| El Paso Walmart Shooting: Meet the Hero Soldier who Saved Children's Lives Posted: 04 Aug 2019 02:19 AM PDT  At first, Army Pfc. Glendon Oakley Jr. was completely unaware of the chaos unfolding just around the corner. Then he pulled his gun.A 22-year-old Army automated logistics specialist assigned to the 504th Composite Supply Company, 142nd Combat Support Sustainment Battalion, 1st Armored Division Sustainment Brigade at Fort Bliss, Texas, Oakley had been shopping at a sporting goods store inside the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso when a young child burst into the store shouting about an active shooter at the nearby Walmart."The guy at the register and I sort of looked at each other," Oakley told Task & Purpose in a phone interview on Saturday. "He's a little kid ... are you going to believe him?"The threat was very real. At least 20 people were killed and dozens more wounded when a gunman opened fire at the Walmart, sending terrified bystanders fleeing through the neighboring mall.When Oakley exited the store minutes later and headed to the neighboring Footlocker, he finally heard the sound of gunfire echoing across the mall. He immediately pulled the Glock 9mm he occasionally carries under Texas's concealed carry laws. While he had just returned from an incident-free deployment to Kuwait, this was not his first firefight."That's what you do," he told Task & Purpose. "You pull your gun, you find cover, and you figure out what to do next."Oakley was born into an Army family. His father, Glendon Oakley Sr., served for 31 years before retiring in 2011 at the rank of sergeant major; his mother, Wendolyn D. Oakley, retired as a master sergeant in 2001 after two decades; and his older sister, Glenda Oakley, is a retired captain.
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| 2020 Vision: Republicans becoming ever more a party of white men Posted: 02 Aug 2019 11:50 AM PDT  After Rep. Will Hurd's retirement, the next Congress will have exactly one black Republican: Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
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| Footage shows Bangkok bombing in mall minutes from ASEAN summit Posted: 03 Aug 2019 02:31 AM PDT  Footage emerged Saturday of the moment a bomb exploded in a Bangkok mall as the city hosted a major summit, the device apparently hidden inside a cuddly toy animal. There were nine successful or attempted bomb blasts on Friday throughout Bangkok which left four wounded as the city hosted a regional summit attended by top diplomats, including US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Footage showed an explosion in a shopping mall minutes from the summit venue in the early hours of Friday morning, after it was apparently planted by a man dressed in a student's uniform about 12 hours earlier.
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| El Paso shooting: Texas massacre investigated as domestic terror Posted: 03 Aug 2019 10:05 PM PDT  Leading Democrats demanded the Trump administration act to curb white nationalists following the worst attack on Latinos in US history. The US president was accused of stoking up the hatred with his rhetoric, including his vitriolic attack on four ethnic minority congresswomen last month. It was this climate, Democrats said, which culminated in the carnage at a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas leaving 20 dead and 26 injured, of whom three are reported to be in a critical condition. Attention focused to the threat posed by the far-right following the discovery a lengthy racist manifesto reportedly left by Patrick Crusius, 21, from Allen in Dallas Texas, the man named by US media outlets as suspected of being responsible for the slaughter. District Attorney, Jaime Esparza, said that he would seek the death penalty for the suspect. John Bash, the US Attorney said the mass shooting was being treated as a domestic terrorism case. The El Paso massacre was the third high profile attack linked to the far right in less than five years. My heart is broken. For El Paso. For Dayton. For everyone who is impacted by the 40,000 gun deaths in our country every year. It's on each and every one of us to end this crisis—and together, I still have faith that we will.— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) August 4, 2019 Last October 11 people died following a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh. According to a criminal complaint, Robert Bowers, 46, who is accused of the killings reportedly told a Swat officer he wanted all Jews to die. In 2015 nine people were killed in an attack on a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, who was convicted of the multiple murders said he wanted to start a race war. Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, who represented El Paso in Congress, rounded on Mr Trump. "We've got to acknowledge the hatred, the open racism that we're seeing. There is an environment of it," he said. El Paso is a community that shows up for one another—on our best days and our worst. I met Rosemary's family on the plane back to El Paso. They asked that we visit her and share her story. She was shot in the chest but is doing well after surgery. She's strong—just like our city. pic.twitter.com/qjy4ecJOCw— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) August 4, 2019 "We see if from our commander-in-chief. He is encouraging this. He doesn't just tolerate it, he encourages it." Pete Buttigieg, another Democratic candidate, added: "There is a need to stand up to white nationalist terrorism, we have to call it for what it is if we are going to fight it "There is a need for a president who will stand up to white nationalist terror," he said on CNN. "There is a need to stand up to white nationalist terrorism, we have to call it for what it is if we are going to fight it." Our country is under attack from white nationalist terrorism, inspiring murder on our soil and abetted by weak gun laws. If we are serious about national security, we must summon the courage to name and defeat this evil.— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) August 3, 2019 But the White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney denied Mr Trump's was in any way responsible for the mass shootings when challenged over the president's rhetoric. "The president is just as saddened by this as you are, the president is just as angry about this as you, he wants to do something about this just as much as everybody else." Richard Wiles, the El Paso County Sheriff, could not contain his anger and the shooting and the climate which made it possible. "This Anglo man came here to kill Hispanics. I'm outraged and you should be too," he said. This entire nation should be outraged. In this day and age, with all the serious issues we face, we are still confronted with people who will kill another for the sole reason of the colour of their skin. "I fear things will not get better. Not pointing out anyone in particular, but I'm sick of people jumping in in front of the cameras offering prayers and condolences as things just keep getting worse." Most of the victims were shot in a Walmart store within the shopping complex before the shooter was detained at the scene, police said. A CCTV image showing a man walking into the mall brandishing an assault rifle was released by police. He was wearing a dark T-shirt and ear protectors. Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, said the state stood united in support of the victims and their families. Various news reports said the ages of victims being treated at hospitals ranged from two to 82 years. This CCTV image obtained by KTSM 9 news channel reportedly shows the gunman entering the Cielo Vista Walmart store in El Paso on august 3, 2019. Credit: COURTESY OF KTSM 9 Police probe anti-immigrant manifesto "The scene was a horrific one," said El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen, who added that many of the injured had life-threatening injuries. He said police also had found an anti-immigrant manifesto that may have been written by Crusius and posted online - one reason it was being investigated as a hate crime. "Right now we have a manifesto from this individual that indicates to some degree, it has a nexus to potential hate crime," Mr Allen said. In the document, the author expressed support for the suspect in the Christchurch mosque shootings, in which 51 people were killed. A police officer stands outside a home in Allen, Texas, believed to be associated with a mass shooting Credit: AP Asked during a CNN interview about reports of disturbing online posts made by the suspect, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would not be surprised in any way. "I think those can help shed light on why he did it," Paxton said. "They are still interviewing him." El Paso, a nine-hour drive from the Dallas area, lies on the Rio Grande River that marks the US border with Mexico. It has a population of 680,000, of which 83 percent are of Hispanic descent, according to US census figures. Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were among the dead. Six Mexicans were wounded. It was the eighth worst mass shooting in modern US history, after the 1984 shooting in San Ysidro that killed 21 people. Trump reacts to shootings In his first reaction to the shooting, Donald Trump, the US president, wrote on Twitter: "Terrible shootings in ElPaso, Texas. Reports are very bad, many killed. Working with State and Local authorities, and Law Enforcement. Spoke to Governor to pledge total support of Federal Government. God be with you all!" He later called the attack "an act of cowardice". Today's shooting in El Paso, Texas, was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice. I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today's hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2019 "Melania and I send our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the great people of Texas." It was initially reported that a man began shooting in the car park at the mall before moving inside. One witness said he saw at least one person inside the store with a fatal head wound, and he saw shoppers in bloodied clothes. Videos posted on social media showed customers at one store being evacuated with their hands up. "We heard shots and saw smoke," said Victor Gamboa, 18, who works at the McDonald's inside the Walmart store where the shooting took place. "I saw a man on the floor full of blood. He appeared to be dead. It happened very quickly." 'He was just shooting randomly' Shoppers fled for their lives, including Kianna Long who was at the Walmart with her husband when they heard gunfire. "People were panicking and running," Ms Long said. "They were running close to the floor, people were dropping on the floor." She and her husband sprinted through a stock room at the back of the store before sheltering with other customers in a steel container in a shipping area. "Hands up! Hands up!" Videos show people being evacuated from the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, Texas amid the mass shooting at a Walmart that killed at least 20 people and left more than two dozen others injured. https://t.co/WG7XeQua9npic.twitter.com/tyuatkD2up— ABC News (@ABC) August 4, 2019 One woman, who gave her name as Vanessa, said she had just pulled into the Walmart parking lot when the shooting began. "You could hear the pops, one right after another and at that point as I was turning, I saw a lady, seemed she was coming out of Walmart, headed to her car. She had her groceries in her cart and I saw her just fall," she told Fox News. "He was just shooting randomly. It wasn't to any particular person. It was any that would cross paths." Graphic video from the scene posted on social media showed what appeared to be dead bodies and wounded victims. Tales of heroism also emerged. Kendall Long (L) comforts Kianna Long (R) who was in the freezer section of a Walmart during a shooting incident, in El Paso Credit: Rex Officers said the mall was packed with back-to-school shoppers. El Paso police Sgt. Robert Gomez said the store was packed with as many as 3,000 people during the busy season. In a statement, Walmart said: "We're in shock over the tragic events at Cielo Vista mall in El Paso. We're praying for the victims, the community and our associates, as well as the first responders." Oscar Collazo, a restaurant manager, said: "We never thought it would be so close to us this time. You see it on the news all the time, but you don't think it could happen here until it does." In a statement, Mr Abbott said El Paso had been "struck by a heinous and senseless act of violence". "Our hearts go out to the victims of this horrific shooting and to the entire community in this time of loss," he said. El Paso, which has about 680,000 residents, is in west Texas across the border from Juarez, Mexico. Local media said there was such an overwhelming response to an appeal by the police department for blood donations to help the wounded that long lines formed at medical centers, some of which had to tell would-be donors to come back on Sunday. Law enforcement agencies respond to an active shooter at a Wal-Mart near Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, Texas, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019. Credit: AFP Some people handed out bottled water and slices of pizza to those still waiting in line. Democrat candidates demand gun limits Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic presidential candidate, abandoned a campaign event in Las Vegas to return to El Paso, his home town. Earlier, he spoke at a labour forum, telling the crowd the shooting shattered any illusion that gun reform will "come of its own accord" in the US. "We know that there's a lot of injury, a lot of suffering in El Paso right now," he said. El Paso is one of the strongest places in the world—and if there were ever a moment to be strong, it's this one. Strong for one another, for the families who have lost somebody, and for the first responders. Please go to https://t.co/ecw9y18OSP to support our community. pic.twitter.com/FFgLPbXNIY— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) August 3, 2019 The shooting took place within days of two people being shot and killed at a Walmart branch in Southaven Mississippi. "It's not just today, it has happened several times this week. It's happened here in Las Vegas where some lunatic killed 50 some odd people," Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said as he and 18 other White House hopefuls were in Nevada to address the nation's largest public employees union. "All over the world, people are looking at the United States and wondering what is going on? What is the mental health situation in America, where time after time, after time, after time, we're seeing indescribable horror." Mr Sanders blasted Republican Senate leadership for being "more concerned about pleasing the NRA than listening to the vast majority of the American people" and said that Mr Trump has a responsibility to support commonsense gun safety legislation. Mexican people pray on the US-Mexico border, after a shooting took place at a shopping centre in El Paso Credit: Rex Former Vice President Joe Biden said he tried to call Mr O'Rourke and told reporters, "Enough is enough." "This is a sickness," Mr Biden said. "This is beyond anything that we should be tolerating." He added: "We can beat the NRA. We can beat the gun manufacturers." El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, together with the neighboring city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, form a metropolitan border area of some 2.5 million residents constituting one of the largest bilingual, bi-national populations in the Western Hemisphere. In recent months El Paso has also become one of the busiest entry points for undocumented migrants, especially from Central America, seeking asylum in the United States. On a weekend the city attracts droves of shoppers from Mexico, including from its Mexican sister city Ciudad Juarez, population 1.5 million.
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| 31 dead, 62 rescued after boats capsize in Philippines Posted: 04 Aug 2019 03:08 AM PDT  Rescuers recovered more bodies in rough seas where three ferry boats capsized after being buffeted by fierce winds and waves off two central Philippine provinces, bringing the death toll to 31 with three missing, the coast guard said Sunday. Coast guard spokesman Armand Balilo said the dead were mostly passengers of two ferries that flipped over in sudden wind gusts and powerful waves Saturday off Guimaras and Iloilo provinces. Sixty-two other passengers and crew were rescued.
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| De Blasio Says Justice Given to Eric Garner—Family Says No Posted: 02 Aug 2019 11:20 AM PDT  REUTERSNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday a measure of justice had finally been served for the death of Eric Garner after an NYPD judge recommended the police officer who killed him in 2014 be fired."Until today, the Garner family has been failed by this entire process," he said. "Today we finally saw a step towards justice and accountability," Daniel Pantaleo was immediately suspended without pay by the NYPD on Friday after a department judge recommended his termination for the death of Garner in 2014. The recommendation came after an NYPD trial this summer that heard Pantaleo violated department policy by using a prohibited chokehold on Garner—who cried out "I can't breathe" before dying. NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill will decide whether to fire Pantaleo.NYPD Judge Recommends Firing Officer Who Killed Eric GarnerGarner's mother, Gwen Carr, blamed de Blasio for waiting so long. "My family and I have been fighting for five long years for justice and accountability for Eric's murder—and Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD have put up roadblocks and delays every step of the way," she said.Carr said she feels "some relief" to learn of the recommendation, but bemoaned she can't read the judge's report—owing to a new interpretation of a longstanding state law protecting the privacy of civil servants that the city found shortly after Garner's death."It's past time for Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD to end their obstruction, stop spreading misleading talking points, and finally take action for my son. My son deserves more than recommendations; he deserves justice."De Blasio blamed the Justice Department for why it took so long to begin the NYPD trial of Pantaleo, saying officials in Washington asked the city not to move ahead while federal prosecutors evaluated whether Pantaleo violated Garner's civil rights. The investigation languished in the department across two administrations before finally ending earlier this month with a decision not to not to charge Pantaleo, one day before the statute of limitations ran out.While the mayor said he did not read the judge's 47-page decision, he declined to say whether he agreed with the recommendation on Pantaleo, citing the "ongoing" legal process. Instead, de Blasio insisted the "fair and impartial" trial was the first step toward healing for the Garner family."I know the Garner family. They've gone through extraordinary pain," de Blasio said. They are waiting for justice and are going to get justice. There's finally going to be justice. I have confidence in that, in the next 30 days, in New York."Panteleo's lawyer said his client is "disappointed," saying he only "acted the way he was taught to act." The head of the city's largest police union unloaded on de Blasio, who he said has "lost the confidence" of police officers after his Friday remarks. Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association, also called Garner protesters "criminal advocates," claiming that they have "frozen" the police department."The decision that was passed down today saying that this police officer was reckless is ludicrous. The New York City police officers now will be considered reckless every time they put their hands on someone," he said in a press conference."This is not just a fluke that happened one time in Staten Island, this can happen several times a tour," he added. "When you call 911, what do you expect us to do?"O'Neill is expected to make a decision within the next two weeks.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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| EU must change its negotiating terms for Brexit, says Britain's Barclay Posted: 04 Aug 2019 06:36 AM PDT  The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, must go back to the bloc's leaders to change the terms of the talks because Britain's parliament will not accept the current deal, British Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Sunday. Writing in the Mail on Sunday newspaper, Barclay said the "political realities" had changed since Barnier's instructions were set after Britain voted to leave the EU more than three years and that his mandate should reflect those differences. Britain's new prime minister Boris Johnson has pledged to leave the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal, and has told the bloc there is no point in new talks unless negotiators are willing to drop the so-called Northern Irish backstop agreed with his predecessor Theresa May.
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| Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Just Lost 2 Key Staff Members Posted: 03 Aug 2019 12:21 AM PDT  New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, has departed from her D.C. office to work with an outside group focused on pushing the Green New Deal, her office announced Friday.Also departing from Ocasio-Cortez's D.C. office is her communications director Corbin Trent, who will head communications for her 2020 re-election campaign."Saikat has decided to leave the office of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez to work with New Consensus to further develop plans for a Green New Deal," Trent told The Intercept. "We are extraordinarily grateful for his service to advance a bold agenda and improve the lives of the people in NY-14. From his co-founding of Justice Democrats to his work on the Ocasio-Cortez campaign and in the official office, Saikat's goal has always been to do whatever he can to help the larger progressive movement, and we look forward to continuing working with him to do just that."Chakrabarti told a Washington Post reporter in July the Green New Deal "wasn't originally a climate thing at all.""We really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing," he said.Chakrabarti played a significant role in Ocasio-Cortez's rise to national prominence. He co-founded Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, the two outside political action committees (PACs) credited with recruiting the New York Democrat to run for office and spearheading her successful primary campaign against former New York Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley.
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| POWER RANKING: Here's who has the best chance of becoming the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Posted: 02 Aug 2019 12:04 PM PDT  We've combined INSIDER's polling and results of Morning Consult's daily survey to create a power ranking of declared and potential 2020 candidates.
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| Saoirse Kennedy Hill autopsy reveals no signs of trauma Posted: 02 Aug 2019 02:00 PM PDT  Saoirse Kennedy Hill, the granddaughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, died after being found unresponsive Thursday afternoon at the Kennedy compound.
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| Five dead, several injured after powerful quake rocks Indonesia Posted: 03 Aug 2019 01:31 PM PDT  Five people died and several were injured after a powerful undersea earthquake rocked Indonesia's heavily populated Java island, triggering a brief tsunami warning, the national disaster agency said Saturday. The 6.9 magnitude quake on Friday evening sent residents fleeing to higher ground, while many in the capital Jakarta ran into the streets. An official from Indonesia's national disaster agency warned the quake could generate a tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet), but the alert was lifted several hours later.
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| Celebrities, royals and politicians brace themselves as court orders release of explosive Jeffrey Epstein files Posted: 03 Aug 2019 11:07 AM PDT  In Room 270, the records management unit, on the second floor of an imposing granite and marble courthouse in lower Manhattan, 167 documents totaling more than 2,000 pages are being kept under lock and key. But they are about to be unsealed and made public - making a host of important people around the world, including celebrities, politicians and royals, very nervous. The files contain explosive allegations in the case of Giuffre v Maxwell, in which Virginia Giuffre, a woman who claims to have been Jeffrey Epstein's teenage "sex slave", sued Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and the billionaire's former girlfriend, for defamation. The case was settled in May 2017 on the eve of the trial but the details were not disclosed and the final judgment and supporting documents were sealed, with the court noting the "highly sensitive nature of the underlying allegations." According to other court documents that have been published, Ms Giuffre has made allegations of sexual abuse against "numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well‐known Prime Minister, and other world leaders." An appeal to unseal the rest of the documents was launched by the Miami Herald newspaper, which has spearheaded media investigations into Epstein. It was rejected three times. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell became a fixture on the New York social scene after she moved to the city in 1991 Credit: Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images But last month the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered their release, ruling that the public's right to know outweighed the privacy rights of the high-profile individuals named. It what may be an indication of the fame of those individuals, the judges made a striking plea to the media to "exercise restraint" in reporting the allegations about to come to light. They also allowed parties involved to apply for minor redactions, delaying the release. Another delay is possible as Miss Maxwell has launched an appeal to keep the documents sealed, her lawyers arguing that a full release would trigger a "furious feeding frenzy." They wrote: "Plaintiff Giuffre made numerous allegations of sexual, if not criminal, conduct against a wide range of third parties. Because of the media no reference to anyone in this case is benign: a reference to any person is toxic and lethal to that person's reputation. Facts and truth are all but irrelevant." The legal battle between Ms Giuffre and Miss Maxwell began in late 2014 when Ms Giuffre claimed that Epstein sexually abused her starting in 2000 when she was 16, with the "assistance and participation" of Miss Maxwell. She also made allegations against the Duke of York, which were categorically denied by Buckingham Palace. Miss Maxwell described the claims as "obvious lies," and Ms Giuffre then sued her for defamation. Buckingham Palace has categorically denied any misconduct on the part of Prince Andrew, who was pictured with Virginia Giuffre, then Virginia Roberts, and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001 In a recent statement Josh Schiller, a lawyer for Ms Giuffre, said the appeal court was unlikely to overturn an unsealing decision, and he believed Miss Maxwell's appeal would cause only a "short delay" in releasing the documents. He added: "There is an overwhelming public interest." The appeal court's decision to release the documents came just three days before Epstein was arrested last month, charged with sex trafficking. Prosecutors in New York have accused him of assaulting dozens of girls as young as 14. The case has thrown the Marlborough College and Oxford-educated Miss Maxwell, 57, back into the spotlight. She moved to New York in 1991, the year her father - disgraced newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell - died. In New York, herself and Epstein became a fixture on the social scene. Miss Maxwell was well-connected. Guests including Donald Trump had partied on her father's yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, as far back as 1989. She is a private helicopter pilot and a deep water submarine pilot. In 2012 she founded the TerraMar Project in New York, aimed at creating a "global ocean community" to protect international waters, and spoke about it at the United Nations. Last month, six days after Epstein's arrest, the TerraMar Project announced it would "cease all operations." Miss Maxwell sold her Manhattan townhouse for $15 million in 2016, and her current whereabouts are unclear.
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| UPDATE 3-Turkey to launch offensive in Kurdish-controlled area in northern Syria -Erdogan Posted: 04 Aug 2019 07:55 AM PDT ![UPDATE 3-Turkey to launch offensive in Kurdish-controlled area in northern Syria -Erdogan]( "UPDATE 3-Turkey to launch offensive in Kurdish-controlled area in northern Syria -Erdogan") Turkey will carry out a military operation in a Kurdish-controlled area east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, its third offensive to dislodge Kurdish militia fighters close to its border. Turkey had in the past warned of carrying out military operations east of the river, but put them on hold after agreeing with the United States to create a safe zone inside Syria's northeastern border with Turkey that would be cleared of the Kurdish YPG militia.
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| Coast Guard Finds Drug-Smuggling Submarine with $232 Million in Cocaine Onboard Posted: 03 Aug 2019 10:30 PM PDT  Self-propelled semi-submersible vessels are sometimes used by traffickers to smuggle drugs in the open sea he pointed out. On Jul. 11, 2019 the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) released a video showing service members jumping onto a moving drug smuggling vessel carrying 17,000 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $232 million, according to a service spokesman.The video was taken on Jun. 18 and features "Coasties" from the Cutter Munro leaping onto the self-propelled semi-submersible vessel, suspected of carrying drugs. The vessel moved alongside the cutter in the eastern Pacific. A crew member can then be seen busting open the hatch to find an unidentified man inside.(This first appeared in Aviation Geek Club here last month.)
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| Day care worker charged after four toddlers suffer broken legs Posted: 03 Aug 2019 11:27 AM PDT  A Florida day care worker was charged with child neglect two months after fourtoddlers were found with leg fractures, the Northwest Florida Daily Newsreports
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| El Paso shooting: 21-year-old suspect Patrick Crusius ‘espoused racist tropes and voiced support for Christchurch mosque gunman’ Posted: 04 Aug 2019 04:50 AM PDT  The suspected gunman behind the El Paso shooting that has left at least 20 people dead is believed to be a 21-year-old white man called Patrick Crusius. Though Crusius was not named by law enforcement as the shooter, local media reported his name and published what it said were CCTV images of the suspect armed with a rifle.The Texas city's police chief said the assault on a Walmart store on Saturday, which left another 26 people wounded, was being investigated as a potential hate crimePolice officially identified a 21-year-old white male from Allen, Texas, a Dallas suburb some 650 miles east of El Paso.The attack came just minutes after a far-right manifesto appeared online. Senior law enforcement officials told NBC News they were "reasonably confident" the document had been posted by the shooting suspect on online message board 8chan. If authentic, it would make it the third mass shooting this year announced in advance on the website, which often features far-right and racist content. El Paso police chief Greg Allen said authorities were examining the manifesto, which indicated "there is a potential nexus to a hate crime". Officials declined to elaborate and said the investigation was continuing.The racist four-page document, titled "The Inconvenient Truth", calls the Walmart attack "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas" and expresses support for the gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand earlier this year.He rails against automation, the "destruction of our environment" and immigration, and says his views were influenced by the so-called "Great Replacement", a white supremacist conspiracy theory that claims people of European descent are being overwhelmed.The 2,300-word diatribe expresses hatred of "race mixing" and suggests the US should be split up into different regions for different ethnicities.His opinions on immigration, he writes, predate "Trump and his campaign for president", though the author repeatedly uses talking points often wielded by the US president, including the claim "illegals" are "invading" the country, and that the mainstream media publishes "fake news". CNN reported the FBI has opened a domestic terror investigation into the shooting.At least two Democratic presidential candidates, Pete Buttigieg and El Paso native Beto O'Rourke, drew connections to a resurgence in white nationalism and xenophobic politics in the US."America is under attack from homegrown white nationalist terrorism," Mr Buttigieg said at a candidates forum in Las Vegas.Mr O'Rourke partially blamed Donald Trump's racist rhetoric, which "fundamentally changes the character of the country – and it leads to violence".On Twitter, Mr Trump branded the shooting "an act of cowardice", adding, "I know that I stand with everyone in this country to condemn today's hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people".The carnage ranked as the eighth-deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, after a 1984 shooting in San Ysidro, California, that claimed 21 lives.It came just six days after the last major outbreak of US gun violence in a public place – a food festival in California where a teenager killed three people with an assault rifle and injured a dozen others before taking his own life in a hail of police gunfire.Just hours after the El Paso attack, a gunman shot dead at least nine people outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio, early on Sunday morning."We are going to aggressively prosecute it both as capital murder but also as a hate crime, which is exactly what it appears to be," Texas governor Greg Abbott told reporters of the Walmart attack, adding, "I don't want to get ahead of the evidence".Refusing to call for tightening gun control measures, Mr Abbott said it was time to "focus more on memorials before we start the politics". In an emotional statement, El Paso county sheriff Richard Wiles railed against those "jumping in front of the cameras and offering prayers and condolences as things just keep getting worse". "It's time to rise up and hold our representatives accountable at all levels. I want representatives who will stand up to racism. Who will stand up and support the diversity of our nation and our state," he said. Additional reporting by Reuters
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| Zimbabwe Reaches ‘Tipping Point’ as Inflation Blacked Out Posted: 03 Aug 2019 10:00 PM PDT ![Zimbabwe Reaches 'Tipping Point' as Inflation Blacked Out]( "Zimbabwe Reaches 'Tipping Point' as Inflation Blacked Out") (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwe's finance minister responded to the country's worsening economic crisis last week by blacking out inflation statistics for the next six months, boosting the price of the little power that's available five-fold and admitting what the International Monetary Fund told him in April: the economy will contact for the first time since 2008.At the same time he spoke of fiscal surpluses and a relaxation in local ownership requirements for the key platinum industry. This all happened in a country with daily power cuts of up to 18 hours and shortages of everything from bread to motor fuel. People are receiving food aid in cities for the first time and a drought has necessitated the import of hundreds of thousands of tons of corn.When Robert Mugabe was ousted after four decades in power in late 2017 his replacement, Emmerson Mnangagwa, promised economic regeneration and declared that Zimbabwe is "open for business." Instead things have gone from bad to worse with the effects of rapidly expanding money supply through the sale of Treasury bills under Mugabe's rule coming home to roost and this year's outlawing of the U.S. dollar in favor of a local quasi currency that can't be traded outside the country causing panic."Zimbabwe is at a tipping point and if it falls over the edge it's going to be quite a long way in coming back," said Derek Matyszak, a Zimbabwe-based research consultant for South Africa's Institute for Security Studies. "The wheels are falling off. There is no way out of a Ponzi scheme other than a massive infusion of cash to pay off your creditors."The country with the world's highest inflation rate after Venezuela also suspended annual consumer-price data for the next six months. The authorities need to collect comparable data since the introduction of the new currency in February. That marked a return to 2009, when the country abandoned the Zimbabwe dollar in favor of the U.S. dollar and other currencies after inflation surged to an estimated 500 billion percent.If the more commonly used black-market exchange rate is used, Zimbabwe's annual inflation is currently 558%, about three times the official rate, while Venezuela's is 35,004%, according to Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied economics at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore.Scrapping the official annual rate is "no real loss from an analytical perspective," said Jee-A van der Linde, an economist at NKC African Economics in Paarl, South Africa. "These elevated inflation readings did little more than create panic and damage what little confidence was left."Still, the decision evokes other countries in crisis. Venezuela halted publication of inflation data and while it periodically releases figures, it isn't operating on a regular schedule. In 2013, Argentina was censured by the IMF for tampering with its data.A de-linking of the country's quasi-currencies from parity with the U.S. dollar in February and the re-imposition of the Zimbabwe dollar overnight in June has fueled depreciation with the currency officially trading at 9.28 to the dollar on Aug. 2. The black-market rate was 10.8, according to Marketwatch.co.zw, a website run by analysts. While the government has argued that in the face of foreign-currency shortages it has no choice but to reintroduce its own currency, Hanke disagrees."The Achilles heel is the introduction of the new currency to the exclusion of the dollar," he said. "They have decided to go in the completely opposite direction and claimed it's the best thing since sliced bread and it's going to be an absolute disaster."While the cost of basic services has climbed 400% this year, pay rises have been around 10%, said Japhet Moyo, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which has 130,000 members.Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube tried to highlight the country's first positive current-account balance in a decade as a sign of progress. Since his appointment last year, the government has sold only marginal amounts of Treasury bills. And earlier this year, the Cambridge University-trained economics professor forecast that month-on-month inflation, which surged to 39.3% in June, would be close to zero by year-end.The fundamental problem is that the government has failed to attract significant investment and hasn't substantially changed the policies of the Mugabe era, said John Robertson, an independent economist in Harare, the capital."People are very angry" and even though a quarter of the population has already emigrated, more may follow, said Matyszak."The Zimbabwe I once loved has become a cemetery for my son's future" said Ashley Randen, an unemployed single mother of a 12-year-old boy in Harare.\--With assistance from Daniel Cancel and Carolina Millan.To contact the reporters on this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net;Prinesha Naidoo in Johannesburg at pnaidoo7@bloomberg.net;Ray Ndlovu in Johannesburg at rndlovu1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Rene Vollgraaff at rvollgraaff@bloomberg.net, Antony SguazzinFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Nuon Chea, ideologue of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, dies at 93 Posted: 04 Aug 2019 06:37 AM PDT  Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue of the communist Khmer Rouge regime that destroyed a generation of Cambodians, died Sunday, the country's U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal said. Nuon Chea was known as Brother No. 2, the right-hand man of Pol Pot, the leader of the regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Researchers believe Nuon Chea was responsible for the extremist policies of the Khmer Rouge and was directly involved in its purges and executions.
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| Floating nuclear power plant to be towed across Russian Arctic despite 'Chernobyl on ice' concerns Posted: 04 Aug 2019 07:59 AM PDT  The wind and rain whipped by at several feet per second as crew members stepped outside for a quick smoke, but the world's only floating nuclear power plant barely shifted in the choppy waves of the Kola bay. The length of one-and-a-half football pitches, the Academic Lomonosov looks the part as the vanguard of Russia's "nuclearification" of the Arctic, at least now that its rusty hull has been repainted in the white, red and blue of the national flag. Later this month it will be towed 3,000 miles from the northwestern corner of Russia to the Chukotka region next to Alaska, where it will provide steam heat and eventually electricity to the coastal gold-mining town of Pevek, population 4,000. The state corporation Rosatom is trumpeting the Academic Lomonosov as the next big step in nuclear energy and a solution to electricity needs in Africa and Asia. "This is like launching the first rocket into space because it's a pilot project, the first in the world," Vladimir Irimenko, senior engineer for environmental protection, said before showing journalists the reactor control room. But the floating plant took more than a decade to build at high cost and has been dubbed the "nuclear Titanic" over safety concerns. It has been fuelled up and tested in Murmansk rather than its home port of St Petersburg after 11,000 signed an angry petition and Norway objected to two reactors full of enriched uranium being dragged along along its entire coastline. A dinghy of Greenpeace activists unfurled a "no to floating Chernobyl" banner next to the plant on the 31st anniversary of the disaster in 2017. This group and others have wondered about the wisdom of sending what is essentially a giant nuclear barge into some of the harshest and most remote conditions on earth, where any cleanup operation would be exceedingly difficult. Greenpeace Russia activists rolled out a banner before the floating nuclear power plant in St. Petersburghttps://t.co/7d6OPmRdQipic.twitter.com/ApMGOfoEtK— Greenpeace Russia (@greenpeaceru) April 26, 2017 "If there's a storm or something, it can't move anywhere, it's helpless," said activist Konstantin Fomin. "We did an action and boated up to it to show that if we can boat up to it, then terrorists can boat up to it." It's not exactly true that this floating nuclear power plant is the "first in the world," as a US army reactor installed on an immobilised cargo ship provided electricity to the Panama Canal zone in 1968-75. The Academic Lomonosov, however, is the first floating nuclear power plant designed for regular production, as Rosatom has claimed that southeast Asian countries are interested in buying such stations for electricity and South American and Middle Eastern countries for desalination. It has argued that the floating station meets higher safety standards than land-based nuclear plants and said any allusion to Chernobyl is like "comparing a 100-year-old automobile to one today". To be fair, while flammable graphite slowed down the neutrons for fission in the Chernobyl reactors, water performs this function in most reactors today, including on the Academic Lomonosov. Its KLT-40 reactors are similar to those that power three of Russia's five atomic icebreakers. A crew member monitors the reactors in the floating plant's control room Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph After previously complaining that it was only allowed on board to check the plant once a year during construction, Russia's technology oversight agency issued it a 10-year operating license in June. The floating plant will be protected from waves and ice by a pier, and national guardsmen will be deployed against intruders, Rosatom said. After the Fukishima nuclear disaster in 2011, all Russian nuclear power plants including the Academic Lomonosov were upgraded with new safety systems, it added. The company has declared that the floating plant's reactors are "invincible for tsunamis and other natural disasters". Yet overweening statements like this, as well a Rosatom official's promise last year that the reactors would be tested "at 110 per cent" of their capacity, hardly alleviate safety concerns. (The company later said the official misspoke.) During construction in 2017, a fire started on the Academic Lomonosov and spread over 170 square feet, according to state media. Asked about the incident, director Kirill Torkov said sparks from welding had caused a diesel generator to "start burning," but claimed that what resulted was "smokiness" rather than a fire. "There are several systems for fire safety on the vessel," he said. Hazard tape was stretched across several areas with signs instructing crew to access them through different corridors Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph But safety precautions can never completely eliminate the risk of human error or natural disasters, and Russia has had a spotty nuclear record in the Arctic. In Soviet times, 14 reactors were simply sunk in the Kara Sea, and thousands of iron containers of spent fuel were dumped overboard. "They might not sink right away, so we'd take a rifle and shoot them," recalled Andrey Zolotkov, who worked for Atomflot for 35 years before joining the environmental group Bellona in the 1990s. The nuclear submarine Kursk sank in the Arctic 2000 and K-159 sank in 2003, and last month a fire on a nuclear deep-sea submersible near Murmansk almost caused a "catastrophe of a global scale," an officer said at the funeral of the 14 sailors killed. While a mishap in Pevek could result in local contamination, what observers really fear is when the Academic Lomonosov is towed the 3,000 miles back to Murmansk for maintenance and refuelling 12 years from now. It will enter the Barents Sea, the source of much of the cod and haddock for British fish and chips shops, full of spent nuclear fuel. "In case of an accident, the reactor can be shut down, but the storage of spent fuel on something like an unpowered vessel is wild to me," Mr Zolotkov said. "That object can't be completely airtight." Steam turbines next to the reactor compartment will provide heat and electricity Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph Perhaps the most serious issue facing Rosatom's plans to sell floating nuclear power plants around the globe is not "Chernobyl on ice" protests but rather cost. While Rosatom has refused to put a price tag on the Academic Lomonosov as a pilot project, insurance filings and media reports have revealed that it took at least £360 million to build including coastal infrastructure. "The coastline of Siberia is a wonderful spot for developing wind power, during the summer there are 24 hours of sun a day, and there's geothermal energy like Iceland and China are developing. So there are alternatives, and they are probably much cheaper to develop than to build the Academic Lomonosov plant," said Thomas Nilsen, editor of the Norway-based Barents Observer news site. Such alternatives are unlikely, however, now that Rosatom has been put in charge of all new infrastructure along the "northern sea route". Smoking is allowed only on the port deck of the vessel Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph As global warming melts the sea ice, Russia hopes this route can challenge the Suez Canal for a share of shipping to and from China, and Vladimir Putin has promised its atomic icebreaker fleet will increase to nine by 2035. It's all part of Moscow's grand plans to conquer the Arctic on the back of nuclear power: An extensive new report by the Barents Observer estimated that in the next 15 years, the number of military and civilian reactors in the Russian Arctic would double from the 62 in operation today. Other plans under consideration include autonomous nuclear reactors installed on the sea floor to power gas and oil drilling. Perhaps the greatest nuclear threat to the Arctic environment is posed by the secretive Poseidon underwater nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered drone announced by Mr Putin last year, which has been photographed on a ship near Arkhangelsk. Given its small size, the drone almost certainly can't hold a closed-circuit reactor and will emit nuclear waste directly into the water. A crew member passes through a hatch inside the Academic Lomonosov Credit: Alec Luhn/For The Telegraph In this atmosphere, the Academic Lomonosov looks more like a geopolitical PR stunt than an market-beating power source. Mr Irimenko said six floating nuclear power stations and one replacement would have to be produced for the project to be profitable, but admitted that this was not the most crucial aspect. "A military ship isn't profitable, a space rocket isn't profitable," he said, "but it's important for the country's development."
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| Man, nanny found dead in double murder at suburban New Jersey home Posted: 04 Aug 2019 05:16 AM PDT  Police confirmed that they started investigating the murders of a man and a woman at a home on Walton Road near Jefferson Avenue in Maplewood around 6 a.m.
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| View Photos of the 1987 Porsche 962 IMSA GTP Posted: 02 Aug 2019 12:00 PM PDT |
| Iran Watch: Should Trump Fear Tehran's Last Missile Test? Posted: 03 Aug 2019 05:00 AM PDT  Iran does test medium-range ballistic missiles, although not commonly. What HappenedFor the first time since a standoff between the United States and Iran escalated into attacks on oil tankers, Iran has conducted a medium-range ballistic missile test. According to U.S. officials, Iran test-fired a Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile earlier this week that traveled 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) — distance enough to hit Saudi Arabia and come close to Israel.Iran's strategy in carrying out the test is likely twofold. For one, Tehran is engaging in a show of force against the United States as part of the aggressive regional strategy it has pursued over the last three months. At the same time, the launches provide Iran's engineers and missile designers an important opportunity to test technical and operational designs as part of the country's wider ballistic missile program. Iran's Missile Motivations
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| ‘Trump’s racism leads to violence’: Democrats blame president for deadly El Paso shooting Posted: 04 Aug 2019 01:19 AM PDT  Democratic presidential candidates condemned Donald Trump's racism and the failure to take action on gun control following the mass shooting by a suspected white supremacist in El Paso.Former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke, who represented the district where the attack took place, said the US president's rhetoric "fundamentally changes the character of the country – and it leads to violence".He added: "We have to ask ourselves about the level of hatred and racism we are seeing in the country right now."Bernie Sanders also targeted the president as he urged the US to "come together to reject this dangerous and growing culture of bigotry espoused by Trump and his allies.""Instead of wasting money putting children in cages, we must seriously address the scourge of violent bigotry and domestic terrorism," the Vermont senator added."We must treat this violent racism like the security threat that it is."Mr Sanders also joined renewed calls for gun safety legislation after it emerged that 20 people had been killed in the attack at a Walmart store. "After every tragedy the Senate, intimidated by the NRA's power, does nothing," he said. "This must change. We need a president and congress that listen to Americans, not the ideology of a right-wing extremist organisation. We must pass common sense gun safety legislation."California senator Kamala Harris urged the president to "have the courage to do something" and said Congress should pass "reasonable gun safety laws", adding: "We shouldn't have to live in fear of mass shootings."Former vice president Joe Biden tweeted: "How many lives must be cut short? How many communities must be torn apart? It's past time we take action and end our gun violence epidemic.""Time to ban and buy back every assault weapon in America," said California congressman Eric Swallwell.Targeting the Republican leadership in Washington DC, Elizabeth Warren said: "Americans shouldn't have to live in fear that if they go to Walmart, or a festival, or school, or just walk down the street that they won't make it home alive. This has to stop."As it emerged that the suspect – a white man in his 20s named as Patrick Crusius - had posted a racist manifesto online before launching the attack, Pete Buttigieg said the US was "under attack from white nationalist terrorism".He said that the attacker was "abetted by weak gun laws" and added: "If we are serious about national security, we must summon the courage to name and defeat this evil."Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was one of four female politicians attacked by Mr Trump in recent racist tweets, said right-wing extremists were being radicalised on social media including Youtube and Facebook."White supremacy has quickly turned into a domestic terror crisis," she said. "They rely on you thinking it's not a big deal. It is a big deal. White supremacy now makes up the majority of domestic terrorism in the United States. They radicalize online."The congresswoman added: "We can no longer bear to see gun violence and mass shootings continue as a norm in America. How many deaths to gun violence could have been preventable with responsible gun safety laws? How many children would still have their mothers? Enough. It's way past time we act."Mr Trump has faced widespread criticism during his presidency for calling immigrants "animals", drug dealers and rapists and describing their arrival at the US-Mexico border as an "invasion".A poll found more than half of American voters thought Mr Trump was racist following his attacks on Baltimore as a "rodent infested mess" and his tweet telling four Democrat congresswomen – including Somali-born Ilhan Omar and three US citizens – to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."The US president has condemned the shooting as a "hateful act" and said it "was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice ... there are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people."
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| Accused El Paso Walmart Shooter Apparently Posted Racist Manifesto Before Attack Posted: 03 Aug 2019 05:06 PM PDT  JOEL ANGEL JUAREZ/Getty ImagesPatrick Crusius has been identified as the suspected gunman who attacked a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, a senior law-enforcement source told The Daily Beast. Crusius' identity was first reported by CNN.Crusius apparently foreshadowed the attack online almost an hour beforehand, according to postings reviewed by The Daily Beast. Crusius, 21, is a resident of Allen, Texas, outside Dallas. Police said one person is in custody for the attack. Authorities "ruled out" multiple shooters and said there are no outstanding suspects. Twenty people were killed and scores more injured in the attack, officials said.Mass Shooting at El Paso Walmart; Gunman 'Started Shooting Everyone, Aisle by Aisle,' Witness SaysAn eyewitness told The Daily Beast a white man in his twenties, who was dressed in black, opened fire with a rifle in front of the store's entrance around 11 a.m. The gunman shot one person at point-blank range, the eyewitness said. Surveillance footage captured the gunman entering the store, where another eyewitness said he fired "aisle by aisle." El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen, who stopped short of naming the suspect, said that authorities were reviewing a "manifesto." "Right now we have a manifesto from this individual, that indicates to some degree, it has a nexus to potential hate crime," Allen said at a Saturday night press conference. He went on to add, however, that authorities were still working to "validate" that it was written by the suspected shooter. Approximately 45 minutes before the first report of gunfire, a user on the forum 8chan announced that they were planning an attack, indicated that they were in Texas, and that they would use an AK-47—similar to the weapon photographed on the gunman—to carry out the attack. The announcement was accompanied by an anti-immigrant manifesto that invoked white supremacist terms to justify violence against Hispanic people. Authorities say three Mexican nationals were among the dead in the attack on the predominantly Hispanic city that borders Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.The same user also uploaded a letter addressed to Crusius from Collin College, dated April 9. The college said after the shooting that Crusius had attended school there until spring 2019. The letter was first reported by Bellingcat, an investigative website.White supremacist shooters sometimes post manifestos or links to other literature, in the hopes that a terror attack will draw attention to the writings. These manifestos are sometimes intended to inspire other acts of violence. The author of the apparent El Paso manifesto claimed to have been inspired by a manifesto written by the white supremacist who allegedly murdered 51 worshippers at a mosque in New Zealand this year. The alleged attacker of a synagogue in Poway, California, earlier this year also cited that manifesto.Hours after the El Paso attack on Saturday, law enforcement blocked off a home in a well-kept neighborhood of brick and stucco homes with manicured lawns in Allen. At the end of a cul-de-sac where FBI and state police had gathered, ATF agents went door-to-door in an attempt to speak with neighbors.One neighbor, who declined to give her name, said she believed Crusius was living with his grandparents. "They're very good people, they're very straight people," she said, adding that she attended church with the pair. Crusius's father is a mental-health counselor who recently treated a gunshot victim.—With reporting fron Dan Singer in Allen, TexasRead 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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| Iraq's Yazidi women must abandon kids born in IS captivity Posted: 03 Aug 2019 09:44 AM PDT ![Iraq's Yazidi women must abandon kids born in IS captivity]( "Iraq's Yazidi women must abandon kids born in IS captivity") Yazidi women and girls who were enslaved and raped by Islamic State militants have few choices. Five years ago Saturday, IS militants launched attacks on Yazidi villages in northern Iraq, kidnapping, enslaving and massacring thousands. In April, a month after the final military defeat of IS, Yazidi religious leaders made an apparent bid to protect the insular and still-grieving community by decreeing that they will embrace survivors of militant attacks.
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| McDonald's employee fired after allegedly turning away paramedics: 'We don't serve badges here' Posted: 03 Aug 2019 01:31 PM PDT  A McDonald's employee was fired after she allegedly refused to serveparamedics Wednesday night, WFTS reports
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| Russian opposition plans new protest despite over 1,000 arrests Posted: 04 Aug 2019 07:24 AM PDT  Russia's anti-Kremlin opposition said it was planning a nationwide protest next weekend despite police forcibly detaining over 1,000 people on Saturday for attending what they said was an illegal march in Moscow to demand free elections. Saturday's protest, conceived by opposition activists as a peaceful walk to protest against the exclusion of their candidates from a Moscow election next month, was systematically and sometimes violently dispersed by police. Russian investigators had initiated a criminal case against one man, accusing him of injuring a police officer, the TASS news agency reported.
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| 'You owe them an apology': Tulsi Gabbard ripped into Kamala Harris at the Democratic debate over her controversial record on criminal justice Posted: 02 Aug 2019 10:30 AM PDT  "When you were in a position to make a difference and an impact in these people's lives, you did not," Gabbard told Harris at the Democratic debate.
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| LAPD conducts raids in 2 counties, arrests 3 suspects in fatal shooting of Officer Juan Diaz Posted: 03 Aug 2019 12:17 AM PDT  Los Angeles police conducted raids in two counties and arrested three primary suspects days after the fatal shooting of Officer Juan Jose Diaz.
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| Russia’s Military Admits It Needs Western Technology Posted: 03 Aug 2019 01:00 PM PDT  When Western nations imposed economic sanctions after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, Moscow had an answer: Russia would substitute domestic products for foreign imports.But Russia's defense industry is still using imported parts despite the government ban, according to Russia's top prosecutor."Import substitution in the defense industry remains a problem," warned Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika. "Instances of non-compliance with the ban to purchase foreign equipment whose counterparts are manufactured in Russia continue to be revealed.""In the framework of import substitution in the defense industry, it is vital to ensure compliance with the deadlines for replacing components," said First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buksman. "Raw and [other] materials produced by NATO countries and Ukraine, used to manufacture machines, arms, military and special equipment, prevent non-compliance with the ban on the budget-funded purchase of foreign equipment, analogues of which are produced in Russia."Unfortunately, the problem is that equivalents to Western goods are often not produced in Russia. "Russia produces few high value goods that can compete with imports," noted a 2017 Moscow Times article. "Thanks to oil inflating the value of the ruble it has always been cheaper and easier to import finished goods than go through the process of investing money into expensive production and development lines that produce goods that are, at the end of the day, inferior to the imports."
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| US warned Sweden of 'negative consequences' if A$AP Rocky were not released from jail for trial Posted: 04 Aug 2019 03:01 AM PDT  A U.S. presidential envoy warned of "potentially negative consequences" to U.S.-Swedish relations if rapper A$AP Rocky were not released from prison, according to reports.
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| Tour the Homes Designed by Hollywood’s Newest A-List Architect Posted: 02 Aug 2019 11:26 AM PDT |
| Canada resident home after Iran jail escape: ministry, family Posted: 03 Aug 2019 11:36 PM PDT  An Iranian serving a life sentence on a conviction of designing a pornographic website has fled the country while on short-term release from prison and has arrived in Canada, the foreign ministry and his family said. "Canada welcomes the news that Saeed Malekpour has been reunited with his family in Canada," a foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement received by AFP. "We have advocated for Mr Malekpour's release and are pleased that he is now in Canada," the spokesman said, without elaborating due to privacy considerations.
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| US prosecutors accuse Honduran president of drug conspiracy Posted: 03 Aug 2019 05:18 PM PDT  U.S. federal prosecutors have accused the Honduran government of essentially functioning as a narco-state, with the current and former presidents having received campaign contributions from cocaine traffickers in exchange for protection. The filing comes just months after other U.S. federal court documents showed the current president and some of his closest advisers were among the targets of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, casting further doubt on the United States' assertion that Honduras has helped stop the flow of drugs.
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| Raccoon trapped in drain cover freed after two-hour firefighter rescue Posted: 03 Aug 2019 10:10 AM PDT  A team of firefighters spent two hours freeing a trapped racoon from a grate covering a drain.A passer-by spotted the animal in Massachusetts while travelling to work on Thursday and called the fire brigade.The team tried several methods to free the trapped animal, according to NBC News.Firefighters attempted to lubricate the racoon with soap, to allow it to slip through the grate.They also pulled the grate loose, compressed the racoon's neck with medical gauze and called for an animal control officer.Every attempt failed.Eventually a vet arrived at the scene and sedated the animal, after which it was freed."We were able to rescue a juvenile racoon today with help from Waltham's Animal Control," a fire department spokesperson said on Twitter."He had been stuck for a while but we are happy to report he is free!!!"We rescue citizens both big and small!!!"The fire department said the racoon was doing well following its dramatic rescue.
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| Jeremy Corbyn's leadership has 'radicalised' some Labour members into attacking Israel and Jews, report finds Posted: 03 Aug 2019 01:36 PM PDT  Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour party has "radicalised" some members so they are now publicly attacking Israel and Jews, according to a report. A dossier submitted to an official inquiry reveals how a series of Labour members became "obsessed" with Israel after Mr Corbyn's election. In one case a party member who made no public Facebook comments about Israel before the leadership campaign is now posting more than 300 times per year on the issue, including a claim that "Zionists ... bankrolled Hitler ... all for one goal [,] Israel." One user who has since shared a post referring to Dame Margaret Hodge, the Jewish Labour MP, as a "Rothschild Zionist millionaire", said that she had been posting content relating to Israel "since I heard Jeremy Corbyn speak of the atrocities [in Gaza]". The 200-page dossier also shows how "hard-core anti-Semites" joined Labour as a result of Mr Corbyn's election in September 2015 and that since Mr Corbyn's leadership there has been a sharp spike in the use of "Zionist" - often used as a term of anti-Semitic abuse - on online Labour discussion groups. Labour anti-Semitism row: The catalogue of historical allegations against Jeremy Corbyn It was compiled by David Collier, the investigator who revealed Mr Corbyn's posts in Palestine Live, a Facebook group containing anti-Semitic messages. The report, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, was submitted to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is investigating allegations of anti-Semitism within Labour. Mr Corbyn has faced repeated calls from his own MPs for stronger action to tackle anti-Semitism within his party. Mr Collier's research, which involved a trawl of thousands of social media accounts and Facebook groups, documents cases of Labour members "who did not publicly display antisemitic ideology until they became infected within the Labour Party mechanisms". They include a member whose public Facebook posts contained no mention of Israel or Gaza until 2015. He went on to share articles based on anti-Semitic tropes about the Rothschild dynasty, following the start of the Labour leadership campaign that summer. He also described Jon Lansman, the leader of the left-wing Momentum group, who has spoken out against anti-Semitism, as a "Zionist agent". Another party member who supported Mr Corbyn's leadership bid only made one public post about Israel before 2015. By September 2016 she had posted two videos based on anti-Semitic tropes, with one entitled: "The Zionist conspiracy and the UK Government." In June 2017 she said: "Zionism & Rothschild & Israel & Netenyahu [sic] and that meddling Queen whose Prussian family created Israel and Saudi Arabia need to be kept out of British politics." IHRA working definition | Anti-Semitism In a third case Mr Collier showed how a self-described Labour member who again displayed no visible interest in Israel before 2015 is now constantly posting about the country and "Zionists". "In the year of Corbyn's election, she made two [public posts about Israel]. In the following year, 22. By 2018, [she] was posting more on Israel than anything else, reaching over 300 articles related to Zionism or Israel in a single year." In August 2018 she stated: "Zionists and other US corporations and others Ford, Royal Dutch, some British bankrolled Hitler before and throughout WW2 ... all for one goal [,] Israel." Mr Collier, whose report is due to be published on Monday, concludes: "The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader in September 2015 established the toxic environment which enabled the growth of rampant anti-Zionist hostility and inevitably antisemitism." He also found a "clear pattern" supporting the "general assumption" by commentators that "the Labour party was invaded by extremists when Jeremy Corbyn became leader". Labour anti-Semitism | Read More One individual posted in April 2015 about "Zionists controlling the Tory party", before joining Labour shortly after Mr Corbyn's election. Another stated in August 2015, during the leadership contest, that Mr Corbyn had "persuaded me to rejoin Labour". He had previously said: "Zionism has a measure of hate just as pernicious as Isis (Islamic State) The only difference is who controls the media reporting??" He also claimed that Isis "work for Israel". A Labour Party spokesperson said: "Some of these individuals are suspended and some are not Labour Party members. The majority of complaints we receive are about people who are not party members. "The vast majority of Labour members are motivated by equality, justice and fairness, and despise antisemitism. As the data we have released shows, antisemitism complaints relate to a small minority of members, but one anti-Semite is one too many. "Jeremy Corbyn has made clear that antisemitism has no place in the Labour Party and we have taken decisive action to tackle it, with a more than four-fold increase in the rate at which anti-Semitism cases are dealt with, an education programme launched by Jeremy Corbyn about different forms of anti-Semitism." A Labour Party source said: "These claims aren't borne out by the facts. Around half of the complaints the Party was dealing with in early 2016 pre-dated Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader and complaints about anti-Semitism relate to 0.1 per cent of Party members. "The only surveys that have been conducted on anti-Semitic attitudes in political parties during the time that Jeremy Corbyn has been leader, shows that anti-Semitic attitudes are higher among Conservative voters than Labour voters, and the levels of anti-Semitic attitudes among Labour voters decreased during the period that Jeremy Corbyn has been leader."
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| German far-right party ahead in east before regional votes Posted: 04 Aug 2019 01:10 AM PDT  The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has taken the lead in the east of the country ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), just a month before regional elections there, an opinion poll showed on Sunday. The AfD is favored by 23% of voters in the former east, ahead of the CDU on 22%, the far-left Linke on 14%, the Greens on 13% and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) on 11%, according to a poll in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
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| The Day That Obsessed Adolf Hitler Posted: 03 Aug 2019 02:48 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/GettyThis summer marked the centennial of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, on June 28, 1919. The treaty put a formal end to World War I, one of the deadliest military conflicts in history. Yet the anniversary went mostly unnoticed.That's a shame because the treaty's contents, and the reaction that they caused, were essential to paving the way for the ascent of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe.World War I broke out in the late summer of 1914, when the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated by Serbian separatist Gavrilo Princip. Their deaths triggered a set of byzantine military alliances across Europe and Russia that were the result of grievances that had been building throughout the 19th century. The main combatants at the beginning of the war were the Allied Powers (France, Great Britain, and Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire). In 1917, the Russian Revolution forced Russia out of the war. That same year, the United States joined the conflict.When the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, after negotiations led by President Woodrow Wilson, the four empires that had dominated east and central Europe for centuries—Germany, Austria-Hungary, Czarist Russia, and the Ottomans—were all gone. Millions of people were displaced and without a country. States had collapsed and national borders had ceased to exist. Out of this chaos, the peace congress that convened in Paris needed to create order.How WWI Produced the HolocaustThe treaty that was signed on June 28, 1919 was considered a missed opportunity before the ink of the signatures had dried on the page. The negotiations that took place between Great Britain, France, the United States, and Italy (known as the Big Four) were without structure and with no list of priorities. Germany and Austria-Hungary were excluded from the negotiations, as was Russia, mainly because no one really knew what to make of its new Bolshevik government. None of the Big Four was happy with the outcome of the peace congress, and Germany was shocked by the terms of its defeat.This shock came to set the course for much of Germany's domestic and foreign policies during the 1920s and 1930s. The German people were unprepared for the armistice deal when it was signed in November 1918. German war propaganda claimed they were winning the war right up to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the declaration of defeat by the government that took his place.According to historian Sally Marks, in order to handle their confusion, the Germans latched on to the use of the word "armistice," which to them came to mean that the war had ended in a draw. When the Treaty of Versailles treated Germany as a defeated aggressor, there was a backlash. Or, as Marks puts it, "the real difficulty was not that the Treaty was exceptionally unfair, but that the Germans thought it was, and in time persuaded others that it was."GettyThe unfair conditions of the treaty that Germany objected to, but in the end was forced to accept, included the demilitarization of the Rhineland, which is a border region with France; the re-creation of Poland as a self-governing state; the constraint of German forces to a certain size; and the transformation of German border regions into minority enclaves in newly created nation states, such as the Sudetenland, which became part of Czechoslovakia.The most crushing blow to Germany was the article of the treaty that made Germany and its allies responsible for the war. As a result, Germany was expected to pay reparations to France and Great Britain. They saw this as an opportunity to make Germany pay for all their war costs, rather than just paying damages.One of the people who took Germany's defeat and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles particularly hard was Adolf Hitler. A failed artist without a direction in life, Hitler found a purpose in the German army during World War I. When Germany lost the war and signed the treaty, Hitler felt personally betrayed.In response to the humiliating nature of the treaty, Hitler had his political awakening. In his biography on Hitler's formative years, Ian Kershaw shows that the Treaty of Versailles was at the forefront of Hitler's rhetoric early on, and he blamed the Jews for Germany's misfortunes. Major steps in Hitler's domestic and foreign policy after the Nazis took power in 1933 were taken with the intention of removing "the shackles of Versailles."Nazi Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland, its annexation of the Sudetenland, the creation of the Luftwaffe and the conscript-based army are all examples of this policy, as was the invasion of Poland in 1939, which sparked World War II. The Germans saw Poland as a failed state that should be under German rule. The cease-fire agreement between France and Nazi Germany in 1940 was, in effect, a reversal of the armistice of 1918.A common conclusion whenever the two world wars are discussed in relation to each other is that World War I caused World War II to happen. This is only partially correct. With Hitler's political career in mind, it is more accurate to say that World War II wouldn't have happened without the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler's intention from the beginning, says historian Alan Sharp, was to nullify the outcome of World War I and Versailles.GettyWhen Hitler deliberately violated the clauses of the treaty, he continued the work of the Social Democratic and Liberal governments of Germany's interwar Weimar Republic. The difference between the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany is that the Republic used negotiation to achieve its goals; Hitler used force.In other words, had it not been for the Treaty of Versailles there would not have been a breeding ground for Nazi Germany to take shape. And without Nazi Germany there wouldn't be a modern neo-Nazi movement glorifying Hitler's actions. The problem with our selective amnesia regarding World War I is that by not commemorating the Treaty of Versailles we are disregarding a crucial moment in the creation of the modern world.Because even though one of the consequences of the treaty turned out to be a totalitarian ideology we are still forced to combat, in the treaty the Big Four also described the world they wanted to see in the future. In this world, women had the right to vote. People didn't have to work more than eight hours a day, and they were given one day off per week. They were also allowed to join unions, earn a living wage, and men and women received equal pay for equal work. Before the end of the 1920s all of these points had come true. Except for one.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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| Did Israeli F-35 Stealth Fighters Really Bomb Iraq? Posted: 03 Aug 2019 11:00 AM PDT  Israel's F-35 stealth fighters are positively supernatural: here, there and everywhere. In 2018, the Israeli Air Force claimed its new F-35s had attacked Iranian targets in Syria. Also in 2018, Arab press made dubious claims that IAF F-35s had flown over Iran.Now comes reports that Israeli F-35s have attacked Iranian targets in Iraq, according to Arab media.Western diplomatic sources allegedly the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that on July 19, "Tel Aviv carried out an airstrike earlier this month against an Iranian rockets depot northeast of Baghdad."El Arabiya television reported that the strike hit Iranian ballistic missiles being transported in refrigerated food trucks. Several Hezbollah and Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members were reportedly killed,A second strike targeted another Iranian base, according to Asharq Al-Awsat. "The Ashraf base in Iraq, a former base used by the Iranian opposition People's Mujahedin of Iran, was targeted by an air raid," according to the newspaper. "The base lies 80 kilometers from the border with Iran and 40 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. The sources revealed that the strikes targeted Iranian 'advisors' and a ballistic missile shipment that had recently arrived from Iran to Iraq."Compounding the mystery were initial reports that unidentified drones conducted the attacks.
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| British student may have fallen from plane after adverse reaction to medication, family says Posted: 02 Aug 2019 02:52 PM PDT  A British student who deliberately opened the doors of a plane and fell to herdeath may have done so after suffering from a severe reaction to prescribeddrugs, the Guardian reports
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| White House fence project obscures tourists' view Posted: 04 Aug 2019 05:05 AM PDT  Tourists aiming for postcard-perfect photos of the White House at first couldn't avoid the black metal bicycle racks that were arranged to form an extra security barrier against possible fence-jumpers. The barrier recently went up as the National Park Service and the Secret Service began a $64 million project to install a 13-foot, 1-inch (3.96 meter) steel picket fence around the White House — twice as tall as the fence being replaced. Loetscher said he had no idea the White House had become a construction zone.
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| 'They're demonic': the deaf victims of Argentina's pedophile priests speak out Posted: 03 Aug 2019 06:43 PM PDT  Ezequiel Villalonga spent most of his life at the Provolo Institute in Mendoza, a Catholic school for deaf children. Everything they made us read, recite, the way (they said) people should live," he said in sign language, just before the start of the priests' trial on Monday.
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