| House passes bill rejecting Trump's border wall emergency Posted: 26 Feb 2019 04:00 PM PST ![House passes bill rejecting Trump's border wall emergency]( "House passes bill rejecting Trump's border wall emergency") In a stinging rebuke to President Donald Trump, the House of Representatives on Tuesday brushed aside veto threats and passed legislation to terminate the emergency he declared at the U.S.-Mexico border in order to build a wall there. By a vote of 245-182, the House passed the resolution, setting up a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate where the resolution's chances were slimmer, but seemed to be improving. While passage was a victory for Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the tally was short of what she would likely need to override a possible veto by Republican Trump.
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| Why is there only one human trafficking charge in Florida massage parlor busts? Posted: 27 Feb 2019 06:22 AM PST  Lanyun Ma and Yongzhang Yan, a married Orlando couple, owned multiple Florida spas. Police said they both were sex traffickers.
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| India Launches Airstrike Into Pakistani Territory in Response to Terror Attack Posted: 26 Feb 2019 05:35 AM PST  India launched an airstrike against a terrorist training camp in Pakistani territory early Tuesday morning in response to a recent terrorist attack carried out in the disputed border region of Kashmir.Indian authorities claim the attack killed a "very large number" of fighters but Pakistani officials maintain that no one was killed in the strike."Acting on intelligence, India early today stuck the biggest training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammad in Balakot," India's foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale ,told reporters in New Dehli, according to the Associated Press. "In this operation a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and jihadis being trained were eliminated."The attack was launched in response to a suicide bombing that killed 40 Indian soldiers on February 14 in Kashmir, a disputed territory that lies between Pakistan and Indian that both countries claim as their own.Pakistani terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for the attack, which was carried out by a member who lived in a section of Kashmir that remains under Indian control. Pakistani officials have denied any involvement in the attack and vowed to respond to any provocation by India.Chinese officials urged the two nuclear powers to show restraint and maintain stability in the region."We hope that both India and Pakistan can … take actions that will help stabilize the situation in the region and help to improve mutual relations, instead of the other way around," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters.Tensions between the two nations continue to escalate as Indian officials routinely accuse Pakistan of providing safe haven and support to terrorist groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad, a group that contests India's territorial claims in Kashmir through violent attacks. Pakistan has, however, officially outlawed the group and seized some of its property.
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| Guaido's Safety Is at Risk in Return to Venezuela, U.S. Envoy Warns Posted: 26 Feb 2019 02:34 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- The safety of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is at risk as he prepares to return to his country and embattled President Nicolas Maduro remains in power, the top U.S. envoy for the crisis told the United Nations Security Council.
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| Porsche to make electric SUV: the Porsche Macan gets an overhaul Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:52 AM PST ![Porsche to make electric SUV: the Porsche Macan gets an overhaul]( "Porsche to make electric SUV: the Porsche Macan gets an overhaul") The Porsche Macan is getting an electric makeover. The Porsche SUV will be converted into a battery-powered model, the VW luxury brand announced.
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| May gives lawmakers chance to delay Brexit Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:30 AM PST  Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday offered lawmakers the chance to vote in two weeks for a potentially disorderly no-deal Brexit or to delay Britain's exit from the European Union if her attempt to ratify a divorce agreement fails. Edward Baran reports.
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| Elon Musk could face contempt charge over latest controversial tweet Posted: 26 Feb 2019 01:02 AM PST  Tesla boss Elon Musk could be held in contempt if a tweet is found to have violated a settlement deal agreed last year. US stock market regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked a court in New York to hold the chief executive in contempt for violating a $40m (£30m) settlement he reached five months ago. Now the US financial regulator is alleging that Mr Musk broke the terms of that agreement with a tweet on 19 February which showed an aerial photo of thousands of new Tesla vehicles and said the company would make about 500,000 cars in 2019.
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| Boeing unveils unmanned combat jet developed in Australia Posted: 26 Feb 2019 05:10 PM PST  Boeing Co on Wednesday unveiled an unmanned, fighter-like jet developed in Australia and designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft in combat for a fraction of the cost. The U.S. manufacturer hopes to sell the multi-role aircraft, which is 38 feet long (11.6 meters) and has a 2,000 nautical mile (3,704 kilometer) range, to customers around the world, modifying it as requested. The prototype is Australia's first domestically developed combat aircraft since World War II and Boeing's biggest investment in unmanned systems outside the United States, although the company declined to specify the dollar amount.
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| Church sex abuse scandal: Vatican opens investigation into Cardinal George Pell Posted: 27 Feb 2019 01:02 PM PST  Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican's third-most powerful official, was remanded to prison in Australia for sexually abusing two choirboys.
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| Indian defense ministry says no information about air violations into Pakistan Posted: 25 Feb 2019 09:09 PM PST ![Indian defense ministry says no information about air violations into Pakistan]( "Indian defense ministry says no information about air violations into Pakistan") NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's defense ministry said on Tuesday that it had no information about Pakistani allegations that Indian aircraft violated Pakistani airspace. Pakistan's military said that Indian military aircraft crossed the Line of Control frontier in the disputed Kashmir region and "released a payload" after Pakistan scrambled its own jets, but there were no casualties or damage. "I have no information," an Indian defense spokesman said. (Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani)
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| Why Did Senate Democrats Refuse to Protect Infants? Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  A moral catastrophe unfolded on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Monday. Forty-four Democratic senators voted against legislation that would have required doctors to give the same care to infants who survive abortion procedures that they would give to any other infant.One after another, Democratic senators took to the floor to smear the bill as an attack on women's health care, a baseless criticism that they failed to substantiate. In the process, they revealed their belief that allowing unwanted infants to perish after birth constitutes a form of women's health care.Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) reintroduced his Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in direct response to Virginia governor Ralph Northam's endorsement of permitting mothers and doctors to let infants die of neglect. "The infant would be delivered," Northam said, explaining a hypothetical case in which a woman in labor wanted an abortion. "The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."This "discussion" is what Democrats voted on Monday to preserve — a discussion not about health-care options for women but about whether or not to extend health care of any kind to newborn infants. With their votes and their speeches, 44 U.S. senators embraced Ralph Northam's position, which, despite attempting to clarify, he has never retracted."I want to ask each and every one of my colleagues whether or not we're okay with infanticide," Sasse said at the start of floor debate on Monday. "This language is blunt. I recognize that. It is too blunt for many people in this body. But frankly, that is what we're talking about here today. Infanticide is what [the bill] is actually about."Though Sasse's bill failed to pass, it succeeded in forcing Democrats to take a stance on infanticide, and though they refused to do so explicitly, the reality of their disgraceful position was abundantly clear.During floor debate, Senator Tina Smith (D., Minn.) said that the bill "puts Congress in the middle of the important medical decisions that patients and doctors should make together without political interference."Democratic senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii said it represents the idea that "the moral judgment of right-wing politicians in Washington, D.C., should supersede a medical professional's judgment and a woman's decision.""It makes no sense for Washington politicians who know nothing about these individual circumstances to say they know better than the doctors, patients, the family," said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.). "The bill is solely meant to intimidate doctors and restrict patients' access to care and has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with protecting children.""This is how our medical system is supposed to work," Smith added later in her remarks. "Physicians and patients making decisions together based on patients' individual needs."Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois labeled the bill an effort to "bully doctors out of giving reproductive care." And Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) said the legislation "would interfere with the doctor–patient relationship and impose new obstacles to a woman's constitutionally protected right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health.""Conservative politicians should not be telling doctors how they should care for their patients," Hirono said. "Instead, women, in consultation with their families and doctors, are in the best position to determine their best course of care."All of these statements take as their premise a fundamental lie about the legislation. No part of the born-alive bill limits abortion access or regulates abortion methods in any way. It involves abortions only to the extent that the infants in question survived them. Nor does the bill mandate any particular kind of care for these infants; it merely requires that these nearly aborted newborns be afforded "the same degree" of care that "any other child born alive at the same gestational age" would receive.But these statements from Democrats are more than mere falsehoods. They expose a sinister reality: There is no daylight between their argument and that of Ralph Northam. They have admitted that they believe that denying medical care to infants can constitute legitimate women's health care, classified under the untouchable umbrella of "reproductive rights."That was the ultimate triumph of the attempt to pass the born-alive bill. Though Democrats managed to block the legislation, it forced the moral equivocators of the Democratic party to step out from behind their smokescreens. It demanded that they put their name to a vote permitting doctors to turn a blind eye to dying babies. It compelled them to defend Ralph Northam's indefensible comments.This — and not because it would impede women's "reproductive rights" — is why Democrats were so afraid of Ben Sasse's bill. They knew that nothing in the text restricts access to abortion. But they knew, too, that it would expose them.To support the bill would betray a logical and philosophical inconsistency — Democrats would affirm the dignity and rights of a newborn infant, even as they dehumanize that same life, at the same stage of development, inside its mother's womb. To oppose the bill would reveal the ghastly, consistent principle of the abortion-rights movement — that a child's rights depend not on her size or location, but on whether she is wanted by her mother.The Democrats chose consistency, and consistency means infanticide.
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| Airlines Reroute Flights as India, Pakistan Fighters Downed Posted: 27 Feb 2019 02:56 PM PST  A United Continental Holdings Inc. flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Delhi was re-routed to London and later canceled, while a Newark-Mumbai flight was shifted to Frankfurt. An Air Canada flight from Toronto to Delhi turned back Tuesday night over Ireland and was scrubbed when it arrived back in Canada.
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| Lamborghini Huracán Evo Spyder Offers Open-Air Fun and 202 MPH Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:45 AM PST  This open-topped Lamborghini could be the world's fastest wedge-shaped tanning booth. It makes its debut at the Geneva auto show in March.
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| The 9 Best 2019 Cars for Less Than $20,000 Posted: 26 Feb 2019 07:51 AM PST |
| U.S. disrupted Russian trolls on day of November election: report Posted: 26 Feb 2019 12:35 PM PST  The U.S. military disrupted the internet access of a Russian troll farm accused of trying to influence American voters on Nov. 6, 2018, the day of the congressional elections, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The U.S. Cyber Command strike targeted the Internet Research Agency in the Russian port city of St. Petersburg, the Post reported, citing unidentified U.S. officials. The group is a Kremlin-backed outfit whose employees had posed as Americans and spread disinformation online in an attempt to also influence the 2016 election, according to U.S. officials.
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| Paul Manafort Seeks Mercy From D.C. Judge Who’ll Punish Him Posted: 25 Feb 2019 07:21 PM PST  "Mr. Manafort has been punished substantially, including the forfeiture of most of his assets," attorneys for the former international political strategist told U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in a court filing Monday. Manafort, 69, pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts before Jackson in September, avoiding a second trial only weeks after being found guilty of eight felonies by a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia.
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| Mother and adult daughter charged with killing 5 relatives Posted: 26 Feb 2019 01:13 PM PST  MORRISVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A mother and her adult daughter killed five of their close relatives, including three children, and were found "disoriented" after child welfare authorities arrived for a surprise visit to their trashed apartment outside Philadelphia, police and prosecutors said Tuesday.
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| Steven Avery attorney: 'We won!'; court to hear new evidence in 'Making a Murderer' case Posted: 27 Feb 2019 11:34 AM PST  Kathleen Zellner, attorney for "Making A Murderer" subject Steven Avery, tweeted "We won!" after the Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision.
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| Photos of the 2021 Mercedes-AMG GLE53 Posted: 27 Feb 2019 09:10 AM PST |
| Nigeria's Buhari wins second term as president: electoral commission results Posted: 26 Feb 2019 02:54 PM PST  Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday won a second term at the helm of Africa's largest economy and top oil producer, a tally by Reuters based on electoral commission results showed. Buhari had a commanding lead of 56 percent compared to 40 percent for Atiku, before the final district was announced. A message posted on Buhari's Twitter feed late on Tuesday showed him smiling and surrounded by applauding staff at his campaign office.
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| All-New 2020 Toyota Corolla First-Drive Review Posted: 26 Feb 2019 04:00 AM PST  All-New 2020 Toyota Corolla Adds Sizzle, Still Sensible The redesigned 2020 Toyota Corolla sedan joins the Corolla hatchback (which we've already tested), and it is offered for the first time as...
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| US financial regulatory agency says Musk violated deal Posted: 25 Feb 2019 10:06 PM PST  The US Securities and Exchange Commission accused Tesla founder Elon Musk on Monday of failing to comply with a court-endorsed deal between the electric automaker and the regulatory agency. According to the SEC, a tweet from Musk on Tesla's 2019 production levels violates the deal, under which his tweets had to be reviewed prior to being published. On "February 19, 2019, Musk tweeted, 'Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019.' Musk did not seek or receive pre-approval prior to publishing this tweet, which was inaccurate and disseminated to over 24 million people," the SEC said in court filing in New York federal court.
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| China expresses 'deep concern' over India-Pakistan conflict Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:53 PM PST  A senior Chinese diplomat expressed "deep concern" over the escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan on Wednesday, after the two countries said they shot down each other's fighter jets. State Councillor Wang Yi, the Chinese government's top diplomat made the comments in a telephone conversation with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, China's foreign ministry said in a statement on its website on Thursday. Qureshi telephoned Wang to inform him of the latest developments in the conflict and to express hope that China would continue to play a "constructive role" in easing tensions, the statement said.
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| Miami-Dade cop caught on tape slapping suspect Posted: 27 Feb 2019 07:11 AM PST  Two Miami-Dade Police officers are facing charges after surveillance video appeared to show one sergeant slapping a teenager who was handcuffed and another trying to destroy evidence.
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| Was the media biased against the Covington students? Posted: 27 Feb 2019 05:12 AM PST  Conservatives accuse media organizations of trafficking in stereotypes that Trump supporters are bigots. Two recent incidents have strengthened conservatives' belief that liberal journalists are implacably opposed to Donald Trump and his supporters: the 18 January encounter between a group of Kentucky students and a Native American activist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and the claims by Jussie Smollett that he had been attacked by hoodlums shouting racist and anti-gay slurs.
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| Justice Department loses appeal to block AT&T-Time Warner merger, won't appeal again Posted: 26 Feb 2019 05:02 PM PST ![Justice Department loses appeal to block AT&T-Time Warner merger, won't appeal again]( "Justice Department loses appeal to block AT&T-Time Warner merger, won't appeal again") The Justice Department, which lost its latest attempt to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, will not appeal the U.S. District Court of Appeals ruling.
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| Southwest gets FAA OK for flights to Hawaii from California Posted: 27 Feb 2019 02:45 PM PST  DALLAS (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday it has granted Southwest Airlines approval to begin flights between California and Hawaii, capping the airline's effort to extend its reach 2,400 miles (3,800 kilometers) across the Pacific.
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| Lawsuit accuses Trump of kissing campaign worker without her consent Posted: 25 Feb 2019 07:12 PM PST  Alva Johnson said in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Florida's Middle District, that the alleged incident was "part of a pattern of predatory and harassing behavior towards women" by Trump. "This accusation is absurd on its face," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement. "This never happened and is directly contradicted by multiple highly credible eye witness accounts." Trump has denied charges by a number of women who said he groped and kissed them over a period of years without permission.
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| The New Peugeot 208 Hatchback Exploits Our Love for French Forbidden Fruit Posted: 26 Feb 2019 06:24 AM PST  Peugeot's latest subcompact has a sci-fi design and a new all-electric variant, and we wish it was coming here.
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| Univision Journalist Jorge Ramos Freed After Being Held by Maduro Posted: 25 Feb 2019 07:08 PM PST  Univision said that Maduro disliked Ramos' questioning in an interview and ordered footage, equipment and telephones confiscated and the journalists held. "He didn't like the questions we were asking about the lack of democracy in Venezuela, about the torture of political prisoners, about the humanitarian crisis they're going through," Ramos said in an interview posted by Univision.
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| Pioneer Woman slow cookers on sale at Walmart — get two for less than $20 Posted: 27 Feb 2019 08:57 AM PST  No potluck is complete without dips. Almost everyone can get behind a good buffalo chicken dip or queso, and small slow cookers are arguably the best vehicle for these types of side dishes.Transport your dips in style with a set of two Pioneer Woman 1.5-quart slow cookers by Hamilton Beach, on sale for $19.99 at Walmart. Image: the pioneer woman Image: the pioneer womanThese 1.5-quart cookers are ideal for dips, sides, desserts, appetizers, fondue, and small servings. No need to lug around a large slow cooker when a smaller one will do the trick. Plus, these Pioneer Woman models have super cute floral designs. Three different heat settings allow you to cook food and maintain temperature before serving. The removable stoneware crock and glass lid are both dishwasher safe, so cleanup is easy.Get this set of two 1.5-quart Pioneer Woman slow cookers from Hamilton Beach for $19.99 at Walmart -- quite the steal. Image: The pioneer woman The Pioneer Woman set of two 1.5-quart slow cookers -- $19.99 at Walmart See Details
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| India builds bunkers to protect families along Pakistan border Posted: 27 Feb 2019 06:52 AM PST  On Tuesday evening, Pakistan used heavy caliber weapons to shell 12 to 15 places along the Indian side of the de facto border known as the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the disputed Kashmir region, a spokesman for the Indian defense forces said. The Indian army retaliated with its own shelling of the Pakistani side, he said. There have been frequent exchanges of fire along the actual and de facto borders in recent months, but Tuesday's firing marked a major escalation after India carried out an air strike on what it said was a training camp run by an Islamist militant group in Pakistan.
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| Robert Kraft prostitution scandal exposes depth of modern slavery, sex trafficking industry Posted: 26 Feb 2019 06:11 AM PST  Sex trafficking won't stop until the costs are high enough to make rich, powerful men feel that buying Chinese girls from a local spa isn't worth it.
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| La Tragicommedia è Finita Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a play in which two men sit around and wait for someone who never shows up, has been claimed by just about everyone: Freudians, Christians, existentialists.Who's right? I haven't a clue.But I have lived, all of us have lived, through a similar tragicomedy (a word Beckett added to the subtitle for the English version of his play). We've been waiting for Mueller. And waiting.For some, the waiting is the hardest part. But by historic standards, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been working at a blistering pace. Kenneth Starr's investigation into the Whitewater scandal wasn't fully closed down until 2001. It started in 1994. The average running time for special investigations is 904 days. Tuesday marked the 650th day since Mueller was appointed.Most independent counsels take a year to file their first criminal charges, if they file any at all. Mueller hit that milestone a little more than five months in, and he has racked up more than 30 other indictments or guilty pleas since then.And yet, for the "get Trump media" (as Alan Dershowitz and others call it), it's never enough. Whenever news breaks in the probe, or when news doesn't break, for that matter, the response tends to be the same: "Remember, we don't know what Mueller knows." Watch CNN or MSNBC for a few minutes and someone will say this — gleefully when the news is already bad for Trump, reassuringly when the news is disappointingly good for Trump."Always keeping in mind that Mueller knows so much more than he has shown," former CBS newsman Dan Rather told CNN's Don Lemon. "If you think [Michael Cohen's guilty plea and Paul Manafort's conviction] was a shock to our democratic system, just stay tuned. Because the other things Mueller is working on, and sooner or later we'll find out what they are, is going to make yesterday pale by comparison."Well, what if it doesn't? One of the reasons we keep hearing that "Mueller knows more" is that he has delivered less. For all of the drama and the embarrassments, Mueller has yet to file a single charge on the core allegation that justified the launch of the probe in the first place — the allegation that Donald Trump "colluded" with Russia.Sure, the gaudy remoras that attached themselves to Trump's hide have had a rough time of it. Manafort, who made a career of colluding with horrible regimes, may never have another meal not thwacked from a large spoon onto a prison tray. Roger Stone may join Cohen in the Stoney Lonesome as well. And obviously, Trump has made things worse for himself by seeming like he's got a lot to hide.But it looks more and more likely that Mueller's dance of a thousand veils will end with . . . more veils. The Mueller obsessives want him to be a deus ex machina who delivers irrefutable grounds for impeachment and I-told-you-sos. But that Mueller may never arrive. He may never even say a word about it in public at all.That's in part because the Russia piece of his portfolio is under the rubric of a counterintelligence investigation, not a criminal one. This means he's under no obligation to file any public report at all. He could submit a report to the newly confirmed attorney general, Bill Barr, but Barr can reveal whatever he wants to the public, assuming the president says it's OK. Or he can reveal nothing at all.But waiting for Mueller to prove himself a savior may not pan out, for the simpler reason that he can't find what doesn't exist. To say that Trump was morally capable of colluding with Russia is not the same thing as saying that he did.If you listen very closely to former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, there was never hard evidence of Trump's colluding beyond the president's weird statements and behavior in response to the Russia probe. The problem is that you don't need an international conspiracy to explain why Trump says and does weird things — unless you've already decided he's guilty.That's why this tragicomedy will not come to an end with the end of the Mueller probe. The audience, on both sides, had already decided what it was about when they entered the theater.Copyright © 2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
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| Timeline: R. Kelly's history of sex-abuse arrests, indictments and lawsuits over the years Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:26 AM PST  In the more than 10 years between his two arrests, Kelly has been accused by an army of women of physical and sexual abuse.
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| High-stakes trial starts in Roundup weed killer cancer claim Posted: 25 Feb 2019 07:05 PM PST  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A jury in federal court in San Francisco will decide whether Roundup weed killer caused a California man's cancer in a trial starting Monday that plaintiffs' attorneys say could help determine the fate of hundreds of similar lawsuits.
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| Can CBD Help Your Child? Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:33 AM PST  When a child is sick and conventional medicine isn't helping, parents understandably often turn to alternative treatments. Recently, that includes cannabidiol, aka CBD, which is a cannabis compou...
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| Wells Fargo Sees ‘Possible’ Legal Losses Rising by $500 Million Posted: 27 Feb 2019 02:35 PM PST  The higher estimate for "reasonably possible" legal losses -- essentially a worst-case scenario -- shows risks grew as the bank and authorities examined abuses in recent months and discussed potential penalties. The change stems from "a variety of matters," including probes of its sales to retail customers, Wells Fargo wrote Wednesday in an annual regulatory report.
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| US denies Russian accusation it is preparing Venezuela intervention Posted: 26 Feb 2019 01:06 PM PST  A top Russian security official on Tuesday accused Washington of deploying forces in Puerto Rico and Colombia in preparation for a military intervention in Venezuela to topple Moscow's ally, President Nicolas Maduro, something the United States denied. "... The United States is preparing a military invasion of an independent state," Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, was quoted as saying in an interview with weekly newspaper Argumenty i Fakty.
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| 10-foot great white shark caught off Florida fishing pier Posted: 27 Feb 2019 05:47 AM PST  A 10-foot great white shark was caught off a fishing pier in Florida on Tuesday.
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| Indian government confirms air strikes on militant camps inside Pakistan Posted: 25 Feb 2019 08:28 PM PST ![Indian government confirms air strikes on militant camps inside Pakistan]( "Indian government confirms air strikes on militant camps inside Pakistan") NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian air force jets carried out air strikes on militant camps inside Pakistan on Tuesday, a government minister said, the first Indian comment on the raids. "Air Force carried out aerial strike early morning today at terror camps across the LoC (Line of Control) and Completely destroyed it," minister of state for agriculture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said on Twitter. ...
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| Michael Cohen testimony: Trump’s ex-lawyer to tell Congress president is a ‘racist and conman’ Posted: 26 Feb 2019 04:05 PM PST  Donald Trump's former lawyer is set to deliver explosive testimony before Congress – claiming the president "is a racist, a conman and a cheat". Michael Cohen, the man who who once said he would take a bullet for the president, will tell politicians he is ashamed of what he did – allegedly at the behest of the man who occupies the Oval Office. "I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty – of the things I did for Mr Trump in an effort to protect and promote him," he will tell the House of Representatives' oversight and reform committee.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Polestar 2 EV Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:58 AM PST |
| Why the Robert Kraft Bust Matters Posted: 26 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  Robert Kraft's name will now long be associated with one of the most despicable scourges of modern life, and rightly so.The New England Patriots owner is charged with soliciting prostitution at a Florida massage parlor busted as part of a sex-trafficking ring. Kraft denies it, although the police in Jupiter, Florida, say they have video evidence.The charges against him, and two other high-flying men from the financial world, represent an important front in the fight against sex trafficking. Authorities should be doing everything they can to crack down on the supply of trafficked women — via the networks that often import them to the U.S. and force them into prostitution — but also exacting a price from the men who constitute the demand.As Donna Hughes of the University of Rhode Island has written in support of a perpetrator-focused approach to sex trafficking: "The men who purchase the sex acts remain nameless, faceless, and uncharacterized. They are not stigmatized the way that 'prostitutes' are. Yet, the men, the buyers of commercial sex acts, are the ultimate consumers of trafficked women and children. They use them for entertainment and sexual gratification, and often perpetrate acts of violence against them."To their credit, authorities undertook a monthslong investigation of the Orchids of Asia spa, where strangely the only customers were male, and dozens of similar operations. They placed cameras inside and charged hundreds of men. (The agency that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives want to abolish, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, assisted on the case.)The Orchids of Asia spa was in an unremarkable strip mall in a tony area of Florida, neighbors with other businesses including an Outback Steakhouse and a surf shop. Beneath the veneer of normality there existed a sink of degradation.The women were lured from China with promises of legitimate work and then trapped in a life of sexual slavery. They were working to pay off debts incurred traveling to the United States. Some of them had their passports confiscated. There was no choice and no escape from a nightmarish existence that makes a mockery of the glamorous image of prostitution in much of the popular culture and belies the term "sex worker."Sex with up to a thousand men a year. No change of clothes. Sleep on massage tables. Food from hot plates at the back of the parlor. Moved around from one parlor to the next as pawns of the traffickers.And this is a major business. According to the anti-trafficking group Polaris, the country's 9,000 illicit massage parlors make $2.5 billion a year.They are such a lucrative industry only because the Robert Krafts of the world are patrons. He is a billionaire, famous and the owner of one of the most successful franchises in sports. He presumably has access to women, indeed dates an actress and dancer nearly 40 years younger than he is. He doesn't have to go to a strip-mall massage parlor for sex.Except that it's impossible to find women who are so thoroughly disposable as those compelled to perform sex acts at the likes of the Orchids of Asia spa. The commercial transaction lent a veneer of consent to a sexual exchange where only one party was exercising volition — the men who showed up, paid $100 or $200 and then went on their way.They are the appropriate target of law enforcement. In Illinois, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has been a national leader in making it a priority to go after the buyers of sex, while offering help to prostitutes.It will, of course, never be possible to end demand for trafficked women. But as with domestic violence, the law can be used as a tool of social disapproval to change how the culture regards prostitution, achieving clarity on who are the victims and the victimizers. Everyone who availed themselves of the Orchids of Asia spa, not just the monsters profiting from it, is the latter.© 2019 by King Features Syndicate
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