| Nancy Pelosi delays Trump Senate impeachment trial to her credit — and her peril Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:36 AM PST  Nancy Pelosi is not required to sit back and watch Mitch McConnell violate the Constitution's core commitment to fair trials under the rule of law.
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| Dallas dismissed from lawsuit over police shooting Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:12 PM PST  A federal judge has ruled the city of Dallas is not liable for an off-duty police officer fatally shooting a man in his own apartment last year. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn dismissed the city from civil lawsuit that the family of Botham Jean brought after the 26-year-old was killed by Amber Guyger. The ruling leaves the 31-year-old former officer as the sole defendant in the suit, which argues she used excessive force and that better police training could have prevented Jean's death.
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| Avalanche at Swiss ski resort Andermatt buries 'a number' of people Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:02 AM PST  Mountain rescuers and helicopters were searching last night for victims of four avalanches in Austria and Switzerland that injured at least two skiers. More holidaymakers were feared to have been buried under snow, Swiss and Austrian police said. After a big avalanche struck the Swiss resort of Andermatt, emergency workers rescued two people, who were airlifted to hospital with minor injuries. Four other skiers were pulled from the snow unhurt. The slopes were crowded when the avalanche occurred. Stefan Kern, a resort spokesman, said: "It is possible that other people have been buried," he said. Reto Pfister, a police spokesman, said rescuers were assuming that there could be other victims and would continue searching. A large rescue team with avalanche dogs trained to sniff out people under the snow were combing the slopes at Andermatt, but had found no other other victims by the end of the day. Three avalanches also came down at the Ankogel resort in Austria, where two off-piste skiers were buried but managed to climb out of the snow. Rescuers were also continuing the search at Ankogel, but had not found anyone by the end of the day, a police spokesman said. The avalanche risk throughout the Alps is at level three on a scale of five, according to the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research. The threat stems mainly from fresh snow and snowdrifts caused by wind. "A dangerous avalanche can sometimes be triggered by a single skier if conditions are hazardous and there's a lot of loose snow," an official said. A skier who narrowly escaped the Andermatt avalanche with his daughter told the online newspaper 20 Minutes: "It happened in a flash. Our only thought was to get a move on to try to get out of the way. We were very lucky. I'm thanking my guardian angel." He said helicopters arrived minutes after the avalanche, which officials said was about 300 metres (yards) long and 60 metres wide. No one had been reported missing by last night. A Swiss official said: "The police have to keep looking in case there's anyone else trapped out there, but we're crossing our fingers and hoping there isn't. If anyone was missing, their families or friends would usually have notified us by this stage."
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| Baltimore On Pace to Break Homicide Rate Record in 2019 Posted: 26 Dec 2019 10:42 AM PST  Baltimore may see the highest homicide rate ever recorded in the city by the end of 2019, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.Police had recorded 338 homicides as of Tuesday, four shy of the 342 seen in 2017 and 2015. The city saw 353 homicides in 1993, the most of any year on record.However, because the city had a larger population in the early 1990's, the homicide rate per 100,000 residents in 2019 is nearing the rate from 1993, despite the lower total. If Baltimore sees 342 or more homicides by the end of 2019, the homicide rate will reach 57 per 100,000, surpassing the 1993 rate."It's a major concern for me, not just as a hopeful man but as a citizen of Baltimore who grew up in inner city Baltimore," Carmichael "Stokey" Cannady, a reformed drug dealer who became a community activist, told the AP. "I remember when a person had a conflict and would have a fight at best, now these young kids, at the age of 13, 14 years old, are finding handguns in their possession and they use them as toys."The homicide rate was declining before 2015. On April 12 of that year, 25-year-old Freddie Gray died while restrained in the back of a police van after officers arrested him on suspicion of illegally carrying a switchblade. The death sparked riots in the city after officers were accused of racism in the case. Gray was African-American.The state attorney for Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby, charged the officers involved with murder, and said she would attempt to give voice to rioters' chants of "no justice, no peace." The six officers charged were eventually acquitted, and in 2016 prosecutors dropped all remaining charges.The homicide rate in Baltimore has remained high since Gray's death. In 2019 the city appointed current Police Commissioner Michael Harrison to revamp the department."People can expect [the homicide rate] to go down, we are building capacity, but we need to have some type of effect on the poverty, the housing, the education, the addiction, the skills, the jobs and the lack thereof, together at the same time," Harrison told the AP. "All of that has to be addressed while prosecuting people who commit crimes and preventing other people from committing those crimes. Otherwise, it continues and then you ask the question, 'When does it stop?' without fixing the reason it starts."President Trump in July described the district in which the Freddie Gray incident took place as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess." Trump blasted the district's longtime representative Elijah Cummings, who died in October, for what the President said was Cummings's failure to address problems of crime in the district.Maryland's Republican governor Larry Hogan denounced Trump's remarks as "outrageous and inappropriate."
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| Montenegro's parliament approves religion law despite protests Posted: 27 Dec 2019 03:43 AM PST  Montenegro's parliament approved on Friday a law on religious communities despite street protests and a last-minute attempt in the chamber by deputies of the pro-Serb opposition to prevent the vote going ahead. Under the law, religious communities in the tiny Adriatic state would need to prove property ownership from before 1918, when predominantly Orthodox Christian Montenegro joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the predecessor of the now-defunct Yugoslavia. The pro-Serb Democratic Front (DF) and other critics of the legislation say it is an attempt to promote the small Montenegrin Orthodox Church, which is not recognized by other major churches, at the expense of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the dominant church in the country of 620,000 people.
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| Mother, Two Kids Dead in Apparent Suicide Plunge in From Northeastern University Parking Garage Posted: 25 Dec 2019 02:51 PM PST  The fatal plunge of a woman and two children from the top of a Boston parking garage on Christmas Day is believed to have been suicide by the mother, authorities said Thursday.Erin Pascal, 40, of West Roxbury, her 4-year-old daughter, Allison, and her 15-month-old son, Andrew, were found unresponsive on a sidewalk outside the Northeastern University garage and pronounced dead at the hospital.Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins said their deaths were "likely" a double murder-suicide, the Boston Herald reported."This entire family, in a matter of minutes, is gone beside the father," Rollins told reporters during a press conference. "This is an extremely sad day as we begin to put together the pieces of a tragedy that took place yesterday on Christmas." Rollins said the incident occurred between 1:25 p.m. and 1:35 p.m. on Wednesday.Sources told WCVB-TV that Pascal's husband called police when she left their Boston-area home with the children after an argument. He reportedly believed that she might be suicidal—and Rollins said all indications are that he was right."Our investigation is showing the two children fell first, and then the parent after," Rollins told WBUR-TV. "It was awful," she said. "There were belongings from the children and the mother strewn upon the street. The impact of the fall was visible from the street."Rollins said police found a vehicle, which was linked to the victims, parked across two spaces on the roof of the garage. Video showed investigators combing through a black SVU with its doors ajar; inside, they discovered two child car seats, WBZ reported.The garage is the same one where Boston College student Alexander Urtula, 22, died by suicide on his graduation day in May, allegedly at the urging of his girlfriend.After Wednesday's incident, Northeastern University said it was blocking off the top floors of the Renaissance Parking Garage."The restricted access will continue until a permanent solution is implemented," it said in a statement. "In addition, effective immediately, there will be 24-hour security staffing in place."Rollins, whose office is leading the investigation, noted that the holiday season can be hard for people."On Christmas and the holiday season where many people are celebrating, it can be a challenging and difficult time," Rollins said on Wednesday. "I feel it imperative that we let people know that there is help.""As a mother, it was incredibly hard, this scene in particular, where there were two children who lost their lives today," Rollins added.Northeastern University did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment, but campus police sent an alert to students about police activity near the Ruggles MBTA station and said they should "avoid the area."First responders were offered counseling."We know all too well that this kind of trauma leaves scars on first responders as well," Boston EMS union President Michael MacNeil said, according to WCVB. "We are committed to caring for our members and our brothers and sisters in the police and fire services so that we can all continue to protect the safety and health of the residents and visitors of Boston."MacNeil said the woman and children "were given the best possible care we could provide, but it was not enough to save their lives," MacNeil said. "The thoughts and prayers of the men and women of Boston EMS are with the families experiencing this unspeakable tragedy on this holiday."If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741Read 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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| A prominent British lawyer went viral after he killed a fox with a baseball bat while wearing his wife's kimono, and now animal services are investigating Posted: 27 Dec 2019 02:21 AM PST  Jolyon Maugham tweeted just after 8 a.m. Thursday that he had "killed a fox with a baseball bat," before asking followers how their day was going.
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| Congress Demands Investigation Into the U.S.'s Nuclear Coffin Posted: 27 Dec 2019 08:23 AM PST  The Runit Dome is leaking radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean.
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| AOC says 'it would be an honour' to be vice president for Bernie Sanders Posted: 26 Dec 2019 07:24 AM PST  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said "it'd be an honour" to be vice president for Bernie Sanders after endorsing the Vermont senator in the Democratic primaries, while noting she's not old enough to take the job.The freshman New York congresswoman made the comments during a Spanish-language interview on Monday with Noticias Telemundo, in which she spoke about why she was supporting the 2020 hopeful and lambasted Donald Trump as a "racist" who was afraid of "strong women, of Latina women".
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| 2 kicked out of National Guard over white supremacist ties Posted: 26 Dec 2019 03:57 PM PST ![2 kicked out of National Guard over white supremacist ties]( "2 kicked out of National Guard over white supremacist ties") Two men have been kicked out of the Army National Guard after liberal activists uncovered their membership in a religious group with white supremacist ties. Brandon Trent East told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Alabama National Guard sent him a separation notice on Dec. 14. A spokeswoman for the Georgia National Guard said Dalton Woodward is no longer a member.
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| A 10-year-old girl died on a Delta flight from Los Angeles to Seattle after apparently suffering cardiac arrest Posted: 27 Dec 2019 04:36 AM PST  Delta Flight 2423 landed back at Los Angeles International (LAX) 21 minutes after taking off so the young girl could receive medical aid.
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| Quake strikes near Iran nuclear power plant Posted: 27 Dec 2019 01:42 AM PST  An earthquake struck Iran on Friday less than 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the country's only nuclear power plant, monitors said. The US Geological Survey said the 5.1 magnitude quake struck 44 kilometres (27 miles) from the southwestern city of Borazjan and at a depth of 38 kilometres. Its reported epicentre is 45 kilometres east of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, on the southwest Gulf coast.
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| Islamic State says it beheaded Christian captives in Nigeria Posted: 27 Dec 2019 06:01 AM PST ![Islamic State says it beheaded Christian captives in Nigeria]( "Islamic State says it beheaded Christian captives in Nigeria") MAIDUGURI/CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State released a video purporting to show its militants beheading 10 Christian men in Nigeria, saying it was part of a campaign to avenge the deaths of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and its spokesman. The militant group posted the footage on its online Telegram news channel on Thursday, the day after Christmas, with Arabic captions but no audio. An earlier video seen by Reuters said the captives had been taken from Maiduguri and Damaturu in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno, where militants have been fighting for years to set up a separate Islamist state.
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| Three members of British family die 'after drowning in swimming pool' at their Costa Del Sol hotel Posted: 25 Dec 2019 12:31 PM PST  Three members of the same family were found dead in a swimming pool in the Costa Del Sol on Christmas Eve after a father, along with his teenage son, tried to save their nine-year-old daughter. The mother of the children, who witnessed the tragic event, was seen praying for them to come back to life as another tourist performed CPR on the family members. The tragedy began when a nine-year-old girl got into difficulty in the swimming pool at the Club La Costa holiday resort. Her father, 52, and older brother, 16, jumped in after her but also became stuck and were found unresponsive shortly after. Police were seen investigating the pool pump system at the resort after local media reported an experienced member of staff faced issues when trying to retrieve the three family members from the pool. Investigators are understood to have analysed the circulation system including the pump and network of skimmers and drains to check for any suction problems which could be deadly for young children. The incident reportedly happened at the Club La Costa World resort, a short drive from Fuengirola Credit: Jasper Juinen/Getty Images But last night, the resort management said: "The Guardia Civil have carried out a full investigation which found no concerns relating to the pool in question or procedures in place, which leaves us to believe this was a tragic accident which has left everyone surrounding the incident in shock." Late on Christmas Day, they confirmed the Civil Guard had authorised the reopening of the pool where the tragedy took place. Father-of-three Josias Fletchman, who attempted to save the lives of the three holidaymakers, said the mother "stayed calm" as she touched her loved ones' and prayed their hearts would start beating again while he tried to save her husband's life. The 35-year-old from Manchester told how he returned to the apartment block where the tragedy occurred as staff at holiday complex Club La Costa World were pulling the three out of the water. Mr Fletchman described the family as being of Afro-Caribbean descent like him and from the London area. Mr Fletchman said: "The mum was praying for them to come back to life. "She was calm. She was touching their bodies. She continued praying even after the ambulance people arrived and had stopped trying to revive them. "She exercised her faith to the limit. I was performing CPR on her husband but I'm a believer and I prayed as well. "She strengthened me in the way she reacted. It just wasn't meant to be." Eni Raja, 22, originally from Norway but now living in Birmingham, added: "I saw the bodies with the three white blankets over them. "The mum was crying. I can't get the image out of my mind." Local reports say police have also searched for any items of clothing that might have got stuck in the pool drain and taken water samples to test ahead of the autopsies, which were due to take place on Christmas Day at Malaga's Institute of Forensic Medicine. The results of the autopsies will be passed on to an investigating judge but are rarely officially made public in Spain. The names of the father and two children have not been released. Well-placed sources have confirmed the nine-year-old and her father were British, but the 16-year-old was travelling on an American passport. Trained counsellors are now spending time with the mother and her other child, thought to be a teenage daughter, while other relatives fly to Spain from the UK. Costa Club World spokesman Juan Jose Millan said: "The pool has all its paperwork in order and what we know from the Civil Guard is that there is no anomaly with the pool suction system which press reports have highlighted. "But for us the most important thing at the moment is to care for the family and enable them to get the privacy and rest they need right now.." He added: "This has been a terrible occurrence and staff and some guests are receiving psychological support along with the family." Some guests of the hotel had placed candles as a memorial to the three who lost their lives. A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said after news of the tragedy emerged: "We are offering assistance to a British woman following an incident in Spain."
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| 2 passengers say they were sexually assaulted during their flights. They're suing the airline for allegedly ignoring their reports. Posted: 26 Dec 2019 08:16 AM PST  One woman alleged in the lawsuit that she immediately notified a flight attendant when she was assaulted, but she was not allowed to switch seats.
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| Russia announces a new hypersonic weapon of intercontinental range Posted: 27 Dec 2019 07:14 AM PST  Russia's defense minister reported to President Vladimir Putin that a new hypersonic weapon of intercontinental range became operational Friday following years of tests. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed Putin that the first missile unit equipped with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle had entered combat duty, the Defense Ministry said.
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| Trump Pushes Out Tweet Naming Alleged Whistleblower Posted: 26 Dec 2019 04:58 PM PST  On Thursday evening, Donald Trump pushed out on Twitter the name of the alleged whistleblower whose complaint led to the president's impeachment.Trump's personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, retweeted a post by the re-election campaign's official "war room" account that was aimed at the whistleblower's attorney Mark Zaid. "It's pretty simple. The CIA 'whistleblower' is not a real whistleblower!" reads the tweet, which links to a Washington Examiner item. That piece, published Dec. 3, includes the alleged whistleblower's name in the headline. The Daily Beast is declining to publish the name and has not independently verified the identity of the whistleblower.As The Daily Beast reported last month, Trump had gossiped for weeks about this alleged whistleblower with various friends, media figures, and senior administration officials, and had asked some people if they thought it was a good idea for him to publicly announce or tweet the name. Several people close to the president, such as Ivanka Trump and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, had privately cautioned him against saying or posting the name in public, arguing it would be counterproductive and unnecessary.Even Fox News host Sean Hannity, who had also gossiped in recent months with Trump about the alleged whistleblower, hadn't pushed the president hard on this.Multiple sources close to Trump had told The Daily Beast last month that they were genuinely shocked the president hadn't already rage-tweeted the name or blurted it out to the cameras, given his massive fury at the individual. On Thursday night, President Trump's restraint appeared to slip.Zaid — who has worked with The Daily Beast on Freedom of Information Act requests — and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.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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| Notre Dame rector: Fragile cathedral might not be saved Posted: 26 Dec 2019 04:36 AM PST  The rector of Notre Dame Cathedral says the Paris landmark is still so fragile that there's a "50% chance" the structure might not be saved, because scaffolding installed before this year's fire is threatening the vaults of the Gothic monument. Monsignor Patrick Chauvet said restoration work isn't likely to begin until 2021 — and described his "heartache" that Notre Dame couldn't hold Christmas services this year, for the first time since the French Revolution.
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| Pete Buttigieg's Christmas tweet inadvertently sparked a war over whether Jesus was a poor refugee Posted: 27 Dec 2019 05:42 AM PST  Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and top-tier 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted a Christmas message: "Today I join millions around the world in celebrating the arrival of divinity on earth, who came into this world not in riches but in poverty, not as a citizen but as a refugee. No matter where or how we celebrate, merry Christmas." In 2019, those are apparently fighting words.Some conservative Christians protested that Joseph, the terrestrial father of Jesus of Nazareth, wasn't poor — though it's hard to see how a carpenter from an otherwise insignificant village in Galilee would be well-off — or faulted Buttigieg for not saying "Jesus" in his tweet. "But it was perhaps Buttigieg's classification of Jesus as a refugee — a common line among the Christian left — that received almost immediate pushback from evangelicals," says The Washington Post's Eugene Scott.The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh tied the criticisms together in one tweet, and he got some pushback from Jack Jenkins, a religion reporter with a master's degree in divinity from Harvard.> Hi! Religion reporter here. > > Christians who argue Jesus was a refugee are typically referring to what happened AFTER Jesus was born, when Mary, Joseph, and the newborn child fled to Egypt. > > This exegesis is easily Google-able. Or you could just, you know, read it in the Bible. https://t.co/DBL1by2maW> > — Jack Jenkins (@jackmjenkins) December 26, 2019Walsh, who is Catholic, argued back that Jesus wasn't a refugee because Galilee and Egypt were both part of the Roman Empire. Fr. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who's nobody's idea of a theological conservative, explained in 2017 why Jesus and his family were clearly refugees, at least according to the Gospel of Matthew. And fellow Jesuit priest Jeremy Zipple noted that Pope Benedict XVI — nobody's idea of a liberal — disagrees with Walsh, as did Pope Pius XII.> What an absurd position to take. Here's Pope Benedict XVI quoting Pope Pius XII on this question. https://t.co/V7WXrIPUJr https://t.co/7Ee8CziytK pic.twitter.com/XTUlm0lXda> > — Jeremy Zipple (@jzipple) December 26, 2019Jesus' citizenship status "has real implications for how Christians on both sides of the aisle conduct policy" and view President Trump's hardline, restrictive immigration and refugee policies, Scott reports. And Buttigieg dropped his Christmas tweet into a tender moment for evangelicals being internally challenged to square their faith with their fealty to an unrepentantly flawed president. Read The Week's Bonnie Kristian on how evangelicals might fix this moral dissonance.More stories from theweek.com A more honest evangelical defense of Trump 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's holiday season 5 political clichés we should leave in the 2010s
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| Paramedic charged with poisoning his wife with eye drops to collect a $250,000 life insurance payout Posted: 26 Dec 2019 04:08 PM PST  A paramedic in North Carolina has been charged with first-degree murder for allegedly using eye drops to cause his wife's death and collecting $250,000 from her two life insurance policies.
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| Australian wildfires threaten Sydney water supplies Posted: 26 Dec 2019 06:38 PM PST  Australian authorities said on Friday they are focused on protecting water plants, pumping stations, pipes and other infrastructure from intense bushfires surrounding Sydney, the country's largest city. Temperatures in New South Wales (NSW) state are forecast to head back towards 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) early next week, fuelling fires near Warragamba Dam, which provides water to about 80% of Sydney's 5 million residents. "In recent days up to the cool change, the fires had been a potential threat to supply and assets, particularly in Warragamba and in the Blue Mountains," a spokesman for the state's water authority, WaterNSW, told Reuters.
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| Woman ‘thrown in jail’ while delivering Christmas gifts to children in Mexico border migrant camps Posted: 26 Dec 2019 01:41 PM PST  A woman was detained while delivering Christmas gifts to migrant children in camps near the US-Mexico border, after officials suspected her of trying to smuggle ammunition.Anamichelle Castellano was travelling across the southern border from Texas into Mexico on Monday with another volunteer and over 300 gifts, when she was stopped by Mexican authorities at the Gateway Bridge.
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| Trump tweets warning to Russia, Iran against killing ‘innocent civilians’ in Syria Posted: 26 Dec 2019 11:10 AM PST  Thousands of civilians have fled fighting in Syria for the border with Turkey.
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| California jails use kinder approach to solitary confinement Posted: 26 Dec 2019 10:46 AM PST  An inmate in solitary confinement at a California jail was refusing to leave his cell. The jailers' usual response: Send an "extraction team" of corrections officers to burst into the cell and drag him out. More than a quarter of U.S. states and numerous smaller jurisdictions are looking for ways to reduce the use of solitary confinement, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, which encourages alternatives to a practice behavioral experts say is dehumanizing and can worsen mental illness.
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| FBI Investigating Ghislaine Maxwell’s Links to Epstein, Says Report Posted: 27 Dec 2019 04:46 AM PST  Ghislaine Maxwell's disappearance in the wake of Jeffrey Epstein's suicide has been one of the most mysterious elements of the entire scandal. Now the FBI has reportedly launched a search for answers.Reuters news agency reported Friday that Maxwell is the main focus of an investigation into people who may have helped facilitate Epstein's alleged sex-trafficking operation. Maxwell, 58, was once Epstein's girlfriend and became a key member of his inner circle, with the dead sex offender describing her in 2003 as his "best friend."Maxwell has rarely been seen in public since 2016, and hasn't been spotted at all since Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in July. Her whereabouts have been a matter of intense speculation since Epstein killed himself inside his jail cell in August. The Washington Post reported that she may have been living in a mansion Massachusetts, whereas British tabloid The Sun is offering a $13,000 reward for information.Jeffrey Epstein 'Friend' Ghislaine Maxwell Has More Skeletons in Her Family Closet Than a House of HorrorsTwo law-enforcement officials told Reuters that Maxwell is the principal focus of the FBI's investigation, but it's also seeking information on a wider range of "people who facilitated" Epstein's actions. The sources are said to have told Reuters that the FBI is following up on leads received from women who contacted a hotline set up after Epstein's arrest.Reuters reports the sources refused to identify any other people the FBI is investigating, but they did say that there are no current plans to interview Britain's Prince Andrew. The prince was a friend of Epstein's who was forced to step down from his public duties in November because of what he admitted was an "ill-judged" relationship. The sources said Andrew is not considered to have facilitated Epstein, but they didn't rule out the possibility that the FBI would ask to interview Andrew at a later date.Jeffrey Epstein's 'Madam' Ghislaine Maxwell Spotted at In-N-Out BurgerThe FBI and Maxwell refused to comment on the Reuters story, while a spokesperson for the British royal family said that whether the agency interviewed Andrew was "a matter for the FBI."Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein's alleged victims who was infamously pictured with Andrew, has said in court filings that Maxwell was responsible for bringing her into Epstein's proximity, after which she claims he forced her to have sex with him and his friends, including Andrew. A number of Epstein's alleged victims have said Maxwell lured them into his world to be sexually abused by him and connections.Giuffre told Dateline NBC earlier this year: "I get approached by this beautiful, well-spoken, well-mannered woman with an English accent... She told me her name was Ghislaine Maxwell, and she said 'I know this older gentleman who's looking for a traveling masseuse. He's super rich, he flies around everywhere. If you want, you can come by for an interview.'"Giuffre said even after Maxwell ordered her to perform sex acts on Epstein during their first meeting, she went back again because they'd promised they could help her become a professional masseuse.Maxwell has denied Giuffre's allegations, and the FBI hasn't accused Maxwell of any form of wrongdoing.Prince Andrew denies ever meeting Giuffre.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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| Stunning images from space show how wars, fires, and floods changed our world over the last decade Posted: 27 Dec 2019 07:38 AM PST  Some of the decade's most important events were documented in remarkably detailed images from orbiting space satellites.
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| Living the High Life on the Autoworkers' Dime Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:35 AM PST  On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Auto Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union's money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. "Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year," read a handwritten note from the store.The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Jones and other UAW officials expensed to the union between 2014 and 2018. And the cigar purchases were in turn just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say UAW officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, California, and elsewhere.The scandal comes on top of an investigation into company and union officials' improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-UAW training center. Jones' predecessor as president, Dennis Williams, is accused of encouraging the use of Fiat Chrysler funds meant for worker education as a way to pay for the extravagant spending in Palm Springs and other places.In direct financial terms, the scandals don't approach the scale of the corruption that plagued organized labor in the 1960s and '70s.But the stakes are nonetheless enormous, given the UAW's outsize influence over auto manufacturing, a pillar of the U.S. economy that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue and employs hundreds of thousands of workers. The union's 40-day strike against General Motors this year cost the automaker an estimated $3 billion in profit. Last month, GM contended in a lawsuit that Fiat Chrysler had bribed the UAW to help it undermine GM by manipulating labor costs.And no one in the union had more influence over the industry than its two flawed former presidents.Williams, 66, who was president from 2014 to 2018, is a former welder and by most accounts a committed progressive but also a man susceptible to the perquisites of power. According to court documents, Williams and his team celebrated a Fiat Chrysler labor agreement they negotiated in 2015 with a $7,000 dinner paid for by the company. The agreement was so disliked by rank-and-file members that they soon took the highly unusual step of rejecting it.Jones, 62, a union accountant known both for asking colleagues to pray and for lashing them with profanity, is said to have used the illicit Palm Springs spending to win over union power brokers and help him secure the top job in 2018. As president, Jones led the UAW into its recent GM strike just weeks after federal agents raided his house and hauled away more than $30,000 in cash.Of the more than 15 current or former UAW officials interviewed for this article, most declined to comment on the record, citing an ethos of silence at the union or a fear of retribution. But together with government documents, the picture they paint of Jones and Williams suggests a leadership that has at times aspired more to the role of fat cat than defender of workers. The consequences for the rank and file may take decades to tally fully."There was a culture of corrupt activities spanning years. That's what we're trying to turn around," said Matthew Schneider, the U.S. attorney in Detroit, who is leading the investigation into the UAW. "The purpose of the union is not to serve the leadership. It is to serve the members."Jones and Williams have not been charged and appear in court filings only as "Official A" and "Official B," pseudonyms that two union officials told The Times refer to them, a fact that other news organizations have also confirmed. In an email, Bruce Maffeo, a lawyer representing Jones, dismissed the accusations as stemming "from public documents in which Gary was not charged."A person close to Williams rejected the accusation, first reported in The Detroit News, that he urged the diversion and misuse of training center funds.The 'Master Account'At the heart of the UAW embezzlement scandal, which dates back at least to 2013, was an elaborate hospitality tab known as the "master account." Union officials opened such accounts at hotels like the Renaissance Palm Springs, the site of an annual series of conferences. According to the federal complaint, union officials billed to this account not just rooms and food that they bought at the hotel but also a variety of other expenses weeks before and after the conferences.Union officials did conduct work at the meetings, including discussing contract enforcement and upcoming negotiations. But the gatherings also appeared to be a pretext for power brokers to enjoy a comfortable winter getaway.Among the expenses charged to the master account were the villas, which were tucked away in a gated community and cost about $5,000 a month, and dinners that ran into thousands of dollars. The bill for one meal at LG's Prime Steakhouse topped $6,500 and featured a $1,760 charge for four bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne.Union officials also spent more than $80,000 at the Indian Canyons Golf Resort in Palm Springs for green fees, shoes, golf bags, sunglasses, shirts and "fashion shorts," according to the complaint. They shipped many of these items home to Michigan on a semitruck.Williams, who was the UAW president for much of this period, was often the gravitational center of the Palm Springs sabbaticals. According to the federal complaint, the union paid for a monthlong stay for Williams at a villa in the winter of 2013-14. Two years later, the union paid for more than three months.In interviews, union officials said Williams would spend his days in Palm Springs conferring with aides and colleagues on the phone and in person, sometimes while playing golf. Nights were frequently given to socializing.Two former UAW officials recalled a night in which a few dozen people, including the wives of male officials, gathered at Williams' villa for pizza. The men gathered around a fire on the back patio where they smoked cigars, drank whiskey and discussed car restoration projects.The federal complaint said that friends of Williams who had "no legitimate reason to attend" union events joined him in Palm Springs on the UAW's dime.The arrangement helped create an in crowd and an out crowd at the union. Officials who were uneasy with the cigar-and-whiskey atmosphere in Palm Springs were left out and had more limited interactions with Williams. Three former officials said in interviews that they rarely saw him in Detroit during the winter.Other UAW officials, including those tasked with negotiating the union's contract with Fiat Chrysler, spent far more time in Palm Springs over the winter. These officials charged more than $25,000 in Palm Springs meals to the company in January 2015 alone, according to court documents.A person close to Williams said that Williams was frequently traveling away from Palm Springs on union business during the dates in which the villas were rented on his behalf. The person also said that no one enjoyed special influence over Williams as a result of additional face time with him.An Expansive FiefAccording to documents filed by prosecutors, the orchestrator of the master account was Jones, the UAW president who resigned in November.Jones spent more than a decade as an accountant and senior aide at the union's headquarters before 2004, when he became assistant director of the union's Region 5, then one of 11 geographic units.The UAW's regions are often run like fiefs, but Region 5, which was based in Missouri but sprawled all the way to the West Coast, was more fieflike than most.According to two Region 5 officials, the region's longtime director, Jim Wells, had a knack for extracting cash from members and staff, and there were few constraints on how he spent it. They said that under Wells, staff members were expected to buy a Region 5 jacket every four years at a cost of $1,000, ostensibly to support Wells' campaign for reelection as director.Elizabeth Bunn, who served as the UAW's second-ranking officer from 2002 to 2010, said that under Wells, Palm Springs was known as a place where officials could enjoy themselves at union expense for well beyond the length of a conference, although the behavior may have been legal. Bunn also recalled facing internal pressure while investigating wrongdoing in the region."A lot of people saw things and did not react with the moral clarity that they exercised in every other situation," she said.Wells died in 2012. A UAW press officer declined to comment on those complaints.Jones did not appear to blanch at this culture of financial laxness. At least as early as 2010, according to court filings, Jones and a colleague began submitting receipts that had already been reimbursed, or that they had manufactured, to a fund that supports the union's political efforts. The two men would split the reimbursement. Jones personally received hundreds of thousands of dollars from this scheme from 2010 to 2017, according to prosecutors.After Jones became regional director in 2012, he took an active role in directing the Palm Springs spending, prosecutors have asserted. UAW officials who wanted to play golf or buy golf apparel were told to charge the purchase to the Gary Jones "group," and the bill would flow to the master account at the Renaissance Hotel. The hotel declined to comment.A crucial purpose of the spending by Jones was to "curry favor with UAW 'Official B,' who also enjoyed the lavish lifestyle," according to the federal complaint, referring to Williams.In interviews, three union officials said it was clear that Jones was courting Williams in order to succeed him as president. One Region 5 official noted that Jones, who was not previously a regular cigar smoker, turned himself into a cigar aficionado in the mold of Williams after becoming regional director. The official said Jones acquired a few humidors for the regional headquarters in Hazelwood, Missouri.Colleagues said that despite their expensive tastes, Jones and Williams were a study in contrasts. Williams told fellow officials in the 2000s that he was a socialist. As union president, he hired consultants to bolster the union's organizing efforts in areas like higher education and technology, including those at the electric carmaker Tesla.Jones, by contrast, appeared to be more conservative and less interested in new organizing opportunities. He blocked a promising effort to organize thousands of research assistants within the University of California system, according to two officials.The officials said Jones feared that adding members in higher education would threaten his power base among blue-collar workers. When Jones would meet with graduate students, according to two Region 5 officials, he would often joke that "my major was partying" as a way to belittle their academic experience.In the end, the power of UAW regional directors is such that Williams, normally a charismatic leader, was unable to move Jones on some of his top organizing priorities, three current and former officials said. Jones also later pushed to let most of the union's Tesla organizers go."Gary started as a factory worker for Ford and dedicated over 40 years of his life as a member and officer of the UAW to improving the lives of that union's members and their families," said his lawyer, Maffeo.But Jones' intransigence did not stop his ascent within the union.When the union's board discussed whom to back for president in fall 2017, its members were aware that Williams supported Jones, according to several people close to the situation. They said the rest of the board quickly backed Jones as well, all but ensuring that he would take over the union at its convention the following June.These people said in interviews that Jones was the only viable candidate by this point, but two also said that Williams' support had helped ensure that this was the case.'Deliver a Clean Union'Since Jones resigned as president last month, the UAW board has replaced him with Rory Gamble, who previously oversaw the union's negotiations with Ford. Gamble has put forth reforms to "deliver a clean union on solid footing" by the time he retires from the post in 2022.They include regular audits of spending by programs run jointly with automakers, a new ethics officer and an ethics hotline. Gamble also announced that Jones' former region would be split into two pieces that would each be merged into another region.And he has indicated that he intends to press for more, unspecified changes. "We have a lot more stuff we're going to be doing," Gamble said in an interview.But many current and former UAW officials say that to be truly effective, the reforms must reduce the power of the union's board members. They said that cozy relationships among union leaders may have led them to tolerate questionable behavior by one another.Bob King, who was the union's president from 2010 to 2014, confronted colleagues about improper training center spending, according to court documents. He said in an interview that he had not sufficiently scrutinized Jones' former region, partly because he was focused on preserving unity among leadership."I do feel anger and responsibility," King said. "I should have been looking at some stuff more closely. I would really encourage the current board to not make the same mistakes."King said he supported the union's current reform efforts but urged it to go further. "They have to figure out how to create a system that is more open and transparent," he said. "It's not about a few bad apples."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Death toll reaches 28 as Philippines recovers from Christmas typhoon Posted: 26 Dec 2019 07:09 PM PST  The death toll from a Christmas typhoon that tore through the central Philippines rose to 28 on Friday, with 12 people missing, the disaster agency said, as authorities moved to restore power and residents tried to repair damaged homes. Typhoon Phanfone hit late on Tuesday with winds of up to 120 kph (75 mph) and gusts of 150 kph, dumping sheets of uninterrupted rain on a string of islands, damaging hundreds of homes and causing flooding in eight areas. It was the seventh typhoon to strike the Philippines this year and came as millions of people in the predominantly Catholic country were heading home to celebrate Christmas with families.
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| China Might Have Stolen The Secrets To Israel's Iron Dome Missile Defense Posted: 27 Dec 2019 12:30 AM PST  And that has implications for America.
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| Trump Administration Rolls Back LED Light Bulb Standards Posted: 27 Dec 2019 07:16 AM PST  "The bulbs do not last long enough for the energy savings to surpass the higher upfront price."
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| Navy Seal pardoned of war crimes by Trump described by colleagues as 'freaking evil' Posted: 27 Dec 2019 08:03 AM PST  Eddie Gallagher 'OK with killing anything that moved', Iraq veterans told investigators in testimony obtained by New York TimesA Navy Seal platoon leader controversially cleared of war crimes by Donald Trump was a "toxic" character who was "OK with killing anything that moved", according to fellow Iraq veterans who reported his conduct to military investigators.The explosive testimony was published Friday by the New York Times, which obtained previously unseen video interviews and text messages from several former members of an elite commando unit once led by special operations chief Eddie Gallagher.Gallagher was convicted in July of posing with the dead body of a teenage Islamic State captive he had just killed with a hunting knife. He was granted clemency by the president in November in a decision that angered military chiefs.In the interviews, conducted by navy investigators looking into Gallagher's conduct during a tour of duty in Iraq in 2017, fellow platoon members told of a ruthless leader who stabbed the captive to death for no reason then forced his troops to pose for a photograph with the corpse.At his court martial, Gallagher was acquitted of murder but demoted in rank for the lesser charge of posing with the body – a decision Trump reversed.In a lengthy criminal investigation report, the navy detectives laid out other allegations against Gallagher, including picking off a schoolgirl and elderly man from a sniper's roost. Members of Alpha Platoon's Seal Team 7 alarmed by their leader's conduct said they were initially shut down by military chiefs when they first spoke up, and told their own careers would suffer if they continued to talk about it.Eventually, the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began an inquiry and the platoon members were called to give evidence."The guy is freaking evil," special operator first class Craig Miller, one of the platoon's most experienced members, told investigators in sometimes tearful testimony. "I think Eddie was proud of it, and that was, like, part of it for him."Miller said Gallagher, who had the nickname Blade, went on to stage a bizarre "re-enlistment ceremony" over the body of the captive. "I was listening to it and I was just thinking, like, this is the most disgraceful thing I have ever seen in my life," he said.At his court martial, the panel heard evidence that Gallagher had emailed a photograph to a friend in the US containing a photograph of him holding up the dead captive's head with the words: "Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife."Another platoon member, medic Corey Scott, said: "You could tell he was perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving."In text messages exchanged by the group around the time of their testimony, which were also obtained by the New York Times, platoon members urged each other to speak truthfully to the investigators."Tell the truth, don't lie or embellish," one team member, a sniper, wrote. "That way he can't say that we slandered him in any way."Gallagher maintains the allegations against him are a fabrication by platoon members who could not match his own high standards and who were intent on ousting him."My first reaction to seeing the videos was surprise and disgust that they would make up blatant lies about me, but I quickly realized that they were scared that the truth would come out of how cowardly they acted on deployment," Gallagher said in a statement to the Times issued by his lawyer Timothy Parlatore."I felt sorry for them that they thought it necessary to smear my name."Despite Gallagher's conviction for war crimes, Trump has lauded him – and two other military members he granted clemency to last month – as "great fighters"."I stood up for three great warriors against the deep state," Trump told supporters at a Thanksgiving rally in Sunrise, Florida, apparently referring to a decision just weeks earlier by Adm Mike Gilday, the US navy's chief of operations, to deny Gallgher's appeal for clemency and uphold his demotion.Gallagher and his wife Andrea were photographed last weekend with the president and first lady Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private Florida resort where he is spending the holidays.
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| Red wolves court battle reignites as governor urges action Posted: 26 Dec 2019 06:29 AM PST  The fight over the critically endangered red wolf has returned to court as North Carolina's governor sought immediate help for the dozen or so remaining in the wild and federal biologists planned to transfer wolves into the recovery area for the first time in years. In late November, Gov. Roy Cooper sent the secretary of the interior a sharply worded letter warning that, with no more than 14 known wolves in the wild, "the American red wolf is on the brink of extinction." He noted that in 2019, no litters of red wolf pups were born in the wild for the first time in the history of the reintroduction program. Red wolves once occupied much of the Eastern U.S. but were driven to near extinction by trapping, hunting and habitat loss before they were reintroduced to North Carolina in 1987.
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| Why Are Academics Ignoring Iran’s Colonialism? Posted: 27 Dec 2019 03:30 AM PST  Academics today are obsessed with colonization, empire, and cultural hegemony, along with postcolonialism, ethnic studies, and intersectionality. Scholarship in many fields has come to be dominated by hegemony-fighting, indigenous-supporting anti-imperialists who attack anyone who disagrees with them. When a journal called Third World Quarterly published an article in 2017 about the benefits of colonialism, the uproar from the social-justice professors led to the article's being withdrawn and 15 members of the editorial board resigning amid threats.So if the profession is so adamant about the evils of colonialism, why is it ignoring Iran?When strong countries exert their (unfair) advantages over weaker ones, imposing their values and cultures and manipulating indigenous economies, academics are among the loudest and most creative critics. Even the most benign influence of a powerful country over a weaker one is excoriated -- hence the long obsession with something called "cocacolonization." Legions of scholar-activists are busy enlisting history to shed light on the present, drawing parallels between a benighted European era of colonization and an ongoing American or Israeli one, looking under rocks for signs of Western, American, and Trumpian oppression and proclaiming a new American empire. Fair enough -- but why ignore the Iranian attempts to do exactly to others what they accuse others of having done to Iran?Journalists and analysts, such as Jonathan Spyer and Seth Frantzman, have been documenting Iran's colonial expansion for many years. But most academics have been reluctant to turn their skills on Iran. Many prefer softer targets, such as Israel and the U.S. Earlier this month, the United Nations' Decolonization Committee pushed eight anti-Israel measures through the General Assembly, showing where its priorities lie.Even without its violations of other countries' sovereignty, Iran itself is an empire, with ethnic Persians dominating the Arabs, Kurds, Balochis, Azeris, Turkmen, Lur, Gilakis, and Mazandaranis. Only a few, notably Daniel Pipes, Ilan Berman, and Shoshana Bryen, are interested in this fact.Khomeini's Islamic Revolution was an imperialist project from the beginning, as one of his first moves after taking power (even before the collapse of the post-shah provisional government in November 1979) was to establish the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to spread his ideas. Shortly thereafter he made moves in Lebanon, dispatching "1,500 IRGC advisers [to] set up a base in the Bekaa Valley as part of [his] goal to export the Islamic Revolution to the Arab world," as Matthew Levitt put it. Those advisers were instrumental in creating Hezbollah, which has served to spread Iran's influence throughout the world.In 1998, the al-Quds Force, the IRGC's unconventional-warfare unit, got a new leader when Qassem Soleimani was appointed commander. Soleimani has ramped up Iran's colonial enterprise, capitalizing on the U.S. toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to take over Iraq in a way Iran could never have accomplished on its own. The so-called Arab Spring offered Soleimani the opportunity to stake out territory in Syria using Hezbollah and in Yemen using the Shia Houthi rebels, completing the goal of a "Shia Crescent" stretching from the Gulf to the Mediterranean.Books on British and American empire building in Iran and the greater Middle East (real and imagined) come out every year. The topic has earned tenure for many willing to genuflect at the altar of Edward Said by exposing alleged evils of European and American "Orientalism." Yet almost no academics are writing about one of the world's most obvious and bloodiest colonizing projects even as it plays out right under their noses.There are exceptions, of course. Efraim Karsh's Islamic Imperialism (2006) reminded everyone that the Middle East is "where the institution of empire not only originated . . . but where its spirit has also outlived its European counterpart."Another exception is Tallha Abdulrazak, a researcher at the University of Exeter's Strategy and Security Institute, but his interests in Iranian colonialism seem to end at Iraq, and the anti-American and anti-Israel tendencies in his writing at Al Jazeera and the Middle East Eye suggest a lack of interest in the totality of Iranian empire-building. These tendencies were doubtless instrumental in his being awarded the Al Jazeera Young Researcher Award in 2015.Think-tank scholars have not shied away from Iran's interference in other countries. Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute notes that "aside from Russia, Iran is the world's most imperialistic country today . . . little different in its quest for political and economic domination of poorer states as its tormentors were in the nineteenth century."Israeli scholars too seem more interested in today's Iran than in yesterday's. Hillel Frisch, professor of political studies and Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University and a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, calls Iran "the only country whose focus is on political, military, and terrorist intervention and involvement in areas beyond its contiguous borders against states that have not struck the homeland."But where are the clarion calls from the ivory towers? Are all the anti-Orientalists busy stigmatizing the West, privileging victimhood over achievement and finding new ways to use "other" as a verb (perhaps at UC Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute)? Where are the conferences, symposia, and special-issue journals on Iranian imperialism? The Council on Foreign Relations hosted an event dedicated to Iran's imperial foreign policy in February, but if any similar event occurred at an American university in 2019, it wasn't advertised and remains well hidden.The 21st century began with a frenetic deluge of articles and books decrying a new American "imperialism" in the Middle East that had begun after 9/11. But books decrying the rise of Iranian imperialism have not even come in a trickle.So what exactly are the Middle East specialists up to?On the fringes of the profession, where the activists lurk, a counteroffensive is under way. Iran apologist Hamid Dabashi of Columbia University wrote and published a "Letter Against US Imperialism" on December 7 objecting to "the current U.S. imperial project," aided by the IMF, that "seek[s] a return to neocolonial governance in the form of a U.S.-backed regime." Dabashi somehow persuaded 38 academics (12 from colleges in California) to join with an odd assortment of artists, activists, lawyers, and podcasters to sign the desperate and bizarre letter that completely misunderstands the protests in Iran in November.Even the socialists at New Politics find fault with Dabashi's letter for its "dismissal of the Iranian regime's oppressive and violent influence in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq" and its shallow "conceptualization of imperialism [which] does not include and condemn the sub-imperialisms of Iran."Mainstream Middle East specialists prefer to pretend that there is no Iranian imperialism, "sub" or otherwise. When hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them assembled in New Orleans at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) last month, the topic seems to have escaped them. Over the course of four days they convened 20 academic sessions, each comprising between 18 and 24 topics, for a total of 304 events: panels, round tables, thematic conversations, conference papers, and special current-issue sessions. In each of these events at least a half dozen experts presented, chaired, or refereed. And not a single event was devoted to Iran's colonial influence in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, or Yemen. There was nothing about the ascendant Iranian empire. The Qajar Empire, on the other hand, was covered in multiple sessions. Also popular were events about someplace called either "Palestine/Israel" or "Israel/Palestine," depending apparently on the whims of the moderator.The Iranian colonial project is among the most significant events in modern history, and its contours coincide with the interests and deeply held beliefs of the professoriate. But most academics are remarkably uncurious about Iran's colonialism. Talk about wasting the moment.
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| The 20 most dangerous volcanoes in the US, ranked Posted: 27 Dec 2019 03:37 AM PST  A US Geological Survey list of volcano threats has been updated for the first time since 2005. California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii are at risk.
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| Ghislaine Maxwell being investigated by FBI over Jeffrey Epstein links, report says Posted: 27 Dec 2019 07:36 AM PST  The FBI has reportedly launched an investigation into "people who facilitated" Jeffrey Epstein's alleged criminal acts prior to his death in federal custody earlier this year, including the paedophile financier's close friend Ghislaine Maxwell.The 58-year-old British socialite has all but removed herself from the public eye — minus a chance sighting at a burger bar in Los Angeles, California in August — after Epstein died of a reported suicide while awaiting trial on new sex-trafficking charges.
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| 'I'm still scared' - Asia remembers tsunami that killed 230,000 Posted: 25 Dec 2019 08:25 PM PST  Communities across Asia commemorated the more than 230,000 victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami on Thursday, the 15th anniversary of one of the world's most deadly disasters. On the morning after Christmas Day in 2004, a 9.1 magnitude quake off northern Sumatra island triggered a tsunami with waves as high as 17.4 meters (57 feet) that swept over vulnerable coastal areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries. "It still haunts me … I can remember it all the time," said Suwannee Maliwan, 28, who lost both parents and five other relatives when the tsunami hit the Thai province of Phang Nga.
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| Clashes in C. African capital leave at least 30 dead Posted: 26 Dec 2019 12:54 PM PST  At least 30 people were killed in fighting between militiamen and traders in a restive district of Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, a security official and a local imam said Thursday. "Thirty bodies have been brought to the mosque," said Awad Al Karim, the imam of the Ali Babolo mosque in a district called PK5 that became a haven for many Bangui Muslims at the peak of Christian-Muslim clashes in the country. A security official, who asked to remain anonymous, also put the number of dead at at least 30, without providing any further details.
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| 'Shower Power': Woman converts food truck into mobile shower unit for homeless Posted: 26 Dec 2019 10:19 AM PST  Teresa Renkenberger started a mobile shower unit for the homeless. It's an often overlooked need, she says.
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| Netanyahu’s Big Win Means His Party Is in Real Trouble Posted: 26 Dec 2019 05:26 PM PST  JERUSALEM—After weeks of bad news, Thursday was a very good night for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faced the first serious challenge to his leadership of the Likud party since 2005.At the end of a tense, stormy primary day, in which Netanyahu's side emitted text messages with invented commandments—"thou shalt not betray"—and supporters of his opponent, Gideon Saar, cried foul over electoral misbehavior, Netanyahu won, convincingly.The final result was 72.5 percent for Netanyahu, and 27.5 percent for Saar, a former minister who ran on a nationalist agenda a notch harsher than Netanyahu's and argued for a return to civility and decency in politics.The only way to guarantee the continuation of the right-wing's monopoly over the Israeli government was for new leadership to take over in the Likud, Saar said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Will Be Indicted. But Will He Step Down?Netanyahu failed to win a majority of votes in two successive elections held this year, in April and in September, and has presided over the Israeli government as an interim prime minister, with limited powers, for a full year.A ruthless political operator, Netanyahu has never nurtured successors. Most of the men who have served him, including former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and former Education Minister Naftali Bennet found themselves out of the Likud when their popularity began to threaten Netanyahu.Saar is the only prominent Likud figure with the courage to state out loud what the Israeli public already knows: there is no path for Netanyahu to form a new government after the national elections on March 2, 2020.In fact, the exuberance at this victory among the party faithful could fade as early as Sunday, when Avichai Mandelblit, the Israeli attorney general, has been forced to produce his opinion on a legal conundrum never before seen here.In November, Mandelblit announced a raft of corruption charges against Netanyahu, including bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.In order to protect a legally elected head of government from frivolous legal challenges, an Israeli Basic Law—a constitutional act—allows an indicted prime minister to serve out his or her term in office even while facing trial.But another law legislated by the Knesset, Israel's parliament, does not allow any indicted person to be appointed to high office.Neither of these laws has ever been tested. Israel's Supreme Court, which is grappling with several petitions claiming Netanyahu cannot legally remain in office, has compelled Mandelblit to present his decision on Netanyahu's ability to continue in office, a sort of forced amicae curiae, by Sunday.In the coming months, the court will rule on Netanyahu's fitness for office as a candidate under criminal indictment.Blue and White—the Likud's opposition in the general election, which bested Netanyahu's party in September—is led by the centrist former army chief, Benny Gantz, who ran on clean government platform. Throughout the failed coalition talks, he said his party hoped to form a broad national unity government with the Likud— but would not serve with an indicted criminal.Saar, during the primary, claimed that Gantz would win the March vote if the Likud was not able to renew its leadership, offering a new coalition government, and that Netanyahu's stubborn hold on power would bring defeat.Knowing he faced serious charges, Netanyahu has been scrambling to evade judgement. The law allows him to remain in office, but not to evade trial. During the last year, Netanyahu has tried to pass a personal immunity law through the Knesset and, created an even greater public uproar, tried to pass a law that would override supreme court decisions.But having failed, but he will now run a scorched earth campaign aimed at a single target: a large enough parliamentary majority to pass an immunity law.Before the primary results were even announced, Netanyahu confidant Miki Zohar, a rambunctious Knesset member for the Likud, said, "Netanyahu got the answer about whether he should ask for immunity."But Netanyanhu's big night may result in very bad news for his party, the Likud, who will be running an indicted candidate who's twice lost and wants only one thing: legal immunity, which the voters hate. Israelis are generally indulgent about Netanyahu's various offences and peccadillos, but deeply oppose parliamentary immunity, and Gantz accuses him of seeking only an "immunity government," not a real governing coalition, and of holding the nation hostage to his legal imbroglios. Netanyahu Is Using Trump's Tactics to Try to Survive His Corruption and Bribery ScandalIn May, when Netanyahu presented the initial bills, 62% of the Israel public opposed immunity for Netanyahu. Recent polls show that figure now above 70%, from voters across the political spectrum.Netanyahu has until January 1 to request immunity against the criminal charges, but would need a majority of members to support it—and, for now, he hasn't got it. The primary victory is expected to emboldened him to demand parliamentary support from the entire right wing block.If Netanyahu does not succeed whipping a majority of Israel's 120 lawmakers to support immunity, he will be put on trial in Jerusalem immediately after the next government is formed.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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| Iran-backed groups accuse Iraqi president of caving to US Posted: 27 Dec 2019 05:44 AM PST  In refusing to appoint Fatah-backed candidate Asaad al-Eidani on Thursday, President Barham Salih said he was responding to broad opposition by anti-government protesters who have flooded the streets for nearly three months to demand the overthrow of Iraq's entire political class.
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| World’s Longest-Serving Ruler Must Reveal His Assets for an IMF Bailout Posted: 27 Dec 2019 07:48 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the world's longest-serving ruler, should declare his assets before the nation receives more financial support, according to the International Monetary Fund.The central African country needs an IMF bailout to deal with a crisis that shrank its economy by a third to $13 billion last year. Under a program agreed to last week, the state will be required to increase transparency, improve governance and implement reforms to fight corruption, Lisandro Abrego, the lender's mission chief for Equatorial Guinea, said in an interview."Authorities will implement an asset-declaration regime for senior public officials as part of the program's requirements," he said by phone from Washington. "It's our understanding that the law will apply to all senior government officials."Obiang, in power since August 1979, and his regime have been accused by prosecutors in the U.S. and France of squandering the tiny Central African's vast oil wealth. As recently as 2017, Equatorial Guinea was as rich in per-capita terms as its former colonial master Spain. Today, OPEC's smallest member is struggling to pay its debts after oil prices collapsed in 2014. The government has piled up arrears with construction firms that equate to almost 19% of its gross domestic product, according to the World Bank."The economy has been hit hard by the decline in oil and gas prices, which has affected export earnings and led to a virtual depletion of foreign assets," Lisandro said. "The economy has also been affected by longstanding governance and corruption problems."Audits by the government of state-owned oil and gas companies are already under way and should be completed by mid-2020, Lisandro said. All active oil and gas contracts are expected to be made public by March, he said.The IMF will also require Equatorial Guinea to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which promotes good governance in the oil and mining industries. The country initially applied in 2008 and has since implemented several reforms to meet the membership requirements. Authorities filed a new application last month, Lisandro said.Calls and text messages to Finance Minister Cesar Mba Abogo seeking comment went unanswered. A Finance Ministry official didn't reply to questions sent by text message.Money-Laundering CaseThe IMF last week gave the green light to a $280 million loan to Equatorial Guinea, $40 million of which has already been dispersed. The loan roughly equates to what Obiang's oldest son and vice president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, spent between 2000 and 2011 buying luxury properties on four continents and assets including Michael Jackson memorabilia, documents filed in a 2013 U.S. Department of Justice money-laundering case show. The case was settled the following year.The president's son received a three-year suspended jail term and a $35 million fine from a French court in 2017 for spending tens of millions of dollars in public funds on a mansion, sports cars and jewelry. In September, Swiss authorities raised $27 million in an auction of exclusive cars they'd seized from him, including a limited-edition Lamborghini Veneno roadster that sold for $8.4 million. He's denied any wrongdoing.Human-rights and anti-corruption advocates have questioned why the IMF is lending its credibility to "a regime with no previous record of serious reform," Sarah Saadoun, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, said in an interview."With no external pressure, besides the IMF, there's a risk that the loan will fund the same lifestyle that the oil wealth upheld for 25 years," Saadoun said by phone from New York.Oil was discovered in Equatorial Guinea in the 1990s. Revenues from offshore oil fields supported investments in large infrastructure programs but left little room for social projects. Less than half of the 1.3 million population has access to clean drinking water and 20% of children die before the age of five, according to United Nations data.(Updates with oil discoveries and social indicators in final paragraph.)\--With assistance from Mike Cohen.To contact the reporters on this story: Katarina Hoije in Abidjan at khoije@bloomberg.net;Alonso Soto in Abuja at asoto54@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gordon Bell at gbell16@bloomberg.net, Paul Richardson, John BowkerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Bruce Lee’s daughter sues fast food chain Posted: 26 Dec 2019 09:51 AM PST  A company run by Bruce Lee's daughter is suing a Chinese fast food chain for allegedly using an image of the martial arts film star without permission.
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| Why you should opt for Apple's regular AirPods over the new $250 AirPods Pro Posted: 26 Dec 2019 07:49 AM PST  Apple's new AirPods Pro come with noise-cancellation and water-resistance, but they aren't necessarily worth the upgrade from regular AirPods.
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