| Hunter Biden's work in Ukraine is a problem, but not just for Democrats Posted: 30 Sep 2019 02:10 PM PDT  The former vice president's son sat on the board of directors of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings. Does that matter?
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| PHOTOS: China marks 70 years of communism with massive show of force Posted: 02 Oct 2019 06:14 AM PDT  Soldiers of People's Liberation Army (PLA) are seen in front of a sign marking the 70th founding anniversary of People's Republic of China before a military parade on its National Day in Beijing, China October 1, 2019. (Photo: Thomas Peter/Reuters) China celebrated its growing power and confidence with a big display of military hardware and goose-stepping troops in Beijing on Tuesday, overseen by President Xi Jinping who pledged peaceful development on Communist China's 70th birthday. The event is the country's most important of the year as it looks to project its assurance in the face of mounting challenges, including nearly four months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong and an economy-sapping trade war with the United States. (Reuters) See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Twitter and Tumblr.
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| NASA lander captures marsquakes, other Martian sounds Posted: 01 Oct 2019 12:51 PM PDT  NASA's InSight lander on Mars has captured the low rumble of marsquakes and a symphony of other otherworldly sounds. InSight's seismometer has detected more than 100 events, but only 21 are considered strong marsquake candidates. The French seismometer is so sensitive it can hear the Martian wind as well as movements by the lander's robot arm and other mechanical "dinks and donks " as the team calls them.
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| Macy's is having a huge sale on Le Creuset cookware right now Posted: 01 Oct 2019 09:56 AM PDT  Le Creuset credits both Oprah and Julia Child as fans of the colorful cookware and bakeware, and right now, it's over $100 off.
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| Man severely burned after falling into hot spring by Old Faithful in Yellowstone Posted: 01 Oct 2019 11:56 AM PDT  Walking off the boardwalks in Old Faithful is illegal, punishable by up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Siemers may face criminal charges.
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| Hong Kong's Political Crisis Deepens After the Worst Day of Violence in Decades Posted: 01 Oct 2019 08:56 PM PDT  "I don't know how we can carry on like this," one legislator tells TIME
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| UPDATE 4-Missouri executes man convicted of killing ex-girlfriend's lover Posted: 01 Oct 2019 05:33 PM PDT ![UPDATE 4-Missouri executes man convicted of killing ex-girlfriend's lover]( "UPDATE 4-Missouri executes man convicted of killing ex-girlfriend's lover") Missouri on Tuesday executed a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's lover more than 20 years ago, local media reported, after a court rejected his argument he faced cruel and unusual punishment because of a rare medical condition that would make lethal injection severely painful. Russell Bucklew, 51, was pronounced dead at 6:23 p.m. CDT at the state's death chamber in Bonne Terre for the 1996 murder of Michael Sanders, shortly after he moved in with Bucklew's ex-girlfriend Stephanie Ray, CBS affiliate KFVS12 reported. The Missouri Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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| Late-day bombshells erupt as Trump impeachment inquiry gets underway Posted: 30 Sep 2019 02:45 PM PDT  Within the span of just over an hour, a slew of news dropped that could affect the chances President Trump will be impeached.
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| Fairfax County Police Officer Suspended for Turning Individual over to ICE Posted: 02 Oct 2019 06:32 AM PDT  The Fairfax County Police Department has suspended an officer for detaining and turning the driver in an accident over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday in violation of the department's policy not to assist ICE with civil enforcement.The driver lacked a Virginia driver's license, so the officer who responded to the accident ran a Department of Motor Vehicles check and discovered that ICE had issued a civil violation to the individual for failing to appear for a deportation hearing, according to Fairfax County police.The officer verified the ICE warrant and contacted the ICE agent listed as the point of contact, who came to the scene of the traffic crash. The officer gave the driver a ticket for driving without a license but continued to detain the individual until the ICE agent took over custody.Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler lamented the incident and said the officer is being disciplined."This is an unfortunate issue where the officer was confused," the police chief said, according to the Washington Post. "We have trained on this issue a lot. This is the first time we've had a lapse in judgment, and the officer is being punished."The officer has been relieved of all law-enforcement duties pending an internal investigation."Our police officer violated our longstanding policy and deprived a person of their freedom, which is unacceptable," Roessler added in a statement. "Our county is one of the most diverse counties in the nation and no one should have the perception that FCPD is acting as a civil immigration agent for ICE. This matter damages our reputation and the longstanding policy that I have stated many times that our officers shall not act as immigration agents."The police department said ICE informed them that the driver was released after three hours with an ankle monitor.
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| Meghan Markle wears the chicest Everlane slingbacks while on royal tour Posted: 30 Sep 2019 11:29 AM PDT  Unlike Meghan's go-to pair of Manolo Blahnik heels that cost over $600, these Everlane flat will only set you back $155.
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| Philippine official tweets order for new protest vs China Posted: 02 Oct 2019 12:59 AM PDT ![Philippine official tweets order for new protest vs China]( "Philippine official tweets order for new protest vs China") The Philippine foreign secretary has ordered via Twitter the immediate filing of a diplomatic protest against China after Chinese coast guard ships reportedly strayed near a Philippine-occupied shoal in the disputed South China Sea. Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., who is accompanying Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on a visit to Russia, issued the usually confidential order Wednesday to his officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs via the social network. Relations between the Philippines and China have vastly improved under Duterte, but territorial rifts have remained a thorny issue.
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| Stranded Asylum Seekers Ask Appeals Court to Let Them In Posted: 01 Oct 2019 12:32 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Central Americans seeking asylum in the U.S. said they've waited long enough in Mexico for their applications to be assessed under a Trump administration policy they call unlawful.On Tuesday, their advocates asked the federal appeals court in San Francisco to rule that the policy is illegal. Such a ruling would open the border gates to about 45,000 people, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.The three-judge panel didn't decide whether to uphold a judge's ruling to block the "forced return" policy, as the ACLU asked, but it expressed concern why the government doesn't ask immigrants whether they had any fears about being sent back to Mexico. It's standard practice for asylum seekers to be asked if they are fearful of returning to their home countries.The appeals court previously has allowed the policy to remain in effect during the litigation -- which the ACLU says is endangering the tens of thousands of people."Individuals returned to Mexico are sent to areas with some of the highest murder rates in the world," the ACLU said in a court filing. "They face extreme dangers -- killings, kidnappings, sexual assault, robbery, and other forms of violence -- from cartels, the gangs they fled their home countries to escape, corrupt government officials, and an anti-migrant sentiment."The lawsuit is one of the many fronts on which immigrant rights' advocates have been battling the administration's efforts to block entry to the swelling number of migrants from Central American countries.The government also is trying to stop people from applying for asylum in the U.S. if they didn't make such an application in another country on their way to the U.S. -- so a person from El Salvador should have applied for asylum in Guatemala, or Mexico, according to the U.S.In another case the appeals court heard Tuesday, the U.S. is seeking to overturn a judge's decision that found it was illegal to require asylum seekers to apply only at official border crossings.An appeals panel in December rejected the government's request to put the judge's ruling on hold while the case was tried. The panel said it was likely the rule was "arbitrary and capricious."The cases are: East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump, 18-17274, and Innovation Law Lab v. McAleenan, 19-15716, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District (San Francisco).(Updates with hearing in second paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Steve StrothFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Ex-Dallas officer Amber Guyger's murder conviction 'a huge victory for black people in America' Posted: 02 Oct 2019 08:40 AM PDT  Convicted of murdering Botham Jean, former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger is set to be sentenced Wednesday by a jury.
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| 10 Fat Bears and the Machines I Think They Kinda Look Like Posted: 02 Oct 2019 06:38 AM PDT |
| Police shoot Hong Kong protester at close range Posted: 01 Oct 2019 09:43 AM PDT  As China observes the 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule, a police officer in Hong Kong shot an anti-Beijing protester at close range.
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| Vatican financial control office director, four others suspended: report Posted: 02 Oct 2019 06:00 AM PDT  Five Vatican employees, including the number two at the Vatican's Financial Information Authority (AIF) and a monsignor, have been suspended following a police raid, the Italian magazine L'Espresso reported on Wednesday. The scandal, affecting two departments at the heart of the Vatican, was the first after several years of relative calm in which reforms enacted by Pope Francis appeared to be taking root. A Vatican spokesman said he had no immediate comment on the report.
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| Warren gets ‘dramatic shift’ in support from black voters Posted: 02 Oct 2019 02:00 AM PDT  One element of Elizabeth Warren's surge in the polls is likely to strike fear in her top Democratic rivals — her rising support among African-Americans. After struggling to win over black voters in the early stages of the primary, the Massachusetts senator appears to be gaining ground with a demographic that will play a pivotal role in determining the nomination. A Quinnipiac University national poll last week showed Warren winning 19 percent of the African-American vote — a nine-point jump over the poll's August results.
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| The Danger of Donald Trump’s Ignorance Posted: 01 Oct 2019 11:22 AM PDT  Ignorance is different than deceit and sometimes more dangerous.
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| The Latest: San Francisco disputes NRA victory declaration Posted: 01 Oct 2019 04:02 PM PDT ![The Latest: San Francisco disputes NRA victory declaration]( "The Latest: San Francisco disputes NRA victory declaration") San Francisco Mayor London Breed told department heads in a Sept. 23 memo that the resolution does not direct the city to investigate ties between its contractors and the NRA. The NRA seized upon her memo Tuesday as evidence that the mayor is backing down and said the memo was a "clear concession" in response to its lawsuit over the resolution.
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| See This 'Rocket Launcher'? It Can Kill A Lot Of Tanks Posted: 30 Sep 2019 06:00 PM PDT  Which would you pick?
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| Catholic Archdiocese of New York removes all priests accused of sex abuse, report says Posted: 30 Sep 2019 12:29 PM PDT  The archdiocese covers Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, along with parts of New York City and the Hudson Valley.
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| Australian teen 'deliberately' mowed down, killed 20 kangaroos Posted: 01 Oct 2019 07:33 PM PDT  An Australian teenager has been charged over the deaths of 20 kangaroos, which he allegedly mowed down with his truck in a killing spree that lasted an hour. The dead kangaroos, including two joeys, were found littered over roads in Tura Beach, 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of Sydney, on Sunday morning. Police said Wednesday the man, 19, had been arrested and charged with animal cruelty offences on Tuesday.
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| A 63-year-old Chinese fugitive was found by a police drone after living in a remote hillside cave for 17 years Posted: 01 Oct 2019 01:41 AM PDT  Song Moujiang, who escaped from prison in 2002, lived in the hillside cave for so long that his communication skills had become hindered, police said.
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| Egypt gets back looted gold coffin displayed in New York Posted: 01 Oct 2019 07:37 AM PDT  Egypt exhibited on Tuesday the golden coffin of an ancient Egyptian priest that was returned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art following the discovery that it had been looted and illegally sold. The coffin had been buried in Egypt for 2,000 years before it was stolen from the country's Minya region in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising that toppled veteran leader Hosni Mubarak. Officials say it was smuggled through several countries by an international trafficking ring before being sold to an unwitting Metropolitan Museum two years ago for $4 million.
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| Hillary Clinton says staying in her marriage was 'gutsiest' thing she's ever done Posted: 01 Oct 2019 06:59 AM PDT  Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that she believes the "gutsiest" thing she ever did outside of public life was deciding to stay married to former President Bill Clinton. "Can I ask you, what's the gutsiest thing you've ever done?" ABC News' Amy Robach asked Hillary Clinton at the conclusion of the joint interview. When posed the same question, Chelsea Clinton appeared caught off guard by the unvarnished response from her mother, who was often criticized by pundits for a perceived lack of authenticity on the campaign trail.
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| Lebanese prime minister paid $16 million to South African bikini model over Seychelles 'affair' Posted: 01 Oct 2019 10:39 AM PDT  Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri gave a South African bikini model nearly $16 million US dollars after meeting her on holiday, it emerged on Monday, as Lebanon faces violent protests over a burgeoning economic crisis. Candice van der Merwe met Mr Hariri at a private resort in the Seychelles in 2013 when she was 20. The married father-of-three, who is Lebanon's most powerful Sunni politician, was 43. When asked why Mr Hariri gave her the money, she responded that they had begun a romantic relationship. "I have also been told I have a very engaging personality," she said, in court documents obtained by The New York Times. The gift would have remained secret were it not for South African tax authorities, who froze Ms van der Merwe's assets, asking her to explain the change in her fortunes. She filed suit against them for $65 million in damages, alleging that the hold on her accounts forced her to sell the property she had bought with Mr Hariri's gift, while the related publicity severed her connection with the Prime Minister. Candice van der Merwe said she had an "engaging personality", according to court documents The court records filed as a result put the details into the public domain. As Mr Hariri gave Ms van der Merwe the money between his two terms as Prime Minister, while not in office, he does not appear to have broken any Lebanese or South African laws. There are no allegations that the money was linked to public funds, and Mr Hariri, whose personal wealth was estimated at $1.5bn US by Forbes magazine in 2018, is clearly wealthy enough to have sent the transactions from his private accounts. Staff at Hariri-owned English-language newspaper The Daily Star say they have not been paid their salaries in nearly four months. Several have left as a result, leaving the publication severely understaffed. The news of Mr Hariri's gift came as Moody's credit rating agency announced it has placed Lebanon's already low credit rating "under review for a downgrade." On Sunday protests against the failing economy and inadequate infrastructure turned violent in the capital Beirut, as protesters blocked roads and set fire to tires. Mr Hariri has not responded to the reports.
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| Giuliani’s Ukraine Work Tied to Firm Whose Website Has Vanished Posted: 02 Oct 2019 07:37 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The website of the consulting firm that forged business contacts for Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine and Russia for more than a decade vanished suddenly after his communications were subpoenaed.Giuliani was dubbed "America's Mayor" because of his New York City perch in the days after 9/11, but later he built a lucrative career in the private sector as a foreign security consultant.The genesis of many of those foreign connections was TriGlobal Strategic Ventures. The firm was set up in the U.S. in 2003 by a group of Russians and emigres from the former Soviet Union. Using the group's network, Giuliani amassed security contracts around the globe, which continued even after he became the U.S. president's unpaid lawyer last year.On Tuesday, the company's website reverted to "TGSV – Coming Soon." On Wednesday morning, after this article was published, the site was restored, though sometimes hard to reach.Giuliani's contracts, and who paid for them, are now coming under heavy scrutiny by Congress as it tries to trace his shadow diplomatic work for President Donald Trump in Ukraine. House Democrats have demanded documents and communications among Giuliani, TriGlobal and its co-founder and president, Vitaly Pruss, going back to the beginning of the Trump presidency. Pruss has played a pivotal role in connecting Giuliani to the Ukrainians who make up the backbone of the House's subpoena request.The Democrats are moving quickly with their impeachment inquiry of Trump over his request that Ukraine investigate a political rival.Another ConnectionAnother TriGlobal connection emerged on Tuesday. A member of the firm's advisory board said in an interview with Bloomberg News that he was the one who invited Giuliani to a conference in Armenia where President Vladimir Putin of Russia spoke, along with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Giuliani had planned to speak but withdrew from the event after the public disclosure of his plans and those of the Russian president.TriGlobal's website once provided more information about that board member, Ara Abramyan. A biography in June 2016 listed him as a "very close adviser to the Russian government's inner circle including the President and the Prime Minister." The description disappeared from the site the next year.Reached by phone and asked about the TriGlobal connection, Giuliani continued to direct attention elsewhere, namely on Trump's political rival. "This is a diversion," he told Bloomberg News. "TriGlobal is totally insignificant."Giuliani's work with TriGlobal dates to at least 2005, when the firm arranged for him to meet in New York with representatives of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works PJSC, the Russian steel producer. TriGlobal has offices in New York, London, Moscow, Kyiv, Zurich and Vienna. No one answered any of the phone numbers listed, and most weren't working.Some of Giuliani's foreign contacts were chronicled in a whistle-blower complaint that touched off the congressional inquiry. According to the complaint and a rough record of a phone conversation provided by the White House, Trump asked Ukraine's new president to dig up dirt on a leading Democrat presidential contender, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, and said twice that Giuliani would follow up. Giuliani had publicly called for such an action and met with various Ukrainian prosecutors. He also peddled discredited conspiracy theories involving the origins of the Mueller probe into Russian election interference.Armenian ConferenceThe Armenian conference he was scheduled to attend was organized with the support of Russia's Ministry of Trade and Industry; the Armenian government; Rostec State Corp., Russia's main defense contractor; and the Eurasian Economic Union, which Putin started as a counterweight to the European Union.Giuliani was due to speak on a panel with Sergei Glazyev, a Kremlin adviser sanctioned by the U.S. over his role in Russia's annexation of Crimea. Giuliani spoke after Glazyev at last year's conference, but said in an interview earlier this year that he had never met him.Abramyan, an Armenian who says he spends time in Moscow, Europe and the U.S., denied that Giuliani's cancellation this year had anything to do with Putin's appearance. "We never paid him for a speech or for a visit," Abramyan said on the sidelines of the conference in Yerevan. "He agreed to come as my friend, my good friend."He declined to discuss whether anyone else paid Giuliani to attend.Abramyan said he met Giuliani decades ago when Giuliani was a federal prosecutor in New York. At the time, Abramyan asked him for an introduction to the late New York district attorney Robert Morgenthau, whose father was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I.Abramyan's Russian ties are deep. His company, JSC Soglasye, worked on the reconstruction of the Kremlin years ago.A spokesman for the Kremlin didn't reply to questions on Abramyan.Consulting WorkPruss has worked as a consultant for Transneft PJSC, Russia's state-owned oil pipeline operator, and a host of Russian companies, according to his biography on the TriGlobal website before it disappeared. He worked closely with Giuliani from 2008 to 2011, the site said. He declined to comment when approached at the conference in Yerevan.They have a more recent connection, as well. Giuliani's 2017 consulting contract in Ukraine, advising the mayor of the eastern city of Kharkiv, was paid for mostly by a local oligarch named Pavel Fuks.According to Fuks, Pruss was their connection."I've known Pruss for a long time," Fuks said in an interview earlier this year. "During the financial crisis, he proposed I buy some distressed assets in America."The House is seeking Giuliani's communications with Pruss, Fuks and Gennady Kernes, the mayor of Kharkiv, along with an extended list of current and former Ukrainian politicians and prosecutors.Another is Semyon Kislin, a Ukrainian-born entrepreneur who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s. Kislin was a political bundler for Giuliani's campaigns for mayor of New York in the 1990s, and Giuliani named him to the board of the city's Economic Development Corp.Kislin visited Kyiv in August and contacted Serhiy Shefir to congratulate him on his appointment as a close staffer of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, his lawyer confirmed to Bloomberg. Kislin has for years had conversations with Ukrainian officials about his investments in the country, for which he is seeking repayment.A spokesman for Zelenskiy didn't respond to requests for comment. Kislin's lawyer said he had received a request. "I believe that Mr. Kislin has no information regarding any subject that is relevant to the pending inquiry," wrote Jeffrey Dannenberg, of the New York law firm Kestenbaum, Dannenberg & Klein.The House also wants to see all of Giuliani's communications with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, Ukrainian emigres who worked in Kyiv over the past year to dig up incriminating information on the Bidens. They're executives at an energy company that donated $325,000 last year to a pro-Trump super PAC. The donation prompted a complaint by a non-profit watch dog accusing the company and the two businessmen of violating campaign finance laws.(Updates with restored TriGlobal website.)\--With assistance from Caleb Melby and Polly Mosendz.To contact the reporters on this story: Stephanie Baker in London at stebaker@bloomberg.net;Sara Khojoyan in Yerevan at skhojoyan@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Winnie O'Kelley at wokelley@bloomberg.net, David S. JoachimFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Europe praises Ukraine deal, but opposition sees a betrayal Posted: 02 Oct 2019 02:19 AM PDT  Russia and European powers, eager to end a protracted military conflict in eastern Ukraine, on Wednesday welcomed the new accord between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists but many in Ukraine dismissed it as a capitulation to Moscow. In the deal signed Tuesday with the separatists, Ukraine, Russia and European mediators pledged to hold local elections in Ukraine's rebel-held east, where a grinding five-year conflict between the separatists and Ukrainian troops has killed more than 13,000 people.
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| China’s new missiles could reach U.S. in 30 minutes Posted: 01 Oct 2019 04:12 AM PDT  Military planners in Washington and elsewhere will be taking note of new missile technology displayed by China, particularly a hypersonic ballistic nuclear missile believed capable of breaching all existing anti-missile shields deployed by the U.S. and its allies.
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| China May Soon Have Aircraft Carrier Killer Hypersonic Missiles Posted: 01 Oct 2019 07:02 PM PDT  Sooner than you think.
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| A teen died by suicide after being outed online. His family worries the DA is 'anti-gay' Posted: 01 Oct 2019 02:47 PM PDT  Channing Smith, 16, died by suicide after two teens outed him on social media. His family is worried that the county DA could affect the case.
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| Outcry as Pakistan appoints new envoy to UN Posted: 01 Oct 2019 03:00 AM PDT  A decision by Pakistan to appoint a former diplomat as its ambassador to the United Nations has sparked criticism over his alleged involvement in a domestic violence dispute in 2002. Munir Akram "has been appointed as Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in New York, in place of Dr. Maleeha Lodhi," the country's ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement late Monday. Akram served a previous stint in the post from 2002 to 2008.
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| Mouse falls from White House ceiling into man's lap Posted: 02 Oct 2019 12:15 AM PDT  Reporters got a surprise when a mouse fell from the ceiling at the White House.The rodent fell onto the lap of NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander yesterday morning, before eventually seeking refuge amid a tangle of wires behind a shelf.
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| UPDATE 2-Iran's Rouhani says French plan for talks broadly is acceptable Posted: 02 Oct 2019 02:55 AM PDT ![UPDATE 2-Iran's Rouhani says French plan for talks broadly is acceptable]( "UPDATE 2-Iran's Rouhani says French plan for talks broadly is acceptable") A plan for talks presented to the United States and Iran by French President Emmanuel Macron is broadly acceptable to the Islamic Republic, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday during a cabinet meeting that was broadcast live on state TV. It would also allow Iran to immediately resume oil sales.
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| In Death Penalty Cases, Sotomayor Is Alone in 'Bearing Witness' Posted: 30 Sep 2019 12:50 PM PDT  WASHINGTON -- The terse Supreme Court rulings arrived in the evening, in time to allow an execution later that night. There were three rulings in the last month or so, at 5:52 p.m., at 7:01 p.m. and at 10:13 p.m. They were bland and formulaic, saying only that the court had denied an "application for stay of execution of sentence of death." The inmates who had filed the applications were put to death within hours. In all three cases, only one member of the court bothered to write an opinion, to give a hint about what was at stake. That was Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who maintains a sort of vigil in the capital cases other justices treat as routine. She described shortcomings in the trials the inmates had received and oddities in the laws the courts below had applied. "She's bearing witness," said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University. On Wednesday, for instance, she wrote about the trial of Robert Sparks, in Texas in 2008. One of the bailiffs had worn a black tie embroidered with a white syringe, later admitting that he wanted to express his support for the death penalty. "That an officer of the court conducted himself in such a manner is deeply troubling," Sotomayor wrote. But, with seeming reluctance, she said the Supreme Court was right not to intervene in the case. A lower court considering a challenge to Sparks' death sentence, she wrote, "did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that the jury saw the tie." Still, Sotomayor said the trial judge should have done more. "Presiding judges aware of this kind of behavior would see fit to intervene in future cases by completely removing the offending item or court officer from the jury's presence," she wrote. "Only this will ensure the 'very dignity and decorum of judicial proceedings' they are entrusted to uphold," she wrote, quoting an earlier decision. "The stakes -- life in this case, liberty in many others -- are too high to allow anything less." There is a precedent for Sotomayor's attention to capital cases, said Jordan M. Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas and an author, with Carol S. Steiker, of "Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment." "Justice Sotomayor is carrying forward the tradition of Justices Brennan and Marshall," Steiker said, referring to Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall, who came to adopt a practice of dissenting in every death penalty case. Earlier in September, Sotomayor indicated that the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, in New Orleans, had read a Supreme Court precedent too narrowly in rejecting the possibility that some challenges to death sentences could ever be reopened in light of changes in the law. But she said the appeals court's decision had not turned on that point and she did not dissent from the Supreme Court's decision not to intervene. Instead, she looked forward. "In an appropriate case," she wrote, "this issue could warrant the court's review." She made a similar point in August, criticizing a "Kafkaesque procedural rule" in Florida. The rule, she wrote, served to thwart a 2014 Supreme Court decision, Hall v. Florida, that struck down as too rigid the IQ score cutoff Florida used to decide which intellectually disabled individuals must be spared the death penalty. Sotomayor wrote that the state's highest court had performed a strange two-step in enforcing the Hall decision. "With one hand, the Florida Supreme Court recognized that such intellectually disabled prisoners sentenced before Hall have a right to challenge their executions," she wrote. "With the other hand, however, the Florida Supreme Court has turned away prisoners seeking to vindicate this retroactive constitutional rule for the first time, by requiring them to have brought their Hall claims in 2004 -- a full decade before Hall itself was decided." Here, too, though, she stopped short of dissenting. "In an appropriate case, however," she wrote, "I would be prepared to revisit a challenge to Florida's procedural rule." In other capital cases, Sotomayor dissented outright, again writing only for herself. In May, she said the court should have heard a case from Tennessee in which condemned prisoners sought to show that the chemicals the state aimed to use in their executions would cause excruciating pain. The inmates faced two hurdles, Sotomayor wrote. First, the Supreme Court had required them to propose a less painful alternative method of execution. This was, she wrote, "perverse." Second, she wrote, there was "the added perversity of the secrecy laws that Tennessee imposes on death-row prisoners," denying them access to information that could help them make their cases. "Because I continue to believe that the alternative method requirement is fundamentally wrong -- and particularly so when compounded by secrecy laws like Tennessee's -- I dissent," she wrote. Sotomayor's sustained attention to the capital justice system, Steiker said, was part of an effort to speak to many audiences. "She recognizes the institutional limits of the court in correcting every injustice or every misreading of federal law, yet she wants to communicate the wrongness of those injustices and misreadings despite the court's inability to intervene," Steiker said. "Justice Sotomayor is speaking to institutional actors -- judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers -- to make clear that the court, or least some portion of it, is keenly aware of problems that it is not presently able to correct."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| The son of a late Deutsche Bank executive, who has a stash of secret bank records, has spoken to investigators probing Trump Posted: 02 Oct 2019 04:02 AM PDT  Val Broeksmit has cooperated with FBI agents probing Deutsche Bank, after finding a trove of his late father's documents.
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| Ukraine agrees to election in separatist-controlled east Posted: 01 Oct 2019 02:16 PM PDT  Ukraine on Tuesday signed much-anticipated accords with separatists from the country's east, Russia and European monitors that agree a local election can be held in separatist-controlled territory, paving the way for peace talks with Moscow. The signing at a meeting in the Belarusian capital of Minsk was largely seen as the new Ukrainian government taking a major step toward resolving the prolonged armed conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people and displaced more than 1 million since 2014. Ukrainian nationalists protested the development, with hundreds gathering on Kyiv's Maidan, the square that symbolizes Ukraine's resistance to Russian influence.
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| 10 Home Prep Tips Before Going on Vacation Posted: 01 Oct 2019 03:28 PM PDT |
| DANGER AHEAD: China's Six Carrier Navy Is Just Around the Corner Posted: 01 Oct 2019 09:22 PM PDT  Will it tilt the balance against local U.S. forces?
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| Motorists see pornographic images on Michigan highway billboard Posted: 01 Oct 2019 08:25 AM PDT ![Motorists see pornographic images on Michigan highway billboard]( "Motorists see pornographic images on Michigan highway billboard") Police say charges could be filed against the person or persons responsible for the graphic images on Interstate 75 in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
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| Modi hails toilet 'milestone' as India marks Gandhi's 150th Posted: 02 Oct 2019 09:49 AM PDT  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday declared the country of 1.3 billion people free of open defecation, and turned his sights towards eradicating single-use plastic next. Modi -- whose claim has been challenged by experts -- made his ambitious "latrines for all" pledge when he first took office in 2014 and his announcement late Wednesday coincided with the 150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, an icon not just for Indian independence but also sanitation. "In 60 months, 600 million people have been given access to toilets, more than 110 million toilets have been built," Modi said in a speech to 20,000 village chiefs in western Ahmedabad city in his and Gandhi's home state of Gujarat.
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| R Kelly complains about not being able to see more than one girlfriend at a time in jail Posted: 01 Oct 2019 01:38 AM PDT  R Kelly has apparently included not being able to see more than one girlfriend at a time as one of the reasons he should be granted bail.According to the Chicago Tribune, Kelly's lawyers have asked the judge in the singer's New York federal case to reconsider after he was refused bail in July.
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| What the Next Democratic President Has in Store for Us, with or without Congress Posted: 01 Oct 2019 08:14 AM PDT  The betting market PredictIt gives the Democrats about a 60 percent chance of capturing the presidency next year. Their odds of winning the Senate are only about one in three, however — meaning that in the event of a Trump loss, conservatives could feel the relief of sweet, sweet gridlock as Congress simply refuses to pass Medicare for All and zillion-dollar handouts to college grads.But there is good reason to temper your optimism about such a scenario: Congress has handed over to the executive branch a frighteningly broad ability to make laws by itself. The campaign has given us some previews of this — Kamala Harris wants to go after guns and Elizabeth Warren would target fracking, whether Congress likes it or not — though the candidates have mostly been focused on their biggest and most expensive pieces of proposed legislation.Last week, however, the liberal American Prospect rolled out a series of articles proposing a meaty "Day One Agenda" for the next Democrat in charge of the White House. This president could roll back Trump's deregulatory efforts, bring backed stalled Obama initiatives, and launch government giveaways and major assaults on business, all without the legislative branch's help. Read it and weep.Think it would take a vote in Congress to cancel "almost all" student debt? Think again, says Marcia Brown. Citing a forthcoming law-review article by Luke Herrine, Brown notes a provision of federal law giving the Department of Education the authority to "compromise, waive, or release" claims against student borrowers. While other actors in the executive branch (the attorney general and the Office of Management and Budget) might have to sign off, the department could in theory use this authority to simply stop collecting student debt.Think Trump got us out of Obama's Clean Power Plan for good? You shouldn't, Ben Adler says. The next president could take us back down that path. And since carbon emissions are far lower today than anyone expected — thanks to fracking and other technological improvements — the next president could "go further and increase the rule's ambition."Think the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a done deal, so long as Democrats don't have enough votes in Congress to undermine it? Nope, writes Victor Fleischer. The IRS can't repeal the law, but it can aggressively reinterpret many of its provisions, not to mention provisions in the rest of our enormous tax code, in ways that affect the taxation of huge sums of money.There's lots more: A Democratic president could go after drug companies by threatening to let generics manufacturers make patented drugs, create "postal banking" by executive fiat, bring back aggressive antitrust enforcement against the biggest and most successful companies, and make pot "effectively legal."Okay, that last one I'm fine with. But how do we stop the rest?One way would have been for Republicans to rein in the executive branch in the two years they controlled Congress, albeit without a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate, but that didn't happen. Another would be to hold the White House, or at least luck into a moderate Democrat not eager to test the limits of executive power. Once a Democratic president actually starts trying this stuff, though, the issue will fall to the courts. (There's yet another article about that!)The easiest way to argue against an abuse of executive power is to say that the relevant statute passed by Congress doesn't actually authorize it. Though courts have typically given executive agencies broad deference when it comes to interpreting laws, many conservative judges have shown signs that they want to reverse this trend. Some of the actions outlined above do fall well within the discretion Congress has handed over to the executive branch, but the more aggressive ones go far beyond anything Congress anticipated when passing the laws in question.In some situations, such as when the president simply refuses to enforce a law, it can also be argued that the president is violating the Constitution's command that he "take care" to faithfully execute the laws. But there's very little precedent for such cases, and it can be difficult to find someone harmed by the action with standing to sue, or to distinguish a failure to "take care" from normal discretion regarding how laws are executed.Then there's the big kahuna: The "nondelegation doctrine," which holds that Congress can't delegate its constitutional lawmaking authority to the president, at least not when it comes to key policy decisions as opposed to filling in minor details. This doctrine has sat dormant for decades, but the Supreme Court's conservatives are interested in reviving it. The question is how far they would be willing to take it, and to what degree they would treat new expansions of executive power differently from old ones.In an opinion this year, liberal justice Elena Kagan remarked that if the conservatives on the Court were right and the delegation of power at issue in the case was unconstitutional, then "most of Government" would be unconstitutional. (The conservatives lost the case 5–3, but Brett Kavanaugh recused himself, and Samuel Alito voted with the liberals despite wanting to reconsider the nondelegation doctrine in a different case, presumably one where Kavanaugh could create a five-conservative majority.) Kagan's fears are music to my ears, but I bet at least one conservative justice flakes before they are anywhere close to realized, not least because the conservative dissent to the opinion in which she voiced them takes pains to specify that even under the nondelegation doctrine, Congress may, for example, "authorize executive-branch officials to fill in even a large number of details."Still, conservatives could find themselves relying on the judicial branch a whole lot in the years ahead. In the event that a liberal Democrat takes the White House and pushes executive power past the limit, we could be saying "but Gorsuch and Kavanaugh!" for far longer than anyone thought.
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| UPDATE 1-Johnson proposes to leave N.Ireland in special relationship with EU until 2025-Telegraph Posted: 01 Oct 2019 04:34 PM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Johnson proposes to leave N.Ireland in special relationship with EU until 2025-Telegraph]( "UPDATE 1-Johnson proposes to leave N.Ireland in special relationship with EU until 2025-Telegraph") British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's new Brexit plan will leave Northern Ireland in a special relationship with Europe until 2025, the Telegraph newspaper reported on Tuesday. The plan, which will be unveiled on Wednesday, means Northern Ireland will remain in large parts of the European Union single market until at least 2025 but the province will leave the EU customs union along with the rest of the UK, according to the report. Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist party (DUP) is largely "content" with the proposals, the Guardian reported separately, adding that the plan is supported by DUP leader Arlene Foster.
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| Americans really want the US to adopt renewable energy like wind and solar power, while rejecting fossil fuels like coal Posted: 01 Oct 2019 10:03 AM PDT  A new Insider poll found shows Americans strongly favor cleaner sources of energy over fossil fuels. Its a belief that transcends party lines.
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| CBS News poll: Majority of Americans, Democrats approve impeachment inquiry Posted: 30 Sep 2019 12:33 PM PDT  More than half of Americans — and an overwhelming number of Democrats — say they approve of the fact that Congress has opened an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. But as the inquiry begins, there is no national consensus on how to assess the president's actions.
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| Taliban send high-level delegation to Islamabad Posted: 02 Oct 2019 04:05 AM PDT  The Taliban announced Wednesday they are sending a high-level delegation to Pakistan's capital as part of a tour that has included Russia, China and Iran in a push to resurrect an Afghanistan peace deal with Washington that seemed imminent just a month ago. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban and head of their political office in Qatar, will lead the 11-member delegation during talks with Pakistani officials in Islamabad. Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington's special peace envoy, is also in the Pakistani capital for "consultations" wiwth the Pakistani leadership, a U.S. official said.
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