| Netanyahu Distances From Soleimani Slaying, Says Israel Shouldn’t Be ‘Dragged’ Into It: Report Posted: 07 Jan 2020 03:59 AM PST  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump's closest ally on the international stage, is walking on a tightrope in crafting his reaction to the American strike against Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.On Sunday, for public consumption, Netanyahu issued a statement of praise, but restrained himself from the usual flourishes he indulges in when congratulating Trump, such as accompanying videos.In a statement released by his office, Netanyahu said, "Qassem Soleimani brought about the death of many American citizens and many other innocents in recent decades and at present. Soleimani initiated, planned and carried out many terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East and beyond."President Trump is deserving of all esteem for taking determined, strong and quick action. I would like to reiterate—Israel fully stands alongside the US in the just struggle for security, peace and self-defense."And that was it.Netanyahu is in the thorniest moment of his turbulent, three-decade long career in politics. He is running for re-election after having failed to form a coalition government in two elections held in 2019. Last November, he became the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be accused of crimes, when he was indicted on three separate counts of corruption. In the fight for his political life, Netanyahu took the unprecedented step of requesting parliamentary immunity last Thursday.Israel has previously been the target of terror attacks attributed to Iran, including the bombing of its embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, and several attacks in other countries in the past decade.While the foreign ministry put all its embassies on high alert immediately following the assassination of Soleimani, the last thing Netanyahu wants is for Israelis to suspect the danger from Iran has grown since the 2018 American withdrawal from Syria, which Netanyahu championed and celebrated.Two leaks from his security cabinet meeting on Monday helped sustain this aim, despite Iranian troops' entrenchment along Israel's northern border with Syria in recent years.On Monday, as the meeting ended, several ministers transmitted Netanyahu's declaration distancing Israel from the Soleimani hit. "The assassination of Soleimani isn't an Israeli event but an American event. We were not involved and should not be dragged into it," he said, according to Israeli news outlets.Simultaneously, journalists were told that security and intelligence officials who briefed the security cabinet told ministers there was no imminent threat of Iranian attacks against Israel following the Soleimani assassination.With one exception, regarding the Kurds fighting in Syria after the withdrawal of American troops, Netanyahu has never distanced himself from Trump, though his thoughts about Iran have occasionally slipped out.Last November, speaking at a graduation ceremony for army officers, he said, "Iran's brazenness in the region is increasing and even getting stronger in light of the absence of a response."At the same time, Israel's Channel 13 news reported that some weeks earlier, in a closed-door meeting, Netanyahu told cabinet members he believed Trump would not act against Iran until the 2020 elections were behind him. 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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| Egypt's president says interfaith bond saved country Posted: 06 Jan 2020 02:31 PM PST  Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi appeared at Coptic Christmas Eve Mass on Monday and praised the links between the country's Christian and Muslim faithful, saying they have prevented the country from descending into sectarian strife like its neighbors. El-Sissi, who is a practicing Muslim, arrived at the cathedral in the middle of the Mass and was met by Coptic Pope Tawadros II on the doorstep before greeting churchgoers. Egyptian State television aired his appearance at the new cathedral, just finished last year, and showed people crowding around him to shake his hand, filming with mobile phones.
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| Jeffrey Epstein investigation finds letter in prison cell complaining about being locked in shower and 'giant bugs' crawling across his hand Posted: 06 Jan 2020 01:38 PM PST  A new investigation of the circumstances surrounding the death of Jeffrey Epstein has made public several new pieces of evidence, including photos of his jail cell showing a number of bed sheets, prescription medicine and an apparent note written by the convicted sex offender complaining about jail conditions before his death.The paedophile financier was awaiting trial in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Centre in downtown Manhattan when his body was found in his cell in August. The circumstances of his death, ruled a suicide by the New York medical examiner, have sparked considerable speculation, given the powerful company he kept that included Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew.
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| An Instagram model deactivated her account after posting a wet T-shirt photo to promote Australian bushfire relief efforts Posted: 07 Jan 2020 03:24 AM PST  Tammy Hembrow deleted the photo and temporarily deactivated her account after people accused her of striking the wrong tone.
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| How Many of These Tough Logic Puzzles Can You Solve? Posted: 06 Jan 2020 12:45 PM PST |
| Schumer Vows to Force Votes on Witnesses for Senate Impeachment Trial: ‘Republicans May Run But They Can’t Hide’ Posted: 07 Jan 2020 09:13 AM PST  Senator Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Tuesday that Democrats will force votes on their desired witnesses at the outset of the impeachment trial against President Trump, even as it seems Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) has garnered enough support to delay the votes on witnesses until later in the trial."Make no mistake, on the question of witnesses and documents, Republicans may run but they can't hide," Schumer said in comments reported by The Hill. "There will be votes at the beginning on whether to call the four witnesses we've proposed and subpoena the documents we've identified."McConnell is attempting to pass two resolutions to determine the parameters of the Senate trial. The first would set up rules for the trial, and after opening arguments there would be a vote on a second resolution that would determine which witnesses, if any, would be called to testify.While Democrats have certain witnesses they would like to hear from, including former White House national security adviser John Bolton, McConnell and other Republicans are aiming to get the trial done quickly, without witnesses. Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah) is the only Republican who has publicly called on Bolton to testify."I would like to be able to hear from John Bolton," Romney said on Tuesday. "What the process is to make that happen, I don't have an answer for you."Moderate Senat Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who were widely viewed as potential supporters of Bolton's testimony, have stated they would rather wait for a resolution on the parameters of the trial before calling witnesses.
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| Fisker's Ocean electric SUV will sell for $37,499, include Karaoke mode Posted: 05 Jan 2020 03:41 PM PST  American automaker Fisker said consumers can purchase their electric SUV for $37,499, which drops to $29,999 with a federal tax credit.
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| A NASA astronaut shared a stunning image of a meteor shower and the northern lights from space Posted: 07 Jan 2020 08:02 AM PST  Christina Koch said the meteor shower was the first of the decade, and they were lucky enough to catch them at the same time as the northern lights.
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| Here's Why North Korea Wanted One Of The World's Largest Submarine Fleets Posted: 06 Jan 2020 12:53 AM PST  North Korea should by all rights be a naval power.
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| Team Trump Thought It Could Contain Iran With ‘Maximum Pressure.’ The Attacks Got Worse. Posted: 07 Jan 2020 02:25 AM PST  In the hours after members and supporters of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq began protesting at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, senior Trump administration officials in the State Department, White House, and Pentagon convened to discuss options for how to respond. The situation in the country was growing increasingly hostile on the ground, and an American contractor had been killed just days earlier by a rocket attack launched by Kataib Hezbollah. Key advisers to President Donald Trump presented a slew of options, as they had in the past when Iran's rockets got too close for comfort or its militias had made moves on the battlefield that suggested they were postured to strike American assets, according to two senior U.S. officials. But the attack on a U.S. base near Kirkuk was different from past skirmishes between American and pro-Iranian forces. An American was dead and Iran showed no sign of backing down militarily in Iraq or elsewhere in the region. "The president was faced with a choice and he took the shot," a person familiar with Trump's thinking told The Daily Beast, referring to the Trump administration's assassination of Iran's top military leader, Qassem Soleimani, last week.Things were never expected to get to this point. Part of the implied goal of an American policy known as "maximum pressure," with its crushing sanctions on the Iranian economy, was to force Tehran to scale back its aggression. While the Trump administration never specifically stated that the campaign aimed to curtail Iran's military stance toward the U.S. and its allies, American officials told The Daily Beast that the White House hoped it could gain enough leverage with sanctions to deter Tehran's military aggression. The attack that killed the contractor, the move toward U.S. bases, these were signs Iran was getting more aggressive, not less.The president wasn't alone in his decision to strike Soleimani. Officials across the three agencies had for months discussed Iran's threat against the U.S. and determined that the maximum pressure campaign had not changed Tehran's behavior, at least not militarily, according to the two U.S. officials and three other individuals with knowledge of the administration's decision-making regarding Iran. It had only bolstered Iran's adversarial posture toward American assets in the Middle East and elsewhere throughout the world, those sources said. Behind closed doors, many U.S. officials began to question the efficacy of maximum pressure, while others pushed the president privately to go after a high-profile Iranian target."While the maximum pressure campaign has completely ravaged Iran's economy, Tehran's intentions toward the U.S. have remained as hostile as they have been for four decades," said Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank in Washington known for advising the Trump administration on its Iran policy. "Up until now I think people assumed that the president would only use sanctions as his sole instrument of national power. But once Soleimani-backed militias killed an American and threatened to kill others, the president decided to do what no president has done in the past. It could now change the way the administration deploys the full range of national power against the regime in Iran."Following the assassination of Soleimani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on national television and laid out exactly how Soleimani's actions had begun to worry the U.S. enough that they deemed it necessary to strike."We watched the intelligence flow in that talked about Soleimani's role in the region and the work that he was doing to put Americans further at risk," he said. "It was time to take this action… so we could disrupt this plot. The risk of doing nothing was enormous."But months earlier, Pompeo was making nearly the opposite case: that maximum pressure was causing Iran to turn down the heat."Before we reimposed sanctions and accelerated our pressure campaign, Iran was increasing its malign activity," Pompeo wrote in an opinion column last spring. "U.S. pressure is reversing these trends. The regime and its proxies are weaker than when our pressure began. Iranian-backed militias have stated that Iran no longer has enough money to pay them as much as in the past and has enacted austerity plans."The State Department, Pentagon, and White House did not respond to a request for comment.Maximum pressure was drafted, in part, with the help of outside economic and political consultants and former officials who publicly called on the U.S. to take a much harsher stance against the Iranian regime. Since then, the Trump administration has sanctioned more than 1,000 Iranian entities. Most recently, it designated Tehran's main military outfit as a terrorist organization.All of that was designed to cripple Iran's ability to grow on the international stage through trade and to make it more difficult for the regime to prop up its most important institutions. And it's largely worked. Iran is struggling to pay its bills, and its ability to sell its key good—oil—on the international market has been severely diminished. And in that sense, the U.S. has succeeded in its goal. But the other part of the maximum pressure campaign was supposed to change Iran's behavior—the way it acted on the international stage. For some time throughout the last six months it seemed as though the U.S. and Iran were working toward coming back to the negotiating table on issues like the nuclear deal. America's intermediaries in places like Switzerland, Oman, Iraq, and France passed messages between the two countries in the hopes that the two could begin some sort of process toward reconciliation.Others in the U.S. government, though, had their doubts, concerns heightened by the purported Iran strike on Saudi oil facilities and Tehran shooting down an American drone over the Gulf of Oman.Inside the U.S.-Iran Drone WarBut for Trump, who has said publicly that he did not want to go to war with Iran, the maximum pressure campaign was the best of both worlds—it hit Tehran economically but would keep the U.S. out of a protracted military conflict with the country. And for years, the Trump administration's line was consistent: Our policy toward Iran is working; Iran is weakening.The problem, according to Jennifer Carafella, the research director at the Institute for the Study of War, was that "there is no consensus on what threshold of Iranian escalation is noteworthy or unacceptable." That incoherence, she added, made maximum pressure "more likely to lead to war than to lead to Iran surrendering on the administration's terms." In recent months, it became clear to those at the State Department and within the broader national security community that Iran had grown more emboldened on the battlefield and that the maximum pressure campaign had not deterred Tehran militarily. Iranian-backed militias were launching rockets closer to American infrastructure in Iraq and further bolstering their support for rebels in Yemen.Virtually no one expects Iran to suddenly buckle with Soleimani's death. If anything, the expectation is that Tehran will retaliate—and that America will respond with additional force, both economic and military. In that way, some version of maximum pressure may even grow more intense."I'm not sure anyone really knew what the endgame was supposed to be. The purpose of sanctions and coercive authority is to cause a change in behavior or policy outcomes with respect to the folks in Tehran. If it's not regime change, it's not entirely clear how this works," said one former Obama official who worked on Iran policy. "The reality is that it's working, tactically, from an economic perspective. But the maximum pressure campaign clearly hasn't demonstrated enough strength to determine Iran's activity in the neighborhood."—with additional reporting by Spencer AckermanRead 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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| Police: 1 dead, 1 wounded in shooting at a Louisiana Walmart Posted: 06 Jan 2020 06:28 PM PST ![Police: 1 dead, 1 wounded in shooting at a Louisiana Walmart]( "Police: 1 dead, 1 wounded in shooting at a Louisiana Walmart") A man was fatally shot at a Walmart store in New Orleans on Monday evening and a female was shot and wounded, authorities said. The New Orleans Police Department said in a statement late Monday that officers were called to a Walmart in the city's Gentilly district about another officer requesting assistance. The statement said a city police officer who was working a secondary employment security detail at the store had taken a man in custody.
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| India asks refiners to stop buying Malaysian palm oil after political row - sources Posted: 07 Jan 2020 01:28 AM PST  MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has informally asked palm oil refiners and traders to avoid buying Malaysian palm oil, government and industry sources said on Tuesday, following Malaysian criticism of India's actions in the Kashmir region and its new citizenship law. India is the world's biggest buyer of the oil and palm oil inventories could spike in Malaysia, putting prices under pressure if Indian refiners reduce purchases from the country. Malaysian prices are the global benchmark for palm oil prices.
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| Carole Ghosn: wife of fugitive tycoon, and now wanted in Japan Posted: 07 Jan 2020 01:41 AM PST  Carole Ghosn, who not so long ago was an influential but discreet figure in the New York fashion world, has been thrust into the limelight by the arrest of her tycoon husband Carlos, and his subsequent flight from Japan. The second wife of the former Nissan boss, who like him also has Lebanese citizenship, vocally led the campaign for her husband's freedom but what role she played in his epic escape from Japan remains unclear. Carole was reunited with her husband last week after he jumped bail in Tokyo, where he had been jailed and then held under house arrest over several counts of financial misconduct.
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| Push to oust US troops from Iraq a risky undertaking Posted: 06 Jan 2020 04:43 AM PST  A push led by pro-Iran factions to oust U.S. troops from Iraq following the U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian general is gaining momentum, bolstered by a Parliament vote calling on the government to remove them. Iraq was barely starting to recover from a devastating four-year war against the Islamic State group when a mass uprising against the country's ruling elite erupted on Oct. 1, forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi two months later.
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| California has sued tech billionaire Vinod Khosla over beach access, reviving a decade-long legal battle Posted: 06 Jan 2020 06:06 PM PST  The billionaire tech investor has previously said he regretted buying the beach, but will continue defending his property rights
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| How China's Submarines Became a Major Threat to U.S. Aircraft Carriers Posted: 07 Jan 2020 12:56 AM PST  Years in the making.
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| Elizabeth Warren Shuts Down Meghan McCain’s Defense of Trump on Iran Posted: 07 Jan 2020 09:04 AM PST  On Monday morning, during The View's first new show of 2020, Meghan McCain defended President Donald Trump's targeted killing of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani. "For me, when a big, bad terrorist gets blown up, I'm happy about it," she said. When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) appeared on the show Tuesday, she was quick to shut that position down. The drama started when McCain began to praise the 2020 presidential candidate, saying, "I believe you respect the American military and respect our troops. You have traveled overseas many times. I just want to say that first and foremost." Warren must have known there was a "but" coming. The 10 Biggest Meghan McCain Blow-Ups of 2019"You issued a statement calling Soleimani a murderer," McCain continued. "Later, you issued a second statement saying that he was 'an assassination of a senior foreign military official.' Now, this is a man who is obviously responsible for hundreds of American troops' deaths, carnage that we can't even imagine." After noting that both the Treasury and State departments have designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a "terrorist organization," she added, "I don't understand the flip-flop. I don't understand why it was so hard to call him a terrorist, and I would just like you to explain the change." Warren insisted that there wasn't a "change" in her position on Soleimani, arguing that both things can be true at the same time. "The question is what is the response that the president of the United States should make, and what advances the interests of the United States of America?" she asked. Saddam Hussein may have been a "bad guy," she added, "however, going to war in Iraq was not in the interest of the United States." The senator continued to make her case, but McCain was stuck on semantics. "Do you think he's a terrorist?" she asked, interrupting Warren. When Warren said Soleimani was "part of a group that has been designated as terrorists," McCain sneered and shook her head as she asked, "So he's not a terrorist?" "Of course, he is," Warren answered finally. "He's part of a group that our federal government has designated a terrorist. The question though, is what's the right response? And the response that Donald Trump has picked is the most incendiary and has moved us right to the edge of war, and that is not in our long-term interests." Seth Meyers Exposes 'Self-Serving Hypocrite' Fox News Host Ainsley EarhardtRead 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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| India court orders execution of convicts for 2012 deadly rape on Jan. 22 Posted: 07 Jan 2020 07:46 AM PST ![India court orders execution of convicts for 2012 deadly rape on Jan. 22]( "India court orders execution of convicts for 2012 deadly rape on Jan. 22") Four men sentenced to death for the gang rape and murder of a woman on a New Delhi bus in an attack that sent shockwaves across the world will be hanged on Jan. 22, an Indian court ruled on Tuesday. The four men were convicted in 2013 of the rape, torture and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student in a case that triggered large protests in India. The attack prompted India to enact tough new laws against sexual violence, including the death penalty for rape in some cases, but implementation has been poor and the attacks have shown no signs of let-up.
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| Unique sex-abuse suit filed against Boy Scouts in US capital Posted: 06 Jan 2020 01:21 PM PST  A team of lawyers filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking to establish the nation's capital as a venue for men across the U.S. to sue the Boy Scouts of America for allegedly failing to protect them from long-ago sexual abuse at the hands of scoutmasters and other leaders. The eight plaintiffs in the potentially ground-breaking lawsuit, identified as John Does 1 through 8, live in states where statute of limitations laws would prevent them from suing the BSA based on claims of sex abuse that occurred decades ago.
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| Steve Irwin's family announces it has saved 90,000 animals in Australia, and says admissions are surging as bushfires rage on Posted: 06 Jan 2020 08:40 AM PST  Bushfires in Australia have destroyed the country's wildlife and nature. Nearly half a billion animals are believed to have died this season alone.
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| 'Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated': US Army general says he's still alive after terrorist attack in Kenya Posted: 06 Jan 2020 12:41 PM PST  "This is yet another example of the lies, propaganda and fake news," US Army Gen. Stephen Townsend said in a statement.
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| Australian bushfire cloud visible in Chile and Argentina Posted: 06 Jan 2020 02:20 PM PST  The cloud of smoke caused by raging bushfires in Australia has been spotted more than 12,000 kilometers (7,400 miles) away in Chile and Argentina, weather authorities in the South American countries said on Monday.
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| Shocked Iraqis Ask Team Trump WTF After General’s Botched Pullout Letter Posted: 06 Jan 2020 03:22 PM PST  Senior Iraqi officials worriedly called their American counterparts on Monday after a letter from a top general in Iraq appeared to accept the Iraqi parliament's vote to remove the 5,000 U.S. troops stationed there, according to an Iraqi official and another individual familiar with the matter. The letter was quickly disavowed, minutes after it became public.In the latest indication of strategy confusion sprawling out from President Trump's assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, U.S. officials told the Iraqis to "not worry about it," as both sides attempted to determine what their uneasy bilateral relationship will become. The letter, penned by Marine two-star general William H. Seely III on Monday and addressed to the Iraqi defense ministry, said that the U.S. military command would be "repositioning forces" in the near future as preparation "for onward movement," seemingly out of Iraq. "We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure." Seeley added.The day before, the Iraqi parliament's voted to expel the U.S. in the aftermath of the lethal drone strike in Baghdad that killed both Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. But while the parliamentary vote underscored the precarity of the U.S. position in Iraq, it is yet to be a binding decision, as the Iraqi Prime Minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, is operating in a caretaker capacity following his November resignation. Seeley's letter circulated widely on social media – so much so that Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the letter was a mistake that should not have been either drafted or released. Esper said the Trump administration has made "no decision" to leave Iraq as yet. The letter was "poorly worded, [it] implies withdrawal, that is not what's happening," Miley said. But in response to Iranian threats of vengeance for Soleimani, the U.S. military command has suspended all Iraq operations, both the training of the Iraqi military and the central rationale for their post-2014 presence, combatting the remnants of the so-called Islamic State. Seely and multiple defense officials in Iraq and the Pentagon did not respond to The Daily Beast's repeated requests for clarification. In the aftermath of the Soleimani strike, Iraqi officials told The Daily Beast that U.S. relations with Baghdad were in "real jeopardy." ("You are strengthening the guys"—the Iranians—"you want to weaken," one said.) Those concerns became more concrete after Sunday's vote in the Iraqi parliament, Trump threatened Iraq with its first economic sanctions since the Saddam Hussein era – something that appears to have spooked Iraqi leaders who had already been dealing with large-scale popular protests against corruption, joblessness, lack of services and economic precarity. Prime Minister Adbul-Mahdi, who had championed the ejection of U.S. troops over the weekend, struck a more conciliatory tone in a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Matthew Tueller. Abdul-Mahdi indicated that Iraq would prefer to continue U.S. mentorship of its military while ejecting anti-ISIS combat forces. Iraqi sources said their officials fear the economic consequences of an acrimonious U.S. objection, fearing the decimation of their already precarious economy. That would come on top of a potential U.S.-Iran war that would likely see Iraq remain as a battlefield – to say nothing of a resurgence of ISIS, as jihadis in Iraq have proven themselves resilient. Those fears are, for now, the only certainties about the future of the U.S. military in Iraq. 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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| This Would Be Iran's Opening Shot in a War With America Posted: 06 Jan 2020 11:31 AM PST  A suicidal gambit.
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| Scandinavian woman 'forced to withdraw rape claim' in case similar to British teen's Cyprus ordeal Posted: 06 Jan 2020 07:43 PM PST  A Scandinavian woman says she was forced by Cypriot police to withdraw a rape claim or face arrest, in a striking parallel to the case of a British teenager who was allegedly gang raped on the Mediterranean island. The Scandinavian woman said police officers questioned her aggressively for several hours after she was raped by two men outside a nightclub. The officers accused her of lying and said that if she did not withdraw the rape claim they would arrest her and send her to prison. Her account bears striking similarities to the alleged treatment of a British teenager who was convicted last week of lying about being gang-raped by Israeli tourists in the resort town of Ayia Napa. She made the initial complaint in July but 10 days later, after being questioned without a lawyer for eight hours in a police station, signed a retraction statement. The alleged gang rape of the British teenager happened in the resort of Ayia Napa Credit: AFP She faces sentencing on Tuesday and could be jailed for up to a year and fined 1,700 euro (£1,500) at Famagusta District Court in Paralimni. The 19-year-old British woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the trial that officers threatened to arrest her and her friends unless she retracted the claims of being gang raped by a group of young Israeli men. After reading about the Ayia Napa case, the Scandinavian woman decided to come forward with her account of similar treatment at the hands of the Cypriot police 20 years ago. It is the first time she has spoken publicly of the assault and has previously only discussed it with her doctor and her husband. Now aged 43, she was 21 when she met the men in a nightclub in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, in January 1998. They offered to give her a lift to her hotel. Instead, they raped her in a car park. "I fought for my life and thought I was going to die," she told The Telegraph. She went to the nearest police station to report the rape and was taken to a hospital for an examination. She was then taken to a police station for questioning. "The main investigator was extremely brutal and aggressive. I was in big shock so I had some difficulties remembering details. "This made him very angry. He then started accusing me of making the whole story up to receive money from my insurance company." The same allegation was made by in court by Cypriot police against the British woman. Both alleged victims said they were mystified by the accusation because they did not think that holiday insurance covered rape and had no intention of claiming any financial compensation. "I was very afraid and felt trapped in the room with them. They treated me as a big criminal. They kept me in the police station for many hours. They told me that if I didn't withdraw the rape allegation they would arrest me and send me to prison. So I did and they let me go," said the Scandinavian woman, who asked to remain anonymous. She said she was still deeply affected by the ordeal and had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder – just like the British teenager who is on trial. "The treatment I received from police was terrible," she said. Michael Polak, a British lawyer representing the teenager in the trial Credit: AFP Michael Polak, a British lawyer representing the British woman, told The Telegraph: "This case bears remarkable similarities to the teenager's case. It raises serious questions about the investigation of rape in Cyprus and the treatment of rape complainants there." In a report in 1998, a Norwegian newspaper claimed that police on the island routinely dismissed rape claims, treating the victims as liars. The report quoted a Norwegian tour operator who said that "police never take rape claims seriously. All such claims are treated as false." "Police have a theory that tourists make such allegations so they can claim expenses for their holiday," the report said. A senior Cyprus police officer was quoted as saying: "Why rape when it's so easy to find somebody to have sex with?"
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| Bus driver, two passengers and two truckers died in Pennsylvania pileup Posted: 06 Jan 2020 03:05 PM PST ![Bus driver, two passengers and two truckers died in Pennsylvania pileup]( "Bus driver, two passengers and two truckers died in Pennsylvania pileup") A day after Sunday's predawn wreck, state police and federal safety officials also gave new details of the crash sequence, revealing the bus struck the highway's concrete center barrier before veering to the right shoulder and careening up a steep embankment. As the bus rolled back over onto the roadway across both traffic lanes, the driver was thrown from the vehicle, and the bottom of the bus, now lying on its side, was struck by a Fed-Ex tractor-trailer. Two bus passengers, including a 9-year-old boy, were ejected by the force of the impact before a UPS tractor-trailer also slammed into the bus, demolishing the cab of the truck and killing the two UPS drivers inside.
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| France and EU ready to respond to US threat of new tariffs Posted: 07 Jan 2020 02:15 AM PST  France has warned it will retaliate with the full backing of the European Union if the United States imposes tariffs on up to $2.4 billion worth of French products, including Champagne, Roquefort cheese, handbags, and lipstick. The U.S. is considering 100% tariffs on some French goods in response to France's decision to tax the local digital business of major tech companies like Google and Facebook. With a decision on the tariffs expected in coming days, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire met Tuesday with EU trade chief Phil Hogan in Paris.
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| The myth of a new China Posted: 06 Jan 2020 02:45 AM PST  Dead center on the front page of The New York Times' last Sunday edition of 2019, a headline: "As it detains parents, China weans children from Islam." Its subheading, equally ready for distribution to newspaper stands in Beijing: "New boarding schools redirect faith from religion to party."The story itself, available online under a different — better — title, is compelling and well-reported. It effectively conveys Beijing's galling oppression of Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other ethnic minorities, many of them Muslim, in China's western provinces. Yet even there, the language seems unduly circumspect. For example, facilities hedged by armed guards and barbed wire where children are forcibly isolated with an explicit intent of breaking up families and erasing their religious and cultural heritage are called "boarding schools" — which, I suppose, is technically not wrong, but neither is it right when the term conjures, for many Americans, visions of Harry Potter's Hogwarts and its real-life counterparts, elite educational institutions reserved for the most privileged children.Such strange descriptive treatment of perhaps the most systematic program of ethnic persecution on the planet today is hardly isolated to a single Times article. (In fact, the Times has published numerous important reports on the Uighurs' plight.) As The Week's Matthew Walther has noted, this despotism is too often downplayed or outright ignored in the narrative of a "new China," a prosperous, modern nation that has left behind the murderous communism of the last century. This narrative is not entirely groundless — China has changed, a lot, in recent decades — but in many ways that matter, it's a myth.The myth of a new China is useful to Beijing, but it is not purely a Chinese export. The American account of the Cold War quite naturally pairs the China of Chairman Mao with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, and that link makes it easy to forget that when the USSR dissolved, Beijing didn't.China never had a glasnost, despite years of Western expectation. Protests in Tiananmen Square did not produce a Chinese perestroika. There was no Chinese equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Three decades ago it may have seemed, as this 1989 Christian Science Monitor piece opined, that China's movement toward "economic modernization" would bring it "face to face with the inevitability of pressure for political liberalization." Now the connection of consumerism to social freedom looks far more tenuous."Socialism with Chinese characteristics" has produced a strange amalgam of autonomy and coercion. China's nail houses and gutter oil suggest a laissez-faire attitude unmatched anywhere in the United States, yet these small markers of economic liberty coexist with a terrifying surveillance state, public executions, and treatment of minority groups like the Uighurs for which "genocide" is not too strong a word. The "social credit" system is a waking nightmare. Reports indicate religious texts like the Bible and the Quran soon will be edited to "reflect socialist values," a throwback to Mao if there ever was one, and religious persecution more generally is spiking.Rising authoritarianism is a hallmark of the tenure of Xi Jinping, China's newly minted "president for life." Once cast as a potential Mikhail Gorbachev of Beijing, Xi has proven to be anything but. By his own account in a 2013 address, the "profound lesson" Xi learned from the fall of the USSR is the danger of allowing national leaders' "ideals and beliefs [to be] shaken." For Xi, reform means getting back to Mao, not away from him. Thus Xi's "presidency has been characterized by an insistence that all individuals in positions of responsibility devote more serious study of and adherence to Marxist-Leninist doctrine," explains Ted Galen Carpenter at The National Interest. Xi is "determined to enhance and perpetuate his dominant role," Carpenter continues, and he has used his growing power to move China "toward greater repression and regimentation, not greater liberalization."The Beijing of Tank Man is, in many ways, still the same Beijing. Likewise the Beijing of the Great Leap Forward (estimated death toll: 30 million) and the Cultural Revolution (estimated death toll: 1 to 10 million), and the Beijing that has violently repressed the Uighurs and sought to eradicate their culture since the end of World War II.This is not to suggest the China of 2020 is indistinct from the China of 1970. Far from it. Economic quality of life has enormously improved thanks to Beijing's qualified embrace of the open market (and it continues to improve under Xi). In 1981, 90 percent of the country survived on $2 or less per day; today fewer than 1 percent do. I lived in China's Shandong province for a year in the mid-1990s, and the contrasts I observed returning to the country a decade later were almost unbelievable. Signs of new wealth were everywhere, most visibly in the explosion of personal vehicle ownership. And despite Beijing's increasingly powerful censorship apparatus, the internet allows communication and information access at a previously impossible scale.Nor do I want to suggest this brutal statism in Chinese governance warrants U.S. antagonism, whether in the form of a break in diplomatic or trade relations or, God forbid, military conflict. The ethics here may be irreducibly complex — anyone who has a simple answer to whether it's better to buy Chinese goods or boycott them is a liar or a fool — but it is hardly disputable that isolating or attacking China would add to the suffering of many ordinary people. War doesn't gentle totalitarian regimes; foreign meddling may provoke a more severe tyranny; sanctions are like to do the poor and powerless more harm than good.There is no obvious route to ending Beijing's cruelties, among them its efforts to eliminate the Uighurs as a coherent community. And I can offer no conclusive argument for how our rejection of the myth of a new China will accomplish anything, practically. Still, I am certain it is necessary.The truth is that China has changed much in the last 50 years, but also that recording a history of only change obscures a great continuity. And though a modern Tank Man could not be expunged from national memory as the original was, he could still be disappeared, tortured, and killed. Half a world away, there is little to nothing we can do about this. But we can, at least, refuse to call the next Tank Man's prison a "re-education camp" and his children's brainwashing a "boarding school."More stories from theweek.com America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing Sen. Rand Paul says fellow Republicans are acting like 'grade-school children' on Iran Netanyahu publicly praised Trump's 'decisive' strike on Iran's Soleimani. In private, not so much.
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| How many women in Puerto Rico must die before there's change? Women are done waiting. Posted: 07 Jan 2020 12:15 AM PST  Feminist groups in Puerto Rico are demanding that their government take violence against women seriously. But that's just the beginning.
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| Trump's airport security was breached by a dishonorably discharged US Marine who claimed he was part of the team Posted: 06 Jan 2020 04:07 PM PST  Thirty-seven year-old Brandon Magnan of Florida posted a $100,000 bond with the help of his mother and was released on Monday.
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| Someone Apparently Left Bottles Full of Bedbugs in a Pennsylvania Walmart Posted: 06 Jan 2020 03:34 PM PST  The first bottle was discovered on Jan. 2
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| US ties with Iraq, allies take hit after drone strike Posted: 06 Jan 2020 08:11 PM PST  A deadly US drone strike in Baghdad has rocked America's ties with allies on the ground, left diplomats scrambling to contain the fallout and Iraqi officials outraged at the airspace violation. The strike on the outskirts of Baghdad's airport early Friday killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and top Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, among others. The US has hailed it as a win for "peace and stability" in the region, in contrast to Western diplomats and US military officials in Baghdad.
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| Troop deployments "shattering" for military families amid Iran threats Posted: 06 Jan 2020 11:01 PM PST  The Pentagon is sending more than 3,000 additional troops to the Middle East to protect against possible revenge attacks from Iran.
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| This Is How Russia's Su-35 Became A Threat to Russia's Stealth Fighter Posted: 06 Jan 2020 09:00 AM PST  The Su-35 was meant to be a stopgap until the Su-57 arrived, but it has become much more.
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| Transgender students secure unrestricted locker room access Posted: 07 Jan 2020 07:54 AM PST ![Transgender students secure unrestricted locker room access]( "Transgender students secure unrestricted locker room access") A more than four year fight to secure equal access to locker rooms for transgender students in a north suburban Chicago school district ended Tuesday when a new policy allowing them unrestricted access took effect. The Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 board voted 5-2 in favor of the policy change in November, WLS-TV reported. The battle over gender identity and locker room access began in 2015 when the U.S. Department of Education said District 211 violated federal law by denying a former student who identified as a female, Nova Maday, unrestricted access to the girls' locker room.
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| Warren Takes Aim at Biden With Plan to Bolster Bankruptcy Rights Posted: 07 Jan 2020 06:00 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Elizabeth Warren rolled out a plan Tuesday to restore bankruptcy protections repealed in a 2005 law championed by Joe Biden, taking an implicit shot at the Democratic presidential front-runner just weeks before the first nominating contests next month.The 2005 law raised eligibility requirements and financial costs for Americans to file for personal bankruptcy, a last resort for many to eliminate debt. Warren's proposal would eliminate obstacles erected by that measure and allow Americans to clear out student debt in bankruptcy.Her plan would also allow people to protect their homes and cars in the process.The battle over the bankruptcy measure is part of a longstanding struggle within the Democratic Party between a business-friendly faction and a populist wing hungry for confrontation with Wall Street. In 2005, Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, clashed with Warren, a Harvard law professor whose specialty was bankruptcy and who waged an unsuccessful campaign to thwart the legislation, which was enacted by President George W. Bush."I lost that fight in 2005, and working families paid the price," Warren wrote in her policy paper, saying that the law allowed banks to squeeze struggling Americans to bolster their profits.Her new plan, she said, would "repeal the harmful provisions in the 2005 bankruptcy bill and overhaul consumer bankruptcy rules in this country to give Americans a better chance of getting back on their feet."Although she doesn't mention his name, Warren's message in the policy paper is that Biden helped break the bankruptcy system and that she is trying to fix it. She cites the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she helped create in 2009 before becoming a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.Warren has previously accused Biden and other proponents of the bankruptcy measure of siding with banks and credit card companies, which have a major presence in Delaware, over cash-strapped Americans.Warren said that if elected president, she would create a single bankruptcy system that would be available to all consumers. It would replace the two main types of personal bankruptcy that are available now and that she says are flawed: Chapter 7, under which individuals have to surrender their property, and Chapter 13 which requires debtors to enroll in multiyear repayments.Instead, Warren would offer a "menu of options" that she says would help cater to the needs of each case, including surrendering property or choosing to enroll in a payment plan."The 2005 bill imposed the same onerous paperwork requirements on a middle-class American filing bankruptcy that it did on a wealthy real-estate developer," Warren said. "My plan would make the bankruptcy system simple, cheap, fast, and flexible."Warren would also reverse the provision of the 2005 bill that requires people to seek prefiling credit counseling and would waive filling fees for anyone below the poverty line.She vowed to loosen the spending limitations on people who are in a bankruptcy process and make it easier to get relief from student loan debts in bankruptcy by making them dischargeable like other consumer debts. Her plan would modify the law to allow people undergoing bankruptcy to modify their mortgages, which is mostly prohibited.Warren vowed to increase accountability for creditors and crack down on bankruptcy practices that the wealthy and big corporations use to shield their assets. Her plan would ensure that assets placed in self-settled trusts and revocable trusts are not exempt from creditors' claims in bankruptcy.She would stop companies from collecting debts that are no longer valid and would allow people to sue creditors who try to collect debts that have already been discharged.Reinforcing ImageIn national polls, Biden has a consistent lead and Warren places third, behind Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. But Biden is weaker in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, where Warren is hoping for a strong finish that bolsters her prospects in subsequent states.Sanders also took aim at the former vice president over the 2005 legislation, saying Monday evening on CNN that "Joe Biden pushed a bankruptcy bill which has caused enormous financial problems for working families."The new Warren plan reinforces her image as a progressive candidate who's pitching herself as an anti-Wall Street crusader who sweats the details of policy. In her policy paper, she wrote that even with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, "there are still serious problems with our bankruptcy laws today, thanks in large part to that bad 2005 bill."To contact the reporters on this story: Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net;Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John HarneyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 6.4 quake strikes Puerto Rico amid heavy seismic activity Posted: 07 Jan 2020 12:53 AM PST  A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Puerto Rico before dawn on Tuesday, killing one man, injuring at least eight other people and collapsing buildings in the southern part of the island. The quake was followed by a series of strong aftershocks, part of a 10-day series of temblors spawned by the grinding of tectonic plates along three faults beneath southern Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico's main airport was operating normally, using generator power.
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| Trump must now depend on 'Grim Reaper' McConnell to save him in Senate trial Posted: 06 Jan 2020 03:25 AM PST  As President Donald Trump girds for a U.S. Senate impeachment trial, he is entrusting the future of his presidency to someone widely known as a shrewd negotiator who also plays hardball politics at a level unusual even by Washington standards. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a self-proclaimed "Grim Reaper" who long has stood in the way of Democrats' initiatives, is embracing that role as he suits up for an impeachment trial. McConnell, the top Republican in Congress, has already said there is no chance Trump, his party's leader, will be convicted on charges that he abused his office and obstructed a congressional investigation into his conduct.
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| Two couples whose Ring cameras were hacked have filed a lawsuit seeking class action status against the Amazon company Posted: 06 Jan 2020 04:07 PM PST  The two couples have accused Ring of being negligent by not doing enough to secure their home cameras against cyberattacks.
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| US slams Russia, China at UN for failure to condemn embassy attack Posted: 06 Jan 2020 01:40 PM PST  The United States on Monday slammed Russia and China for their failure to condemn an attack last week on its Baghdad embassy by pro-Iranian demonstrators. "Not allowing the United Nations Security Council to issue the most basic of statements underscoring the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises once again calls the council's credibility into question," the US statement said. The attack on the Baghdad embassy, which did not result in any injuries, was meant to protest against a US airstrike against Ketaeb Hezbollah (KH), an Iranian-backed militia which the US blames for rocket attacks on its facilities in northern Iraq that resulted in the death of a US contractor.
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| Stephen Colbert Blasts Trump’s ‘Tragically Ill-Conceived’ Move Toward War With Iran Posted: 06 Jan 2020 06:25 PM PST  After wishing his viewers a Happy New Year and telling them how happy he was to be back on the air after a two-week holiday break, Stephen Colbert got right to the "momentous, world-shaking events" that "everybody's talking about." "The 77th annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony!" the Late Show host exclaimed, proceeding to gush over the "dazzling night of glitz and glamor and God help us we might be going to war with Iran!" From there, he highlighted "all the stars" who showed up in Hollywood "as we inch closer to yet another tragically ill-conceived military conflict," including Salma Hayek, "whose Gucci dress featured a neckline that didn't leave much to the imagination, unless you're imagining an endless quagmire in the Middle East!" Seth Meyers Exposes 'Self-Serving Hypocrite' Fox News Host Ainsley Earhardt"This is it, folks," Colbert continued. "This is what's been keeping you up at night for the last three years. It wasn't the baggy suits. It wasn't 'covfefe.' It was his ability to wage war with no understanding of the consequences." It was only then that the host explained the reason he was so "on edge" during his first new show of 2020: Trump's decision to kill top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani. "Now, cards on the table, I don't know if what Trump did was a good idea or a bad idea," he said. "But I do know that it's a big idea. And Iran is very upset about it." And now Trump has threatened to strike 52 Iranian cultural sites if the conflict escalates, one for each of the 52 American hostages held by Iran decades ago. "He's still mad about the Iranian hostage crisis?" Colbert asked. "What's next on his 1980s agenda? 'I'm also targeting the top four Iranian generals. One for each of the Three Men and a Baby. Six different regions, one for each side of a Rubik's Cube. And I've officially changed the launch codes to 867-5309." Ricky Gervais' Golden Globes Monologue Mocks Hollywood's Jeffrey Epstein TiesRead 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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| Police find body of a woman who texted 'I feel in trouble' before disappearing Posted: 06 Jan 2020 08:53 AM PST  Alabama police said Friday they found the body of a 29-year-old woman who had sent a concerning message to her co-worker before disappearing in December, CNN reported.
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| Meet America's B-25G Bomber: The Jet That Used A Tank Cannon To Destroy Enemy Warships Posted: 06 Jan 2020 08:00 AM PST  When the U.S. Army Air Force procured the B-25G Mitchell, it had a very different mission in mind—sinking ships at sea.
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