| ‘Fox & Friends’ Hosts Look On in Horror as Rudy Giuliani Blurts Out Biden Dementia Conspiracy Theory Posted: 29 Sep 2020 05:50 AM PDT  Everyone knows that live television isn't easy. Anything can go wrong—from a faulty connection, a verbal slip-up, or, as was the case on Tuesday morning's Fox & Friends, Rudy Giuliani bellowing insane conspiracy theories at the nation with no obvious way to stop him.It's always a risk to allow Giuliani to share his wildly unpredictable stream of consciousness live. The man who was named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2001 has long been reduced to sharing the latest Trumpist conspiracy theories on any cable news channel that has the budget to cover any possible subsequent defamation lawsuits.This time, his F&F hosts looked on with visible horror in their eyes as Giuliani shared his completely baseless belief that Joe Biden is suffering from dementia. If you have the time, it's worth watching the clip at least three times so you can see each of the hosts panicking in their own unique way as the former New York City mayor rambles on and on.> On Fox & Friends, Rudy Giuliani says Joe Biden "has dementia. There's no doubt about it. I've talked to doctors. ... The president's quite right to say maybe he's taken adderall." The hosts get visibly uncomfortable. pic.twitter.com/2Ma7DKNBpS> > — Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) September 29, 2020With a mischievous cackle, Giuliani began: "The man [Biden] has dementia. There's no doubt about it. I've talked to doctors. I've had them look at a hundred different tapes of his five years ago and today." Trying his very best to shut Giuliani down, host Steve Doocy interjected that Biden's team have said the Democrat has no serious medical problems.Giuliani then made an extraordinary noise at Doocy that can best be typed as "Oowughawughawugh," before continuing: "He can't recite the Pledge of Allegiance and he's fine? He was in the Senate for 160 years? I mean, he can't do the prologue to the... to the... con... to the... uh... Constitution of the United States or the Declaration of Independence, any of them."Getting louder and increasingly excited about his armchair diagnosis, Giuliani went on: "He can't do NUMBERS. Wow, are the numbers screwed up. He actually displays symptoms that two gerontologists told me are classic symptoms of middle level dementia." Doocy and co-host Ainsley Earhardt both responded to that claim by softly saying: "Right." The third host, Brian Kilmeade, can just be seen blinking rapidly.Fox News Lobotomizes Its 'Brain Room,' Cuts Fact-Based JournalismNevertheless, Giuliani persisted. "That's when [Biden] does that 'I pledge allegiance to the United States... uh... uh... um... I think,' he's done that twice," said the ex mayor. "That's a classic symptom in the DSM-V, it's the fifth symptom, of dementia, he's got eight of the 10."Then, seemingly remembering that he was on the show to talk about tonight's presidential debate, he went on: "Look, that isn't the debate. He can get through it. I think the president is quite right to say maybe he's taken Adderall or some kind of attention deficit disorder thing."As Giuliani began pulling prescription medicine brands out of the air, Doocy had finally had enough and told him firmly: "None of us are doctors, that is your opinion." Giuliani fought back, saying it was actually the opinion of some very professional-sounding doctors that he knows.But the game was up. Kilmeade, in his first verbal interjection of the entire exchange, said with exasperation: "We can stay away from that." Earhardt then moved on to pick Giuliani's brain on the Supreme Court.This particular line of attack is one that Giuliani—whose work as President Trump's lawyer and top dirt-digger on Hunter and Joe Biden kicked off a chain of events that got his client impeached last year—has enthusiastically embraced as one of his primary functions now for Team Trump.Shortly before midnight on Monday night, Giuliani started texting The Daily Beast to say that Trump did "great" in recent White House debate prep (for which the president said on Sunday that Giuliani and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie took part), and to rail against Biden as a "senile," "broken down old crook" who's supposedly suffering from "dementia" and needs "ADD drugs" to get through the Tuesday debate. The Trump attorney also claimed that someone had told him how stupid Biden was in law school.Giuliani also mentioned late Monday evening that he'd be flying with Trump on Air Force One on Tuesday and would be at the Cleveland debate. Asked about what kinds of questions he peppered the president with during the prep, the former New York City mayor replied, "It really doesn't work like that with him. It's much more of a discussion rather than a rehearsal. Plus you are dealing with a very smart, very alert human being not a senile old man."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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| 'An illegitimate sham': Democrats refuse to meet with Amy Coney Barrett before grilling her at hearings Posted: 28 Sep 2020 09:37 AM PDT  'I will take the opportunity to question her when she is under oath,' Senator Mazie Hirono says, setting up October showdown with Trump Supreme Court nominee
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| Portland police seize shields, arrest 24 before march; one officer hospitalized Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:29 AM PDT  At least 24 people were arrested when police broke up a planned march, then declared an unlawful assembly when protesters reorganized.
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| Trump's campaign message lost amid pandemic for some N. Carolina voters Posted: 28 Sep 2020 07:31 AM PDT  In one of the nation's most consequential swing states, Trump's push in the final run-up to the 2020 election is being overshadowed by a pandemic.
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| South Carolina TV anchor hit man with beer bottle in fight over politics, police say Posted: 28 Sep 2020 01:54 PM PDT  The victim was left with cuts on his face, police said.
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| Singapore Airlines drops 'flights to nowhere' after outcry Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:36 AM PDT  Singapore Airlines said Tuesday it had scrapped plans for "flights to nowhere" aimed at boosting its coronavirus-hit finances after an outcry over the environmental impact.
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| California governor signs law requiring trans inmates to be housed by gender identity Posted: 28 Sep 2020 07:53 AM PDT  The law requires inmates to be asked how they identify, then they must be housed accordingly. Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law on Saturday that will require California prisons to house transgender inmates according to their gender identity. The law requires officers to privately ask inmates if they identify as transgender, nonbinary or intersex.
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| A 2nd woman has reportedly accused Nikola Motors founder Trevor Milton of sexual assault Posted: 28 Sep 2020 11:08 PM PDT  Two women have filed police reports against Milton, both accusing him of sexually abusing them when they were 15, CNBC reported.
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| "He’s done": George Conway predicts Trump will wind up "bankrupt" and a "criminal defendant" Posted: 29 Sep 2020 08:33 AM PDT  The bottom line, Conway says, is that Trump is "done . . . not just politically, but financially and legally"
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| Biden pleads with Republicans to wait until 2021 to confirm Supreme Court nominee Posted: 27 Sep 2020 03:58 PM PDT  Democratic presidential nominee opposes Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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| Former paramilitary leader deported to Colombia Posted: 28 Sep 2020 12:04 PM PDT |
| Turkey Sends ISIS Warlord to Azerbaijan to Face Off Against Putin’s Armenian Allies Posted: 28 Sep 2020 12:33 PM PDT  ISTANBUL, Turkey—On Sunday afternoon, a video depicting a large convoy of Islamist Syrian rebel fighters yelling enthusiastically as they drove off to war circulated widely on Arabic social media. Fighters in the packed trucks, driving quickly past the group of children filming with their phones, could be heard yelling "Allahu Akbar!" and, "Our leader, 'til the end of time, is our master, Muhammad!"However, what shocked those watching the video weren't the shouts of the Syrian fighters but rather those of the children filming, who yelled back at the soldiers in a language unfamiliar to most Syrians following their country's nine-year war. "That's not Kurdish, right?" said one user in an online group where the video emerged. "If they were Kurds, you think they'd be cheering them on?" responded another with a laugh out loud emoji.Over the next several hours, rumors swirled that the video was shot in Azerbaijan, a small Turkic-speaking nation lodged between Iran and Russia, and that the Syrian rebel fighters had been sent there to prop up the Azeri government in its war against neighboring Armenia that had begun that day. According to high-ranking Syrian rebel sources that spoke to The Daily Beast, these rumors are true. The fighters that appeared in the circulated video were part of a group of 1,000 Syrian rebel soldiers sent in two batches from Turkey on September 22 and 24."500 Hamza Brigade fighters were flown last Tuesday from southern Turkey to the Azeri airbase at Sumqayit [30 kilometers north of the Azeri capital of Baku]", according to a source within the Syrian National Army (SNA) rebel outfit who requested anonymity. "Two days later, on Thursday, another 500 fighters from the Sultan Murad brigades rebel faction were similarly flown out to Azerbaijan."These claims were echoed by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Syrian opposition body that monitors human rights violations in the country. SOHR sources suggest more batches of Syrian rebel fighters are preparing to be deployed to Azerbaijan.The Hamza and Sultan Murad brigades are known within Syrian rebel circles as factions that enjoy especially close relations with Turkey, the last remaining patron of the Syrian opposition. Sayf Balud, commander of the Hamza brigades, however, is also known for his checkered past, in particular, as a former commander within the radical jihadist group ISIS.An ethnic Syrian Turkman from the town of Biza'a in Aleppo city's northern countryside, Balud originally joined the Abu Bakr Sadiq brigades, a moderate rebel faction near his hometown that received widespread support from Gulf states in the early years of the conflict. However, coming from a small, relatively unknown family, Balud failed to climb the ranks of Syria's rebel movement as quickly as he would have liked, and as others from more prominent backgrounds regularly did. By early 2013, Balud had joined ISIS, whose ranks were staffed mostly by foreigners who couldn't have cared less about the social status of their Syrian recruits.In July 2013, Balud appeared in an ISIS propaganda video shot in the border town of Tal Abyad after the group successfully captured the city from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). In the video, Sayf appears next to an Egyptian foreign fighter addressing a room full of two dozen captured YPG soldiers, who were assembled before an ISIS camera crew to officially repent for having joined an armed faction that ISIS' leadership described as being "at war with God."Over the next several years, Balud's star continued to rise, as the commander attained a level of status within ISIS that would have been unattainable in other rebel groups. Despite the large-scale defeat of ISIS across northern Syria at the hands of the YPG in 2016 and 2017, the cunning commander was able to leverage his history of fighting against Kurds to re-invent himself as a valuable client for another foreign patron: Turkey.By January 2018, when Turkish backed rebel forces launched "Operation Olive Branch" to take over the Kurdish canton of Afrin located in Syria's uppermost northwest corner, Balud regularly appeared in the group's propaganda videos as the official commander of the newly formed Hamza brigades. His status as an ethnic Turkman, a small minority within Syria whose likeness to their Turkish kinsmen across the border has pushed Ankara to grant many coveted privileges such as Turkish citizenship and sensitive leadership positions, further endeared Balud to his new patrons.According to SNA sources, Syrian rebel units now being sent to Azerbaijan by Turkey are almost exclusively led by ethnic Syrian Turkmen. "Sayf Balud is a Turkman. The Sultan Murad brigade's commander, Fahim Aissa, is a Syrian Turkman, like Balud. Turkey only trusts factions led by Syrian Turkman to carry out these missions. These are sensitive for Turkey politically, and they don't trust Syrian Arabs to lead them."Turkey's intervention in Azerbaijan is indeed sensitive. After a four-year lull in fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, fighting between the two countries erupted anew on Sunday in fighting that killed two-dozen fighters.Historically the Nagorno-Karabakh region has been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. But in 1991 Armenian factions within the region declared themselves independent. Three years of war over the disputed territory ended in 1994 with a Russian brokered ceasefire. The newly declared Nagorno-Karabakh republic was soon occupied by Armenia, which has since maintained de facto control of the area. With the exception of four days of fighting in April 2016, Sunday's clashes were the first major instance of renewed combat between both countries over the status of the area. Both sides accuse the other of having initiated the fighting on Sunday.Clashes continue, with dozens more casualties reported. Fighting alongside the Azeri regular forces were 1,000 Syrian rebel fighters, among them former jihadists led by ex-ISIS commander Sayf Balud. All About the OilTurkey's move to send Syrian rebels to face-off against Armenia, a longtime rival of Turkey, is just the latest in a long string of neo-Ottoman foreign adventures undertaken by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the last 6 months. Ankara has deployed both its armed forces and Syrian proxies to crack down on Kurdish PKK and YPG forces in northern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan throughout 2020.Turkey has also intervened in western Libya and waters throughout the eastern Mediterranean where its navy has threatened NATO allies France and Greece in an attempt to strongarm both countries and lay claim to gas reserves located within Greece's maritime borders.In Azerbaijan, Turkey is looking to demonstrate loyalty and prop up an oil-rich regime with which it has maintained close military ties since the 1994 ceasefire. Since 2005, they have launched numerous lucrative oil and gas initiatives including a pipeline that exports 1.2 million barrels of Azeri oil per day to the European Union (EU), earning Turkey upwards of $200 million in annual transit fees. In 2006, this cooperation expanded following the launch of the South Caucasus natural gas pipeline that annually exports 8.8 billion cubic meters of much needed Azeri gas to the Turkish market, a net importer of energy.In 2011, Turkey began work on an expansive natural gas production network called the Trans Anatolian Pipeline, which is projected to export 31 billion cubic meters of Azeri gas to the EU by 2026. Turkish shareholders, who own a 30 percent stake in the project, stand to make huge profits.Turkey's push to transform Azerbaijan into a lucrative oil and gas export hub is also motivated by Ankara's desire to come out from under Russia's shadow. Turkey depends on Russia for 40 percent of its fossil fuels, a reliance that has forced Ankara to treat Russia as a friendly nation despite the fact that the two countries share almost no common interests.The "Southern Gas Corridor," a term referring to the various pipelines emerging out of Azerbaijan, has been heavily cheered on by the EU, which also wants to break its dependence on Russian gas. No surprise then that Russia is on the other side in the ongoing dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.Nagorno-Karabakh is now the third theater where Russia and Turkey find themselves supporting opposite sides in an active Middle East conflict zone. In Syria, Russian support for dictator Bashar al-Assad and Turkey's support for the country's rebels such as Sayf Bulad and others led to direct conflict between both countries' armies earlier this year, resulting in the death of dozens of Turkish soldiers. In Libya, the situation is reversed, with Turkey supporting Libya's government and Russia supporting Khalifa Haftar, a renegade general and rebel leader who has sought to seize control of Libya's lucrative oil sector and capture the capital of Tripoli.In both conflicts, Sayf Bulad and the Hamza brigades have proven extremely useful to Turkey. Thousands of the group's fighters, including Sayf Bulad, were deployed to Libya last summer to help repel a major assault launched by Russian-backed Khalifa Haftar and in the bargain reclaim territory previously captured by the general. The Turkish backed authority in Tripoli is now safely guarded against external threats, while Turkish companies are set to gain lucrative contracts in Libya's oil and gas and reconstruction sectors.Within this context of great power struggles, Syria's rebels, once idealistic and seeking to liberate their country from dictator Bashar al-Assad, have found themselves reduced to pawns compelled to serve as mercenaries and shock troops used by Turkey to advance its foreign policy in a world where Ankara finds itself increasingly isolated. In doing so, they find themselves led by and mixed with fighters from the most vicious jihadist group the world has ever seen.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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| Indian rape victim dies weeks after assault, hundreds protest at hospital Posted: 29 Sep 2020 04:00 AM PDT  A woman from the lowest rung of India's caste system died on Tuesday weeks after authorities said she was raped by a group of men, triggering protests in New Delhi with hundreds gathering at the hospital where her body lay. Every 15 minutes on average, a woman in India is reported raped, according to 2018 government data released this year. The 19-year-old victim, belonging to the Dalit community, was attacked and raped Sept. 14 at a field near her home in Hathras district, 100 km (62-mile) from Delhi, authorities said.
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| Mom’s sudden death left children fending for themselves for five days, Texas cops say Posted: 29 Sep 2020 05:46 AM PDT  School officials asked for a welfare check at the home when the 5- and 7-year-old brothers didn't show up all week.
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| Ethiopian Airlines rides out pandemic on strength of cargo boom Posted: 29 Sep 2020 03:08 AM PDT  Six months since the coronavirus pandemic upended the global airline industry, Ethiopian Airlines is facing a heavy toll: more than $1 billion in lost revenue, to say nothing of 850 infected employees.
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| South Carolina city apologizes to Black residents for racial injustice resulting from its policies Posted: 29 Sep 2020 08:54 AM PDT  The Spartanburg city council unanimously approved a resolution that acknowledges systematic racism.
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| China's UK envoy warns Britain to avoid lectures over human rights Posted: 28 Sep 2020 10:56 AM PDT  China's ambassador to London has told Britain that it will suffer "setbacks" in its relationship with Beijing if it continues to raise issues about human rights. The warning came after a junior Foreign Office minister took Beijing to task at a Chinese embassy function on Monday, held to mark the 71st anniversary of the People's Republic. In his remarks, James Duddridge said that while Britain wanted to retain good relations with China, it was also concerned about Beijing's erosion of democracy in Hong Kong and its treatment of the Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang. Mr Duddridge's comments drew a cool response from Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador, who is understood to have replied pointedly that as Hong Kong was no longer under British rule, Beijing was not obliged to listen to British concerns. Mr Liu added that China's policies in Xinjiang, where the government has been accused of putting up to two million people into "re-education" camps, were designed to combat terrorism. Unless Britain and China observed a policy of "non-interference" in each other's internal politics, he continued, their relationship "would suffer setbacks or even retrogression." Mr Liu, 64, who has been China's envoy to London since 2010, is one of a new generation of Chinese diplomats who have eschewed the low profile traditionally favoured by their predecessors. Earlier this year, he hinted that some Chinese companies might pull out of Britain after the government reversed its decision to allow telecoms giant Huawei a key role in the 5G network. Last year, he also criticised the then Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, over his support for pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong, saying the protests were "a matter about breaking laws". His robust reply to Mr Duddridge's comments, which were made during an online gathering of guests, will be seen as a further indication of how relations between London and Beijing have cooled. Traditionally, routine diplomatic functions are not seen as forums where political differences are aired. Other Chinese ambassadors have already taken up a much more aggressive tack than Mr Liu, developing what become known as "wolf-warrior" diplomacy - a new, assertive dialogue to remind the world that China is now a superpower. Named after a Chinese film in which Beijing's troops defeat US enemies in Africa and Asia, the "wolf warrior" tactic was pioneered by Zhao Lijian, until last year China's envoy to Pakistan. In July last year, he got in a vicious Twitter spat with Susan Rice, a former advisor to Barack Obama, about China's treatment of Uighur Muslims, in which he suggested America improve its own record on race relations. It culminated in Ms Rice urging the Chinese government to recall him to Beijing.
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| Dr. Birx reportedly played a central role in pressuring CDC to advise for school reopening despite surges in coronavirus cases this summer Posted: 28 Sep 2020 08:18 PM PDT  The New York Times reported Birx asked the CDC to include a document in school reopening guidance that downplayed the risk of infection.
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| Alabama town removes statue of Confederate soldier in the middle of the night Posted: 28 Sep 2020 03:34 PM PDT  The town will pay a $25,000 fine for removing the 115-year-old monument
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| S. Korea's Moon apologizes over handling of killing by North Posted: 28 Sep 2020 01:01 AM PDT  South Korean President Moon Jae-in apologized for the first time Monday for the death of a man who was shot by North Korean troops last week, saying his government failed in its responsibility to safeguard a citizen. The shooting triggered outrage and criticism that Seoul apparently wasted hours to rescue the South Korean official who was found adrift in North Korean waters before his death last Tuesday. While the shooting drew a rare apology from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the North has largely passed the blame to the man who was killed, saying that he refused to answer questions and attempted to flee before North Korean troops fired at him.
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| They Protested at a Police Station. They’re Charged With Trying to Kidnap Cops. Posted: 29 Sep 2020 01:36 AM PDT  The July 3 protest in Aurora, Colorado, seemed, at least on the surface, like just another of the hundreds of racial justice protests that have swept the nation this year. Demonstrators sat outside a police station chanting and playing music. Although they said they wouldn't leave until their demands were met, the protesters were cleared out by police around 4:30 a.m.Colorado Protest Erupts in Panic as Car Drives Into Crowd, Shots Fired But several of the protest leaders are facing felony attempted kidnapping charges for allegedly imprisoning police officers in their own precinct during the protest—charges their fellow activists are calling absurd.Lillian House, Joel Northam, and Whitney "Eliza" Lucero are among a group of Denver-area activists facing a slate of charges related to their protest activities this summer. Local prosecutors say the activists tried to kidnap police by holding a short-lived "occupation"-style protest outside the precinct and blocking its doors. But activists allege a crackdown on the most visible members of their movement, leading to terrifying SWAT arrests and the threat of years in prison."This characterization that someone quote-unquote kidnapped officers is absolutely ridiculous," Ryan Hamby, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Marxist group with which House, Northam, and Lucero are affiliated, told The Daily Beast."It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious," he added.The July 3 protest was one of many that called for the termination of officers involved in the killing of Elijah McClain, a young Black man who died in Aurora Police custody last year. McClain was not accused of any crime but became the subject of police suspicion while walking home from the convenience store when someone called 911 to report him "look[ing] sketchy." Police placed McClain in a now-banned chokehold, causing him to vomit and lose consciousness. Paramedics later injected him with the sedative ketamine.An autopsy did not conclusively identify a single cause of death, and two of the three arresting officers have not been fired. The third arresting officer was fired for responding "ha ha" to pictures of other officers re-enacting and mocking McClain's death. (That officer is suing the city over his termination.)The firings of the police who re-enacted McClain's death were announced July 3, the same day as the protest outside the police precinct where demonstrators believed the remaining officers worked. Media reports—and even police tweets from most of the night—characterize the demonstration as peaceful, with some 600 protesters sitting around. Police ordered protesters to disperse at 2:30 a.m., tweeted a half-hour later that protesters were throwing things, and had cleared out the site by 4:30, the Denver Post reported at the time.But a statement from the Adams County district attorney this month accused protesters of holding cops hostage. Protesters "prevented 18 officers inside from leaving the building by barricading entrances and securing doors with wires, ropes, boards, picnic tables and sandbags," the statement read. (The district attorney was unavailable for comment. In a call with Denver's 9News, defendant Lillian House said she was unaware of the alleged barricade.)Those allegations come alongside serious criminal charges for six protest leaders, including three who are accused of attempted kidnapping, inciting a riot, and inciting a riot by giving commands, all of which are felonies.The protesters and prosecutors both point to a mid-protest phone call between activist Lillian House and Aurora's interim police chief Vanessa Wilson, which House broadcast to protesters over a microphone. House called on Wilson to fire the remaining officers involved in McClain's death; Wilson said she didn't have the authority to do that but thanked the protesters for not trying to enter the precinct."I appreciate that you haven't breached the building and I hope that you continue to keep that promise," Wilson said.Activists like Hamby have pointed to the call as evidence that protesters stayed within their rights."Like, why would you even say that?" Hamby said of Wilson's call. "She's basically admitting on the phone that we have not done any of the things that they're now claiming we did in this affidavit."On the phone call, House, who is also accused of a felony count of attempting to influence a public servant, affirmed that the protesters wouldn't enter the building. But they wouldn't leave, either, until the two remaining officers in McClain's killing were fired."I just want to make it perfectly crystal clear that everyone here has agreed that we are going to sit here," she said. "We're not going anywhere. We're not going in, we're not going out, we're sure not going out, and neither are these pigs that are inside the building. So we're not doing anything wrong. We're standing here." (The protesters did, in fact, reportedly leave before sunrise, when police advanced on them.)House's statements appear to be part of the basis for the prosecution's claims that the protest was actually a kidnapping attempt. What followed, fellow activists allege, was a heavy-handed roundup of the protest's most visible faces.Hamby, who organizes with House, Northam, and Lucero, claimed the busts were an attempt to "strike fear into organizers, strike fear into the movement."House and Lucero were arrested by multiple squad cars—House while driving and Lucero while in her apartment—and detained in jail for eight days, Hamby said. Fellow organizers have accused corrections officers of verbally abusing the two women and failing to provide adequate COVID-19 protections. Another protester, John "Russel" Ruch, was followed from his home in unmarked cars and scooped up in a Home Depot parking lot around dawn by officers who gave him "no information" about the cause for his arrest, Hamby claimed.In the most aggressive instance, multiple organizers claimed a SWAT team showed up to arrest protester Joel Northam, allegedly banging on the door and refusing to slide a warrant underneath. Aurora Police did not return a request for comment."He was on the phone with a lawyer the entire time, and the lawyer ended up telling him, 'You need to comply with what they're saying,'" Hamby said. "Because at that point we were worried that they were going to bust down the door and kill him."If convicted on all counts, the activists accused of attempted kidnapping could face decades in prison. The charges come as other activists associated with Black Lives Matter protests face heavy-handed charges, including a Utah protester who faced life in prison for allegedly purchasing paint that was used in a demonstration (the most aggressive charging enhancements in that case have since been dropped).Hamby said protesters planned on further mobilizing around a call to drop the charges. "If anything, the fight-back will be strengthened and emboldened," he said.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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| Tow company sold vehicles of Texas military members while they were on duty, feds say Posted: 28 Sep 2020 04:29 PM PDT  One of the service members was at basic training when his car was towed, officials say.
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| 'Or gas them': Germany's far-right AfD fires official over migrant comment Posted: 28 Sep 2020 08:55 AM PDT  Germany's hard right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party fired an official on Monday who had been caught on a hidden camera discussing gassing refugees. In footage, recorded secretly by ProSieben television in February, Christian Lueth, then a party spokesman, was filmed in a Berlin cafe talking to someone he believed to be a sympathiser about the challenges the AfD faced. Asked if the AfD wanted to see more immigrants, he replied: "Yes."
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| Going it alone on Covid-19 brings 'greater disaster': China foreign minister Posted: 28 Sep 2020 07:22 AM PDT  The coronavirus is a wake-up call for the world, and trading blame "will only bring greater disaster", China's foreign minister said Monday.
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| Scientists detected a set of salty lakes on Mars, hidden below the glaciers of its south pole Posted: 28 Sep 2020 08:30 AM PDT  NASA's Perseverance rover is set to search for signs of ancient Martian life that could have migrated to underground lakes like these.
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| Massacre in Mexican bar leaves 11 people dead Posted: 28 Sep 2020 05:55 AM PDT 
A massacre in a Mexican bar left 11 people dead on Sunday (September 27). The attorney general's office in the central state of Guanajuato said the bodies of seven men and four women were found at the scene in the city of Jaral del Progreso in the early hours. Authorities added that another woman was also found with gunshot injuries. It comes as the country grapples with a record homicide rate - despite the government's promises to tackle gang violence. Guanajuato, a major car-making hub, has become a recurring scene of criminal violence in Mexico, ravaged by a turf war between the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel. In July, gunmen killed 24 people at a drug rehabilitation center in Guanajuato. It was one of the worst mass slayings since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office - pledging to reduce record levels of violence.
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| Trump-Biden debate: a crash you won't be able to look away from Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:00 AM PDT  Fox News veteran moderator Chris Wallace has a 'tell' for me on who will win this first presidential debate.
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| Breonna Taylor: Officer who may have fired fatal shot looking to retire after receiving 'countless threats' Posted: 28 Sep 2020 05:20 PM PDT  A Kentucky police officer who may have fired the shot that killed Breonna Taylor is seeking to retire after receiving "countless threats", his family has said. According to an online fundraising drive apparently organised by the family of Myles Cosgrove, it is no longer safe for the Louisville officer to remain in his job. It said his relatives were trying to raise enough money for him to stand down from the force, and take care of his family.
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| Nigeria's Boko Haram crisis: 'Bomb on donkey' used to ambush Borno governor Posted: 28 Sep 2020 09:11 AM PDT  Militants from an Islamic State-linked group strapped the animal with explosives in Borno state.
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| Lost wallet used as bait to lure alleged meth dealer into an arrest, Florida cops say Posted: 28 Sep 2020 04:05 PM PDT  The suspect showed up to the meeting spot with methamphetamine and $3,000 on his person.
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| Air Force Completes 8-Year B-1 Bomber Battle Station Upgrade Posted: 28 Sep 2020 01:11 PM PDT  The service announced that it finished the Integrated Battle Station, or IBS, modification earlier this month.
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| Germany walks away from Lockheed, Boeing cargo helicopter offers Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:09 AM PDT  The surprise decision halts an acquisition race that was scheduled to a see a contract awarded in 2021.
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| Oil washes up along five-mile stretch of Florida beach in wake of Hurricane Sally Posted: 28 Sep 2020 07:55 AM PDT  It's unclear at this point if the submerged oil is from the 2010 oil spill that was stirred up from Hurricane Sally or if it is from another source.
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| Frenchman says tattoos cost him kindergarten teaching job Posted: 28 Sep 2020 03:19 AM PDT  A schoolteacher whose body, face and tongue are covered in tattoos and who has had the whites of his eyes surgically turned black said he was prevented from teaching at a French kindergarten after a parent complained he scared their child. But the teacher, Sylvain Helaine, 35, still teaches children from the age of six up, and said that, after an initial shock when they see him for the first time, his pupils see past his appearance. "All of my students and their parents were always cool with me because basically they knew me," said Mr Helaine, who estimated he has spent around 460 hours under the tattooists' needle. "It's only when people see me from far away that they can assume the worst." He said last year he was teaching kindergarten at the Docteur Morere Elementary School in Palaiseau, a suburb of Paris, when the parents of a three-year-old child complained to educational authorities. They said their son, who was not taught by Mr Helaine, had nightmares after seeing him.
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| Why Trump voters just don't care about his taxes Posted: 29 Sep 2020 06:06 AM PDT  The revelation, per Sunday's New York Times report, that President Trump paid little to no federal income tax in recent years will redirect the conversation at Tuesday night's general election debate. But will it redirect any meaningful number of votes?I suspect not, not even among the president's most reluctant supporters.In broad strokes, there are two reasons to vote for Trump in 2020: liking who he is or liking what (you think) he'll do. This is an artificial separation of two rationales that often overlap, but let's call them the personality voter and the transactional voter.The personality voter likes how crude and cunning Trump is. She proudly brands herself "a deplorable" in reference to Hillary Clinton's infamous 2016 remark. She thinks it's funny when Trump riles his enemies, who, not coincidentally, are her enemies, too. This strain of Trump support tends to have a strong populist flavor, where supporting Trump gives "a collective middle finger" to political and cultural elites this voter despises and whom she believes despise her in turn.For the personality voter, Trump's ability to avoid paying income taxes is untroubling. It's far from the first violation of establishment norms she has vicariously enjoyed through her candidate. If anything, she agrees, as he said at a 2016 debate with Clinton, that successful tax avoidance "makes [him] smart." The populist hypocrisy Trump's critics see here won't register.Personality isn't necessarily relevant for the transactional voter, our second type. In some cases, Trump's personality helps him deliver on his side of the transaction. If the thing a voter wants from Trump is to own the libs, for example, his personality is an asset. But if the thing desired involves a policy or program, Trump's personality might be immaterial or actually detrimental. Many purely transactional voters would willingly — maybe far more willingly — vote for any candidate who would do what they want Trump to do. Their vote isn't for Trump qua Trump but for Trump qua the candidate they think is most likely to provide what they want."I voted for the Supreme Court. I didn't want to vote for Trump," an archetypal transactional Trump voter named Jim George told The Washington Post in 2017. "With Trump, you just hold your nose."A transactional Trump voter in 2020 is already holding his nose too firmly to catch a whiff of these tax returns. If he's decided everything Trump has said and done over the past four years does not tip the scales against whatever good he believes will come from re-electing the president, the tax story won't do it, either. It definitely won't turn him into a Joe Biden voter, and I'm skeptical that it could even keep him home, because Trump's personal life is irrelevant to his provision of whatever benefit(s) is anticipated.The transactional voter is already under contract. He's had ample time to inspect Trump, and he didn't find anything that made him want to back out of the deal.There is one scenario in which that arrangement might fall through, and that's if Trump's personal financial circumstances rendered him unable to hold up his end of the imagined bargain. But how would that happen? Or rather, how would the transactional voter become convinced it had happened were he satisfied with Trump's performance to date?The Times reported Trump has hundreds of millions of dollars in debt for which he is personally liable coming due over the next four years, possibly including around $100 million owed to the IRS should the agency decide a large tax rebate was improperly obtained. These are staggering numbers for us little people to contemplate, but if he holds onto the presidency, Trump is expected simply to obtain extensions on his loans and use his office however he can to mitigate his personal financial catastrophe. It would be an enormous debacle, very possibly leading to another impeachment or special counsel investigation and distracting the president from whatever his part of the transaction is supposed to be.Well, so what? Trump's first four years have had an enormous debacle every week, and an impeachment and special counsel investigation, too. Trump accomplished relatively little of his policy promises, certainly none of the headlines. The wall is not built; the swamp is not drained; not a single one of the "endless wars" is ended; the American steel industry did not come roaring back to life. Trump's most significant fulfilled promise — nominating conservative justices to the Supreme Court — was the one over which he arguably had the least influence: He could not know whether or when there would be a vacancy, and he was undoubtedly responsible for few, if any, of the names on his shortlist.If this level of distraction and failure is acceptable to the transactional voter, a second-term Trump fighting foreclosure and the IRS is too.More stories from theweek.com 'Sully' Sullenberger savages Trump's 'lethal lies and incompetence' in new Lincoln Project ad The bigger truth revealed by Trump's taxes Trump reportedly made tens of millions in the Great Recession by partnering with multilevel marketing companies
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| Oregon hostage situation leaves ‘multiple people' dead Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:16 AM PDT  Officers responded to an address in Salem at around 12:30 pm on Monday
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| Catholic voters can't ignore abortion or Kamala Harris' religious bigotry in 2020 election Posted: 28 Sep 2020 10:28 AM PDT  As Pope Francis has said, 'The right to life is the first among human rights.' So why make American Catholics feel like they shouldn't vote for life?
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| How can you safely have a Thanksgiving meal? CDC has tips for families during COVID-19 Posted: 28 Sep 2020 11:06 AM PDT  Here's what health officials say about dinners and travel for the upcoming holiday.
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| A ballistics report pokes holes in Kentucky AG's claim that Breonna Taylor's boyfriend shot a police officer Posted: 27 Sep 2020 02:09 PM PDT  Friendly fire had been ruled out when it came to a police officer being shot before officers unloaded 30 bullets into Breonna Taylor's apartment.
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| U.S. missile destroyer ship breaks Navy record for longest stint at sea Posted: 29 Sep 2020 08:15 AM PDT  The USS Stout reached 208 days at sea Sept. 26 as the Navy has imposed restrictions on port visits to protect sailors from the coronavirus.
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| British ministers prepare for social lockdown in northern Britain, London: The Times Posted: 27 Sep 2020 03:28 PM PDT  Under the new lockdown measures being considered, all pubs, restaurants and bars would be ordered to shut for two weeks initially, the report said. Earlier this week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said any new national lockdown would threaten jobs, livelihoods and human contact. Britain had last week imposed new measures that required people to work from home where possible and had ordered restaurants and bars to close early to tackle a fast-spreading second wave of COVID-19, with new restrictions lasting probably six months.
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| Nokia clinches 5G deal with BT to phase out Huawei's kit in EE network Posted: 29 Sep 2020 04:14 AM PDT  The Finnish firm will become the largest provider of base stations and antennas to EE's network.
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| South Carolina woman's heartwarming obituary for beloved golden retriever goes viral Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:36 AM PDT  When Charlie died after a five-month battle with cancer Sept. 13, Sallie Hammett wanted to do something special in his honor.
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| "The View" hosts corner Ted Cruz over attempt to blame Democrats for COVID-19 deaths Posted: 29 Sep 2020 04:40 AM PDT  Cruz tried to defend Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic — and it didn't go well for the GOP senator
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| Rudy Giuliani on Trump-Biden first presidential debate, taxes and SCOTUS nomination Posted: 29 Sep 2020 05:17 AM PDT  Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's lawyer, previews Tuesday night's debate on 'Fox & Friends'
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