| Trump denies he joked about wanting to slow COVID-19 testing: 'I don't kid' Posted: 23 Jun 2020 09:39 AM PDT  The White House insisted President Trump was kidding when he told supporters at a rally in Tulsa, Okla., over the weekend that he wanted coronavirus testing in the United States slowed down in order to halt the country's mounting case count. The president said he was not.
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| Powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake rocks Mexico; at least six dead Posted: 23 Jun 2020 02:25 PM PDT  A hospital dedicated to caring for COVID-19 patients suffered enough damage that it will likely have to be evacuated, Oaxaca's governor said.
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| Texas was one of the first states to reopen. Now it's seeing record numbers of the coronavirus and its Republican governor is urging people to stay home. Posted: 23 Jun 2020 11:34 PM PDT  Texas was one of the first states to discuss lifting its COVID-19 restrictions. It also enforced one of the shortest lockdowns in the country.
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| Letters to the Editor: Adam Schiff kowtows to the mob in pulling his endorsement of Jackie Lacey Posted: 23 Jun 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Adam Schiff should know there are many moderate Democrats who do not favor "defunding" the police or other radical reforms opposed by Jackie Lacey.
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| Man sues Georgia police for excessive use of force after wrongfully arresting him Posted: 24 Jun 2020 09:27 AM PDT  "I was getting ready to put my hands behind my back," Smith said in the video. "He forcibly picked me up."
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| Kosovo's indicted president withdraws from White House talks Posted: 24 Jun 2020 07:05 AM PDT  Kosovo's president pulled out of a White House meeting with Serbian officials set for Saturday following his indictment on crimes against humanity and war crimes charges. U.S. presidential envoy Richard Grenell, who invited Kosovar and Serbian officials to meet in Washington to jump start their stalled peace talks, tweeted that Kosovo President Hashim Thaci decided to postpone his trip to Washington.
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| North Korea: Kim Jong-un 'suspends military action' against South Posted: 24 Jun 2020 02:54 AM PDT  The sudden de-escalation comes after Pyongyang had days ago threatened to send troops to the border.
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| Was Seattle’s Notorious Protest Zone Doomed by Recent Shootings? Posted: 24 Jun 2020 01:32 AM PDT  After a few remarkable weeks of free food, far-right agitation, and most recently, multiple shootings, Seattle's Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) looks like it might be on the rocks.The CHOP (formerly known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ) is an approximately six-block zone in Seattle where, after a violent crackdown by police against racial justice protesters, the city agreed to withdraw police and clear the streets for demonstrations. Activists quickly set up tents and issued a list of demands including police abolition and de-gentrification measures like rent control. But Seattle never agreed to keep police out forever. And after a trio of shootings in and around the zone, the city is calling to dismantle the CHOP, leaving activists wondering how to keep the protest going.In a Monday press conference, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said the city would work with activists to dismantle the CHOP."It's time for people to go home. It is time for us to restore Cal Anderson [Park] and Capitol Hill so it can be a vibrant part of the community," Durkan said at the press conference. "We can still accommodate people who want to protest peacefully, come there and gather. But the impacts on the businesses and residents and community are now too much."She added that police would re-enter the neighborhood precinct, which was boarded up when cops left the area on June 8, although she did not elaborate on a timeline for the reintroduction of police. Seattle Police did not return a request for comment.Other encampment-based movements have faced similar predicaments in the past. The Occupy Wall Street protests lasted approximately three months camped in a downtown Manhattan park before police raided the scene and sent the movement spiraling. Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University professor and author of the book Occupy Nation, said the uprooted camp sites face an ideological reckoning."The problem for manifestations that come together around an occasion, like a park to occupy, is 'well then what?'" Gitlin told The Daily Beast. "How do you sustain yourself when the occupation is over? In the case of Occupy, there were these hundreds of encampments, but they were all land-dependent. They had no other identity. They had no other connections."Some Occupy organizers turned to more electoral politics, like joining the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, or became active in issues like housing rights, Gitlin noted. Others appeared to leave the political scene.The CHOP zone's cop-free cred is one of its main attractions. But several shootings in or near the CHOP in recent days have left some Seattle officials, Durkan included, calling for resumed police details. Early Tuesday morning, a man was injured in a non-life-threatening shooting near—but apparently not in—the CHOP. The incident followed a Saturday morning shooting that left a 19-year-old dead and a 33-year-old critically wounded in the CHOP. A 17-year-old was also shot in the arm Sunday night.Some activists and at least one Seattle City Council member have sparred with officials over the characterization of the incidents."We completely reject the characterizations – by right-wing & corporate media, Trump administration, and Seattle Police Officers Guild president – of the CHOP as a violent place & the claims that the presence of police would have prevented either shooting," Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant tweeted on Monday. She noted that neither of the weekend shootings appear to have been committed by protesters. (Police have not made arrests in either case.)Other activists have taken issue with the police chief's claim that a "hostile crowd" of protesters prevented officers from responding to the Saturday shooting. "No one within the CHOP denied entry to PD within any organizational capacity," organizers told KOMO News after the shooting. "Officers deciding on their own not to enter an area is not the same as being denied entry." (Police body camera footage from the incident appears to show some people yelling at police, but officers moving without obstruction.)Nevertheless, the shootings have placed new challenges on a protest movement that was already a favorite villain of conservative voices and far-right groups, some of which have entered the CHOP armed and been involved in a fistfight near the zone.After the Saturday shooting, the group Voices of CHOP issued a letter "acknowledg[ing] that no organizations, protests, or revolutions are perfect. We must be willing to collectively learn and react quickly to mistakes within our movement. We do not want to see what was started with the intention of lifting the BLM message destroyed."The group suggested two changes to curb unruliness in the CHOP, including "safe [drug] use areas near the outskirts of C.H.O.P.," along with signage asking people to "keep safe distance away from C.H.O.P. while intoxicated." The letter also acknowledged that "the late hours of C.H.O.P. tend to give way to some problematic behavior." The group suggested reducing the CHOP's operating hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., clearing the zone out overnight but leaving enough people "for peace keeping and occupy purposes."Sawant tweeted that her City Council office supports the proposal to cut operating hours in half. But momentum behind the protest zone shifting to part time also comes as attendance has apparently begun to fizzle out. A live-streamer who has closely covered the protests told the Washington Post attendance has dwindled since its beginning in early June.Amid the mayor's calls to dissolve the CHOP, and the reportedly organic dissolution by protesters who've stopped showing up, some CHOP backers are emphasizing the protest's more abstract qualities as a way to keep the movement alive."As socialists," Sawant tweeted, "we recognize capitalism is a deeply violent system, and that an occupation in a few city blocks cannot by itself form a society separate from the violence, trauma, and ills that absolutely pervade capitalist society as a whole."For some protesters, that means returning to the protests extensive demands. As of Monday, a handmade sign on the zone's abandoned precinct announced some activists' stance not to leave until the city defunds its police force by 50 percent, introduces new funding for Black communities, and releases people arrested in the protests that erupted after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.The CHOP has been in place fewer than three weeks. Occupy Wall Street stayed in its encampment nearly three months—and even still, Gitlin characterized the protest as "more of a moment than a movement."That said, Occupy made enduring political waves because "it was a moment that dovetailed with other moments, and we can see retrospectively that they contributed to a kind of revitalization or awakening outsider energy looking for ways to get traction in the American scene."The CHOP might be short-lived, some organizers have indicated, but it stems from sweeping, nationwide protests, into which activists might continue their energy.Another CHOP-affiliated group, Seattle Organized Protest Support, released its own statement on Monday reiterating those three demands, noting that, as an occupied area, "CHOP may not be a sustainable fight.""We acknowledge that CHOP will not be forever and may not be sustainable for much longer," the group wrote, "but that doesn't mean the fight is over."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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| Trump threatens prison time after protesters attempt to topple Andrew Jackson statue near White House Posted: 23 Jun 2020 07:35 AM PDT  In the weeks since the initial demonstrations following George Floyd's killing, protesters have increasingly focused on removing monuments of figures in American history associated with racism.
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| Pope Francis compared priests who defied lockdown measures to 'adolescents' Posted: 23 Jun 2020 10:13 AM PDT  The Pope praised most priests as "obedient and creative" in the pandemic but criticized those who defied health measures for "adolescent resistance."
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| The Best Drones for Any Budget and Pilot Posted: 23 Jun 2020 11:22 AM PDT |
| Putin throws military parade to mark defeat of Germany in WW2 — and declare victory over coronavirus Posted: 24 Jun 2020 01:02 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin, who reportedly was frightened of the coronavirus and hid behind the Kremlin walls, emerges to declare victory.
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| Oklahoma just reported its highest single-day increase in new coronavirus cases, after 3 weeks of rising numbers Posted: 22 Jun 2020 12:21 PM PDT  It's too soon to know how President Trump's rally in Tulsa on Saturday will affect the state's outbreak, however.
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| Woman caught on video defacing Martin Luther King mural in Highland Park Posted: 23 Jun 2020 04:14 PM PDT  Police are searching for the woman who was caught on surveillance video defacing a mural of Martin Luther King Jr. that was recently painted on the side of a cafe in Highland Park.
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| Bagged Salads from Three Grocers Recalled Due to Cyclospora Posted: 22 Jun 2020 03:51 PM PDT  Seventy-six people in six midwestern states have been infected with the cyclospora parasite, likely due to eating bagged salad sold at Aldi, Hy-Vee, and Jewel-Osco grocery stores, the Centers for...
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| White House offers new explanation for firing Manhattan U.S. attorney Posted: 22 Jun 2020 05:12 PM PDT  The circumstances surrounding the termination of Geoffrey Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has raised questions from congressional Democrats.
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| Man wronged in past by police saves officer from burning car Posted: 22 Jun 2020 10:25 PM PDT  Daylan McLee thought for a minute it might have been a small earthquake until a relative came running inside to say there had been a car crash involving a police cruiser outside the apartment in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, about 45 miles south of Pittsburgh. McLee ran outside and pulled an officer from the mangled patrol car as flames began to spread into the cabin. Police officials and others have credited McLee with saving the officer's life after the Sunday evening crash.
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| As Confederate Statues Come Down, It's Worth Remembering That the Civil War Wasn't the Only American Conflict Involving Slavery Posted: 22 Jun 2020 02:45 PM PDT  More important, more direct and much less well-publicized was the impact of slavery in instigating the American Revolution
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| 450 billion locusts have been killed this year, but devastating swarms still ravage Africa, India and the Middle East Posted: 23 Jun 2020 11:04 AM PDT  Kenya is facing its worst locust infestation in 70 years. India, Ethiopia, and Somalia are also beset by near-biblical plagues.
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| Did Russia Just Send a Submarine Through the Bosphorus? Posted: 23 Jun 2020 10:59 AM PDT  Social media is buzzing that a Russian Kilo-class submarine might have just passed through the strait, violating a nearly 80-year-old-treaty.
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| Over 100 people shot over the weekend in Chicago Posted: 23 Jun 2020 03:04 AM PDT  What needs to be done to stop the violence? Former police officer and Chicago alderman Anthony Napolitano speaks out.
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| Ghana apologises to Nigeria for embassy demolition Posted: 24 Jun 2020 09:16 AM PDT  Armed men reportedly stormed the compound and destroyed a building under construction.
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| Wife of Canadian detained in China speaks out Posted: 23 Jun 2020 11:21 AM PDT  Michael Kovrig, 48, who was arrested by Chinese authorities in December 2018, was formally charged last week with espionage. Kovrig's wife, Vina Nadjibulla, who lives in Toronto, has been fighting for his release since his arrest but went public this week for the first time. "The situation keeps getting more and more dire for Michael," she said in an interview with Reuters.
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| Taliban killed 291 Afghan security personnel in past week: govt Posted: 22 Jun 2020 10:28 PM PDT  The Taliban killed at least 291 Afghan security personnel over the past week, a top government official said Monday, accusing the insurgents of unleashing a wave of violence ahead of potential talks. The previous week was the "deadliest" in the country's 19 years of conflict, said Javid Faisal, spokesman for the National Security Council, even as the insurgents dismissed the latest figures. The Taliban carried out 422 attacks in 32 provinces during that time, killing 291 security force personnel and wounding 550 others, Faisal said on Twitter.
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| Kellyanne Conway defends Trump's use of ‘kung flu,’ months after calling term ‘highly offensive’ Posted: 24 Jun 2020 07:10 AM PDT  Conway told reporters that Trump used the phrase to highlight the virus' origin in China.
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| Police officer involved in Breonna Taylor shooting fired Posted: 23 Jun 2020 05:15 PM PDT  The Louisville Metro police department has fired one of the police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, more than three months after the 26-year-old Black woman was killed in her home. A termination letter sent to Officer Brett Hankison released by the city's police department Tuesday said Hankinson violated procedures by showing "extreme indifference to the value of human life" when he "wantonly and blindly" shot 10 rounds of gunfire into Taylor's apartment in March. The letter also said Hankison, who is white, violated the rule against using deadly force.
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| Kentucky Senate Democratic primary to decide who challenges McConnell too close to call Posted: 24 Jun 2020 09:02 AM PDT  In New York, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel is trailing progressive newcomer Jamaal Bowman in the early count.
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| Royal Navy Frigate Shadowed Russian Warship in the English Channel Posted: 24 Jun 2020 06:30 AM PDT  Russian warships have been monitored in the English Channel in recent months.
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| 'It was so crazy': Man grabs shark with bare hands on Delaware beach in viral video Posted: 24 Jun 2020 09:45 AM PDT  A swimmer was captured in a viral video holding a shark with his bare hands off the coast of Cape Henlopen State Park Beach in Delaware.
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| Nigeria police rescue workers 'locked in rice factory' Posted: 24 Jun 2020 12:57 AM PDT  The Nigerians were allegedly forced to work throughout a Covid-19 lockdown that began in March.
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| Saudi leadership pressures former intelligence official’s family, seeks access to documents Posted: 23 Jun 2020 02:40 AM PDT  As Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman moved to tighten his grip on power over the past few years, detaining senior royals and opponents, one person has eluded him: a former top-ranking intelligence official who was close to a key rival to the throne. In recent months, the crown prince -- known by the initials MbS -- has increased pressure on relatives of Saad al-Jabri, including detaining his adult children, to try to force his return to the kingdom from exile in Canada, the former intelligence official's family say. In the crown prince's sights are documents Jabri has access to that contain sensitive information, according to four people with knowledge of the situation.
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| ISIS Gloats About U.S. Pandemic and Protests Posted: 24 Jun 2020 01:33 AM PDT  By Brian Glyn Williams, The ConversationAn Islamic State follower posted the hashtag "AmericaBurning" in a discussion on the Telegram chat system in early June, and another posted a message that read "You are waking up this morning to news of the destruction of America, the dismantling of its States, and civil war."Another Islamic State website proclaimed "Destruction, fragmentation. America is burning," while an Islamic State supporter posted photos in the same Telegram forum of the riots, writing "O Allah, burn them like they burned the lands of the Muslims."IS supporters are rejoicing at tensions from both peaceful protests and occasional violence in U.S. streets in the wake of George Floyd's May 25 death. As a scholar who tracks the Islamic State group and its affiliates, I have followed how the Islamic State has been exploiting the effects of the coronavirus on its enemies and celebrating the effects of racial tensions and the pandemic in America.Islamic State followers are excited at the prospect of a massive Western death toll from the coronavirus, which they defined as "God's smallest soldier."They also see the virus at work in U.S. military pullbacks related to the coronavirus—such as the March announcement from the Pentagon that it would stop sending troops to Iraq for at least two months.In addition, the U.S. pulled some troops out of Iraq, withdrew many more from six frontline operating bases and ordered the troops remaining in the country to stay on their bases—moves that ended most joint missions with local Iraqi and Kurdish troops.ISIS Has Made a Terrifying Comeback in COVID-Plagued IraqIn Iraq, the Islamic State has reacted by stepping up attacks. They have targeted pro-government Shiite militia members and Iraqi and Kurdish troops, who now have less U.S. support to help defend them.British and U.S. air strikes are, however, still targeting the group's fortified cave hideouts in northern Iraq, which Iraqi ground troops are also continuing to attack, albeit with fewer troops due to coronavirus base lockdowns.In Syria, emboldened Islamic State forces have recently attacked government troops with land mines, heavy weapons and car bombings killing hundreds.For all the opportunities the pandemic seemingly offers the Islamic State, the group is also worried about how the virus affects them. In Syria, Kurdish forces are holding captive as many as 12,000 Islamic State fighters and 70,000 of their family members, mostly women and children, in vast, cramped, unhygienic internment camps. There is no possibility of social distancing.The prisoners live in terror of the pandemic breaking out among them and have been rioting in efforts to escape the camps. In May, Islamic State prisoners briefly rose up and took control of a prison holding as many as 5,000 captives before they were suppressed.Islamic State leaders have not only called for their fighters to attack the lightly guarded camps to free the prisoners, but also expressed concern about the disease spreading among their own forces.Coronavirus Bungling Breathes New Life into Terrorist MovementsA U.S. Department of Homeland Security bulletin in late March warned that the Islamic State's newsletter had called for attacks on U.S. and European health care targets that are strained by the pandemic. The Islamic State has ordered its followers not to travel to Europe, where the virus outbreak is far worse than in the Middle East. But the group has suggested that its followers who are already in Europe exploit the chaos, calling for "new strikes… similar to the strikes of Paris, London, Brussels and other places" where followers have used bombs and firearms to kill dozens of people in recent years.The Islamic State is even suggesting that killing "infidels" could be a way for followers to protect themselves from the virus, stating, "They should also remember that obedience to God – the most beloved form of which is jihad—turns away the torment and wrath of God."Those calls may have had some response.On March 11, German authorities arrested four suspected members of an Islamic State cell who were allegedly planning an attack on American military facilities with explosives. In April, a Sudanese man stabbed seven people, killing two, in southeastern France. Most recently, on June 20, a Libyan man stabbed six people in a park in Reading, England, killing three.I do not believe these attacks in France and Britain or the disrupted plot in Germany signal a resurgence in Islamic State activity in the West. IS's messaging has lost much of its galvanizing appeal since the group lost its transnational state, which had inspired many followers, in a five-year war in Syria and Iraq.My research shows that calls for attacks on the FIFA World Cup soccer finals in Russia in 2018 and against Fourth of July festivities in the U.S. in 2019 were never acted on. While the Islamic State group can still carry out attacks in the Middle East and through its affiliates around the world, their gloating at American coronavirus deaths and racial tensions does not necessarily translate to a real threat to the U.S.Brian Glyn Williams is a professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts DartmouthRead 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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| Anti-racism protests turn spotlight on icons of US history Posted: 23 Jun 2020 08:47 AM PDT  As the wave of anti-racism protests rocking the United States brings down monuments to figures linked to the country's history of slavery, the spotlight is shifting to other prominent people long considered untouchable. Although protesters initially focused on removing statues of Confederate generals, the movement has begun to turn its focus to icons of US history, including the nation's founders Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, and President Theodore Roosevelt. On Monday night, it was the turn of Andrew Jackson, the populist slaveholding soldier-president admired by US President Donald Trump.
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| US deports ex-paramilitary leader 'Toto' Constant to Haiti Posted: 23 Jun 2020 10:06 AM PDT  PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Former paramilitary leader Emmanuel Constant was deported from the U.S. on Tuesday and arrested as soon as he landed in Haiti, where he faces murder and torture charges stemming from killings committed during the political upheaval of the 1990s that involved the U.S. government. Constant was among 24 deported migrants who landed in the capital of Port-au-Prince, the fourth such flight since the COVID-19 pandemic began, said Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, director of Haiti's migration office. Reed Brody, an attorney for Human Rights Watch known as the "dictator hunter," told The Associated Press in a phone interview that Constant should be prosecuted somewhere.
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| Sheriff's office employee among 3 men accused of vandalizing Black Lives Matter sign Posted: 22 Jun 2020 07:10 PM PDT  "I'm deeply disappointed that one of our employees involved himself in this type of illegal activity, especially when this is an infringement on someone's First Amendment right to freedom of speech," Sheriff Bill Ayub said.
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| Calif. College Professor Placed on Leave After Asking Asian-American Student to 'Anglicize' Her Name Posted: 24 Jun 2020 05:41 AM PDT  'This incident is obviously disturbing,' Laney College's President said in a statement
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| This U.S. Missile Can Kill Any Target on the Planet (In Less Than an Hour) Posted: 23 Jun 2020 09:15 AM PDT  Meet the Common Hypersonic Glide Body.
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| 'My babies could have died': Harrowing video shows twins tipping anchored Ikea bookcase Posted: 24 Jun 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Ikea says its furniture is safe when anchored. But safety advocates worry that isn't always true, pointing to cases of secured furniture tipping.
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| U.S. navy ship navigates near Venezuelan coast after Iranian cargo ship arrives Posted: 23 Jun 2020 12:54 PM PDT |
| 'Black neutron star' discovery changes astronomy Posted: 24 Jun 2020 02:45 AM PDT  Laser labs that detect ripples in space-time may have witnessed a new class of cosmic object.
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| The 'Students for Trump' campaign scrapped online registration for his next event after TikTok teens hijacked sign-ups for his Tulsa rally Posted: 23 Jun 2020 05:31 AM PDT  Teens and K-pop fans reportedly flooded the registration form for Trump's June 20 rally in Tulsa, leading the campaign to expect a huge turnout.
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| Teddy Roosevelt statue at entrance of New York's Museum of Natural History to be removed Posted: 22 Jun 2020 01:46 PM PDT  Reaction from Alveda King, Fox News contributor and niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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| India tells Pakistan to cut embassy staff by half, says will do same Posted: 23 Jun 2020 09:34 AM PDT  India told Pakistan on Tuesday to slash its embassy staff in New Delhi by half -- saying it would do the same in Islamabad -- as a diplomatic spat continued between the nuclear-armed rivals. The fractious relationship between the neighbours has worsened since New Delhi expelled two Pakistan embassy officials over spying claims in late May. After that, New Delhi accused Islamabad of torturing two Indian diplomats arrested following an alleged hit-and-run in the Pakistani capital.
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