| Seth Ator Identified as Odessa Gunman Posted: 01 Sep 2019 02:43 PM PDT  Texas Department of Public SafetyODESSA, Texas—The gunman who killed seven people and injured roughly 20 others during a 20-mile trail of carnage across West Texas was identified by law enforcement on Sunday as 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator. Odessa Police refused to publicly identify Ator during a press conference on Sunday, stating that they were not going to give the gunman any notoriety for "what he did." Police Chief Michael Gerke said the gunman's name would be officially provided, just not in a public forum. The department instead chose to simply release his name and age, and confirm that he was an Odessa resident, in an update on the police department's Facebook page later in the afternoon.Authorities were working to determine a motive for the Saturday shooting that took place in broad daylight and resulted in more than a dozen crime scenes across a stretch from Odessa to Midland. It claimed the lives of a high-school student and a U.S. Postal Service employee, among others.Odessa officials said Ator used an assault rifle-type weapon, but said how the gun was obtained is still under investigation. Police said that there is "no definite motive known," and the FBI said that a preliminary investigation determined that the shooting is not connected to domestic or international terrorism. The FBI said during the press conference that they were executing a federal search warrant at a home linked to the gunman. Agents were later seen searching Ator's house, located about 20 minutes west of Odessa. The home, set half a mile back from the main road, more closely resembles a shack, with what appears to be a makeshift tower placed on top. The area is surrounded by oil wells that easily outnumber the nearby trailers. Justin Hamel/For The Daily BeastAtor's name was reported earlier in the day by several news outlets and initially confirmed to The Daily Beast by two law enforcement officials who shared the name on the condition of anonymity.Ator, who has a previous criminal record for trespassing and resisting arrest, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety records obtained by The Daily Beast, was killed in a shoot-out with police.Ator was pulled over by Odessa police shortly after 3 p.m. Saturday when he opened fire through the back window of his vehicle, before going on a shooting spree that spanned from Odessa to Midland—at one point, he hijacked a U.S. Postal Service van—and ended with him being killed during a gun battle with police in a movie theater parking lot. Odessa Victims Include Cops, a Baby, a High Schooler and a Postal CarrierHis victims ranged in age from 15 to 57 years old.This most recent shooting marks the third mass shooting in Texas in the past year, including the shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed 22 people less than a month ago. "I have been to too many of these events," Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) said at the press conference."Words alone are inadequate. Words must be met with action," Abbott said. "We must broaden our efforts to address (Odessa) and we must do so quickly. We need solutions that will keep guns out of the hands of criminals like the killer in Odessa while also ensuring that we safeguard rights."Reporters pressed the governor for answers on what is being done to address the state's repeated mass shootings, especially in light of a series of new firearm laws loosening gun restrictions in Texas that were enacted mere hours after the Odessa rampage. In response, Abbott said: "Some of these laws were enacted for the purpose of making our community safer," making reference to a new law that will allows more school marshals to be armed.Reporters then asked Abbott if there are plans to ban assault rifles, like the one used by Ator in Odessa. In response, Abbott said it's the "kind of thing legislators are already talking about," and added that assault rifles weren't used in all of the state's mass shootings. "We're gonna look at every issue. There's no issue that we will not look at," he said.A reporter then pressed the governor further on the assault rifle ban, noting that law enforcement officers are better equipped to go up against someone with a handgun than an assault rifle. To which Abbott replied: "And the people we also talk to are law enforcement officers."'We Got One in a Ditch': Inside the Odessa Shooting RampageMichael Daly contributed to this story.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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| Beto O’Rourke says AK-47 and AR-15 owners will ‘have to sell them to the government’ if he becomes president Posted: 01 Sep 2019 05:58 AM PDT  Beto O'Rourke said he would implement a sweeping government buy-back policy for two types of assault rifles, including one commonly used in mass shootings across the US, if he were elected president in 2020.The Texas Democrat responded to questions on the campaign trail Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia, about concerns the government would take assault weapons away from gun owners.
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| Kenya park suspends gorge visits after flash flood kills 7 Posted: 02 Sep 2019 05:22 AM PDT  Kenyan authorities have suspended visits to the gorges of the famous Hell's Gate National park in the Rift Valley Monday after a flash flood killed at least six tourists and their driver. Five Kenyans of Indian descent, an Indian national and their Kenyan driver died in the Sunday evening tragedy, said Paul Udoto, spokesman for the Kenya Wildlife Service. John Waweru Director General of Kenya Wildlife Services said there is another body.
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| 'Catastrophic' Dorian pounds Bahamas, US evacuates coast Posted: 02 Sep 2019 08:53 AM PDT  Monster storm Dorian came to a near stand-still over the Bahamas Monday, prolonging the agony as surging seawaters and hurricane winds made a shambles of low-lying island communities and spurred mass evacuations along the US east coast. Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said reported "devastation is unprecedented" in the Abaco Islands, which on Sunday received the full brunt of Dorian as it came ashore as the most powerful storm ever to hit the archipelago. "Our focus right now is rescue, recovery and prayer," Minnis said on Twitter.
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| National Weather Service appears to correct Trump on Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama Posted: 01 Sep 2019 11:12 AM PDT ![National Weather Service appears to correct Trump on Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama]( "National Weather Service appears to correct Trump on Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama") "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian.," wrote the NWS. "We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama."
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| Residents, protesters converge on Mong Kok Police Station to vent anger at Hong Kong officers Posted: 02 Sep 2019 07:32 AM PDT  The tense scene followed a stand-off earlier near Tamar Park in Admiralty.
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| UPDATE 1-China lodges tariff case at WTO against the U.S. Posted: 02 Sep 2019 07:27 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-China lodges tariff case at WTO against the U.S.]( "UPDATE 1-China lodges tariff case at WTO against the U.S.") HONG KONG/GENEVA, Sept 2 (Reuters) - China has lodged a complaint against the United States at the World Trade Organization over U.S. import duties, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Monday. The United States began imposing 15% tariffs on a variety of Chinese goods on Sunday and China began imposing new duties on U.S. crude oil, the latest escalation in their trade war. China did not release details of its legal case but said the U.S. tariffs affected $300 billion of Chinese exports.
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| We need Unions for All. It's a bold agenda for helping everyone get ahead in our economy. Posted: 02 Sep 2019 05:43 AM PDT  We need serious plans to empower all workers to form unions, no matter what job they do. 'Unions for All' is our litmus test for 2020 candidates.
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| Texas gunman fired from job before massacre; victim IDs emerge, media report Posted: 02 Sep 2019 12:50 AM PDT ![Texas gunman fired from job before massacre; victim IDs emerge, media report]( "Texas gunman fired from job before massacre; victim IDs emerge, media report") The man who killed seven people and wounded 22 others in a rolling rampage across West Texas on Saturday was fired from his trucking job hours before the massacre, media and officials reported. Police continued to comb through 15 different crime scenes in neighboring Midland and Odessa, Texas. The gunman, identified by police as Seth Aaron Ator, 36, of Odessa, had been fired from his truck-driving job in Odessa on Saturday morning, the New York Times and other media reported.
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| Chemicals used in apparent suicide at San Jose hotel force evacuations Posted: 01 Sep 2019 10:56 AM PDT  The Fairmont San Jose reopened late Saturday afternoon after four floors of the high-end hotel were evacuated that morning.
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| ICC prosecutor ordered to reopen Gaza flotilla case Posted: 02 Sep 2019 04:17 AM PDT  The International Criminal Court on Monday ordered the tribunal's prosecutor for a second time to reconsider whether to press charges over a deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza in 2010. In the latest step in a long-running legal battle at the court in The Hague, appeals judges told prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to decide by December whether to reopen the case. Nine Turkish citizens died in May 2010 when Israeli marines stormed the Mavi Marmara, among eight ships trying to break a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.
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| Which of These Doomsday Scenarios Is Most Likely to Kill Us All? Posted: 02 Sep 2019 06:00 AM PDT |
| Hurricane Dorian: Trump causes confusion by saying record storm will hit Alabama, forcing national weather service to issue correction Posted: 02 Sep 2019 02:55 AM PDT  Donald Trump has caused unnecessary confusion by saying Hurricane Dorian – now the joint most powerful storm to make landfall on record – was forecast to hit Alabama, when in fact the state is not among those experts believe is threatened.Three other states – Florida, South Carolina and Georgia – are all ordering part or full evacuations of their coastal areas and North Carolina has declared a state of emergency, but there are no evacuation orders in place in Alabama.
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| California boat fire: 34 people feared dead as boat bursts into flames off Santa Cruz Island Posted: 02 Sep 2019 06:10 AM PDT  Up to 34 people are feared dead after a boat caught fire off the coast of California. The coastguard said five crew members had been rescued and that efforts to reach passengers trapped below deck were continuing.The 75ft diving boat caught fire off the north coast of Santa Cruz Island. Rescuers reached the scene at 3.28am local time.
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| Reporter calls White House ‘unprofessional’ in cutting off his access Posted: 01 Sep 2019 02:16 PM PDT  Suspended journalist Brian Karem accuses the Trump administration of mistreating the press.
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| Russia’s Deputy Premier Rips New Space Center Posted: 02 Sep 2019 06:12 AM PDT ![Russia's Deputy Premier Rips New Space Center]( "Russia's Deputy Premier Rips New Space Center") (Bloomberg) -- A series of corruption scandals, cost overruns and mishaps at Russia's new Vostochny Cosmodrome have brought long-simmering questions about the leadership of the country's space agency into public view."The situation is unacceptable for everyone, including the construction of the first stage and the second stage" of the space center, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov told Vedomosti newspaper in an interview published Monday, adding that the Defense Ministry may take over part of the work.Borisov, formerly a powerful and secretive official responsible for procurement at the Defense Ministry, became deputy prime minister last year in place of Dmitry Rogozin, who was appointed to head Roscosmos by President Vladimir Putin. While Russia views the cosmodrome as a national security priority, with its current Soviet-era launch base located at Baikonur in neighboring Kazakhstan, the $3 billion project has been plagued by controversy.Rogozin, who's frequently highlighted the threat posed by Elon Musk's SpaceX venture to Russia's launch industry, quickly took to Twitter to defend himself. "It's always been this way: some build, while others criticize," Rogozin wrote. "It's part of the business."Splits within the Kremlin elite have become more visible since Putin's re-election last year to what may be his final presidential term under Russia's constitution, amid jostling by rival factions. Last month, for example, Rostec State Corp. chief Sergey Chemezov, a longtime Putin ally and fellow spy, contradicted the official line that recent Moscow election protests should be put down forcefully, warning instead that the country risked stagnation without a healthy opposition.Putin ordered Russia's Investigative Committee to examine construction at Vostochny during a visit to the space center after a planned first rocket launch was delayed in 2015. Months earlier, workers who hadn't been paid for months went on hunger strike and appealed to Putin for help by painting a message on the roof of their barracks.The Prosecutor General's Office has opened a series of criminal cases after uncovering 10 billion rubles ($150 million) in losses during construction at Vostochny. In one sparkling example of corruption, a contractor accused of stealing 4 million rubles was detained in Minsk, Belarus, while driving a Mercedes covered in Swarovski crystals.While the space center went into operation in 2016, officials uncovered a critical defect on one of Vostochny's launchpads as recently as last November, RBC news website reported. In 2017, a satellite launch failed after the rocket was programmed with coordinates for takeoff from another launch pad.Alexei Kudrin, the head of Russia's Audit Chamber, told lawmakers last year that he had found 760 billion rubles ($11.4 billion) of financial violations in Roscosmos's books, including several billion that had been "basically stolen," describing the space agency as "the champion in terms of the scale of such violations." Roscosmos said the criticism related to a 2017 audit, before Rogozin's appointment.Rogozin, who was responsible as deputy premier for the space industry, threatened in 2015 to "rip off the heads" of construction staff involved in corruption after Vostochny risked having its electricity cut off over unpaid bills, according to the Interfax news service.\--With assistance from Ilya Arkhipov and Stepan Kravchenko.To contact the reporter on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Paul AbelskyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| The Latest: 31 migrants taken off Italian NGO rescue ship Posted: 02 Sep 2019 07:41 AM PDT  Thirty-one migrants, stuck aboard an Italian rescue ship, are being allowed off at Lampedusa island near Sicily. The humanitarian group Mediterranea Saving Humans has tweeted that the Italian coast guard approved disembarkation from the Mare Jonio for health reasons. On Sunday evening, three other migrants on the Mare Jonio, including a woman so weak that she was put on a stretcher, were taken to Lampedusa.
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| Iraq suspends US-funded TV over report on corruption in religious bodies Posted: 02 Sep 2019 06:18 AM PDT  Iraq's media commission Monday slapped a three-month suspension on the US-funded Al-Hurra TV for airing a controversial report alleging corruption in the country's powerful Sunni and Shiite religious institutions. The 12-minute documentary broadcast on Saturday claimed that Sunni and Shiite Muslim authorities were misusing state funds and had suspicious ties to armed factions. Iraq's Communications and Media Commission said it found the report lacking professionalism, balance, and reliable evidence.
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| Seventh illegal immigrant accused of sex crimes in Maryland county in 5 weeks Posted: 02 Sep 2019 03:48 AM PDT  A seventh suspect in the U.S. illegally has been accused of sexual assault in Maryland's sanctuary Montgomery County. Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins sounds off..
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| ANALYSIS-Biden seen as weak front-runner as 2020 U.S. Democratic race heats up Posted: 02 Sep 2019 03:00 AM PDT ![ANALYSIS-Biden seen as weak front-runner as 2020 U.S. Democratic race heats up]( "ANALYSIS-Biden seen as weak front-runner as 2020 U.S. Democratic race heats up") As summer ends and the race for the 2020 Democratic U.S. presidential nomination shifts into a higher gear, former Vice President Joe Biden's perilous position atop the vast field stands to be tested under even more pressure. Biden, 76, has consistently maintained a comfortable lead over his rivals. Labor Day serves as the traditional marker for the White House race to intensify, with five months to go until the first nominating contest - February in Iowa - in the state-by-state process of picking the party's nominee to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election.
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| Do Stacey Abrams and Steve Bullock Want to Make Mitch McConnell President? Posted: 01 Sep 2019 02:20 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photos GettySo Stacey Abrams and Steve Bullock won't run for Senate. They're autonomous adult individuals, and they're obviously allowed to do what they want to do. But... well, let me put it this way: If they were Republicans, I'd bet you anything they'd be running. Why? Because Republicans see our political and party competition in much more existential terms than Democrats do. Republicans understand that the question of who controls the Senate is the whole ballgame. And the Democratic Party just doesn't. Here's what's going to happen if the Democrats don't take the Senate. Assume they hold the House, and for the sake of argument some Democrat wins the White House. Hooray, hooray. The national nightmare is over. We can maybe get back to doing the people's business again.But Republicans have held the Senate. And let's assume Mitch McConnell has staved off the challenge from Amy McGrath and remains the majority leader. What will happen?Biden Doesn't Get It: McConnell's Gotta Go if Democracy Is Gonna LiveI'll tell you. Nothing. Whether it's President Biden's more measured proposals or President Warren's boldly liberal ones or President Sanders' radical ones—nothing. Things will pass the House. President Biden's build-on-Obamacare bill will pass the House easily. I'm not sure a Medicare for All bill could pass even the House, so let's leave that debate for another day. But the point is, from health care to the minimum wage to climate change to voting rights to infrastructure to monopoly policy, a Democratic presidency and House will do things.And those things they do will get to the Senate and die. McConnell has promised as much.Oh, public pressure might be such that he'll be forced to let something slip through. A good bet is an item like a minimum wage increase to $10, maybe even adjusted to inflation, which coming from Moscow Mitch will seem progressive. That and maaaybe one other very modest measure on which he releases 10 or 11 Republicans from purple-ish states to vote with Democrats will give him all the cover he needs to downshift back into Grim Reaper gear.And all the big plans of the 2020 Democrats will join so many other big plans before them and go to the Senate to die. There will be no significant health-care expansion. There will be no climate change bill of any kind. And there will obviously be no people's revolution. And your average person who doesn't follow politics closely and just expects a president to get into office and pass the stuff he/she said he/she would pass will look at the dysfunction and say, "Well, there's another one who lied to me." McConnell of course knows this, as do Republicans generally: When government seems not to work, the party of government (Democrats) get the bulk of the blame, especially when they control the White House, too.And then we'll get to the 2022 midterms, and liberal voters will be dispirited, and right-wing voters will be cat-piss angry like they were in 2010 at the mere idea that the gummint should do something about anything, and the Republicans will hold the Senate and retake the House. We will then replay the same grim mud-wrestling match that we lived through in the Obama years, with the Democratic president unable to pass anything at all—while inequality is growing even greater and the planet keeps getting that much hotter.Those are the stakes. They are clear as day. Why don't Abrams and Bullock—and others who've opted out—see this? Why don't Democrats generally see this? It reminds me of the 2016 election, when right-wingers of all stripes marched to polls saying "Donald Trump, whatever—I'm voting to hold that Scalia seat," while too many left-wingers were saying, "Hillary gave a speech to Goldman Sachs, so I think I'll vote for Putin's friend Jill Stein, and what, what Supreme Court seat?"Republicans do not think this way. They get it. Mitt Romney surely didn't want to be a senator after losing a presidential race. He was a multimillionaire with a house so big it had an elevator for his cars, remember?! But by God, he ran, to make extra sure Republicans held onto that seat in Utah. Florida's Rick Scott probably didn't want to run for Senate last year. Nobody wants to go from being governor to senator. Nobody! But he ran, because people told him he had to, that he was the only one who could beat Bill Nelson and make that seat that had been Democratic for 18 years Republican for at least the next 12 and maybe 18. Republicans get that we're in a long-term war here. Democrats, eh.Now, as it happens, there's a good declared candidate in Georgia for the David Perdue seat. Teresa Tomlinson is the former mayor of Columbus who has a solid reputation in the state (note: She is an occasional Beast contributor, and I have edited her). The Perdue seat is the "non-Atlanta" seat, and Tomlinson, being from outside Atlanta, would seem a good fit. So she (or someone else) could win, especially if the Democratic presidential candidate is putting actual resources into the state. Tomlinson seeking the Perdue seat and Abrams the Johnny Isakson one would have made a strong pair.Abrams is doing important work on the voter suppression issue. And besides that she's a natural veep contender, especially for Joe Biden. But Democrats need to understand: The 2020 election represents their best chance at taking control of both the executive and legislative branches for the foreseeable future. And if they don't, they've effectively made Mitch McConnell the president.Again.There are times when people have to put personal preferences to the side. Kudos to John Hickenlooper for seeing this. Beto O'Rourke probably should have done the same, although most people say the leading Democratic candidate in Texas is strong. But without Senate control, there is zero chance that any of these big things Democratic candidates are talking about will happen—let alone the crucial matter of making the federal judiciary more liberal. And I mean, for a decade. You get it now, Democrats?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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| Hurricane Dorian wreaks havoc in the Bahamas with 'catastrophic' winds reaching 225 miles per hour Posted: 01 Sep 2019 11:58 PM PDT  Hurricane Dorian became the strongest storm on modern record to strike the northern Bahamas as "catastrophic winds and storm surge" thrashed the Abaco Islands on Sunday. The storm strengthened to a Category 5 shortly before it made landfall, causing residents to scramble to find shelter amid torrential rains and peak winds of 225 miles per hour. Federal forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said the core of the storm was slowing as it swept through the Bahamas, with Dorian expected to soon hit Grand Bahama Island. Prime Minister Hubert Minnis of the Bahamas, who warned that 73,000 residents and 21,000 homes could be affected, urged people in Grand Bahama Island to move to safer ground in Freeport. "As a physician, I have been trained to withstand many things — but never anything like this," Dr Minnis said at a news conference. "This is a deadly storm and a monster storm." The storm is now expected to bring severe winds, coastal flooding and further rain to the southeast coast of the US. A hurricane warning is in place from West Palm Beach to Titusville. Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued for parts of coastal Florida in preparation for Hurricane Dorian Credit: AP In an earlier update, forecasters had warned the storm had become extremely intense, and advised people to remain alert even though Hurricane Dorian is not predicted to make landfall in the US. "A small deviation to the left of the track could bring the intense core of the hurricane and its dangerous winds closer to or onto the coast," forecasters at the NHC announced. The NHC said on Sunday night that maximum sustained winds around the eye of the storm had begun to exceed 220 miles per hour - three times the wind speed to qualify as a hurricane. Officials at the NHC added those winds extended 45 miles outward from the middle of the storm, with tropical storm-force winds as much as 140 miles beyond Hurricane Dorian's eye. The storm has become one of the most intense in the Atlantic in the last century. Hurricane Dorian is bearing down on the Bahamas Credit: HO/AFP Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued for parts of coastal Florida in preparation for Hurricane Dorian, including the site of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Estate. Little over an hour after the storm made landfall and began wreaking havoc in the northern Bahamas, Florida governor Ron DeSantis announced the evacuation of some coastal communities. Amid the evacuation orders, toll charges have been suspended to allow people to make their escape, while several airlines have capped fares for flights out of Florida. Hurricane Dorian made landfall twice in the Bahamas' Abaco Islands early on Sunday afternoon with winds of 185 miles per hour that toppled overhead power lines and tore roofs off houses. Dr Minnis broke down in tears as he addressed a news conference, calling it "probably the most sad and worst day of my life," the Nassau Guardian reported. INSIDE THE EYE OF HURRICANE DORIAN - Views of the "stadium effect" eyewall from NOAA42 "Kermit" inside the eye of Hurricane Dorian earlier today. Forecasts and advisories at https://t.co/3phpgKMZaS, preparation tips at https://t.co/ZUC1oGAvw6FlyNOAA (credit Ian Sears, NOAA) pic.twitter.com/gu8rCmVAbO— NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (@NOAA_HurrHunter) September 1, 2019 The Abaco Islands were reported to be under water as forecasters warned it was facing a towering 18 to 23 feet storm surge. Winds were gusting over 220 mph, the NHC said. Around 28,000 Britons people visit the Bahamas annually and the islands have enjoyed a bumper year for tourism. According to the latest projections Dorian, which on Sunday morning was around 225 miles off West Palm Beach, Florida, will batter the Bahamas for up to 24 hours before turning north. Both the European and US models show the hurricane turning north on Monday night with winds still at 140 miles per hour, but remaining offshore. Hurricane Dorian By the early hours of Thursday morning, with the wind having dropped to around 100 mph, Dorian is expected to be off the shore of Georgia, before reaching North Carolina on Friday. Even though the centre of the hurricane is now projected to remain off the US mainland, the states of Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina are still bracing themselves for heavy rainfall and storm damage. "This storm has been particularly difficult, a lot of uncertainty," Peter Gaynor, acting administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told NBC's Meet the Press. "The time now is for residents to really prepare. It is going to impact Florida, it is going to impact Georgia, it is going to impact the Carolinas and now is the time to make those preparations." Mr Gaynor warned that people should not become complacent even though the projections suggested the hurricane would stay offshore. "I think the mistake most people make is they follow that thin black line and think that is the exact location they think the storm will be in. "Your really have to look at the 'cone of uncertainty'. If you look at that it really covers the majority of Florida and as you go north great parts of Georgia and the Carolinas. "We are not out of this just yet."
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| Ten children wounded after shooting at high school football match Posted: 02 Sep 2019 03:02 AM PDT  A shooting at a high school football game in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday night wounded at least 10 people, police said.The city's police chief, Lawrence Battiste, said at a news conference Friday that the victims were between 15 and 18 years old, according to local station WKRG 5. Their conditions were not immediately available.
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| 'Shut up': 911 dispatcher scolded drowning woman during her final moments, police say Posted: 31 Aug 2019 01:59 PM PDT  Debra Stevens drowned while she was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher Saturday after flash floods swept her away. Police said they were working to "save" her.
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| 15 years on, relatives of Beslan massacre victims demand answers Posted: 01 Sep 2019 09:39 AM PDT  Relatives of victims of the Beslan massacre on Sunday said they were still waiting for answers, 15 years after the tragedy that left over 330 dead including 186 children. Sunday marks the anniversary of the school siege in the town of Beslan in the Russian Caucasus when Chechen militants stormed the school, herding over 1,100 people into a gymnasium and rigging the building with explosives. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2017 that Russia's handling of the siege had "serious failings" in terms of its failure to prevent the attack and its use of excessive lethal force and called on Moscow to take measures to establish the truth.
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| 3 officers injured in California melee; 2 suspects arrested Posted: 31 Aug 2019 06:22 PM PDT ![3 officers injured in California melee; 2 suspects arrested]( "3 officers injured in California melee; 2 suspects arrested") Three San Jose police officers were injured in a melee downtown as a large crowd approached them as they issued citations for drinking alcohol. KPIX-TV reports Saturday that the large crowd "aggressively interfered" with the officers shortly before 2 a.m. One suspect was arrested after he was seeing running while holding a gun. The San Jose Police Officers Association denounced the violence and called for national legislation to increase penalties on people who target law enforcement officers.
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| Pakistan grants India access to alleged spy on death row Posted: 02 Sep 2019 07:55 AM PDT  Pakistan granted consular access to an alleged Indian spy on death row Monday, sparking claims from New Delhi that the prisoner was under "extreme pressure" and unable to speak freely during the meeting. The consular visit comes weeks after the International Court of Justice in July ordered Islamabad to provide the prisoner and alleged spy -- Kulbhushan Jadhav -- with consular access but rejected India's demand he be freed. "While we await a comprehensive report, it was clear that Shri Jadhav appeared to be under extreme pressure to parrot a false narrative to bolster Pakistan's untenable claims," said India's foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar in a statement.
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| Calls to end inhumane border conditions aren’t enough. Ice must be abolished Posted: 01 Sep 2019 11:30 AM PDT  What is there to salvage in an agency that exists solely to hunt, catalogue and detain the most vulnerable among us? Ice's violence is as systematic as it is cruel'Abolitionist movements have always been discredited as impossible until they are realized.' Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesThis summer, a coalition of award-winning authors came together with a plea to Congress: they called for an end to the inhumane conditions in detention centers, where women are forced to drink out of toilets and children go without food, water or medical care.The writers, immigrants and refugees themselves, know just what is at stake: "Many of us came to the US as children and shudder to think how this country would treat us now," they write. They urge Congress to mitigate the worst abuses of our immigration system, from unsafe conditions – in detention or third countries – to endless backlogs and convoluted legal processes.The plea is commendable. But where are we as a society if we cannot dream bigger? What does it mean that some of our most beloved writers – who have laboriously envisioned new and radical worlds – didn't imagine a future that respects the right to human movement?The writer and political theorist Mark Fisher spoke to the stagnation of our political imagination through what he called capitalist realism. The concept, he wrote, is "the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it". Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the encroachment of neoliberalism was read as a natural, inevitable progression – "the end of history", the political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote. Mark Fisher reminds us that this sense of inevitability is no accident, that there is nothing natural about it. Though other systems might be in many ways preferable to capitalism, a lack of coherent alternatives in the public imagination leaves us resigned to a future where we fight each time more desperately for ever-smaller crumbs.Although Fisher tragically took his own life two years ago, his assessment reminds us that there exist futures far more radical and utopian within our reach, should we strive for them.> It's far more radical to tolerate borders – to accept this violence as normal – than it is to call for their abolitionWhat does a "fair trial" look like on stolen land? Who has the authority to serve as arbiter of life and death? Faced with a system that fetishizes cruelty, our demands are too modest. It's far more radical to tolerate borders – to accept this violence as normal – than it is to call for their abolition.Consider Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which has been embroiled in scandals for its treatment of detainees for months on end. Although the agency has been in existence for under two decades, it has been mythologized such that it seems impossible to live without it.Still, some are bravely calling for just that. While at first glance it may seem an impossible demand, Fisher's alternative invites us to ask: what is there to salvage in an agency that exists solely to hunt, catalogue and detain the most vulnerable among us? Scandal after scandal has shown that the rot goes far beyond a few bad apples – Ice violence is as systematic as it is cruel. A child of the war on terror, there is no Ice without a tacit agreement that immigrants present an existential threat to our wellbeing. Calls to abolish Ice challenge us to know better.The US spends more than $7bn a year on an agency so universally reviled that even its own agents want to be distanced. What could an alternative vision of justice look like? Republicans have never shied from making policy demands, however harmful and outlandish. Democrats have a singular opportunity to put forth a bold plan for immigration premised on human dignity and the freedom of movement. Abolitionist movements have always been discredited as impossible until they are realized. It is by refusing to concede to a rightwing vision of possibility that unimaginable prospects become reality. * Natascha Elena Uhlmann is the author of Abolish Ice (Or Books)
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| 8 Tech Items That’ll Upgrade Your Living Space Posted: 02 Sep 2019 03:00 AM PDT |
| Hong Kong on edge after weekend of clashes, airport disruption Posted: 01 Sep 2019 07:14 PM PDT ![Hong Kong on edge after weekend of clashes, airport disruption]( "Hong Kong on edge after weekend of clashes, airport disruption") Hong Kong commuters were met by riot police at subway stations on Monday in tense scenes following a weekend when protesters intensified their fight for democracy in the Chinese-ruled city, which is facing its biggest political crisis in decades. Protesters have called for a general strike on Monday but the city appeared to return to relative calm with shops open, trains operating and workers making their way to offices across the global financial hub. Thousands of protesters blocked roads and public transport links to Hong Kong airport on Sunday in a bid to draw world attention to their attempt to force Beijing to give greater autonomy to the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
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| Hurricane Dorian pummels Bahamas with Category 4 assault Posted: 02 Sep 2019 08:35 AM PDT  Hurricane Dorian hovered over the Bahamas on Monday, pummeling the islands with a fearsome Category 4 assault that shredded roofs, hurled cars and forced even rescue crews to take shelter until the onslaught passes. The system crawled along Grand Bahama Island at just 1 mph (2 kph) and was expected to generate a storm surge of 18 to 23 feet (6 to 7 meters). "We need you to bunker down," Kwasi Thompson, minister of state for Grand Bahama, warned people.
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| 'Categorically evil' killer of Australian comedian Eurydice Dixon sentenced to 35 years Posted: 02 Sep 2019 04:25 AM PDT  A sexual deviant who stalked, raped and murdered a talented young Australian comedian as she walked home at night has been jailed for at least 35 years for a crime described by a judge as "totally and categorically evil." Eurydice Dixon, 22, was strangled after performing comedy in central Melbourne in June 2018. The Victorian Supreme Court was told her attacker, 20-year old Jaymes Todd, had fantasies of violent sexual encounters and killings in the year before the murder of Ms Dixon. He had watched violent pornography before and after the assault, was addicted to a fantasy of "coercive rape" and had scoured the internet for "snuff films". Justice Stephen Kaye said Todd's actions were "perverted and depraved" and "craven and sadistic" as he delivered his sentencing remarks that took almost two hours. The killer turned himself in to police after a friend saw him on security footage issued by detectives, but gave three different versions of what happened during interviews. "You spun a farrago of lies to evade responsibility for what you have done," said Justice Kaye. "There was no evidence that your vicious act … troubled your conscience. The sheer terror that Eurydice must have experienced … is unimaginable." The body of Eurydice Dixon was found on a Melbourne football field Credit: Facebook "In a most callous and cowardly manner, you set upon her, sexually assaulting and humiliating her, before cruelly strangling her to death," the judge added. Todd lived with his parents in a home "of rotting refuse, vermin and complete squalor" that would have affected his emotional state, the court was told. He had spent the afternoon before the killing drinking and smoking drugs. His victim's father, Jeremy Dixon, said her death was "a terrible tragedy all round." "What I wish for Jaymes Todd and what I believe Eurydice would wish, is that he gets better, and … realises what he's done," he said outside the court. "Eurydice herself should be remembered, as her friends will remember her, for her wit and her courage and for her kindness, not for her death." The murder Eurydice Dixon prompted a wider debate in Australia about safety for women. Official statistics have shown that one in five women have experienced sexual violence or threats since the age of 15.
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| Bolsonaro ambassador threatens to choke Macron and insults wife Brigitte amid Amazon fires row: 'He sleeps with a dragon' Posted: 02 Sep 2019 02:56 AM PDT  Brazil's tourism ambassador has threatened to choke Emmanuel Macron and called his wife Brigitte "ugly" amid a continuing war of words between the French president and the Brazilian government over the fires in the Amazon rainforest.In a video posted on social media, Renzo Gracie accused Mr Macron, who has criticised Brazil's response to the devastating blazes, of "talking rubbish" about his country.
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| US police fire pepper spray after pro-Trump 'Straight Pride' parade Posted: 01 Sep 2019 07:42 AM PDT  US police fired pepper spray Saturday after counter-demonstrators accused them of protecting "Straight Pride" advocates who support President Donald Trump, and refused to let officers re-open a road. The unrest came after the counter-protesters and "Straight Pride" group -- considered homophobic extremists by their opponents -- staged dueling rallies in Boston. Officers fired pepper spray and made several arrests.
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| The CAR Murders: A Critical Cold Case in the New Cold War Points to ‘Putin’s Chef’ Posted: 02 Sep 2019 02:23 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/GettyST. PETERSBURG, Russia–It's been more than a year now since someone murdered three Russian journalists on a dark road in a remote corner of the Central African Republic.Within days of the killings on the night of July 30-31, 2018, as The Daily Beast reported at the time, there were suspicions the journalists had been set up. Since then, the official investigations have gone nowhere or been diverted down blind alleys, and if the Kremlin and its front men have their way—which they normally do in the Central African Republic—the case will go completely cold. But the families of the victims, their colleagues, and the exiled Russian tycoon who sent the journalists on their fatal mission in the first place say they are determined to see justice done. Their investigations have peeled back layer after layer of an ostensibly private "company" noteworthy for conspiracy and corruption, which Russian President Vladimir Putin evidently employs to extend his influence around the world.Russian Journalists Murdered in Africa May Have Been Set UpAmericans concerned about the ruthlessness of Moscow's operations to subvert or dominate other countries should take note as evidence mounts that some of the central figures in the cyberattacks on the U.S. presidential election in 2016 may also be implicated in the Africa homicides. The victims were Orkhan Dzhemal, 51, a famous Russian war correspondent; Alexander Rastorguyev, 47, a film director; and Kirill Radchenko, 33, a cameraman. They had traveled to Africa to make a documentary about the "Wagner Group," a highly secretive private military contractor allegedly created by the infamous Russian billionaire and Putin crony, Yevgeny Prigozhin.He is the same figure named in a detailed indictment by the Mueller probe in February 2018 and in the subsequent Mueller Report released this year as the money man behind the Internet Research Agency, a troll factory here in St. Petersburg that set out to defeat Hillary Clinton, then help elect Donald Trump in 2016. (Prigozhin told a Russian state news agency that he was not upset about his indictment. "Americans see what they want to see," he said.) But the troll factory is just one of many operations that are part of what his underlings refer to as "The Company."Prigozhin, often given the anodyne sobriquet "Putin's chef," initially built his fortune on huge Russian government catering contracts, but the tentacles of his organization are spread far and wide, and in some surprising places. He even has a firm that makes candy, and there are many here who would tell you the sweets have a sinister background. "These are bloody chocolates, produced by the same people who attack and kill journalists," claims Yegor Alekseyev, a blogger from St. Petersburg. "Two men broke my nose and smashed my teeth in 2016 after I published stories about Prigozhin's 'troll factory.' These are dangerous people backed up by the [Russian government's] special services."In 2014, when Putin made his move to take the Crimean peninsula away from Ukraine and launch covertly a separatist revolution in the east of that country that has now cost more than 13,000 lives, combatants linked to a mysterious organization of mercenaries started showing up. Many of its recruits appeared to have come from Russian military intelligence, the GRU, especially the special forces component known as Spetsnaz. They answered to a former officer named Dmitry Utkin, nicknamed "Wagner." These operatives also surfaced in Syria, in Sudan, and in the Central African Republic. Their objective was not only to extend Russian influence, but to take control of industries and especially natural resources, further enriching their backer, who was soon reported to be Prigozhin. He has issued pro forma denials, but evidence of Prigozhin's ties to the group has continued to mount, especially in the private investigations of those trying to get to the bottom of the Central African murders. * * *DUELING INVESTIGATIONS* * *Mikhail Khodorkovsky was once reputedly the richest man in Russia–an oligarch so wealthy and powerful that Putin felt threatened, and finally managed to put him away in prison for almost a decade. When Khodorkovsky was released in 2013, he went to Britain and has since worked as one of Putin's most active opponents in exile.It was Khodorkovsky who funded the fatal trip to the Central African Republic by Dzhemal, Rastorguyev, and Radchenko to report on the Wagner Group's activities, and it is Khodorkovsky who has underwritten the most exhaustive investigation of their murder. "Somebody has to put evidence together for the day Putin's crooks end up in court," Khodorkovsky told The Daily Beast last year. He hired journalists, military experts, private detectives and others to delve into the killings, and issued a "final report" under the auspices of his Dossier Center on the anniversary of the murders.The picture that emerges over the course of almost 80 pages is highly detailed and deeply disturbing. For starters, the Dossier investigators addressed the official version put forth by Russian authorities and the CAR security forces, many of them trained and funded by the Kremlin directly and also by Wagner personnel. Their claim is that the Russian documentary makers were ambushed on a back road at night by bandits wearing turbans and speaking Arabic who shot all three of them dead. The killers let the local driver, named as Bienvenue Douvokama, escape in his car and the sketchy account of the attack came from Douvokama. When the official version failed to satisfy the victims' families, friends, or colleagues in the independent press, a Prigozhin-backed news agency, RIA FAN, conducted its own investigation of the murder and named Dominique Christophe Raineteau as the mastermind, claiming that he was a French mercenary or agent in league with terrorists."We have our vision of what happened in CAR," RIA FAN editor Yevgeny Zubarev wrote in an email to The Daily Beast. "It was a planned provocation but you are never going to publish our conclusions… Your publication is neither going to mention in a negative light Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the main suspect of this crime; nor the Western (French) special services, the possible accomplices," wrote Zubarev.Actually, the RIA FAN conclusions are quite interesting, because they do not agree at all with the official government versions blaming unknown Arabic-speaking thieves. The general thrust of the RIA FAN report is that the Russian journalists were killed in order to embarrass Russia (if not indeed to blame Prigozhin and Putin). The agent who organized the murders, according to RIA FAN, was Raineteau, a French mercenary who is protected by the French secret services, and Khodorkovsky himself, who supposedly paid Raineteau to set up the team Khodorkovsky had sent. RIA FAN notes the extensive French-Russian rivalry for resources and dominance in Africa as the motive for the French plot, and says Khodorkovsky's motive is to "discredit any activity of Russia abroad, particularly in Africa and the revenge directed at the Russian Federation."All of this makes for a fascinating narrative of conspiracy, and is typical of disinformation that tries to ascribe presumed motives—"who benefits from the crime"—as proof when it is really self-serving conjecture. There is some hearsay in the RIA FAN report, but the documentary evidence linking Raineteau to the killing is virtually nonexistent, while the account compiled by Khodorkovsky's investigators appears to be based largely on minute examination of phone records and emails (albeit without any explanation of how they were obtained). The narrative developed by the investigators for Khodorkovsky's Dossier Centre goes roughly like this:The three journalists made a critical mistake when they were looking for a "fixer" to set up appointments, transportation, lodging, translation and the like while they were in the CAR. Even though they were investigating one Prigozhin operation, Wagner, they asked a journalist working for another Prigozhin company, RIA FAN, for help. This may not be quite as unusual as it sounds, because journalists working for conflicting media often believe they have more common bonds as professionals in the field than as servants for their bosses in the home offices. That may have been the case where the request for advice from FAN journalist Kirill Romanovsky was concerned.He in turn suggested they contact by text message a Dutch man with experience in the CAR as a United Nations employee or contractor who went by the name of "Martin."The RIA FAN report would later suggest Martin was none other than the mysterious French operative Raineteau. But the Dossier Centre investigation concludes "with a high degree of probability that the fixer 'Martin'… never existed." Rather, "he was invented by the coordinators of a thoroughly planned operation.""Martin" did not show up at the airport as expected, when the crew arrived, and they never once laid eyes on him or, for that matter, spoke to him on the phone. Everything was handled by text messages, including Martin's claim that he was 376 kilometers from the CAR capital Bangui in the town of Bambari, where they were headed initially the day they were killed. According to the Dossier Centre report, cell phone records show "Martin," or at least that phone, never left the capital.The Dossier Centre investigation notes that the local driver the crew hired, Bienvenue Douvokama, is believed to be an agent or informer for the local gendarmerie, and was in "constant operational contact with gendarme Emmanuel Kotofio" who "tracked the journalists' movements and was in their immediate vicinity." (Kotofio is quoted by RIA FAN saying he and Douvokama are old friends and just like to shoot the breeze.)Kotofio, in turn, "maintained contact with a man identified by the Dossier Centre as an 'instructor in surveillance, counter-surveillance, recruitment and intelligence work'" from another Prigozhin company, M-Finans, run by one Aleksandr Sotov, who then reported to Valery Zakharov, a Russian adviser to the president of the CAR and head of a team of instructors in Prigozhin's "Company."On the fatal night of July 30, according to the Dossier Centre, Kotofio the gendarme passed through a military checkpoint at the town of Sibut, on the same road the journalists would take only minutes later. With Kotofio were three Caucasians, "presumably Russians," according to the Dossier Centre report. Kotofio drove back to the checkpoint later at 8 p.m. The journalists' driver reported their murder about 45 minutes later at a village near the scene.The following day, according to the Dossier Centre, a "disinformation campaign" began to confuse and impede any outside investigation.According to emails obtained by the Dossier Centre, which cannot be independently verified, Prigozhin is personally involved in running the Company's projects in the Central African Republic.* * *THE PAIN OF THE FAMILIES* * * The Kremlin remains deaf to the victims' families' demands to question Prigozhin and his men on the ground, including commanders of the Russian militia working for CAR's leadership. Alexander Radchenko's, the father of the cameraman, says it is easy for him to connect the dots identifying the main suspects. Since July 30, 2018, the day his son's body was found in CAR, Radchenko has been analyzing reports by private investigators and journalists, and read and watched interviews with Moscow's key man in CAR, Valery Zakharov, a former Russian military intelligence officer, who is now the country's main security adviser. "The investigators–along with Russian diplomats, FSB, GRU–back up the Russian military instructors working in CAR instead of questioning the main guy, Zakharov,and his bosses," Radchenko told The Daily Beast on Tuesday.The heartbroken father has written more than 30 petitions to Russian state detectives investigating the criminal case. Some of his requests ostensibly were taken into consideration, but most of them were ignored. Radchenko told The Daily Beast that in his opinion the murder was "undoubtedly a set up." Over the last six months, the father says, he has seen enough evidence collected by independent reporters to conclude that "Yevgeny Prigozhin, Valery Zakharov and his aide Alexander Sotov are the principal suspects to be questioned about the murder of my son." But Radchenko sounds hopeless: "Every time I ask the state detective on this case, Igor Zolotov, to call them for questioning, he seems too shy and tells me: 'We should not bother such important men, they must be busy.'"Putin's Man in the Central African Republic: Is Valery Zakharov at the Heart of Russian Skulduggery? Khodorkovsky's team has tried to fill that investigative gap. "We have done our part of the job, presented mobile phone billing to demonstrate that Zakharov, his aid Alexander Sotov, the gendarme they trained and the crew called each other dozens of times during the two days before the murder," Maxim Dbar, Khodorkovsly's spokesman, told The Daily Beast. "We have no authority to question the key suspects."Irina Gordiyenko, a reporter for independent Novaya Gazeta, especially wants to know who killed Orkhan Dzhemal, the father of her son. "I want to ask both Zakharov and Sotov about the billing data, what sort of actions they coordinated from the moment of the journalists' arrival in CAR," Gordiyenko said in a recent interview with The Daily Beast. "I have questions for Zakharov about CAR gendarmes being trained in Russia. I want to ask the Russian MID [ministry of foreign affairs] why the journalists' belongings have not been moved to Russia, why our diplomats consult with Prigozhin's Wagner about the official version of the murder to give to the public."Somebody shot Rostorguyev from a 7.62 mm Kalashnikov assault rifle. Two bullets hit the journalist's heart. "Only a professional could fire so accurately in the dark," Gordiyenko added her doubts. The United States imposed sanctions against billionaire Prigozhin and his Concord holding company in 2016 for constructing a military base for Russian forces near Ukraine. But neither the sanctions, nor the links to the CAR murder that shook the entire country, has slowed the growth of Prigozhin's business empire. Concord keeps working on immense state contracts, his Zinger Development group is planning to build an artificial island in the Gulf of Finland, and foreign tourists keep buying his chocolates at Eliseyev Emporium, a historic architectural landmark on Nevsky Prospect. Jessica from Vermont was purchasing Marzipans shaped as carrots, half a pound of Lukum and chocolates with lime taste. "I am not sure I know who Prigozhin is, I am sorry," the tourist told The Daily Beast.Prigozhin has access to the highest offices in the Kremlin and cooperates closely with the defense ministries of both Russia and the CAR. The power is on his side. "The murder of the three journalists is not going to be investigated, at least there will never be public knowledge of who ordered the killing," a political analyst close to the Kremlin, Sergei Markov, told The Daily Beast. "Prigozhin has created private military forces to help Russia, he is fighting the war against Russia's enemies that are constantly undermining our power, so of course Moscow will not go against him to support the dossier created by Putin's enemy, Khodorkovsky." In the eyes of much of the world, however, Putin's name will be linked forever to the murder of the three journalists just as it is linked to the killing of journalists Anna Politkovskaya or Natalia Estemirova.Dzhamal, Rastorguyev, and Radchenko were—and remain—important symbols for Russians who still believe the search for solid facts and the truth is the only way to combat corruption and the disinformation used to disguise it, even if the quest costs you your life.Anna Nemtsova reported from St. Petersburg, Christopher Dickey from Paris.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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| Ask the Captain: What airline dispatchers do; plus, how ground crews know when to move in Posted: 02 Sep 2019 08:57 AM PDT ![Ask the Captain: What airline dispatchers do; plus, how ground crews know when to move in]( "Ask the Captain: What airline dispatchers do; plus, how ground crews know when to move in") Captain John Cox explains why the dispatcher is the most important team member after the pilot and how ground crew members know when to move in.
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| Hong Kong police target commuters with batons Posted: 01 Sep 2019 02:04 AM PDT ![Hong Kong police target commuters with batons]( "Hong Kong police target commuters with batons")
Local television footage showed police using batons and pepper spray at the Prince Edward MTR station before making arrests. Some suspects were seen being beaten as they cowered on the floor. Hong Kong's MTR network has been the source of numerous controversies since the night of July 21, when more than 100 white-shirted men stormed Yuen Long station hours after protesters had marched through central Hong Kong and defaced China's Liaison Office. Chinese state media has also alleged that the MTR corporation facilitates protesters by providing convenient transportation before and after violent clashes with the police. Police said they arrested 40 people inside the metro station on suspicion of obstructing officers, unlawful assembly and criminal damage. Three stations stayed shut on Sunday (September 1).
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| Rio-Paris crash relatives finger Airbus in new report Posted: 01 Sep 2019 01:53 PM PDT  Relatives of victims of the 2009 Rio-Paris air crash have provided evidence they say supports their claim that Airbus knew of problems with an onboard instrument five years earlier, it emerged Sunday. The news comes a decade into a legal wrangle and weeks after French prosecutors recommended that only Air France face trial over allegations that it had known about the instrument problem on its Airbus A330 plane. On the night of the crash it is alleged the tubes frosted over and caused the speed sensors to freeze up, according to a probe undertaken in November 2004 for Thales, the tubes' manufacturer.
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| Turkey's Erdogan rebukes lawyers boycotting judicial ceremony at presidential palace Posted: 02 Sep 2019 05:59 AM PDT ![Turkey's Erdogan rebukes lawyers boycotting judicial ceremony at presidential palace]( "Turkey's Erdogan rebukes lawyers boycotting judicial ceremony at presidential palace") President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday sharply criticised Turkish lawyers who boycotted a judicial ceremony on the grounds of his presidential palace, saying their method of electing bar association members should be changed. Last month, at least 19 bar associations representing a vast majority of lawyers across Turkey, including in the three largest cities, said they would boycott the annual opening ceremony of the judicial year because it would be held on the premises of the presidential palace. Many of the bar associations said holding the ceremony in a location linked to the presidency signals a lack of separation of powers and the erosion of judicial independence in Turkey.
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| View Photos of the Bugatti Chiron goes 304 MPH, Sets World Record Posted: 02 Sep 2019 02:30 AM PDT |
| Sri Lanka church bomber's remains exhumed after protests Posted: 02 Sep 2019 07:16 AM PDT ![Sri Lanka church bomber's remains exhumed after protests]( "Sri Lanka church bomber's remains exhumed after protests") The remains of a suicide bomber who attacked a church in eastern Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday were exhumed on Monday after a court order that they be reburied elsewhere following public protests. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said the remains were removed from Kalliyankadu cemetery in the presence of a judge, a medical officer and police and were taken to a hospital morgue. An official last week said the remains consisted only of a head, but Gunasekara said they also included some other body parts.
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| Texas shooting: State introduces raft of weaker gun laws a day after seven killed in latest outbreak of violence Posted: 01 Sep 2019 08:45 AM PDT  As Texas reels from its second mass shooting in a month, a raft of new state laws have come into effect loosening regulations and easing access to guns.House Bill 1143 updates the Texas Education Code to "prevent school districts from regulating the manner in which a licensed person's handgun, firearm, or ammunition is stored in their vehicle in a school parking area" while Senate Bill 535 permits licensed handgun owners to to carry firearms in places of worship.
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| Russia, Iran blame US for regional tensions Posted: 02 Sep 2019 07:44 AM PDT  Moscow and Tehran on Monday blamed US policies for tensions in the Middle East while Russia said it welcomed French efforts to save the Iran nuclear deal. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned Washington's latest actions in Syria as he visited Moscow for talks with Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov.
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| Some Florida boat residents to ride out Dorian, hoping for the best Posted: 01 Sep 2019 04:40 PM PDT  Ned and Lisa Keahey were well aware that the second-most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record was heading for them, having watched the weather radar on Sunday at a Florida marina from the boat they have called home for the past 20 years. Dozens of Floridians who live in boats in marinas along the Atlantic Coast in Brevard County were rushing to secure their vessels on Sunday, strapping them to docks and removing canvas coverings from decks as Dorian spun toward the state. Brevard County emergency officials said mandatory evacuations were issued beginning on Monday at 8 a.m. for residents in low-lying areas, on barrier islands and in mobile homes.
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| Costco is closed for Labor Day, but here are the stores and restaurants staying open Posted: 01 Sep 2019 11:01 PM PDT  Most major retailers and restaurant chains are open Monday, though some will have special holiday hours. Many pharmacies will be closed.
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