| 'Anonymous' WH official who wrote about officials thwarting Trump reveals himself Posted: 28 Oct 2020 02:11 PM PDT  Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, revealed himself Wednesday as the author of an anonymous 2018 New York Times op-ed that depicted President Trump as a danger to the nation.
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| FBI arrests five in U.S. accused of trying to coerce political dissenters to return to China Posted: 28 Oct 2020 10:45 AM PDT  A note left on the door of one victim read, "If you are willing to go back to mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right."
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| Scientists discover a massive coral reef in Australia's Great Barrier Reef Posted: 27 Oct 2020 10:20 PM PDT  Australian scientists working to map the seafloor around the northern Great Barrier Reef made a major discovery earlier this month, finding a 1,600-foot-tall detached coral reef.This is the first newfound reef in 120 years, NBC News reports. It is taller than the Empire State Building and almost a mile wide at its base. The reef is off the coast of North Queensland, and researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute first observed it on Oct. 20. On Sunday, an underwater robot was dispatched to take measurements and explore the reef. The institute's co-founder, Wendy Schmidt, said in a statement that this "unexpected discovery affirms that we continue to find unknown structures and new species in our ocean."Marine geologist Robin Beaman, who is leading the expedition, said the team is "surprised and elated by what we have found." They will continue to explore the area until Nov. 17, and the underwater imagery being captured and mapping data being collected will help people understand this new reef's role within the Great Barrier Reef. More stories from theweek.com How to make an election crisis 64 things President Trump has said about women Republicans are on the verge of a spectacular upside-down achievement
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| SpaceX engine swap should clear way for astronaut launch Posted: 29 Oct 2020 04:55 AM PDT  SpaceX is replacing two suspect engines in the Falcon 9 rocket that will boost four astronauts to the space station.
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| SCOTUS: N.C. ballots can be counted up to nine days after election Posted: 29 Oct 2020 04:32 AM PDT  The Supreme Court will allow absentee ballots in North Carolina to be received and counted up to nine days after Election Day.
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| Mexican search group finds 59 bodies in clandestine pits Posted: 28 Oct 2020 08:56 PM PDT |
| Trump rushes struggling GOP senator at rally: 'You got one minute, they don't want to hear this' Posted: 29 Oct 2020 01:24 AM PDT  President hurried Arizona Senator Martha McSally before calling up three politicians from other states - plus Nigel Farage - to address the crowd
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| Southwest Airlines just announced 10 new routes and has a new shortest that's only 73 miles long – here's the full list Posted: 29 Oct 2020 08:48 AM PDT  Fresh from a $1.2 billion third-quarter loss, Southwest is revising its route map and moving into new, larger airports that it's previously avoided.
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| About That ‘Uncoverable’ Biden Story Posted: 28 Oct 2020 12:48 PM PDT  Journalists claim they can't cover the New York Post's Hunter Biden email scoop because the underlying evidence has yet to been verified. Also, they won't look for any verifying evidence because there isn't enough evidence.It's quite the conundrum.Because other than the now-corroborated emails, the laptop, the on-the-record source who was a CEO of a Biden corporation, a trove of text messages and documents, and a lack of denials, the Hunter Biden email story reminds me of the "Russian collusion" story. Surely it deserves a modicum of scrutiny and follow-up.Anyone who watched Tony Bobulinski's interview on Tucker Carlson's show this week -- apparently it pulled over 5 million viewers -- was confronted with a seemingly credible character. Bobulinski says he met with Joe Biden in 2017, and that the former vice president was intimately involved in the family business. Maybe someone will ask the candidate about this. Because Biden, widely seen as the frontrunner, has on numerous occasions emphatically denied any knowledge of what Hunter was doing. So even if he didn't benefit from his son's leveraging of the family name to strike deals with Chinese Communist energy interests, it is still newsworthy.Bobulinski alleges that during a meeting with Joe Biden's brother, he asked how the former vice president gets away with this sort of thing: "I remember looking at Jim Biden and saying how are you guys getting away with this? Aren't you concerned? He looked at me, and he laughed a little bit, and said 'plausible deniability.'"Perhaps my favorite part of yesterday's interview, though, was learning that Adam Schiff's ugly and mendacious habit of smearing anyone he disagrees with as a Russian asset is what allegedly helped spur Bobulinski, a former U.S. Navy lieutenant, to come forward.Hunter's ex-business partner, in fact, confronted Rob Walker, a Biden "family representative" about it."If [Schiff] doesn't come out, on record, I am providing the facts," Bobulinski said in a recording."Ah, Tony, you're just going to bury all of us, man," responded Walker, which sounds odd coming from someone charged with representing a supposedly completely innocent venture.To put all of this context as a journalistic matter, the week before the Post broke the Hunter Biden story, every major news network was reporting on surreptitiously taped conversation in which the First Lady was grousing about Christmas decorations.Indeed, these are just allegations. Some of them more compelling than others. We still know very little, for example, about potentially damaging emails that purport to show Biden helping his son while he was vice president — namely, by meeting with a Burisma energy executive on behalf of Hunter at the White House.In a strange way, the lack of coverage has perpetuated the story, not only through the Streisand effect, but because suppressing it -- the New York Post's Twitter account is still frozen -- allows the imagination to run wild. While no conservative pundit has penned 8,000 words of Chait-style crackpottery pondering whether Joe has been Chinese asset since the 1980s, some have certainly jumped the gun.Does it matter? Yesterday, a number of journalists were retweeting an Axios interview in which Senator Ted Cruz, asked about the "Hunter Biden stuff," said the story won't move a single vote. Perhaps that's true. It's also irrelevant. The journalist's job is to provide transparency, not to worry about elections or be society's hall monitor.It is certain -- and, boy, am I sick of framing coverage in this way, but what can you do? -- that if a credible witness and former business partner of one of Donald Trump Jr.'s companies came forward to offer specific accusations and evidence that the president was profiting off of business dealings his shady son was striking with authoritarians, teams of investigative journalists would be descending on every tangential character as if they were a defunct Chinese bank account.And the assertion made by many reporters that journalistic ethics prohibit them from even mentioning these allegations is a new and concocted standard. There are thousands of allegations against Republicans reported without verification. Not one outlet had a problem referring to the recent Atlantic piece citing unnamed sources who claimed Trump belittled soldiers, even though the story came from one writer at a partisan outlet. Allegations by whistleblowers are covered all the time, whether they have been fully vetted or not. Major outlets were eager to amplify not only the uncorroborated accusations of Christine Blasey Ford, but a host of other very obviously dubious claims about Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.But much of the reticence about investigating the Hunter Biden story is in reaction to the fallout from the Hillary Clinton email scandal. No matter what evidence emerged, political media were never going to repeat 2016. One assumes even good reporters don't want to be perceived as tipping the election (which speaks to the poor health of journalism).Lest we forget, as with this Biden story, the Clinton email scandal was newsworthy. There was, after all, an open FBI investigation into the frontrunning presidential candidate of the United States because of her reckless and potentially criminal behavior. It was Hillary who initially set up a secret server to circumvent transparency, likely to hide favor-trading related to her foundation, and sent unsecured classified documents through that illegal server, although she almost surely knew it threatened national security. As the New York Times reported at the time, the chance that her correspondences were being captured by foreign powers was extremely high. It was Hillary's staff that destroyed evidence related to that server -- or as James Comey noted in his testimony, they "cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery." Any government employees conducting themselves in a similar manner would have been sent to jail.I'm not in the habit of defending Comey, but he saved Clinton by letting her and her staff slide on richly deserved charges. The letter Comey sent to Congress informing them that the bureau had found a cache of new evidence relating to a criminal investigation was Clinton's fault, not his. It was her top aide and confidant Huma Abedin who failed to inform the FBI about her laptop. And it was Abedin's then-husband who used that computer to court teenage girls. Comey had an ethical obligation to inform Congress when he was apprised that new evidence had been found -- as he had promised to do under oath during his testimony. If he didn't, and the story leaked, as it surely would have, the perception would have been that he was attempting to cover up the potential wrongdoing of one of the candidates.Or, in other words, he would have been doing exactly what most of the political media are engaged in right now.
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| He was drunk and fighting with his girlfriend. Then out came the pumpkin, police say Posted: 28 Oct 2020 08:52 AM PDT  A common autumn and Halloween decoration was used as a weapon in Largo, Florida.
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| Jerry Falwell Jr. is suing Liberty University after his forced resignation over sex scandal Posted: 29 Oct 2020 07:59 AM PDT  The former president was ousted earlier this year and now hints he was victim of political retribution.
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| Tony Chung: Hong Kong activist detained near US embassy charged Posted: 29 Oct 2020 04:22 AM PDT  Tony Chung was detained as he reportedly planned to claim asylum at the US consulate.
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| Pilot killed as Taiwan fighter jet crashes into sea Posted: 28 Oct 2020 10:09 PM PDT  A Taiwanese pilot was killed Thursday after his fighter jet crashed off the island's eastern coast during routine training, the air force said, in the second fatal air crash in three months.
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| Erdogan vows legal response to Charlie Hebdo cartoon showing him lifting skirt of veiled woman Posted: 28 Oct 2020 09:56 AM PDT  Anger at France deepened in Muslim-majority countries on Wednesday over a Charlie Hebdo cartoon showing Turkey's president drinking beer while lifting the skirt of a woman wearing a hijab to reveal her naked buttocks. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president, described the cartoonists as "scoundrels" and accused the West of wanting to "relaunch the Crusades". His office also vowed to take unspecified "legal and diplomatic actions" through the Turkish legal system. His row with France erupted after President Emmanuel Macron ordered a crackdown on Islamists this month, following the beheading of a teacher who showed his class Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Protesters in Somalia's capital Mogadishu shouted: "Down with France. It insulted our prophet."
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| 2020 polls: Can Trump pull another 2016 upset? The data says no chance Posted: 29 Oct 2020 08:59 AM PDT  The blue wave is coming - if you believe the polls
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| A mutated coronavirus strain causes most new COVID-19 infections in Europe and was spread within the continent by tourists, scientists say Posted: 29 Oct 2020 03:46 AM PDT  The coronavirus variant, known as 20A.EU1, has been identified in 12 European countries as well as in Hong Kong and New Zealand, scientists said.
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| Rudy Vents to Trump That Bill Barr Is Screwing Up His Hunter Play Posted: 29 Oct 2020 07:30 AM PDT  Weeks after Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani first pushed the Hunter Biden files and a collection of sordid dirt to the New York Post in a last-ditch effort to drag his client across the 2020 finish line, both he and the president, as well as several of Trump's political lieutenants, have grown frustrated at the lack of impact it's had.But rather than conceding that the broader public might not be interested, Trump and Giuliani have instead put the blame for the failure to break through in part on Attorney General William Barr.In the aftermath of the New York Post reporting earlier this month—for which Trump had personally greenlighted Giuliani's decision to act as the paper's source—the former New York City mayor has spoken with President Trump both about the Hunter Biden materials and what could be done about them from a law enforcement perspective, according to a White House official and a source close to Giuliani. Recently, the president and Giuliani discussed their mutual frustrations with the lack of action from Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray saying that the emails and Hunter files have provided legal ammunition to probe the Bidens, the person close to Giuliani said.The Trump attorney had also advised the president that the events of the past two weeks underscore why Trump should fire Wray, arguing that it shows that the current FBI director is an anti-Trump subversive, according to the White House official. This official was not aware of Giuliani making as harsh a comment about Barr. Reached for comment on Wednesday night, Giuliani told The Daily Beast: "I don't comment on my conversations with my client."Rudy Rages at Fox Biz Host for Comparing Him to Christopher Steele: 'You Better Apologize for That!'The FBI has declined to confirm or deny if it's even investigating the Hunter Biden-related emails and images, and the bureau and Justice Department have remained tightlipped on the issue. There is a long-standing institutional aversion to publicly talking about these types of investigations this close to a presidential election—though there is still no evidence at the moment that one even exists, much to the consternation of much of Trumpworld.Were Barr to make any announcement, said Matt Miller, the former director of the Department of Justice's public affairs office, it would be a seismic politicization of the agency."Barr announcing an investigation at this point would make Jim Comey's actions in 2016 look quaint by comparison. Comey at least wasn't trying to hurt Clinton and he wasn't getting involved at the behest of a candidate and his attorney," said Miller. "A Barr announcement would be a full banana republic-style intervention in the political process. DOJ shouldn't even be taking any new investigative steps involving either candidate at this point unless there is some reason to believe those steps couldn't wait until after the election."In their private conversations, Giuliani has mentioned to Trump that Barr could be up to something that he and others simply do not know about, but that he thinks it's unlikely, according to the source close to Giuliani. Trump campaign officials, meanwhile, do not appear to be banking on any intervention."We have one week left," said one senior Trump campaign official. "I don't think Bill Barr is going to ride into town and save the day."The resignation from both the campaign and Trump and Giuliani specifically, underscore the degree to which the president's team was banking on an "October surprise" against the Biden family to change their political fates. It also illustrates the disappointment they're experiencing that it hasn't played out the way they'd hoped."Why aren't they doing anything?…What the hell are they waiting for?!" President Trump has exclaimed to some close advisers this month, according to two people who've heard him say this.Trump Is Looking to Fire FBI Director Chris Wray for Not Helping His Campaign: ReportTrump's displeasure with Wray has long been brewing, with the president angling to oust the FBI director if he wins reelection. But last week, Trump took to his favorite morning cable-news show to signal his displeasure at Barr as well."We've got to get the attorney general to act," the president said on Fox & Friends. "He's gotta act, and he's gotta act fast, and he's gotta appoint somebody."While Trump has grumbled about Barr's inaction on television, it's likely that he hasn't done so in person. According to two individuals with knowledge of the matter, the president has been counseled by some senior aides that he should avoid picking up the phone and telling Barr directly that the Justice Department needs to open a new investigation into the Bidens prior to the election, arguing that if such a call leaked, it would cause more political headaches than it's worth."The president responded like, 'I know, I know,'" one of these sources said, adding that Trump suggested he wouldn't do it.White House spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment on this story. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec declined to comment on Thursday morning.On Monday, Giuliani went on the Fox Business program hosted by Lou Dobbs to argue that his findings "could be used in a court of law…There's a trial here that could be done that would be fabulous for a trial lawyer, I'd love to try it."Dobbs, who moonlights as a Trump adviser and confidant, then contended that the FBI and Justice Department "don't want any part of trying cases against prominent Democrats" in recent years. He then called out the U.S. attorney general: "Where is William Barr? He's gone radio silent!" Dobbs said.The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Cover Hunter BidenHunter Biden is accused of using his father's name to help advance his foreign business ventures. And former associates have said that Joe Biden was aware of those activities and occasionally involved in them. But the elder Biden has strongly disputed that and news outlets have found no evidence that he profited off of his son's work. Though the president, Giuliani, and other Trump loyalists continue to obsess over the story, there are signs that his reelection campaign staff have tiptoed away from the strategy.As The Daily Beast reported on Monday, almost two weeks after the Post began dropping stories on Hunter and Joe Biden this month, Trump's 2020 team has barely utilized the material in its paid media. It hadn't mentioned the Biden son in ads on its Facebook or Instagram accounts since October 13. And even America First Action, the major pro-Trump super PAC, had not namechecked Hunter Biden at all in its TV or Facebook advertising since then as well."It appears from what's been uncovered so far that Hunter Biden was trading on his father's name in order to make money for himself and his family. The question the DOJ has to answer is whether that constitutes a federal crime," Steven Groves, who previously served as a lawyer and then spokesman in the Trump White House, said on Wednesday.He added, "The DOJ first must determine whether a crime has been committed. Second, it has to decide if it's a federal crime that falls under its jurisdiction. And third, it has to decide if a special counsel is necessary, for instance if there's a conflict of interest such that the Justice Department would not be able to conduct the investigation through its regular process. So there are several steps before getting to the point where Attorney General Barr would be able to come out and announce anything."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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| A US embassy staffer drugged and sexually abused at least 23 women and kept the evidence on his iCloud account, prosecutors say Posted: 27 Oct 2020 01:32 PM PDT  Brian Jeffrey Raymond had more than 400 photos and videos that showed the scope of his abuse, according to prosecutors.
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| At least 2 killed, 7 injured in Tennessee school bus crash Posted: 28 Oct 2020 04:23 AM PDT  The school bus was struck by a utility service vehicle operated by Service Electric that lost control and veered into oncoming traffic.
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| China's Communist party leadership says to promote Taiwan's reunification with mainland: Xinhua Posted: 29 Oct 2020 03:35 AM PDT |
| Angela Merkel heckled in German parliament after warning against Covid 'lies and disinformation' Posted: 29 Oct 2020 04:59 AM PDT  Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was heckled by opposition MPs during a speech to parliament on Thursday when she took aim at groups spreading "lies and disinformation" as the country continues to battle coronavirus. The speech – which took place the morning after Mrs Merkel announced a range of sweeping measures to tackle the spread of the virus – warned that the German people find themselves in a "dramatic situation". On Thursday morning, Germany recorded 16,774 new daily coronavirus infections, the highest number of new cases within a 24-hour period since the pandemic began.
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| Charlie Hebdo sparks Turkish fury with cartoon of Erdogan Posted: 27 Oct 2020 02:20 PM PDT  Turkey on Tuesday accused French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo of "cultural racism" over a front-page cartoon for its latest edition that mocks President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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| Supreme Court issues flurry of last-minute election orders Posted: 29 Oct 2020 09:31 AM PDT  Wisconsin, no. That's how the Supreme Court has answered questions in recent days about an extended timeline for receiving and counting ballots in those states. At first blush, the difference in the outcomes at the Supreme Court seems odd because the high court typically takes up issues to harmonize the rules across the country. A big asterisk: These cases are being dealt with on an emergency basis in which the court issues orders that either block or keep in place a lower-court ruling.
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| Jeff Bezos may be considering purchase of CNN, according to bankers Posted: 28 Oct 2020 05:35 PM PDT  Rumours of the purchase stem from investment bankers discussing the potential sale
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| 'Bar Rescue' host Jon Taffer says he was 'surprised' by Trump's plan to save the hospitality industry in their podcast interview Posted: 28 Oct 2020 03:32 PM PDT  Taffer said he also offered Joe Biden an interview to try to get both candidates' plans to help bars and restaurants recover from the pandemic.
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| Federal assault charges filed against woman for charging Mar-a-Lago barrier in SUV Posted: 28 Oct 2020 11:50 AM PDT  The woman was charged with racing an SUV toward a barrier at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, in January, prompting officers to fire at her vehicle.
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| A man waved a sword at a woman blocks away from a polling place, warning her to 'vote for Trump' and photographing her license plate Posted: 28 Oct 2020 02:33 PM PDT  A man attending a Trump rally in Beverly Hills on Saturday wielded a sword and threatened passersby to vote for Trump, a viral TikTok video showed.
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| Mexican president slams European coronavirus lockdown measures Posted: 28 Oct 2020 11:17 AM PDT  Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday blasted European countries for adopting strict lockdowns to stem the spread of coronavirus, suggesting they smacked of authoritarianism. Germany and France were on Wednesday preparing to announce restrictions approaching the level of spring's blanket lockdowns as COVID deaths across Europe surged. National or local authorities have already imposed nighttime curfews in several European countries, including France, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic.
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| Spotify faces new scrutiny after Joe Rogan's Alex Jones interview Posted: 28 Oct 2020 04:21 PM PDT  A Spotify executive this week seemed to defend the appearance of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on its platform, after removing the Infowars founder's content in 2018.
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| Hurricane Zeta makes landfall in Louisiana as Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds Posted: 28 Oct 2020 04:49 PM PDT  FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Hurricane Zeta, which has been increasing in intensity and speed all day, is making landfall in southeast Louisiana as a Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds, according to the 5 p.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center. Zeta, which is traveling at a brisk 24 mph, is almost a Category 3 hurricane, which is considered a major hurricane. A Category 3 hurricane has ...
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| Early Voters in Florida and Wisconsin Are Done With the Mail Posted: 27 Oct 2020 07:04 PM PDT  MIAMI—On Tuesday afternoon, Gerard Legagneur walked right past the mailbox near the front of Miami Beach city hall, one of 33 early-voting and mail-in ballot drop sites in Miami-Dade, the most populous county in Florida.Always a hotly-contested slice of political turf, the county has seen Republicans gain ground on Democrats' lead in the number of early ballots cast for the Nov. 3 presidential election in recent days. Legagneur, a Biden-Harris voter, wanted in on the action.A stocky 44-year-old voter sporting a Captain America t-shirt, Legagneur approached a pair of poll workers in face masks and latex gloves standing underneath a black gazebo. He unzipped his book bag and pulled out his mail-in ballot. After checking his identification, one of the poll workers grabbed Legagneur's mail-in ballot and placed it inside a metal drop box.Legaganuer told The Daily Beast he received his mail-in ballot roughly three weeks ago and was unsure if he would go through with it."I've always voted at the polls," Legagnuer said. "I was still debating whether or not to fill it out. I think it is pretty clear to anyone who is informed about the whole debacle with our mail system, you don't want to take any chances."The previous day, Legaganeur found out that the U.S. Postal Service was recommending voters put their mail-in ballots by Tuesday to make sure the documents were delivered to election offices by next week's election day deadlines. At the same time, he knew the Miami-Dade elections department set up a drop off location at Miami Beach City Hall when early voting began on Oct. 19."I had walked by a few times and saw how long the lines were, but today was the day I could do it," Legaganeur said. "I filled out the ballot and dropped it off. It seems like it's legit."If Democrats want to maintain their early voting edge over the GOP as both parties head into the election's homestretch, the party is counting on tens of thousands more voters like Legaganeur in multiple states to personally deliver their mail-in ballots to local polling sites. By late Tuesday, advocates said, the window to safely prod people to put their votes in the mail had effectively closed.According to the latest data from the Florida Division of Elections, registered Democrats in the state had delivered roughly 600,000 more vote-by-mail ballots than Republicans by late Tuesday. But registered GOP voters were outflanking their liberal rivals at in-person polls, accounting for approximately 316,000 more early votes there so far than Democrats, according to the Division of Elections' statistics.At the same time, 852,117 mail-in ballots requested by Democratic voters had not been turned in compared to 652,405 that had not been returned by Republicans. In Miami-Dade, 111,944 mail-in ballots requested by Democrats remained outstanding compared to 70,960 for Republicans.The county had also sent out 20,342 replacement mail-in ballots to voters who claimed they did not receive it or who filled it out incorrectly.For those vote-by-mail voters still holding on to their ballots, local party leadership and get-out the vote groups were instructing them to forget going to the post office or a mailbox. And Florida wasn't the only state where activists and advocates were worried the time to postmark a ballot and have a say in Donald Trump's political fate had come and gone.Jacquelyn Kovarik is the communications director of Voces de la Frontera Action, a nonprofit organization focused on lobbying and civic engagement in Hispanic and Latino dominated wards in Milwaukee. She told The Daily Beast she wasn't surprised the state Supreme Court had just blocked a judge's ruling that the state should accept ballots after Election Day as long as they had been postmarked on time.Her organization had already pivoted from telling people to mail in ballots anyway, and as the New York Times reported, Democrats in the state were now frantically urging voters to return early votes in person."We've been encouraging people not to mail in their ballots after October 23 to avoid delays and to instead drop off in the boxes or vote in person after that date," Kovarik told The Daily Beast.Erica Dvorachek, 44, was among those early voting in-person in Milwaukee Tuesday. But she said the state Supreme Court ruling wasn't her motivation."I trust the Post Office but I think they are just overwhelmed, and I just wanted to come in and do it in person," she said.Perhaps understandably given the history of fraught ballot counts in South Florida, the temperature was even higher there.Abel Iraola, Florida press secretary for the youth get-out-the-vote organization NextGen America, offered a dramatic warning on Twitter early Tuesday: "The fact that we're 7 days out means exactly one thing: if you/your friends are still holding on to ballots, DO NOT mail them back. Return them in a dropbox (at an Early Vote location) or go vote early. It is too late to risk your ballot not arriving by 7pm on Election Day."Iraola told The Daily Beast the tweet was by design. NextGen organizers and activists are now encouraging young voters to show up at polling sites. The shift comes after progressive-leaning electioneering groups had been pushing voters to postmark their mail-in ballots earlier this month to avoid crowding with strangers waiting in line to vote early in person and on election day. It was a strategy aimed at minimizing possible risks of contracting the coronavirus as the most pivotal election in America's history plays out in a resurgent pandemic.Meanwhile, Republican voters—egged on by President Donald Trump's deliberately misleading claims about mail-in ballot fraud and getting on with their normal lives—have been casting in-person ballots in droves."We never went in expecting to get 90 to 100 percent of all these mail-in ballots turned in," Iraola said. "But it does put the onus on us to do the work and get people to drop off their mail-in ballots or go vote early. We've also had a lot of people who requested mail-in ballots who haven't felt comfortable sending it with the U.S. Postal Service."That sentiment was shared by Democratic and Republican voters interviewed by The Daily Beast. Yulia and Yves Arispe were ahead of Legagneur at the Miami Beach City Hall elections site when they dropped off their mail-in ballots. Voting in their first election since becoming U.S. citizens two years ago, the Venezuelan American couple said they filled in the bubble for the Trump-Pence ticket.Yves Arispe said they were aware of the president's unwarranted attacks on the mail-in ballot system, but that handing over the sealed documents to actual poll workers reassured them that their votes would be counted. "We don't need Donald Trump to tell us about corrupted elections," he said. "We know because we come from a place where thousands of ballots mysteriously disappear and go uncounted."Arispe also claimed the U.S. Postal Service failed to deliver other important pieces of mail to him and his wife. "That was the main reason we wanted to drop it off," he said. "We didn't want to risk not having our ballot delivered on time and go uncounted."Despite the Arispes' apparently Trump-fueled mistrust of the postal service, there is recent anecdotal evidence mail delivery in the Miami area is not up to the challenge. The Miami-Dade elections department this week hand-delivered a replacement ballot to an elderly voter residing in a Jewish retirement home that went an entire week with no mail delivery, according to the Miami Herald. And on Oct. 19, the first day of early voting, South Florida's U.S. Attorney's Office criminally charged Miami Beach mail carrier Crystal Nicole Myree with stealing a vote-by-mail ballot, more than three-dozen political flyers, gift cards, and pre-paid debit cards.The distrust of the postal service stretched across Miami Beach into mainland Miami. At the Lemon City Library early voting and drop off site, 37-year-old Nichole Ayres was dropping off her mail-in ballot. A petite blonde woman with a pink facemask and floral print tank top, Ayres said it was the first time she was not voting in-person. "I decided to go with a mail-in ballot because of COVID-19," she said. "Here, everyone is wearing a mask, I didn't have to go inside and everybody is socially distant. It was easy peasy."Still, she had no confidence putting her ballot in a mailbox. "I was not aware that today was the last day to put it in the mail to make sure it arrives on time," Ayres said. "But I always planned on dropping it off. Most everyone I know has either dropped off their mail-in ballot or they are going to do it this week."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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| Jeff Van Drew, congressman who ditched Democrats for Trump, struggling in reelection race Posted: 28 Oct 2020 06:03 AM PDT  A congressman who switched from the Democratic Party to join Republican ranks is struggling in his ace for reelection.
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| Megyn Kelly slams Sunny Hostin over SCOTUS comments: ‘More intentionally dishonest than stupid’ Posted: 28 Oct 2020 09:45 AM PDT  Megyn Kelly is no stranger to controversy and being called out on social media, but this week she was the one taking the offensive against Sunny Hostin for what she believes to be "intentionally dishonest" rhetoric. Hostin, who serves as a co-host and political analyst on The View, slammed the Republican Party on Tuesday for stealing seats from the Democrats and pushing through right-wing judges in their place. "We all know the Republican Party has been packing the Supreme Court for decades," Hostin said.
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| ‘White racist cops got my own dad’: Walter Wallace’s young son speaks out Posted: 28 Oct 2020 06:17 AM PDT  An investigation has been opened into the police shooting of Walter Wallace who died in Philadelphia on Monday afternoon
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| Melania Trump slams Biden, Dems in first solo campaign stop Posted: 27 Oct 2020 01:57 PM PDT  Melania Trump lined up squarely with her husband Tuesday on her first solo trip of the 2020 campaign, slamming Joe Biden, Democrats and the media as she pushed the president's reeelection message in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The first lady defended Donald Trump's record on COVID-19 even as he continues to play down the threat of a virus that has killed more than 226,000 Americans. Mrs. Trump also denounced what she called Biden's "socialist agenda" and criticized media coverage of "idle gossip and palace intrigue" in the White House.
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| With ropes and wooden guns, returning Armenians train for war Posted: 29 Oct 2020 05:26 AM PDT  When conflict broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh last month, Aghasi Asatryan was thousands of kilometres away in Germany, embarking on a career as an IT specialist. The 29-year-old Armenian national immediately applied for vacation, citing a family matter, and flew back to Yerevan, his home town. On a hillside above the Armenian capital, he began combat training at a camp founded by veterans of a previous war in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave controlled by ethnic Armenians but internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.
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| Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned Rep. Ted Yoho that she won't be 'so nice next time' following harassment incident Posted: 28 Oct 2020 04:08 PM PDT  "You do that to me again, I won't be so nice next time," Ocasio-Cortez told Yoho the day after he verbally attacked her on the steps of the Capitol.
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| US says 'very real' risk of Turkey sanctions over Russian arms Posted: 28 Oct 2020 02:19 PM PDT  A US official warned Wednesday that NATO ally Turkey faced a risk of sanctions after it defiantly tested Russia's S-400 air defense system.
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| Citing a burden on minority voters, US judge overrules Texas governor's exemption for masks at polls Posted: 28 Oct 2020 09:09 AM PDT  The judge said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's exemption for masks at polling sites put a "discriminatory burden on Black and Latino voters."
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| Mother’s body decayed for years in home she shared with her adult children, TN cops say Posted: 28 Oct 2020 12:24 PM PDT  Police found her skeleton buried under a pile of clothes on a bed
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| Nevada dad accused of throwing newborn baby off balcony during argument Posted: 28 Oct 2020 06:43 PM PDT  Clarence Martin, Jr. allegedly suffered from "mental issues." A newborn was allegedly thrown from the second-floor balcony by her father on Saturday around 4 a.m. in Las Vegas. Clarence Martin, Jr. was arguing with the infant's mother, Nicole Poole, when he snatched her away to the balcony of their apartment and didn't return with her moments later, according to People.
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| Woman Beheaded in French Knife ‘Terror’ Attack at Church, 3 Dead Posted: 29 Oct 2020 02:20 AM PDT  Three people have been killed—including one elderly woman and another person by decapitation—and several others injured in a suspected terror attack inside the Notre-Dame basilica in the French city of Nice. The knife-wielding assailant, who was wounded by police gunfire, allegedly yelled "Allahu Akbar" several times, including while he was being detained, in what has come to be known as a battle cry for Islamic extremists in Europe.The city's mayor, Christian Estrosi, wrote immediately after the killings that "everything suggests a terrorist attack," and said the unnamed suspect had been arrested and taken to a hospital in the city. The Paris' anti-terror prosecutors office said it has opened an investigation. Italian police said late Thursday that the killer is a 21-year-old Tunisian migrant who was smuggled to the Italian island of Lampedusa in September. After he completed the mandatory two-week COVID-19 quarantine, he left the migrant camp and made his way to France. Authorities have his details and fingerprints as part of the immigration process and are working with French police. "The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained. He is on his way to hospital, he is alive," Estrosi told reporters at the scene. Although a motive has not been confirmed by officials, the mayor expressed his wish to "wipe out Islamo-fascism" from the country.French President Emmanuel Macron declared a state of emergency and ordered security to be strengthened at places of worship across the nation. On Wednesday night, Macron had put France back into lockdown because of its out-of-control resurgence in coronavirus cases. Hours after the attack, he visited the basilica and met with security and rescue personnel.The Nice slashings occurred on the same day that an assailant was shot dead by police near another French city, Avignon, after he reportedly waved a gun at officers, and also as a guard was reportedly attacked outside the French consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.Local reports in the French Riviera city say the elderly woman and a man who died were attacked inside the heart of the Nice basilica. The BBC reports a woman who fled to a nearby cafe was stabbed many times and died at a hospital, and that a witness at the scene managed to set off an alarm on a "special protection system" set up by city officials. One eyewitness told the BBC: "We heard many people shouting in the street. We saw from the window that there were many, many policemen coming, and gunshots, many gunshots."In July 2016, Nice was the scene of unthinkable carnage when an armed French delivery driver attacked a waterfront Bastille Day fireworks party with a truck, killing at 84 people, including 10 children. France has been under high alert for terrorist acts in recent weeks as 14 people suspected of murdering 12 Charlie Hebdo staffers, a female police officer, and four men in a Jewish supermarket in 2015 in retaliation for the publication of cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad went on trial.As the courtroom proceedings opened, two people were stabbed near the publication's old offices in Paris on Sept. 25 in what the French interior minister then declared was "clearly an act of Islamist terrorism."The Nice attack also comes less than two weeks after the beheading of middle-school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris after he had shown his students cartoons published by the satirical magazine.Estrosi said the two attacks were similar. "The methods match, without doubt, those used against the brave teacher in Conflans Sainte Honorine, Samuel Paty," he said.Family of Moscow-Born Teen Who Beheaded Teacher Were from Chechnya Where Charlie Hebdo Cartoons Are DemonizedPresident Macron delivered the eulogy at Paty's funeral, and said France would not abandon its right to free speech. "We will continue, Professor. We will defend the freedom that you taught so well and we will promote secularism, we will not renounce caricatures, drawings, even if others retreat," Macron said. "We will continue the fight for freedom and the freedom of which you are now the face."Macron's comments have drawn sharp criticism in the Islamic world with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling for a boycott of French goods. In response, Charlie Hebdo published a caricature of Erdogan in his underwear lifting a Muslim woman's skirt on Wednesday, drawing scorn from Erdogan for what he referred to as a "a grave insult to my prophet."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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| Japan cyclist becomes first to face dangerous driving charges after law change to include bikes Posted: 28 Oct 2020 05:07 AM PDT  A Japanese man has become the nation's first cyclist to be arrested over a road rage incident since traffic laws were recently revised to curb dangerous driving. Akihiko Narushima, 33, allegedly swerved his bicycle in an erratic manner across the street obstructing vehicles, at one point directly cycling towards a woman in her 40s driving a car. His actions, in Okegawa, Saitama Prefecture, were caught on the dashboard camera of a nearby vehicle, according to local media reports. Mr Narushima, a part-time labourer, was already in custody when the arrest warrant was issued, after allegedly grabbing an elderly man who tried to reprimand him for dangerous cycling. His arrest over obstructive driving on his bicycle is reportedly the first of its kind after the Japanese government revised its Road Traffic Act in June, according to the Mainichi newspaper. The revision involved widening the scope of offences that fall into the classification of dangerous driving, so that cycling dangerously can also constitute a criminal offence. The decision to revise traffic laws came after a string of high-profile traffic fatalities, with penalties for obstructive driving include a prison term of up to three years or a fine of around £3,696 (500,000 yen). Police are planning to investigate Mr Narushima's involvement in several dozen similar incidents in the area, where he is reportedly notorious among locals for his road rage antics, earning him the nickname "Okegawa pop-out boy". Cycling traffic violations across the spectrum are reportedly soaring in Japan this year, as a growing number of people swap public transport for bicycles due to the pandemic. A total of 12,839 violations were reported in the first half of this year, according to National Police Agency figures released last month, with many relating to cyclists ignoring traffic lights.
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