| Centrist Dem Amy McGrath beats Charles Booker in Kentucky primary to face McConnell Posted: 30 Jun 2020 09:42 AM PDT  The former fighter pilot leveraged a massive fundraising advantage and absentee votes to survive a challenge from the progressive state senator.
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| Man arrested over fatal shooting in Kentucky park at center of protests Posted: 29 Jun 2020 01:14 AM PDT  "The man has been participating in the protest since the beginning and he had been arrested a couple of times in the past several weeks," Schroeder said. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said he was saddened by the incident. The park has been a focal point of protests against the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technicinan who was killed in a hail of gunfire when drug investigators burst into her home in Louisville on March 13.
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| Couple draw guns at crowd heading to St. Louis mayor's home Posted: 29 Jun 2020 01:03 AM PDT  A white couple who stood outside their St. Louis mansion and pointed guns at protesters support the Black Lives Matter movement and don't want to become heroes to those who oppose the cause, their attorney said Monday. Video posted online showed Mark McCloskey, 63, and his 61-year-old wife, Patricia, standing outside their Renaissance palazzo-style home Sunday night in the city's well-to-do Central West End neighborhood as protesters marched toward the mayor's home to demand her resignation. Mark McCloskey told KMOV-TV that he and wife, who are personal injury lawyers, were facing an "angry mob" on their private street and feared for their lives Sunday night.
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| School teacher who self-quarantined at Connecticut home for three weeks vanishes after going for a walk in early May Posted: 29 Jun 2020 03:05 PM PDT  Gil Cunha was last seen just after midnight on May 7, 2020, at his parents' home on Overlook Avenue in West Haven, Connecticut. Later that morning, Gil's parents figured he was out for one of his daily walks. He never returned. Gil had been self-quarantining in his room the prior three weeks due to COVID-19 symptoms. He left behind two cell phones, his passport, credit cards and cash. The only item that appears to be missing is his driver's license. The West Haven Police Department is inve
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| Robbery Caught On Camera In Kips Bay Posted: 30 Jun 2020 03:33 AM PDT  Police are searching for a man seen on video putting a woman into a chokehold and then stealing her bag.
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| Coming Soon: Russian Bombers (Now Armed with Hypersonic Missiles?) Posted: 29 Jun 2020 02:30 PM PDT  Hypersonic missiles have been seen as a potential game changer, with some in the U.S. military warning that there is really no defense against the missiles due to their speed.
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| Trump in ‘fragile’ mood and may drop out of 2020 race if poll numbers don’t improve, GOP insiders tell Fox News Posted: 29 Jun 2020 08:27 AM PDT  Donald Trump may drop out of the 2020 presidential race if he believes he has no chance of winning, a Republican Party operative reportedly told Fox News.The claim comes in a report in the president's favourite news outlet that cites a number of GOP insiders who are concerned about Mr Trump's re-election prospects amid abysmal polling numbers.
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| 'It makes it very difficult to fire them': police union contracts protect bad officers, critics warn Posted: 30 Jun 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Oversight in many US police forces has been rendered ineffective by union contracts accused of thwarting disciplinary proceedings A court in 2009 convicted Washington DC police officer Michael Sugg-Edwards of sexually assaulting a teenage woman in his squad car. After conducting its own internal investigation, the department quickly fired the then 35-year-old officer.But, six years later, Sugg-Edwards was back on the force. A provision in the police union's contract allowed him to appeal against the decision to a union-selected arbitrator who reversed the department's firing and reinstated him – with back pay.Such protections for officers who commit crimes are not unique to Washington. About 475 police union contracts at the nation's largest departments hold similar arbitration provisions, according to a 2019 Loyola University study. Those are accompanied by a startling array of other complex protections that shield officers accused of often violent misconduct from accountability.It all builds up to form a picture of how police contracts – which, like other labor contracts, govern the working conditions under which officers operate – have rendered police departments' disciplinary and oversight processes ineffective as officers are rarely held accountable for wrongdoing. That then encourages the police violence that sparked the massive nationwide protests in the wake of George Floyd's killing by a white police officer in Minneapolis."These [contract provisions] tie the hands of police chiefs and others who are trying to hold police officers accountable," said Carl Takei, an ACLU senior staff attorney focused on police practices. "It makes it very difficult to fire or discipline officers who engage in misconduct."The protections' impact on officer accountability is documented in a growing body of empirical studies and analyses. Nearly 90% of contracts at 178 midsize-to-large departments have at least one "problematic provision" that "could thwart legitimate disciplinary actions against officers engaged in misconduct,," Loyola policing scholar Stephen Rushin wrote in a 2017 study of contracts and police bills of rights.Among police-friendly provisions that Rushin and Campaign Zero, an activist group that tracks police union contracts, identified in separate analyses of over 650 departments:• 137 police agencies prohibit investigators from interrogating officers immediately after an incident. Louisiana's bill of rights grants officers 30 days, while Chicago officers are provided 48 hours.> It makes it very difficult to fire or discipline officers who engage in misconduct> > Carl Takei• 184 jurisdictions allow officers to review evidence against them before being interrogated.• 47 agencies require expungement of police misconduct records, in some cases after as little as two years. Others entirely shield disciplinary records from the public.• 74 departments don't allow an officer's misconduct history to be considered in future cases.• At least 40 departments require taxpayers to cover an officer's defense expenses.Rushin said the protections' impact is clear: "We have definitely made a lot of collective bargaining concessions at a substantial number of departments that can make it extremely difficult to hold police officers accountable."That's illustrated in the Floyd case. The Minneapolis police department contract and Minnesota police of bill of rights helped protect officer Derek Chauvin, who, before killing Floyd by kneeling on his neck, had been investigated by internal affairs at least 17 times since 2001.Per the union contract and bill of rights, the department erases exonerated or unsubstantiated misconduct records; delays interviews for 48 hours after an incident; prohibits meaningful civilian review boards; grants officers access to some evidence in an investigation; allows disciplinary action to be overturned by an arbitrator; and requires the public to pay for an officer's defense.Even amid intense public outcry, most details of previous complaints against Chauvin remain hidden from the public.A recent study strongly suggests contractual protections increase violent behavior among officers. It examined violent misconduct records after a 2003 Florida supreme court ruling that allowed the state's sheriff's departments to unionize. City departments already had collective bargaining rights, so the study compared violent incidents at the two types of departments.It found a 40% increase in violence – like assault and excessive force – at the sheriff's departments and no increase at the city departments."We really think what's driving this is decreased deterrence of wrongdoing from collective bargaining, and that's a really significant part of the policing story," said John Rappaport, one of its authors and a policing scholar at the University of Chicago Law School.Officers may feel safe committing crimes because data suggests that those who engage in misconduct are rarely disciplined internally.A Chicago police review taskforce found only 7% of complaints resulted during a four-year period in disciplinary action, and arbitrators reversed or reduced punishments in 73% of those cases. The report stated that collective bargaining agreements "provide an unfair advantage to officers" and "have essentially turned the code of silence into official policy".The officer who shot Laquan McDonald 16 times in the back escaped discipline in more than 20 complaints against him for excessive force. The Chicago police contract offers a range of protections from delaying interrogations to arbitration. Meanwhile, a Washington Post investigation of large departments found more than 450 out of nearly 2,000 officers fired for wrongdoing were reinstated, despite committing often violent crimes.In San Antonio, an officer fired twice for challenging handcuffed suspects to fight him for their freedom was reinstated by an arbitrator both times. A second San Antonio officer who engaged in unauthorized car chases was also reinstated twice. In Columbus and Oklahoma, officers who kicked men in the head were rehired.Cities made many of the disciplinary concessions to unions in lieu of pay increases during the 1980s when municipal tax revenue was tight. Unions won't give up those protections, Rushin said, which leaves it to politicians to enact change.He noted state lawmakers can force transparency by opening the collective bargaining process. In Washington, legislation approved this month takes away the union's ability to negotiate disciplinary processes and gives that authority to the police chief and mayor, the DC council chairman, Phil Mendelson, told the Guardian."When police have the ability to kill somebody, the disciplinary process should not be bargained for," he said. "When the police have the ability to take away liberty, the police should not be policing themselves."
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| Pakistani PM says 'no doubt' that India was behind stock exchange attack Posted: 30 Jun 2020 04:37 AM PDT  Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan told parliament on Tuesday he had no doubt that India was behind an attack on the stock exchange building in the southern city of Karachi. Four gunmen armed with grenades attacked the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Monday, killing two guards and a policeman before security forces killed the attackers. "There is no doubt that India is behind the attack," Khan said in his address to parliament - a charge that India had denied a day earlier.
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| China enacts sweeping national security law seen as major blow to Hong Kong autonomy Posted: 30 Jun 2020 06:13 AM PDT  "It's really the biggest crisis Hong Kong has faced in its modern history," said China-watcher Benedict Rogers.
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| Confederate flag losing prominence 155 years after Civil War Posted: 29 Jun 2020 09:37 PM PDT  Long a symbol of pride to some and hatred to others, the Confederate battle flag is losing its place of official prominence 155 years after rebellious Southern states lost a war to perpetuate slavery. Mississippi's Republican-controlled Legislature voted Sunday to remove the Civil War emblem from the state flag, a move that was both years in the making and notable for its swiftness amid a national debate over racial inequality following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Mississippi's was the last state flag to include the design.
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| 'Dirty' depiction of Kim's wife outraged NKorea: Russian envoy Posted: 30 Jun 2020 12:37 AM PDT  North Korea's fury over anti-Pyongyang leaflets launched from the South is driven by "dirty, insulting" depictions of leader Kim Jong Un's spouse, Russia's top envoy in the reclusive country has said. In recent weeks Pyongyang has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations over anti-North leaflets which defectors based in the South send across the militarised border -- usually attached to balloons or floated in bottles. The campaigns have long been a point of contention between the two Koreas, but this time, Pyongyang upped the pressure, blowing up a liaison office and threatening military measures.
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| Groups in wine, real estate, and technology have scrapped the word 'master' from their standard lingo Posted: 29 Jun 2020 05:37 PM PDT  Some groups have revised their official terminology in a reckoning of systemic racism across industries in the US.
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| Study This Submarine: Could It Sink a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier? Posted: 29 Jun 2020 11:00 PM PDT  "The ambush tactics for which the mini-sub is designed seem to fit the pattern of recent Iranian weapons procurement and their expressed interest in building a robust anti-access/area denial capability."
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| Poll: Biden, Trump locked in dead heat in Ohio, where Trump won by 8 in 2016 Posted: 29 Jun 2020 08:17 AM PDT  Trump's job approval has remained about the same in Ohio for the past year, with 44% of those polled approving of the job he's done.
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| Colorado officers placed on leave after photos near site of Elijah McClain's death Posted: 29 Jun 2020 11:20 PM PDT  A statement from the interim police chief of Aurora, Colorado, does not detail the substance of the photos.
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| Pakistani pilots question government list of 'dubious' pilots Posted: 30 Jun 2020 06:23 AM PDT  Pakistani airline pilots and their union have raised questions about a government list of 262 pilots with "dubious" credentials, saying it is full of discrepancies. Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan announced last week the grounding of 262 airline pilots suspected of dodging their exams, a move that caused global concern. The minister said the pilots included 141 from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), nine from Air Blue, 10 from Serene Airline, and 17 from Shaheen Airlines.
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| One man killed and another wounded in Seattle's occupied protest zone Posted: 29 Jun 2020 08:06 AM PDT  One man was killed and another wounded early Monday in Seattle's "occupied" protest zone - the second deadly shooting in the area. Police said the shooting happened before dawn in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood, near downtown. The Seattle Times reports that Harborview Medical Center said one wounded man was brought to the hospital in a private vehicle at about 3:15 a.m. The second was brought by Seattle Fire Department medics about 15 minutes later. The hospital said one man died and the other was in critical condition, Seattle police did not immediately release more information about the shooting. Demonstrators have occupied several blocks around the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct and a park for about two weeks after police abandoned the precinct following standoffs and clashes with protesters calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality.
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| China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization Posted: 28 Jun 2020 09:04 PM PDT  The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country's Han majority to have more children. While individual women have spoken out before about forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than previously known, according to an AP investigation based on government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor. The campaign over the past four years in the far west region of Xinjiang is leading to what some experts are calling a form of "demographic genocide."
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| US could buy Turkey’s Russian-made S-400 under Senate proposal Posted: 29 Jun 2020 02:42 PM PDT  The U.S. would be able to buy Turkey's Russian-made S-400 air defense system under legislation proposed in the Senate last week.
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| Fire kills 1, ruins 40 homes in Calif. desert town Posted: 29 Jun 2020 10:13 PM PDT  A brush fire killed one person and destroyed about 40 homes in a remote desert town near the shrinking Salton Sea, California's largest lake, authorities said Monday. (June 30)
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| Mississippi votes to strip Confederate emblem from state flag Posted: 28 Jun 2020 06:09 PM PDT  The southern state of Mississippi is the last in the US to feature the emblem on its flag.
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| The A-12 Avenger Shows Why The Navy Needs A Long-Range Strike Aircraft Posted: 28 Jun 2020 11:00 PM PDT  The Navy's carrier air wings would have greatly benefited from an A-12-like capability had the program survived.
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| Tokyo court rejects damages for man forcibly sterilised at age 14 Posted: 30 Jun 2020 01:30 AM PDT  A Japanese pensioner forcibly sterilised as a 14-year-old under a now-defunct eugenics law failed Tuesday in a legal bid for $280,000 in state compensation. According to local media, Tokyo District Court found the government was not obliged to pay the man compensation because the 20-year statute of limitations had passed. Last year, the government passed legislation offering the victims 3.2 million yen each ($29,700), an amount campaigners slammed as "failing to meet the seriousness" of the issue.
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| Federal appeals court upholds GOP-enacted voting restrictions in Wisconsin Posted: 30 Jun 2020 04:46 AM PDT  The judicial panel found that the state can restrict early voting hours and restored a requirement that people must live in a district for 28 days.
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| Iran records highest daily death toll from COVID-19 Posted: 29 Jun 2020 11:54 AM PDT  The 162 deaths reported on Monday exceed the previous record on April 4, when the health ministry reported 158 deaths in a day. The Islamic Republic has recorded a total of 10,670 deaths and 225,205 infections from the coronavirus, health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said in a statement on state TV. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in Iran, expressed concern on Monday about the rising number of deaths.
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| Putin unveils monument to fallen Red Army WWII soldiers Posted: 30 Jun 2020 06:51 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart from Belarus on Tuesday unveiled a monument honoring the fallen Red Army soldiers who fought in one of the most bloody battles of World War II. Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko traveled to the village of Khoroshevo, just outside Rzhev, about 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) northwest of Moscow for a somber ceremony that involved goose-stepping troops laying wreaths to the towering figure of a soldier. The battle of Rzhev, in which the Red Army launched a series of offensives in 1942-1943 to dislodge the Wermacht from its positions close to Moscow, involved enormous Soviet losses from persistent, poorly prepared attacks against well-fortified Nazi positions.
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| Trump accuses California Democrats of 'incredible stupidity' in row over John Wayne's white supremacy remarks Posted: 29 Jun 2020 06:12 AM PDT  Donald Trump is accusing some Democratic officials of "incredible stupidity" for calling for actor John Wayne's name to be removed from an airport in California even after an interview resurfaced of "The Duke" embracing white supremacy.John Wayne Airport in southern California serves Orange County and Los Angeles. Mr Trump in January 2016, as a presidential candidate, held a special event at the John Wayne Birthplace Museum in Winterset, Iowa. He spoke at a lectern with a wax statue of the late actor behind him.
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| Coronavirus: US officials warn 'this is just the beginning' Posted: 30 Jun 2020 07:26 AM PDT  A top US health expert says the US is not like other countries, because it has "way too much virus".
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| Xi Jinping’s Internal Great Wall Posted: 30 Jun 2020 07:40 AM PDT  Like the Great Wall of generations past, Xi's Internal Great Wall will continue to keep China behind the rest of the world because a nation that suppresses its own people is not a nation the world can trust to do business fairly.
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| 'It's my dam': Ethiopians unite around Nile River mega-project Posted: 29 Jun 2020 06:44 AM PDT  Last week, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's press secretary took a break from official statements to post something different to her Twitter feed: a 37-line poem defending her country's massive dam on the Blue Nile River. "My mothers seek respite/From years of abject poverty/Their sons a bright future/And the right to pursue prosperity," Billene Seyoum wrote in her poem, entitled "Ethiopia Speaks". As the lines indicate, Ethiopia sees the $4.6 billion (four-billion-euro) Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam as crucial for its electrification and development.
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| Israel orders evangelical Christian media network God TV to take channel off air Posted: 29 Jun 2020 10:47 AM PDT  "The channel does not appeal to the Christian population in Israel, but rather to the Jews," said Israel's broadcasting regulator.
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| CanSino's COVID-19 vaccine candidate approved for military use in China Posted: 28 Jun 2020 10:44 PM PDT  China's military has received the greenlight to use a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by its research unit and CanSino Biologics after clinical trials proved it was safe and showed some efficacy, the company said on Monday. The Ad5-nCoV is one of China's eight vaccine candidates approved for human trials at home and abroad for the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
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| Texas Bar Owners Sue Over Reimposed Coronavirus Restrictions Posted: 30 Jun 2020 07:36 AM PDT  Several Texas bar owners on Monday sued over Governor Greg Abbott's order to shut down their businesses again as coronavirus cases in the state soar.Texas reported a record high on Monday of 5,913 individuals hospitalized for the coronavirus, and new cases of the virus rose on Saturday to a record daily high of 6,263 confirmed new cases. Deaths from the virus have remained level, however.The bar owners filed lawsuits in Austin, Houston, and Galveston, charging that the governor has exceeded his authority under the state constitution to order bars to close again and claiming that the restrictions are being unfairly imposed on bars while other businesses, such as nail and hair salons, are allowed to continue operating. The owners are demanding that Abbott call the state legislature into a special session to handle the issue."Gov. Abbott continues to act like a king," said Jared Woodfill, a lawyer representing the bar owners. "Abbott is unilaterally destroying our economy and trampling on our constitutional rights."Abbott rolled back his state's reopening process on Friday, singling out activity in bars as a driving factor of the spike in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations Texas has experienced."As I said from the start, if the positivity rate rose above 10%, the State of Texas would take further action to mitigate the spread of COVID-19," the Republican governor said. "At this time, it is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars."The governor's slowdown of the reopening process reimposes restrictions on businesses he had allowed to reopen at partial capacity, including bars, restaurants, gyms, malls, and bowling alleys. Bars were required to close at 12 p.m. on Friday but are allowed to remain open for delivery and take-out orders. Restaurants may operate dine-in service at 50 percent capacity, down from the 75 percent capacity Abbott approved earlier this month. The majority of gatherings of 100 or more people must gain approval from local governments.The announcement came two days after Abbott warned that the coronavirus is now spreading in Texas at an "unacceptable rate" and pleaded with residents to wear masks in public and continue practicing social distancing.Several other states have seen their coronavirus cases spike in the last several weeks, including Florida, Arizona, and California. Along with Texas, Alabama, Missouri and Nevada.
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| Two Tulsa police officers fighting for their lives after being shot during traffic stop; Suspect in custody Posted: 29 Jun 2020 08:22 PM PDT  The man accused of shooting two Tulsa police officers in the head has been arrested, according to officials.
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| Venezuela sanctions set off fight for 'plundered' oil cargo Posted: 30 Jun 2020 05:09 AM PDT  For two months, the Malta-flagged oil tanker Alkimos has been quietly floating off the Gulf Coast of Texas, undisturbed by the high-stakes legal fight playing out in a federal courtroom as a result of American sanctions on Venezuela. The commercial dispute, which hasn't been previously reported, has all the drama of a pirate movie: a precious cargo, clandestine sea maneuvers and accusations of a high seas heist. It pits Evangelos Marinakis, one of Greece's most powerful businessmen and owner of its most successful soccer club, Olympiakos, against a fellow shipping magnate from Venezuela, Wilmer Ruperti, who has a long history of helping the country's socialist leaders.
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| German officials were so alarmed by Trump's conversations with Angela Merkel that they took extra steps to make sure they stayed secret, according to a CNN report Posted: 29 Jun 2020 07:45 PM PDT  CNN's sources said President Donald Trump attacked Angela Merkel in a "very aggressive" manner, accusing her of "being in the pocket of the Russians."
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| India bans TikTok, WeChat and dozens more Chinese apps Posted: 29 Jun 2020 04:02 PM PDT  The Indian government says it has banned 59 apps with links to China on national security grounds.
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| Russia vs. NATO: Welcome to the Fourth Battle of the Atlantic Posted: 30 Jun 2020 04:14 AM PDT  The Russian submarine threat is significant.
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| Lebanon army scraps meat from meals as prices skyrocket Posted: 30 Jun 2020 09:26 AM PDT  The Lebanese army has scrapped meat from all meals it offers to soldiers on duty as food prices skyrocket because of a deepening economic crisis, state media said Tuesday. Lebanon is in the throes of its worst economic downturn since the 1975-1990 civil war, with poverty surging to now afflict around half of the population. Although its currency is officially pegged at 1,507 pounds to the dollar, a shortage of hard currency has seen its black market value plummet to more than 8,000 to the greenback.
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| Black Americans experiencing deadly secondary trauma during pandemic and protesting, experts say Posted: 29 Jun 2020 09:55 AM PDT  "...The disproportionate death rate of black and brown people from Covid-19 is no coincidence. It is directly related to the history of racial oppression in our nation."
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| U.S. starts paring back Hong Kong's special status due to security law Posted: 29 Jun 2020 01:50 PM PDT  The United States began eliminating Hong Kong's special status under U.S. law on Monday, halting defense exports and restricting the territory's access to high technology products as China prepares new Hong Kong security legislation. The Commerce Department said it was suspending "preferential treatment to Hong Kong over China, including the availability of export license exceptions," adding that further actions to eliminate Hong Kong's privileged status were being evaluated. "We urge Beijing to immediately reverse course and fulfill the promises it has made to the people of Hong Kong and the world," it said.
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| The Coronavirus Plus the Flu Could Equal a Devastating Fall and Winter, CDC Director Says Posted: 29 Jun 2020 02:45 PM PDT  CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield warns of a challenging fall and winter because the coronavirus and flu will circulate at the same time.
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| George Floyd: At least one ex-officer intends to plead not guilty as judge sets tentative murder trial date Posted: 29 Jun 2020 03:06 PM PDT  The four former Minneapolis police officers charged in the killing of George Floyd could face a jury trial in March, as a judge warned the men to avoid speaking publicly about the case during a hearing on Monday.Three ex-officers appeared in-person at a Hennepin County court in Minnesota, while Derek Chauvin – who was captured on witness video kneeling on Mr Floyd's neck – attended the hearing remotely via video conference from Ramsey County Correctional Centre, where he is being held on a $1.25 million bail.
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