| Pelosi describes Trump's 'very serious meltdown' during White House meeting on Syria Posted: 16 Oct 2019 03:40 PM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked out of a meeting with Donald Trump about the crisis in Syria Wednesday after she said the president had had a "very serious meltdown" and insulted her in front of other congressional leaders.
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| Buttigieg, O'Rourke clash over assault-rifle buyback plan Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:57 PM PDT  At Tuesday night's Democratic primary debate, presidential candidates Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg escalated their disagreement over O'Rourke's proposal for mandatory buybacks of assault weapons.
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| China detains 2 US citizens who ran teaching program Posted: 17 Oct 2019 06:37 AM PDT  China said Thursday it detained two U.S. citizens on suspicion of organizing others to illegally cross the border, amid sharpening tensions between the sides over trade, technology and other sensitive issues. Police in the eastern province of Jiangsu arrested Alyssa Petersen and Jacob Harlan on Sept. 27 and Sept. 29, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. "The department handling the case has informed the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai in a timely manner, arranged U.S. diplomats to conduct consular visits and protected the legitimate rights and interests of the two," Geng said at a regular press briefing.
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| Marine Corps says another WWII hero misidentified in iconic, flag-raising Iwo Jima photo Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:45 PM PDT  Three historians using film footage from Mount Suribachi identified one of the six flag-raisers as Cpl. Harold 'Pie' Keller - not Pfc. Rene Gagnon.
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| The North Korean history behind Kim Jong Un's mountain horse ride Posted: 17 Oct 2019 04:29 AM PDT  Whatever westerners thought about images of Kim Jong Un trekking through mountain snows astride a white stallion, the subliminal message sent to North Koreans was to instill confidence that they have a man of strength and destiny holding the reins of power. The Internet was flooded with online jokes and memes after North Korea's state media released the photographs. "The main thing to keep in mind is that while we might think Kim looks goofy, he doesn't think that," Jeffrey Lewis, a North Korea expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said on Twitter.
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| Giuliani refuses to comply with impeachment subpoena as attorney steps down: ‘I don’t need a lawyer’ Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:32 PM PDT  Rudy Giuliani has said he will not co-operate with an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump and insisted he did not need a lawyer following the arrest of two business associates accused of campaign finance violations.The president's personal attorney posted a letter on Twitter to the House permanent select committee on intelligence in which his lawyer wrote: "Please accept this response as formal notice that Mr Giuliani will not participate because this appears to be an unconstitutional, baseless and illegitimate 'impeachment inquiry.'"
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| Northeast Bomb Cyclone Leaves More Than 500,000 Without Power Posted: 17 Oct 2019 06:41 AM PDT  The storm has caused power outages from New York up to Maine.
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| Mystery as plane carrying Russian arms smugglers crashes in Congo Posted: 16 Oct 2019 12:43 PM PDT  The Democratic Republic of Congo has one of the world's worst aviation safety records, so reports that an aircraft had tumbled into a remote forest last week caused few international ripples. Since then, however, a deepening mystery over the nature of the cargo and the identity of those on board has left the Congolese government facing awkward questions. The fate of the stricken plane, a mysterious Antonov-72 so far only identified by its former registration number, EK-72903, may also provide a glimpse into the murkier side of Russia's attempts to reassert its influence in Africa. The details remain scant. Last Thursday, the plane crashed 59 minutes after taking off from the eastern city of Goma bound for the capital Kinshasa. None of the eight people on board survived, officials said. The passengers were identified as the personal chauffeur of Felix Tshisekedi, Congo's president, and three of his bodyguards. An armoured vehicle used by the president was also on board. A more troubling disclosure followed when two of the four-strong crew were identified. Vitaly Shumkov and Vladimir Sadovnichy, the plane's pilots, were not only Russian nationals, they both appeared to have a background in gun running. The plane, too, has a murky past. EK-72903 was once owned by an Armenian company whose proprietor has been linked to arms smuggling elsewhere in Africa. Whether the crew were somehow furthering Kremlin interests remains unknown. However, there is no secret that Russia hopes to regain the influence the Soviet Union once wielded in Africa by wooing its leaders with arms sales, private security and "political technologists" adept at winning elections. Such attempts have often been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Vladimir Putin who has been accused of masterminding attempts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election. Mr Prigozhin allegedly had Congo in his sights after Russia announced in May that it was sending a team of army specialists to the country. Some Russia media outlets speculated that Mr Prigozhin, was on board the plane ahead of a meeting with President Tshisekedi. That is almost certainly untrue. Slumming it on an Antonov is generally not Mr Progozhin's style. "He wouldn't get into a plane like that," a Congolese government official said. "This gentleman is an oligarch and if he travels then he travels on his own plane." The official said that while Mr Prigozhin had not been scheduled to meet President Tshisekedi, other Russian government representatives had requested a meeting to discuss the upcoming summit. It is unclear if any were on board. At least two people described as being "of eastern European origin" were also on the plane. They have not yet been identified, adding to the intrigue surrounding the flight. For the moment, whoever else was on board the plane remains unknown. With some sources saying there may have been 11 people rather than eight on board, UN officials were attempting to identify the remains of the dead — some of whom had been hastily buried — last night. Even that might not put an end to the intrigue of what happened aboard EK-72903. Congo rarely gives up its mysteries. In 1961, a plane departing the country with then UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld on board crashed. Three inquiries failed to determined the cause of the crash and Hammarskjöld's death remains a mystery to this day.
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| This Is What Happens When a U.S. Navy Attack Submarine Crashes Into a 'Mountain' Posted: 17 Oct 2019 04:33 AM PDT  Well, an 'underwater mountain', that is.
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| A N.J. school district wants to ban students from attending prom if they have more than $75 in school lunch debt Posted: 16 Oct 2019 03:47 PM PDT  A school district in New Jersey passed a new policy this week that will allow schools to bar students from attending prom if they have a school lunch debt above $75.
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| Polls show Americans have come to support Trump's impeachment much faster than Nixon's or Clinton’s Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:54 AM PDT  President Trump hasn't just crossed the 50 percent threshold on impeachment, peaking at 50.3 percent earlier this week. He's gotten there faster than Richard Nixon — and, for that matter, Bill Clinton, who never got there at all.
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| Biden's most loyal supporters are starting to look elsewhere, according to a new Insider poll Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:30 AM PDT  Former Vice President Joe Biden has been steadily losing support since he announced his 2020 presidential bid last April.
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| Israel envoy demands probe after effigy of Jewish tycoon left at Ukraine synagogue Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:08 AM PDT  The Israeli ambassador to Ukraine asked police on Thursday to find and punish people who left a red paint-spattered effigy of tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, who holds a Ukrainian Jewish community leadership post, on the steps of the main synagogue in Kiev. Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine's richest men, is in the public eye over his business ties to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who came to fame as the star of TV show on a channel Kolomoisky owns. Kolomoisky is president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, one of several Jewish community bodies in the country.
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| Why the UAW's Deal With General Motors Is Unlikely to Give Workers What They Really Want Posted: 16 Oct 2019 05:24 PM PDT  The strike, which started on Sept. 15, is the longest GM work stoppage since the 1970s
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| View Photos of the 2020 Subaru Crosstrek Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:00 AM PDT |
| Record-smashing bomb cyclone or 'explosive cyclogenesis' wreaks havoc in the Northeast Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:29 PM PDT  An 'explosive cyclogenesis' or bomb cyclone hit the Northeast, causing widespread power outages in Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire.
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| Did a Small French Submarine Really 'Sink' a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier? Posted: 15 Oct 2019 10:00 PM PDT  In a 2015 wargame, it might have happened.
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| Teenage Briton's retraction in Cyprus gang rape case was 'dictated by police' and written in poor English Posted: 16 Oct 2019 11:31 AM PDT  A British teenager who says she was gang raped by Israeli tourists in a beach resort in Cyprus told a court today that she was forced to sign a retraction by Cypriot police after they wrote it for her. During a three-hour cross-examination, the 19-year-old said the statement was in such broken English that "there is not one sentence that an English person would write. It does not make grammatical sense." "It isn't in proper English, it's in Greek English. I'm a very well-educated person, I got into university with an unconditional offer so there's no way I would write something like this. Marios (the investigating police officer) wanted me to write that I had made it all up." The teenager repeatedly offered to read out to the court the bad spelling and poor grammar that she said was in the retraction statement, but the judge presiding over the case refused to let her. The young woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claimed in July that she was raped by up to a dozen Israeli men in a hotel room in the party resort of Ayia Napa, which draws tens of thousands of holidaymakers each summer. Ten days later she signed a retraction, which her legal team insist was made under duress after she was questioned by Cypriot police for eight hours without a lawyer. But she is on trial for "causing public mischief" by allegedly fabricating the gang rape claim, with the Israeli men threatening to sue her if she is convicted. The British teenager being led into the court in Paralimni, Cyprus Credit: AFP She told the court in Paralimni, a town a few miles from Ayia Napa, that police had promised her that she would be released and allowed to return to the UK if she signed the retraction. "The officer said he had spoken to the Israelis and he had agreed that they would go home and I would go home and that would be the end of it." But instead of being set free she found herself being arrested and taken to a prison in Nicosia, the island's capital, where she spent more than a month in a cell with other women before being bailed. Shortly after signing the statement on July 27, she had a panic attack in the police station, brought on by the PTSD that psychologists say she is suffering from as a result of the alleged gang rape. "I was really, really stressed and I was crying. I was in a state. I was 18 years old and I was suffering from PTSD. I was trapped in there. They made me sign things I didn't understand," she said. She accused one of the investigating officers, Detective Sergeant Marios Christou, of shouting at her and intimidating her. Ayia Napa and surrounding resorts are hugely popular with young holidaymakers from Britain, Europe and Israel Credit: AFP "He was not going by the law. Immediately I assumed corruption and conspiracy. I would not have put it past him at that moment to have kidnapped me or something. I can 100 per cent say that I was terrified for my life when I was in that police station." The young woman, who had come to Cyprus on a working holiday, broke down in tears after the prosecutor, Adamos Demosthenous, accused her of lying to her mother on the night she signed the retraction when she sent a message saying "calm down, I'm OK," even though she was in deep distress. The teenager said she had simply tried to avoid alarming her mother, a single parent. "I said I was OK even though I wasn't just so she would not freak out," the British woman told judge Michalis Papathanasiou. "If your child had just been raped by 12 Israelis and can't get out of bed in the morning and had a throat so swollen she could hardly breathe and was taken to a police station for eight hours after saying she would only be gone for half an hour, I can tell you, you would be worried about your child." The court heard from a British friend of the teenager, who said that on the night of the retraction she received "very alarming" text messages from the alleged rape victim. "She's been arrested and they've got her to change her statement so it looks like she lied," the woman, a psychology graduate from Yorkshire, told a mutual friend. The friend said police had also altered a statement that she gave them. "(An officer) wrote something in the statement that I didn't say. It was in reference to how much we had been drinking." The 19-year-old faces up to a year in prison if convicted. The Israelis all returned home after being released from custody. The trial was adjourned until Thursday, when the judge will decide whether to hear video evidence from a British psychologist who is currently in Ireland and who diagnosed the teenager with PTSD.
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| McConnell Says He Wants ‘Something Stronger’ than House Resolution Condemning Syria Troop Withdrawal Posted: 17 Oct 2019 09:37 AM PDT  Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he would like to see "something stronger" than the bipartisan resolution the House passed on Wednesday condemning President Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria."I believe it's important that we make a strong, forward-looking strategic statement. For that reason my preference would be for something even stronger than the resolution that the House passed yesterday, which has some serious weaknesses," McConnell said in a Senate floor speech.The resolution overwhelmingly passed the House in a 354 to 60 vote, with 129 Republicans voting in favor. It states that Congress "opposes the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria" and demands the White House present a plan to support Kurdish fighters and prevent ISIS from regaining a foothold in the area.Trump announced last week that he would withdraw American troops stationed in the north part of Syria, saying he did not want the U.S. to "police" the area any longer. The decision was condemned by many in Trump's party, including some of his closest allies, who anticipated that a U.S. troop withdrawal would clear the way for the invasion of the region subsequently launched by Turkey and leave the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who have fought alongside by U.S troops in an alliance against ISIS, open to attack.However, while McConnell said he was "encouraged" by the resolution, he complained that it is "narrowly drafted," and does not address several crucial issues such as the Sunni Arab and Christian communities in Syria."It is curiously silent on the issue of whether to actually sustain a U.S. military presence in Syria, perhaps to spare Democrats from having to go on record on this question," McConnell remarked. "Many of us will have much more to say on the subject very soon," he added.
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| Peek Inside Eero Saarinen’s Iconic General Motors Technical Center Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:22 AM PDT |
| Rep. Tlaib denies endorsing Sanders, contradicting Omar's earlier announcement Posted: 16 Oct 2019 04:36 PM PDT  Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., on Wednesday afternoon contradicted earlier reports that she was set to join two fellow members of "the Squad," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., in endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination.
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| Venezuela wins seat on U.N. rights council despite U.S. opposition Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:18 AM PDT  Venezuela was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday with 105 votes and a round of applause, despite fierce lobbying against it by the United States and rights groups, and the late entry of Costa Rica as competition. Along with Brazil, the three countries were competing for two seats on the 47-member Human Rights Council starting Jan. 1. "Venezuela's undeserved and narrow election to the U.N. Human Rights Council is a slap in the face to the country's countless victims who have been tortured and murdered by government forces," said Philippe Bolopion, Human Rights Watch deputy director for global advocacy.
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| Putin signals Russia's return to Africa with summit Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:08 PM PDT  President Vladimir Putin hosts dozens of African leaders next week as Russia seeks to reassert its influence on the continent and beyond. The heads of some 35 African countries are expected for the first Africa-Russia Summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi next Wednesday and Thursday. For Putin, the summit is a chance to revive Soviet-era relationships and build new alliances, bolstering Moscow's global clout in the face of confrontation with the West.
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| This sick 5-year-old boy got a wish trip to Disney World — and another wish on the flight there Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:49 AM PDT  Allegiant, working with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, made a five-year-old boy's dream vacation to Walt Disney World that much more special.
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| Turkey's Air Force Has Stealth Fighter Dreams Posted: 16 Oct 2019 10:30 PM PDT  No F-35s or Su-57s? Could Turkey just build their own? What about China?
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| Rudy Giuliani’s Twitter Feed Is a Boomer Conspiracy-Theory Sh*tshow Posted: 17 Oct 2019 02:29 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by Kristen Hazzard/The Daily Beast/GettyWhen Rudy Giuliani logs into Twitter, he's presented with a world where the recent California power outages were staged by military operatives rooting out cannibal-pedophiles deep in their underground bunkers. It's a place where President Donald Trump only betrayed the Kurds because they were running black sites for a global deep-state cabal; where former Trump Russia adviser Fiona Hill ran an anti-Trump spy ring out of the White House; where former Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta eats children; and where the pope is about to seize world power, and maybe already has. It is the worst that the right-wing internet fever swamp has to offer, and it is all right there, waiting for Giuliani to consume. With the president's personal lawyer now in hot water for helping to orchestrate an apparent pressure campaign to get the Ukrainian leadership to launch investigations beneficial to Trump's domestic political needs, the question being routinely asked is what compelled him to act in these ways. To answer that question, it's worth examining the dozen of hardcore conspiracy theory accounts that populate Giuliani's Twitter timeline. Giuliani, after all, has become a fairly regular user of the platform, having posted to it more than 1,000 times and routinely favoriting content during the course of any given day. But he only follows 224 people (as of Wednesday). A good chunk of those follows are conventional Trumpworld figures, including the president himself (Trump was Giuliani's earliest follow), Judicial Watch chief Tom Fitton, opinion writer John Solomon, and former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka.But many of those 224 dabble in far darker realms of the far-right conspiracy theory internet than the usual rantings of a Fox News primetime broadcast. For instance, Giuliani follows writer Ella Cruz—the author of an Amazon self-published book called Ring of the Cabal: The Secret Government of The Royal Papal Banking Cabal, which alleges that the New World Order will soon impose the "mark of the beast" on all humanity. In August, Cruz tweeted at Giuliani, warning him that Hillary Clinton murdered pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. Though Giuliani doesn't often RT or even like the content produced by the people he follows his taste for conspiracy theories does occasionally shine through, such as in August, when he quote-tweeted conspiracy theorist Matt Couch, a prolific promoter of the baseless idea that former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was murdered by Hillary Clinton. Couch has become so vocal in his attacks on the Rich family that Rich's brother filed a defamation suit against him. Giuliani promoted a tweet from Couch questioning the police narrative about Rich's 2016 murder, and later told The Daily Beast there are "legitimate questions" about the investigation. Giuliani follows a number of accounts that promote the QAnon conspiracy, which alleges that Trump is engaged in a secret war against cannibal-pedophiles in the Democratic Party, Hollywood, and Wall Street. Nearly 5 percent of the accounts that Giuliani follows have explicit QAnon references permanently on their Twitter pages, either in the form of pinned tweets, Twitter names, bios, or header images. Many more of them frequently tweet and retweet QAnon messages from popular promoters of the conspiracy theory. Several accounts Giuliani follows recently retweeted a video, shot in a dimly lit, anonymous living room, starring a man claiming that Navy SEALs and Marines had recently rescued "2,100 children from California Underground bases." There is no evidence that this is actually true. Other accounts that Giuliani follows are prone to promoting a wild potpourri of various conspiracy theory claims. Among them are that Barack Obama is engineering the Trump impeachment process to install Michelle Obama in the White House, or that Hillary Clinton plans to kill off each Democratic presidential candidate so she can become president herself. Others allege that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg secretly died months ago, but that her death is being covered up. Taken together, the accounts circle around a few popular right-wing targets: the Clintons, the Obamas, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Several accounts Giuliani follows recently claimed, without any proof, that Omar had donned a disguise to take part in a gathering of left-wing antifascist activists. Another promoted a long-discredited idea that a photograph proves Omar attended a terrorist training camp (in fact, the picture was taken years before Omar was even born).Many of the accounts Giuliani follows have just a few hundred or thousand followers, raising questions about how he became aware of them in the first place. But Giuliani also follows some of Twitter's leading right-wing conspiracy theorists. Giuliani follows SGT Report, a sort of clearing house for anti-vaccine activists and other conspiracy theorists that has more than 500,000 subscribers on YouTube.The degree to which Rudy's Twitter consumption informs his world view is inherently unknowable. Giuliani hasn't favorited any of tweets from the conspiracy theory accounts. Reached for comment, he declined to say why so many obscure conspiracy theory Twitter accounts make up the relatively small number of total accounts that he follows on Twitter."Never saw any of that," Giuliani wrote in a text message.But there is some anecdotal evidence that Giuliani has embraced or, at a minimum, begun to echo the world that he has built for himself on that platform and it is not just because of his penchant for promoting conspiracy theories about billionaire George Soros and former Vice President Joe Biden. Earlier this month, Giuliani appeared on an internet TV radio show hosted by Bill Mitchell, a diehard Trump fan who has frequently promoted QAnon online. Asked ahead of the interview why he was going on the show, given Mitchell's QAnon connection, Giuliani asked for proof that Mitchell supports QAnon. After The Daily Beast sent Giuliani one article proving Mitchell's support for QAnon, the former prosecutor stopped responding to text messages.Giuliani's own Twitter use has accelerated since he took on a starring role in Trump's Ukraine scandal, according to social media analytics site SocialBlade. In October 2018, Giuliani had 29 average monthly tweets. A year later, he averages 132 tweets a month, according to SocialBlade.Many of the fringe accounts Giuliani follows have rallied to his defense as the Ukraine investigation heats up and echo his most conspiratorial insinuations about the Biden family. One account Giuliani follows, for example, regularly urges him and Trump to sue Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over impeachment. Several of the conspiracy theorist Twitter users that Giuliani follows have, in turn, cited their social media connection to the former New York City mayor as a way of burnishing their credibility. "It's an honor that he follows me," Couch, the Seth Rich conspiracy theorist, told The Daily Beast.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Texas pastors seek federal action after police shoot black woman in her home Posted: 16 Oct 2019 03:07 PM PDT  Jefferson's killing on Saturday by a rookie Fort Worth officer was the latest in a string of fatal shootings that has made the city's African American community wary of police, said Pastor Kyev Tatum.
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| Aid groups scramble to reach Syrians as battle lines shift Posted: 16 Oct 2019 10:34 PM PDT  Humanitarian groups in northeastern Syria are scrambling to provide aid to hundreds of thousands of people as rapidly shifting battle lines make it increasingly difficult to reach them. Nearly all foreign aid workers have been evacuated because of security concerns, and there are fears that local staff could face reprisals, either at the hands of Turkish-led forces pushing in from the north or Syrian troops fanning out across territory held by the embattled Kurds. The front lines are being rapidly redrawn as more than 160,000 people flee the fighting, including many who were displaced by earlier battles in Syria's eight-year civil war.
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| How a British family got entangled in a US immigration nightmare after a wrong turn led to nearly 2 weeks in ICE detention Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:06 PM PDT  The Connors' story shows how just one unintentional violation of US immigration law can land a family in weeks of detention in an unfamiliar country.
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| Dior Apologizes for Showing China Map without Taiwan in Meeting with Chinese College Students Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:38 AM PDT  Luxury brand Christian Dior apologized on Thursday for showing students a map of China that didn't include Taiwan in a closed-door recruiting session at Zhejiang Gongshang University in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou."Dior first extends our deep apologies for the incorrect statement and misrepresentation made by a Dior staff member at a campus presentation," read a statement by Dior on Weibo, a Chinese social-media platform similar to Twitter. "Dior always respects and upholds the One China policy, strictly safeguards China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and treasures the feelings of the Chinese people."In a video, later posted online, of the question-and-answer session that followed the presentation, a female student asks why Taiwan, which the Chinese government considers a part of China, wasn't included on the map of China shown by Dior representatives. One representative answered that the map was too small, to which the student replied that the map did include the island of Hainan south of China, which is similar in size to Taiwan. Another representative interjected that Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China together form "Great China."The company's apology to China drew condemnation from Taiwanese officials."@Dior's apology to the PRC government is a mistake," Taiwanese foreign minister Joseph Wu shot back on Twitter. "Its employee was correct in showing the Chinese map without Taiwan."The controversy comes after the NBA was accused of buckling to Chinese censorship in a similar spat earlier this month.On October 4, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted, "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong." The Chinese Basketball Association immediately moved to cut all ties with the Rockets, and Chinese streaming service Tencent announced that it would not show any Rockets games for the coming year. Morey subsequently released a statement apologizing to Chinese fans, and the NBA publicly condemned Morey for his tweet supporting the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The NBA faced widespread condemnation from U.S. elected officials, who blasted what they called its weak response to China's demands.
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| Anti-Trump businesswomen are nervous about Warren, and the Democratic debate didn't help Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:00 AM PDT  In her fight against corporate America, Warren is turning off a key group of voters who want to oust Donald Trump: the liberal women who work there.
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| Malaysia looks to strengthen navy as sea tensions grow Posted: 17 Oct 2019 02:46 AM PDT  Malaysia must strengthen its navy to better defend the country's waters, a minister said Thursday, as tensions mount over Beijing's growing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea. China has laid claim to nearly all of the sea and has built numerous military outposts on small islands and atolls, angering other countries with competing claims to the waters, including Malaysia. Tensions have also flared between China and the US, which has sent warships through the South China Sea to assert international rights to freedom of navigation.
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| Demise of Tasmanian Tiger may be greatly exaggerated after reported sightings of extinct marsupial Posted: 17 Oct 2019 04:17 AM PDT  More than 80 years since the last thylacine in captivity died and almost 40 years since it was declared extinct, rumours of the Tasmanian Tiger's survival have been reignited by a newly published document. The thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, was once Australia's top predator but the last one in captivity died in 1936. Tasmanian officials say "there is no evidence to confirm the thylacine still exists" but a document published this week by the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) features numerous accounts from farmers, bushwalkers, tourists and others claiming to have seen the striped carnivore over the past three years. The Department received eight reports in that period of thylacine sightings, sometimes of an adult with cubs, and usually at dusk or dawn in the northern and western parts of the island state. Two Western Australian tourists recorded in the document said they saw a striped animal the size of a "large kelpie" in February last year and were "100 per cent certain" it was a Tasmanian Tiger. In April 2017 a motorist included in the document said he saw a thylacine run across the Murchison Highway. "If it was a cat, it was a bloody big one," he said. Engravings and rock art by Aboriginal people depicting the thylacine have been found dating back to before 1000 BC, and it is believed some depictions of the animal are much older, including in the north of Western Australia - as far away from Tasmania as possible in Australia. The thylacine has been declared extinct Credit: TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/Getty Images It is believed some of the art depicts efforts by the Aboriginal people to save the species on the mainland. However, the Tiger was already extinct on the mainland by the time Europeans first arrived. Abel Tasman's party recorded seeing footprints of "wild beasts having claws like a tiger" in Tasmania in 1642. The mature thylacine ranged from 100 to 130 cm long, with a tail of around 50 to 65cm, and about 60cm tall, and weighing up to 30kg. After claims the animal was attacking sheep, the Van Diemen's Land Company introduced bounties on the thylacine in 1830. From 1888 and 1909 the Tasmanian Government paid £1 per head for dead adult thylacines and ten shillings for pups. Farmers, bounty hunters, wild dogs introduced by Europeans, destruction of habitat, disease, and the extinction of animals on which the tiger fed all contributed to the dramatic fall in the animal's population. Thylacine expert Col Bailey told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he saw a Tasmanian Tiger 50 years ago on a river bank while canoeing. "I'm sure they're not extinct… this (document) has shed a bit of light," he said. Mr Bailey said the fascination with the Tasmanian Tiger was partly motivated by a sense of guilt that previous generations had driven the species to the brink of extinction, if not beyond. The thycaline was officially declared extinct in 1982, and the DPIPWE issued a statement that for more than 50 years there have been no officially confirmed sightings of the animal. "The Department will continue to record information on reported sightings," it added.
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| Israrel's Merkava Tank: The Best on the Planet? Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:00 PM PDT  Meaning better than America's M1 Abrams? We take a look.
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| 11 Mesmerizing Structures by Shigeru Ban Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:26 PM PDT |
| U.S. Supreme Court wrestles over 'D.C. Sniper' life sentence appeal Posted: 16 Oct 2019 11:45 AM PDT  U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday questioned whether a lower court sufficiently considered that a man convicted in the deadly 2002 "D.C. Sniper" shooting spree in the Washington area was a minor at the time of the crimes when he was sentenced to life in prison. The nine justices heard arguments in an appeal by the state of Virginia objecting to the lower court's decision ordering that Lee Boyd Malvo's sentence of life in prison without parole be thrown out. The most likely contender based on questions he asked during the argument would be Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
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| Trump massively undermined Mike Pence's mission to stop Turkey's invasion of Syria, saying publicly that it's none of his business Posted: 17 Oct 2019 03:02 AM PDT  Pence is en route to Turkey to convince its president to stop his offensive on Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria. His boss isn't helping.
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| Mars lander's digger is burrowing again after snag Posted: 17 Oct 2019 01:05 PM PDT  A Mars lander's digger is burrowing into the red planet again after hitting a snag seven months ago. NASA said Thursday the mechanical mole has penetrated three-quarters of an inch (2 centimeters) over the past week. "We're rooting for our mole to keep going," said the experiment's lead scientist, Tilman Spohn of the German Aerospace Center, in a statement.
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| Why Mexico Is Cooperating with Us on Immigration Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:42 PM PDT  One of the reasons border apprehensions have dropped from their alarming peak in May is that Mexico has been pretty aggressive in stopping third-country nationals from traversing its territory on their way north to make bogus asylum claims so they can be released into the U.S.But why has Mexico been willing to work with us like this? It's especially curious because in the past, Mexico was not at all eager to help us limit illegal immigration, a pattern we might have expected to intensify with last year's election as president of left-wing populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (commonly known as AMLO, pronounced as a word rather than initials).No doubt President Trump's tariff threats had some effect. Three-quarters of Mexico's exports go to the U.S., and despite increased integration of our economies over the past couple of decades, they still need us a lot more than we need them. Also, Trump's mercurial temperament clearly has the Mexicans worried that he could do something rash (similar to Iran's fears about Reagan if the hostages weren't released before he was inaugurated).But it's unlikely that these things would be enough to move a sometimes touchy nationalist like AMLO. Rather, I think a big part of the explanation is that the current flow of illegals is mainly made up of foreigners, not Mexicans. Earlier waves of mass infiltration across our southern border consisted mainly of Mexicans, and while Mexico quickly took back its people who had been nabbed by the Border Patrol, it did little if anything to reduce the flow. They did establish a police-like unit of the country's immigration agency called Grupo Beta, which worked on Mexico's northern border (opposite our southern border), but its remit was to help potential illegals with water and first aid and protect them from criminals.But the current flow is very different. Yes, there are still a significant number of Mexicans sneaking across the border, but fewer than there used to be. Mexico's economy has grown and developed to a point where fewer people see the need to emigrate. Also, there just aren't that many able-bodied, working-aged people left in rural areas of Mexico, which is now about as urbanized as the U.S.The current illegal flow, by contrast, is mainly non-Mexican, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador (the "northern triangle" countries of Central America), but with growing numbers from Haiti, Cuba, various African countries, and even the Middle East. There had always been a small number of what the Border Patrol calls OTMs (Other Than Mexicans), but they now constitute the majority of the flow.When the first caravan to catch the world's attention passed through Mexican towns on its way north in spring 2018, it was often welcomed with mariachi bands, offers of food and water, and even medical checkups. But as more caravans arrived, plus many migrants in smaller groups, all drawn by loopholes in American law that facilitated their release into the U.S., the welcome started to wear out. As the Washington Post wrote this spring:> But six months and several caravans later, much of that welcome has dried up. Most media have left. And the people of Mapastepec, and other places that have been overwhelmed, are showing their fatigue with the growing stream of migrants.> > "People . . . previously opened their doors to these migrants, but they do not have much extra money here," said Roberto Sarabia, 56, who works at a small grocery store. "What little they could give, they've already given."Exhaustion has turned to resentment. As the Central American illegals started piling up in Tijuana, preparing to cross to San Diego, local residents last November staged a protest; the NPR report offered a sense of the mood:> Demonstrators held signs reading "No illegals," "No to the invasion" and "Mexico First." Many wore the country's red, white and green national soccer jersey and vigorously waved Mexican flags. The crowd often slipped into chants of "Ti-jua-na!" and "Me-xi-co!" They sang the national anthem several times.Tijuana's mayor at the time, who was in political hot water generally (he subsequently lost his bid for reelection), rushed to try to take advantage of the situation by sporting a "Make Tijuana Great Again" red baseball cap.> Con ustedes el alcalde de Tijuana, Juan Manuel Gastélum, capaz de decir "que me perdonen las organizaciones defensoras de DH, pero los derechos humanos son para humanos derechos" … CaravanaMigrante pic.twitter.com/DkSuKeFBaF> > — Risco (@jrisco) November 16, 2018And it's not just Tijuana. The El Paso Times recently wrote about the newly developed Cuban community across the river in Juarez. Many Cuban illegals are giving up on their U.S. asylum gambit and deciding to settle down in Juarez (proving they were really economic migrants all along). And it's creating resentment. As a burrito seller said of the Cubans, "They don't get along with Mexican people. They get in a little group by themselves. A lot of people don't like them here." And a business consultant complained, "There are people who are coming looking for a handout, who want us to help them, when they could also look for work."The flow of illegals passing through Mexico to make bogus asylum claims in the U.S. has grown so large that some of them aren't bothering to head all the way to the border and are applying for asylum in Mexico instead. The number of asylum applications submitted to Mexico's refugee agency (COMAR) more than tripled in the first eight months of this year compared to the same period in 2018. The asylum burden seems to have gotten so bad that the refugee agency has removed the helpful video it used to host on its website explaining how to apply.And over the weekend, a large group of illegal aliens from Africa, the Caribbean, and Central America tried to set out on another caravan in southern Mexico, but were stopped by police and the National Guard (a new paramilitary force established by AMLO specifically for border control). Most telling was this bit of video from a Mexican news outlet, showing the commander of a National Guard platoon addressing his men before confronting the latest caravan. He starts his pep talk by saying, "No one will come to trample our country, our land!"> "Nadie va a venir a pisotear nuestro país, nuestra tierra", son las palabras de un comandante de pelotón de la GuardiaNacional durante la redada de hoy contra migrantes haitianos y africanos.> > �� @Chechetc corresponsal de @WRADIOMexico pic.twitter.com/9YexXMqMsF> > — Salvador Zaragoza A. (@SalvadorZA) October 13, 2019None of this is to say that our border has been fully secured, or that we don't need to plug the loopholes that sparked this flow in the first place, or that interior measures such as E-Verify, workplace enforcement, and curbing sanctuary cities are no longer needed. And it's entirely possible that if Mexico hits a serious economic road bump in the future, a new Mexican-illegal surge will take place, and the political calculus will be very different.But for now, the United States and Mexico have a confluence of interests in stopping the flow of third-country "asylum-seekers" heading for the American border. Mexicans love their country, as they should, and they're tired of foreigners using it as a doormat.
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| ‘Barbaric’: DLA Piper Partner Who Said Boss Assaulted Her Four Times Has Been Put on Leave Posted: 16 Oct 2019 12:16 PM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photos HandoutThe junior partner at top-grossing law firm DLA Piper who claimed she was sexually assaulted four times by her boss in 2018 has been placed on paid administrative leave.Vanina Guerrero, who works out of the multinational firm's Silicon Valley corporate practice, filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this month, claiming that the $2.84-billion firm discriminated against her and retaliated when she complained of the alleged assaults. The complaint identified her boss, DLA Piper partner Louis Lehot, as the man who allegedly assaulted her in Shanghai, Brazil, Palo Alto, and Chicago."During my entire career I was known for my intellect, tenacity and confidence," Guerrero, who is married with children, wrote in an open letter to the firm earlier this month. "In less than nine months at DLA Piper... I became a shell of my former self." In her letter, Guerrero asked the firm to allow her to litigate the matter in court instead of through forced arbitration. A spokesman for the law firm has said the company took appropriate steps to investigate the allegations against Lehot as soon as they were reported and that the company "takes them seriously."Lehot has since left the firm, the company said last week."Despite the fact that the allegations have not been substantiated by the investigation to date, the firm has concluded for various reasons that it is in the best interest of the firm that we part ways with Louis Lehot," three executives wrote in a memo, Bloomberg Business reported.But on Tuesday, the firm sent a letter to Guerrero claiming that "during the course of our investigation of your allegations against Louis Lehot, another individual at the firm alleged that you engaged in inappropriate behavior toward, and harassed, that individual.""DLA Piper takes allegations of harassment seriously, regardless of the position or gender of the individual making those allegations or against whom they are made," said the letter, which was provided to The Daily Beast by Guerrero's attorney. "Unfortunately, you continue to refuse to cooperate with that investigation, including refusing to discuss the allegations that have been made against you. Indeed, you refused to do so despite our stated willingness to allow your counsel to be present during the interview."The memo states that Guerrero is barred from going to the Silicon Valley office or engaging in any of the firm's business until the investigation has concluded—and that DLA Piper has retained an outside firm to probe the matter.Guerrero's attorney, Jeanne Christensen, said in a statement on Wednesday that the letter was sent overnight to media outlets "across the country" in an attempt "to publicly smear" Guerrero "for daring to complain about being sexually assaulted."Christensen called the move "barbaric" and unprecedented."To be clear, as of the writing of this email, our firm and Ms. Guerrero have no knowledge or information about the purported 'harassment,'" she added. "The message is loud and clear: MeToo movement or not—speaking out about gender motivated violence will result in untold harm, damage and pain to you personally and professionally."Junior Partner at Silicon Valley Law Firm DLA Piper: Boss Sexually Assaulted Me 4 Times, Company Ignored ItRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Tropical storm likely to hit northern Gulf Coast Posted: 17 Oct 2019 11:06 AM PDT  A disturbance in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico is likely to become a tropical storm that will hit the northern U.S. Gulf Coast with wind and rain, forecasters said Thursday.
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| Hong Kong protest leader left bloodied in street attack Posted: 15 Oct 2019 05:50 PM PDT  A leading face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement was rushed to hospital covered in blood late Wednesday after being attacked by unidentified thugs with hammers, his protest group said. The Civil Human Rights Front said leader Jimmy Sham was assaulted by four to five people wielding hammers in the district of Mongkok in what they described as an act of "political terror". "He received a bloody head wound and was sent to Kwong Wah hospital," the CHRF said in a statement, adding Sham was conscious when paramedics arrived.
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| An Equestrian Was Shot by Her Olympic Trainer, Then Pummeled Online Posted: 16 Oct 2019 12:18 PM PDT  LONG VALLEY, N.J. -- The gunshots rang out from the back porch of the farmhouse, a little ways off from the stables and Olympic-level dressage arena, the improbable sound rising over the 53-acre estate. A woman had been shot twice in the chest by a man well known not merely to her but also to just about everyone in the rarefied dressage community: Michael Barisone, an Olympic rider, the owner of the farm and the woman's trainer. The shooting was the shocking culmination of a landlord-tenant dispute that the woman, Lauren Kanarek, had documented all summer on social media, openly fearful of what might happen. "I'm afraid," she wrote, five days before the attack. "I'm being bullied." Barisone, who was charged with two counts of attempted murder, said that he shot Kanarek in self-defense. In the week before the shooting, Barisone had called 911 several times, claiming that she and her fiance were squatters on his farm and were harassing him; in one call, Barisone described the conflict as "a war. And it's going to be dealt with." Kanarek survived the attack but was placed in a medically induced coma. Finally, after an extensive surgery to repair damage from a bullet to her left lung and more than a week of hospitalization, she had recovered enough to start reconnecting with the world. The first thing she saw, she recalled, were comments that "wished I was dead." "They know there is a person suffering multiple gunshot wounds, bullet wounds," she said in an interview, her voice raspy where the ventilator had damaged her vocal cords. "To say those things, is something no one could ever imagine." Seldom do attempted murder cases elicit sympathy for the suspect; rarer still are cases where the victim is blamed. And yet Kanarek somehow found herself the target of an online lynch mob. "Yes, you were shot by an obviously provoked man … but you accept zero accountability," reads one direct reply to Kanarek on an online forum hosted by The Chronicle of the Horse, an equestrian publication. "What a narcissist. It's always someone else's fault." The blind sympathy for Barisone lies partly in his standing in the dressage world; he served as a reserve rider on the U.S. dressage team in the 2008 Olympics and coached Allison Brock, one of the riders for the U.S. squad that won a team bronze in the 2016 Olympics. Few fans could fathom his involvement, and many who tried to find reason behind the shooting ended up focusing on his claims that Kanarek had serially harassed him. Just before the shooting, Kanarek had asked the Division of Child Protection and Permanency to investigate Barisone for potential abuse of a child of his fiancee, according to Jeffery Simms, the lawyer who represented him at the arraignment. "The alleged victim is not a victim," Simms told reporters then. "She's a villain." Kanarek said she did not recall placing the call to child services. Barisone's supporters also point to Kanarek's inflammatory social media presence. She has at least one pending charge against her for cyberstalking in North Carolina, where she used to live."Lauren Kanarek took her bullying too far. Everyone has limits," Susan Wachowich, who runs a popular site covering the sport, wrote on Twitter the day of the shooting. She wrote that the site "100% supports Michael Barisone in his actions." The post has since been deleted by Twitter as a violation of its standards. Wachowich did not respond to a request for comment. As is her way, Kanarek is fighting back. In flurries of posts since her attack, Kanarek has replied to strangers, friends and foes, unspooling her version of events and reminding the people who pile up on her that she was nearly killed. "No matter what -- I was shot twice. It was not in self-defense. While plenty more story exists, what else matters?" she wrote in one response. "Do you condone trainers shooting their students trying to kill them? Sure looks that way." Kanarek met Barisone at a horse competition in Wellington, Florida, in 2018. She decided to move her horses from North Carolina to his Hawthorne Hill farm in Long Valley, in the heart of New Jersey's horse country, for the chance to train with an Olympic great, she said. As part of the arrangement, she and her fiance, Robert Goodwin, would live on the property, in an apartment in a farmhouse where Barisone lived. Tensions grew after a flood in the farmhouse forced Barisone and his fiancee to move into a barn on the property, Kanarek said. Barisone tried to kick Kanarek and Goodwin out of the apartment, according to Kanarek, so he could live there; they refused. A month before the shooting, Barisone began contacting people who had online disputes with Kanarek. He told them that he was trying to build a legal case against Kanarek and Goodwin, and eject them from his property. Joey Ann Stagaard, a hair restoration specialist from New Jersey, received one such call about a week before the shooting. "'I know that you are a victim of this girl Lauren's torture, and she is on our farm,' " Stagaard recalled Barisone telling her over the phone. "He said, 'She is causing nothing but havoc here; we are losing our minds.' " Stagaard has been embroiled in a long online spat with Kanarek, whom she has never met, over a former shared love interest, she said. Her public animus toward Kanarek has continued even after the shooting. Stagaard was one of several women, including a North Carolina-based horsewomen named Kathryn Parkinson, who filed a complaint last spring to the U.S. Equestrian Federation and SafeSport, a nonprofit organization that investigates various forms of misconduct in Olympic sports. They accused Kanarek of bullying. The federation said the complaint was investigated and found not to merit any action. "It seemed to us more like a personal matter," said Vicki Lowell, a spokeswoman for the federation. Separately, Kanarek said she had complained to SafeSport about Barisone this summer. Dan Hill, a spokesman for SafeSport, said he could not confirm whether a report was filed.In the meantime, the situation at Hawthorne Hill worsened in the weeks before the shooting: Police were summoned to the farm at least six times, according to recordings of 911 calls placed by Kanarek, her family and Barisone. "These people have been living here, and they're causing us hell," Barisone told the operator July 31, according to recordings obtained by news site Patch. Three days before the attack, on Aug. 4, Barisone called 911 a final time. "I'm taking my life back," he told the operator. When police responded the day of the shooting, they found Barisone pinned beneath Goodwin, a black and pink 9-millimeter Ruger pistol under both of them. The police report indicated that he also shot at Goodwin but missed. As medical personnel and police officers circled through, Barisone was overheard repeating the same sentence: "I had a good life." Barisone is being held in a Morris County jail, after being refused bail by a judge. His current lawyer, Edward J. Bilinkas, did not respond to multiple emails and calls requesting comment. To Kanarek and her lawyer, the details of the spiraling conflict between trainer and student, whether bandied about in the courtroom or on Facebook, are beside the point. "She is the victim here, and she was fighting for her life and trying to recover, while at the same time being attacked," her lawyer, Andrew O'Connor, said. "A disconnect that a lot of these trolls can't get over, is that, 'I've seen this guy from afar, and I see his bronze medal, and so it must be her.' "Kanarek concurred, saying that it was difficult to "go online and see every single person talking about you." She pulled up her blouse to reveal two entry wounds in her rib cage. "Every part of my body and soul and mind is just thinking, I should be on my horses, riding," she said. "Instead, I was shot." This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| America's Enemies Aren't Ready for the New B-21 Stealth Bomber Posted: 16 Oct 2019 06:00 PM PDT  A stealthy upgrade to its predecessor.
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| Gordon Sondland, a central figure in the Ukraine scandal, threw Trump and Giuliani under the bus in his opening statement to Congress Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:00 AM PDT  Sondland's role in Ukraine policy has puzzled US officials because as the ambassador to the EU, he shouldn't have been involved in the first place.
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| UPDATE 1-Hungary would have to "use force" to fend off new wave of migrants -PM Posted: 17 Oct 2019 01:36 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Hungary would have to "use force" to fend off new wave of migrants -PM]( "UPDATE 1-Hungary would have to \"use force\" to fend off new wave of migrants -PM") Hungary would have to "use force" at its southern border with Serbia to protect the European Union's frontier if Turkey delivers on a threat to open the gates for refugees through the Balkans towards Europe, Hungary's prime minister said. Prime Minister Viktor Orban built a steel fence on Hungary's border with Serbia to seal off the Balkans route of migration, where hundreds of thousands of people marched through from the Middle East to Western Europe at the peak of the crisis in 2015.
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