| Trump says Ukraine envoy Yovanovitch wouldn't hang his picture. Fact check: There was no official portrait for most of 2017. Posted: 22 Nov 2019 10:46 AM PST  "She is in charge of the embassy," the president said on "Fox & Friends" Friday morning. "She wouldn't hang it. It look a year and a half or two years to get the picture up."
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| Alabama sheriff shot and killed while answering a call; suspect arrested Posted: 24 Nov 2019 03:30 AM PST  Several law enforcement sources confirmed that Lowndes County Sheriff "Big John" Williams was answering a call at a convenience store when he was shot.
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| Duterte Fires Vice President from Post on Anti-Drug Body Posted: 24 Nov 2019 04:54 AM PST ![Duterte Fires Vice President from Post on Anti-Drug Body]( "Duterte Fires Vice President from Post on Anti-Drug Body") (Bloomberg) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has fired Vice President Leni Robredo from a government body against illegal drugs, less than three weeks after appointing her to help run it.Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea confirmed Duterte's decision, which was first reported by CNN Philippines.Robredo, who was elected separately from the president and heads the opposition Liberal Party, accepted Duterte's appointment to co-chair the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs on Nov. 6. Duterte's decision to fire Robredo came days after saying that he couldn't trust the vice president because she was from the opposition.The 74-year old Philippine leader, who's been criticized for a drug war that has killed thousands of people, dared Robredo last month to run his campaign after the vice president urged a review of the program.Since accepting the post, Robredo has called for the rehabilitation of drug users instead of going after them through police operations that have killed thousands of suspects. She has also met with officials from the U.S. and the United Nations to discuss best practices in solving the country's illegal drug problem.Robredo has also asked a Philippine government drug enforcement agency for data including a list of high-value targets, a request that Duterte's camp has rejected.Robredo was housing secretary at the start of Duterte's six-year term in June 2016 but left before the end of that year, after she was told not to attend cabinet meetings.\--With assistance from Andreo Calonzo.To contact the reporter on this story: Clarissa Batino in Manila at cbatino@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, Karen Leigh, Sara MarleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Democrat Candidates Talk Memes and Marijuana in Mock Saturday Night Live Debate Posted: 24 Nov 2019 07:43 AM PST  It featured a number of special guests playing Democratic candidates
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| New documents show contact between Giuliani and Pompeo Posted: 23 Nov 2019 07:26 AM PST  Documents released Friday show President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was in contact with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the months before the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was recalled.
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| Ageing Japan bomb survivors back pope's anti-nukes call Posted: 23 Nov 2019 04:53 PM PST  Kenji Hayashida thought about committing suicide in the years after an atomic bomb was dropped on his hometown of Nagasaki. On Sunday he will hear Pope Francis call there for a world without nuclear weapons, a message 81-year-old supports passionately. Like many ageing survivors of the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Hayashida hopes the pope can bring fresh international attention to the cause of nuclear abolition, and also keep alive the memory of the devastating bombings.
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| Ex-CIA Officer Sentenced to 19 Years in Chinese Espionage Conspiracy Posted: 23 Nov 2019 07:29 AM PST  ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A former CIA officer was sentenced Friday to 19 years in prison for conspiring to deliver classified information to China in a case that touched on the mysterious unraveling of the agency's informant network in China but did little to solve it.The former officer, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 55, pleaded guilty in May to conspiring with Chinese intelligence agents starting in 2010, after he left the agency. Prosecutors detailed a long financial paper trail that they said showed that Lee received more than $840,000 for his work.Lee, an Army veteran, worked for the CIA from 1994 to 2007, including in China. After he resigned, he formed a tobacco company in Hong Kong with an associate who had ties to the Chinese intelligence community. Lee then began meeting with agents from China's Ministry of State Security, who assigned him tasks he admitted to taking on and offered to "take care of him for life."While working in Hong Kong in 2010, Lee reapplied for employment with the CIA but misled U.S. officials repeatedly in interviews about his dealings with Chinese intelligence officers and the source of his income.Around the time Lee began speaking to Chinese agents, the CIA was rocked by major setbacks in China as its once-robust espionage network there began to fall apart. Between 2010 and 2012, dozens of CIA informants in China disappeared, either jailed or killed, embroiling the agency in an internal debate about how Chinese intelligence officers had identified the informants. Many within the agency came to believe that a mole had exposed U.S. informants, and Lee became a main suspect.But FBI agents who investigated whether he was the culprit passed on an opportunity to arrest him in the United States in 2013, allowing him to travel back to Hong Kong even after finding classified information in his luggage. FBI agents had also covertly entered a hotel room Lee occupied in 2012, finding handwritten notes detailing the names and numbers of at least eight CIA sources that he had handled in his capacity as a case officer.The investigators apparently decided that by continuing to quietly monitor Lee, they might glean more clues about the disappearing CIA informants in China. But even after his arrest in 2018 on the same charge the CIA was prepared to bring in 2013, they were unable to determine whether Lee was involved in the disclosures to Chinese intelligence operatives.Because of Lee's plea agreement, in which he admitted to one count of possessing information classified as secret -- a lower level than top secret -- prosecutors asked for a relatively lighter sentence of roughly 22 to 27 years, rather than life in prison.But prosecutors argued that even if Lee never turned over information to Chinese intelligence officers, the fact that he shared his knowledge of U.S. intelligence work with Chinese agents alone could have a chilling effect on the CIA's source-building efforts."It makes it difficult to recruit people in the future if they know the CIA isn't protecting their people," said Adam L. Small, a federal prosecutor in Northern Virginia, where Lee was charged. "These are people who put their names and lives in his hands."The sentence for Lee is the latest in a string of recent cases in which U.S. intelligence workers have been handed lengthy prison terms for espionage connected to China. In announcing Lee's sentence, Judge T.S. Ellis III said that a hefty sentence was necessary to deter others from jeopardizing U.S. intelligence.In May, another CIA case officer, Kevin Patrick Mallory was sentenced to 20 years in prison for selling classified documents to a Chinese intelligence officer for $25,000. Ellis, who presided over that case as well, decided that a life sentence for Mallory was excessively harsh even though prosecutors showed he successfully transmitted secret information.In September, Ron Rockwell Hansen, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, received 10 years in prison for attempting to pass along defense secrets.Lee's lawyers argued that the largely circumstantial case against him was considerably weaker than others in which defendants were charged with espionage, and that speculating that the unexplained payments he received were compensation for information that harmed CIA operations was "a bridge too far."Although Lee pleaded guilty to conspiring with Chinese agents, lawyers on both sides conceded that there was no direct evidence that Lee ever provided any of the classified information in his possession to the Chinese government. The CIA has not shown that the sources listed in Lee's notes faced retribution or harm, Lee's lawyers said."What the government is describing is their worst possible nightmare," said Nina J. Ginsberg, one of Lee's lawyers.In announcing the sentence, Ellis said he was not convinced that Lee's interactions with Chinese intelligence officers were benign, and that it is common in espionage cases to never fully uncover the extent of illicit dealings.While he acknowledged that Lee, a naturalized citizen born in Hong Kong, had done a great deal with his life as an American -- four years in the Army, a 13-year career with the CIA -- Ellis appeared unmoved."That gets erased," he said, "when you betray your country."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Sorry Mr. President, Americans Get Arrested More Often Than DACA Applicants Posted: 23 Nov 2019 05:00 AM PST  The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has released a new report.
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| Ivanka Trump defends father with fake impeachment quote Posted: 23 Nov 2019 08:25 AM PST  First daughter attributed quote on 'decline of public morals' to Alexis de Tocqueville as historians point out message was paraphrase from his text * Impeach: Neal Katyal makes strong case against TrumpIvanka Trump in Rabat, Morocco, on 8 November. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/APWhen is a quote from a historical figure not to be trusted? When it is tweeted by a Trump.In truth, all historical quotes tweeted out by politicians should be treated with the caution of the most stringent factchecker – and regularly are, particularly when the words in question are supposedly by Winston Churchill.Nonetheless, this week Ivanka Trump fell into a familiar trap, provoking widespread glee.On Thursday evening, after a final (for now) dramatic day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against her father, the first daughter wrote: "'A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them from office.'"Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835."> "A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them from office." > > Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835> > — Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) November 21, 2019Democrats say Donald Trump abused the powers of his office when he pressured Ukraine to investigate a political rival and a baseless conspiracy theory about interference in the 2016 election.Republicans say the charges are a sham and the hearings a political circus designed to bring down a president without recourse to the ballot box.So Ivanka's tweet was on message. But, alas, it wasn't Tocqueville.As historians with Twitter accounts made clear, it was in fact a paraphrase drawn from the Frenchman's seminal work Democracy in America, which was published between 1835 and 1840 and is, according to the Guardian's Nicholas Lezard, "still relevant [as] everyone can find something in it that is recognisably correct".The incorrect lines Ivanka found were from the 1889 book American Constitutional Law by John Innes Clark Hare.It was also swiftly determined that Trump had most likely not found the 130-year-old lines on Google Books, or even while paging through a dusty tome ordered from the Library of Congress in order to mine the history of her father's predicament for aperçus fit to toss over canapés at some Kalorama or Georgetown salon.Instead, Innes Clark Hare's words were published on the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal on 25 October, under the headline "This impeachment subverts the constitution".Trump was at least in good company: as a WSJ correction now makes clear, the two constitutional lawyers who wrote the piece in question also misattributed the quote, thanks in part to its appearance under Tocqueville's name in Deschler's Precedents of the United States House of Representatives, a catchily titled leviathan by House parliamentarian Lewis Deschler published in 1977.As of Saturday morning, the tweet remained on Ivanka's Twitter page. If she fancied any further reading, Twitter was of course happy to supply it.Joshua D Rothman, a history professor at the University of Alabama, was among those who pointed out that Innes Clark Hare deployed the paraphrase of Tocqueville in writing about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. That process, in 1868, saw the venal and unpopular 17th president avoid removal from office by one vote in a Senate trial."The actual quote in context claims Andrew Johnson was wronged," Rothman wrote. It was now being used, he added, by a woman he called "a beneficiary of nepotism in defense of a man who settled what is only his most recent fraud case less than two weeks ago".A portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville, by Theodore Chasseriau. Photograph: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/AlamyTocqueville's masterwork, meanwhile, contains lines about another president which may seem quotable to readers consumed with the impeachment inquiry.In volume one, the Frenchman quotes "the first newspaper over which I cast my eyes, upon my arrival in America", and its judgment of Andrew Jackson.Students of the history of the Trump administration will recall that former White House strategist Steve Bannon encouraged Trump to see himself as a populist successor to Jackson; that Trump claimed both to have read a biography of Jackson and that Jackson would have prevented the civil war, which began 16 years after his death; that the 45th president visited the slave-owning seventh's home near Nashville, Tennessee; and that Trump keeps Jackson's portrait in the Oval Office.The article quoted by De Tocqueville calls Jackson a "heartless despot solely occupied with the preservation of his own authority" and adds:> Ambition is his crime, and it will be his punishment too: intrigue is his native element, and intrigue will confound his tricks, and will deprive him of his power: he governs by means of corruption, and his immoral practices will redound to his shame and confusion. His conduct in the political arena has been that of a shameless and lawless gamester. He succeeded at the time, but the hour of retribution approaches, and he will be obliged to disgorge his winnings, to throw aside his false dice, and to end his days in some retirement, where he may curse his madness at his leisure; for repentance is a virtue with which his heart is likely to remain forever unacquainted.
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| US military loses drone over Libyan capital Posted: 22 Nov 2019 10:11 PM PST ![US military loses drone over Libyan capital]( "US military loses drone over Libyan capital") The U.S. military said Friday it lost an unmanned drone aircraft over the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where rival armed groups have been fighting for control of the city for months. The U.S. Africa Command said the drone was lost Thursday while assessing the security situation and monitoring extremist activity. Since 2015, Libya has been divided between two governments, one based in Tripoli and the other in the country's east.
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| She Texted About Dinner While Driving. Then a Pedestrian Was Dead. Posted: 23 Nov 2019 07:17 AM PST  FREEHOLD, N.J. -- One woman was out for a walk and a taste of fresh air during a break from her job as a scientist at a New Jersey fragrance manufacturer. She and her husband had been trying to get pregnant, and brief bouts of exercise, away from the laboratory's smells and fumes, were part of that plan.A second woman was behind the wheel of a black Mercedes-Benz, headed to work as chief executive of a nonprofit in a city that had once lauded her as civic leader of the year for her extensive work with troubled youth.Their lives collided with devastating speed in the coastal town of Keansburg just before 8:20 on a Wednesday morning, leaving the woman out for a walk fatally injured and the driver facing a charge of vehicular homicide, accused of texting while driving.On Friday, a jury found the driver, Alexandra Mansonet, guilty of vehicular homicide in a case that was believed to be the first time a New Jersey jury was asked to apply a 2012 law that places texting while driving on par with drunken driving.The case has focused attention on the nationwide crisis of distracted driving, as well as how rare and difficult prosecutions can be."It's a relatively new issue," said Kara Macek, a spokeswoman for the national Governors Highway Safety Association. "In fatal crashes, it's much more difficult to obtain evidence that a driver was distracted."Mansonet's car had plowed into the back of a Toyota Corolla not far from her home, just past a bridge that crosses over a creek that spills into the nearby bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The Corolla then hit the woman who had been out for a walk, sending her flying into the air.Mansonet, 50, testified that she had looked down to turn on a rear-window defogger just before the Sept. 28, 2016, crash. "I looked up and the car was right in front of me," she said.She faces up to 10 years in prison when she is sentenced.When the foreman of the jury, which had deliberated for 2 1/2 days, read the one-word verdict, "guilty," Mansonet placed her left hand to her face and breathed deeply while family members behind her wept. She cried as she exited the courtroom.Her lawyer, Steven Altman, noted how commonplace texting while driving has become. "It's going to be very difficult for her to deal with the fact that at sentencing she could be incarcerated for something we are all guilty of doing on a daily basis," he said.The pedestrian, Yuwen Wang, died days after the collision at a hospital that is next to the courthouse in New Brunswick where she and her husband, Steven Qiu, had said their vows six years earlier. The couple had celebrated their anniversary the night before the crash.Qiu said he and his family were comforted by the verdict. "I'm really grateful," he said, adding, "I hope more people could realize the consequences of texting while driving."His wife's final words to him came in the form of a cheerful but mundane farewell. "Have a good day," Qiu recalled her saying.The text at the heart of the trial was equally ordinary in a culture where streams of shorthand cellphone messages have become ingrained in modern life. "Cuban, American or Mexican. Pick one," Mansonet's former sister-in-law had texted to ask about her preference for dinner choices, the assistant prosecutor, Christopher Decker, said in court.Where and when Mansonet read the text, and when she began to tap out a reply, became central to the trial in Monmouth County Superior Court in Freehold. The prosecutor argued that the unsent text -- the letters "m" and "e" -- were the start of a response about her dinner choice.Mansonet willingly turned her phone over to the police after the crash, Altman said before the verdict. Had she been using her phone to text at the time of the crash, Altman said, "all she had to do was delete it."Mansonet, in testimony, conceded that she had typed the letters "m" and "e" but said she did not remember when. "I thought, 'I'm going to call her up because I don't know if I want Mexican,'" she testified.Wang, 39, was originally from Taiwan and had recently earned her Ph.D. in New Jersey, her husband said. She is among the increasing number of pedestrians killed annually; last year, the nationwide pedestrian death toll of 6,283 approached a three-decade high.New York, in 2001, became the first state to outlaw driver cellphone use.Five years later, the deaths of two scientists in Utah in a texting-related crash helped fuel a nationwide push for stricter laws.Today, 47 states and Washington, D.C., ban text messaging for all drivers. Of the three states without an all-driver texting ban, two prohibit novice drivers from texting and one restricts bus drivers from sending texts.Approximately 10% of the fatal crashes in the country between 2013 and 2017 involved distracted driving, according to data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Of these crashes, about 14% were linked to the use of a cellphone. In 2017, for example, at least 401 of the 2,935 distracted-driving traffic fatalities were tied to cellphone usage.Still, it is difficult to pinpoint the precise number of prosecutions related to fatal crashes and distracted driving.Last year, there were 73 drivers nationwide involved in fatal crashes who were identified as distracted and were charged with crimes unrelated to traffic violations, according to a National Safety Council analysis of data provided by the traffic safety administration.New Jersey state law was amended in 2012 to add the use of hand-held devices to the list of behaviors that may be interpreted as criminally "reckless" and could constitute vehicular homicide.But the Monmouth County case is thought to be the only one of a handful of texting-linked vehicular-homicide charges since then to reach trial, according to two past presidents of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey. Some drivers originally charged with vehicular homicide pleaded guilty to less serious offenses; one woman died before her case reached trial.One female juror declined to talk about the verdict or the closed-door discussions as she left court."This is a tragedy in every respect," Monmouth County's prosecutor, Christopher Gramiccioni, said. "Texting while driving puts drivers and pedestrians in grave danger, and we are hopeful that the jury's verdict will reinforce the public's awareness of this risk."Mansonet, the executive director of the Jewish Renaissance Foundation in Perth Amboy, declined an offer to plead guilty to a charge that would have required a sentence of three to five years in prison, Altman, her lawyer, said.Proving the crime of reckless vehicular homicide can be especially difficult without an admission by a driver, passengers who witness phone use, or video evidence, several lawyers and safety experts said. It is also common for there to be other factors, such as speed or intoxication, that contribute to the accident and are easier to prove."There are challenges to figuring out whether distraction is the root cause of the crash," said Maureen Vogel, a spokeswoman for the National Safety Council, a roadway safety organization.Regardless of Friday's verdict, the publicity generated by the Monmouth County trial has provided a crucial warning to every driver with a cellphone, said Mitchell Ansell, a criminal defense lawyer with 30 years of experience in southern New Jersey."A lot of people are watching this," Ansell said, "and I think it's designed to send a message: You are responsible when you are on the road."For Qiu, who met his wife in Beijing and endured a five-year long-distance relationship as the couple secured green cards, the courtroom testimony was too excruciating to sit through most days.But the renewed focus on the dangers of texting while driving was a small victory, he said in an interview as the jury deliberated."In some sense, my wife's death does become more meaningful," Qiu said. "I have to take some comfort from that."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| South Korea and America Do Not Share the Same Interests Posted: 24 Nov 2019 02:15 AM PST  A big problem.
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| Putin gloats over impeachment probe as Ukraine gets dragged through America's political mud Posted: 23 Nov 2019 07:24 AM PST  In Ukraine, the U.S. impeachment scandal has jeopardized Volodymyr Zelensky's presidency – and his country's future – as much as Donald Trump's.
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| Massive turnout in Hong Kong vote seen as protest referendum Posted: 23 Nov 2019 03:41 PM PST  Voters in Hong Kong turned out in droves on Sunday in district council elections seen as a barometer of public support for pro-democracy protests that have rocked the semi-autonomous Chinese territory for more than five months. The Electoral Affairs Commission did not immediately provide the final turnout rate after voting ended at 10:30 p.m. But an hour earlier, it said that 69% of the city's 4.1 million registered voters had cast ballots. The election was carried out peacefully, with hardly any voters seen wearing protesters' trademark black clothing or face masks.
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| ‘Culture will be eroded’: climate crisis threatens to flood Harriet Tubman park Posted: 22 Nov 2019 11:00 PM PST  Heritage sites associated with abolitionist, including Underground Railroad park, projected to be inundated at high tide by 2050Douglas walks to the rear entrance of New Revived United Methodist church in Taylor's Island, Maryland. Decades ago, the church sat in front of forest, now visible open water and marsh come right to the back side of the historic church. Photograph: Greg Kahn/The GuardianOn the flat, marshy stretches of Maryland's eastern shore, not a huge amount has changed since Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery here 170 years ago. Rivers and streams lace a wedge of land dotted with wood-board churches and small towns. Crabs and oysters are plucked from the adjacent Chesapeake Bay.The climate crisis is set, however, to completely transform low-lying Dorchester county, threatening to submerge some of the key heritage associated with Tubman, the celebrated abolitionist whose daring missions helped free scores of slaves from bondage in her homeland.If planet-warming emissions aren't radically scaled back then swaths of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad national historical park, only established in 2013, will be inundated at high tide by 2050, according to projections by University of Maryland scientists.A $22m (£17m) Tubman visitor centre, completed in 2017, is set to be severely menaced by the rising waters, the analysis finds, along with several churches connected to Tubman and Joseph Stewart's canal, where timber was transported from a business that had enslaved her father.Harriet Tubman Guardian Graphic | Source: Horn Point Lab at the University of Maryland"Dorchester county is a poster child as to what the rest of the world can expect with flooding," said Peter Goodwin, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.The county doesn't rise more than 1.5 metres (5ft) above sea level and is exposed on three sides to the bay, which can act as a funnel to push storms on to the land. The seas could swell by as much as 60cm by 2050, a situation compounded by the fact the land is sinking, a hangover caused by the retreat of ice sheets from the last ice age.Visitors look at a mural of Harriet Tubman called Take My Hand, painted by Michael Rosato, at the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center. Photograph: Greg Kahn/The Guardian"It's worrying," Goodwin said. "The county is beautiful but it's going to look very different. If we can get ahead of things and plan for the future then you can help define what the shoreline will look like. The problem is if you don't do that then people are going to drift away and the culture will be eroded."The situation is causing alarm among those who have highlighted Tubman's legacy. "These landscapes are rapidly vanishing because of climate change," said Kasi Lemmons, director of Harriet, a new film based on Tubman's life. "Losing landmarks such as these underscores the need to protect and preserve the land and our national history for the generations to come."The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad visitor centre, on the edge of Blackwater national wildlife refuge, which is threatened by sea level rise in Church Creek, Maryland. Photograph: Greg Kahn/The GuardianProximity to water for communication, transportation and food has long been intrinsic to Dorchester county but flooding is increasingly chipping away at the routines of day-to-day life. High-tide water lapped in residents' front yards and is now reaching porches. Carelessly parked cars can end up sodden. School buses struggle to get down roads that are in constant repair. The storms are getting fiercer, as the water and atmosphere warms.The encroaching tides now also imperil the cultural touchstones of Tubman's life.The former slave was born in Dorchester county in 1822 and despite suffering a severe head injury managed to escape to Philadelphia as a young woman. She then helped guide more than 70 enslaved people north to freedom via a network of safe houses and routes known as the Underground Railroad.Several locations on the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, a driving loop of important Tubman sites, are already being eroded, according to Tubman's biographer Kate Clifford Larson.Pastor Darlene Dixon of the New Revived United Methodist church in Taylor's Island. Photograph: Greg Kahn/The Guardian"We're not going to have those landscapes to tell those amazing stories if something doesn't happen quickly," Larson said. "In the 20 years I've been to these sites I've seen them start to disappear because of the water seeping in."Some of the roads become impassable and you have to wait out until the water recedes. And some of the precious, really precious, African-American historical and cultural sites are at the most danger right now because they are in the lowest-lying areas."Larson frets about where the resources will come to protect places such as the New Revived Methodist church in Smithville, in the heart of Tubman's former community that often has a waterlogged graveyard. "They are going to need to move the graves and that costs a lot of money," she said. "It's frightening how quickly these sites are becoming threatened."The Rev Darlene Dixon has only been the pastor of the New Revived for five months but has already experienced being temporarily cut off from her church by a storm that pushed 15cm of water on to the roads and on to the cemetery."People are concerned, and naturally I am, too," Dixon said. "The biggest part of their angst the unknown – which storm, which high tide will cause major damage." Dixon said a seawall may have to be erected to protect the church but that may not stop the surrounding community, already one of the poorest in Maryland, crumbling away as the flooding intensifies.The Joseph Stewart canal is a seven-mile waterway dug by hand by free and enslaved blacks between 1810 and 1832 as a way to ship timber and other agricultural products to ships in the bay. Photograph: Greg Kahn/The Guardian"People here have big hearts but there are not many people left in the community because they want to make a living. There's the fear of the water too," she said. "We are seeing change occur before our eyes."The National Park Service, which oversees the Tubman park, is putting together an assessment of the threats it faces. Deanna Mitchell, the park superintendent, said she reassures tourists that the visitor centre has been built on a relatively elevated piece of land with sea-level rise in mind."It's a beautiful facility and the landscape is beautiful, too," she said. "Every time I go to work I'm immediately in a mode of reflection. I see that with visitors, too."I'm optimistic that we can address whatever comes our way if people can come together on this. We are nine miles away from Chesapeake Bay, which gives us a sort of buffer. But that's not a cure-all. There's no way to deny that there's sea-level rise."appeal
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| America grapples with 'ghost guns' amid epidemic of violence Posted: 23 Nov 2019 05:18 PM PST  After his mother dropped him off at school, Nathan Berhow pulled a .45-caliber pistol out of his backpack, opened fire and killed two classmates, all using a weapon he'd assembled at home. Such guns are sometimes called "ghost guns" -- unregulated, easy to put together and almost impossible to trace because they have no serial number. The parts are readily available online, with no need for a background check.
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| This Is How U.S. Navy SEALs Would Go To War Against Iran Posted: 23 Nov 2019 05:30 AM PST  It would not be an easy fight.
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| Trump’s Assistant Put Giuliani in Touch With Pompeo During Impeachment Inquiry Events Posted: 23 Nov 2019 11:43 AM PST  New documents show that President Trump's personal assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, put Rudy Giuliani in touch with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in March, during the time-frame of events that are at the center of the House impeachment inquiry. The revelation was contained in a 100-page series of documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request filed by American Oversight, a non-partisan watchdog group. The documents reveal that Jo Ann Zafonte, Giuliani's assistant, emailed Westerhout on March 27 to ask for Pompeo's contact information, starting a backchannel that House investigators contend subverted normal foreign policy protocols. Giuliani and Pompeo spoke a day before Zafonte's email on March 26, and then again on March 29. The conversations took place in the context of Giuliani's initiative to oust then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal that he had reached out to Pompeo to express his concerns about the ambassador. When Pompeo asked Giuliani if he had anything in writing, Giuliani responded, "God almighty I have a lot of stuff in writing." Giuliani told the Journal that he sent Pompeo a nine-page document on March 28, which included allegations of wrongdoing by Yovanovitch and also that she was "very close" to former Vice President Joe Biden. President Trump and Giuliani were the masterminds behind an initiative that aimed to push Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, efforts that led to the impeachment inquiry this fall.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Texas teacher faces backlash for telling student to 'speak English' Posted: 22 Nov 2019 05:09 PM PST ![Texas teacher faces backlash for telling student to 'speak English']( "Texas teacher faces backlash for telling student to 'speak English'") The video, which was posted online by local television, shows a white, female substitute teacher at the predominantly Latino Socorro High School near El Paso, Texas, making the comment on Tuesday as she asks the male student to hand over his mobile phone in a classroom. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) said the comment harked back to last century when, until 1969, Texas law banned Spanish from being spoken in public schools.
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| Harvard-Yale football game grinds to halt as hundreds of students storm field to protest climate change Posted: 24 Nov 2019 04:02 AM PST  A high-profile college football match between Harvard and Yale was interrupted for more than an hour after hundreds of students stormed the field to demand the two elite institutions stop investing in fossil fuels.Students and alumni from Harvard and Yale disrupted the American football match in New Haven, Connecticut, at half-time to demand the universities take more action to tackle climate change.
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| IS-linked Philippine militant behind suicide attacks killed Posted: 23 Nov 2019 12:19 AM PST  Philippine troops have killed a "high-value" but little-known Filipino militant who acted as a key link of the Islamic State group to local jihadists and helped set up a series of deadly suicide attacks in the south that have alarmed the region, military officials said Saturday. Talha Jumsah, who used the nom de guerre Abu Talha, was killed Friday morning in a clash with troops in the jungles off Patikul town in Sulu province, which has been rocked by three deadly suicide bombings this year, including the first suicide attack known to have been staged by a Filipino militant.
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| Boeing's 737 Max shouldn't be allowed to fly with a controversial flight-control system, an aviation regulator reportedly said in leaked emails (BA) Posted: 22 Nov 2019 01:34 PM PST  The manager at Canada's aviation regulator told counterparts at other global regulators that he has concerns about the MCAS system on the 737 Max.
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| Syria Kurds say repatriated US child, German and children Posted: 23 Nov 2019 07:25 AM PST  Syria's Kurds have handed over an American toddler and three German children and their mother to their respective governments, a Kurdish official and a Kurdish source said on Saturday. Abdelkarim Omar, a senior official with the Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria, said the handover went ahead on Friday. "An American child and three German children with their mother were handed over to their governments," he said in a statement on Twitter.
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| Our 20 Favorite Car Toys for Kids Posted: 22 Nov 2019 12:34 PM PST |
| Iran Has A New Missile, Should Israel Be Worried? Posted: 23 Nov 2019 09:00 AM PST  Iran wants to give its regional allies precision-guided missiles.
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| Police seize unregistered AR-15 and ammo in 13-year-old's arrest Posted: 23 Nov 2019 02:53 AM PST  Authorities said they found a they found an unregistered AR-15 with a high-capacity magazine, approximately 100 rounds of ammunition, a map of the school, and a list of some students and teachers in the suspect's home
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| GOP Senate chairmen ask DOJ for records on former DNC consultant Posted: 22 Nov 2019 02:38 PM PST ![GOP Senate chairmen ask DOJ for records on former DNC consultant]( "GOP Senate chairmen ask DOJ for records on former DNC consultant") The Republicans want information on Alexandra Chalupa.
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| It’s Not Just Flooding in Venice. Here’s How Climate Change Threatens World Heritage Sites Everywhere Posted: 22 Nov 2019 03:17 PM PST  Here's how climate change Is threatening some of the world's greatest treasures - including Yellowstone, Venice and the Great Barrier Reef
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| The Latest: Colombia president opens ‘national conversation’ Posted: 22 Nov 2019 03:25 PM PST  Colombian President Iván Duque says his government will open a "national conversation" aimed at reaching an agreement on reforms following massive demonstrations that have paralyzed much of the capital city. In a televised address Friday, Duque said the dialogue will include all social sectors and take place in cities around the country starting next week. The president also announced that he is boosting police and military patrols in focal points where there is continuing unrest.
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| China to Raise Penalties on IP Theft in Trade War Compromise Posted: 24 Nov 2019 04:48 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. China said it will raise penalties on violations of intellectual property rights in an attempt to address one of the sticking points in trade talks with the U.S.The country will also look into lowering the thresholds for criminal punishments for those who steal IP, according to guidelines issued by the government on Sunday. It didn't elaborate on what such moves might entail.The U.S. wants China to commit to cracking down on IP theft and stop forcing U.S. companies to hand over their commercial secrets as a condition of doing business there. China said it's aiming to reduce frequent IP violations by 2022 and plans to make it easier for victims of transgressions to receive compensation.The two countries are working toward a partial trade deal and leaving the more controversial issues for later discussions. China's chief trade negotiator spoke last week about its plans for reforming state enterprises, opening up the financial sector and enforcing intellectual property rights -- issues at the core of U.S. demands for change in China's economic system.How and Why the U.S. Says China Steals Technology: QuickTake"Strengthening IPR protection is the most important content of improving the IPR protection system and also the biggest incentive to boost China's economic competitiveness," according to the guidelines. Local governments will be required to implement the strengthening of IP rights, it said.In May, the U.S. added Huawei Technologies Co. to what's known as the entity list in an effort to block U.S. companies from selling components to China's largest technology company. Huawei is accused of being a threat to America's national security, and has denied those claims.Trump, Xi Talk Past Each Other on Need for Win-Win Trade DealTo contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Li Liu in Beijing at lliu255@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, Matthew G. MillerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Through the wire -- Palestinians risk all to work in Israel Posted: 22 Nov 2019 04:42 PM PST  It is well before dawn when the first work deprived Palestinians arrive to sneak through a two-metre hole cut in the metal fence that is supposed to keep them out of Israel. The men are among the thousands of Palestinians working in Israel illegally, risking bad working conditions, exploitation and jail for a chance of employment. On the morning AFP visited, Yunis, from Dahariya in the southern West Bank, was one of hundreds running the gauntlet as police patrolled the area.
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| Star High School Quarterback Arrested for Allegedly Sexually Assaulting Multiple Girls on a Party Bus Posted: 22 Nov 2019 11:56 AM PST  Harry How/GettyA star quarterback at a Colorado high school was arrested Friday morning for allegedly sexually assaulting multiple girls on a party bus in 2018. Aidan Atkinson, an 18-year-old student at Fairview High School who verbally committed to play at Northwestern University next fall, was charged with several counts on Friday, including three felony counts of sexual assault, Boulder County jail records show. The Boulder Police Department issued a statement stating that an individual turned himself into authorities on Friday, but did not identify the suspect because he was "a juvenile at the time" of the alleged September 2018 incident on a party bus. The statement lists the same charges filed against Atkinson—who was the only person charged Friday with sexual assault. The Boulder Daily Camera was the first to report the news of Atkinson's arrest.Baylor Suspends Two Football Players Over Sexual-Assault AllegationsThe police statement says authorities "began investigating allegations of sexual assault involving multiple female victims and one male suspect" after the September 15, 2018 incident."Multiple detectives conducted interviews with witnesses and victims in this incident," the statement says, adding that investigators are still hoping to "speak to anyone who may have additional information about what occurred, including any videos or photographs of the assaults."Atkinson, a high-school senior who was named Colorado Gatorade Player of the Year, has broken multiple state football records, including a previous record for career passing yards that was uncontested for 19 years. He also set the state passing touchdown record earlier this month. A Boulder Valley School District spokesman confirmed to The Daily Beast Atkinson will not play in Friday night's highly anticipated 5A state playoff game against Cherry Creek High School. One of the state's top football players, the 18-year-old verbally committed to Northwestern last year to join the Wildcats in 2020. Football Player Charged in Pregnant Cheerleader's Murder: 'She Was a Child With a Child'"The Boulder Valley School District is cooperating with our partners in law enforcement and the Boulder County District Attorney's Office," the spokesperson said.The Boulder County District Attorney's office did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment. Northwestern Associate Athletic Director Pat Kennedy told The Daily Camera he could not comment on the ongoing investigation. "Northwestern is not permitted to comment on any prospective student-athlete until such time as they sign a National Letter of Intent," Kennedy said.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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| Is John Bolton Getting Ready to Take Down Trump? Posted: 23 Nov 2019 12:24 PM PST  The ex-national security advisor returns to the limelight—just in time for Trump's latest crisis.
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| Climate change: Natural gas pipelines will have purpose when natural gas is gone Posted: 24 Nov 2019 03:00 AM PST  There's a lot of alarmism that surrounds the issue of climate change, and rightfully so. Often, the answers are more nuanced than they first appear.
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| Mystery grows over Trump administration hold on Lebanon military aid Posted: 22 Nov 2019 01:30 PM PST  The Trump administration is withholding more than $100 million in U.S. military assistance to Lebanon that has been approved by Congress and is favored by his national security team, an assertion of executive control of foreign aid that is similar to the delay in support for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry.
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