| Pence hails 'remarkable progress' on COVID-19 as new cases surge in many states Posted: 26 Jun 2020 12:27 PM PDT  Vice President Mike Pence hailed "remarkable progress" toward returning the nation to normalcy at the first public briefing of the coronavirus task force in nearly two months on Friday, a day the U.S. saw a new high for coronavirus cases recorded.
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| Which statues deserve to fall? Posted: 27 Jun 2020 07:36 AM PDT  Demonstrators in cities across the country have torn down statues honoring historical figures with controversial legacies. Which monuments should remain and which should fall?
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| 'Dixie' Chicks no more: As Confederacy loses its luster, bands and brands rush to abandon its symbols Posted: 25 Jun 2020 12:57 PM PDT  The decision by the Dixie Chicks to change their name follows weeks of demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, and is the latest instance of a nationwide move to abandon symbols of the Confederacy, slavery and Jim Crow.
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| Judge orders Roger Stone to surrender July 14, denying his request for an extended delay Posted: 26 Jun 2020 04:47 PM PDT  Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, requested a two-month delay to his prison sentence, citing his age and medical concerns.
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| Jon Stewart says he doesn't remember Republicans being mad about erasing history when the Saddam Hussein statue was toppled in Baghdad Posted: 26 Jun 2020 09:07 AM PDT  On "The Daily Social Distancing Show with Trevor Noah", Jon Stewart lampooned Republicans' hypocrisy over tearing down Confederate statues.
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| Several active, retired San Jose police officers accused of participating in closed Facebook page with racist posts Posted: 26 Jun 2020 11:23 PM PDT  'The union will provide you no shelter': Several active and retired San Jose police officers are accused of participating in a closed Facebook page, full of racist posts.
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| The Trump administration told Facebook and Twitter to remove posts that call for tearing down statues Posted: 26 Jun 2020 12:05 PM PDT  President Donald Trump has railed against protesters over the past month, and has repeatedly clashed with tech companies in the process.
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| Yemen asks for help as seawater seeps into abandoned tanker Posted: 25 Jun 2020 11:38 PM PDT  The United Nations said an abandoned oil tanker moored off the coast of Yemen loaded with more than 1 million barrels of crude oil is at risk of rupture or exploding, causing massive environmental damage to Red Sea marine life, desalination factories and international shipping routes. Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press show that seawater has entered the engine compartment of the tanker, which hasn't been maintained for over five years, causing damage to the pipelines and increasing the risk of sinking. Rust has covered parts of the tanker and the inert gas that prevents the tanks from gathering inflammable gases, has leaked out.
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| Greg Abbott is a hypocrite. Pausing Texas' reopening won't fix the damage he's done Posted: 25 Jun 2020 11:19 AM PDT  What we've seen in Gov. Greg Abbott's response to the coronavirus is the damage that hyper-individualism can do and has done to this country.
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| Thailand targets narco millions hidden in gold, steel and crypto Posted: 26 Jun 2020 02:10 AM PDT  The downfall of a meth syndicate laundering tens of millions of dollars of drug money through Thai gold shops, oil and construction firms has cast rare light on the staggering scale of Asia's narco profits -- and the ruses used to hide them. Thailand is Southeast Asia's meth "superhighway", with drugs from remote Myanmar labs pouring through the border destined for the local market or overseas as far as Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Prices have dropped as the drug labs ramp up production of yaba -- the tiny caffeinated pink or green pills guzzled by Southeast Asian truck drivers to clubbers -- and the more expensive and highly addictive crystal meth known as "ice".
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| Coronavirus updates: New US cases hit single-day record; as heat rises in places like Florida and Mexico, so do infections Posted: 27 Jun 2020 05:24 AM PDT  The U.S. hit a single-day record. Texas, Florida closing bars amid surge in cases. The Trump administration is considering new approach to testing.
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| Face Mask Exemption ID Cards Are Going Viral and the Department of Justice Says They're Fake Posted: 27 Jun 2020 09:35 AM PDT  The cards claim the DOJ has cleared individuals from wearing protective face coverings to stem the spread of COVID-19
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| Jeyaraj and Fenix: Outrage mounts over deaths in Indian police custody Posted: 27 Jun 2020 05:15 AM PDT  The two men died after allegedly being tortured in police custody, raising calls for justice.
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| Lawmakers in Canada and Scotland have pointed to the US as an example of failed coronavirus containment Posted: 26 Jun 2020 05:19 PM PDT  On Friday, the European Union said they would likely bar travelers from the US and other countries that have not curbed the coronavirus.
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| Philippine police kill 4 suspected militants in Manila raid Posted: 26 Jun 2020 04:51 AM PDT  Philippine police killed four suspected Islamic State group-linked militants during a raid on a hideout in metropolitan Manila early Friday, security officials said. Metropolitan Manila Police Chief Debold Sinas said police and intelligence agents planned to serve a search warrant at a house in suburban Paranaque city after months of surveillance when the suspected militants opened fire.
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| 5 Stealth Weapons Have Made The U.S. Military Unstoppable Posted: 26 Jun 2020 10:30 PM PDT  Stealth, or the idea of reducing the ability of the enemy to detect a weapon, has been around since the first caveman sewed a pocket into his clothing and hid a rock in it.
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| Calls to 'arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor' have been turned into an online meme that some say has gone too far Posted: 26 Jun 2020 01:52 PM PDT  "Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor" has become a call for justice, but some are calling for people to stop turning her death into a meme.
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| Italy sends in army after riot erupts on council estate near Naples over new virus outbreak Posted: 26 Jun 2020 10:16 AM PDT  Italy sent soldiers and riot police as reinforcements on Friday to a council estate in the south of the country where a cluster of coronavirus cases among foreign farm workers has sparked tensions with locals. Violence flared between Italian residents and migrant workers on Thursday and Friday in the town of Mondragone, north of Naples, after five blocks of flats were locked down in an outbreak of 43 positive cases, mostly among Roma and Bulgarian field workers. The trouble reportedly began after a group of Bulgarians attempted to force their way through a cordon put in place earlier this week, to protest not being able to return to work. Police persuaded them to return inside, but a few were later spotted heading out. A throng of angry resident Italians then gathered below the tower blocks shouting insults at the inhabitants, some of whom responded by throwing chairs and objects from their balconies. The affected council estate is home to some 300 Italians and 400 migrant workers from Eastern Europe, North Africa and South America. "We have put all the tower blocks in quarantine. Now they need to stay in their homes and respect the rules: for 15 days no-one enters or exits those buildings," said Campania governor Vincenzo De Luca, who requested extra law enforcement from the interior ministry and threatened to lock down the whole town if screening identifies more than 100 cases. Several vehicles with Bulgarian plates were vandalized and a van was set alight with a molotov cocktail on Friday morning before the army unit arrived.
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| White couple calls Mexican American 'criminal,' blocks him from his building Posted: 26 Jun 2020 12:07 PM PDT  Michael Barajas, 28, said he started recording the incident after a white man got aggressive and falsely called him a "criminal."
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| Explorers in Antarctica found the largest soft-shelled egg ever seen. It may have come from an ancient reptile that preyed on sharks. Posted: 27 Jun 2020 05:55 AM PDT  Researchers think the creature that laid the egg, which is about 66 million years old, was more than 20 feet long.
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| Pakistan condemns India's expulsion of diplomats at 'delicate' time after China clash Posted: 25 Jun 2020 11:47 PM PDT  Pakistan has accused old rival India of trying to distract the attention of its people by expelling Pakistani diplomats after Indian forces got a "battering" at the hands of Chinese troops in a clash on their disputed Himalayan border. Pakistan is concerned about the tension after the June 15 clash in the Ladakh region, in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed, in particular about the possibility Pakistan could get dragged in, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said. "Things have deteriorated, things are very delicate," Qureshi told Reuters in an interview at his ministry in Islamabad late on Thursday.
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| In 2017, Two Historic Accidents Shook The U.S. Navy (Here Is What They Learned) Posted: 26 Jun 2020 08:30 PM PDT  Two deadly collisions involving U.S. Navy destroyers in June and August 2017 may have cost the lives of up to sixteen sailors, leading the Navy to declare a day-long operational pause to reflect upon its safety culture.
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| A Black man who was punched in the head several times by a Buffalo police officer plans to sue the city Posted: 26 Jun 2020 03:49 PM PDT  In a video of the interaction, a woman can be heard telling Quentin Suttles to stop resisting. He replies, "I'm not."
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| More fragments from 1952 crash in Alaska found in glacier Posted: 26 Jun 2020 05:09 PM PDT |
| Gingrich: The mob rule in large parts of America can't be sustained Posted: 26 Jun 2020 10:27 AM PDT  The U.S. needs to have an honest conversation about what it takes to make America safe again, Newt Gingrich says on 'Outnumbered.'
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| Florida Smirked at New York's Virus Crisis. Now It Has Its Own. Posted: 26 Jun 2020 11:56 AM PDT  In late April, as new coronavirus cases in Florida were steadily decreasing, Gov. Ron DeSantis began crowing how his state had tamed the pandemic.He credited his decision to impose a state-specific quarantine on New York, then the epicenter of the nation's outbreak. The move earned him praise in the White House and the ire of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York.Months later, Cuomo has clearly not forgotten."You played politics with this virus and you lost," Cuomo said Thursday when asked in an interview about DeSantis' earlier boasts.With infections now rapidly spreading in Florida while they retreat in New York, the two states have come to reflect the rapidly shifting course of the coronavirus pandemic.New York still has the country's highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths, but the day-to-day numbers have been steadily falling: At its peak, the virus claimed 1,000 deaths a day in the state; on Thursday, the state recorded 17 deaths. Florida, among the states not mandating masks, rushed to reopen and on Friday reported its highest number of new cases in one day, with close to 9,000.And in their divergent political responses to the outbreak, Cuomo, a Democrat, and DeSantis, a Republican, also mirror the divide over the virus among states and regions around the country.The two brash, telegenic governors both embraced the increased visibility that the virus provided. Cuomo delivered daily sober updates on the virus, the state's aggressive lockdown strategy and its cautious approach to reopening. DeSantis eagerly advanced a narrative pushed by President Donald Trump, seeing the economic damage as a greater risk than a virus that had, for months, largely spared his state.The strain of the pandemic has frayed the ties between New York and Florida, two states that normally enjoy a more symbiotic relationship, even allowing for the occasional hints of schadenfreude.On Wednesday, Cuomo ordered his own quarantine on travelers from states with high-infection rates -- a group of eight that included Florida -- to protect New Yorkers who now have low infection rates. The reversal of fortune was too much to pass up."Your hospital beds are filling up," Cuomo said Thursday. "It means more people are getting sick. That's what's happening. And it's now undeniable."Despite the virus' spread, DeSantis has given no indication that he would order the shutdown of any of the businesses already opened. But on Friday, in an unexpected move, the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation abruptly announced that on-premises alcohol consumption would be suspended at bars, effective immediately.DeSantis acknowledged that the trend in infections had shifted. "Our peak before was much lower than a lot of the other states -- in the Northeast, for example," he said on Thursday during a news conference in Tampa. "Really, the whole Sun Belt is seeing this."DeSantis said the state, which has lost 3,327 lives to the virus, was prepared for the rise in cases. He did not address Cuomo's remarks or the quarantine of Floridians traveling to New York. A spokeswoman for DeSantis, Helen Aguirre Ferre, said Cuomo was "sadly mistaken if he thinks this pandemic is a political contest."Even before the pandemic, New York and Florida engaged in some interstate rivalry, competing for residents and businesses. Florida has overtaken New York in population in recent years, a trend driven in part by the migration to the state of New Yorkers, census figures show.But in their responses to the coronavirus, the differences between the two states have never been clearer.Cuomo in April mandated all New Yorkers to wear masks when they could not stay 6 feet apart. DeSantis has declined to do the same, even after his own state surgeon general issued an advisory recommending masks in any setting where social distancing is not possible.New York leaders, after a halting early response to the pandemic in March, mostly followed the recommendations of state public health officials, including requirements for widespread testing and contact tracing before reopening. Florida has moved to open its businesses faster, and without the same infrastructure for tracking down the close contacts of the infected.In large part, the different approaches reflect the different experiences with the virus. New York state saw more than 18,000 hospitalizations a day during the worst period of the outbreak, back in April.The state's nursing homes were particularly hard-hit: 6,200 residents have died, and Cuomo has been criticized by DeSantis and others for an executive order that forbade nursing homes from turning away patients arriving from hospitals solely because they had the coronavirus. A Cuomo spokesman recently responded by saying DeSantis does not know how to wear a mask properly.DeSantis received praise for the state's more limited response to the pandemic, including from Trump, who urged the quarantine of New Yorkers going to Florida. DeSantis believed harsh restrictions would result in citizens refusing to follow the rules.He has also attacked the news media, which he said has been overly concerned about contagion in Florida's reopened beaches and not worried enough about virus spread in the New York subway.In early May, Florida began reopening business, and quickly: The state's first phase of reopening included restaurants, gyms, barbershops and large spectator sporting events, with restricted occupancy. In New York, reopening began more haltingly, with manufacturing and construction businesses.And when the White House called, DeSantis traveled to Washington to highlight the state's progress next to Trump."When you look at some of the most draconian orders that have been issued in some of these states and compare Florida," DeSantis said from the Oval Office in late April, including New York in a litany of several states, "Florida has done better."And so the National Basketball Association said it would hold the rest of its season at Walt Disney World. The Republican National Convention relocated its big speeches to Jacksonville, Florida. NASCAR raced at the Homestead-Miami Speedway earlier this month, with DeSantis as its honorary starter.Cuomo has made his own bid for sports, coaxing the Mets and the Yankees to return to New York from their spring training camps by suggesting Florida was no longer safe. (He exempted the teams from the new quarantine, saying they had their own health protocols.)While Cuomo did not explicitly target his quarantine order to apply to Florida, he signaled in the days before making the announcement that the state's recent treatment of New Yorkers was very much on his mind."Well, wouldn't that be karma?" Cuomo said when asked about a quarantine in New York on MSNBC.Florida's quarantine affecting New Yorkers is still in effect: As of Tuesday, New Yorkers arriving at Miami International Airport were still being met by the National Guard and state health officials, told to head straight for their lodgings and ordered to quarantine there for two weeks.But as the course of the coronavirus outbreak has turned in recent weeks, the flow of travelers has reversed: People are now jetting out of Florida and back to the relative safety of New York. Such an exodus would have been unimaginable three months earlier.Epidemiologists said Florida's quarantine of New Yorkers made sense at the time, just as New York's for Floridians does now. "There is more virus in that environment," said Dr. Amanda D. Castel, a professor of epidemiology at George Washington University.Right now, New York was looking like a safer bet to Evan Friedman, a White Plains, New York, resident who had been staying in his second home in Boca Raton, Florida, since March.In recent weeks, Friedman, 58, had begun to worry that Florida residents were not taking the virus seriously enough. A barber not wearing a mask rattled him. So did the man in the bagel shop who prepared a platter without a mask or gloves.Many New Yorkers he knew in Florida had gone back north, and he planned to go early next month.But when Cuomo announced that the new quarantine would take effect at midnight Wednesday, Friedman rushed to pack his bags. He found the flights to New York were all booked, so he got a ticket to Connecticut and rented a car to get back to New York."I have the luxury of being able to be up North or in the South," he said. "I want to be where there are the smallest amount of cases."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Why are California's Covid-19 cases surging? Here's what we know Posted: 26 Jun 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Infections and hospitalizations are on the rise as the state reopens, with a record 7,149 people testing positive on TuesdayCalifornia's early, aggressive response to the coronavirus pandemic had earned praise from the top US health officials, and even Donald Trump. But after avoiding the scenarios faced by New York and New Jersey, the state has seen infections and hospitalizations swell in recent weeks.As malls, museums, bars and other public spaces reopened, Governor Gavin Newsom has urged citizens to wear masks and keep their distance from one another to slow the spread of disease. "I cannot impress upon people more the importance at this critical juncture," he said, "to take seriously this moment."Here's what we know about the situation. How big is the coronavirus surge in California?Big. Overall, the state has reported more than 195,500 cases since the pandemic first struck, with 5,700 deaths. California marked a record 7,149 people who tested positive on Tuesday, a figure that dropped on Wednesday to 5,349."Part of the surge we're seeing is due to increased testing," said Dr Lee Riley, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley. California has tested roughly 3.7 million people since the beginning of the pandemic, and more than 101,000 tests were processed on Wednesday."But the fact that the number of hospitalizations are also increasing means that there's more going on," Riley said. As of Thursday, the number of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 is 32% higher than it was two weeks ago, Newsom reported. The number of patients in intensive care also increased 19% over the past fortnight – more than a third of ICU beds available across the state are now occupied by coronavirus patients. Over the past two weeks, about 64 people have died of the virus each day."I think pretty much every place has rushed to reopen," said Dr Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at UC Los Angeles. "And as we reopen, of course we're going to see more cases." Where are infections surging?The number of cases appear to be increasing throughout the state, but the biggest surges in infections are in Los Angeles county and other parts of southern California.Los Angeles now has more cases than anywhere else in the country, with more than 89,600 infections reported, according to the Johns Hopkins tracker. Rural communities like Imperial county, at the US-Mexico border, and Stanislaus, in the Central Valley, are also seeing surges in both the total number of cases recorded and the proportion of residents who are testing positive.Bay Area communities – including Santa Clara county, the first in the nation to enact a shelter-in-place order – are also seeing surges, though the proportion of positive tests in the region remains far below the state average.Officials have attributed the surge in some parts of the Bay Area to workplaces, including an outbreak at a waste management company in Marin county. Since mid-May, outbreaks at prisons have been excluded from the state's Covid-19 tracking data, but it is worth noting that a devastating outbreak at San Quentin state prison, where an inmate transfer led to more than 500 new cases, and outbreaks at other facilities across the state would add about 850 more new cases logged in the past two weeks to the state's totals. Why are infections surging?It's not totally clear, though public health experts and officials blame large gatherings where people are not wearing masks and not maintaining a 6ft-radius, even as adherence to these safety measures becomes increasingly political."There's a group of people who go around bragging that they're practicing individual freedom by not wearing masks," Riley said. "These people are not practicing freedom – they're practicing pure selfishness."While reopening society can never be risk free, Riley said that countries that have been most successful at containing the virus have been far more vigilant than California in mandating mask-wearing, hygiene and physical distancing. In South Korea, where fewer than 300 people have died despite reporting more cases in February than any country besides China, a second wave of infections has remained relatively small despite restaurants, schools and even nightclubs reopening, Riley noted. "Small clusters of cases are much easier to contain by isolating those who are infected, notifying those who are exposed," he said. "What we're seeing in California is a lost opportunity to reopen carefully."An uptick in the number of cases among young people is also a concern, Riley said. While people in their 20s, 30s and 40s are less likely to die from Covid-19, they can get seriously ill, and they "can be sources of infection for older people who are most at risk: their grandmas, their grandpas, their buds with diabetes and their friends with high blood pressure". Healthy young people who show few symptoms could pass the virus on to those who are most at risk of suffering complications. What will this mean for re-opening?In order to safely reopen, no more than 5% of everyone in a community who gets tested for Covid-19 should receive a positive result, according to the World Health Organization.California's threshold for reopening is that no more than 8% of all tests should come back positive. While the positivity rate for the state overall hovers at a tenuous 5.1%, the rate in some southern California counties is nearly 9% or higher.Governor Newsom said the state might have to "revert back" to tougher restrictions if the situation gets worse. What do doctors want Californians to know?Officials and health experts are pleading with Californians to continue to wear masks, wash hands, and stay 6ft apart. Health agencies in some counties are encouraging residents to keep their social circles small – limited to "bubbles" of no more than a dozen friends – and gather outdoors.In Imperial county, which borders Mexico and Arizona, defiance of a statewide mandate to wear face masks and lax social distancing appears to have exacerbated a crisis both within and across state and national borders. "Whether people here brought infections to Yuma, Arizona and Mexicali, or whether they brought it back from those places is kind of immaterial at this point," said Dr Thomas Henderson, director of the Imperial County Medical Society. "What we're seeing here is craziness."The crisis has overwhelmed local hospitals, he said. "It's just a horrible time to be a physician" he added, because doctors have found themselves pleading with the community to wear masks and stay safe, "but it's all become so political".As Donald Trump and rightwing politicians and media outlets derided masks as unnecessary, Dr Anthony Fauci, the health official leading the US response to coronavirus, told Californians who were skeptical of covering their faces in public to "forget the politics. Look at the data." A string of new research released this summer suggests that masks can reduce the risks of spreading the virus, even if they're far from foolproof."It's totally understandable to want to get back as quickly as possible to what you perceive as normal in your life," Fauci said at an event hosted by the Sacramento Press Club. But he urged Californians to stay vigilant, nothing that reopening isn't "black or white, either no restrictions or locked down".
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| Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan agree to delay filling dam Posted: 26 Jun 2020 03:02 PM PDT  Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have agreed that Addis Ababa will delay filling a mega-dam as part of a comprehensive deal on the project that has raised tensions between the three countries, the Egyptian presidency said Friday. Ethiopia had previously pushed to start filling the gigantic Nile River dam next month despite vehement opposition from downstream Egypt and Sudan, and the dispute was raised with the UN last week.
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| As Biden closes in on VP pick, one longtime adviser hasn't left his side Posted: 26 Jun 2020 03:04 AM PDT  In midst of a campaign interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, Jill Biden's presence is a constant as her husband contemplates his big decision.
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| A journalist who covered Trump's Tulsa rally tests positive for COVID-19 Posted: 26 Jun 2020 07:52 PM PDT  A reporter who covered US President Donald Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has tested positive for the coronavirus.
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| White House does not commit to temperature checks in meeting with U.S. airlines Posted: 26 Jun 2020 04:37 PM PDT  Top U.S. airline executives met on Friday with Vice President Mike Pence and other senior administration officials but did not come away with any commitments from the White House on mandating temperature checks for airline passengers. Airlines want the U.S. government to administer temperature checks to all passengers in a bid to reassure the public.
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| Toronto officer guilty of assault after blinding black man Posted: 27 Jun 2020 03:19 AM PDT  A black man loses an eye in a beating by an off-duty Toronto officer, who accused him of car-hopping.
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| The H-20 Stealth Bomber: China's Biggest Threat to the U.S.? Posted: 27 Jun 2020 08:30 AM PDT  The bomber, which has yet to be revealed, is expected to enter service in the mid-2020s.
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| Kidnapping of 9-month-old baby sparks Amber Alert in Tennessee Posted: 26 Jun 2020 07:37 AM PDT  The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) has issued a statewide Amber Alert, after a nine-month-old girl was "forcibly taken" from her family.On Thursday evening, nine-month-old Braelee Rayne Trapp was abducted in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, by 44-year-old Tony Lynn Lanier, according to the authorities.
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| Lawrence Jones: Biden campaign concerned about Joe getting in front of crowds Posted: 26 Jun 2020 04:45 AM PDT  After 2020 presumptive Democrat nominee Joe Biden says 120 million people have died from COVID-19, Fox News contributor Lawrence Jones says the candidate's campaign is concerned by how damaging his tangents can be.
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| Lawsuit brewing in fight over game bird in Sierra Nevada Posted: 25 Jun 2020 09:08 PM PDT  Conservationists are headed back to court to try to force the Trump administration to protect a rare game bird along the California-Nevada border as the government keeps changing its mind about whether to list the cousin of the greater sage grouse as threatened or endangered. Three groups have filed formal notice of their intent to sue after the Fish and Wildlife Service reversed course in March and abandoned its 2018 proposal to list the bi-state grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The hen-sized bird is similar but separate from the greater sage grouse, which lives in a dozen Western states and is at the center of a dispute over the government's efforts to roll back protections adopted under President Barack Obama.
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| Here’s why Britain is struggling to form a fully effective carrier strike group Posted: 26 Jun 2020 10:26 AM PDT  Britain's Royal Navy took delivery of two new aircraft carriers, but a government report on the ships achieving operational capability has laid bare some obstacles toward making a fully effective carrier strike group.
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| Iraq raids offices of powerful Iranian-backed militia Posted: 26 Jun 2020 01:36 AM PDT  Iraqi security forces have raided the offices of one of the country's most powerful Iran-backed militias, signalling a possible crackdown on Tehran's military influence in Baghdad. The raid on Thursday night saw the arrest of more than a dozen members of Kataib Hezbollah, a Shia militia group blamed by the US for numerous rocket attacks on American bases in Iraq. The group's activities ultimately led to last January's US airstrike in Baghdad that killed Qassem Solaimani, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander who sponsored them. The arrests may be a sign that Iraq's new pro-Western prime minister, Mustapha al-Khadimi, is trying to clamp down on the presence of Tehran-backed militias in Iraq. The raid took place at a Khataib Hezbollah headquarters in southern Baghdad, although the exact circumstances were unclear. Some said that those detained had been taken into government custody. Others, though, claimed they had been transferred to the custody of an internal security wing of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, or PMF. The PMF is a Shia paramilitary organisation set up six years ago to fight Islamic State, and has a number of factions with close links to Tehran. Transferring them to PMF custody could be a tactic to avoid aggravating tensions with Tehran. According to one report by Reuters, one of the arrested commanders was an Iranian.
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| Texas and Florida close bars to combat COVID-19 spread Posted: 26 Jun 2020 01:22 PM PDT  Florida reported 8,942 new coronavirus cases Friday, shattering the previous record set days ago.
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| Pakistan's national airline moves to assuage concern on 'dubious' pilot licences Posted: 27 Jun 2020 05:13 AM PDT  Pakistan's national airline has written to foreign missions and global regulatory and safety bodies, assuring them it has grounded all 141 pilots suspected of obtaining licenses through unfair means, the carrier's spokesman said on Saturday. The move looks to assuage safety concerns after Pakistan's Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said on Friday the government had asked various commercial airlines, flying clubs and charter companies to ground a total of 262 pilots until investigations into their qualifications are completed. The action was prompted by a preliminary report on the crash of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft in Karachi last month, which found pilots had failed to follow standard procedures.
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| Gun battle over El Chapo legacy leaves 16 dead in Mexico Posted: 25 Jun 2020 05:07 PM PDT  Culiacán (Mexico) (AFP) - The fight for control of drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's legacy spilled into the open on Thursday after a gun battle between rival Mexican gangs left 16 dead, authorities said. The 16 men, heavily armed and wearing bullet-proof vests, died in a six-hour running shootout near the rural town of Tepuche in northwestern Sinaloa province. "A van with seven bodies was located" after an initial clash, while nine bodies were discovered following a second exchange, Sinaloa's state security minister Cristobal Castaneda told reporters.
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| The U.S. Navy Is Making Plans to Replace the F-35 Stealth Fighter Posted: 27 Jun 2020 06:00 AM PDT  The Navy is currently analyzing airframes, targeting systems, artificial-intelligence-enabled sensors, new weapons and engine technologies to engineer a new sixth-generation carrier-launched fighter jet to fly alongside the F-35 fighter jet and ultimately replace the F/A-18 aircraft.
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