| India, China accuse each other of provocation in new border standoff Posted: 31 Aug 2020 06:40 AM PDT  India and China accused each other Monday of military provocation on their contested Himalayan border where a deadly showdown erupted in June -- even as commanders from the two sides held talks aimed at easing tensions.
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| Mom rips gun and shoe from man accused of kidnapping her 1-year-old, Georgia cops say Posted: 30 Aug 2020 10:31 AM PDT  The child has since been found safe, officials say.
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| Home smashed: For one family, Hurricane Laura the 3rd strike Posted: 29 Aug 2020 10:02 PM PDT  In 2005, Rita pushed a foot of floodwaters into his white, wooden home in Hackberry, Louisiana, a tiny Cameron Parish community 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Gulf of Mexico. Laura outstripped them both. A retired welder who worked at many of the refineries that dot the Louisiana coast, the 62-year-old Beard climbed through the debris, laboring with two artificial knees.
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| Fact check: Biden tax plan would raise rates for those who make more than $400K, corporations Posted: 31 Aug 2020 07:59 AM PDT  The claim that families who make $75,000 would see their tax rate double under the Democratic nominee's plan is false.
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| Paul Rusesabagina: Hotel Rwanda film hero arrested Posted: 31 Aug 2020 05:39 AM PDT  Paul Rusesabagina's efforts to save people during the Rwanda genocide were depicted in a film.
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| 1 killed as Trump supporters, protesters clash in Portland Posted: 30 Aug 2020 07:06 AM PDT  One person was shot and killed late Saturday in Portland, Ore., as Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters clashed, police said.
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| Chicago police respond to 10 shootings in about 3 hours Sunday, including 3 homicides and an attack that left 2 officers seriously wounded Posted: 30 Aug 2020 12:53 PM PDT |
| The Justice Department secretly curtailed the investigation into Trump's links to Russia in 2017: NYT Posted: 30 Aug 2020 10:34 PM PDT  The New York Times report comes after a GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan report detailing Trump's potential ties to Russia.
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| Relatives of MH17 crash to seek damages from suspects, lawyers say Posted: 31 Aug 2020 06:09 AM PDT  More than 300 relatives of victims who died when a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane was shot down in 2014 will seek unspecified damages from four suspects being tried in the Netherlands, lawyers representing family members said on Monday. The suspects - three Russians and a Ukrainian - are being tried for murder and shooting down the passenger plane over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard. The four men remain at large and only one has legal representation in the trial, which is being conducted at a courtroom near Amsterdam.
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| Boat carrying nearly 370 migrants reaches Italy's Lampedusa Posted: 30 Aug 2020 11:14 AM PDT  A fishing boat carrying nearly 370 migrants landed overnight on the Italian island of Lampedusa, where the main holding centre is already overcrowded, prompting the local mayor to call for a general strike to push the government take action.
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| 'Deeply reckless': Critics slam leaked police memo about Breonna Taylor Posted: 30 Aug 2020 03:06 AM PDT  The memo was written several weeks after Taylor's death and includes details that weren't provided to the judge in the search warrant application.
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| Huge protest on Belarus leader's birthday demands he resign Posted: 30 Aug 2020 07:32 AM PDT  Tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied Sunday in the Belarusian capital of Minsk to begin the fourth week of daily protests demanding that the country's authoritarian president resign. The protests began after an Aug. 9 presidential election that protesters say was rigged but that election officials say gave President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office. Protesters initially tried to gather at Independence Square in Minsk, but barriers and riot police blocked it off.
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| Hawaii to require visitors to fill out online 'Safe Travels' form prior to travel Posted: 31 Aug 2020 05:39 AM PDT  Beginning Tuesday Hawaii will require all visitors to fill out a"Safe Travels" application, including health and contact information, prior to travel.
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| Activists tear down a statue of Canada's first prime minister, whose policies towards Indigenous people were later declared 'cultural genocide' Posted: 30 Aug 2020 09:15 AM PDT  A statue of Canada's first prime minister was pulled down by activists in Montreal, protesting his role in starving and oppressing Indigenous people.
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| Counter-protester who pulled a gun on Black Lives Matter protesters in Florida after a fight erupted won't be charged Posted: 30 Aug 2020 01:20 PM PDT  A counter-protester in Tallahassee, Florida won't be charged for pulling a gun on BLM protesters as officials said he was "lawfully defending himself."
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| Kentucky AG has received ballistics in Breonna Taylor case Posted: 30 Aug 2020 09:40 AM PDT  Kentucky's attorney general has received a long-awaited FBI ballistics report in the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor. Attorney General Daniel Cameron tweeted Sunday that there is additional analysis needed now that the report is in his hands, and there would be no announcement on the investigation this week. "We continue to work diligently to follow the facts and complete the investigation," Cameron tweeted.
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| Man shot while sleeping in his car in central Fresno Posted: 30 Aug 2020 08:25 AM PDT  The victim was conscious and explained to police that an unknown suspect came up to him and shot him while he was asleep in his car.
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| Volunteers who were serving food to Kenosha protesters were arrested by police for 'disorderly conduct,' authorities said Posted: 30 Aug 2020 11:33 AM PDT  Riot Kitchen members were arrested by Kenosha police and US Marshals after they received a tip about "several suspicious vehicles" from out of state.
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| Pro-western leader Zaev returns to power in North Macedonia Posted: 31 Aug 2020 01:31 AM PDT  Zoran Zaev, the pro-Western leader who changed the name of North Macedonia last year to secure its membership in NATO and the European Union, returned to power late on Sunday, seven months after resigning over the slow pace of EU membership talks. The country joined NATO in March after adding the word "North" to its name, under an agreement with Greece, which has a province called Macedonia and had blocked its neighbour's membership in Western organisations for decades.
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| Data firm predicts election 'chaos' as Trump seems to win in a landslide before losing as more votes are counted Posted: 31 Aug 2020 07:36 AM PDT  A data firm is bolstering the idea that Election Night is going to be a nightmare this year.Hawkfish, the political data agency funded largely by Michael Bloomberg and contracting with Democratic candidates in the 2020 election, is predicting "chaos in America" once this year's presidential votes are in, Axios reports. "We believe that on Election Night, we are going to see Donald Trump in a stronger position than the reality actually is," Hawkfish CEO Josh Mendelsohn said, calling the phenomenon a "red mirage."That's presumably because Trump will win — "potentially in a landslide" — Election Day's more quickly tallied in-person votes, "but lose a week later" as absentee ballots are counted, Axios describes. Trump is already stoking mistrust surrounding absentee and mail-in ballots, adding fuel to this potentially chaotic fire.Mendelsohn is pretty vague in the above clip, but he'll reveal more in Monday night's Axios on HBO episode airing at 11 p.m. ET/PT.More stories from theweek.com 5 more scathingly funny cartoons about the Republican National Convention What America's mask debate reveals about privilege This Massachusetts primary is everything wrong with the Democratic Party
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| Tesla Model S on autopilot slammed into a police car because the driver was watching a movie on his phone, authorities say Posted: 31 Aug 2020 07:31 AM PDT  Nobody was injured in the crash, and the doctor behind the wheel of the Tesla was charged with two crimes.
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| Russian opposition activist hospitalised after attack outside his home Posted: 31 Aug 2020 05:24 AM PDT  A 22-year-old Russian opposition activist has been hospitalised after what supporters said was a vicious attack by two men outside his house in Moscow. Yegor Zhukov, who came to prominence last year when he was arrested and tried over opposition protests, posted pictures of his bruised and bloody face to social media following the attack. He was taken to hospital for an MRI scan which showed he had "fortunately managed to avoid serious injuries or internal bleeding," a spokesman said. The activist "remained calm and even joked about what happened," his team said in a social media post, adding that he was allowed home following tests.
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| Sex workers blame Bella Thorne for changes at OnlyFans that harm their income Posted: 30 Aug 2020 06:37 PM PDT  The content subscription platform said its new transaction rules were not due to one user and will "continue to review these limits" amid the backlash.
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| Qatar crisis returns to top UN court Posted: 30 Aug 2020 06:40 PM PDT  The three-year-old crisis pitting Qatar against several Middle East nations returns to the UN's top court this week with hearings in a case between Doha and the United Arab Emirates.
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| If the police officer who shot Jacob Blake can prove he feared an 'imminent risk of death or great bodily harm,' his shooting could be legally justified Posted: 29 Aug 2020 10:45 AM PDT  An officer shot Jacob Blake while he had his back turned toward them. If they reasonably feared for their lives, it may be legally justified.
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| U.S. warship transits Taiwan Strait for second time in two weeks Posted: 30 Aug 2020 10:58 PM PDT |
| Op-Ed: Kamala Harris' vice presidential run is a campaign to be America's second Black president Posted: 30 Aug 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Black grievances put Harris on the ticket; her's is the face of leadership the country is demanding now.
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| Pandemic adviser with no epidemiology background reportedly pushes White House to adopt herd immunity strategy Posted: 31 Aug 2020 07:06 AM PDT  Health officials are alarmed as a pandemic adviser pushes the White House to adopt Sweden's controversial herd immunity strategy, The Washington Post reports.Neuroradiologist Scott Atlas, a top medical adviser to President Trump, has urged the White House to implement a pandemic strategy of trying to protect vulnerable groups while letting COVID-19 spread through most of the country so that healthy people can build up immunity to the virus, modeling the way Sweden has responded to the coronavirus crisis, the report says. A senior administration official described Atlas, who reportedly meets with Trump nearly every day, as the "anti-Dr. Fauci," though the Post notes he doesn't have a background in infectious diseases or epidemiology. He has reportedly clashed with members of the coronavirus task force including Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. Health experts are highly concerned that the herd immunity idea is being discussed inside the White House, the report says, especially given that, according to a Post estimate, in the United States, it "may require 2.13 million deaths to reach a 65 percent threshold of herd immunity." Yet the Post reports, pointing to a recent testing gudeline change at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an example, that the Trump administration has "already begun to implement some policies along these lines." "The administration faces some pretty serious hurdles in making this argument," New York University professor Paul Romer told the Post. "One is a lot of people will die, even if you can protect people in nursing homes. Once it's out in the community, we've seen over and over again, it ends up spreading everywhere." Read more at The Washington Post. More stories from theweek.com 5 more scathingly funny cartoons about the Republican National Convention What America's mask debate reveals about privilege This Massachusetts primary is everything wrong with the Democratic Party
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| Arkansas sheriff who was secretly recorded using racial slurs reluctantly resigned and insisted he's not racist Posted: 30 Aug 2020 02:32 PM PDT  An Arkansas sheriff who was secretly recorded using racial slurs reluctantly resigned on Friday after saying that he was "by no means a racist."
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| India records world's biggest single-day jump in virus cases Posted: 30 Aug 2020 12:38 AM PDT  India registered 78,761 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the biggest single-day spike in the world since the pandemic began, just as the government began easing restrictions to help the battered economy. The surge raised India's tally to over 3.5 million, and came as the government announced the reopening of the subway in New Delhi, the capital. A country of 1.4 billion people, India now has the fastest-growing daily coronavirus caseload of any country in the world, reporting more than 75,000 new cases for four straight days.
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| Black couple from New Jersey say they were racially profiled at a Boston hotel Posted: 31 Aug 2020 04:24 AM PDT  A Maplewood couple say they were racially profiled at a Boston hotel who charged them a $250 smoking fee, and later apologized.
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| Walesa warns Poles against populism on 40th Solidarity anniversary Posted: 31 Aug 2020 05:55 AM PDT  Poland's anti-communist icon Lech Walesa on Monday warned against populism as his deeply divided country marked 40 years since a landmark deal gave rise to the freedom-fighting Solidarity trade union.
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| An army dog who charged through a hail of machine-gun fire and tackled an Al-Qaeda fighter is to receive the animal equivalent of a Medal of Honor Posted: 30 Aug 2020 08:22 AM PDT  The bravery of the dog, Kuno, fighting with the special forces, swung the battle during the British raid in Afghanistan.
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| St. Louis couple charged after waving guns appear in court Posted: 31 Aug 2020 07:56 AM PDT  The attorney for a white St. Louis couple charged for waving guns during a racial injustice protest outside their home said Monday that they're anxious to prove "with absolute certainty" that they did not commit a crime. One week after Mark and Patricia McCloskey spoke on video to the Republican National Convention, they were in court briefly Monday morning and did not enter a plea. Mark McCloskey, 63, came out with AR-15 rifle, according to court records, which said Patricia McCloskey, 61, displayed a semiautomatic handgun.
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| Mauritius fishermen battle to save dozens of dolphins near oil spill Posted: 30 Aug 2020 04:12 AM PDT  Yasfeer Heenaye, a fisherman near Pointe aux Feuilles on the island's eastern shore, said he had counted at least 45 dead dolphins since they were first discovered on Wednesday, and said half a dozen more dolphins were in the bay fighting for their lives. "The preliminary autopsy report has excluded that oil played a role, however we sent some samples of the dead dolphins to La Reunion to determine why the animals couldn't swim and their radar wasn't functioning," Jasvin Sok Appadu from the Fisheries Ministry said on Sunday .
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| Trump Called Kimberly Guilfoyle After Her Roaring RNC Speech, Compared Her to Eva Perón Posted: 30 Aug 2020 01:15 PM PDT  On Monday night, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top fundraiser for the Trump reelection effort and girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., delivered a booming, scenery-chewing speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention that immediately went viral. It concluded, her arms outstretched, with Guilfoyle's bellowed vow, "The. Best. Is. Yet. To. Come!"CNN personalities were flabbergasted by it, with correspondent Dana Bash remarking, "Oh, my goodness. I just feel like that was so intense, and so dark." Late Show host Stephen Colbert mocked the pretaped address as a series of "very nuanced screams."Kimberly Guilfoyle Shouts Unhinged RNC Speech at the Top of Her LungsHer critics found the speech to be over-the-top and "strange." The leader of the free world vehemently disagreed.Minutes after her speech aired on Monday evening, President Donald Trump called Guilfoyle, to effusively praise her for the address he'd just watch on TV, comparing her to Eva "Evita" Perón, according to two people familiar with the phone conversation. Perón, a former first lady of Argentina, is also the subject of the famous Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita, of which Trump has long been a huge fan and has seen multiple times on stage."That was fantastic…so amazing," Trump said on the Monday night call. "So much energy…so much passion." According to these sources, the president added that "nobody could have done that but you," calling her "my Kimberly." He told her that hers was one of the "greatest" speeches he'd ever seen.Guilfoyle's Monday night speech stuck with the president throughout the week. He continued to privately rave about it days after its initial airing, going around telling various people in the West Wing how "terrific" it was and that it was one of his favorites from the convention."You are capable! You are qualified! You are powerful and you have the ability to choose your life and determine your destiny!" Guilfoyle delivered thunderously on Monday. "Don't let the Democrats take you for granted. Don't let them step on you. Don't let them destroy your families, your lives, and your future. Don't let them kill future generations because they told you and brainwashed you and fed you lies that you weren't good enough!"One senior Trump administration official said that the president joked last week that it was "better than Don's," referring to the convention speech delivered by his eldest son.The GOP convention continued for another three nights, as Trump and his administration continued to struggle with the coronavirus pandemic, a wrecked U.S. economy, and ongoing violence and racial and civil unrest stemming from police killings and shootings, with a presidential election just over two months away.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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| Workers were trying to secure Beirut warehouse just hours before massive explosion Posted: 30 Aug 2020 09:43 PM PDT  Workers were repairing a facility in Beirut, Lebanon's port on the afternoon of Aug. 4, hours before a massive explosion there rocked the area, destroying buildings and killing at least 180 people. A judge had recently ordered something be done to secure Warehouse Number 12 at the request of Lebanon's State Security agency.The warehouse contained 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, and documents obtained by The Washington Post show that the highly explosive material was stored next to kerosene, 25 tons of fireworks, and solvents used for stripping paint. Ghassan Oueidat, Lebanon's chief prosecutor, told the Post the State Security agency was worried not about the dangers posed by the warehouse's contents, but rather someone stealing the materials. A report sent to the offices of Lebanon's president and prime minister in July warned that the ammonium nitrate was "dangerous" and "if it were stolen, the thief could use it to manufacture explosives."The three workers sent to secure the warehouse fixed a broken door, closed a hole in a wall, and made sure all other doors were locked, the Post reports. But when a fire broke out at around 5:50 p.m. on Aug. 4, the workers had gone home for the day, and Beirut's fire chief said firefighters were unable to gain access to the warehouse or find any port employees who might have had keys. At 6:08 p.m., the warehouse blew up.Investigators do not yet know what caused the initial fire or explosion that triggered the blast, but theories include welding sparks or arson to cover up a theft, the Post reports. This is just one of the unanswered questions authorities have, some dating back to when the ammonium nitrate arrived on a cargo ship that docked in Beirut in November 2013. They'd primarily like to know who originally owned the ammonium nitrate, where it was headed, and whether it was deliberately diverted to Beirut, where it was seized by authorities in December 2013.The Post spoke with several people who do not have faith in the government and its ability to properly conduct an investigation. "There's not a chance in hell there will ever be accountability," one person with knowledge of the probe said. "A typical coverup is on the way."More stories from theweek.com 5 more scathingly funny cartoons about the Republican National Convention What America's mask debate reveals about privilege This Massachusetts primary is everything wrong with the Democratic Party
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| Sharp rise in Chinese coercive diplomacy in 2020, says new report Posted: 31 Aug 2020 01:51 AM PDT  The Chinese Communist Party is increasingly resorting to the use of coercive diplomacy, taking advantage of the lack of a coordinated pushback from like-minded governments, according to a new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The study analyses 152 cases of the CCP's use of coercive diplomacy across 28 countries, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand and in East Asia over the past decade, and concludes that governments need to counter its "divide-and-conquer" tactics through a joint strategy via multilateral institutions. "Our dataset suggests the CCP has begun to use coercive diplomacy far more actively. We found a sharp increase from 2018 onwards," said Fergus Hanson, Emilia Currey and Tracy Beattie, the ASPI authors, in a statement. "In the first eight months of 2020 we found 34 cases of coercive diplomacy, which equates to more than half of the number recorded in 2019. Unless states can come up with a better strategy to resist coercive diplomacy, we can expect this trend to continue."
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| You Can’t Be Pro-Life Unless You Oppose Abortion Posted: 31 Aug 2020 03:30 AM PDT  Election times in non-pandemic years can bring out some of the best and the worst of America. Both parties, in their convention productions, were maybe a mix of both. The aspirational, inspirational moments are the best, which, of course, may be a bit too much of a promise about what electing one ticket to the White House could ever possibly do. At the same time, they are important reminders that policy isn't mere ideological adherence -- it affects human lives, family lives. It's important, noble work. In campaign season, it can become harder to remember it isn't everything, though.We don't get our meaning from politics, politics is a necessary exercise -- our vote and our engagement in politics is one way we live out our civic responsibilities. Politics is not a never-ending reality-TV show for our entertainment or distraction. It's not religion. As Sister Deidre Byrne put it during her Republican Convention segment, there's such a thing as eternal life, and this life -- including politics -- should be part of our expressions of gratitude for our very lives and part of how we express hope for something greater. Anything inconsistent with that journey should have no place in politics.This leads us to abortion. There's a lot of dismissal of "single-issue voters" these days. Believe me, I see it in my inbox. That makes an assumption that isn't a given -- not everyone who is opposed to abortion is planning on voting for Donald Trump. There are debates about whether voting for someone other than Trump is a cop-out -- "blood on your hands" some on the right will argue. But set that debate aside for a moment: In recent weeks I've expressed my disappointment in Joe Biden. The Democrats have refused to give an option to people who consider abortion the preeminent human-rights issue. For that, I have been told I am a "so-called" pro-lifer.I actually agree with all those who insist that pro-life needs to mean more than defending the life of the unborn -- we as individuals and as a society must do all that we can to make life plausible, to ensure that single mothers and families have a fighting chance. We can't look away from the children in foster care who will never have a shot if someone doesn't give them the love of a family. Absolutely, pro-life should mean more than opposition to abortion. And anyone who has been around the pro-life movement has seen that it so often is people full of love for a mom who just needs some confidence and resources -- people walking with her, and, yes, for more than nine months.The other day, a Catholic priest responded to one of my columns mentioning Joe Biden and abortion. He explained that he considers Biden pro-life and that he's voting for him. Here's the problem with that: While I'm with the priest and believe that we absolutely must help vulnerable children in all kinds of situations, you can't be pro-life and adhere to the extremist abortion policies of the Democratic Party.There's a reason that the Democrats didn't talk much about abortion during their convention -- because that's not the pitch they want to make to people. The vast majority of Americans want to see some restrictions on abortion, they don't see abortion as a good, but they want women in desperate situations to have options. "There but by the grace of God go I." But like other words we use in our politics, the word "pro-life" is drained of meaning if it means contrary things -- if "pro-life" means that you can claim to be personally opposed to abortion but publicly supportive of it through all nine months of pregnancy, and even to the moments after a baby is born, having survived an abortion attempt. Democrats' current abortion stance is a radical expansion of abortion. Just look to Andrew Cuomo for an example of that. A supposed leading light of Democratic politics expanded legal abortion in a state that was already considered the abortion capital of the country, and he celebrated it by lighting up the Empire State in pink neon. And he is lauded despite his decision that caused so many COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes in the state.The Democratic Party has chosen to double down on the death of innocents. That is what abortion is: It is a law that says the unborn can be treated as inconvenient and thrown away. The value of that human life is determined by the mother under the influence of the circumstances and pressures she finds around her. That they have to use euphemisms to make it attractive exposes the underlying rot.I have hopes that in a non-election year, people who call themselves pro-life and those who choose the pro-choice label can work together on foster care and adoption and paid family leave and other issues that we can agree on that are not the A-word. I'd like to see a day when fewer people consider themselves pro-choice, because they see the pregnancy help centers and communities who truly live the Beatitudes and help women and anyone in need. In the meantime, let's not lose our heads -- or our souls -- over an election. There's more to life, there's more to do.Essential to that, too, though, is honesty: The Republicans are far from perfect, to say the least. And the Democrats refuse to stand for the vulnerable unborn. It's a lie to call them pro-life and an abdication of responsibility not to insist on something better.This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal's Newspaper Enterprise Association.
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| One Disney World resort won't reopen until next summer as others remain closed indefinitely Posted: 31 Aug 2020 08:55 AM PDT  Walt Disney World has postponed the reopening of Polynesian Village Resort until next summer as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hammer Florida.
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