDT ![5 shot dead, 6 wounded in Acapulco bar near beach]( "5 shot dead, 6 wounded in Acapulco bar near beach") Gunmen killed five men and wounded six other people at a popular bar in Acapulco on Sunday, the latest in a string of violent incidents for the once-glamorous Pacific Coast resort city that has fallen on hard times. The Guerrero state prosecutor's office said the shootings took place in the morning at a watering hole called Mr. Bar, which is on the city's broad coastal avenue across the street from high-rise beachside hotels. Acapulco is full of summer vacationers, and days earlier authorities launched a security operation for the tourist season.
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| Trump has not built single mile of new border wall since taking office Posted: 22 Jul 2019 01:43 AM PDT  It was the controversial campaign promise that Donald Trump built his 2016 electoral success on: to build what he called a "big beautiful wall" on the US border with Mexico.But, two and half years after he took office, supporters – who were so enamoured by the idea, they regularly chanted in favour of the structure – may be forgiven for wondering where exactly it is.Now, it has emerged that not a single new stretch of border wall has been built since Mr Trump took office in January 2017.A statement released by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency confirmed the 51 miles of fencing completed since Mr Trump took power has simply replaced barriers that already existed.No original wall or fencing has been created in areas that previously did not have any, it said.That is despite the fact that a total of 205 miles of both new and replacement wall and fencing has already been budgeted for since Mr Trump took office – including via the Treasury Forfeiture Fund which the president redirected through controversial executive action in February.Speaking anonymously to the Washington Examiner, a senior official in the Trump administration said engineers could move faster on so-called replacement projects than entirely new stretches of fence because the approval process for environmental and zoning permits was less extensive.Another official blamed Democrats for obstructing progress. He told the newspaper: "The wall projects are moving along as quickly as practicably possible given the unprecedented obstruction from Democrat lawmakers to protect and prolong open borders."Yet it seems the lack of progress will not deter Mr Trump from making the wall a central part of his 2020 election campaign.When crowds took up their now familiar refrain of "build that wall" at a recent rally in El Paso, Texas, Mr Trump responded by telling them: "Now, you really mean 'finish that wall,' because we've built a lot of it."The CBP recently said it will be continuing to build the approximately 205 miles of wall that have been funded so far this year, using Treasury Forfeiture Fund money that Mr Trump seized in February after the partial government shutdown.The Trump administration was sued for taking $6.6bn from the military and other departments to be used for building the border wall after Congress refused to grant the president the money he had requested.
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| Conspiracy theorist punched by Buzz Aldrin still insists moon landing was fake Posted: 21 Jul 2019 11:07 AM PDT  Bart Sibrel, a filmmaker and conspiracy theorist punched by Buzz Aldrin, has centered his career around disproving the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.
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| India launches Chandrayaan spacecraft in bid to become fourth country on the Moon Posted: 22 Jul 2019 02:50 AM PDT  India has successfully launched its second unmanned mission to the moon which, if successful, will see the country become the fourth to reach the moon. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said it successfully launched Chandrayaan-2 into orbit at 2.43 pm local time on Monday from the Sriharikota Range space station in southern India. Applause erupted in the ISRO control room within seconds of the launch that was broadcast live on Indian news channels. Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, praised Chandrayaan-2 as "unique". Mr Modi announced last year that ISRO would execute a manned space mission by 2022 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of India's independence. The Chandrayaan-2 mission will cost £120 million, while the manned mission will reportedly require the ISRO's funding to be increased dramatically from £1.3 to £4 billion. Critics have questioned India's space ambitions, arguing that it is an inappropriate way to spend money in a nation that receives financial assistance, and where millions of people struggle with crippling poverty, malnutrition and crumbling infrastructure. "India is a competent event manager capable of undertaking individual projects efficiently, but incapable of sustaining any long term developmental endeavours," said Seema Mustafa of the Centre for Policy Analysis in New Delhi. Students wave Indian national flags to celebrate the launch of Chandrayaan-2 Credit: ARUN SANKAR/AFP/Getty Images She added that such "overreach" was typical of all successive governments that prided themselves on registering milestones rather than providing hundreds of millions of Indians with food, clean water, power, health, education and employment. Officials stoutly defended the mission, saying scientific research could not be compartmentalised. Yesterday, the mood at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India's east coast, was jubilant. "After a technical snag, we bounced back with flying colours," said ISRO chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan after takeoff. He was referring to the earlier countdown on 15 July being halted 56 minutes before its scheduled blast-off following a snag in which a helium gas bottle in the rockets cryogenic engine was reportedly found to be faulty. Mr Sivam said the glitch was fixed within 48 hours. Launched aboard the domestically developed Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III, the 640 ton spacecraft is due to touch down on the moon after a 48-day journey on 6 September to begin its investigative missions, officials said. The launch was broadcast live on television channels across the country Credit: AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool It will also be first such mission to the moon's south pole to map its topography and look for water. And if successful, it would make India the fourth country after China, Russia and the US to execute a 'soft' controlled landing on the moon and deploy an investigative rover onto its surface. Chandrayaan-2 - Sanskrit for "moon vehicle" - comprises three distinct parts: the 'orbiter' with a mission life of one year built to take images of the lunar surface and 'sniff' the atmosphere, and the lander - named Vikram, after ISRO's founder - which carries within its belly a six-wheeled rover to analyse the lunar soil. In its 14-day lifespan the rover is capable of travelling 550 yards from the lander and sending data and images back to earth for analysis. "India can hope to get the first selfies from the lunar surface once the rover gets going," Mr Sivan said before the aborted July 15 mission. The mission involves some 1,000 engineers, scientists and technicians and is led by two women Muthaya Vanitha, programme director, and Ritu Karidhal, mission director. India's first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, which launched in 2008, did not land on the moon, but carried out the most detailed search for water on it using advanced radar technology. Six years later India successfully launched a data and image gathering mission to Mars to determine how Martian weather systems function.
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| Murders in Mexico surge to record in first half of 2019 Posted: 21 Jul 2019 03:10 PM PDT ![Murders in Mexico surge to record in first half of 2019]( "Murders in Mexico surge to record in first half of 2019") Murders in Mexico jumped in the first half of the year to the highest on record, according to official data, underscoring the vast challenges President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador faces in reducing violence in the cartel-ravaged country. There were 14,603 murders from January to June, versus the 13,985 homicides registered in the first six months of 2018, according to data posted over the weekend on the website of Mexico's national public security office. Mexico is on course to surpass the 29,111 murders of last year, an all-time high.
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| Trump’s New Asylum Rule Doubles Down on Failure Posted: 22 Jul 2019 05:30 AM PDT ![Trump's New Asylum Rule Doubles Down on Failure]( "Trump's New Asylum Rule Doubles Down on Failure") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Another directive on immigration from the Trump administration begets another court challenge. In a sweeping rule change, the administration has declared that, with narrow exceptions, any "alien who enters or attempts to enter the United States across the southern border after failing to apply for protection in a third country outside the alien's country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence through which the alien transited en route to the United States is ineligible for asylum."The new rule has so far triggered two lawsuits arguing that it contravenes the Immigration and Nationality Act and exceeds the Attorney General's statutory authority. More such challenges will doubtless follow, and judges will render their verdict. But you don't need a court to see that this is bad policy.True, every aspect of the U.S. asylum system is under great strain. Border facilities built to house single Mexican males are facing a huge influx of Central American families seeking asylum. Court dockets are overflowing, and nearly half of the overall backlog of about 1 million cases involve an asylum claim. This creates incentives for meritless claims, because asylum-seekers who pass their initial screening are released into the U.S. to wait years for a court date. And law enforcement can't keep up with removing those whose claims have been rejected.It would be one thing if an administration committed to welcoming immigrants and helping genuine refugees was trying to cope by temporarily limiting applications. But this isn't what's happening. The president wants to restrict all forms of immigration, and admissions of refugees have fallen by three-quarters on his watch. Policy changes have even made it harder for immigrants serving in the U.S. military to acquire citizenship. Other presidents have seen immigration as an asset and an affirmation of American values; this one sees it as an economic liability and a way to fire up his base.The Trump administration has failed to pursue fixes that would reduce the asylum backlog. The best way to deter meritless claims remains expeditious dismissal under due process. Yet since taking office, the administration has consistently failed to hire as many immigration judges as Congress has authorized; in March, when Trump was complaining about "horrible asylum laws," the director of the office that oversees the immigration courts actually announced a slowdown in hiring judges and their supporting attorneys. On top of all this, the president has left senior jobs at the Department of Homeland Security — the agency responsible for immigration policy — without properly appointed officials.Trump should be trying to mend the asylum system. His new rule aims instead to blow it up — harming genuine asylum seekers, America's standing and relations with neighbors, and global understandings on protecting refugees.—Editors: James Gibney, Clive Crook.To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg Opinion's editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net, .Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Vatican opens burial chambers in hunt for princesses and missing teen Posted: 20 Jul 2019 10:29 AM PDT  The Vatican on Saturday opened two burial chambers discovered under a trapdoor as it attempts to get to the bottom of a riddle involving two 19th-century princesses and a teenager who went missing 36 years ago. The ossuaries were found last week under the floor of the Pontifical Teutonic College after the shock discovery earlier this month that the bones of the princesses had disappeared from tombs in the Teutonic Cemetery. The graves of Princess Sophie von Hohenlohe and Princess Charlotte Federica of Mecklenburg, who died in 1836 and 1840, were exhumed after an anonymous tip-off that they may hold the remains of a missing Italian youngster.
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| EU ministers meet in Paris on divisive issue of migrants Posted: 22 Jul 2019 06:51 AM PDT  European ministers met Monday in Paris seeking some unity on how to deal with migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea, people who are now being blocked out of ports by Italy and Malta, dragged back unwillingly to lawless Libya or used as pawns in political standoffs across Europe. "We intend to make ourselves respected," Salvini declared in another tweet.
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| Why Pakistan Should End Its Alliance with China Posted: 21 Jul 2019 01:23 PM PDT  Pakistan has made several major grand strategic mistakes since its creation in 1947, including the attack on India in 1971, which led to Pakistan's dismemberment. However, Pakistan is in the midst of making another grave mistake, and it is one seldom discussed. This is the high cost of its alliance with China. Due to the poverty in its long-term, strategic planning, Islamabad's conception that the Sino-Pakistani alliance is key to Pakistani security introduces dependence on Beijing and creates the avenue for Beijing's exploitation and manipulation of it—with the result that Pakistan finds itself less secure and alone in the world. We argue that Pakistan should reverse course. The alliance with China ultimately serves China's ambitions above Pakistan's. Islamabad should extricate itself from its alliance with China, and improve its position by aligning with other, democratic states.The rise of China has had profound impact on Pakistan's strategic calculations. A more powerful and outwardly amicable China causes a natural reaction in Pakistan to align itself more closely with China in order to balance against India, its long-term adversary. Pakistan's leadership believe that an alliance with China will somehow replace the long-term Pakistani dependence on the United States in mediating its relations with India. They also think that this relationship will help improve Pakistan's poor economic situation.
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| 'Outrageous': Convicted criminals serve as Alaskan police amid public safety crisis, investigation finds Posted: 21 Jul 2019 04:09 PM PDT  Dozens of police officers with criminal records have worked in Alaska, despite state law that should have disqualified them, an investigation finds.
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| Iran Arrested 17 People Accused of Being CIA-Trained Spies Posted: 22 Jul 2019 04:13 AM PDT  Amid a worsening political standoff with Western powers
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| Horse kicks man in groin at popular Maryland beach Posted: 21 Jul 2019 11:02 AM PDT  A tourist was kicked in the crotch by a wild horse on the beach of Assateague Island, located off the coast of Maryland, after the man attempted to pet the animal.
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| Trump turns up at wedding, prompting chants of ‘USA!’ Posted: 22 Jul 2019 05:33 AM PDT  A bride and groom were left stunned after Donald Trump made a surprise appearance at their wedding.The US president turned up unexpectedly as the event was in full flow at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.Mr Trump was greeted by applause from newlyweds Nicole Marie and PJ Mongelli and their guests and clapped along himself.He then beckoned the couple over to him and put his arms around them as they led chants of "USA, USA" and "Trump, Trump, Trump" while pumping their arms in the air.The president can then be seen kissing the bride on the cheek before shaking the groom's hand.Ms Mongelli's cousin Danielle De Santiss posted footage of the meeting on Instagram with the hashtag MagaWedding.In an earlier video, posted on Instagram by @snd321, a woman tells Mr Trump as he stops by the bridal suite: "You're a class act that you came in here."> View this post on Instagram> > Congratulations to my beautiful cousin @nicoleeeemariie & @pattyboy3428 ❤️ ... swipe left ������ MagaWedding freeasaprocky> > A post shared by Danielle DeSantis (@danielledesantiss) on Jul 21, 2019 at 10:33am PDT> View this post on Instagram> > A post shared by SND321 (@snd321) on Jul 20, 2019 at 7:08pm PDTThe groom then asked the president to stop by their wedding reception later.Mr Mongelli, who has a Facebook photo of he and his wife wearing "Make America Great Again" hats, told CNN afterwards: "He was such a gentleman. He was aces."He added that the couple, who got engaged to his wife at the golf resort in 2017, were big Trump supporters, as were many of their guests.The president had been staying at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster over the weekend and returned to Washington on Sunday.
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| Turkey seizes $271 mln in counterfeit U.S. currency -newspaper Posted: 22 Jul 2019 08:59 AM PDT ![Turkey seizes $271 mln in counterfeit U.S. currency -newspaper]( "Turkey seizes $271 mln in counterfeit U.S. currency -newspaper") The raid was carried out on Friday in Istanbul's Esenyurt neighbourhood and five people were arrested, it said. Hurriyet said one of those arrested was previously released after being detained for suspected membership in a network that Ankara blames for orchestrating a failed military coup in 2016. Turkish authorities accuse the leader of this network, U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, of masterminding the attempted putsch in July 2016.
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| Attacks and Beijing's Warnings Fuel Hong Kong Anxiety Posted: 22 Jul 2019 01:27 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- A night of protests and clashes in Hong Kong -- including tear gas volleys and roving groups of masked men attacking protesters -- prompted the strongest warnings yet from the Chinese government and fanned fears of escalating violence.Police fired smoke canisters to clear Hong Kong's streets late Sunday after demonstrators defied government requests to cut short another large and otherwise peaceful march through the Asian financial hub. Thousands of protesters had earlier surrounded China's liaison office and defaced the national emblem, an act that Beijing's representative said in a statement "seriously challenged" the central government's authority.Around the same time, groups of men wearing white shirts and surgical masks attacked metro passengers in the Yuen Long area, miles away near the border with the mainland metropolis of Shenzhen. While no arrests were made and it was unclear who the assailants were, the group targeted people dressed in black, the preferred color of demonstrators. An opposition lawmaker and several journalists were among dozens reported injured in the melee.Chief police superintendent Tse Chun-chung called the violence in the Yuen Long station "lawlessness" while speaking to Hong Kong Commercial Radio on Monday. The police have promised to arrest those responsible if there is sufficient evidence, according to the program.Traffic had resumed around China's liaison office and in Sheung Wan with little sign of protesters. Street sweepers were cleaning up the sidewalk nearby with bricks ripped up. Graffiti on the wall of the Liaison office was covered up by black plastic and the national emblem had been replaced. Hong Kong government's headquarters remained open Monday.Wang Zhimin, director of the liaison office, said Monday that the city's chaos could not continue, describing the protesters' actions at the office as "villainous and wicked."Gathering StormThe incidents underscored a gathering sense of political crisis in the former British colony, which has been wracked by weeks of mass demonstrations and unrest, including the ransacking of its legislative chamber earlier this month. What began as a largely leaderless effort to block legislation allowing extraditions to the mainland has morphed into a list of demands ranging from investigations into police tactics to a direct vote to replace China-appointed leader Carrie Lam.There are growing signs the chaos is taking a toll on the economy. The Hong Kong Retail Management Association said last week that "most members" reported a single-to-double-digit drop in average sales revenue between June and the first week of July. Private bankers in Singapore and elsewhere are being flooded with inquiries from Hong Kong investors worried about the crisis' long-term effects, Bloomberg reported last week.The protest movement has persisted through extreme heat and Lam's insistence that her controversial bill was "dead." The organizer of the peaceful phase of Sunday's protest, the Civil Human Rights Front, said 430,000 people turned out, a figure that would've been historically large before marches last month that drew more than 1 million. Police said 138,000 attended at its peak.Kingston Cheung, a 17-year-old student who's taken part in the protests since they started June 9, said he marched Sunday to voice opposition to the government's handling of previous protests. "The focus of the protests has been about the extradition bill, but we are also starting to see how the government and police have mishandled them," he said.The weekend also showed a growing effort to push back against the protest groups, with more than 100,000 attending a rally Saturday in support of the government and the police.The Chinese Communist Party's flagship People's Daily warned in an editorial Monday that protesters at the liaison office "openly challenged the authority of the central government."The developments followed a report in the South China Morning Post last week that Chinese officials in charge of Hong Kong are working to present leaders with a comprehensive strategy to resolve the crisis. Authorities have ruled out any military intervention and saw the police as key to maintaining stability and exposing the intentions of protesters, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.On Saturday, three men were arrested in connection with the seizure of explosives, firebombs and other weapons in a industrial building in the Tsuen Wan district, according to a police statement.Bernard Chan, a top adviser to Lam and convener of the city's Executive Council, told Bloomberg in an email that there was little more the government could do to meet the demands of the protesters. "The government have already suspended the bill and chief executive has made very clear the bill is dead," Chan said. "I don't see how it will ever reintroduce to Legco under this term or any term in the future."Protesters decided to converge on the liaison office after police refused to allow the CHRF to continue its march beyond the Wan Chai area, preventing them from passing the city's main government buildings.The protesters vandalized the exterior of the liaison office and read a list of demands before retreating to avoid a clash with advancing police. Riot officers pursued them to an area near the ferry terminal to Macau, where they unleashed tear gas to clear the area after some threw projectiles.Far from the main demonstrations, at least 45 people were hurt in fights with groups of men in the Yuen Long area who appeared to be targeting protesters returning from the rally, Radio Television Hong Kong reported. Among those injured was Lam Cheuk-ting, a Democratic Party lawmaker.He said he was concerned the aggressors -- some in their 20s and others as old as their 60s -- could have ties to triad gangs.(Corrects to say Tse Chun-chung and Wang Zhimin both spoke on Monday. A previous version was corrected to say attacks happened in Yuen Long.)\--With assistance from David Watkins, Fion Li, Dominic Lau, David Tweed, Justin Chin, Gloria Cheung and Stephen Tan.To contact the reporters on this story: Natalie Lung in Hong Kong at flung6@bloomberg.net;Kari Lindberg in Hong Kong at klindberg13@bloomberg.net;Iain Marlow in Hong Kong at imarlow1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Karen LeighFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| More Basra water crises unless Iraq govt fixes 'failures': HRW Posted: 21 Jul 2019 05:02 PM PDT  Nearly 120,000 people were hospitalised last summer after drinking polluted water, in a mass health crisis that sparked deadly protests against the dire state of public services. In a damning report, HRW found the generally poor state of water quality was likely compounded by algae that rapidly spread last year in the Shatt al-Arab waterway that runs through Basra and provides it with its primary water source.
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| South Korea detains 6 for illegally entering Japan consulate Posted: 22 Jul 2019 01:00 AM PDT  South Korean police on Monday detained six people for allegedly illegally entering a Japanese diplomatic facility in South Korea and staging an anti-Tokyo demonstration there. The incident came amid growing anti-Japanese sentiments in South Korea as the two countries are locked in trade and political disputes. The six men and women were given temporary passes to enter the Japanese consulate in the southeastern city of Busan earlier Monday after they told staff there they would visit a library inside the building, according to Busan police officers.
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| China's Debt Debacle Posted: 22 Jul 2019 05:09 AM PDT  On Friday, China Minsheng Investment Group announced that its subsidiary, Boom Up Investments, will not make principal or interest payments on August 2 on $500 million of three-year, dollar-denominated bonds.The default will be the first for the firm's dollar-bond creditors. CMIG, as the former high-flyer investment conglomerate is known, failed to make payments on renminbi-denominated obligations in January.CMIG's Friday announcement, although not a surprise, is nonetheless significant. As Bloomberg News reported, the firm was once thought to become "China's answer" to American giant JPMorgan Chase.The troubles of CMIG mirror problems at other companies and follow the shock failure of Baoshang Bank, which the government took over last month.Bond defaults are rocking China. This year, they will almost certainly top those in 2018, which itself set a record. The failures suggest, among other things, that the Chinese economy is in severe distress.
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| El Chapo complained about New York jail. Let's see how Supermax works out. Posted: 21 Jul 2019 02:18 PM PDT  Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán probably will find his more permanent federal digs at the "Supermax" in Colorado little more amenable than his NYC jail.
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| Iran crisis: How a British oil tanker was seized by Iran's balaclava-clad Revolutionary Guards Posted: 20 Jul 2019 12:14 PM PDT  "Allahu akbar", or God is great, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard marine was heard shouting off camera as the group took control of the British-flagged Stena Impero. Scaling down ropes onto its bow, the balaclava-wearing hijackers made a daring - and seemingly well-rehearsed - raid of the oil tanker, as seen in alleged footage released by Fars news agency last night. The wind was choppy, the skies overcast. With no navy escort, the Stena stood little chance. Minutes later, at 4.19pm on Friday afternoon, the Stena Impero would "go dark" - not something normally done by commercial oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. The first clue as it what happened was its abrupt change of course, which was picked up by marine tracking services. Its destination was a port in Saudi Arabia, but it had taken a sharp turn and was heading into Iranian waters. Minutes earlier it had been boarded by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who had hijacked the vessel using speedboats and a helicopter and turned off its communication systems. Approximately 40 minutes later, a British-owned, Liberian-flagged ship Mesdar also went dark. The trackers picked it up following the same route as the Stena Impero. The crew onboard was questioned for an hour before the vessel was released, unlike the Stena which was escorted on to the coast of Bander Abbas in southern Iran. British authorities were alerted back home and quickly called a meeting of Cobra to figure out their response. This image grab taken from a video provided by Iran's Revolutionary Guard official website via SEPAH News The capture of one of their ships was something they had been dreading,though not something that had come entirely as a surprise. Tensions have been heating up in recent weeks in the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil chokepoint. At the start of the month, Gibraltar authorities - aided by a detachment of Royal Marines - detained a tanker which was suspected to be carrying Iranian oil destined for a refinery in Syria in breach of European Union sanctions. "If Britain does not release the Iranian oil tanker, it is the authorities' duty to seize a British oil tanker," an Iranian official tweeted on July 5, the following next day, in response to the news. Revolutionary Guards issued similarly direct threats. Fearing they would make good on them, the Navy sent Type-23 frigate HMS Montrose to shadow its tankers through the strait and dispatched another, HMS Duncan, for support. The Montrose sped to help Stena from Omani waters on Friday, but was an hour too late. Jeremy Hunt, Foreign Secretary, had tried to defuse the situation last weekend by suggesting the UK was willing to release the supertanker, but a court in Gibraltar on Friday ruled to hold it for another 30 days. The decision would have further angered Tehran, which has denied the oil was bound for Syria and accused the UK of acting in bad faith. Rising tensions between UK, US and Iran The legality of Britain's impounding of the Grace 1 has been questioned, however sanctions lawyers say that as it had been travelling through British overseas territory it was subject to EU laws. Revolutionary Guards yesterday tried to justify their seizure of the Stena with alternating claims, including that it had "violated maritime law", had been driving on the wrong side of the water, risking an accident, and had in fact collided with an Iranian fishing boat whose distress call it ignored. No such distress call was picked up by any other ship in the area. Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, spokesman of Iran's Guardian Council, which rarely comments on state matters, said they did not need an excuse to take the Stena and spelled out that it had been a tit-for-tat response. "The rule of reciprocal action is well-known in international law and Iran's moves to confront the illegitimate economic war and seizure of oil tankers is an instance of this rule and is based on international rights," he said. There is now something of a Mexican stand-off in the Gulf, with both countries seemingly unwilling to hand over the other's ship. "Iran has responded in a way that presents the UK with a problem," Michael Stephens, Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London, told the Sunday Telegraph. "The ball is now in our court. "The UK could choose to detain more Iranian ships, or look to gather a group of states around the table, such as France, Germany and the US, to see how, and in what ways, more pressure can be placed on Iran both economically and strategically," he said. However, he believed no major decision would be agreed on until Prime Minister Theresa May's handover to Boris Johnson later this week. The Foreign Office has stressed it is keeping separate the issues of Iranian threats in Gulf waters, EU sanctions policy on Syria, and the nuclear deal. But inevitably they have all become intertwined. The latest Iranian aggressions can be tracked back to last year, when President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord and reimposed sanctions. The Islamic Republic has legitimate frustrations over the American withdrawal to the deal - which it had been adhering to - that was supposed to swap limiting its nuclear programme for an end to sanctions crippling its economy. At the same time as ratcheting up tensions, however, Mr Trump has made it clear he wants to avoid all-out war with Iran, as has the UK. Iran tensions | Read more Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, on Thursday offered an olive branch to Mr Trump - a deal which would see Tehran accept enhanced inspections of its nuclear programme in return for the permanent lifting of sanctions. Mr Trump has sent Senator Rand Paul, rather than John Bolton, his hawkish anti-Iran national security adviser, for meetings with Mr Zarif, who is in New York on United Nations business. Neither has publicly responded to Mr Zarif's proposal. However, hardliners and the Revolutionary Guard back home want out of the deal, saying the US's pullout only proved what they always knew - that it cannot be trusted. "I suspect Stena is a bargaining chip," Charles Hollis, a former British diplomat in Iran, told the Telegraph. "It came only days after Zarif showed some willingness to open negotiations, which may have led some hardliners to want to disrupt things a little. "I still don't think any side is looking for a conflict," said Mr Hollis, who is now managing director of risk management company Falanx Assynt. "The fact that there are some people on both sides were seeking a deescalation means there may be a deal to be found." He warned however, that Friday's incident showed the margins for manoeuvre are "shrinking" and "the risks of unintended consequences growing."
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| Man Who Can't Afford Tropical Vacation Does the Normal Thing By Faking the Best Trip Ever and a Lot of People Can Relate Posted: 22 Jul 2019 05:39 AM PDT  Faced with financial constraints, a man who couldn't afford a trip to Hawaii made a wacky video that is spreading laughter across the internet.
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| At the scene of a fatal car crash, I saw Americans reveal their fundamental decency Posted: 22 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  American media and politics today focus on divisions and wounds. But what I witnessed after a terrible traffic accident shows we're better than that.
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| Huawei secretly helped North Korea build, maintain wireless network: Washington Post Posted: 22 Jul 2019 05:57 AM PDT  Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], the Chinese company put on a U.S. blacklist because of national security concerns, secretly helped North Korea build and maintain its commercial wireless network, the Washington Post reported on Monday, citing sources and internal documents. The Chinese telecommunications giant partnered with a state-owned Chinese firm, Panda International Information Technology Co Ltd., on a number of projects in North Korea over at least eight years, the Post reported. Sources briefed on the matter confirmed the Commerce Department has been investigating Huawei since 2016 and is reviewing whether the company violated export control rules in relation to sanctions on North Korea.
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| Democratic delegation makes trip to the southern border Posted: 21 Jul 2019 07:49 AM PDT  Maryland Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin says Democrats are disappointed by what they saw at the border detention facility.
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| British-Iranian woman transferred back to Tehran prison Posted: 22 Jul 2019 07:25 AM PDT  A British-Iranian mother jailed in Tehran since 2016 has been returned to prison after being held in the mental ward of a public hospital for nearly a week, her husband said Monday. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was kept chained and under heavy guard for six days which she says left her "broken", according to her husband Richard Ratcliffe. The 40-year-old detainee, who is serving a five-year term for sedition, was returned to Tehran's notorious Evin prison -- used to hold political prisoners -- on Saturday, he said.
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| Trump Nears Moment of Truth to Address ‘Send Her Back’ Chants Posted: 22 Jul 2019 08:24 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- At a political rally sometime in the coming weeks, Donald Trump will almost certainly be met again with a chant rising from an auditorium packed with boisterous supporters: "Send her back!"In that moment Trump will have to choose a course. He could turn to the crowd and deliver an unambiguous condemnation, telling his supporters that they shouldn't persist with a slogan -- directed at a Somali-born U.S. representative from Minnesota -- that many critics called racist. Or, Trump could pause, as he did during a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, last week, and let the chant build in volume, perhaps offering only a winking condemnation that frees his fans to make it the 2020 version of "Lock Her Up."It'll be an early test of the president's willingness to tolerate the more extreme elements of his base as he ramps up his bid for a second term. Last week, faced with bipartisan backlash, Trump first tried to distance himself from -- then later signaled support for -- a rallying cry that even some loyal backers said risked crossing the line into racism.Trump's next rally is expected to be in Cincinnati later this month, about the time the 2020 Democratic candidates hold their second round of debates. That could briefly take the spotlight off a president who likes his tweets to soar like rocket ships.If the past is prologue, Trump may again recoil at suggestions that he admit fault. He's also someone who sees politically correct outrage, particularly on issues of race, as a dividing line between the timid establishment and the masses who propelled him to the White House.Already on Friday, Trump seemed disinclined to entertain questions of why he objected to the chant, which echoed a Twitter attack he penned more than a week ago against Somali-born Representative Ilhan Omar and three other minority congresswomen.When a reporter in the Oval Office sought to ask whether Trump, who'd just a day earlier said he was "unhappy" with the chant, also regretted his tweets, the president interrupted."Do you know what I'm unhappy with?" Trump said. "I'm unhappy with the fact that a congresswoman can hate our country. I'm unhappy with the fact that a congresswoman can say anti-Semitic things."Omar has been previously accused of employing anti-Semitic tropes as she criticized U.S. support for Israel, and administration officials looking to sidestep questions about the president's words have focused on those comments. They've also faulted another of the four minority lawmakers, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, over her description of detention facilities on the southern border as "concentration camps."'Might' Speak Out"It minimizes the death of six million of my Jewish brothers and sisters, it minimizes their suffering, and it paints every patriotic law enforcement officer as a war criminal," senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News on Sunday. "And those are the comments that we need to be focusing on."Other top officials couldn't say beyond a doubt whether Trump would intervene if a similar chant broke out at another event."If it happened again he -- he might -- he might make an effort to speak out about it," Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview with CBS that aired on Sunday.The president has run this playbook before. In July 2016, Trump said he "didn't like it" when a group of speech attendees began chanting "Lock her up!" in reference to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. "I think it's a shame that they said it," Trump said during a press conference in Florida.Theatrical PauseBut "Lock her up!" became a staple of the future president's campaign events, with Trump often pausing theatrically whenever he mentioned Clinton's name to allow the chant to begin, and to build in volume. Trump himself went on to suggest imprisoning Clinton during one of the nationally televised presidential debates.In that vein, Trump may go on to contend that he's less offended by the chant about Omar than by things he's heard freshman Democrats or others say about his White House, the nation, or allies like Israel. The president's aides were out in force on Sunday drawing a distinction between Trump's previous criticisms of the U.S. -- done "out of love," according to Miller -- and those by people like Omar and Ocasio-Cortez.Different RecollectionTrump showed little patience for sticking to a condemnation in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville in 2017. The president's original response to the white nationalist march in the Virginia college town was widely panned for only criticizing hatred, bigotry and violence "on many sides."The president relented to pressure two days later at the White House, declaring that "racism is evil" and singling out "the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups" as "repugnant."But as reporters continued to press the president in the following days, Trump turned defensive again and blamed individuals on "both sides" for the violence that left a counter-protester dead at the hands of a man with neo-Nazi beliefs.Top Republicans and some members of the president's Cabinet publicly criticized his handling of the episode. By earlier this year, though, Trump had a different recollection: he said he "answered perfectly" in his remarks about the racially charged clash.Trump has adopted a similar pattern with other major controversies. His acceptance of Russian President Vladimir Putin's denial of interference in the 2016 presidential election during a summit in Helsinki last year sparked a firestorm, with even commentators on the normally supportive Fox News network seemingly aghast.No Middle GroundTrump eventually issued statements insisting that he'd misspoken, and that he retained confidence in the U.S. intelligence community, which had determined that Russia sought to interfere. In the following days, though, Trump tweeted that "many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance" and dismissed critics as "haters."In the end, the president may simply be banking on his belief that he'll win more support by appearing unbending to criticism than by seeking a middle ground.A USA Today-Ipsos poll found that a majority of Republicans supported Trump's attacks on the four first-term, liberal congresswomen who call themselves the "Squad" -- Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. But the survey showed that 68% of Americans who were aware of the controversy said his tweets about the lawmakers were inappropriate.Separately, a survey from the Economist showed that members of the group were more unpopular among Republican voters than any of the Democratic presidential candidates, with Ocasio-Cortez disliked by three-quarters of those who cast a ballot for Trump in 2016.Trump has repeatedly criticized the "Squad" in recent days. On Monday he called them racist.For the president, elevating the far-left congresswomen in stature to the point that attendees at his political rallies are familiar with their every action might be worth the accusation of racism, even though it may further alienate those outside his base.That calculus appeared to be on the president's mind during a long weekend at his golf club in New Jersey, as he weighed in to praise those who attended the contentious rally in North Carolina."I did nothing to lead people on, nor was I particularly happy with their chant," Trump wrote, retweeting a post by Katie Hopkins, an English media personality known for her anti-Islamic views. "Just a very big and patriotic crowd. They love the USA!"Trump has a model in the Republican Party for framing disagreements with opposition candidates in terms of policy, not personality or race -- his long-time nemesis Senator John McCain.Many recalled how McCain, running for the White House against Barack Obama in 2008, corrected a woman during a town hall meeting in Minnesota who said she couldn't "trust" Obama, whom she called "an Arab.""No, ma'am," McCain replied. "He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."(Updates with Trump tweet in 25th paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| British Airways, Lufthansa suspend Cairo flights Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:48 PM PDT  British Airways and Lufthansa both said Saturday they were suspending flights to Cairo for unspecified reasons related to safety and security. The British carrier said it was canceling flights to the Egyptian capital for a week. Lufthansa said it was suspending its flights as a precaution, mentioning "safety" but not "security" as its concern.
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| Explosion in popularity of hemp products leaves Texas unable to bust marijuana users Posted: 20 Jul 2019 12:30 PM PDT  Texas politicians thought they were clear: the bill they overwhelmingly passed allowing the growth and sale of hemp had nothing to do with legalising cannabis."This is no slippery slope towards marijuana," Charles Perry, a Republican state senator who sponsored the bill, said in May, according to The Dallas Morning News.But since Greg Abbott signed the measure into law in June, county prosecutors around Texas have been dropping some marijuana possession charges and declining to file new ones, saying they do not have the time or the laboratory equipment needed to distinguish between legal hemp and illegal marijuana.Collectively, the prosecutors' jurisdictions cover more than 9 million people — about a third of Texas' population — including in Houston, Austin and San Antonio.The accidental leniency represents one of the unintended consequences states may face as they race to cash in on the popularity of products made with or from hemp.Interest has surged in oils, gummies and other goods infused with CBD, or cannabidiol, which is processed from cannabis plants but does not produce a psychoactive effect.The police and prosecutors in Florida are facing the same problem as their Texan colleagues after the Sunshine State legalised hemp in July."This is not just Texas," said Peter Stout, president of the Houston Forensic Science Centre, which runs tests for the Houston Police Department and other agencies."Everybody is struggling with this."In Texas, prosecutors have already dropped scores of possession cases, and they're not just throwing out misdemeanours.The Travis County district attorney, Margaret Moore, announced this month that she was dismissing 32 felony possession and delivery of marijuana cases because of the law.Ms Abbott and other state officials, including the attorney general, pushed back on Thursday, saying prosecutors should not be dropping cases because of the new legislation, known as H.B. 1325."Marijuana has not been decriminalised in Texas, and these actions demonstrate a misunderstanding of how H.B. 1325 works," the officials, all Republicans, wrote in a letter to prosecutors.Kim Ogg, the Harris County district attorney and a Democrat, shot back by saying that laboratory confirmation "has long been required" to prove someone's guilt.Before the legislation went into effect, laboratories had to identify hairs on marijuana flowers and test for the presence of cannabinoids, a process that required just a few minutes and a test strip that turned purple when it was positive.Because the new law distinguishes between hemp and illicit marijuana, prosecutors say labs would now be required to determine the concentration of THC in the seized substance.Mr Stout said he has been able to identify only two labs in the country that can make the fine distinction necessary and that are accredited in Texas. Both of them are private.Prosecutors would need to pay the labs to run the tests — sometimes hundreds of dollars for each sample — and to testify about the results at trial.Sending all of the state's suspected marijuana to a small number of labs would likely overwhelm them, prosecutors have said, and would result in severe backlogs.Still, many prosecutors agree with the governor and are continuing to charge and prosecute marijuana cases as usual.The district attorney in El Paso, Jaime Esparza, a Democrat, said this month that the law "will not have an effect on the prosecution of marijuana cases in El Paso" and a spokeswoman confirmed that he had not thrown out any cases because of the law.The sudden dismissals in other districts have been a welcome surprise for those who had been facing charges.Brandon Ball, a lawyer, said one of his clients in Fort Bend County had been distraught about the possession charge she faced until it was unexpectedly dismissed.She kept thanking him, but it wasn't her lawyer who beat the case."I was trying to explain, it wasn't me, it was this law," Mr Ball said, referring to the hemp legislation.Mr Ball, now an assistant public defender in Harris County, explained that test results are vital for prosecutors trying to prove that someone had an illegal substance."The law is constantly changing on what makes something illegal, based on its chemical makeup," Mr Ball said."It's important that if someone is charged with something, the test matches what they're charged with."New York Times
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| 'Alter your course': Dramatic audio released of Iran seizing British ship Posted: 21 Jul 2019 12:51 PM PDT  An audio recording reveals the tense moments before a British-flagged oil tanker was seized by Iranian forces rappelling to the ship's deck.
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| B-1Bs Around the World Nonstop at Mach 0.92: The Legendary 1995 Operation Coronet Bat Posted: 21 Jul 2019 07:00 AM PDT  Over the course of the 36-hour mission, the B-1s took on some 2.5 million pounds (1.13 million kilograms) of fuel, hit all of their designated targets (within 15ft/4.6m at Pachino) and set three world records in the C1.Q (330,000-440,000lb or 149,685-199,581kg) Class.Curtis LeMay first flew KC-135A 55-3126 to Buenos Aires in November 1957 to demonstrate the operational capability of American airpower in the face of Soviet ICBM potential. For most observers, however, Operation Long Legs was a publicity flight. Some 15 years later, Americans had become jaded by multiple moon-walking missions, the quagmire in Vietnam, and the self-destruction of a president. There was little public interest in notable aviation accomplishments. Military fliers, however, understood the practical applications of record-setting flights and pursued them without expectation of public accolades. In March 1980, for example, two B-52Hs from K I Sawyer AFB, MI, flew around the world non-stop, loitering over the Gulf of Arabia to monitor Soviet naval developments there. Hardly a grandstanding stunt, the flight showed that even without basing rights in a newly anti-American Iran, the United States could still keep tabs on the Soviet presence in the oil rich Straits of Hormuz. Strategic airpower trumped local weakness.
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| Controversy Swirls Around King Tut Head Sold at Christie’s Auction Posted: 21 Jul 2019 02:32 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Christie'sThis month a sculpture of King Tutankhamun, one of only a few portraits of the king in existence, sold at Christie's for just shy of $6 million. The sale of the life-sized head was surprising not only because the item sold for so much money, but also because the item is the focus of legal action, protests, and a potential diplomatic dispute. There's no evidence that this statue of Egypt's most famous monarch left Egypt legally and many believe that the item was looted. Nevertheless, despite protests from the Egyptian embassy in London, Christie's went ahead with the sale and allowed both the seller and the buyer to remain anonymous. In a statement, Christie's said "We recognize that historic objects can raise complex discussions about the past; yet our role today is to work to continue to provide a transparent, legitimate marketplace upholding the highest standards for the transfer of objects." Their position is that the sculpture had previously belonged to Prince Wilhelm von Thurn und Taxis, who owned the item in the 1960s and '70s. Apparently, it was subsequently sold, in the early 1970s, to Josef Messina, the owner of a gallery in Vienna. An investigation by Live Science revealed that there are reasons to doubt this story. Wilhelm's son and niece told the publication that Wilhelm had no interest in ancient artifacts. "He was not a very art-interested person," his niece Daria von Thurn und Taxis, told them. Egyptologist Sylvia Schoske, who wrote an article about the sculpture, said that when she studied it, it was owned by an antiquities dealer named Heinz Herzer. As Owen Jarus put it, it's all rather "sketchy." Christie's, for their part, stated that they had verified provenance "with all previous owners of the head." The Egyptian government believes that the item was looted from the Karnak Temple, just north of the ancient city of Luxor, sometime after 1970. The date is important because it was around this time that UNESCO created a set of guidelines regarding the preservation of cultural heritage, specifically intended to prevent artifacts from leaving their countries of origin without government permission. Antiquities dealers around the world are aware that they must produce proof of provenance—that is, a trail of ownership going back at least to this date (although ideally to the item's discovery) if they want to sell across international borders. Egypt, for the record, has older legislation: it has restricted the unauthorized removal of antiquities from within its borders since 1835.What this means of course is that even if Christie's story is accurate, conversation should not stop there. As academic Brent Nongbri, author of the book God's Library, told The Daily Beast, "Even if Christies is being fully truthful, the removal of the artifact from Egypt in the 1960s without proper documentation was in violation of Egyptian law at the time. The current seller and buyer are thus in an awkward position, and so is Christie's, which facilitates these shady transactions by their tolerance/encouragement of anonymous selling and purchasing. If everything about this sale was completely legitimate, why all the secrecy?"The reason that Egypt has older legislation is the same as the reason that the King Tut sculpture fetched nearly $6 million at auction: people are fascinated by ancient Egypt and are willing to pay a premium for pieces of her heritage. The European preoccupation with ancient Egypt began in the Napoleonic period. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt was motivated by a desire to destabilize the British, but when his fleet sank in 1798 at the Battle of the Nile the French rebranded the enterprise as a scientific endeavour. In scientific terms, the French had been successful, it was during this period that they acquired the Rosetta Stone, which they subsequently handed over to the British. As a result of failed political ambitions, there was a frenzy of interest in Egyptian antiquities. Speaking in 2017, museum curator Tom Hardwick said "Ancient Egypt [was] a way of legitimizing interest [in the country] – by using arguments like: 'then they built pyramids, now they live in mud huts. It's clever white people who need to look after this'." The idea of a lost, technologically sophisticated civilization had a certain romanticism and this was only amplified by myths about the "Curse of the Mummy's Tomb" and the perceived strangeness of ancient Egyptian religion. Combined together these factors made ancient Egyptian artifacts among the most desirable in the world. Egyptologist John Darnell, professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations at Yale University, told me that fascination with Tutankhamun, in particular, is in part due to misconceptions about who he was. "Tutankhamun often appears as the tragic boy king, who died before his reign had really begun," said Darnell, but "in fact, we know he and his administrators were quite active in the south, and his reign sees an at least partially successful military campaign in the northeast." It's difficult to say how much of this was down to his advisers, added Darnell, "but his reign is in fact significant, and his tomb—as fantastically rich as it was in never before seen treasures of imperial Egypt—is not the only reason for which we should remember Tutankhamun."It was only in the 1830s, with the awareness of just how many Egyptian artifacts had been exported from the country, that the government stepped in and began to restrict the mining of the country's non-renewable antiquities reserves. Even then excavations were a financial operation. The renowned archaeologist Flinders Petrie, pioneer of modern archaeological methods, sold futures in order to fund his excavations. The consequences of doing this was that anything he found would be broken up and divided between the museums and collectors who invested in him. The Egypt Exploration Fund, which was founded in the late nineteenth century to "explore, survey, and excavate Egypt" was very explicit about this aspect of their work. Nongbri pointed me to the Secretary's report from 1899-1900, which records that the "distributions" were "a duty which the Committee performs with a full sense of responsibility, especially towards the subscribers in America, with whom we have entered into a formal undertaking that antiquities shall be distributed in strict proportion to subscriptions received." The discovery of antiquities has had a financial angle for hundreds of years. It is financial interest that was on display at Christie's when the Tutankhamun sculpture sold. It remains to be seen if it will be turned over to the new owner. Zahi Hawass, former Egyptian minister of antiquities, suggested that Egypt will almost certainly lodge an official complaint with UNESCO and take legal action in order to repatriate the sculpture. In the meantime, one of the few portraits of King Tutankhamun will remain in the hands of an anonymous private collection. 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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| Zimbabwe increases fuel prices again, but pumps remain dry Posted: 22 Jul 2019 01:44 AM PDT ![Zimbabwe increases fuel prices again, but pumps remain dry]( "Zimbabwe increases fuel prices again, but pumps remain dry") Zimbabwe hiked fuel prices on Monday for the second time in a week but most pumps remained dry, with no end in sight to shortages that are helping drive inflation rapidly higher and which have led to protests about the cost of living. The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority said a litre of petrol would now cost 7.45 Zimbabwe dollars, up 22% from 6.10 dollars. With inflation soaring, economic analysts say increases in fuel prices are adding to price pressures, especially as rolling electricity cuts are forcing businesses to use expensive diesel generators to power their operations.
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