| Obama praises George Floyd protests and sees hope for police reform, racial progress Posted: 03 Jun 2020 03:58 PM PDT  Former President Barack Obama said he feels hopeful that the protests over the killing of George Floyd can "bring about real change."
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| Coronavirus cases are climbing again in the South and the West. Will crowded protests spark bigger outbreaks? Posted: 04 Jun 2020 05:54 AM PDT  As people across all 50 states continue to gather to protest police brutality and systemic racism, the question is whether this will spark a COVID-19 resurgence right when the U.S. seemed to be getting its epidemic under control.
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| Corrupt Cop Linked to Trump Tower Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya Exposes Russian Ops Posted: 05 Jun 2020 08:28 AM PDT  LONDON—A corrupt former police officer who was caught working with Trump Tower lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya has revealed in a Swiss court how Russia's complex foreign influence campaign targets justice systems in Western countries. The former consultant to the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office was sacked and convicted after his entanglement with Veselnitskaya and the Russian prosecutor general's office was exposed. He reportedly told a court in Switzerland this week that he discussed a high-profile corruption case against Russia with Russian officials during an all-expenses-paid hunting trip to Siberia. On the visit to the spectacular Kamchatka Peninsula and Lake Baikal, the official, who is identified only as Victor K., reportedly admitted that he spent a week fishing, enjoying the rugged countryside, and hunting for bear, including from a helicopter, with officials from the Russian prosecutor general's office. Victor K. told the appeals court Tuesday that he had conferred with the Russian officials on the trip about the high-profile Magnitsky case, which he was supposed to be investigating. The $230 million fraud against the Russian people was uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, who was subsequently detained and beaten by Russian officials, who left him to die in a prison cell. The case led to American sanctions against Russia, which were signed into law by President Obama in 2012, after a campaign by U.S.-born financier Bill Browder. While the Swiss authorities originally froze millions connected to the Magnitsky case that flowed through Switzerland nine years ago, the case has stalled.The appeals court ruled Friday that Victor K. was guilty of improperly accepting the hunting trip, but it dismissed the fine that had been imposed by a lower court. "The decision holds; he received undue benefit from the Russians, but it's just a slap on the wrist for a serious crime," Browder told The Daily Beast. "The fact that the Swiss discovered a Russian mole and he bears effectively no consequence is pretty alarming, and makes Switzerland look like a banana republic."According to a lawyer who attended the hearing, Victor K. told the court that he had spent three or four hours discussing the Magnitsky case with the Russian officials. The lawyer's transcript also said he told his bosses in the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office that they should drop the case, because they would never be able to follow the money trail, which he likened to finding the source of several bottles of wine once they had all been poured into the same barrel.On a previous trip to Moscow, Swiss court papers revealed that Victor K. met Veselnitskaya, the lawyer responsible for the notorious Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner.Victor K., who was responsible for working on investigations into the Swiss financial dealing of the Russian mafia and oligarchs for decades, had met Veselnitskaya's collaborator, Russian Deputy Attorney General Saak Albertovich Karapetyan, in Geneva, Zurich, and Moscow "without the knowledge of his superiors," according to Swiss court papers. Karapetyan was one of the members of the delegation on the Siberian hunting retreat.Novaya Gazeta reported last month that Victor K. mysteriously continued to take trips to Russia after he stopped working for the Swiss authorities.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Photos show thousands of Hong Kongers defying a police order to attend vigils memorializing the victims of the Tienanmen Square massacre Posted: 04 Jun 2020 02:02 PM PDT  Hong Kong banned residents from memorializing the Tiananmen Square massacre for the first time, but thousands of protesters gathered Thursday anyway.
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| Protests in Minneapolis turned violent: Officials first blamed outsiders, but that’s not what arrests show Posted: 04 Jun 2020 12:39 PM PDT  Minnesota officials originally said outside agitators, not local residents, were responsible for the violence and riots. Arrest data shows otherwise.
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| Activist DeRay Mckesson to critics of the Black Lives Matter movement: ‘We never want one leader … because if you kill the leader, you kill the movement’ Posted: 04 Jun 2020 09:45 AM PDT  The entire country is on edge right now with people protesting police brutality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and other unarmed black people by law enforcement. All the while, the world continues to cope with a deadly pandemic, one that disproportionately affects African-Americans. And in November there is a presidential election. It's a lot for many people to grapple with and make sense of, but in a one-on-one interview with Yahoo News, civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson says it's important to focus on the crisis at hand and work from there.
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| Armed bystanders watch Floyd protesters march in Indiana Posted: 04 Jun 2020 04:55 PM PDT  Protesters in a rural Indiana city who took to the streets to condemn racism and police killings of black people encountered bystanders who were holding rifles during the demonstration. Eight of the bystanders held firearms, an act Crown Point Police Chief Pete Land said is protected under state law.
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| Coronavirus live updates: Brazil records big surge as global deaths approach 400,000 Posted: 05 Jun 2020 02:29 AM PDT  Here are the latest coronavirus updates from around the world.
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| 2 of the police officers charged over George Floyd's deadly arrest had been less than 4 days into the job, their lawyers say Posted: 05 Jun 2020 02:52 AM PDT  J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane had been new to the job, their defense lawyers said, adding that they had voiced concerns during Floyd's arrest.
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| 'Boogaloo' arrests in Nevada portray extremists using protests to incite civil war Posted: 05 Jun 2020 06:11 AM PDT  Two men charged with conspiring to incite violence and civil unrest at protests over the killing of George Floyd previously sought to do the same thing at protests against coronavirus lockdowns, federal prosecutors say.
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| Exclusive: Marriott says Trump administration orders it to cease Cuba hotel business Posted: 05 Jun 2020 08:43 AM PDT  The Trump administration has ordered Marriott International to wind down hotel operations in Communist-run Cuba, a company spokeswoman told Reuters, extinguishing what had been a symbol of the U.S.-Cuban detente. Starwood Hotels, now owned by Marriott, four years ago became the first U.S. hotel company to sign a deal with Cuba since the 1959 revolution in the mark of the normalization of relations pursued by former President Barack Obama.
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| George Floyd protests: Georgia official say police should ‘shoot to kill’ demonstrators Posted: 04 Jun 2020 07:14 AM PDT  An official in Georgia has apologised after he suggested police should "shoot to kill" George Floyd protesters in Milwaukee if "they continue to destroy."Bibb county commissioner Joe Allen wrote the comment on a television news outlet's Facebook live stream showing damage caused during demonstrations against police brutality and institutionalised racism across the US.
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| Dyson poured $629 million into an electric car before abandoning it — here's what its Tesla competitor was supposed to look like Posted: 04 Jun 2020 01:28 PM PDT  New images released by the British design firm show a futuristic Tesla competitor that ultimately was scrapped due to high costs.
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| Putin declares a state of emergency after 20,000 tons of diesel oil leak into Arctic river due to climate change Posted: 04 Jun 2020 11:50 AM PDT  Vladimir Putin declared a state of emergency after more than 20,000 tons of diesel fuel spilled into a river in the Russian Arctic. Several miles of the Ambarnaya river were turned red after a fuel tank at a power plant in Norilsk, an industrial city in northern Siberia, collapsed on Friday. Mr Putin berated regional officials for their slow response in a Zoom call broadcast on state television on Wednesday. "Why did government agencies only find out about this two days after the fact?" he asked Sergei Lipin, the head of the subsidiary that runs the plant. "Are we going to learn about emergency situations from social media?" Yevgenny Zinichev, the head of the Emergencies Ministry and and Alexander Uss, the governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai said that they only learnt about the spill on May 31, two days after it occurred and established a true picture of the situation "only after information on social media." Mr Uss said officials were considering burning the oil off, but that there was no precedent for attempting to do so on such a large scale and it was not clear if it would succeed. The power plant is a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest producer of nickel and palladium. The company said in a statement that no one had been hurt by the accident and that it had deployed emergency teams to clean up the spill. It said the spill appeared to have been caused by "a sudden sinking of supporting posts in the basement of the storage tank" and that it was reviewing the threat of melting permafrost at other storage facilities. Russia's investigative committee, its rough equivalent of the FBI, has opened a criminal investigation. The head of the power plant has been taken into custody but has not been charged.
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| News agency: Iranian ship sinks in Iraqi waters, 1 dead Posted: 05 Jun 2020 03:05 AM PDT |
| I'm a Minneapolis City Council Member. We Must Disband the Police—Here's What Could Come Next Posted: 05 Jun 2020 06:57 AM PDT  On Tuesday, May 26, we woke up to find a video circulating of a Minneapolis Police officer named Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of…
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| 'Utterly disgraceful': New York police officers suspended after viral video shows them shoving 75-year-old man to ground Posted: 05 Jun 2020 10:19 AM PDT  A man is in the hospital with a serious head injury after a viral video showed two Buffalo police officers shoving him to the ground.
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| Colorado Ethics Commission Votes Unanimously to Hold Hickenlooper in Contempt for Ignoring Subpoena Posted: 04 Jun 2020 02:44 PM PDT  Former Colorado governor and current Democratic Senate candidate John Hickenlooper skipped a remote hearing and ignored a subpoena by the state's Independent Ethics Commission over his alleged violations of Colorado's gift ban.When Hickenlooper did not appear at the virtual hearing — which suffered from technical difficulties — the commission voted unanimously to have the state attorney general's office enforce the subpoena. After the vote, Ethics Commission chair Elizabeth Espinosa Krupa said that she found Hickenlooper's actions "a little bit contemptible," and the commission later voted 5-0 to hold him in contempt for failing to comply with the subpoena. The commission will meet tomorrow to determine further action.The allegation, filed by the Staiert's Public Trust Institute in 2018, alleges that Hickenlooper accepted private jet flights and paid travel expenses from wealthy friends and corporations while serving as governor. Federal Election Commission records show that Hickenlooper's current campaign has taken over $1 million in corporate donations, despite claiming to fight "to get big money out of politics."> It's about time we get Washington working for the people, not the big corporations.> > That's why I'm not taking a penny of corporate PAC money and will keep fighting to get big money out of politics.> > I'm thrilled to have the support of @StopBigMoney! pic.twitter.com/DaMxlnQy74> > -- John Hickenlooper (@Hickenlooper) April 26, 2020Hickenlooper has denied the allegations and has repeatedly said he will not testify virtually, prompting the Ethics Commission to subpoena him. Despite Hickenlooper's attempt to block the subpoena by arguing his due-process rights were being violated, a judge ruled against him Wednesday night and ordered him to testify."John Hickenlooper has made clear he will testify in person. Today's debacle of a hearing has made clear that WebEx doesn't work for a legal proceeding like this," Melissa Miller, a spokeswoman for Hickenlooper, said in a statement.Reporters later went to Hickenlooper's home, only for his wife to say he was not home.> We stopped by former Gov. Hickenlooper's home today to ask why he didn't show up— as ordered— to his ethics commission hearing this AM. His wife, Robin, told us he was not home. @KDVR @channel2kwgn He is being accused by a conservative nonprofit of accepting illegal gifts as gov. pic.twitter.com/kzt8b89U3D> > -- Michael Konopasek (@MikeKonopasek) June 4, 2020 Hickenlooper faces primary opponent Andrew Romanoff on June 30, with the winner set to take on Senate Republican Cory Gardner in November.
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| African, Caribbean migrants continue trek towards U.S. border Posted: 03 Jun 2020 03:20 PM PDT  Migrants from Africa and the Caribbean, stranded in Honduras after Central American countries closed their borders to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, on Wednesday kept marching north in an attempt to reach the United States. Honduras currently allows only cargo trucks in and out of the country, but migrants and a local official said the group is determined to reach first Mexico and then the United States. "We're already on the way, we want to reach the border with Guatemala and then, at least for now, get to Mexico until the situation in the United States improves," Cuban migrant Armando Hernandez, said in a telephone interview.
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| In 1985, A Nuclear Submarine Explosion Contaminated Russia's Far East Posted: 04 Jun 2020 02:30 PM PDT  The accident scene was heavily contaminated with radioactivity.
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| Mark Cuban commissioned a 3-way poll last month as he considered running as an independent against Biden and Trump in the 2020 presidential election Posted: 04 Jun 2020 02:10 PM PDT  "I dominated the independent vote," Cuban said of his performance against Biden and Trump in the poll. "I got like 77% of it."
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| Study: Blood pressure drug could lower virus deaths Posted: 05 Jun 2020 07:03 AM PDT  A new study has found drugs that are widely used to control high blood pressure may help protect against severe COVID-19 infections.
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| Mayans built massive structures thousands of years ago. Researchers found the biggest one yet. Posted: 03 Jun 2020 12:02 PM PDT  Researchers think the 3,000-year-old platform was built as a communal effort and may have led to the emergence of Mayan elites.
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| Lawsuit aims to hold nebulous 'antifa' to blame for injuries Posted: 04 Jun 2020 04:12 PM PDT  A conservative writer from Portland, Oregon, filed a lawsuit Thursday against purported elements of the nebulous, far-left militant groups collectively known as antifa, days after President Donald Trump blamed those groups for inciting violence at protests over police killings of black people. The suit was filed on behalf of Andy Ngo, who is known for aggressively covering and video-recording demonstrators. "I am hoping that this marks a turning point, that militants belonging to a criminal movement can no longer depend on the anonymity ... to get away with their crimes," said Ngo, who previously was a writer with the online publication Quillette and now is with The Post Millennial.
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| Alabama shooting: Seven people found dead in ‘horrific’ scene at home Posted: 05 Jun 2020 05:25 AM PDT  Seven people have been found shot dead in an Alabama home in what police described as a "horrific" scene.Police were responding to an emergency call reporting gunshots on Sunday evening when they arrived to find the house on fire.
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| Floyd Protesters Met With Armed Bystanders During Indiana March Posted: 04 Jun 2020 08:12 PM PDT  Eight the bystanders held firearms while watching protesters march past them during a peaceful demonstration against police brutality and racism
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| Ex-China ambassador ignored Swedish policy in Gui Minhai case, says prosecutor Posted: 05 Jun 2020 09:12 AM PDT  Sweden's former ambassador to China acted against the policy of the government by taking part in an unauthorized meeting in Stockholm last year aimed at freeing dissident bookseller Gui Minhai, a Swedish court heard on Friday. Anna Lindstedt, who was replaced as ambassador in February 2019, has been charged with exceeding her authority in dealings with a foreign power in the first case of its kind in modern Swedish history. "She has acted in contradiction to current Swedish foreign policy," prosecutor Henrik Olin told Reuters after the first day of the trial.
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| 'Black Lives Matter' painted in 50-foot yellow letters near White House to honor George Floyd protesters Posted: 05 Jun 2020 09:57 AM PDT  The "Black Lives Matter" mural on 16th Street was commissioned by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser in an area that has been the site of huge protests.
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| After St. John's: Will Trump do anything to stay in power? And what will we do if he does? Posted: 04 Jun 2020 03:25 PM PDT  Trump has crossed the line from verbal attacks to lawless use of force on people. Whoever gave the order, he's president and he's responsible.
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| Watch Lightning Strike the Washington Monument, Then Watch It Again Posted: 05 Jun 2020 09:10 AM PDT  How big of a bolt would it take to actually damage the structure?
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| Chris Hayes Slams Cuomo and de Blasio for Trying to ‘Gaslight the Public’ on Cops Beating Protesters Posted: 04 Jun 2020 08:22 PM PDT  MSNBC host Chris Hayes took New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to task on Thursday night for falsely claiming that New York police hadn't beaten protesters despite video evidence to the contrary.In recent days, several videos have surfaced on social media showing NYPD officers whacking peaceful protesters with batons, including a "horrifying" viral clip of three officers bludgeoning a cyclist on Wednesday night. The latter video prompted widespread outrage—except from the governor and mayor.Noting that Wednesday night's New York protest over George Floyd's death devolved into violence because "the NYPD started beating people," Hayes went on to highlight several incidents captured on video by protesters and journalists."In fact, the public advocate of the City of New York, Jumaane Williams, was present at the protest and live-streaming," he said. "A New York Times reporter was following the crowd and documenting the peaceful protest in the march of Brooklyn."After reading from a reporter's description of the police escalating the violence and beating multiple protesters, the MSNBC host lambasted Cuomo and de Blasio not only for the heavy-handed tactics but lying to the public about them."The mayor of New York City and the governor of New York state went before reporters to gaslight the public, all of us, into believing that we did not see what we all saw," he exclaimed. "That the witnesses are not telling the truth about police beating protesters with their batons."The MSNBC star went on to play clips of the NYC mayor claiming he hasn't seen any footage of police violence towards demonstrators and Cuomo taking umbrage at the very suggestion that officers would do that."A police officer doing their job, do you think there is any sensible police officer who believes their job is bludgeoning a peaceful person with a baton?" Cuomo huffed. "You see, it's that kind of incendiary rhetoric that is not a fact. It's not even an opinion. That is a hyper-partisan rhetorical attack. That is a hyperpartisan rhetorical attack. Police hit peaceful protesters with batons for no reason. That's not a fact. They don't do that."An incensed Hayes retorted to Cuomo: "Well, it is a fact. It is very much a fact."He would then go on to show more footage of police roughing up protesters before sounding one final note. "If this is what it looks like, and based on eye witness accounts it sure appears it's what it looks like, there must be consequences for the police officers and the people that command and supervisor them," Hayes concluded.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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| Iran news agency head convicted for interviewee's spy remark Posted: 04 Jun 2020 11:48 PM PDT |
| Enraged New York driver who chased protesters with blades attached to arm is arrested Posted: 04 Jun 2020 04:51 PM PDT  Video shows a man speeding after a group of young protesters in his SUV, then rushing them with blades strapped to his arm.
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| Combat drone to compete against piloted plane Posted: 05 Jun 2020 07:02 AM PDT  The US Air Force will pit an advanced autonomous aircraft against a piloted plane in tests.
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| Killing with 'near impunity' in Philippine drug war: UN Posted: 03 Jun 2020 05:13 PM PDT  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war has unleashed widespread and systematic killing with "near impunity" for offenders, a UN report said Thursday, calling for an independent probe into human rights abuses. Police have been encouraged by the highest levels of government to use lethal force on drug suspects and thousands have been killed by officers and unknown gunmen since 2016, the UN human rights office said. Many suspects had been put on "drug watch lists" by local officials and then visited by police at their homes, which often ends in a deadly shooting that officers claim was self-defence.
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| China says ex-soccer star's call for ouster of Communist Party is 'absurd' Posted: 05 Jun 2020 02:16 AM PDT  China on Friday called retired soccer star Hao Haidong's remarks "absurd" after the celebrated player called for the ouster of the ruling Communist Party in a video released on Thursday, the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. Hao, who was a major star in the 1990s and 2000s and led China to its only World Cup finals appearance in 2002, spoke in a 53-minute interview on the YouTube channel of fugitive billionaire Guo Wengui, who is close to former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon.
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| Richmond is taking down Confederate statues: Is this the end for other Confederate memorials? Posted: 05 Jun 2020 08:13 AM PDT  Gov. Ralph Northam said the statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond would be removed. What about other Confederate monuments?
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| Trump clashes with black female reporter again who asks about unemployment rates: 'You're something' Posted: 05 Jun 2020 07:54 AM PDT  Donald Trump clashed with reporters Friday during a press conference that featured him ignoring questions and telling a black journalist she is "something" when she asked about rising minority unemployment rates.The president came to the Rose Garden for a hastily arranged press conference to tout better-than-predicted employment figures. The Labor Department said the unemployment rate dropped to 13.3 per cent from 14.7 per cent last month.
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| For the first time, Mexico records more COVID-19 deaths in a day than the U.S. Posted: 04 Jun 2020 06:06 PM PDT  Mexico tops 1,000 coronavirus deaths in one day. "This is not New York," the president says.
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| Black Lives Matter demonstrators are using leaf blowers to combat tear gas in a new protest tactic borrowed from Hong Kong Posted: 04 Jun 2020 08:11 AM PDT  Protesters have been carrying leaf blowers to combat tear gas after seeing the tool in action in Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrations last year.
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| India, Australia sign defense, trade deals to bolster ties Posted: 04 Jun 2020 02:53 AM PDT  India and Australia upgraded their relationship with a raft of agreements Thursday, including strengthening defense ties and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific maritime issues. The agreements were signed during a virtual summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison. India and Australia see defense as a key pillar of the bilateral engagement and have recently conducted several military exercises.
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| Australian journalist accosted on air by London protesters Posted: 03 Jun 2020 06:58 PM PDT 
Nine News journalist, Ben Avery and camera operator Cade Thompson were near the Houses of Parliament when protesters started jostling the pair, with Avery and Thompson running while protesters followed. The London march started in Hyde Park before winding its way to Parliament Square. Floyd, an unarmed black man, died after a white police officer knelt on his neck, an event that has set off the biggest anti-racism protests seen in the United States since the 1960s.
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| Man accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery allegedly used racial slur after shooting Posted: 04 Jun 2020 03:05 PM PDT  Suspects Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael, and William "Roddie" Bryan were bound over for trial.
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| Israel's New F-35s Are Holding Iran At Risk Like Never Before Posted: 04 Jun 2020 05:00 PM PDT  They're a game changer for Israel.
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| South Korea seeks arrest of Samsung heir Lee in succession probe Posted: 03 Jun 2020 09:56 PM PDT  South Korean prosecutors have requested an arrest warrant for Samsung Group heir Jay Y. Lee, they said on Thursday, in the investigation of a 2015 merger and alleged accounting fraud in a suspected bid to aid his succession plans. The move spells fresh trouble for Lee, who, if arrested, stands to return to jail just a little over two years after being released from detention in February 2018. Lee already faces trial on a charge of bribery aimed at winning support to succeed ailing group patriarch Lee Kun-hee, and which involved former President Park Geun-hye.
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| I'm a doctor in Minneapolis treating coronavirus patients. Until racism is abolished, it will always be a greater threat to justice than this virus. Posted: 04 Jun 2020 08:45 AM PDT  "Yes, wear a mask. Yes, wash your hands. Yes, do your best to maintain distance. And yes, absolutely yes, join your allies to abolish injustice."
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| Grassley blocks 2 Trump nominees over refusal to explain watchdog firings Posted: 04 Jun 2020 12:30 PM PDT  The top Republican has been unsatisfied with the White House's explanation for the firings of internal watchdogs.
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