| PHOTOS: Yugoslavia's brutalist relics fascinate the Instagram generation Posted: 30 Oct 2019 08:52 AM PDT  Genex Tower is unmissable on the highway from the Belgrade airport to the center of the city. Its two soaring blocks, connected by an aerial bridge and topped with a long-closed rotating restaurant resembling a space capsule, are such an unusual sight, the tower, built in 1977, has become a magnet for tourists despite years of neglect. The tower is one of the most significant examples of brutalism — an architectural style popular in the 1950s and 1960s, based on crude, block-like forms cast from concrete.
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| Former national security adviser John Bolton scheduled to testify in impeachment inquiry Posted: 30 Oct 2019 03:19 PM PDT  Some lawmakers have indicated they would be open to subpoenaing John Bolton to compel his testimony if he does not show up on Nov. 7.
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| Australian sentenced to 36 years for murder, rape of Israeli Posted: 29 Oct 2019 04:34 PM PDT  An Australian judge sentenced a man to 36 years in prison on Tuesday for the murder and rape of an Israeli student whom he bludgeoned into unconsciousness moments after she stepped off a tram in Melbourne before setting her corpse on fire. Victoria state Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth ordered Codey Herrmann, 21, to serve at least 30 years behind bars for his crimes against 21-year-old Aiia Maasarwe last January. The judge said she would have sentenced Herrmann to 40 years in prison with 35 years to be served before he became eligible for parole if he had not pleaded guilty in the face of an overwhelming prosecution case.
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| China pushes higher 'moral quality' for its citizens Posted: 30 Oct 2019 04:16 AM PDT  From budgeting for rural weddings to dressing appropriately and avoiding online porn, China's Communist Party has issued new guidelines to improve the "moral quality" of its citizens. Officials have released several sets of guidelines this week alongside a secretive conclave of high-ranking officials in Beijing which discusses the country's future direction. Public institutions like libraries and youth centres must carry out "targeted moral education" to improve people's ideological awareness and moral standards, according to the rules.
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| Tucker Carlson and Guest Blame Diversity and ‘Woke’ Culture for California Fires Posted: 30 Oct 2019 04:17 AM PDT  Fox NewsFox News host Tucker Carlson and his guest, conservative YouTube personality Dave Rubin, both insisted Tuesday night that the wildfires burning across California are due largely to progressive ideology, "woke" culture, and diversity in hiring.During Tuesday's broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson welcomed on Rubin, a political commentator and podcaster, to discuss the issues surrounding the large fires engulfing the state, including those related to the electrical grid and firefighting methods."PG&E; strikes me as almost a metaphor for the destruction of the state," Carlson said about the state's power company. "Here's the utility which doesn't really know anything about its own infrastructure but knows everything about the race of its employees. How did we get there?"After noting that he lives near one of the fires in the Los Angeles area, Rubin immediately took aim at liberal politics as the main reason the wildfires have grown so large and dangerous."The problem right now is that everything, EVERYTHING, from academia to public utilities to politics, everything that goes woke, that buys into this ridiculous progressive ideology that cares about what contractors are LGBT or how many black firemen we have or white this or Asian that, everything that goes that road eventually breaks down," he declared.As Carlson nodded and said "that's true," Rubin continued, complaining that this isn't how "freedom is supposed to operate.""What is supposed to happen—imagine if your house was on fire," he added. "Would you care what the public utility or what the fire company, what contractor they brought in, what gender or sexuality or any of those things he or she was? It's just absolutely ridiculous."The Fox News host continued to agree with Rubin, who went on to tie PG&E;'s preemptive blackouts to a lack of "libertarian or conservative-minded people in California to fight what the progressives are doing to the state.""If you can't keep the lights on and you can't keep the place from burning down, you've reached the point where there is no kind of lying about it anymore," Carlson concluded. "It's falling apart. It's a disaster. It's not civilized anymore."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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| California Governor Accepted Donations from Utility Company He Now Excoriates for ‘Greed’ Posted: 30 Oct 2019 06:14 AM PDT  California governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom, has accepted large donations from Pacific Gas & Electric Co., a utility company he now excoriates for "greed" and "mismanagement."PG&E has faced widespread criticism for implementing blackouts for millions of customers to avoid sparking wildfires in the midst of California's dry and windy fall weather."I have a message for PG&E," Newsom wrote on Twitter on Friday. "Your years and years of greed. Years and years of mismanagement. Years and years of putting shareholders over people. Are OVER."Newsom and allies accepted $208,400 from the utility during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, according to local affiliate ABC10. Of that total, $150,000 went to a political spending group called "Citizens Supporting Gavin Newsom for Governor 2018," while the rest went to directly to Newsom's campaign.PG&E filed for bankruptcy in January 2019. Faulty PG&E electricity equipment has been blamed for sparking several wildfires in the past decade.California has consistently shut down proposals to clear dead trees from forests and to trim trees near power lines state wide, creating conditions for a rash of wildfire outbreaks in recent years.The Kincaid Fire currently burning in Sonoma County in the northern part of the state has forced the evacuation of roughly 200,000 people. The fire is twice the size of the city of San Fransisco.Newsom declared a state of emergency on Sunday in response to the Kincaid Fire and several other wildfires throughout the state. He again threatened PG&E in a statement on the situation."There is a plan to get out of this. This is not the new normal," Newsom said on Sunday at an evacuation center in northern California. "This is not a 10-year process to deal with this. That will not be the case… [PG&E] will be held to account to do something radically different
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| Disaster for Trump? What If the Philippines Became Russia's Ally? Posted: 29 Oct 2019 05:00 PM PDT  How could that happen?
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| Malaysia says trade spat with India over palm oil will not be prolonged Posted: 30 Oct 2019 03:33 AM PDT |
| Congress Considers Delaying Spending Talks Until After Impeachment Posted: 30 Oct 2019 12:47 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Democrats and Republicans in Congress are deliberating whether to push the deadline to fund the government into early February to avoid having a budget fight amid an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump that's set to stretch at least into December.That would mean enacting another stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown when the current short-term funding runs out Nov. 21, assuming the two sides don't be able to agree on a budget plan by then.Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby, a Republican, has floated the idea of a stopgap spending bill until February, though he said Wednesday he hasn't discussed it with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell."I think that's a pretty realistic assessment of where we are today," said Shelby of Alabama. "Miracles do happen but I haven't seen a lot of them around here."House Democrats on the Appropriations Committee are also weighing a February stopgap, lawmakers and aides say.Trump's insistence on funding a wall on the southern border is again hanging over funding decisions in Congress, as Democrats and Republicans negotiate 12 annual spending bills. An impasse over the border wall led to a 35-day partial government shutdown early this year. After it ended, Trump used emergency powers to raid military construction accounts to fund the wall.Wall MoneyWhen Shelby floated the idea of a stopgap bill until February, he said impeachment would "take the oxygen" out of the Capitol. But Democratic Representative David Price, a member of the Appropriations panel, said Trump's continued demand for money to build a border wall is the problem."Shelby can blame impeachment all he wants but it is their allocations that is standing in the way," Price of North Carolina said. "If not for this wall issue we could get this done tomorrow."House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are said to oppose a long stopgap in order to try to force a spending deal sooner. Hoyer wrote to McConnell on Tuesday to urge immediate talks on spending.Republicans want to replenish the $7 billion in military funds that Trump redirected toward construction of the border wall, and Democrats say they won't refill those accounts without provisions to guard against future shifting of funds. Senate Republicans also are seeking $5 billion in new money for the wall.This already delicate negotiation is further complicated by the impeachment process that has enraged Trump and heightened partisan acrimony on Capitol Hill.Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said Tuesday he was worried that Trump could use the Nov. 21 deadline to provoke a shutdown to distract from impeachment."I'm increasingly worried that President Trump will want to shut down the government again because of impeachment," Schumer said. "He always likes to create diversions."Shutdown FearsRepublicans and Democrats in Congress say they don't want another government shutdown, although they also said that when government funding ran out at the end of 2018. The Senate and the House, both led by the GOP at the time, were on the brink of a deal in December when Trump persuaded House Republicans to hold out for wall funding.The House has already passed its 12 appropriations bills, and the Senate this week is on track to pass a package of four spending bills that would fund Interior and Environment; Commerce, Justice and Science; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development; and Agriculture. This Senate measure would need to be reconciled with the House versions to become law.The most important thing for spending committee leaders is to agree on the topline allocation of spending for all government agencies. Senate Democrats say they'll block debate on the annual Defense spending bill, the top GOP priority, until they reach a deal on total allocations."This week will bring a litmus test: are Washington Democrats so concerned by impeachment that they cannot even fund our men and women in uniform?" McConnell said Tuesday. "It's hard to imagine a more basic legislative responsibility than funding the Department of Defense."\--With assistance from Jack Fitzpatrick.To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie AsséoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Putin faces Syria money crunch after U.S. keeps control of oil fields Posted: 30 Oct 2019 11:16 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing an unwelcome new financial challenge in Syria after the U.S. pullback enabled his ally Bashar Assad to reclaim the biggest chunk of territory in the country still outside his control.
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| Biden's communion denial highlights faith-politics conflict Posted: 29 Oct 2019 04:04 PM PDT  A Roman Catholic priest's denial of communion to Joe Biden in South Carolina on Sunday illustrates the fine line presidential candidates must walk as they talk about their faiths: balancing religious values with a campaign that asks them to choose a side in polarizing moral debates. The awkward moment for Biden came during a weekend campaign swing through South Carolina, a pivotal firewall in his hopes to claim the Democratic presidential nomination. The former vice president on Sunday visited St. Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, a midsize city in the state's largely rural northeast.
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| Who are the Vietnamese feared dead in UK truck tragedy? Posted: 29 Oct 2019 03:37 AM PDT  AFP has spoken to several families of Vietnamese nationals missing in Britain, feared to be among the 39 people found dead in a truck in Essex last week. DNA has been collected from relatives as officials in Vietnam and the UK scramble to officially identify the victims. On October 21 he wrote to his family asking them to get $13,000 to pay to smugglers for his trip to the UK, the last they heard from him.
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| Meghan McCain Spars With Cory Booker Over Civility: Beto Was ‘Very Nasty’ to Me! Posted: 30 Oct 2019 09:39 AM PDT  During a Wednesday interview with Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker, The View's Meghan McCain did what she apparently does best: Make the conversation about herself and, in this case, her personal beef with a presidential hopeful.After applauding Booker for saying Medicare for All is unrealistic, the conservative View co-host took issue with the New Jersey senator's support for mandatory gun buybacks. This then prompted McCain to lump Booker in with former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who has made buybacks a central focus of his campaign."When I heard you and Beto say that, to me, that's like a left-wing fever dream," McCain said. "And I want to know how you think you and Beto are going to go to red states and go to my brother's house and get his AR-15s because, let me tell you, he's not giving it back."Booker, meanwhile, asserted he is not nearly where O'Rourke is when it comes to gun buybacks, causing McCain to reply, "Good! Because he's crazy!""We should watch the way we talk about each other," Booker shot back. "Seriously, we can't tear the character of people down. We have different beliefs."McCain, however, invoked her ongoing feud with the one-time Texas Senate candidate, complaining that O'Rourke "has no problem doing it to me.""He was very nasty to me about this," the ex-Fox News star lamented.Last month, reacting to McCain's overt warning that gun buybacks would lead to "a lot of violence" from gun owners, O'Rourke said "that kind of language and rhetoric is not helpful" and it could become "self-fulfilling" and give permission to violence."You and I both know that just because somebody does something to us, doesn't mean we show the same thing back to them," Booker responded to McCain, garnering audience applause."I'm not running for president, with all due respect," McCain snapped back. "And the way he talks about me inciting violence on this, I take very seriously and I speak for a lot of red state Americans whether he likes it or you like it or not, there's a lot of Republicans you have to win over."The New Jersey lawmaker reacted by telling McCain that her voice was one he respected before noting that "what we say about other people says more about us than it does about them."Booker would then go on to relay an anecdote from the campaign trail in which he defused a voter's call for violence against President Donald Trump. McCain, meanwhile, brushed it aside and went back to pressing Booker on his buyback proposal and how he's going to take her brother's guns.After a bit more back-and-forth over Booker's gun proposals, host Whoopi Goldberg jumped in to send the show to a commercial break, promising the pair that they'd continue the conversation in the next segment."No we're not," McCain grumbled. "It's fine."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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| The Far Right Lost Power in Italy Two Months Ago. So Why Are Migrant Rescue Boats Still Being Refused Entry? Posted: 29 Oct 2019 12:04 PM PDT  Two months after anti-migrant Interior Minister Matteo Salvini was ousted, migrant rescue boats like the Ocean Viking are still stuck at sea
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| Democrats accused Republicans of trying to trick an impeachment witness into naming the whistleblower Posted: 30 Oct 2019 04:50 AM PDT  In a closed-door deposition, Republicans questioned Lt. Col. Vindman on whom he had discussed trump's Ukraine call with, alarming Democrats.
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| UPDATE 8-Boeing CEO pummeled on compensation, 737 MAX flaws at U.S. hearing Posted: 30 Oct 2019 07:22 AM PDT ![UPDATE 8-Boeing CEO pummeled on compensation, 737 MAX flaws at U.S. hearing]( "UPDATE 8-Boeing CEO pummeled on compensation, 737 MAX flaws at U.S. hearing") Boeing Co Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg was repeatedly hammered by U.S. lawmakers at a hearing on Wednesday over his compensation and key mistakes in development of the 737 MAX that he newly acknowledged. Enduring hours of aggressive questions related to 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which killed 346 people, Muilenburg repeatedly told lawmakers that he would not resign as chief executive of the world's largest planemaker. The back-to-back hearings in the Senate and House of Representatives are the highest-profile congressional scrutiny of commercial aviation safety in years.
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| Texas police officer shot his own son, thinking he was a home intruder, police say Posted: 29 Oct 2019 05:49 AM PDT  The incident occurred Saturday evening when the off-duty Dallas police officer returned home and thought someone might be inside, DeSoto police said.
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| Georgia Supreme Court temporarily halts man's execution Posted: 30 Oct 2019 01:29 PM PDT  With about eight hours to spare before a man convicted of killing a convenience store clerk was to be put to death Wednesday, Georgia's highest court stepped in and temporarily halted the execution. Ray Jefferson Cromartie, 52, was to receive a lethal injection at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the state prison in Jackson. Cromartie was convicted of malice murder and sentenced to death for the April 1994 killing of 50-year-old Richard Slysz in Thomasville, just inside Georgia's southern border.
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| The Royal Navy May Not Be the Most Dangerous, But It Can Kill Billions Posted: 29 Oct 2019 11:30 PM PDT  One reason: nuclear weapons.
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| 2 women have been criminally charged over their partners' suicides. Why do men escape the same blame? Posted: 30 Oct 2019 12:46 PM PDT  Experts told Insider they could not recall a similar instance of a man being charged with manslaughter in connection with his partner's suicide.
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| Has the climate crisis made California too dangerous to live in? Posted: 28 Oct 2019 11:00 PM PDT  As with so many things, Californians are going first where the rest of us will followThe San Francisco skyline is shrouded in smoke from wildfires in the north part of the state. Photograph: Jose Carlos Fajardo/Associated PressMonday morning dawned smoky across much of California, and it dawned scary – over the weekend winds as high as a hundred miles an hour had whipped wildfires through forests and subdivisions.It wasn't the first time this had happened – indeed, it's happened every year for the last three – and this time the flames were licking against communities destroyed in 2017. Reporters spoke to one family that had moved into their rebuilt home on Saturday, only to be immediately evacuated again.The spectacle was cinematic: at one point, fire jumped the Carquinez Strait at the end of San Francisco Bay, shrouding the bridge on Interstate 80 in smoke and flame.Even areas that didn't actually burn felt the effects: Pacific Gas and Electric turned off power to millions, fearful that when the wind tore down its wires they would spark new conflagrations.Three years in a row feels like – well, it starts to feel like the new, and impossible, normal. That's what the local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, implied this morning when, in the middle of its account of the inferno, it included the following sentence: the fires had "intensified fears that parts of California had become almost too dangerous to inhabit". Read that again: the local paper is on record stating that part of the state is now so risky that its citizens might have to leave.On the one hand, this comes as no real surprise. My most recent book, Falter, centered on the notion that the climate crisis was making large swaths of the world increasingly off-limits to humans. Cities in Asia and the Middle East where the temperature now reaches the upper 120s – levels so high that the human body can't really cool itself; island nations (and Florida beaches) where each high tide washes through the living room or the streets; Arctic villages relocating because, with sea ice vanished, the ocean erodes the shore.But California? California was always the world's idea of paradise (until perhaps the city of that name burned last summer). Hollywood shaped our fantasies of the last century, and many of its movies were set in the Golden state. It's where the Okies trudged when their climate turned vicious during the Dust Bowl years – "pastures of plenty", Woody Guthrie called the green agricultural valleys. John Muir invented our grammar and rhetoric of wildness in the high Sierra (and modern environmentalism was born with the club he founded).California is the Golden state, the land of ease. I was born there, and though I left young enough that my memories are suspect, I grew up listening to my parents' stories. They had been newlyweds in the late 50s, living a block from the ocean in Manhattan Beach; when they got home from work they could walk to the sand for a game of volleyball. Date night was a mile or two up the Pacific Coast Highway to the Lighthouse, the jazz club where giants such as Gerry Mulligan showed up regularly, inventing the cool jazz that defined the place and time. Sunset magazine showcased a California aesthetic as breezy and informal as any on earth: the redwood deck, the cedar-shake roof, the suburban idyll among the eucalyptus and the pine. That is to say, precisely the kinds of homes that today are small piles of ash with only the kidney-shaped pool intact.Truth be told, that California began to vanish fairly quickly, as orange groves turned into airplane factories and then tech meccas. The great voices of California in recent years – writers such as Mike Davis and Rebecca Solnit – chronicle the demise of much that was once idyllic in a wave of money, consumption, nimbyism, tax dodging, and corporate greed. The state's been booming in recent years – it's the world's fifth biggest economy, bigger than the UK – but it's also home to tent encampments of homeless people with no chance of paying rent. And it's not just climate change that's at fault: California has always had fires, and the state's biggest utility, PG&E, is at this point as much an arsonist as electricity provider.Still, it takes a force as great as the climate crisis to really – perhaps finally – tarnish Eden. In the last decade, the state has endured the deepest droughts ever measured, dry spells so intense that more than a hundred million trees died. A hundred million – and the scientists who counted them warned that their carcasses could "produce wildfires on a scale and of an intensity that California has never seen". The drought has alternated with record downpours that have turned burned-over stretches into massive house-burying mudslides.And so Californians – always shirtsleeved and cool – spend some of the year in face masks and much of it with a feeling of trepidation. As with so many things, they are going first where the rest of us will follow. * Bill McKibben is an author and Schumann Distinguished Scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College, Vermont. His most recent book is Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
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| Belgium bars Chinese professor suspected of spying for Beijing Posted: 30 Oct 2019 10:53 AM PDT  The head of a Chinese language and cultural institute at a Brussels university has been banned from Belgium after security services accused him of being a spy. Xinning Song, 65, was also barred from the EU's passport-free Schengen zone for eight years, Belgian media reported. Professor Song has lived in Belgium for ten years. His work visa expired while he was on a trip to China. When he applied for its renewal, however, he was rejected by Belgian authorities. Their decision to impose the Schengen ban infers he is viewed as an espionage threat by security services, the De Morgen newspaper reported. Mr Song was the director of the Confucius Institute at the VUB (Free University Brussels), a department said to benefit from 200,000 euros a year in money from the Chinese government. Scrutiny has intensified around the world regarding Confucius Institutes, language and cultural centres that operate on university campuses. What separates these institutes from organisations like the British Council is that they fall directly under the Chinese ministry of education, which ultimately reports to the ruling Communist Party's central propaganda department. US and UK politicians have raised concerns about the risks Confucius Institutes pose in terms of academic freedoms, and potential theft of proprietary research on university campuses. Confucius Institutes, for instance, must obey Chinese law, which could include advocating for Beijing's territorial claims around the world and censoring discussion by not allowing events, speakers or textbooks deemed sensitive by the Communist Party, according to a report by the Royal United Services Institute, a security think tank. "Pressure has also been applied to academics at [the University of] Nottingham to stand down or avoid inviting certain external speakers, because they and/or their chosen subjects were deemed too sensitive," reads the report written by Charles Parton, a British diplomat who was posted to China. Beijing approves Confucius Institute course materials, events and even evaluates teachers. The centres "represent an endeavour by the Chinese Communist Party to spread its propaganda and suppress its critics beyond its borders," said a February report by the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, an advocacy group. The UK alone has around 30 of these on attached to major universities such as Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Cardiff and University College London. There are an additional 148 Confucius "classrooms" in schools around the UK, according to a Chinese government website. At least 27 universities around the world have terminated ties with Confucius Institutes, including campuses in the US, the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Canada, while others reversed decisions to break ground on an institute In 2018, Belgian security services advised government ministers against supporting a Confucius Institute at the VUB, but the warning was ignored. Mr Song couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
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| Dem Rep Claims Trump’s Immigration Policy Reflects a ‘White Supremacist Ideology’ While Grilling USCIS Chief Posted: 30 Oct 2019 11:33 AM PDT  Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz accused President Trump and acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli on Wednesday of implementing immigration policy in service of a "white supremacist ideology."The accusations came during a hearing of the House Oversight Committee on immigration policy."You and Mr. Trump don't want anyone who looks or talks or differently than Caucasian Americans to be allowed into this country," Wasserman Schultz began. A staffer sitting behind her was captured on video as her eyes widened in shock."You have demonstrated that you will pursue this heinous white supremacist ideology at all costs," said Wasserman Schultz. Cuccinelli answered that neither he nor the President was a white supremacist."That's false," Cuccinelli said, calling Wasserman Schultz's statements "defamatory."Cuccinelli had been summoned to the hearing to discuss the Trump administration's decision to temporarily stop granting deportation deferments for illegal aliens receiving life-saving treatment in the U.S.Representative Ayanna Pressley (D., Ohio) also entered into a heated exchange with Cuccinelli over who was responsible for the decision, himself or White House officials. Cuccinelli repeatedly asserted that he made the decision and that no White House official was involved.Trump had considered appointing Cuccinelli secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. However, Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) said the idea was a non-starter."It's my understanding that the existing law would not permit him to" lead the organization, Grassley said. "I don't know how you get around that." Grassley was referring to current laws that govern succession rules within the federal government.On Tuesday, a top Border Patrol official warned that illegal immigration could hit crisis levels if courts keep blocking Trump's immigration policies."We will go back, mark the words, we will go back to the crisis level that we had before," said chief of law enforcement operations for the Border Patrol Brian Hastings. "It is kind of a new norm. We're at risk at any time."
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| Senior adviser Jared Kushner: Time in White House spent 'cleaning up the messes' left by Biden Posted: 29 Oct 2019 04:28 PM PDT  Jared Kushner, senior adviser and son-in-law to President Trump, responded to former Vice President Joe Biden's claim that he was unqualified to serve in the White House in a recent interview, telling an Israeli journalist that he's spent his time in the administration addressing problems of Biden's making.
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| Beachgoers capture photos of washed up whale, sea turtle along New Jersey beaches Posted: 29 Oct 2019 07:37 AM PDT  A humpback whale and a sea turtle were found on two New Jersey beaches. The causes of death are unknown, but turtle may have been hit by boat.
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| Germany ups fight against anti-Semitism, far-right extremism Posted: 30 Oct 2019 08:16 AM PDT  Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet passed new measures Wednesday aimed at helping fight far-right extremism and anti-Semitism following an attack on a synagogue earlier this month. The proposals include tightening gun laws, stepping up prosecution of online hate, and boosting financial support for projects fighting anti-Semitism and far-right extremism. "The horrible attack on the Jewish community in Halle showed again what the unleashing of hatred online can lead to," Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said at a news conference in Berlin when she introduced the bundle of measures alongside Germany's interior and family ministers.
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| Bangladesh opposition stalwart jailed for threatening PM Posted: 29 Oct 2019 05:49 PM PDT  A Bangladesh opposition stalwart was jailed in absentia for three years Wednesday for threatening the prime minister in what his party said was another example of government critics being muzzled. Thousands of opposition activists have been arrested under the rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has tightened her grip on power since being re-elected in December. Giasuddin Quader Chowdhury, a vice-chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was found guilty of making statements "conducive to public mischief" and "criminal conspiracy", the court said.
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| 2020 Toyota Land Cruiser Heritage Edition Is Even More Capable and Luxurious Posted: 29 Oct 2019 06:00 PM PDT |
| Bosnian Serb ex-soldier jailed for 20 years for burning Muslim civilians Posted: 30 Oct 2019 07:59 AM PDT ![Bosnian Serb ex-soldier jailed for 20 years for burning Muslim civilians]( "Bosnian Serb ex-soldier jailed for 20 years for burning Muslim civilians") A Bosnian court jailed a former Bosnian Serb soldier for 20 years on Wednesday for setting ablaze 57 Muslim Bosniaks, of whom 26 including a two-day-old baby died, near the eastern town of Visegrad early in Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Radomir Susnjar, 64, known as Lalco, was also found guilty of robbery and illegal detention of civilians, the court said. The group of Muslim Bosniaks had been seized after an attack on the village of Koritnik and locked in a house that was set ablaze with an accelerant and explosives while Susnjar and other Bosnian Serb Army members shot at it to prevent anyone fleeing.
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| Russia's Risky Game Plan for Syria Posted: 29 Oct 2019 09:35 AM PDT  Moscow had hoped to be rewarded with the opportunity to base additional military equipment inside Syria in exchange for standing by Bashar al-Assad.
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| Former </>Time Editor Wants Hate-Speech Laws, Thinks Trump ‘Might’ Violate Them, and Misses the Irony Posted: 30 Oct 2019 02:11 PM PDT  A former Time editor claimed that the United States needs a law banning hate speech, and that President Donald Trump "might be in violation of it" if there were one -- because, apparently, he doesn't notice the irony of holding both of these views at once.In a Tuesday tweet promoting his Washington Post piece, titled "Why America needs a hate speech law," Richard Stengel stated:> My @WashingtonPost piece on why the very broadness of the First Amendment suggests we should have a hate speech law. And if we did, why the President might be in violation of it. https://t.co/3ybv3kC69f> > -- Richard Stengel (@stengel) October 29, 2019In the piece, Stengel writes that "many nations have passed laws to curb the incitement of racial and religious hatred" in the wake of World War II:> These laws started out as protections against the kinds of anti-Semitic bigotry that gave rise to the Holocaust. We call them hate speech laws, but there's no agreed-upon definition of what hate speech actually is. In general, hate speech is speech that attacks and insults people on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin and sexual orientation."I'm all for protecting 'thought that we hate,' but not speech that incites hate," he continues. "It undermines the very values of a fair marketplace of ideas that the First Amendment is designed to protect."It's interesting how Stengel actually does acknowledge the fact that "there's no agreed-upon definition of what hate speech actually is," and yet he still wants laws banning it. This makes absolutely no sense. After all, when he calls for laws to ban "hate speech," he is, inherently, giving the government the power to decide what would and would not qualify -- the exact same government that is led by Donald Trump, and that is full of people who support him.In other words: Stengel somehow trusts that the government will have the same view of "hate speech" as he does, and then, in the same thought, seems to acknowledge that there's actually no way that many of them would. Unless he thinks that the president and his congressional supporters would actually pass a law that they'd be in violation of, his argument for "hate speech" laws winds up being a pretty great argument against them.It's ironic, but it's not new: More often than not, it's the uber-progressives arguing for laws against "hate speech" -- despite the fact that they're often the same people who are also arguing that Donald Trump and Republicans are constantly spewing it. Maybe it's just me, but if I thought that the leader of my government was, you know, literally Hitler or whatever, the last thing that I'd want would be to give that person and their supporters control over my speech.Yes, the First Amendment gives us the right to be "offensive" with our speech. Given the fact that a new thing seems to be declared "racist" or "sexist" every day, I'm certainly glad that we do have this protection. After all, it would only take there being a few too many of the "super woke" in our government for a phrase like "you guys" to become a criminal offense.The truth is, though, the right to be "offensive" (however you define that subjective term, anyway) is not even the most important role that our First Amendment plays. No, what's most important is that it protects our right to speak out against the government when we see fit -- without having to worry about its retaliation. Like it or not, the only way to ensure that we retain this important check on government power is to never (ever) give its leaders a vehicle take it away.
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| This is what poverty looks like in the US right now Posted: 29 Oct 2019 07:29 AM PDT  Though poverty has slightly declined in recent years, the Census found that there were 39.7 million people in poverty in the US in 2017.
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| Mexican soldiers told Chapo's son to call to stop attacks Posted: 30 Oct 2019 01:00 PM PDT  Mexican security forces had a son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán outside a house on his knees against a wall before they were forced to back off and let him go as his cartel's gunmen shot up the western city of Culiacan. Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval on Wednesday showed video and presented a timeline of the failed operation to arrest Ovidio Guzmán López on Oct. 17 — an incident that embarrassed the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Guzmán called his brother Archivaldo Iván Guzmán Salazar on his cellphone and told him to stop the chaos.
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| Why are California's wildfires different this year? Posted: 30 Oct 2019 02:40 PM PDT  Destructive wildfires have ripped through California, threatening homes and famous landmarks, and forcing power outages that have plunged millions into darkness. Everything from climate change to corporate negligence has been blamed for the chaos, which has seen hundreds of thousands evacuated, and hundreds of structures destroyed. The 20 worst California wildfires on record all destroyed over 500 structures, or burned 140,000 acres, according to state agency Cal Fire.
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| The Preppy Murderer Who Cried Rape—and the Media Listened Posted: 29 Oct 2019 01:47 AM PDT  Paul DeMaria/NY Daily News Archive via Getty ImagesTo understand why the MeToo movement is so necessary—and long overdue—look no further than The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park, Sundance TV's five-part documentary series about the 1986 death of Manhattan 18-year-old Jennifer Levin at the hands of her 19-year-old friend and occasional lover Robert Chambers. It was a case that rocked New York City, became daily tabloid headline fodder, and eventually attracted national attention, thanks to the fact that Levin and Chambers were attractive, well-off white kids, as well as Chambers' claim that, though he had committed the crime, it was an accidental byproduct of Levin's attempts to rape him. A circus ensued, fueled by a degree of sexist victim-blaming so severe that it's stunning to remember that, as recently as 30 years ago, America could be so blind to, and/or simply comfortable with, the misogyny it was perpetrating.Briskly directed by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, The Preppy Murder—a three-night event debuting on Nov. 13 on both Sundance TV and AMC—takes a straightforward approach to its tale, beginning with the Aug. 26, 1986, discovery of Levin's body under a tree in Central Park. It was clear from the deep bruising around Levin's neck, and her numerous other wounds and scratches, that this was a homicide. And it didn't take long for cops, led by detective Mike Sheehan, to find a suspect. Visiting the home of Robert Chambers, they discovered the 6-foot-4 young man with a face full of deep scratches. Brought in for questioning, Chambers chose to speak without a lawyer, and his videotaped explanation of what had transpired, replayed at length here, would form the basis for the prosecution and defense's subsequent cases.'The Morning Show': A MeToo Screed Against Matt Lauer That's Almost GreatLouis C.K. Is Going on a Big 'Comeback' Tour. He Hasn't Earned His Forgiveness.According to Chambers, he and Levin had met the prior evening at Dorrian's, an Upper East Side bar that served as the de facto clubhouse for the area's affluent prep-school crowd, who—despite residing in a crime-ridden 1980s New York—were habitually left to their own devices by absentee jet-setting parents. Following a row with his current 16-year-old flame Alex Kapp, Chambers stated that he had reluctantly left Dorrian's with Levin and walked uptown to the park, where Levin, who'd previously slept with Chambers a few times, proceeded to tie his hands behind his back with her panties and mount him. Objecting to her belligerent advances, he had grabbed her around the neck and tossed her over his shoulder, resulting in her unintentional death. He'd sat stunned across the street until after her body had been found, and then gone home and fallen asleep until the police arrived.Hearing Chambers' preposterous version of events today, it's hard to fathom how anyone could have bought it for a second. The notion that this strapping man had been physically assaulted by a petite woman rang false, as did the notion that this had all been an instance of unwanted "rough sex" that had gotten out of hand—an angle that became popularized by the sensationalist New York Post and New York Daily News. Furthermore, Chambers' account didn't jibe with the obvious and severe strangulation marks found on Levin's corpse, which indicated that this attack had been prolonged and deliberate. Nonetheless, because the handsome Chambers looked like a member of the Kennedy clan, all chiseled good looks and well-heeled suits, the idea that someone like him (i.e. cultured, debonair, Caucasian) couldn't have committed such an atrocity took hold, especially thanks to the media-manipulating efforts of his repugnant lawyer Jack Litman.Through interviews with Levin's mother Ellen, her sister Danielle, and other friends, The Preppy Murder puts the lie to the heinous character-assassination portrait of Levin that Litman and company promoted through one newspaper story after another. Their fury over Levin's slut-shaming is matched only by their anguish over her loss and the ensuing ordeal of her public trial. What emerges is a clear-cut case of societal prejudice against women, and in particular, a young, carefree, independent teenager whose only crime was that she apparently wanted to sleep with a guy she liked. That was enough to open the floodgates to endless slander about her being a wild child who liked "rough sex" and kept a "sex diary." Moreover, it afforded Chambers an opportunity to cast himself as a choir boy—literally, as he leaned heavily on the Catholic Church for support, to the point that Cardinal Thomas McCarrick even wrote a letter to the judge on Chambers' behalf during his bail hearing.If there's a bombshell in The Preppy Murder—which is driven by a bounty of archival news footage and interviews with Sheehan, prosecuting DA Linda Fairstein (of Central Park Five notoriety), defense attorney Roger Stavis and local reporters Rosanna Scotto and Magee Hickey—it's the suggestion that the church's perplexing support of this cretin may have been the result of earlier sexual abuse by McCarrick, who was defrocked earlier this year for being a serial pedophile. There's no concrete proof of that claim, unlike Chambers' indisputable drug addiction and habit of burglarizing his ritzy acquaintances at every opportunity. As the show reveals, he was an impostor in this moneyed milieu—his mother, a nurse to New York's elite, had shoehorned him into a lifestyle of the rich and famous—and a blank-faced sociopathic creep with no sense of accountability. Jennifer LevinSundanceTVStern and Sundberg convey a potent sense of the privileged environment in which this tragedy took place, and recount their story with a clarity that brings the horror of it all home. Though there are occasional hiccups, such as soundbite-y comments from Fairstein and Sheehan used to segue into commercial breaks, the series gets the facts right, as well as the underlying sexism that turned the affair into a three-ring fiasco.To say that Chambers' first-degree guilt is obvious in hindsight is to imply that it wasn't evident at the time, no matter that a deadlocked jury compelled attorneys to strike an outrageous plea deal that sent Chambers away for five to 15 years on a lesser manslaughter charge. That he's still behind bars thanks to a later conviction for drug dealing at least means he'll be off the streets until 2024. But the revelation that he received more time for that bust than for his killing of Levin simply underscores the twisted priorities of a society (and criminal justice system) that cared more about narcotics than the life of an innocent woman—and demonstrates why the feminist social movements of today remain so vital.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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| Rep. Devin Nunes: Reporters asking me questions about Ukraine scandal are 'assassins' Posted: 29 Oct 2019 11:18 AM PDT  Rep. Devin Nunes on Monday announced he is now refusing to answer journalists' questions about President Trump's Ukraine scandal, labeling reporters who ask him about the story "assassins."
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| China downplays Solomon island lease debacle, tells U.S. to stay out Posted: 29 Oct 2019 02:36 AM PDT ![China downplays Solomon island lease debacle, tells U.S. to stay out]( "China downplays Solomon island lease debacle, tells U.S. to stay out") There is nothing unusual about Chinese companies experiencing issues when investing in Pacific island states or elsewhere, China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, after a rebuffed attempt by a Chinese firm to lease an island in the Solomons. The Solomon Islands government said last week a deal signed by one of its provinces to lease the entire island of Tulagi to a Chinese company is unlawful and should be terminated, a move applauded by United States. Details of the long-term lease between the Solomons' Central Province and China Sam Enterprise Group were made public shortly after the Pacific nation switched diplomatic ties to Beijing from Taiwan in September.
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| Denmark Snubs Trump With Approval of Russian Gas Pipe to Europe Posted: 30 Oct 2019 11:14 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- In a major boost for Russia's effort to tighten its grip over natural gas supplies to western Europe, Denmark said it will allow the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to pass through its territory.The decision removes the last important hurdle for the $11 billion project, which is slated for commissioning by the end of this year and bolster gas flows from Siberia into Germany. The link has drawn the threat of sanctions from the U.S., which wants Europe to buy its liquefied natural gas. It risks reigniting a feud between Donald Trump and Danish lawmakers that erupted in the summer after the U.S. president's offer to buy Greenland.Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the pipeline decision. "Denmark showed itself to be a responsible participant in international relations, defending its interests and sovereignty and the interests of its main partners in Europe," he told a briefing in Budapest, where he was on a visit.The green light gives Gazprom PJSC, Russia's gas export champion and already Europe's biggest supplier, yet another route to one of the world's most liquid gas markets. While Trump has accused Russia of using its natural gas as a political weapon, it's ultimately a commercial deal over which Washington has little influence, according to Raffaello Pantucci, Director of Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London."It's frankly too far advanced," Pantucci said. "Who are they going to sanction?"The approval also gives Russia more clout in ongoing talks with Ukraine on a new gas transit deal, increasing the risk of a disruption from Jan. 1. Uncertainty about whether those two nations can agree on time has been weighing on forward prices in Europe and sending incentives for traders to stockpile gas as a cushion against disruption."If Gazprom are confident in Nord Stream 2's imminent completion, it may encourage a tougher negotiating stance on any new Ukrainian transit deal," said John Twomey, a gas analyst at BloombergNEF in London. "If anything, the risks of a disruption on Jan. 1 have gone up as a result of this."The pipeline has divided EU governments, with nations led by Poland concerned about the bloc's increasing dependence on Russian gas."It is not too late to stop NS2," an official at the U.S. embassy in Germany said. "There are clear negative energy security and geopolitical implications for Europe from Putin's pipeline. The U.S. government agrees with the European Parliament, the U.S. House and nearly 20 European countries in our opposition to NS2."Russia, Ukraine, Europe Pledge New Gas Deal by Year-EndDenmark said on Wednesday it will allow the pipeline to pass southeast of the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. The company behind the pipeline submitted the route plan in April. Denmark had been conducting a security and environmental review of the project.Trump had objected to the link, instead urging the European Union to diversify the sources of its energy and dilute Putin's economic influence over the region. U.S. officials have also warned that project partners are at an elevated risk of U.S. sanctions.The approval is another snub of Trump by the Nordic country after it ruled out his proposal to buy Greenland this summer. The president responded by canceling a state visit to Denmark.The Danish approval covers 147 kilometers (91 miles) of the project. Nord Stream 2 said in its statement that it has already completed 87%, or 2,100 kilometers, of the pipeline in Russian, Finnish and Swedish waters as well as most of the German part. Dan Jorgensen, Denmark's minister for climate, energy and utilities, declined to comment on Wednesday.Nord Stream 2 said it will continue its "constructive cooperation with the Danish authorities to complete the pipeline."Six WeeksGazprom CEO Alexey Miller said that the pipeline is expected to be completed on time by the end of the year. "The remaining 147 kilometers -- that's five weeks of work," Miller told reporters in Budapest.A statement from the company highlighted some uncertainties in that timetable. Nord Stream 2 said Wednesday the actual start of the construction depends on a number of legal, technical and environmental factors, which will "take a few weeks" and the project aims for completion "in the coming months."Gazprom can't use the permit for the next four weeks when all involved parties have leeway to make a complaint under Danish law. Those issues left analysts anticipating some delay beyond Jan. 1 for the completion of the link."It's unlikely that Nord Stream 2 is online in time for Jan. 1, so Ukrainian transit disruption risks remains," said Twomey.While Gazprom owns the pipeline, half the financing of the 8 billion-euro capital cost comes from five European companies: Uniper SE and Wintershall of Germany, OMV AG of Austria, Engie SA of France and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.Dutch gas for the first quarter declined to the lowest since at least 2017 as the region is oversupplied with the fuel, storage sites across Europe are full, and LNG imports surge.(Updates with Putin comment in third paragraph.)\--With assistance from Dina Khrennikova, Vanessa Dezem and Ilya Arkhipov.To contact the reporters on this story: Morten Buttler in Copenhagen at mbuttler@bloomberg.net;William Wilkes in Frankfurt at wwilkes1@bloomberg.net;Anna Shiryaevskaya in London at ashiryaevska@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Christian Wienberg at cwienberg@bloomberg.net, ;Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net, ;Nick Rigillo at nrigillo@bloomberg.net, Gregory L. White, Reed LandbergFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Hungary nixes NATO statement on Ukraine due to minority spat Posted: 30 Oct 2019 11:53 AM PDT  Hungarian officials said Wednesday that the country has vetoed a joint NATO statement about Ukraine because it didn't mention the "deprivation of rights" of the Hungarian minority in the neighboring country. Hungary says that changes to Ukrainian education and language laws curtail minority rights and Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government is also at odds with Ukraine because it rejects allowing ethnic Hungarians there to hold dual citizenship.
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