| 2020 Vision: If a single speech can shake up the Democratic race, it might happen in Iowa Posted: 01 Nov 2019 12:07 PM PDT  Will any of this year's candidates pull an Obama at the newly named Liberty and Justice Celebration?
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| Greta Thunberg says meeting with Trump 'would be a waste of time' Posted: 01 Nov 2019 07:58 AM PDT  The Swedish teenage climate activist says she wouldn't want to meet with the president even if given the opportunity.
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| Nicaragua court convicts ex-student in New York killing Posted: 01 Nov 2019 09:29 PM PDT  A Nicaraguan court on Friday convicted a dual U.S.-Nicaraguan citizen of killing a nursing student in New York state after an unusual trial that saw many witnesses testifying by long-distance video conference. Broome County District Attorney Steve Cornwell confirmed Orlando Tercero's conviction in a tweet. The 23-year-old former Binghamton University student was found guilty of the March 2018 killing 22-year-old Haley Anderson.
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| Missing New Hampshire couple found buried on Texas beach, sheriff's office says Posted: 02 Nov 2019 02:24 PM PDT  Missing New Hampshire couple James and Elaine Bulter were found dead, buried on a beach in Kleberg County, Texas in an ongoing homicide investigation.
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| California wildfires: Climate change driving ‘horror and the terror’ of devastating blazes, say scientists Posted: 02 Nov 2019 09:52 AM PDT  The words from California's former governor could barely have been more stark."I said it was the new normal a few years ago,'' said Jerry Brown. "This is serious, but this is only the beginning. This is only a taste of the horror and the terror that will occur in decades."
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| My Hospital Was Bombed by Putin and Assad. Why Won’t America Hear Our Cries? Posted: 01 Nov 2019 02:10 AM PDT  National GeographicOn Oct. 13, The New York Times published a story that proved that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's Russian allies deliberately bombed four hospitals in opposition-held Idlib province in May. Indiscriminate or intentional targeting of hospitals and medical facilities is a war crime, and both culprits have always denied the charges. In reality, Assad has targeted hospitals and other civilian structures from the start of the war, and Russia has done the same since it entered the war in 2015. The Times investigation is important because it is apparently the first to present substantive proof of this specific war crime. The newspaper's conclusions are based on comprehensive evidence from many sources, including thousands of Russian Air Force radio recordings of pilots and ground control officers. There are videos documenting the bombing of three of the four hospitals, and recordings of the Russian pilots confirming their strikes. There are testimonies of witnesses and survivors, and flight logs from the spotters who keep watch on the sky in order to warn civilians of impending attacks.I know what it's like to experience such an attack, having lived through many of them during the six years I worked as a pediatrician at the Cave, an underground hospital in East Al Ghouta. On September 28, 2015, Russian warplanes bombed the Cave, killing three male nurses and injuring two female nurses, including my friend Samaher. Samaher suffered terrible memory loss for about a year, but she continued working at the hospital despite the trauma she carried with her. When I became manager of the Cave in 2016, I did everything I could to shore up the infrastructure above and below ground so it could withstand bombings. I worked on evacuation plans to ensure the safety of patients and staff. We all knew another attack could come at any time. And the attacks multiplied in frequency and brutality as Assad and Russia closed in on Al Ghouta. During our final month in the Cave, we were hit five or six times by barrel bombs. It can't be said often enough: Assad and Russia are malign actors that cannot be trusted. When they agreed to help the Kurdish-led SDF in northeastern Syria, it wasn't about protecting a vulnerable ethnic group. It was about positioning themselves in a regional conflict that has international ramifications that go beyond the Kurdish issue. The Syrian and Russian governments didn't protect the Kurds in the past, and they won't protect them once the current fight is over. Assad has never been a friend to Syria's Kurds, who are the country's largest ethnic minority. All Syrians—Arabs, Christians, Kurds—have suffered under Assad's regime. I have many Kurdish friends who took part in the 2011 demonstrations in Al Ghouta, one of the first and most important areas to speak out for freedom and democracy. We were all trapped there when the government laid siege to the area in 2013. When Russian troops marched into Al Ghouta in 2018, we were displaced. The list of Assad's war crimes is long. With the help of his allies Russia and Iran, he has committed these atrocities out in the open while the world looked on. Half of Syria's population has been displaced. In the five-year siege of Al Ghouta, civilians were deliberately starved, deprived of medicine, and repeatedly bombed. Then there are the multiple chemical attacks on opposition territories. I was in East Al Ghouta in August 2013 when rockets loaded with sarin gas were dropped while people slept. I never imagined that one day the government would use chemical weapons to kill civilians. When that happened, I realized they wanted to kill everybody in Al Ghouta—and anyone in Syria who wanted freedom. All told, close to one million people have been killed and about half a million are detained in prisons where they are tortured and murdered. Two-thirds of the country is destroyed. Dr. Amani Ballour amongst the rubble in SyriaNational GeographicWhat concerns me now is the safety of the Syrian Arab and Kurdish citizens in the north, especially the women and children who always pay the highest price in wars. So far, some 160,000 people have been displaced, many of whom were already refugees from other parts of Syria. With winter coming, the situation is even more urgent. Every winter, refugee camps in the north are flooded with water and mud, and tents become uninhabitable. The camps in the northwest were already overcrowded and miserable and are hardly equipped to take in more homeless, traumatized civilians.It is not too late for the free world to act, for Western nations to show that they believe what they say about human rights. An entire generation of Syrian children—2.6 million—have had no education whatsoever because of the war. They deserve schools in safe places, where they can learn without fear. Women in refugee camps often have no idea about their rights and they are frequently exploited to work for barely any pay. They deserve better. Right now, the international community could direct resources to help the hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians who will soon be freezing. There is plenty of empty land in the northwest of Syria, where nongovernment organizations could build houses for people needing shelter. But in no way should those houses be considered anything but temporary. Because it is long past time for Syrians to be able to return to their own homes. For nearly nine years, the international community has let down the Syrian people. It has focused on solving the consequences of the crimes, instead of dealing with the culprits, Assad and his allies. It is not impossible to get Assad out of Syria, to hold him to account for his crimes against humanity. If we can get rid of Assad and free Syria of all foreign interference, then Syrians can begin new lives. We who are exiles and refugees can come home and join our fellow citizens in building a free, united, democratic Syria that includes all the Syrian people without discrimination.Dr. Amani Ballour is a Syrian pediatrician, activist and founder of the nonprofit foundation Al Amal. She worked for six years at the Cave, a secret underground hospital in East Al Ghouta that is the subject of the new documentary The Cave.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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| For Vietnam's 'Box People,' a Treacherous Journey Posted: 01 Nov 2019 12:20 PM PDT  LONDON -- Vietnamese smugglers call it the "CO2" route: a poorly ventilated, oxygen-deficient trip across the English Channel in shipping containers or trailers piled high with pallets of merchandise, the last leg of a perilous, 6,000-mile trek across Asia and into Western Europe.Compared to the other path -- the "VIP route," with its brief hotel stay and seat in a truck driver's cab -- the trip in a stuffy container can be brutal for what some Vietnamese refer to as "box people," successors to the "boat people" who left after the Vietnam War ended in 1975.Vietnamese migrants often wait for months in roadside camps in northern France before being sneaked into a truck trailer. Snakeheads, as the smugglers are known, beat men and sexually assault women, aid groups, lawyers and the migrants themselves say. People cocoon themselves in aluminum bags and endure hours in refrigerated units to reduce the risk of detection.That journey proved fatal last week for 39 people, many of them believed to be Vietnamese, who were found dead in a refrigerated truck container in southeastern England.As dangerous as the last leg of the migrant journey to Britain often is, those petrifying hours in a trailer are sometimes only a sliver of months if not years of harsh treatment -- first at the hands of organized trafficking gangs, and then under imperious bosses at nail salons and cannabis factories in Britain.But still they come, an estimated 18,000 Vietnamese paying smugglers for the journey to Europe every year at prices between 8,000 and 40,000 pounds, around $10,000 to $50,000.In Britain, where Brexit has discouraged the flow of labor from Eastern Europe, migrants see a country thirsty for low-wage workers, paying easily five times what they could earn at home and free of the onerous identity checks that make other European countries inhospitable.Vietnamese smugglers, for the most part, get their clients across to France and the Netherlands, where other gangs, often Kurdish and Albanian, or, as in the recent case, apparently Irish or Northern Irish, finish the job.Many come from Ha Tinh and Nghe An, two impoverished provinces in north-central Vietnam, and leave for Britain with their eyes wide open to the risks, analysts say. Having watched their neighbors suddenly refurbish their homes with pricier materials, or buy better cars, they crave the same sense of security for their family, whatever it might cost them.But when Britain fails to deliver on that promise, migrants can end up in a dreadful limbo, kept from seeking help by the country's harsh immigration system and living in the grip of a shadowy system of traffickers and the employers who rely on them."I always encourage them, 'Stay at home,'" the Rev. Simon Thang Duc Nguyen, the parish priest at a Catholic church in East London attended by many migrant parishioners, said this week. "Even though you are poor, you have your life. Here, you have money, but you lose your life."Not all the 20,000 to 35,000 undocumented Vietnamese migrants estimated to be living in Britain have horror stories to tell. Many migrants, some experts say, put up with the travails of working in Britain for the real chance of a payday."My research has shown stories of migrants are not all about exploitation and not all about being trafficked," said Tamsin Barber, a lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. "People are usually coming here agreeing to take high risks to work illegally and potentially earn large amounts of money in the cannabis trade."But more vulnerable Vietnamese are also being trafficked to Britain, with the authorities receiving five times as many referrals last year as in 2012.Once family and friends have scraped together enough money, the odyssey may begin with a trip to China to pick up forged travel documents. That is how many of the dozens of people who died in the truck began their journey, said Anthony Dang Huu Nam, a Catholic priest serving a church in the town of Yen Thanh, where he said dozens of the victims were from.On the way from China to Russia to Western Europe, one of the most punishing stretches is the walk through Belarusian forests to the Polish border. In a 2017 French survey of Vietnamese migrants, a man identified as Anh, 24, told researchers that he and five other men, led by a smuggler, were repeatedly arrested in Belarus, only to be released at the Russian border to try again. When they finally succeeded, they were met by a truck waiting on the Polish side."We were cold," the survey quoted him as saying. "We didn't eat anything for two days. We drank water from melted snow."Other routes, choreographed down to the minute, land migrants in European airports with recycled visas and travel documents, according to "Precarious Journeys," a recent report from ECPAT, an anti-child-trafficking organization, and other groups. As a precaution, smugglers in Vietnam often tell people to arrive at airport check-in desks 10 minutes before they close, for instance, so agents do not have enough time to inspect paperwork.The trip can take months, even years. Nguyen Dinh Luong, 20, one of the migrants believed to have died last week, wanted to go to France to find work and support his siblings, seven of them in all, his father, Nguyen Dinh Gia, said. But in Russia, he overstayed his tourist visa and was confined to his house for six months. Then he moved to Ukraine and France, where he found a job as a waiter, before deciding to go to Britain for work in a nail salon.Trips are frequently interrupted when migrants are detained or run out of money. Some migrants are forced to work along the way, in garment factories in Russia or in restaurants across Europe. Some women sell sex, researchers say.Smugglers often keep people in the dark about where they are as a way of exerting total control. In a 2017 case, 16 Vietnamese people picked up by the Ukrainian authorities in Odessa thought they were in France.When migrants disobey their smugglers, the blowback can be fierce."They cannot be discovered by the police, so they have to keep the discipline," said Nguyen, the priest in London. "If you do not behave, you can be punished by beatings, or for women be abused sexually."And once they arrive in Britain, they are often in for a rude awakening. Sulaiha Ali, a human rights lawyer, said migrants were sometimes promised legitimate work in a restaurant or on a construction site, only to be forced to work as "gardeners" in a house converted into illegal cannabis growing operations. Locked inside the house for days at a time and often living 15 to a room, workers face the risk of fire from tampered electrical wiring and health problems from noxious chemicals.In the nail salons where many Vietnamese find work, salon bosses can control every aspect of workers' lives, a power that can breed exploitation, though researchers said some bosses also become migrants' surrogate parents, cooking for them and providing a place to stay.When the police raid places housing migrants, they can often ignore signs of forced work or human trafficking and send migrants into deportation proceedings instead, migrant advocates say. "The emphasis, as soon as it's established someone doesn't have any identification documents, is not trying to establish whether they've been exploited," Ali said. "It's on, 'Can we justify detention? Can we get them removed back to their countries?'"That threat of deportation, whatever someone's circumstances, is a cudgel for trafficking gangs to keep migrants under their sway."There's a serious distrust of authorities, a lot of the time because traffickers have embedded that in victims' minds: 'You don't have official documents,' or, 'You're going to be deported or imprisoned,'" said Firoza Saiyed, a human rights lawyer. "It's another thing that makes disclosure really difficult."Older Vietnamese migrants in Britain, many of whom arrived after the Vietnam War, are separated by a wide cultural gulf from the newer arrivals, but they have still proved to be a crucial support, ever more so in the last week.Nguyen, who left Vietnam in 1984, said he had been fielding calls from families in Vietnam, wanting to know if he could tell them whether their children were in the trailer."The mother, the father, all called me in tears," he said. "I couldn't bear hearing the words. You have to borrow a lot of money for this journey, and now you had hoped your daughter, your son can be successful, and that you can have some money to pay the debt. Now, it's hopeless -- nothing."He went on, "Nothing is OK, as long as they are arrested or in prison. It's OK, they survived. But now they lost two things. They lost hope and they lost their lives. Nothing."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Texas woman says mother's gynecologist used his sperm to conceive her after submitting DNA to Ancestry.com Posted: 01 Nov 2019 01:23 PM PDT  A woman in Texas has filed a lawsuit against a Colorado gynecologist accusing him of using his own sperm to artificially inseminate women without their consent.
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| Judge blocks Trump rule requiring prospective immigrants have health insurance Posted: 02 Nov 2019 03:48 PM PDT  Judge Michael Simon in U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon, granted a 28-day temporary restraining order that prevents the rule from taking effect on Nov. 3. Seven U.S. citizens and an advocacy organization filed a lawsuit to block the rule, arguing it "rewrites our immigration and healthcare laws by Presidential fiat" and could bar hundreds of thousands of prospective immigrants. The proclamation is blocked while the legal challenge against it continues.
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| Warren Derides Biden as Running in ‘Wrong Presidential Primary’ Posted: 01 Nov 2019 12:56 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Elizabeth Warren swatted back at Joe Biden's criticism of her $21 trillion Medicare-for-All plan Friday, accusing him of "running in the wrong presidential primary.""Democrats are not going to win by repeating Republican talking points," the Massachusetts senator said in Des Moines, Iowa. "So, if Biden doesn't like that, I'm just not sure where he's going."Warren's unusually direct attack on her campaign rival came after she released a long-awaited explanation of how she to planned to pay for her $20.5 trillion proposal to create a government-run health care system. The Biden campaign called that plan "mathematical gymnastics" intended to hide the fact that it would result in tax increases on middle-class workers.The health care rift has been a defining feature of the crowded Democratic contest and has become a proxy for an broader ideological battle over how far left the party should go. One one side: Warren and Bernie Sanders, who want bold, progressive ideas. On the other: Biden and Pete Buttigieg, who say the party should be more concerned about winning back moderate voters in swing states who could be turned off by big-spending government programs.The flap comes at a crucial moment in the Iowa campaign. Fourteen presidential candidates, including Biden and Warren, are scheduled to speak Friday at the Liberty and Justice Celebration dinner, the state party's keynote event of the year. Most of them will meet again Saturday at a Cedar Rapids fish fry.Iowa PollA New York Times/Siena College poll of Iowa Democrats released Friday showed the top four candidates — Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg and Biden — all bunched up in a five-point spread at the top of the field, within the poll's margin of error.In last month's debate, Warren had rebuffed challenges by Biden and Buttigieg to explain how she would pay for her plan. Warren and Sanders wants to abolish private health insurance in favor of government-paid health care supported in part by steep taxes on wealthy Americans.Biden and Buttigieg support more modest changes to the existing Affordable Care Act, including a public option to allow more people under age 65 to be eligible for Medicare-style coverage. They call that plan "Medicare for All Who Want It."The Biden campaign renewed its criticism of Medicare for All after Warren unveiled the price tag and her plan for meeting the cost. "We cannot defeat Donald Trump with double talk on health care -- especially not about the impact and cost of a proposal to completely dismantle our health care system and eliminate employer-sponsored and all other private health insurance," said Biden's deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield.She said Warren's plan relied on rosy projections about health care costs and tax revenues intended to hide the real cost of Medicare for All.While not weighing in on the presidential contest, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to come down closer to the Biden-Buttigieg approach. Speaking at a roundtable of Bloomberg reporters and editors Friday, she said she's "not a big fan of Medicare for all.""I welcome the debate," she said. "But it is expensive. Who pays is very important. What are the benefits that come in there?"When she was first speaker in 2010, Pelosi worked with Biden to help draft the health insurance legislation known as Obamacare and get it pushed through a Democratic Congress. She said Friday she would give Medicare for All proponents a fair hearing in House committees but was skeptical it could work.Pelosi said Democrats needed to unite around the fundamental principle of universal health care, even if they differ about how to go about it."Hopefully as we emerge into the election year, the mantra will be more health care for all Americans," she said. "Myself I think, 'Remember November.' This is a time when we have to win the Electoral College. Otherwise, we'll be faced with a president again who doesn't really care about increasing health benefits."\--With assistance from Laura Litvan and Sahil Kapur.To contact the reporters on this story: Gregory Korte in Washington at gkorte@bloomberg.net;Tyler Pager in Des Moines, Iowa at tpager1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max BerleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| O'Rourke drops out of 2020 presidential race Posted: 01 Nov 2019 02:50 PM PDT  The former representative from Texas calls it quits on his 2020 presidential bid.
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| Georgia ex-policeman sentenced to 12 years in prison in shooting of unarmed black man Posted: 01 Nov 2019 01:44 PM PDT ![Georgia ex-policeman sentenced to 12 years in prison in shooting of unarmed black man]( "Georgia ex-policeman sentenced to 12 years in prison in shooting of unarmed black man") A former Georgia police officer was sentenced on Friday to 12 years in prison after his conviction in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man outside an Atlanta apartment in March 2015. Robert "Chip" Olsen, a 57-year-old white man, was convicted last month of aggravated assault and violating his oath of office but found not guilty of murder in the killing of 26-year-old Anthony Hill. Before the sentencing, members of Hill's family urged Dekalb County Superior Court Judge LaTisha Dear Jackson to sentence Olsen to the maximum penalty of 30 years behind bars.
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| Finally, some good news for California: Infamous Diablo and Santa Ana winds will die down soon Posted: 01 Nov 2019 08:54 AM PDT  Santa Ana and Diablo winds, the pattern responsible for frequent and strong wind events in California, are forecast to end soon.
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| Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons Won’t End the World Posted: 01 Nov 2019 05:00 PM PDT  A recent video by Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, Plan A, suggests that the use of one low-yield non-strategic nuclear weapon, in a NATO-Russia conflict, would lead to the large scale use of strategic nuclear weapons and the death of more than 90 million people. While the video's makers deserve credit for its production quality and very ominous background music, the scenario they offer, while always possible, is highly unlikely.
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| ‘Shut Up About Politics’ Singer John Rich Shows Up on Fox News to Talk About Politics Posted: 02 Nov 2019 02:31 AM PDT  Months after teaming up with the hosts of Fox News midday gabfest The Five to record an extremely lame hit song titled "Shut Up About Politics," country artist John Rich appeared on Fox News to—without a shred of irony—talk about politics.Sitting down Friday with The Daily Briefing host Dana Perino—a Five host featured on the song—Rich was immediately asked to weigh in on former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's recent appearance on The Daily Show. Noting that Clinton took part in a skit in which she told a scary ghost story about losing the 2016 election despite having three million more votes than Donald Trump, Perino added that Clinton and the show "thought that was funny" but not for the same reason Rich might think it's funny.The singer, however, focused instead on how scary he found Clinton's physical appearance."That actually freaked me out a little bit," he declared. "I'm kind of envious of her because if you think about all the money she saves every Halloween, she doesn't have to get a costume."While an on-air graphic blared "Country Star John Rich Talks Politics W/Dana," again without a glint of self-awareness, Rich continued to express how physically frightened he was of the former secretary of state."Well her policies were scary and then when you put her out in the dark with a flashlight and the whole thing you go—that's how I kind of envision how that would have worked out," he added.They would go on to talk about politics and Clinton for a bit longer before moving on to how much fans love their collaborative song.That song, co-written by Fox News political pundit Greg Gutfeld, features the following lyrical refrain:Shut up about politicsAin't nothin' but a big pile of dirty tricksI'm tired of all the fighting and the pitchin' fitsSo shut up about politics.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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| Elizabeth Warren says 'Medicare for All' plan increases taxes on billionaires, avoids hike on middle class Posted: 01 Nov 2019 10:25 AM PDT  Warren promised that she would fund the program, which she says will cost "under $52 trillion over ten years," without a tax hike on the middle class.
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| A New ISIS Recording Names al-Baghdadi's Successor. Here's What to Know About the New Leader Posted: 01 Nov 2019 07:43 AM PDT  On Thursday, ISIS named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi as its new "caliph" after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed during a U.S. operation.
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| Iran says cooperation plan sent to Gulf neighbours Posted: 02 Nov 2019 10:08 AM PDT  Iran said Saturday it has sent Iraq and Arab states of the Gulf the text of its security and cooperation project first unveiled by President Hassan Rouhani at the UN in September. Rouhani "sent the full text (of the initiative) to the heads" of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Iraq and "asked for their cooperation in processing and implementing it", the foreign ministry said. The GCC is a six-nation bloc that groups Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.
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| Who Wore It Better? 10 Names Shared by Automakers Posted: 02 Nov 2019 05:20 AM PDT |
| Cambodian official says British backpacker died of drowning Posted: 01 Nov 2019 06:38 AM PDT  An autopsy has determined that a British backpacker whose body was found at sea a week after she disappeared on a Cambodian island had died from drowning, an official said Friday. Kuoch Chamroeun, the governor of Preah Sihanouk province, said by phone that the body of Amelia Bambridge was examined at the main hospital in Sihanoukville, the coastal city to which it was taken after being retrieved Thursday from the Gulf of Thailand. Maj. Gen. Chuon Narin, the provincial police chief, said earlier Friday that the autopsy would be attended by forensic police, a hospital doctor, a court prosecutor, a representative of the British embassy and members of Bambridge's family.
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| Hollow building becomes center of Iraq's uprising Posted: 02 Nov 2019 12:41 PM PDT  The skeleton of a high-rise building overlooking Baghdad's central Tahrir Square known as the Turkish Restaurant has become a temporary home and a bustling center for protesters staging demonstrations against Iraq's ruling elites. Dressed in combat trousers and wearing an Iraqi flag as a cape, the 35-year-old is the leader of the group, made up of 20-odd young men who occupy a corner of the building's base. Groups of young men have occupied all 18 floors of the building, with its cramped unlit narrow staircases.
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| Women killed by falling rocks climbing California's Red Slate Mountain Posted: 02 Nov 2019 01:40 PM PDT  The bodies of two women who were killed by falling rocks while climbing a narrow portion of California's Red Slate Mountain have been recovered.Jennifer Shedden, 34, and 22-year-old Michelle Xue, never returned from a narrow and icy portion of the mountain after embarking on the trek during the final weekend of October.
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| House Intel Chair Schiff says impeachment transcripts could come next week Posted: 01 Nov 2019 04:52 PM PDT  Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that the panels investigating impeachment could begin releasing transcripts of closed-door witness depositions early next week, part of an effort to move the investigation into public view and allow Americans to evaluate the evidence against President Trump.
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| British teenager was suffering from PTSD when she withdrew Cyprus gang rape claim, court hears Posted: 01 Nov 2019 11:26 AM PDT  A British teenager accused of lying about being gang raped in Cyprus may have retracted her claims because she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, her lawyer said at a hearing on Friday. The woman, 19, is charged with public mischief for allegedly inventing the attack at an Ayia Napa hotel on July 17. She maintains she was raped by up to a dozen Israeli tourists, but pressured by Cypriot police to make a retraction statement 10 days later. Prosecutors say the teenager willingly wrote and signed the document. On Friday, chartered consultant psychologist Dr Christine Tizzard gave evidence by videolink from Portsmouth Crown Court. Speaking after the hearing in Larnaca, lawyer Michael Polak, director of the group Justice Abroad - which is assisting the teenager - said she was diagnosed as having underlying PTSD, which was reignited by the alleged attack. Lawyer Michael Polak of Justice Abroad is supporting the teengaer Credit: KATIA CHRISTODOULOU/EPA-EFE/REX "We were pleased with the evidence from Dr Tizzard, which confirms what we have been saying," he said. "She explained in simple words to the court the ways in which PTSD affects someone who is put in a difficult situation... Their fight or flight reflex would kick in and they would do anything to get out of that situation... "We look forward to the rest of the evidence, which we say supports the teenager's case that she was put under enormous pressure to sign the retraction statement." The case was adjourned following the psychologist's evidence and a date for forensic linguist Dr Andrea Nini to give evidence is expected to be set on Monday. He is expected to say it was "highly unlikely" that the retraction statement was written by a native English speaker, supporting the teenager's case that it was dictated to her by a Cypriot police officer. The incident allegedly took place in the resort town of Ayia Napa Credit: Amir MAKAR / AFP Her lawyers want Judge Michalis Papathanasiou to rule the statement is inadmissible as evidence. The teenager was a week into a working holiday before she was due to start university when she alleged she was raped by the group of young Israeli men, but was then herself accused of making it up. She spent more than a month in prison before she was granted bail at the end of August, but cannot leave the island, having surrendered her passport. She could face up to a year in jail and a 1,700 euro (£1,500) fine if she is found guilty. The 12 Israelis arrested over the alleged attack returned home after they were released. The teenager's family have set up a crowdfunding page asking for money for legal costs, which has raised more than £40,000.
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| Bad news for Boeing: Company says more 737 NGs found to have wing cracks Posted: 01 Nov 2019 04:36 PM PDT  The FAA ordered the inspections in 737 NG's that have flown many thousands of flghts
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| Donald Trump's 'Take the Oil' Strategy in Syria Is a Mistake Posted: 01 Nov 2019 06:20 AM PDT  "A prominent and longstanding theme in the ideology and propaganda of terrorist groups rooted in the Arab Muslim world—including al-Qaeda and ISIS—is that the United States and the West are out to plunder the resources of Muslims. Such groups violently oppose U.S. troops in Muslim countries partly because they are seen as furthering the plundering mission."
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| New California fire grows as crews make headway on other blazes Posted: 01 Nov 2019 05:11 PM PDT  A new wildfire in California grew to nearly 9,000 acres (3,700 hectares) on Friday, sending thousands of people fleeing and further stretching resources in a state struggling with a spate of wildfires this season. The so-called Maria Fire erupted Thursday evening in Ventura County, 65 miles (105 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles, and burned out of control through the night, driven by high winds and threatening 2,300 structures. Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said fire crews had been thwarted by people flying drones in the area.
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| Ken Cuccinelli Calls Debbie Wasserman Schultz a Witch: She ‘Got on Her Broom and Left’ Posted: 01 Nov 2019 08:37 AM PDT  A day after a contentious congressional hearing in which he was accused by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) of pushing a "heinous white supremacist ideology," acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli essentially called the congresswoman a witch.Appearing on Fox & Friends on Friday morning, Cuccinelli brushed off questions about whether he's still being considered to head up the Department of Homeland Security by saying he will keep doing his current job "in the face of some people who would rather we are not as successful.""Are you referring to Debbie Wasserman Schultz by chance," co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked, prompting Cuccinelli to say she was "among them."The hosts went on to play a video clip from Thursday's contentious hearing in which the Florida lawmaker claimed the Cuccinelli and President Donald Trump were pursuing a white supremacist policy by denying public benefits to legal immigrants, including children."That's one of those things that politicians can say things because they are protected," co-host Steve Doocy remarked. "However, you are—as somebody who is serving in the public interests—you have to give facts."Cuccinelli insisted that while he was under oath, Wasserman Schultz was "literally protected to lie," citing the speech and debate clause in the Constitution. He then asserted that she only came into the hearing to make a speech before making his witch allusion."She wasn't at much of the committee hearing," he said. "She came in, laid on her smears on both me and the president, all completely false. And then wasn't there much longer, got on her broom and left. It was a fly-by for her and to get a little sound bite."The hosts, meanwhile, rather than push back on Cuccinelli's not-so-veiled sexist insult of a female lawmaker, instead expressed sympathy for the Trump immigration chief."She didn't want you to interrupt her," Earhardt declared. "And I guess the rules prevent you from doing but she is smearing your reputation and character and saying something you don't feel like it is true. You have to defend yourself."Following Cuccinelli's Fox & Friends remarks, Wasserman Schultz took to Twitter to respond, calling out the Trump official for trying to "silence outspoken women who speak truth to power."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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| Teachers strike taught Chicago's new mayor tough lessons -analysts Posted: 01 Nov 2019 12:27 PM PDT  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot made strategic errors in the first major fight of her tenure, an 11-day teachers' strike, but may have learned lessons that will prove useful as she confronts immense city budget challenges, political observers said. Lightfoot, 57, was elected in convincing fashion to become Chicago's first black woman mayor in April, when she vaulted to victory on promises to dismantle the city's corrupt political machine and reform the city's school district.
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| Andrew Yang's campaign has gone 'mainstream' Posted: 02 Nov 2019 10:09 AM PDT ![Andrew Yang's campaign has gone 'mainstream']( "Andrew Yang's campaign has gone 'mainstream'") While some Democratic presidential candidates are cutting back on their campaigns, entrepreneur Andrew Yang is going all in, Politico reports.Yang, who as recently as April, had fewer than 20 staff members on his campaign's payroll, now has 73 people running the show. "It's been like a startup but this startup has gone mainstream, about to go public, if you want to keep using the analogy," said Zach Graumann, Yang's campaign manager. "And frankly and I tell the team, 'we're just getting started.'" There's some big names now involved with the campaign, as well, lending more credence to Graumann's words. Devine, Mulvey, and Longabaugh -- a media consulting firm which worked for the 2016 campaign for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) but opted to not to join forces again for 2020 over "differences in a creative vision" -- has shifted its services to the Yang campaign because he's "offering the most progressive ideas" among the Democratic candidates. They also don't think he's a flash in the pan. "We wouldn't have signed on with somebody we didn't think was a serious candidate," Mark Longabaugh said. "Yang has a good deal of momentum and there's a great deal of grassroots enthusiasm for his candidacy and that's what's driven it this far." Yang still faces numerous hurdles to really get back in the running, but the campaign surely think it's possible. Read more at Politico.
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| Turkey threatens to send British Islamic State members back to UK Posted: 02 Nov 2019 09:44 AM PDT  Turkey has warned that it will send British Islamic State members back to the UK if they come into the custody of Turkish forces in Syria. Suleyman Soylu, the Turkish interior minister, told Britain and other European governments that Turkey was "not a hotel" for foreign jihadists and vowed to send them home. "When there is a Daesh member, they cancel his or her citizenship, making the person stateless. Then, they take no responsibility," Mr Soylu said. "That is not acceptable to us. It's also irresponsible." Tooba Gondal, 25, is the only British Isil member so far known to have ended up in Turkish custody. She and her children escaped from a Kurdish-run facility in northern Syria last month and ended up in the hands of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. Ms Gondal was known as "the Isil matchmaker" because she used her social media accounts to try to convince other young British women to follow in her footsteps and become wives to jihadists. Britain has for years resisted pressure from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to take back Isil members from the UK. Tooba Gondal photographed after fleeing the Ain Issa camp in Syria. But it may be more difficult to stave off pressure from Turkey, which in theory could put Ms Gondal on a plane to London or try to hand her over to the British embassy in Ankara. There are believed to be eight British men in Kurdish prisons in northeast Syria, while another 25 women and around 60 children are in Kurdish-run camps. Some of them may end up in Turkey's custody as the Turkish military continues to attack Kurdish targets. Ms Gondal was born in France but moved to London as a child and had British residency. However, the UK government is reluctant to bring her back to the UK. Ms Gondal, who married and was widowed three times while living in Isil's "caliphate", was banned from re-entering the UK last November by a Home Office exclusion order, but her son Ibrahim, three, is entitled to citizenship because of his British father. However, her 18-month-old daughter Asiya's late father was Russian. Ms Gondal is today thought to be in one of the new camps for Isil wives set up by Turkey in an area of northern Syria it seized during an offensive in 2017.
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| PG&E and Southern California Edison have turned off power to minimize fires. It hasn't worked. What will? Posted: 01 Nov 2019 10:59 AM PDT  Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison have cut off power to minimize wildfire risk. Yet the wildfires haven't stopped. What now?
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| China Thinks a Nuclear Submarine Can Sink Half of An Aircraft Carrier Battle Group Posted: 01 Nov 2019 04:00 PM PDT  Beijing is trying to find out how to sink U.S. aircraft carriers. France might know how to stop them.
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| 23 ISIS wives start repatriation case in Netherlands Posted: 01 Nov 2019 11:13 AM PDT  Lawyers for 23 women who joined the Islamic State group from the Netherlands asked a judge on Friday to order the Netherlands to repatriate them and their 56 young children from camps in Syria. The women and children were living in "deplorable conditions" in the al-Hol camp in northern Syria, lawyer Andre Seebregts said in court.
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| For the Best Three-Row Mid-Size Crossovers and SUVs, See These Full Rankings! Posted: 01 Nov 2019 03:21 PM PDT |
| Rule would let faith-based groups exclude LGBT parents Posted: 01 Nov 2019 01:14 PM PDT  The Trump administration on Friday proposed a rule that would allow faith-based foster care and adoption agencies to continue getting taxpayer funding even if they exclude LGBT families and others from their services based on religious beliefs. The announcement generated a sharp backlash from some Democratic lawmakers and LGBT advocacy groups.
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| Brazil police arrest man said to be one of world's most prolific human traffickers Posted: 01 Nov 2019 03:22 PM PDT ![Brazil police arrest man said to be one of world's most prolific human traffickers]( "Brazil police arrest man said to be one of world's most prolific human traffickers") Brazilian federal police said they have arrested Saifullah Al-Mamun, born in Bangladesh and considered by authorities one of the world's most prolific human traffickers. In an operation conducted on Thursday after collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Brazilian police arrested members of a group allegedly implicated in a large scheme of smuggling people into the United States. Several arrests were made in Sao Paulo, where Al-Mamun was living, and in three other Brazilian cities.
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| Iraq’s Top Cleric Warns Iran to Stay Out Posted: 01 Nov 2019 11:00 PM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- To understand what Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is saying, you have to translate him twice: first from Arabic to English, then from politesse to plain-speak. In the first translation, a key passage from his Friday sermon in the holy city of Karbala went like this: "No person or group, no side with a particular view, no regional or international actor may seize the will of the Iraqi people and impose its will on them."The second translation: "Back off, Khamenei!"That is how it would have sounded to Sistani's audience in Karbala, where it was read out for the ailing octogenarian by an aide; in the streets of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, where a bloody crackdown on largely peaceful protesters has taken more than 200 lives; in the Iraqi parliament, where lawmakers are negotiating a response to the demonstrations; and in Tehran, where Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been struggling to respond to the rising anti-Iran sentiment that undergirds uprisings in Iraq and Lebanon.Khamenei has unleashed Iran's proxies in the streets — Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shiite militias in Iraq — to intimidate the protesters. He has also dispatched his chief enforcer, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Qassem Soleimani, to the Iraqi parliament, to rally Shiite parties behind the feckless Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi.But if anything, these responses will only fan the anger in the streets against Iranian interference in Iraqi and Lebanese politics. Not even Khamenei, who is practiced in the art of ignoring popular resentment, can have failed to notice the anti-Iran slogans echoing through Iraqi cities. Nor will it have escaped his attention that the loudest chanting comes from Iraqi Shiites, a community he expects to favor his Islamic Republic. The Supreme Leader's anxiety was palpable in his tweets on Thursday, when he tried to blame Tehran's usual suspects — "the U.S., the Zionist regime, some Western countries, and the money of some reactionary countries" — for the protests.Sistani's sermon was a riposte, designed to set Khamenei right. Although born in Iran, he is no fan of Khamenei and other hardliners in Tehran, preferring the likes of President Hassan Rouhani.Iraq's Grand Ayatollah has been in a quandary over the protests. Every Iraqi government since 2005 has had his personal imprimatur: His word has united factions among the Shiite majority. Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi, too, has his blessing. As such, Sistani is complicit in the corruption and ineptitude that have brought the Iraqis into the streets.His early pronouncements on the protests vacillated between bromides against corruption and calls on the protesters to abjure violence. But as the demonstrations have persisted, Sistani has grown progressively more critical of the government, blaming it for the violence.His Friday sermon puts him squarely on the protesters' side. In addition to interfering Iranians, the leaders who have long benefited from his validation came under attack. As the politicians in Baghdad struggle to devise a response that will satisfy angry Iraqis, the so-called sage of Najaf warned that Iraqis have a right to a "referendum on the constitution" to change how they are governed. By invoking the prospect of a referendum, Sistani may have given the protesters a new focus for their energies, and Iraqi politicians a way to break the toxic pattern of inconclusive elections and compromise prime ministers. Much will depend on the reaction of another cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, who has also taken the protesters' side — even joining them in the streets — and has called for Abdul-Mahdi's removal.Sadr, frequently described as a firebrand, has little in common with the preternaturally placid Sistani. But the prospect of the protests being led by one and backed by the other is certain to rattle turbaned heads in Tehran. And if Sistani and Sadr were to throw their combined weight behind demands for a referendum — and who knows, maybe even inspire emulation by the Lebanese — that might be the stuff of Khamenei's nightmares.To contact the author of this story: Bobby Ghosh at aghosh73@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Bobby Ghosh is a columnist and member of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| This time, Southern California was prepared for wildfires. Here's how countless homes were saved Posted: 02 Nov 2019 09:47 AM PDT  The winds roared again but Los Angeles and other Southern California cities were prepared as firefighters saved thousands of homes.
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| Why the Fed Has No Choice but to Keep Cutting Interest Rates Posted: 01 Nov 2019 08:30 PM PDT  This is what a financial crisis looks like on Wall Street.
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| This very good girl was sworn into an Illinois state's attorney's office to provide support for sexual assault victims Posted: 01 Nov 2019 06:56 AM PDT  Hatty, a 2-year-old black Labrador retriever, was brought into the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in Chicago to work as a comfort dog.
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