| Trump says he is holding up coronavirus aid to block Postal Service funds for voting by mail Posted: 13 Aug 2020 08:10 AM PDT  The president said on Thursday that he is willing to block a relief package because it contains money for the U.S. Postal Service that would shore up election infrastructure amid the pandemic.
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| Fox Host makes ominous prediction about Joe Biden then immediately tries to walk it back Posted: 13 Aug 2020 10:41 AM PDT  Fox News host Jeanine Pirro suggested Wednesday night that "something" was going to happen to presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden that would keep him from appearing on the ballot come November.Her comment during an appearance on "The Five" as she was answering a question about a recent poll from right-wing outlet Rasmussen that claimed more than half of its respondents didn't believe Mr Biden would survive his first term in office.
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| Cops’ helicopter got too close — so Georgia man shot it, feds say. He’s going to prison Posted: 13 Aug 2020 03:53 PM PDT  Terry Kielisch reportedly told investigators "he didn't like it flying near his home."
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| You Need These High-Design Lawn Games to Maximize Summer Fun Posted: 14 Aug 2020 07:00 AM PDT |
| Israel successfully tests advanced missile defense system Posted: 13 Aug 2020 12:51 AM PDT |
| NRA lawsuits come amid changing face of American gun owners Posted: 13 Aug 2020 01:17 PM PDT |
| Ex-FBI lawyer to plead guilty to falsifying claim made to continue surveillance of key figure in Mueller probe Posted: 14 Aug 2020 09:09 AM PDT  It is the first legal development to come from a review of former special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
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| Rise in far-right threats against Justin Trudeau, police warn Posted: 13 Aug 2020 08:51 PM PDT  The threats follow a number of security incidents targeting Canadian federal officials.
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| Trump rants about his women troubles: Kamala, Mika, Nancy and AOC Posted: 13 Aug 2020 09:52 AM PDT  Over the course of roughly an hour on Thursday, the president called Sen. Kamala Harris a "mad woman," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a "poor student" who "yaps," Mika Brzezinski a "ditzy airhead wife" and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "stone-cold crazy."
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| He used social media to pimp a 14-year-old in Miami airport hotels, cops say. He’s 17 Posted: 13 Aug 2020 02:45 PM PDT  A 14-year-old runaway told cops she got sold for sex at hotels across the street from Miami International Airport up to five times a day, according to a police report. The first statutory rapist called himself "Slime," the girl said. He paid in Percocet.
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| Explainer: Who pays for Mauritius oil spill and how much? Posted: 14 Aug 2020 03:06 AM PDT  A Japanese bulk carrier struck a coral reef off the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius on July 25, spilling about 1,000 tonnes of fuel oil and triggering a state of "environmental emergency". As residents scramble to mop up the oil slicks, they are seeing dead eels and fish floating in the water as fuel-soaked seabirds limp ashore. The owner and operator of the ship is Nagashiki Shipping, an Okayama, Japan-based private company that said Mauritius had requested compensation.
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| A beloved lesbian baker in Detroit got a homophobic cake order. Here's why she made it anyway. Posted: 13 Aug 2020 08:01 AM PDT  April Anderson, a Detroit pastry chef with national cred, was taken aback by a recent cake order that came into her Good Cakes and Bakes bakery.
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| Navajo man loses latest bid to delay federal execution Posted: 13 Aug 2020 02:43 PM PDT |
| Turkey threatens to cut diplomatic ties with UAE over Israel peace deal Posted: 14 Aug 2020 02:31 AM PDT  Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, has threatened to sever diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and recall his ambassador after the Gulf state signed a peace deal with Israel. "I gave an order to the foreign minister. I said we could suspend diplomatic relations with the Abu Dhabi administration or withdraw our ambassador," Mr Erdogan told reporters on Friday. As part of the deal, announced by President Donald Trump on Thursday, the UAE would become the first Gulf state to normalise relations with Israel, which in return is expected to suspend its plans for annexation of the West Bank. However, the historic peace deal has laid bare tensions between the Middle East's former imperial powers and youthful, oil-rich nations in the Gulf, with both Iran and Turkey strongly condemning the accord. On Friday, Tehran condemned the UAE's decision to normalise ties with Israel as an "act of strategic stupidity," while Ankara said history would never forgive the Gulf state for its "hypocritical behaviour." "History and the conscience of the region's peoples will not forget and never forgive this hypocritical behaviour of the UAE, betraying the Palestinian cause for the sake of its narrow interests," said a statement by the foreign ministry of Turkey, which once led the Ottoman Empire. "It is extremely worrying that the UAE should, with a unilateral action, try and do away with the (2002) Arab Peace Plan developed by the Arab League. It is not in the slightest credible that this three-way declaration should be presented as supporting the Palestinian cause." Meanwhile a spokesman for the foreign ministry of Iran, the former Persian empire, said: "The oppressed people of Palestine and all the free nations of the world will never forgive the normalising of relations with the criminal Israeli occupation regime and the complicity in its crimes." It also emerged on Friday that the Israeli security agency Mossad is due to lead a delegation to the UAE for further discussions on the deal. Under the terms of the deal, Israel agreed to suspend controversial plans to annex parts of the West Bank in return for a full diplomatic relationship and lucrative trade deals with the United Arab Emirates. Forging closer links between Israel and Arab nations is a key pillar of Mr Trump's strategy for the Middle East, and the diplomatic coup on Thursday could provide a major boost for US elections in November. However, setting up diplomatic ties with Israel and increasing trade and cooperation in key security areas, such as Iranian regional influence, has also been a longstanding ambition for the UAE.
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| Coronavirus: Florida sheriff bans deputies from wearing masks Posted: 14 Aug 2020 12:59 AM PDT  The order also requires visitors to the sheriff's office to have their face uncovered.
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| The Lincoln Project is launching a million-dollar digital ad blitz against Trump Posted: 13 Aug 2020 09:52 AM PDT  The Lincoln Project, a conservative-led political action committee aimed at driving down Republican support for President Trump, has generated buzz in recent months with its slick attack ads.
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| The COVID-19 virus can spread through the air – here's what it'll take to detect the airborne particles Posted: 14 Aug 2020 05:12 AM PDT  A growing body of research shows that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can spread from person to person through the air. Indoor spaces with poor ventilation in areas where the virus is prevalent are particularly hazardous.In the fictional world of "Star Trek," public health officials and first responders would be able to determine instantly if a space had a dangerous concentration of airborne virus, and any other pathogen, by simply waving around a tricorder. That technology, imagined 60 years ago, is still firmly in the realm of fiction. However, devices that can rapidly detect particular airborne pathogens – including SARS-CoV-2 – are in the works in various research laboratories. The air we breatheDetection of the presence of airborne virus particles is complicated by the mixture of other particles in the air. The atmosphere includes a large number of floating particles, a significant fraction of which are biological. Typically, with each breath, you inhale about a thousand biological particles.These bioaerosols include live and dead organisms, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, pollen and plant and animal debris. Viruses are the smallest of these particles. They range in size from 10 to 300 nanometers, or millionths of a millimeter. In contrast, red blood cells average about 6 to 8 microns, or 6,000 to 8,000 nanometers, in diameter. Bacteria range from 1 to 4 microns and fungi 5 to 10 microns. Plant and animal debris is generally larger than 10 microns.Most of these biological particles are not a health concern, because most are bits of plants and animals, including humans. However, it only takes a small number of dangerous microbes to produce a pandemic. IDing bad news microbesTo understand the potential threat from bioaerosols, it's important to identify the small fraction of problematic or pathogenic microbes from among all the bioaerosols present. Bioaerosol identification begins with capturing biological particles from the air, typically by collecting particles on a filter, in a liquid vial or on hydrogels. Often, researchers transfer the collected bioaerosols to a culture medium that is designed to support microbe growth. How the microbes respond to a specific culture medium – the size, shape, color and growth rate of the microbe colony – can indicate the microbe species. This process can take several days to weeks, and is often ineffective. It turns out the scientists can only identify about 1% of airborne microbes with this approach.Increasingly, scientists are relying on gene-based analyses to map viruses and other microorganisms collected in air samples. One popular technique for gene-based analysis is polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which uses an enzymatic reaction to make many copies of a specific gene or portion of a gene so that the genetic sequence – DNA or RNA – can be detected in a sample. A PCR test can be designed to spot gene sequences specific to a microorganism so that detecting the sequence equals identifying the microorganism. This technique is currently the gold-standard for detecting the presence of SARS-CoV-2 from nasal swab samples. PCR-based methods are very accurate in identifying pathogens.Next generation sequencing technology makes it possible to rapidly sequence organisms' whole genomes. Using these techniques, researchers now have the ability to understand the entire population of microorganisms — their diversity and abundance — in the air. Rapid detectionDespite these advances, there is still a lot of work to be done to be able to instantaneously identify the presence of pathogens in air. Current techniques for identifying microbes are expensive, require specialized equipment and involve long processing steps. They also can't detect a species from small amounts of genetic material.Recent advances, however, provide some promise for the development of sensors that can provide quick information about bioaerosols. One approach uses laser induced florescence. In this technique, particles are illuminated with light of a particular color or wavelength, and only biological particles respond by fluorescing, or emitting light. This technique can be used to identify and quantify the presence of biological particles in air in real-time but it doesn't differentiate between a safe and a harmful microbe. Another advance is using mass spectrometry for bioaerosol detection. In this technique, a single bioaerosol particle is blasted apart with a laser and the molecular fragments are immediately analyzed to determine the molecular composition of the particles. Researchers are also using Raman spectroscopy-based sensors. Raman spectroscopy can identify molecular composition from light reflected off of samples without destroying the samples. Big challenge in a small packageThese techniques are advancing instant detection and identification of airborne bacteria and fungi, but they are less efficient in detecting viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. This is primarily because viruses are very small, which makes it difficult to collect them with air samplers and difficult to perform PCR analysis given the small amount of DNA/RNA. Researchers are working to address the limitations of detecting airborne viruses. In our lab at Clarkson University, we have developed a low-cost bioaerosol sensor and collector for wide-scale bioaerosol sampling. This battery-operated sampler uses a micro-sized high-voltage source to ionize airborne viruses, bacteria and fungi and collect them on a surface. Ionization gives the biological particles an electrical charge. Giving the collection surface the opposite charge causes the particles to stick to the surface.Samples from our collector can be analyzed with new portable DNA/RNA sequencers, which allows for near real-time bioaerosol detection with low-cost, hand-held equipment. Where's my tricorder?These advances could soon make it possible to detect a known pathogen, like SARS-CoV-2, with a portable device. But they're still far from being a tricorder. [Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]For one, they require relatively high levels of a pathogen for detection. Being able to identify a virus like SARS-CoV-2 at lower levels that are nonetheless sufficient for disease transmission will require developing sensors with lower detection limits. Additionally, these sensors can only be tailored to detect specific pathogens, not scan for all possible pathogens.Though the equivalent of the tricorder in "Star Trek" isn't around the corner, the need for such a device has never been greater. Now is an opportune time for the emergence of new sensing techniques piggy-backing on the dramatic advances being made in the fields of electronics, computing and bioinformatics. When the next new pathogen emerges, it would be nice to have a tricorder handy.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Rapid home-based coronavirus tests are coming together in research labs — we're working on analyzing spit using advanced CRISPR gene editing techniques * Aerosols are a bigger coronavirus threat than WHO guidelines suggest – here's what you need to knowSuresh Dhaniyala is President, Potsdam Sensors, a startup that is commercializing TracB. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation.Shantanu Sur has received funding from the National Science Foundation Hema Priyamvada Ravindran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Eagle rips propeller off mapping drone, sends it plunging into Lake Michigan, agency says Posted: 13 Aug 2020 09:30 AM PDT  The drone was on its fourth day of a shoreline survey mission for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy — also known as EGLE.
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| Oregon State Police leaving Portland over lack of prosecutions Posted: 13 Aug 2020 02:06 AM PDT  The state police were deployed to Portland two weeks ago under an agreement between Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Vice President Mike Pence to withdraw federal agents after weeks of clashes with protesters. President Donald Trump threatened to send National Guard troops to Portland, if requested by Oregon authorities, if local law enforcement was unable to protect the federal courthouse.
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| Opinion: Sign of the times: A bishop bashes Biden and Catholics object (or yawn) Posted: 13 Aug 2020 11:59 AM PDT  The reaction to a slam on Biden by Bishop Thomas J. Tobin is evidence America's Catholic voters no longer take their cues from the hierarchy.
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| Georgia governor to drop lawsuit over Atlanta mask mandate Posted: 13 Aug 2020 11:45 AM PDT  Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday said he's dropping a lawsuit against the city of Atlanta in a dispute over the city's requirement to wear masks in public and other restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. Kemp had sued Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the City Council to block them from implementing restrictions at the local level, even as case counts and hospitalizations in the state soared. The Republican governor argued that local governments can't impose measures that are more or less restrictive than those in his statewide executive orders, which have strongly urged people to wear masks but not required them.
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| Fact check: Obama did not resettle 70,000 Somali immigrants in Minnesota Posted: 13 Aug 2020 02:21 PM PDT  The claim that Rep. Ilhan Omar's district received a majority of resettled Somali refugees is false.
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| TikTok's US employees are scared they won't get paid if the app is banned, and now they're planning to sue the Trump administration Posted: 14 Aug 2020 12:25 AM PDT  "The fear is that we will not be able to receive our paychecks," Patrick Ryan told Business Insider.
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| Special Tactics Airman Who Fought Off Taliban Despite Concussion Will Get Silver Star Posted: 13 Aug 2020 12:08 PM PDT  For his actions on May 25, 2013, in Afghanistan's eastern Ghazni province, John Grimesey will receive the Silver Star.
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| Customers attack Chili’s hostess over socially distant seating, Louisiana police say Posted: 13 Aug 2020 11:21 AM PDT  "I just cannot believe that this happened to me," the teen said.
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| Google stops responding directly to data requests from Hong Kong government Posted: 13 Aug 2020 10:16 PM PDT  "As always, authorities outside the U.S. may seek data needed for criminal investigations through diplomatic procedures," Google said in an emailed statement. Google reviewed all requests for user data and pushed back on "overly broad ones" to protect the privacy of users, it added. The Washington Post newspaper reported earlier on Friday that Google would stop responding directly to data requests from Hong Kong authorities, implying the company would now treat Hong Kong effectively the same as mainland China in such dealings.
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| How To Make Mrs. Fields Famous Cookies, Plus 28 More Copycat Dessert Recipes Posted: 13 Aug 2020 09:23 AM PDT |
| Florida sheriff orders deputies not to wear masks, bans civilians in masks from office Posted: 12 Aug 2020 04:32 PM PDT  "Now, I can already hear the whining and just so you know I did not make this decision easily," Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said in a memo to staff.
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| State police exit Portland after 2 weeks of protest duty Posted: 12 Aug 2020 11:54 PM PDT  Oregon State Police are leaving Portland after a two-week assignment to help protect a federal courthouse that's been a target of protesters during months of conflict in Oregon's largest city. The state police are "continually reassessing our resources and the needs of our partner agencies and at this time we are inclined to move those resources back to counties where prosecution of criminal conduct is still a priority," Capt. Timothy R. Fox told television stations. "Last night was our last night in Portland."
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| Democrats launch probe of Election Day readiness in key states as coronavirus spreads Posted: 14 Aug 2020 10:37 AM PDT  With less than three months Election Day, House Democrats are looking into whether key battleground states are prepared in the midst of the pandemic.
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| Antifa website redirected to Biden’s campaign site causes right-wing conspiracy meltdown Posted: 13 Aug 2020 02:23 PM PDT  The website for anti-facist group Antifa redirected to Joe Biden's campaign website on Wednesday, which led some people to claim that the Democrats are connected to the organisation.For a few hours on Wednesday, Antifa.com redirected to JoeBiden.com, the campaign website of the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, before it returned back to the original page of the group Donald Trump has described as being run by "anarchists."
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| School district nixes in-person learning after 400 teachers opt out Posted: 13 Aug 2020 08:35 AM PDT  More than 400 teachers in New Jersey's Elizabeth School District have already opted out of in-person classes over health concerns.
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| German businessman in Wirecard probe dies in Philippines Posted: 13 Aug 2020 03:10 AM PDT  A German businessman in the Philippines wanted for questioning over the Wirecard accounting scandal has died, the justice minister said Thursday. Christopher Reinhard Bauer died from "natural causes" on July 27 at a hospital in the capital Manila and was later cremated, Menardo Guevarra told AFP. "He was the same person summoned by the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) in connection with the Wirecard fraud investigation," he said, after the government obtained official documents that confirmed earlier reports of Bauer's death.
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| U.N. says Mali army chief left village unprotected before massacre Posted: 14 Aug 2020 09:59 AM PDT |
| India Supreme Court finds Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt Posted: 14 Aug 2020 12:47 AM PDT  The court took action on its own authority against Prashant Bhushan for allegedly derogatory tweets.
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| The sister of Fahim Saleh — the CEO found dismembered in his NYC apartment — says her baby brother's killing is a devastating loss for their tight-knit immigrant family Posted: 13 Aug 2020 10:40 AM PDT  Saleh proudly shared his life on his social media, including the address of his $2 million apartment where he was found dead.
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| A Florida high school has a COVID problem, and the students haven’t even arrived yet Posted: 13 Aug 2020 03:02 AM PDT  Several employees at a Florida high school have isolated for 14 days after they were exposed to COVID-19 on campus, according to an email from the principal.
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| Everything My Elders Love About Kamala Harris Leaves Me Cold Posted: 13 Aug 2020 01:41 AM PDT  "A Black woman! RepresentationMatters," someone posted on Facebook. "My soror is going to be the next VP! This is a serious matter!" chimed in an older Black woman who is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. "She went from the Hilltop to Capitol Hill," a Howard University alum cheered on Twitter. They were talking of course about California Senator and now Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris. A Black woman of Indian descent, Harris is the first woman of color on a major party's national ticket. But for some Black millennial voters, such as myself, it's an underwhelming historical moment to witness another moderate minority who's relied on centrist identity politics climb the ladder. We've seen with Barack Obama, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, Hillary Clinton, and now Harris how presidential candidates can lean on their exceptionalism—be that a matter of race, sexual orientation, or gender—to appeal to "undecided" voters who are white and straight and male. These candidates are inevitably overqualified in their previous jobs, educated at elite institutions, and have delivered American Dream-esque narratives about how they overcame the very adversity that their straight, white male voters placed them in. These tokenized candidates inevitably offer themselves as ones who will not be too ideologically radical, too platform-progressive, or too much of a threat to status-quo party politics. Let's Hope That Kamala Harris Is Done Pandering to White AmericaThis is what made Harris the "safest bet" for Biden. She is a woman of color who won't rock the boat of a presidential candidate who has made more racial gaffes than I care to remember. And this is everything my parents and grandparents' generation unfortunately love about Harris. Our Black parents raised us up to aspire to be what she represents—a law-abiding, college-educated, strong and confident Black person who speaks eloquently and is approachable to white people. I understand where this came from. My grandparents lived through the Jim Crow era and then the civil rights era when the fight for voting rights was a literal bloodbath. It was the sacrifices of people in John Lewis' generation that made it possible for my generation to even be able to discuss politics in the ways that we do. My generation was taught that because of our parents and grandparents' fights, the world could be ours and that as long as we "worked twice as hard" we could elevate ourselves out of poverty, hardship, and racism. But time has taught us that this wasn't the case. Systemic inequality continues to place Black people behind, regardless of how educated they are. The racial uprisings of today have proved to many of us that the presidency of Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, wasn't enough to change how white people valued Black lives. And it also revealed to us that Black politicians too concerned with representation and respectability to take radical stances to protect us are nearly useless. At a time when many are being reignited behind BlackLivesMatter, with calls to defund the police following the cop killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and so many others, elevating a former law and order-oriented prosecutor feels like a step back in the push for police accountability. "But do you want four more years of Trump," an elder told me. "We can't afford four more years of Trump."My elders simply don't care how racist Biden may be because they know Trump is far worse. They don't care that Harris has a troubled law enforcement background. They just want Trump out of office, and to have a respectable Black woman be a part of that effort is the icing on the cake. Meanwhile, Black millennials like myself are expected to deal. I will vote for a tone-deaf (and arguably racist) Democratic presidential candidate and his cop-loving Black running mate over the white supremacist in the white House now and his LGBTQ-loathing VP. But I won't like it, or expect much from Biden and Harris if they do win. I'm voting on Nov. 3 because I don't want to endure another four years of young Black voters being blamed for the predicament we are in. I know that it's not our fault (white women who decided at the last minute to vote against their own interest for Trump are), but I want us to hurry up and move to the point of accountability. I want to vote for real change agents in down-ballot races to force Boomers and Gen Xers to make real policy changes and finally start handing over political power. Hopefully, we'll get better SCOTUS options and use our power to elect more radical local, state, and congressional politicians who can move the needle sooner rather than later. "Just vote to shut them up for good," I texted one of my friends. "These next four years will finally be about what we want."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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| China attacks new US demand to register Confucius Institutes Posted: 14 Aug 2020 04:17 AM PDT  China accused the United States on Friday of trying to "demonize and stigmatize" relations between the two countries, in a scathing attack on the Trump administration's designation of Chinese-funded language and culture programs in the U.S. as foreign missions of the Chinese Communist Party. Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said branches of the Confucius Institute U.S. Center operating at U.S. schools and colleges are a "bridge and link to help people from all over the world learn Chinese, understand China, and strengthen educational and cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries." Zhao said the accusations against the institutes were without basis and were motivated by "ideological prejudice and self-interest."
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| Turkey's president warns attack against Turkish ships will pay 'high price' Posted: 13 Aug 2020 02:55 PM PDT  President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that any attack on a Turkish ship exploring for oil and gas in disputed Mediterranean waters would incur a "high price" and suggested Turkey had already acted on that warning.
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| Trump says open schools. Teachers say safety first. As cases rise, unions may win. Posted: 13 Aug 2020 06:08 PM PDT  Unions are battling Trump, Betsy DeVos and GOP leaders on how schools reopen, leaving little time to negotiate how to improve online learning.
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| Florida governor compares schools reopening to killing bin Laden Posted: 13 Aug 2020 07:20 AM PDT  Governor Ron DeSantis has compared the reopening of schools in Florida to the operation that killed terrorist Osama bin Laden.Mr DeSantis, an attorney and former naval officer, likened the logistics behind schools reopening to a Navy SEALs operation.
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| Russia, Turkey halt patrols in Syria's Idlib over militant attacks Posted: 14 Aug 2020 06:38 AM PDT |
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