| Kushner named Trump’s border-wall czar — along with practically everything else in government Posted: 26 Nov 2019 02:33 PM PST  President Trump has recently tasked his son-in-law — whose to-do list already includes brokering peace in the Middle East, leading U.S. trade policy, reorganizing the entire U.S. government and reforming the criminal justice system — with overseeing the construction of his border wall ahead of the 2020 election.
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| Vietnamese families bury first victims of UK truck tragedy Posted: 27 Nov 2019 04:27 PM PST  Throngs of weeping relatives on Thursday buried the first of 39 Vietnamese people found dead in a truck in Britain last month, in emotional ceremonies for the young victims whose deaths have rattled their rural towns. The first of the remains arrived in Vietnam from London on a commercial flight Wednesday, closing a weeks-long, agonising wait by families eager to have their children back home. All 31 men and eight women found dead in a refrigerated trailer in Essex last month were Vietnamese, many from small towns in central Vietnam.
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| Turkey dismisses Macron's Syria criticism, says he sponsors terrorism Posted: 28 Nov 2019 06:35 AM PST  Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday dismissed French President Emmanuel Macron's criticism of Turkey's offensive in Syria against the Kurdish YPG militia, saying the French leader sponsors terrorism. Last month, Macron met Jihane Ahmed, the spokeswoman for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), of which the YPG is a big part, to express France's solidarity with them in their fight against Islamic State in Syria.
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| TikTok Blocks Teen Who Posted About China's Detention Camps Posted: 27 Nov 2019 05:15 AM PST  SHANGHAI -- The teenage girl, pink eyelash curler in hand, begins her video innocently: "Hi, guys. I'm going to teach you guys how to get long lashes."After a few seconds, she asks viewers to put down their curlers. "Use your phone that you're using right now to search up what's happening in China, how they're getting concentration camps, throwing innocent Muslims in there," she says.The sly bait-and-switch puts a serious topic -- the mass detentions of minority Muslims in northwest China -- in front of an audience that might not have known about it before. The 40-second clip has amassed more than 498,000 likes on TikTok, a social platform where the users skew young and the videos skew silly.But the video's creator, Feroza Aziz, said this week that TikTok had suspended her account after she posted the clip. That added to a widespread fear about the platform: that its owner, Chinese social media giant ByteDance, censors or punishes videos that China's government might not like.A ByteDance spokesman, Josh Gartner, said Aziz had been blocked from her TikTok account because she used a previous account to post a video that contained an image of Osama bin Laden. This violated TikTok's policies against terrorist content, Gartner said, which is why the platform banned both her account and the devices from which she was posting."If she tries to use the device that she used last time, she will probably have a problem," Gartner said.Aziz, a 17-year-old Muslim high school student in New Jersey, said in an email on Tuesday that her TikTok videos tried to make light of the racism and discrimination she experienced growing up in the United States. In one video, she addressed a slur that she said she and other Muslims heard regularly: that they would marry bin Laden."I think that TikTok should not ban content that doesn't harm anyone or shows anyone being harmed," Aziz said.In recent months, U.S. lawmakers have expressed concerns that TikTok censors video content at Beijing's behest and shares user data with Chinese authorities.The head of TikTok, Alex Zhu, denied those accusations in an interview with The Times this month. Zhu said that Chinese regulators did not influence TikTok in any way and that even ByteDance could not control TikTok's policies for managing video content in the United States.But episodes such as Aziz's show how difficult it might be for TikTok to escape the fog of suspicion that surrounds it and other Chinese tech companies.China's government rigidly controls the internet within the nation's borders. It exerts influence, sometimes subtly, over the activities of private businesses. The concern is that, when companies like ByteDance and telecom equipment maker Huawei expand overseas, Beijing's long arm follows them.China would certainly prefer that the world did not talk about its clampdown on Muslims. Over the past few years, the government has corralled as many as 1 million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others into internment camps and prisons.Chinese leaders have presented their efforts as a mild and benevolent campaign to fight Islamic extremism. But internal Communist Party documents reported by The Times this month provided an inside glimpse at the crackdown and confirmed its coercive nature.On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a news conference in Washington that the documents showed "brutal detention and systematic repression" of Uighurs and called on China to immediately release those who were detained. President Donald Trump, however, has refused to impose sanctions on Chinese officials deemed responsible, despite recommendations from some U.S. officials to do so.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Utah banning ‘conversion therapy’ with Mormon church backing Posted: 27 Nov 2019 07:58 AM PST  Utah is on its way to becoming the 19th state to ban the discredited practice of conversion therapy in January after state officials formed a proposal that has the support of the influential Church of a Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Republican Gov. Gary Herbert announced Tuesday night that church leaders back a regulatory rule his office helped craft after legislative efforts for a ban on the therapy failed earlier this year. The faith known widely as the Mormon church opposed a previous version of the rule because it wanted assurances that church leaders and members who are therapists would be allowed to provide spiritual counseling for parishioners or families — which were included in the latest conversion therapy ban plan.
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| AOC Raised More for Reelection Campaign Last Quarter Than All Other House Dems, Including Pelosi Posted: 27 Nov 2019 08:02 AM PST  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) raised more funds for her reelection campaign than all other Democrats in the House, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to federal elections commission data.Ocasio-Cortez raked in $1.42 million between July 1 and September 30, outstripping Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), who raised $1.26 million over the same period, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), who raised $1.26 million, the New York Post first reported. All three are up for reelection in 2020."This is very rare, unique," political consultant George Arzt told the Post. "I can't recall anyone raising this much money during the first year in office."Contributions under $200 comprised most of the donations to Ocasio-Cortez, at $1.1 million in total contributions. Several Republican challengers are competing to oust the freshman congresswoman in her district, which comprises parts of Queens and the Bronx, but none of those challengers has so far matched her fundraising abilities.Arzt emphasized that Ocasio-Cortez "is a celebrity who gained attention from people across the country, and many on the left support her."While she outstripped Pelosi in fundraising over the summer, Pelosi has raised more funds than Ocasio-Cortez overall since January. The Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund, which helps other Democrats besides Pelosi, has raised over $11 million since the beginning of the year.The freshman New York congresswoman has already established herself as a fundraising powerhouse. In July, Politico reported that she hasn't been hurt by relying on small donations, instead channeling her star power in the progressive community to solicit contributions."There used to be a single path to fundraising success in DC — cultivating industry lobbyists," Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the Revolving Door Project, told Politico. "That path still exists, but it's not as lucrative as becoming a national icon for aggressively populist performance in office.
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| Beijing accuses developing countries, the U.S. of not doing enough to curb global warming Posted: 27 Nov 2019 09:07 AM PST  Beijing on Wednesday accused developed countries including the US of doing too little to curb global warming, ahead of a UN summit discussing controversial issues including climate compensation. China is the world's second-largest economy and the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, but has repeatedly argued that developed nations should lead on tackling international climate obligations.
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| New Intelligence Report Shows That Iran's Missiles Are Serious Business Posted: 27 Nov 2019 09:00 PM PST  Should the U.S. military be worried?
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| Customs agents seize $95M in counterfeit goods along with thousands of fake IDs Posted: 27 Nov 2019 08:38 PM PST  Customs officials said in a statement that counterfeiting sales can be traced to organized crime, drug trafficking and terrorist organizations.
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| Gillum sets sights on denying Trump victory in Florida in 2020 Posted: 26 Nov 2019 12:53 PM PST  Andrew Gillum says he knows why President Trump left his lifelong home of New York to take up residence in Florida and doubts his "antics" for reelection will work.
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| Native Americans Have Little to Celebrate on Thanksgiving Posted: 28 Nov 2019 02:51 AM PST  Bettmann/GettyWhile I have been researching and writing a Wampanoag-centered history of Plymouth Colony and the Thanksgiving holiday, my conversations with Native people have opened my eyes to some profound lessons about their past and present. These teachings have particular resonance this Thanksgiving season as the United States continues to struggle with white nationalism, the importance of distinguishing between truth and lies in democratic debate, and the place of indigenous people in a pluralistic country with a colonial foundation.Native people widely agree that the U.S. has yet to reckon with its history of white violence against their people. Instead, the country uses the myth of the First Thanksgiving to make it appear that Indians consented bloodlessly to colonialism.That myth, reinforced over and over again through grade school Thanksgiving pageants, holiday decorations, and television specials, is the only cameo Indians make in the colonial history curriculum in many American schools. Unfortunately, it is terrible history and even worse civics.The myth tells that supposedly friendly Indians (rarely identified by tribe) voluntarily gifted their country to the Pilgrims in order to lay the foundations for a white, Christian, democratic United States. As for why these Indians were so welcoming in the first place, this myth has nothing to say. It does not address the fact that the Wampanoags had already experienced years of slave raiding by European sailors before the appearance of the Mayflower, and that those contacts had introduced them to a devastating plague that more than halved their population and left them vulnerable to their inter-tribal enemies. Thus, when the Pilgrims arrived, the Wampanoags looked to them for a military alliance despite their wariness of English treachery.Why Thanksgiving Is Better Than ChristmasThe Thanksgiving Myth also evades the fact that the celebrated peace between the Wampanoags and Plymouth was rife with tensions from the start and ultimately degenerated into a bloody war. During the celebrated 50 years of peace following the First Thanksgiving, the Wampanoags complained endlessly about the English encroaching on their land, undermining their political systems, and asserting their jurisdiction over purely Indian affairs.Not coincidentally, there were recurrent war scares during these years as Native leaders reached across tribal lines to make common cause against their common colonial threat. The tension finally broke in King Philip's War of 1675-76, which led to the deaths of thousands of Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, and other indigenous people, and the enslavement of thousands more. The Thanksgiving Myth ignores this consequence of the Pilgrim-Wampanoag alliance, though clashes of this sort were a basic feature of American colonial history.Some American history courses might teach about King Philip's War, but few have anything to say about how many Wampanoags and other Native New Englanders survived after their military subjugation. Over the following centuries, they endured white society's reduction of them and their children to indentured servitude and the ongoing occupation of their lands. They also suffered white people denying they were Indians at all based on the intermarriages and cultural adjustments they had made to survive under white domination. In other words, Americans are rarely taught the incredible achievement that American Indians are still here, every bit as much a part of the modern world as everyone else.Indigenous people also widely bemoan that Americans' lack of historical understanding about the Native American contributes to a marked lack of recognition of their place in the country, a general lack of compassion for their historic struggles, and widespread unawareness about their ongoing fights for sovereignty and cultural self-determination. Indeed, many of them feel invisible to the general public.Worse still, every Thanksgiving season the country reduces historic Indians and their traumas to caricature, as if to say that Native Americans' only role in the national culture is to concede to colonialism and then go away.Lest we diminish the impact of these messages, consider the experience of a young Wampanoag woman who told me that when she was in kindergarten, the lone Indian in her class, her teacher cast her as Chief Massasoit in a Thanksgiving pageant and had her sing with her classmates "This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land." Reflecting on the moment as an adult, the cruel irony was not lost on her. As a child, she only knew enough to be embarrassed about it.The Trump era has cast into relief some of the dark consequences of this amnesia and ignorance. It includes the government's environmental racism and disregard of Native sovereignty evident in the battle over the Keystone Pipeline. It includes the ongoing use of racist stereotypes of indigenous people in sports mascots. It includes President Donald Trump's derision of Sen. Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas, which feeds on the widespread assumption that it is ludicrous for someone with a light (or dark) complexion leading a modern life to have Native heritage and want to claim it.Trump's juvenile trolling of Warren also plays on the widespread ignorance of the American public about the difference between being an enrolled member of an Indian tribe (which Warren is not) and being a descendant of Native people (which Warren is). Such thinking is part of a long American tradition of white people insisting that Indians should disappear, the better to reduce the numbers of them laying claim to the land.The belief that Indians do not matter also contributed to Trump posing a delegation of Navajo leaders visiting the White House in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson, the proponent of Indian Removal, and then making light on Twitter about the historic massacre of Wounded Knee.Not least of all, the widespread belief that modern Indians cannot be authentic and have no legitimate historic rights has contributed to a recent decision by Trump's Department of the Interior to revoke a 2007 federal ruling that restored reservation lands to the Mashpee Wampanoags of Cape Cod, descendants of the very people who welcomed the Pilgrims.No wonder, then, that many Native people, including the Wampanoags, charge that their fellow Americans lack sufficient gratitude for what they've sacrificed for the country. This feeling of victimhood is especially poignant given that many Native communities still suffer extraordinarily high levels of poverty, with all of its associated ills, while living in the shadow of sometimes garish wealth. Wampanoag people in southeastern New England, for instance, are confronted daily with the sight of outsiders' extravagant coastal estates, occupied for only six or eight weeks in summer, built atop places where the ancestors are buried and where some of them fished, hunted, and gathered within memory. The image sickens and depresses. And yet there is no escaping it or the sense that other Americans revel in it.In Thanksgiving season, one cannot drive past neighbors' lawns or go to the store without confronting happy Pilgrim and Indian decorations, or turn on the television, radio, or computer without being bombarded with Pilgrim and Indian themes. Some schools continue to have children, including Native children, perform Thanksgiving pageants. For these reasons and more, the United New England Indians have held a National Day of Mourning in Plymouth every Thanksgiving Day since 1970, which is attended by indigenous people from throughout the hemisphere. They do not see American colonialism as something to celebrate.Part of what I've learned through my conversations with Wampanoag people is that achieving some measure of repair and signaling that Americans value their Native countrymen and women requires compassion, gratitude, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable history. Taking these steps might also help us, collectively, to restore basic dignity, intelligence, and humanity to our civic culture. 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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| Hong Kong police enter ransacked campus after protest siege Posted: 28 Nov 2019 05:54 AM PST  Hong Kong police on Thursday entered a ransacked university campus where authorities faced off for days with barricaded pro-democracy protesters, gathering a huge haul of petrol bombs and other dangerous materials. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University became the epicentre of the territory's increasingly violent protest movement when clashes broke out on November 17 between police and protesters armed with bows and arrows as well as Molotov cocktails. The standoff settled into a tense stalemate during which hundreds fled the campus -- some making daring escapes, others caught and beaten by officers during failed breakouts -- leaving a dwindling core of holdouts surrounded by police cordons.
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| Forty years on, New Zealand apologizes for Antarctic plane disaster Posted: 27 Nov 2019 08:18 PM PST  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern apologized on Thursday for the then-government's handling of a plane crash in Antarctica 40 years ago that took the lives of 257 people in the country's worst peacetime disaster. On 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand flight 901 was on a sightseeing tour from Auckland when it crashed into the side of Mount Erebus, a 3,794 meter (12,448 ft) volcano near the U.S. Antarctic research base of McMurdo Station. Originally the crash was blamed on the pilots, but following a public outcry, a Royal Commission of Inquiry was set up to investigate the disaster.
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| 7 People Sentenced to Death for Bangladesh’s Worst Terrorist Attack Posted: 26 Nov 2019 11:08 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- A trial court sentenced seven people to death for their roles in Bangladesh's worst terrorist attack, which killed 20 diners, most of them foreigners, in a cafe in 2016.Judge Mojibur Rahman pronounced the verdict in a packed Dhaka courtroom on Wednesday, Dhaka Metropolitan Chief Public Prosecutor Abdullah Abu said at a briefing. The decision brings to a close the year-long trial that followed a two-year investigation, which saw one accused being acquitted. The indicted have the right to appeal."They wanted to destabilize the country and destroy the economy by forcing foreigners and investors to leave Bangladesh," prosecutors said in case documents.Nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian and three Bangladeshis were killed by terrorists who stormed the Holey Artisan restaurant in the diplomatic area of Dhaka in 2016. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the 12-hour hostage crisis.Security forces shot dead five attackers and also, reports say mistakenly, a pizza chef during the rescue operation codenamed "Thunderbolt."The convicts yelled "Allahu Akbar," or "Allah is the greatest," in the courtroom, according to prosecutor Abu.At least two suspected militants tied to the attack are at large, according to Monirul Islam, chief of the police's counterterrorism unit.To contact the reporter on this story: Arun Devnath in Dhaka at adevnath@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Arijit Ghosh at aghosh@bloomberg.net, Jeanette Rodrigues, Abhay SinghFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 21 of the Most Beautiful Sacred Sites That Every Traveler Must Visit Posted: 28 Nov 2019 05:00 AM PST |
| Back to the Future: China is Putting Hypersonic Missiles on a 1950s Bomber Posted: 26 Nov 2019 03:00 PM PST  Chinese H-6Ks—a knockoff of the 1950s Soviet Tu-16 bomber—are getting an upgrade.
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| An 'unprecedented' bomb cyclone will bring 100-mph winds to the West Coast Posted: 27 Nov 2019 03:22 AM PST  A rare West Coast "bomb cyclone" is forecast to sweep into southern Oregon and northern California later Tuesday and into Wednesday.
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| Trump news: House schedules first impeachment hearing as final transcripts released and Melania booed at school event Posted: 26 Nov 2019 11:21 AM PST  A US district judge has ordered Donald Trump's former White House counsel Don McGahn to comply with a subpoena issued by House Democrats – originally in response to the Mueller report – that could see him testify to the impeachment inquiry.In her ruling, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson asserted that "presidents are not kings" and ruled that Mr McGahn — whom the president pressured to deny that he wanted to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, according to the report — must appear before Congress.
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| Cruise ship captain charged in deadly Danube River collision Posted: 28 Nov 2019 01:19 AM PST  The captain of a cruise ship involved in a May 2019 collision on the Danube River in which 28 people were killed has been charged for his alleged responsibility in the incident and should be sentenced to nine years in prison, prosecutors in Hungary said Thursday. The 64-year-old captain of the Viking Sigyn river cruise ship, identified only as Yuriy C., was charged by Budapest prosecutors with negligent endangerment of water traffic leading to a fatal mass catastrophe, and 35 counts of failing to give assistance. Only seven of the 33 South Korean tourists aboard the Hableany (Mermaid) sightseeing boat survived the nighttime collision.
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| Saudi crown prince visits UAE amid push to end Yemen war Posted: 27 Nov 2019 08:25 AM PST  Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited the United Arab Emirates Wednesday, as efforts to end the nearly five-year war in Yemen gain momentum. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are close allies and key members of a military coalition backing the government in Yemen against the Iran-aligned Huthi rebels.
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| Europeans fear climate change more than terrorism, unemployment or migration Posted: 28 Nov 2019 06:30 AM PST ![Europeans fear climate change more than terrorism, unemployment or migration]( "Europeans fear climate change more than terrorism, unemployment or migration") Almost half of all Europeans fear climate change more than losing a job or of a terrorist attack, a study by the European Investment Bank (EIB) showed on Thursday as EU lawmakers declared a "climate emergency". The symbolic vote by lawmakers was designed to pressure for action against global warming at an upcoming United Nations summit.. The EIB survey of 30,000 respondents from 30 countries, including China and the United States, showed 47% of Europeans saw climate change as the number one threat in their lives, above unemployment, large scale migration and concerns about terrorism.
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| Gabbard Continues to Slam Clinton for Russian ‘Grooming’ Remarks Posted: 27 Nov 2019 05:25 AM PST  Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) continued to lash out at Hillary Clinton on Tuesday following the former presidential candidate's insinuation that Gabbard's presidential policy platform was based on advancing Russian interests."I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton said on the Campaign HQ podcast in October. According to Clinton, Gabbard was "the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far."When asked about the comments, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill seemed to confirm that she had been referring to the Russians, when he said, "If the nesting doll fits." But Clinton later backtracked and insisted she was referring to Republicans, not the Russians, as "grooming" Gabbard.Speaking on Tuesday with stand-up comedian Joe Rogan on "The Joe Rogan Experience," Gabbard and the host both criticized Clinton for her comments."When you look at the media establishment pushing a lot of the same narrative and a lot of the same message, then you can see how someone gets away with calling a sitting member of Congress, a candidate for president, a soldier actively serving in the National Guard, veteran of two Middle East deployments, basically a traitor of the country that I love and that I'm willing to lay my life down for," Gabbard told Rogan. "And to get away with it without any evidence or basis whatsoever."When Rogan asked how Clinton was able to make her accusation without any evidence to support it, Gabbard blamed the "power of the Clinton machine" and "the power of the political establishment" for allowing Clinton's accusation to go unchecked.Gabbard is currently polling at below 2 percent of the national Democratic primary vote, according to RealClearPolitics. The congresswoman raised considerable controversy by meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad in 2017.
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| New toll road cuts Moscow-Saint Petersburg drive in half Posted: 27 Nov 2019 07:54 AM PST  President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday opened what has been billed as Russia's first modern motorway, almost halving the driving time between the two biggest cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The "Neva" toll road, running 669 kilometres (416 miles) and named after Saint Petersburg's main river, is Russia's first long-distance toll road. It boasts no traffic lights and a higher maximum speed limit of 130 kilometres per hour (81 miles per hour) versus 110 kph on other roads.
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| Russia says it showed nuclear missile system to U.S. inspectors Posted: 27 Nov 2019 08:43 AM PST  Russia's Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday it had shown the country's new Avangard nuclear missile system to U.S. inspectors for the first time, a development that Moscow said showed a key arms control treaty was still effective.
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| The Secret of China's Aircraft Carriers Posted: 28 Nov 2019 12:30 AM PST  "China understands that if conflict with the United States comes, its carriers' warfighting capability would—like the rest of its arsenal—have to be employed based on the principle of calculated risk. It would be wise for strategists in the United States to remember these same principles."
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| 7 Amazing Facts About the Speedy Cheetah Posted: 27 Nov 2019 09:45 AM PST |
| Boston couple texted for help minutes before being stabbed to death in penthouse condo Posted: 27 Nov 2019 11:06 AM PST ![Boston couple texted for help minutes before being stabbed to death in penthouse condo]( "Boston couple texted for help minutes before being stabbed to death in penthouse condo") The fate of a former concierge accused in the brutal murder of two Boston anesthesiologists in their penthouse condo could be determined next week.
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| New retrial ordered for South Korea ex-leader Park Posted: 27 Nov 2019 07:33 PM PST  South Korea's top court on Thursday ordered a second retrial for disgraced former president Park Geun-hye, seeking heavier punishment for illegally taking money from the country's spy agency. Park, the country's first female president, was impeached in 2017 after huge street protests over a sprawling scandal, and already faces a separate retrial for corruption and abuse of power that could add to her 25-year jail term. Thursday's ruling came after an appeals court reduced Park's sentence by one year to five years in prison in proceedings for pocketing money from the National Intelligence Service.
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| Israel says envoy's 'GOOD LUCK' to Myanmar for genocide case was a mistake Posted: 28 Nov 2019 01:52 AM PST ![Israel says envoy's 'GOOD LUCK' to Myanmar for genocide case was a mistake]( "Israel says envoy's 'GOOD LUCK' to Myanmar for genocide case was a mistake") The Israeli ambassador was mistaken to have sent a "GOOD LUCK" message to Myanmar ahead of World Court hearings on accusations the state committed genocide against Rohingya Muslims, Israel's foreign ministry said on Thursday. Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that the ambassador to Myanmar wished authorities good luck in tweets that have since been deleted ahead of the hearings next month at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
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| Dubai court reduces sentence for editor who killed his wife Posted: 27 Nov 2019 12:21 AM PST  A British newspaper editor convicted of killing his wife with a hammer had his sentence reduced by Dubai's Court of Appeal on Wednesday. The court ordered that former Gulf News editor Francis Matthew must serve a seven-year sentence for manslaughter in the 2017 killing of his wife, Jane. Matthew had received as much as a 15-year sentence for the killing.
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| Republican running against Ilhan Omar banned from Twitter after calling for rival to be hanged Posted: 28 Nov 2019 07:24 AM PST  The Republican hoping to unseat Ilhan Omar has had her official Twitter account closed after she called for the high-profile Democrat to be hanged.Danielle Stella's campaign account tweeted: "If it is proved @ilhanMN passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for treason and hanged", according to The Washington Times.
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| Impeachment is failing. Time for Plan B. Posted: 27 Nov 2019 02:55 AM PST ![Impeachment is failing. Time for Plan B.]( "Impeachment is failing. Time for Plan B.") The old cliche is true: Politics is the art of the possible. That's why the Democrats need to abandon their quest to remove President Trump from office by way of impeachment -- because doing so is going to be impossible.It was always going to be the longest of long shots. In all of American history, a president has never been removed through impeachment -- let alone when the president's own party has held the majority in the Senate, where the impeachment trial takes place and conviction and removal requires an incredibly steep two-thirds majority vote. Add in the extreme polarization of the present moment and you have the political equivalent of trying to reach the summit of Mt. Everest in a blizzard while wearing running shoes and a wind breaker.Many of us were tempted to downplay how daunting the obstacles would be because Trump really is that bad. His attempt to extort the president of Ukraine into digging up dirt on his political rival was a gross abuse of power that warped American foreign policy, making it serve Trump's personal political aims, and showed that he (remains) eager to enlist the help of foreign powers to help him cheat in an election. How could patriotic Americans and civic-minded public servants not favor impeaching such a president?That's certainly why I came out strongly in favor of the effort. Yes, it would be extremely difficult, but, I believed, what counts as possible in politics isn't static. If the evidence was overwhelming and powerfully presented in public hearings, then maybe some Republicans -- maybe enough Republicans -- could be persuaded to do what was right for the country, regardless of its consequences for their party. It was unlikely. But the alternative to making the effort was the normalization of presidential corruption on a scale never before seen in American political history.The problem is that the evidence has been overwhelming and powerfully presented in public hearings -- and yet very few Republicans have been persuaded to change their minds, either in public opinion polls or in the House and Senate. And that runs the significant risk of producing even worse normalization of presidential corruption. Trump will be able to say, "They threw everything they had at me, and I won. It was all a hoax. I did nothing wrong."That's why the time has come for Plan B.Instead of trying and failing to remove Trump through impeachment, the House should pass a resolution formally censuring the president. In doing so, it would be following the example laid down by the Senate, which censured President Andrew Jackson in 1834.This is a suggestion that was first made by William Galston in The Wall Street Journal back in September. I was skeptical of the proposal at first, since I thought the Democrats needed to try for more. But Galston was right to foresee that the impeachment drive would both fail and threaten to provide Trump with the appearance of vindication. That's what led Galston to conclude that "if inaction is dishonorable and impeachment futile, censure is the only course that makes both moral and political sense."> The House should use the impeachment inquiry to develop the factual basis for a comprehensive bill of particulars against President Trump -- an enumeration of his most egregious affronts to the spirit of the laws and the Constitution, and to the honor and dignity of the office he holds. They should pass this bill as a formal motion of censure. And then the Democrats should take their case to the ultimate judges in our republic, the people themselves, for a final decision in November 2020. The Senate will not remove the president from office; only the people can. [William Galston, The Wall Street Journal]Perhaps the biggest advantage of proceeding in this way is that it would free up the Democrats to go "comprehensive," as Galston puts it, and include in the censure many examples of Trump's thoroughgoing corruption beyond the attempted extortion of Ukraine. I understand full well why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff have chosen a narrow focus for the impeachment inquiry: There is just so much sleaze that widening the scope would threaten an endless, diffuse investigation that never builds to any clearly defined outcome.But a formal censure wouldn't take the form of an inquiry aimed at persuading skeptical members of the Senate to join in an effort to remove the president from office. It would merely be an attempt by the House majority to enter evidence of corruption into the public record and pronounce it a full-frontal assault against liberal democratic and constitutional norms. Republicans could rail against this evidence and judgment all they wanted, but it would still be there for Americans of the present and future to evaluate for themselves.Of course this way of proceeding would be guaranteed to leave the president in office. But then, so would a failed impeachment effort. At least a formal censure would deny Trump the appearance of exoneration.But accepting this outcome would require Democrats to give up their hopes of making Trump disappear without having to defeat him in an election. That will be hard, because Democrats know that defeating Trump is going to be hard.They should console themselves in the knowledge that, however challenging it will be to get rid of Trump next November, it can't be as difficult as accomplishing the impossible.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Trump, who is technically obese, tweets portrait of himself as muscular Rocky Balboa The 10 best classic Thanksgiving dishes, ranked Gordon Sondland accused of sexual misconduct by 3 women
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| Biden Reverses Long-held Stance on Marijuana, Says There’s ‘No Evidence’ It’s a Gateway Drug Posted: 26 Nov 2019 11:03 AM PST  Former vice president Joe Biden on Monday backed away from his previous assertion that marijuana may be a "gateway drug," saying he has seen no evidence that use of the drug could lead to dependence on other, more powerful substances."I don't think it is a gateway drug. There's no evidence I've seen to suggest that," Biden told The Nevada Independent in a call with reporters Monday."I didn't," the Democratic 2020 contender said when asked about his past assertions that marijuana may act as a gateway to the use of other drugs. "What I said was, and I've been talking about this for some time now … First of all, it should be totally decriminalized number one, number two, anyone who has been convicted of an offense or using pot, their record should be wiped totally clean."Biden took heat over the weekend for telling a Las Vegas town hall crowd that "there's not nearly been enough evidence that has been acquired as to whether or not it is a gateway drug.""It's a debate, and I want a lot more before I legalize it nationally," Biden told the town hall audience on Saturday. "I want to make sure we know a lot more about the science behind it."Biden remained cautious on Monday about legalizing marijuana nationally, saying that members of the medical community have warned of the drug's stunting effects on youth."With regard to the total legalization of it, there are some in the medical community who say it needs to be made a Schedule II drug so there can be more studies as not whether it is a gateway drug but whether or not when used in other combinations may have a negative effect on people overcoming other problems, including in fact on young people in terms of brain development, a whole range of things that are beyond my expertise," Biden said.The Drug Enforcement Administration currently classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, substances "with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse," along with heroin and LSD.Biden has historically supported some of the nation's strongest anti-drug measures, including the controversial 1994 crime bill. As recently as 2016, Biden said he was "not at all" ashamed of his work on the bill, which cracked down on penalties for marijuana use, adding that the measure "restored American cities."Democratic presidential contenders Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Andrew Yang have all said they support legalization of marijuana across the country.During last week's Democratic primary debate, Booker expressed chagrin that Biden said he is not ready to support legalizing marijuana outright, quipping to the former vice president that, "I thought you might have been high when you said it."
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| No F-35, But a Real Killer: Don't Underestimate China's J-20 Stealth Fighter Posted: 27 Nov 2019 01:00 PM PST  Just because it isn't as powerful as an F-22 or F-35, doesn't mean it isn't a tough plane.
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| Hawaii man arrested for 'extreme stalking' of family in Utah Posted: 27 Nov 2019 05:39 AM PST  U.S. prosecutors have arrested a Hawaii man they accuse of sending hundreds of unwanted service providers, including plumbers and prostitutes, to a Utah home.
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| Spain 'narco-sub' carried 100 mn euros of cocaine: officials Posted: 27 Nov 2019 10:05 AM PST  A submarine seized off the Spanish coast over the weekend was carrying three tonnes of cocaine worth 100 million euros ($110 million), officials said Wednesday. Police intercepted the 20-metre (65-foot) submarine -- thought to be the first of its kind captured in Europe -- off the northwestern region of Galicia on Saturday. While traffickers, especially from Colombia, have been caught using submarines to transport cocaine into Mexico and the United States, police said Saturday's seizure was "the first time that this system of transporting drugs has been detected in Europe".
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| Texas cities evacuated after second explosion at chemical plant; three injured in first blast Posted: 27 Nov 2019 06:07 PM PST  An early morning explosion rocked an East Texas chemical plant in Port Neches, injuring three workers. An afternoon blast prompted evacuations.
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| Founders wanted a powerful president Posted: 27 Nov 2019 08:48 PM PST  Many on the left have made it their mission to hinder and undermine Trump's government: Opposing view
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| Trump told to put up or shut up as judiciary committee invites President to attend impeachment hearing Posted: 26 Nov 2019 10:31 PM PST  Donald Trump could face formal impeachment charges within weeks after the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Tuesday invited the US President to its first impeachment hearing scheduled for December 4. Mr Trump is not required to attend the hearing but the the move allows the president and his legal team access to congressional impeachment procedures that he and other Republicans have denounced as unfair, partly because the White House has not been able to call or cross-examine witnesses. The House Intelligence Committee, which has led the impeachment investigation into Trump's dealings with Ukraine through weeks of closed-door testimony and televised hearings,is expected to release a formal evidence report shortly after lawmakers return to Congress from their Thanksgiving recess. The Judiciary panel will use the report to consider formal charges that it could recommend for a full House vote by mid-December. It gave Trump until 6 pm on Sunday to advise the committee on whether he would attend the hearing, and to indicate by then who would be his counsel. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representative Jerrold Nadler, the Judiciary Committee's Democratic chairman, told Trump in a letter that he was reminding the president that the committee's rules allow him to attend the hearing and for his legal team to question witnesses. The hearing will have legal experts, who have not yet been identified, as witnesses. "The president has a choice to make: he can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process," Nadler said in a statement. "I hope that he chooses to participate." The impeachment probe is looking into whether Trump abused his power to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations of political rival Joe Biden and a discredited conspiracy theory promoted by Trump that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In an interview on Tuesday with former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, Trump denied he directed his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who had been pushing Ukraine for the investigations, to act on his behalf in trying to get Ukraine to help turn up dirt on his political rivals. "No, I didn't direct him, but he is a warrior," Trump told O'Reilly, adding Giuliani "possibly saw something" and "he's done work in Ukraine for years." Where now? | Next steps in the impeachment inquiry Giuliani has said he conducted an investigation into corruption and possible collusion in Ukraine in his role as a defense attorney trying to clear Trump. The inquiry centers on a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, now a leading Democratic presidential contender, and his son Hunter, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy company while his father was vice president under Democratic President Barack Obama. Democrats have accused Trump of abusing his power by withholding $391 million in security aid to put pressure on a vulnerable U.S. ally to interfere in an American election by digging up dirt on his domestic political opponents. Trump denies wrongdoing and has dismissed the inquiry as a sham by Democrats who want to overturn the result of the 2016 US presidential election. In his letter, Nadler said the hearing was intended as an opportunity to discuss the historical and constitutional basisof impeachment, as well as the meaning of terms like "high crimes and misdemeanors." "We will also discuss whether your alleged actions warrantthe House's exercising its authority to adopt articles of impeachment," Nadler wrote. Donald Trump has denied claims he directed his personal lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, pictured, to act on his behalf in trying to get Ukraine to help turn up dirt on his political rivals. Credit: Angela Weiss/AFP House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney tweeted that Democrats "have decided to give @realDonaldTrump the right to question liberal law professors, but not any fact witnesses. At all." The Democratic-led House is aiming to resolve the question of Trump's impeachment before the end of the year, possibly by approving formal charges known as articles of impeachment and forwarding them to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial that could begin in January. A trial would determine whether Trump should be convicted and removed from office. But Senate Republicans have shown little inclination to remove Trump, their party's leader, who is seeking re-election in 2020. On Tuesday, the House Intelligence Committee released transcripts of closed-door testimony from Mark Sandy, a career official with the White House Office of Management and Budget and Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. In his testimony, Sandy, one of the only current White House aides to agree to testify to congressional investigators, said a budget office attorney and another staffer in that office resigned partly because of concerns over the hold on U.S.military aid to Ukraine. Reeker in his testimony discussed the "irregular" role three officials close to Trump - the ambassador to the European Union and Trump donor Gordon Sondland, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Giuliani - played in U.S. policy toward Ukraine. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday found support for impeaching Trump tracked higher over the past few weeks of televised impeachment hearings. According to the poll, which split largely along party lines, 47% of respondents believed Trump should be impeached and 40% were opposed.
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| Abrams’ campaign pushes back against demand for emails Posted: 27 Nov 2019 07:02 AM PST  Democrat Stacey Abrams' 2018 campaign for Georgia governor says a state ethics commission demand for their communications is overly broad and would have implications for every future political campaign if granted. Abrams' campaign filed their response Wednesday to a lawsuit filed in Fulton County Superior Court by the commission earlier this month. The lawsuit is part of an investigation accusing the Abrams campaign of "unlawful coordination" with an outside organization.
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| 30 Clever-Approved Sofas That Won't Blow Your Budget Posted: 28 Nov 2019 05:00 AM PST |
| Why NATO Is Stronger Than Ever Posted: 27 Nov 2019 02:37 AM PST  The twenty-nine countries of the Western military alliance are now responsible for 53 percent of the global GDP. Half of that total is American, but the other half comes from countries like the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
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| Police chief blasted over handling of aide's alleged racism Posted: 26 Nov 2019 08:06 PM PST  Assistant Chief Justin Newsom retired last month amid allegations he used the n-word to refer to African Americans
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| Merkel urges Europe to stick together in China dealings Posted: 27 Nov 2019 02:41 AM PST  German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday urged EU countries to speak as one in their dealings with China, warning it would be "disastrous" to go it alone at a time of tensions with the Asian giant over technology and human rights. "One of the biggest dangers I see... is that everyone in Europe has their own China policy, and that we end up sending completely different signals," Merkel said in a speech to German lawmakers. "That would not be disastrous for China, but it would be disastrous for us in Europe," she added.
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| French police evacuate migrants from northern Paris site Posted: 27 Nov 2019 10:41 PM PST ![French police evacuate migrants from northern Paris site]( "French police evacuate migrants from northern Paris site") French police started evacuating migrants on Thursday from an illegal camp site in northern Paris, the local police force said in a statement, as the government aims to show it is taking a tougher stance on illegal immigration. The police said it would be moving between 200-300 people from the illegal site in northern Paris' Porte d'Aubervilliers, and putting them up in shelters. Since the closure of a huge migrant camp in Calais in 2016, many refugees have moved to Paris.
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| Lawsuit: Alabama Sheriff 'Big John' Williams shot in parking lot 'without provocation' Posted: 27 Nov 2019 12:12 PM PST  Suspect William Chase Johnson faces murder charges. He is the son of a Montgomery County Sheriff's Office deputy.
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