| Mass looting breaks out in Chicago; shots fired, 100 arrested Posted: 10 Aug 2020 04:41 AM PDT  Police Superintendent David Brown called the outbreak "pure criminality," and Mayor Lori Lightfoot sought to distance the incident from the "righteous uprising" in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25. At least 13 officers were injured, and a security guard and a civilian were struck by gunfire, Brown said.
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| Nation hits 5 million coronavirus cases with few signs of slowing Posted: 08 Aug 2020 10:08 PM PDT  Dr. Gabe Kelen of Johns Hopkins Medicine said the pandemic does not appear to have peaked in the U.S.
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| Amid pandemic, future of many Catholic schools is in doubt Posted: 09 Aug 2020 05:05 AM PDT  As the new academic year arrives, school systems across the United States are struggling to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Roman Catholic educators have an extra challenge — trying to forestall a relentless wave of closures of their schools that has no end in sight. Already this year, financial and enrollment problems aggravated by the pandemic have forced the permanent closure of more than 140 Catholic schools nationwide, according to officials who oversee Catholic education in the country.
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| Riot declared as fire burns in Portland police union offices Posted: 09 Aug 2020 11:05 AM PDT  A fire inside a police union building led authorities in Portland, Ore., to declare a riot and turn protesters away from the offices as demonstrations continue in the city after federal agents withdrew more than a week ago.
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| Fact check: Quarantine 'camps' are real, but COVID-19 camp claim stretches truth Posted: 09 Aug 2020 10:31 AM PDT  An Instagram post is correct about expansion of quarantine sites during the pandemic, but falsely claims personal information will be accessed there.
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| Where to Buy Wallpaper Online: 23 Stores With Unique Designs Posted: 10 Aug 2020 07:21 AM PDT |
| More than 12,000 crew members remain on cruise ships months after industry halted in March Posted: 09 Aug 2020 03:38 PM PDT  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended its no-sail order to the end of September, complicating crew members' journeys off the ship.
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| Lightning strike explodes tree as shrapnel flies toward Louisiana woman, video shows Posted: 10 Aug 2020 07:33 AM PDT  "God was definitely with us! One step closer and I would have been seriously injured!"
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| U.S. Attorney General Barr says the left wants to tear down system Posted: 09 Aug 2020 07:12 PM PDT  Barr also told a Fox News TV host he was worried that an increase in mail-in voting could lead to a contested presidential election in November, sounding in on an issue often raised by U.S. President Donald Trump. In an interview with conservative pundit Mark Levin, Barr said Democrats had pulled away from classic liberal values and now were akin to the "Rousseauian Revolutionary Party" aimed at destroying the institutions upon which the country was built.
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| Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine entered a pact to buy thousands of COVID-19 antigen tests. After a false positive, he's more skeptical. Posted: 09 Aug 2020 06:17 PM PDT  The Republican governor tested positive for COVID-19 last week, but subsequent tests came back negative.
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| She Was Charged With Murder After Her Baby Was Stillborn. Now California’s AG Has Stepped In. Posted: 08 Aug 2020 12:55 PM PDT  For more than nine months, five of them during a global pandemic, a 26-year-old woman named Chelsea Becker has been sitting in Kings County Jail, under a $2 million bail, for giving birth to a stillborn baby.Becker has been there since November, when police arrested her and prosecutors charged her with murder. The District Attorney argued that Becker's methamphetamine addiction had caused the stillbirth, citing a 50-year-old law that civil rights advocates say was never supposed to apply to pregnant women. It has put Becker at the heart of a national debate over criminalizing fetal death. On Friday, however, California's Attorney General Xavier Becerra intervened. In an amicus brief to end the case against Becker, Becerra argued the prosecution's legal interpretation would lead to "absurd—and constitutionally questionable—results.""We believe the law was misapplied and misinterpreted," Becerra said in a statement about the brief. "Our laws in California do not convict women who suffer the loss of their pregnancy, and in our filing today we are making clear that this law has been misused to the detriment of women, children, and families." An American Surrogate Had His Baby. Then Coronavirus Hit.Back in September, Becker, then 25, was eight and a half months pregnant when she thought her water broke, only to discover it was blood. Becker's mother called an ambulance to her home in the San Joaquin Valley, according to The Los Angeles Times. Three hours later, Becker gave birth in Adventist Health Hanford hospital to a boy with no pulse, whom she had planned to name Zachariah.Suspicious that the fetus suffered from drug exposure, hospital employees alerted the Kings County Medical Examiner's Office, which conducted an autopsy. The exam found methamphetamine in the fetus' system, a Times report states, that amounted to more than five times the level thought to be toxic. They ruled the case a homicide. Becker had grown up in Hanford, a working class town in Kings County, that serves as a trading hub in the agrarian San Joaquin Valley. The nearly half Hispanic town recently made headlines when 183 meatpacking workers came down with COVID-19. According to the Census Bureau, 18 percent of residents live below the poverty line. Before the pandemic, county unemployment levels hovered at 7.9 percent—they have since soared to 14.6 percent.Becker told the Times that as a teen, she spent some time living with her father in Minnesota, where she became addicted to methamphetamine. She came home to Hanford at 19, where she had two other children, both of whom were removed from her care. In early November, prosecutors charged Becker with murder, holding the mother on a $5 million bail, later reduced to $2 million. Their case hinged on an amendment, passed in 1970, to the state's murder statute: Penal Code section 187. Earlier that year, the California Supreme Court had overturned the murder conviction of man who had assaulted his pregnant wife, causing the death of their fetus. The code, the court had concluded, only addressed the killing of "a human being," making the man ineligible for a murder charge. In response, the legislature amended the statute to include the "unlawful killing" of a "fetus." That was the language prosecutors seized on to charge Becker with murder."The conduct of the defendant resulted in the death of a fetus, which is a crime in California," said District Attorney Keith Fagundes told The Los Angeles Times. He did not respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment on Saturday.At her arraignment, Becker pleaded not guilty, and later filed a motion calling the code's application to a pregnant woman unconstitutional. The amendment had been made to protect victims of domestic violence, Becker's lawyers argued, not criminalize women who miscarried, had stillbirths, or sought abortions. "Penal Code 187(b)(3) by its own plain terms," they wrote, "precludes the prosecution of a woman for the consensual acts in which she may engage while pregnant." Becker's attorney, Roger Nuttall, and Becerra did not immediately return requests for comment. "Ms. Becker had experienced a stillbirth that the prosecutor claims (without scientific basis) was caused by her methamphetamine use during pregnancy," the National Advocates for Pregnant Women wrote in a statement on Becker's case. "Ms. Becker was charged with this crime despite the fact that §187 does not authorize, nor has it ever been interpreted to authorize prosecution of a woman in relation to her own pregnancy or any outcome of a pregnancy."https://www.facebook.com/NationalAdvocatesforPregnantWomen/photos/a.190808107181/10157715445342182/?type=3&theaterIn the decades since 1970, California prosecutors have tried to charge women for stillbirths, but none has secured a conviction until 2018, when another woman was arrested for the same crime in the same town of Hanford.Like Becker, Adora Perez was in her late 20s and addicted to methamphetamine when she gave birth to a stillborn baby at Adventist Health. Also like Becker, hospital employees alerted the Medical Examiner's Office when the fetus tested positive for the drug, according to reports in The Fresno Bee. Fagundes charged her with murder. Perez, however, took a plea deal. Now 32, she is serving an 11-year sentence in state prison for voluntary manslaughter—the first time in decades that a charge of this kind ended in jail time. The unprecedented charges against Becker and Perez have alarmed pregnancy advocates, medical professionals, drug policy organizations, and civil rights groups across the country. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union filed an amicus brief in support of Becker. The same day, a coalition of 15 organizations, from the Drug Policy Alliance to California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, filed another."Broadly accepted medical, public health, and scientific evidence supports the Legislature's drafting of the statute to avoid criminalizing women with respect to their pregnancies," the coalition wrote. "Pregnancy and use of controlled substances is a medical and public health issue, not an issue that should be subject to state intervention and control."Attempts to criminalize pregnant women who suffer from addiction have backfired in the past. In 2014, Tennessee passed a wildly controversial bill, attempting to target what they called "fetal assault." The bill allowed prosecutors to bring charges against women with drug addictions, if their fetuses were born still or disabled. It proved so polarizing that it was given a two-year trial phase and then, in 2016, deemed a failure and discontinued. "As a result of the law," the National Advocates for Pregnant Women wrote in a statement, "women steered clear of prenatal care and drug treatment and avoided delivering their babies in hospital settings."Nevertheless in June, the superior court denied Becker's motion to have the case declared unconstitutional. The next month, she filed a writ of prohibition––a motion to stop the court proceedings––arguing that "a woman cannot be prosecuted for murder as a result of her own omissions or actions that might result in pregnancy loss." In his amicus brief on her case, Becerra agreed: "The superior court erred in concluding otherwise." "The Legislature's purpose in adding the killing of a fetus to Penal Code section 187 was not to punish women who do not—or cannot, because of addiction or resources—follow best practices for prenatal health," Becerra wrote. "The courts should not assume that the Legislature intended such a sweeping and invasive change to the criminal law affecting women's lives without clear evidence of that intent. And such evidence is absent here."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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| Britain says arrest of media tycoon in Hong Kong shows China using new law 'to silence opposition' Posted: 09 Aug 2020 05:31 PM PDT  Britain has accused China of using the new Hong Kong national security law as a "pretext to silence opposition" after the arrest of leading media tycoon and protester, Jimmy Lai. Mr Lai's detention for suspected collusion with foreign forces is the highest profile arrest yet under the new law in Hong Kong, widely seen as a crackdown on the semi-autonomous city's freedoms by China. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman said Britain was "deeply concerned" by the arrest, which also saw Mr Lai's newspaper's offices raided. "This is further evidence that the national security law is being used as a pretext to silence opposition," he said. "The Hong Kong authorities must uphold the rights and freedoms of its people." Around 10,000 people had earlier tuned in to watch a police raid on the office of Apple Daily, a Hong Kong tabloid published by Mr Lai's media company, Next Digital. Ryan Law, the editor-in-chief of Apple Daily, defied police warnings to stop filming as 200 officers streamed into the newspaper's headquarters, ignoring questions over what legal grounds they had for entering and removing plastic boxes as evidence. Officers demanded the few employees there produce identity documents and register with police. Staff were seen standing by newsroom desks decorated with bright pro-democracy protest posters, including one reading: "Who's afraid of the truth!" Among the others arrested were two of Mr Lai's sons, young pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow and Wilson Li, a former activist who describes himself as a freelance journalist working for Britain's ITV News.
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| Venezuela: Former American soldiers jailed over failed coup Posted: 09 Aug 2020 08:18 AM PDT  Luke Denman and Airan Berry were arrested in May while entering Venezuela by sea from Colombia.
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| Defeat COVID-19 by requiring vaccination for all. It's not un-American, it's patriotic. Posted: 09 Aug 2020 09:28 PM PDT  Make vaccines free, don't allow religious or personal objections, and create disincentives for those who refuse vaccines shown to be safe and effective.
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| Israeli military strikes Hamas target in northern Gaza Strip Posted: 09 Aug 2020 01:59 PM PDT |
| Louisville police said protesters, who have been marching against Breonna Taylor's death for more than 70 days, can no longer use public roads Posted: 10 Aug 2020 04:46 AM PDT  A handful of people have been arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and blocking a roadway since the ban started, local media reported.
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| Schools must allow trans students to use bathrooms that match gender Posted: 08 Aug 2020 01:13 PM PDT  "A public school may not punish its students for gender nonconformity," the judges said.
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| Gunmen kill six French aid workers, their driver and guide in Niger, minister says Posted: 09 Aug 2020 08:05 AM PDT  Gunmen on motorcycles killed six French aid workers, a Nigerien guide and a driver in a wildlife park in Niger on Sunday, officials said. The group was attacked in a giraffe reserve just 65 km (40 miles) from the West African country's capital Niamey, the governor of Tillaberi region, Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella, told Reuters. The six worked for an international aid group, Niger's Defence Minister Issoufou Katambé told Reuters.
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| Despite federal guidance, schools cite privacy laws to withhold info about COVID-19 cases Posted: 09 Aug 2020 05:34 PM PDT  Federal guidance say those laws don't bar disclosure. Schools can publicly share coronavirus case counts as long as they don't identify individuals.
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| Ex-Dallas cop Amber Guyger appeals murder charge in death of neighbor Botham Jean Posted: 08 Aug 2020 12:30 PM PDT  Attorneys for a white ex-Dallas police officer filed an appeal to overturn her murder conviction in the shooting of her Black unarmed neighbor.
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| At least 97,000 U.S. kids tested positive for coronavirus over last 2 weeks of July Posted: 09 Aug 2020 08:11 PM PDT  During the last two weeks of July, at least 97,000 children in the United States tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a new report released Sunday by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.More than seven out of 10 infections were reported in southern and western states, with the highest percent increase occurring in Missouri, Oklahoma, Alaska, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana. Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 338,000 kids have been infected.The report included data from 49 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico, but not Texas or any part of New York outside of New York City, meaning the true count is likely higher. The age ranges were not the same in every state; while most considered children to be anyone 17 or younger, Alabama put the age limit at 24, while Utah and Florida put it at 14.In a separate report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a condition related to COVID-19, disproportionately affects people of color. From early March through late July, 570 young people under 20 met the definition of MIS-C, The New York Times reports. Symptoms include fever, pinkeye, muscle weakness, and confusion, and most of the patients were previously healthy. Roughly 40 percent of patients were Latino or Hispanic, 33 percent were Black, and 13 percent were white; 10 died and about two-thirds were admitted to intensive care units.More stories from theweek.com QAnon goes mainstream Chicago raises bridges, blocks access to downtown after overnight looting 5 scathing cartoons about Trump's 'it is what it is' COVID response
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| Trump's own campaign ads erase the virus — and the candidate Posted: 10 Aug 2020 06:22 AM PDT  First Read is your briefing from "Meet the Press" and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.
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| Georgia school moves online after COVID-19 infections reported Posted: 09 Aug 2020 06:14 PM PDT  A Georgia high school plans to start the week with all classes moving online after nine students and staff tested positive for the coronavirus when the school year opened last week with most students attending classes in-person.
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| Mauritius oil spill: Fears vessel may 'break in two' as cracks appear Posted: 10 Aug 2020 08:32 AM PDT  The MV Wakashio, which ran aground on a coral reef on 25 July, is now leaking oil off the island.
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| GOP senator subpoenas FBI over Russia, defends Biden probe Posted: 10 Aug 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said Monday that he has subpoenaed the FBI to produce documents to his committee related to the Trump-Russia investigation. The Wisconsin senator also defended a separate investigation he is leading into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Ukraine, even as Democrats say the probe has the effect of amplifying Russian propaganda and as U.S. intelligence officials say they have assessed that Russia is working to denigrate Biden ahead of the November election.
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| A woman claiming to be from the 'Freedom To Breathe Agency' filmed telling a grocery employee that she could face legal action for making people wear face masks Posted: 09 Aug 2020 04:51 AM PDT  The mask-less woman gave the employee a piece of paper claiming she could go to prison for up to five years for telling customers to wear a face mask.
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| Number of Americans giving up US citizenship skyrocketing in 2020, report says Posted: 10 Aug 2020 06:24 AM PDT  The number had been in steep decline over the last few years, according to the report.
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| Man who was given life sentence for $30 marijuana sale to be freed Posted: 09 Aug 2020 06:32 AM PDT  A man in Louisiana serving a life sentence for selling less than a gram of marijuana is due to be released from prison, his lawyer has said.Derek Harris, who is a military veteran, was arrested in 2008 for selling 0.69 grams of marijuana — an amount worth less than $30 (£23) — to an undercover officer who came to his door.
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| Chicago's Montrose Harbor blocked by police, fence after Mayor Lori Lightfoot shuts down large beach party: 'It's being addressed' Posted: 09 Aug 2020 02:07 PM PDT  CHICAGO - For months, memes have appeared to show Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot watching for crowds and threatening to close parts of the city if residents don't abide by orders and closures during the coronavirus pandemic. But on Saturday, Lightfoot herself - not just an edited photo of her, like those used in such memes - apparently had a hand in breaking up a large gathering at Montrose ...
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| 250 students and staff asked to quarantine in Georgia district after one week of school Posted: 09 Aug 2020 01:30 PM PDT  After one week of school, more than 250 students at staff in Cherokee County, Georgia, are asked to quarantine due to potential exposure to COVID-19.
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| Mauritius oil spill: Locals scramble to contain environmental damage Posted: 09 Aug 2020 01:55 PM PDT  The MV Wakashio, which ran aground on a coral reef on 25 July, is now leaking oil off the island.
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| Protesters decry government's anti-LGBT attitudes in Poland Posted: 08 Aug 2020 11:49 AM PDT  Demonstrators turned out in Warsaw and other Polish cities Saturday to protest anti-LGBT attitudes promoted by the government as well as the detention of pro-LGBT protesters. "You will not lock all of us up!" people chanted at a protest in Warsaw that drew thousands of mostly young people. The protests came a day after LGBT rights supporters in Warsaw scuffled with police who arrested a transgender activist, Malgorzata Szutowicz, known best as "Margot."
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| A body was recovered from the wreckage of the New Orleans Hard Rock hotel 10 months after it collapsed Posted: 09 Aug 2020 08:30 AM PDT  The hotel collapsed last October. It killed three construction workers, including 36-year-old Quinnyon Wimberly, whose body was recovered on Saturday.
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| Sudan rains and floods claim 20 more lives Posted: 09 Aug 2020 11:58 AM PDT  At least 20 people were killed and 13 others wounded Sunday in torrential rains and flooding, the latest victims of days of flooding in Sudan, the civil defence said. Heavy rains typically hit Sudan between June and October each year, and this week the country has been badly battered by the downpour. "20 people have died and 13 have been injured while 345 houses were destroyed or badly damaged" across the country Sunday, the civil defence said.
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| Ecuador navy surveils large Chinese fishing fleet near Galapagos Posted: 09 Aug 2020 08:04 AM PDT  Ecuador's navy is conducting surveillance of a large Chinese fishing fleet that is operating near the protected waters of the Galapagos Islands, amid concerns about the environmental impact of fishing in the area of the ecologically sensitive islands. The fishing fleet has since 2017 been arriving in the summer months and fishing just outside the Galapagos territorial waters, drawn by marine species such as the endangered hammerhead shark. Such fishing is not illegal because it takes place in international waters.
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| Small plane plummets and sinks into New Hampshire lake as boaters watch Posted: 10 Aug 2020 03:57 AM PDT  An off-duty cop was among those who rushed into help.
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| 'Time for innovation': How tutoring could be a key to lifting kids out of 'COVID slide' Posted: 10 Aug 2020 02:00 AM PDT  Research shows tutoring kids could be vital to combat "COVID slide," learning losses from schools moving to online-only instruction in the spring.
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| Jimmy Lai: Hong Kong media tycoon held amid sweep of arrests Posted: 10 Aug 2020 07:21 AM PDT  The arrests of Jimmy Lai and other prominent pro-democracy activists raise fears of a broad crackdown.
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| Thousands throng central Jerusalem in anti-Netanyahu protest Posted: 08 Aug 2020 11:42 AM PDT  Thousands of demonstrators thronged the streets near the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in central Jerusalem on Saturday night, in a renewed show of strength as weeks of protests against the Israeli leader showed no signs of slowing. Throughout the summer, thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to call on Netanyahu to resign, protesting his handling of the country's coronavirus crisis and saying he should not remain in office while on trial for corruption charges. Self-employed workers whose businesses have been hurt by the economic crisis also joined Saturday's march.
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| 100 arrested after mass looting breaks out in Chicago Posted: 10 Aug 2020 07:54 AM PDT 
Brown called the outbreak "pure criminality," and Mayor Lori Lightfoot sought to distance the incident from the "righteous uprising" in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25. "This was not an organized protest. Rather this was an incident of pure criminality," Brown told a news conference. At least 13 officers were injured, and a security guard and a civilian were struck by gunfire, Brown said. Social media images showed storefronts bashed in and people fleeing stores with arms full of goods, with much of the action taking place along Michigan Avenue, the upscale commercial district known as the Magnificent Mile. People were drawn by a number of social media posts encouraging looting in central Chicago after tensions flared following the police shooting of a man with a gun, Brown said.
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| Celebrate the VP nominee, not Biden's decision to pick a woman. It's the least he can do. Posted: 09 Aug 2020 11:19 AM PDT  Our country has endured high opportunity costs for keeping white men in power for so long while ignoring the political contributions women could make.
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| Iran closes down newspaper after expert doubts official coronavirus tolls Posted: 10 Aug 2020 07:38 AM PDT  Iran shut down a newspaper on Monday after it quoted a former member of the national coronavirus taskforce as saying the country's tolls from the epidemic could be 20 times higher than official figures, state news agency IRNA reported. "The Jahan-e Sanat newspaper was shut down today for publishing an interview on Sunday," the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Mohammadreza Saadi, told IRNA. On Sunday, the newspaper published an interview with Mohammadreza Mahboubfar, in which he said: "The figures announced by the officials on coronavirus cases and deaths account for only 5% of the country's real tolls".
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| Myanmar to probe deaths of two teens at juvenile centre Posted: 09 Aug 2020 05:39 AM PDT  Authorities said Sunday they would investigate the deaths of two teenagers at a Myanmar juvenile centre after the family of one victim alleged abuse, in a scandal plaguing the country's notorious detention system. Myanmar's state-run juvenile centres, like its prisons, have faced long-running complaints of overcrowding, poor sanitation and a lack of food. The two 17-year-old boys, Pyae Phyo Maung and Khaing Zaw Tun, were sentenced last month to two years at the Mandalay Community Rehabilitation Centre for robbery.
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