| Trump must release his tax returns or be barred from state’s 2020 election ballot, Illinois senate votes Posted: 12 Apr 2019 04:01 AM PDT  Donald Trump will have to release five years of tax returns if he wants appear on the Illinois 2020 presidential ballot, the state's senate has ruled. The bill, which still requires approval by the Prairie State's House of Representatives, comes amid a growing row in Washington over Mr Trump's unprecedented refusal to make publicly available his income tax returns. The US Treasury ignored a congressional deadline to release the documents earlier this week. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin claimed the request by the House ways and means committee was "politically motivated". Mr Trump himself has claimed that he cannot release his tax returns because they are under audit, although technically there is nothing preventing him from doing so. In Illinois, the bill would need to be signed into law by Democratic governor Jay Robert Pritzjer, if it passes through the House which is also controlled by Mr Trump's political rivals. Mr Pritzjer is yet to take a public stance on the issue. Tony Munoz, the state senator who sponsored the bill said: "If you want to run for vice president or president of the United States, hey, what's wrong with providing your tax returns for the past five years?" The veteran Democrat added: "If you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't worry about anything. That's how I see it."But the move drew complaints from Republicans in the senate. "This is, quite frankly, with all due respect to the sponsor, an embarrassing waste of the senate's time," said Dale Righter. "This is being pushed by a far-leftist organisation from the city of Chicago that wants to be able to get up and chirp about the president of the United States."Ilinois is not the only state where legislation to codify standard practices surrounding tax disclosures for presidential candidates is being advanced. The Washington state senate last month approved legislation that would legally require all presidential candidates to release the last five years of their personal tax returns in order to have their names featured on both primary and general voting ballots.New Jersey has also advanced a similar bill to the state's general assembly that would force candidates to disclose their recent tax returns.
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| Leaker Chelsea Manning stuck in jail after Assange arrest Posted: 12 Apr 2019 10:53 AM PDT  Nine years ago, a 23-year-old US army specialist, deeply troubled by the US war in Iraq and by her own gender identity, rocked the US government by leaking disturbing classified military records to WikiLeaks. Chelsea Manning spent years in prison for her crime before her sentence was commuted -- but on Friday was again sitting in jail for what her supporters say is an ongoing punitive political vendetta. Last month, she refused to testify in a secret grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was arrested in London on Thursday on a US indictment linked to their cooperation in 2010 on the leak of secret US records of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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| New York Post stirs Ilhan Omar controversy with 9/11 cover Posted: 11 Apr 2019 07:41 AM PDT  Conservative media outlets have seized on remarks made by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., at a fundraiser for an organization founded to combat Islamophobia.
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| The Last Front-Engined Chevrolet Corvette, a 2019 C7 Z06, Will Be Auctioned Off in June Posted: 11 Apr 2019 05:45 PM PDT  All proceeds from the sale of the final C7 Corvette will go to the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
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| U.S. lobbying probes persist though Mueller investigation over Posted: 12 Apr 2019 11:46 AM PDT  In a sign that evidence from Mueller's 22-month investigation may yet ensnare more prominent Washington figures, federal prosecutors in Washington cited a former U.S. congressman "working for the government of Ukraine" in charges filed Thursday against former Obama administration official Greg Craig. Craig pleaded not guilty on Friday to lobbying violations and making false statements. The former congressman is not named in Craig's indictment, but other filings by his former law firm cite identical work done for the firm by Vin Weber, a lobbyist with Mercury Public Affairs, who was a U.S. representative from Minnesota from 1981 to 1993.
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| Picture was clear, but black hole's name a little fuzzy Posted: 12 Apr 2019 02:06 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — The newly pictured supermassive black hole is a beast with no name, at least not an official one. And what happens next could be cosmically confusing.
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| Southwest flight attendant walks plane aisle with baby to give tired mother a break Posted: 12 Apr 2019 12:43 PM PDT  A Southwest Airlines flight attendant is being lauded online over her kind deed for a weary traveler.
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| US cop's son arrested in arson of three black churches Posted: 11 Apr 2019 02:25 PM PDT  The white son of a Louisiana police officer has been arrested and accused of burning down historically black churches in the southern US state, authorities announced Thursday. Holden Matthews is charged with three counts of arson on a religious building for allegedly burning down three rural churches over a 10-day period beginning in late March. Authorities said they were not ready to discuss the motive for the attacks, but a federal hate crimes investigation was ongoing.
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| From skateboards to spying, Assange arrest followed drawn-out dispute with Ecuador Posted: 11 Apr 2019 07:32 PM PDT  British police on Thursday arrested the WikiLeaks founder, who sought asylum in the Andean nation's diplomatic mission during the government of former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa - who saw Assange as a hero for leaking secret U.S. documents. By contrast, Moreno took a dim view of Assange when he took office in 2017, ordering the Australian hacker to cut back his online political commentary, stop riding his skateboard in the halls of the embassy and clean up after his pet cat. After the release of the materials, Moreno said that Assange had no right to "hack private accounts and phones," without directly accusing him.
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| Disney CEO Bob Iger: 'Hitler would have loved social media' Posted: 11 Apr 2019 08:43 AM PDT  Accepting an award for his humanitarian work Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger attacked social media for its role in spreading hate. "Hitler would have loved social media," said Iger.
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| Elizabeth Warren’s Trillion-Dollar Big Business Tax Plan Would Cost Amazon $698M+ Every Year Posted: 11 Apr 2019 06:07 AM PDT  Yuri GripasSen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who has defined her 2020 candidacy with a series of detailed policy proposals, has a plan to impose a new tax on America's largest companies like Amazon. "It's almost Tax Day, and chances are you'll be paying federal taxes this year. Maybe it's a lot, maybe it's a little," Warren writes in a Medium post unveiling the policy. "Well, guess what? You will be paying more for running the federal government than a bunch of big American corporations that made billions of dollars in profits in the last year." The "Real Corporate Profits Tax," revealed on Thursday morning applies to companies that report more than $100 million in profits. The first $100 million would not be touched, but under the plan, for every dollar of profit above that $100 million, the corporation would pay a 7 percent tax. Warren estimates that Amazon would pay $698 million as opposed to zero federal corporate income tax and that Occidental Petroleum would pay $280 million. "It's a small new tax—but because our richest, biggest corporations are so skilled at minimizing their taxes under our current system, that small new tax will generate big new revenue," she writes. "According to an estimate from economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman at the University of California-Berkeley, the tax will bring in $1 trillion in revenue over the next ten years—just from the massive profits of the thousand or so richest companies in the country."An Amazon spokesperson responded to the proposal by saying: "Amazon pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the U.S. and every country where we operate, including paying $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years." Warren explains that the new tax is a better fix than simply raising the corporate tax rate because the "corporate tax code is so littered with loopholes that simply raising the regular corporate tax rate alone is not enough."The tax would apply to worldwide profits of all American corporations that report more than $100 million in net income in a given year, foreign companies with "significant" U.S. operations and profits would also be subject to it and Warren promises "robust enforcement" of anti-inversion rules to prevent large companies from reincorporating abroad to avoid tax. In a letter to Warren from Saez and Zucman, they estimate that close to 1,200 public corporations would be liable for the tax and that "it would raise $1.05 trillion on public companies alone over the ten- year budget window 2019-2028."The introduction of this proposal comes the day after Warren's campaign revealed that she had raised more than $6 million in the first quarter, a number that has been reached even while she has eschewed high-dollar fundraisers. It provided some evidence that the policy-centric campaign has found an audience with voters, despite the appearance of an operation in need of cash. Since launching her candidacy, Warren has introduced plans to break up large tech and agriculture monopolies, get to universal child care coverage, a housing initiative to pay for the construction of more homes to eliminate housing shortages and an ultra-millionaire tax among other plans. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here
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| Imagine This: North Korea with 100 Nuclear Warheads Posted: 11 Apr 2019 11:00 AM PDT  For its report, RAND war-gamed a North Korean attack on Seoul's wealthy Gangnam district. "Roughly half the size of Manhattan, Gangnam—a district of Seoul—is a major economic center and home to many large companies, such as Google and IBM. With some of the most expensive real estate in the country, the district is also considered the most affluent in all of South Korea. Consequences of a single DPRK nuclear attack on Gangnam would be severe."By 2020 North Korea could possess as many as 100 nuclear warheads.That's the startling conclusion of a January 2019 report from RAND, a California think tank with close ties to the U.S. military."North Korean provocations and threats have created an unstable environment on the Korean Peninsula," RAND's report explains. "North Korea's ongoing development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles increases the possibility of their use against regional states, furthering instability across the region and beyond, thus affecting vital U.S. interests."(This first appeared several months ago.)To deliver its nukes, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as the regime in Pyongyang calls itself, is building up a large stockpile of rockets of varying ranges."The DPRK's growing arsenal will provide its regime with multiple options to employ its nuclear weapons," the RAND report warns.
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| Pelosi says 2020 Democrat ticket doesn't need to include a woman Posted: 10 Apr 2019 09:52 PM PDT  The House speaker tells the AP that while she would love to have one or two women on Democrats' 2020 presidential ticket, it is not a requirement. Pelosi also came to Joe Biden's defense during the interview, saying he should be judged on his record.
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| Suspect accused of burning black churches 'didn't seem right,' and used racial slurs Posted: 11 Apr 2019 05:55 PM PDT  St. Landry Parish neighbors react to arrest made Wednesday of 21-year-old neighbor in church fires.
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| UPDATE 3-Boeing CEO says 737 MAX software update working as designed Posted: 11 Apr 2019 12:56 PM PDT ![UPDATE 3-Boeing CEO says 737 MAX software update working as designed]( "UPDATE 3-Boeing CEO says 737 MAX software update working as designed") Boeing Co's chief executive said on Thursday that a software update designed to prevent disasters like two recent fatal crashes involving its 737 MAX is working, with about two-thirds of the fast-selling jetliner's customers having seen the fix in simulator sessions. In his first public speech since an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crash that killed all 157 aboard on March 10, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said additional tests are expected in the coming weeks as the planemaker works to regain the confidence of its customers and the flying public. Boeing, fighting its biggest crisis in years, has been developing an upgrade to software that is under scrutiny in the Ethiopian Airlines accident and a Lion Air 737 MAX crash that killed all 189 on board on Oct. 29.
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| After Assange arrest, Trump says WikiLeaks is 'not my thing.' It was his thing in 2016. Posted: 11 Apr 2019 10:30 AM PDT  "I know nothing about Wikileaks. It's not my thing," the president told reporters inside the Oval Office when asked if he still loves WikiLeaks.
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| SpaceX carries out first commercial launch Posted: 11 Apr 2019 10:18 PM PDT  SpaceX carried out its first commercial launch on Thursday with its Falcon Heavy rocket easing a Saudi telecoms satellite into orbit. The bright white rocket rose with a roar and spewed thick gray smoke on the ground as it made its way up into clear blue skies over Cape Canaveral, Florida, trailing a long plume of orange fire. About 34 minutes after liftoff, the shiny silver satellite was successfully deployed.
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| 'Cured' Dalai Lama set to be discharged from hospital Friday Posted: 10 Apr 2019 07:41 PM PDT  The Dalai Lama is "doing very well" and will likely be discharged from hospital in New Delhi on Friday as he recovers from a chest infection, his spokesman told AFP on Thursday. The 83-year-old Buddhist monk and Nobel peace prize winner was admitted to the Max hospital in the Indian capital on Tuesday with what another aide described as a "light cough". Right now, we are trying to discharge him tomorrow," said Tenzin Taklha, the Dalai Lama's personal spokesman.
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| The "$35,000" Tesla Model 3 Is No More, and It Seems That It Never Was Posted: 12 Apr 2019 07:08 AM PDT  Tesla already raised the price on the Standard Range car, which is now available only by special order, and all signs point to the company never having delivered a single car with a cloth interior.
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| South Korea's Top Court Orders Government to End 66-Year-Old Abortion Ban Posted: 11 Apr 2019 05:06 AM PDT  South Korea's current laws governing abortion are some of the strictest in the developed world
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| Missouri: The Most Famous Battleship Of All Time (And a Truly Deadly Warship) Posted: 11 Apr 2019 09:00 AM PDT  In 1999 USS Missouri opened as a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, not far from the wreck of USS Arizona. It has subsequently appeared in a pair of terrible movies; the 2001 Michael Bay effort Pearl Harbor, in which it fills in for USS West Virginia, and the 2012 film Battleship, in which it fights aliens. Missouri was also the setting for 1992's Under Siege which was altogether better than either of the other two films.The North Carolina– and South Dakota–class battleships were designed with the limits of the Washington Naval Treaty in mind. Although much more could be accomplished in 1938 with thirty-five thousand tons than in 1921, sacrifices still had to be made. As had been practice in the first round of battleship construction, U.S. Navy architects accepted a low speed in return for heavy armor and armament. Consequently, both the South Dakotas and the North Carolinas had speeds a knot or two slower than most foreign contemporaries. The Montanas, the final battleship design authorized by the Navy, would also have had a twenty-eight-knot maximum speed. In any case, Japan's failure to ratify the 1936 London Naval Treaty bumped the maximum standard tonnage from thirty-five to forty-five thousand, giving the designers some extra space to work with. The result was the Iowa class, the most powerful and best-designed battleships ever built.Recommended: America's Battleships Went to War Against North Korea
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| Fresh Ways to Use Asparagus You Haven’t Tried Before Posted: 11 Apr 2019 02:38 PM PDT |
| Feds Charge Greg Craig, Former Obama Lawyer Tied to Manafort Ukraine Report Posted: 11 Apr 2019 11:39 AM PDT  Mark Wilson/GettyFederal prosecutors have charged President Obama's former White House counsel with making false statements in connection with his role in disseminating a report commissioned by Paul Manafort. Prosecutors allege that as an attorney in private practice, Greg Craig lied to officials at the Foreign Agents Registration Act unit after the Justice Department launched an investigation into Paul Manafort's illegal lobbying on behalf of his pro-Russian clients in Ukraine. The charges, spurred by a referral from then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office, mark the first time the Russia investigation has led to a criminal complaint against a prominent former Democratic official. Craig was a partner at Skadden Arps in 2012 when Manafort arranged for the firm to write a report about his client, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and the prosecution of Yanukovych's former political rival, Yulia Tymoshenko. Skadden reached a settlement with the Justice Department in January 2019 over its work with the Ukrainian government. As part of the agreement, the firm admitted that "a partner then at Skadden made false and misleading statements to the FARA Unit, which led it to conclude in 2013 that the firm was not obligated to register under FARA." Under the deal, Skadden Arps agreed to register as a foreign agent and pay $4.6 million to the U.S. Treasury—the cost of its work on the report.Prosecutors say Craig, who led a team of Skadden lawyers in writing the report, ventured into lobbying when he allegedly offered a copy of the report to a New York Times reporter, subsequently identified as David Sanger, and pitched him on a call with a lobbyist for Ukraine in advance of its release. Craig's conversations with the Times reporter took place shortly after he met with Manafort and a public relations firm to discuss the media strategy for the report's rollout, and prosecutors viewed his media calls as an outgrowth of the strategy meeting.The indictment alleges that Craig began lying to officials at the Justice Department's FARA unit when they inquired about his contacts with the media shortly after the Times story ran. In a meeting with the chief of the FARA unit and in a subsequent letter, prosecutors say, Craig falsely claimed that his conversations with reporters "was done in response to requests from the media" and that the Ukrainian government neither knew of it nor directed it.In particular, they claim that Craig failed to tell FARA officials he had "recommended and facilitated" the Ukrainian government's choice of a PR firm, had been briefed on the firm's strategy, and had recommended Sanger as a recipient for the report after he met with the PR firm and a lobbyist for Ukraine. The indictment quotes a handful of emails from Craig meant to back up claims that his media outreach was allegedly an extension of a Ukrainian government-directed PR strategy and not a responsive correction of the record.Craig allegedly emailed Sanger in December 2012 with the explanation that "the Ukrainians have determined that you should be given first look" at the report. In an email sent shortly after Craig handed an advance copy of the report to the Times, the lawyer reported to a PR firm working for Ukraine that he told Sanger "it was his if he wanted to use it" and that "tomorrow is not too late for [another U.S. reporter] or for [another major U.S. newspaper]."In discussions with prosecutors, Craig's attorneys have doubled down on his claims about contacts with the media, according to CNN. They claim Craig only spoke with the Times in order to correct an unspecified mischaracterization of the report and that the prosecution represented an attempt to make the Russia investigation and its spin-off prosecutions, which have primarily targeted Republicans, seem less partisan. The Skadden report featured prominently in court documents filed in Manafort's Washington, D.C., lobbying case. The special counsel's office alleged that Manafort's choice of "the lead attorney at Skadden was made with the United States lobbying effort in mind" and that the report Craig spearheaded was "misleading and used to justify the political prosecution and jailing of a political opponent." Skadden earned $4.6 million for the report, paid through Manafort's offshore accounts in Cyprus, but the Ukrainian government publicly claimed that the work cost only $12,000. Craig resigned from Skadden in April 2018, shortly after attorney Alexander Van Der Zwaan pleaded guilty to lying to the special counsel's office about his work on the report. Van Der Zwaan, whom Skadden fired in 2017, destroyed emails requested by the special counsel and lied about talking points he passed to Manafort aide Rick Gates and an advance copy of the report he slipped to a public relations firm. He served a 30-day prison sentence after pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with Mueller's office. Prosecutors said that the Skadden report was one part of a sprawling illegal lobbying campaign that enlisted other Washington heavyweights, Mercury Public Affairs and the Podesta Group, to sell Washington on Yanukovych's government. The special counsel's office alleged that Manafort used an obscure think tank in Brussels as a cut-out to allow Mercury and the Podesta Group to lobby for the Ukrainian government without registering as foreign agents. Mercury subsequently registered with the Justice Department for its Ukraine work but the Podesta Group fared worse. Its founder, Tony Podesta, left the firm shortly after Mueller indicted Manafort in October 2017, and the firm closed seven months later. The charges against Craig are another sign that the Russia investigation has led to increased vigilance in enforcing foreign lobbying rules by the Justice Department. The department announced in March that Brandon Van Grack, a special counsel's office prosecutor who worked on Manafort's Virginia tax and bank fraud trial, would take over as the head of the Foreign Agents Registration Act unit. Read more at The Daily Beast.
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| Military ousts Sudan's Bashir, protesters demand civilian government Posted: 11 Apr 2019 04:30 PM PDT  Bashir, 75, had faced 16 weeks of demonstrations against his rule. Announcing the ouster, Defence Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf said Sudan would enter a two-year period of military rule to be followed by presidential elections. Speaking on state television, he said Bashir was being detained in a "safe place" and a military council would now run the country.
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| GOP lawmaker's 'PENCIL' resolution calls for Rep. Adam Schiff to be tossed from Intel Committee Posted: 11 Apr 2019 08:38 AM PDT  Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz has introduced a resolution calling for Rep. Adam Schiff to be ousted from heading the House Intelligence Committee.
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| US oil giant Chevron says will acquire Anadarko for $33 billion Posted: 12 Apr 2019 06:50 AM PDT  Chevron announced Friday it will acquire smaller US rival Anadarko for $33 billion in a deal that strengthens the oil giant's exploration and production holdings in its home market. The cash-and-stock transaction is centered on Anadarko's properties in the Permian Basin in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, two areas where Chevron is already a big player and where economies of scale can help drive value with suppliers and in key drilling and production operations. Anadarko also has a handful of overseas ventures, including a major liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique that Chevron said would help bolster one of Chevron's major global businesses.
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| Fiat Gives the 124 Spider a Blacked-Out Urbana Appearance Package Posted: 12 Apr 2019 06:15 AM PDT  The compact Italian roadster provides more personalization options than its Mazda Miata clone.
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| How the Greatest Battleships Ever Built Could Make the Ultimate Comeback Posted: 11 Apr 2019 06:40 AM PDT  While a comeback is unlikely, it's always nice to dream.Battleships captivate the imagination. Before they were displaced by aircraft carriers, battleships were symbols of great-power status. Some of the most iconic were the American Iowa class, the last battleships ever built by the United States. Powerful in appearance, yet with sleek lines filled in with haze gray, the Iowa class served in World War II and were unretired three more times to serve as the U.S. Navy's big guns. If we brought them back today, what would they look like?The National Defense Authorization Act for 1996, generally known as the defense budget, had a unique provision hidden inside the text: the text directed the Navy to keep at least of the four Iowa-class ships on the Naval Register in good condition, retain the logistical support to maintain battleships on active duty and keep those ships on the Register until the secretary of the navy certified that existing naval gunfire support equaled or exceeded the firepower of two battleships. Iowa and Wisconsin were finally stricken from the Register in 2006 after the secretary of the navy, citing the upcoming thirty-two Zumwalt-class destroyers, certified they were no longer needed.(This first appeared several years ago.)
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| Hillary Clinton: Assange must 'answer for what he has done' Posted: 11 Apr 2019 06:48 PM PDT  NEW YORK (AP) — Newly arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange needs to "answer for what he has done," Hillary Clinton said on Thursday.
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| Michael Avenatti Indicted on Charges He Defrauded Paraplegic Client, Others Out of Millions Posted: 11 Apr 2019 11:38 AM PDT  Avenatti tweeted claims that he mishandled client money are "bogus nonsense."
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| Warren on Amazon's $0 tax bill: Yes, it's legal, and that's the problem Posted: 11 Apr 2019 02:21 PM PDT  The Massachusetts senator has a plan to make the online retailer pay federal income taxes.
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| Julian Assange expected to figure into Mueller report Posted: 11 Apr 2019 03:11 PM PDT  Mueller indictments note WikiLeaks connections; Catherine Herridge reports.
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| Photos of the 2020 Acura TLX PMC Edition Posted: 11 Apr 2019 06:00 AM PDT |
| The Trump-Netanyahu relationship is sowing disaster for both countries Posted: 11 Apr 2019 05:10 AM PDT  By catering to the right, the leaders are harming Palestinians, making Israel less safe and further damaging America's reputation'The Trump administration needs to realize that it is playing with fire in its approach to Israel.' Photograph: Carlos Barría/ReutersIn the run-up to the Israeli elections, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu took a series of irresponsible steps to help the Israeli prime minister's electoral prospects: Trump announced support for Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Netanyahu said he would annex parts of the West Bank and claimed he had US support, and Trump designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, a move for which Netanyahu immediately took credit.Though Netanyahu may be the apparent winner of the Israeli election, Trump and Netanyahu should be careful what they wish for. While pleasing their rightwing supporters, the two leaders are doing severe damage to the interests of both countries.Trump and Netanyahu have forged an overtly political relationship. Even before the most recent election, Trump had taken unprecedented steps that support Netanyahu's agenda, from moving the US embassy to Jerusalem to cutting all US funding for the United Nations agency that supports Palestinians to closing the Palestinian office in Washington DC.Netanyahu takes the blank check from Trump and cashes it in for more extreme policies. Marking a new level of recklessness in a pre-election gambit to get more rightwing votes, Netanyahu suggested that he would annex parts of the West Bank, an outrageous move that would destroy the progress Israelis and Palestinians have made over the decades, risk violence and garner widespread international condemnation.If in the past US policy has been criticized for being one-sided in favor of Israel, Trump has abandoned of any semblance of even-handedness. And if previous Israeli governments have preserved space to pursue peace with the Palestinians, Netanyahu is implementing policies that could make a two-state solution all but impossible.If these trends continue, everyone will suffer.The Palestinian people will bear the brunt of the pain. With the United States cutting off its funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) – which provides Palestinian refugees with healthcare, education, and food – countless Palestinians could be hurt.> The embrace between rightwing counterparts in the United States and Israel is driving the relationship into an unsustainable placeIsrael will be less safe. Pulling funding from the Palestinian Authority will disrupt counter-terrorism cooperation with Palestinian security services. That's why many Israelis believe the move endangers Israeli security, as the retired Israel defense forces lieutenant colonel Peter Lerner made clear: "These abrupt steps will only empower the radicals … hardballing the Palestinian[s] is likely to blow up on Israel's doorstep."Israeli democracy will continue eroding. The Israeli government discriminates against Arab Israelis, evidenced by a new measure giving Jews special status under the law. Members of Netanyahu's party took cameras into polling places in Arab neighborhoods to intimidate voters during this week's elections. All of this is in addition to Israel's repression of millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The undermining of Israel's democratic norms will affect its moral stature and its relationships with countries that support the country not only as the homeland of the Jewish people and a strategic partner but also as a democracy.The US-Israel relationship will deteriorate. The embrace between rightwing counterparts in the United States and the rightwing Israeli government is driving the US-Israel relationship into an unsustainable place. The more the United States embraces extreme Israeli policies, the more Americans will refuse to back Israel as long as it denies rights to Palestinians, eschews diplomacy, and undermines the very nature of Israeli democracy.To the world, America will look more like a villain. Trump's disregard for Palestinian interests is yet another reaffirmation for many that Trump's America is racist; it will further alienate America from global partners and publics.Chances for a two-state solution will become even more remote. While the prospects for peace right now are very low – and the Palestinians' lack of leadership and Hamas's violence and repression in Gaza deserve significant blame – Trump and Netanyahu are creating more roadblocks to peace while ensuring the Palestinians stay away from the negotiating table. Jared Kushner might as well scrap whatever peace plan he's working on.For America to play a constructive role in supporting peace, a reasonable discussion over US policy is necessary. But Trump is poisoning the debate in the United States by politicizing the relationship and stoking antisemitism. Out of one side of his mouth, Trump claims he is a champion of Israel – which he defines as supporting Netanyahu's agenda and siding with Israel against its neighbors in disputes – while accusing Democrats of being "anti-Israel" and "anti-Jewish". Out of the other side of his mouth, Trump gives license to white supremacists and fuels antisemitism.America's debate over Israel needs a serious realignment. It is possible to be "pro-Israel" and not slavishly support everything Netanyahu wants. It is possible to be critical of Israeli policies without succumbing to demonization that spills over into outright antisemitism. And it is certainly possible to be both "pro-Israeli" and "pro-Palestinian".Furthermore, US impartiality is not necessary for the US to support diplomacy. The special US relationship with Israel provides the United States with the unique ability to have difficult conversations about the need for Israel to compromise in pursuit of peace. Only this kind of friend can play a key brokering role in peace talks.Right now, Israel needs to hear sobering advice from its friends in America about the dangerous path the country is on. And the Trump administration needs to realize that it is playing with fire in its approach to Israel.
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| Nissan reveals its new Versa: So what's different? Posted: 12 Apr 2019 01:33 PM PDT  The restyled Nissan Versa is lower, wider and longer than its predecessor, and its roomier build has updated safety features and new tech.
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| EXCLUSIVE-EU eyes 20 billion euros of U.S. imports to hit over Boeing - diplomats Posted: 12 Apr 2019 08:51 AM PDT ![EXCLUSIVE-EU eyes 20 billion euros of U.S. imports to hit over Boeing - diplomats]( "EXCLUSIVE-EU eyes 20 billion euros of U.S. imports to hit over Boeing - diplomats") The European Commission has drawn up a list of U.S. imports worth around 20 billion euros ($22.6 billion) that it could hit with tariffs over a transatlantic aircraft subsidy dispute, EU diplomats said. U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose tariffs on $11 billion worth of European Union products over what Washington sees as unfair subsidies given to European planemaker Airbus. The EU measures would relate to the EU's World Trade Organization complaint over subsidies to Boeing.
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| The black hole photo you've seen everywhere is thanks to this MIT grad's algorithm Posted: 10 Apr 2019 08:07 PM PDT  You've seen the very first photo of a black hole, now meet the person who helped to pull it together.MIT grad student Katie Bouman was behind the algorithm which helped to image the black hole, residing in the middle of galaxy M87, some 55 million light years away.SEE ALSO: What's actually going on in that cryptic black hole photo?A photo of Bouman in disbelief, which was originally posted on her Facebook page, was shared on the MIT CSAIL Twitter account. The caption suggests it was taken at the very moment the image was processed. > Here's the moment when the first black hole image was processed, from the eyes of researcher Katie Bouman. EHTBlackHole BlackHoleDay BlackHole (v/@dfbarajas) pic.twitter.com/n0ZnIoeG1d> > -- MIT CSAIL (@MIT_CSAIL) April 10, 2019Back in 2016, Bouman developed the algorithm which was used to create the groundbreaking image, working with a team of researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the MIT Haystack Observatory.The sheer distance of the black hole from Earth meant it would be akin to photographing an orange on the Moon's surface. To get an image of the black hole, you'd need a large telescope. An Earth-sized one, in fact."To image something this small means that we would need a telescope with a 10,000-kilometer diameter, which is not practical, because the diameter of the Earth is not even 13,000 kilometers," Bouman explained at the time.So, to achieve this, a global network of eight ground-based telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope project banded together to create one large telescope, designed to collect light data from the black hole.Bouman comprehensively described the process in a 2017 TED Talk.As the project's website explains, the light data can tell researchers about the structure of the black hole, but there is still missing data which stops them from creating a complete image.Bouman's algorithm -- CHIRP (or Continuous High-resolution Image Reconstruction using Patch priors) -- uses the sparse data collected from telescopes to help choose and verify an image to help fill in the gaps."Even though we had predicted that if you had a black hole that would see this ring of light, we didn't know if we were going to get this ring of light," she told Nature."We could've just gotten a blob. Seeing that ring, and seeing a ring that has a size that is consistent with other measurements that had been done completely differently, I think seeing that ring of light and being able to see that ring exists is huge."So, what's actually going on in the photo itself? We broke it down. WATCH: First image of a black hole is captured by astronomers
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| Palestinian teen killed by Israeli fire in border clashes: Gaza ministry Posted: 12 Apr 2019 11:44 AM PDT  A Palestinian teenager was shot dead by the Israeli army Friday during renewed clashes on the Gaza border, the health ministry in the Palestinian enclave said. A ministry spokesman said Maysara Abu Shaloof, 15, was "shot in the stomach by the (Israeli) occupation east of Jabalia," referring to a demonstration site in northern Gaza. At least 48 others were taken to hospital with a variety of injuries from clashes at several spots along the border, the ministry said without elaborating.
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| Trump Justice Department Took New Look at Assange as Part of War on Leaks Posted: 11 Apr 2019 05:04 PM PDT  Nicholas Kamm/GettyThe decision to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange played out against the backdrop of President Donald Trump's aggressive campaign to ferret out insiders leaking to the media.First Amendment advocates are enraged by the indictment and say it shows media protections are in jeopardy. A former top national security official told The Daily Beast the charges shouldn't have triggered those concerns but did say the decision to go after Assange followed an administration push to re-examine "what qualifies as media."The indictment covers alleged crimes that occurred nearly a decade ago and that the Obama administration, after much debate, did not prosecute.But Mary McCord, a career law-enforcement official who helmed the Justice Department's National Security Division for the first four months of the Trump administration, said "there was renewed interest under the new administration to revisit issues of what qualifies as the media and to look back at the Assange case.""That's not to say there was ever a lack of interest in Assange over the years, even under the previous administration," McCord said. "There were evidentiary and policy issues that were at play previously, and probably continue to be at play—and reasonable minds can certainly differ about how decisions are made, both legal decisions in terms of statute, and policy decisions."McCord added that since the DOJ hasn't charged Assange with publishing classified material—he was indicted for allegedly helping Chelsea Manning break a password to steal material from government computers—his case isn't a window into the Trump administration's view of press freedoms. "This, to me, is no different than saying you don't get a pass when you're the media if you commit a bank robbery, you don't get a pass when you're in the media if you hack into computers or conspire to hack into computers," she said. Some press freedom advocates, however, said the indictment is troubling; Reporters Without Borders, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and the ACLU all raised concerns about the move. Assange is charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, based on his alleged efforts in 2010 to help Manning obtain the classified material that he would later publish. Following the first massive Wikileaks dump, Obama administration officials in various agencies worked to rectify the damage. Several foreign service officers who spoke to The Daily Beast said they were forced to comb through the documents to identify which documents could pose potential threats to informants."There was a general sense of worry. We worried that the leak would put lives in danger," one former Obama administration official said. "We viewed it as a fire that had to be put out. We had to go through all the documents to identify any potential damage they could cause."Since that time, the U.S. has continued to gather intelligence on Assange and his relationship to the Russian government. While some agencies have pushed for the U.S. to go after Assange with vigor, others have cautioned that there was not enough evidence or that it was more important to gather counterintelligence information on Assange's connection to Russia, according to former intelligence officials.That debate faded under Trump.In the first few months of his administration, a spate of high-profile classified leaks enraged the president. He tweeted that the FBI needed to find the leakers and criticized then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for failing to find them.Sessions tried to play ball. On Aug. 4, 2017, he held a press conference at Justice Department headquarters to tout newly energized efforts to hunt down government officials who share classified material with reporters, including the formation of a new team focused on that issue. A few months later, he told Congress that the number of open leak probes at DOJ had risen by 800 percent. DOJ has brought charges in a number of cases. Reality Winner, an NSA intelligence specialist who shared information about Russian election interference with The Intercept, is serving a five-year prison sentence. A senior Treasury Department official was charged with leaking confidential material to BuzzFeed. And in February, the DOJ charged an IRS employee with leaking information about ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen (who will soon begin a three-year prison sentence for unrelated crimes) to Michael Avenatti (who faces dozens of criminal counts for other, also unrelated alleged crimes). A former staffer for the Senate intelligence committee, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with a reporter.Obama administration officials who worked on the Assange case told The Daily Beast they focused on whether WikiLeaks could be defined as a traditional media organization. The fear, one former intelligence official said, was that the public would see any prosecution as an attack on the press. Officials said the national security and intelligence communities had extensive, collaborative conversations about building a case against Assange for years. Many of those conversations, they said, touched on strategy and how to build the best case out of the Eastern District of Virginia.During the first few years after the 2010 leak, U.S. law enforcement agencies probed the connection between Assange, Wikileaks and Russia. But, according to one, they initially struggled to find evidence of any links between him and the Kremlin. "When I was in government I never saw any proof Assange was actively coordinating with Moscow," said Michael Carpenter, who served in various national security roles in the Obama administration. "I think the understanding in the course of the Mueller investigation to understand how Russia intervened and partnered with Wikileaks… that understanding has shifted. I think that gets at this notion that this is not some journalistic organization unwittingly manipulated by the Russians. It coordinated to steal U.S. classified information and then to put it out in the public arena."Assange hasn't been charged with acting as a foreign agent of a spy. But American officials have publicly called him one. A few months after Trump's inauguration, Mike Pompeo—then the CIA director—said Wikileaks engaged in spying. "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," he said. Within Washington's tight-knit national security community, former senior officials took different views of the Assange prosecution. Some said it was evidence of President Trump's eagerness to target reporters and fight leakers. Others, however, cautioned against that, saying the Assange case isn't political. The Assange case file, sources said, was held within a close circle of investigators and prosecutors, who would have maintained some degree of independence in building the case against him. The timing of the filing of Assange's sealed indictment also points to apolitical considerations; it was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia on March 6, 2018—just two days before the statute of limitations for the charge would have expired. Read more at The Daily Beast.
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| The $30 Anker earbuds everyone loves so much are only $22 right now Posted: 11 Apr 2019 01:20 PM PDT ![The $30 Anker earbuds everyone loves so much are only $22 right now]( "The $30 Anker earbuds everyone loves so much are only $22 right now") Want a pair of premium in-ear headphones but don't want to pay a premium price? The Anker SoundBuds Slim+ Wireless Headphones are exactly what you're looking for on a normal day, when they cost $30 for a pair. But if you use the coupon code AKSLPLUS right now on Amazon during checkout, you're only going to pay $21.99 for these excellent earbuds. That's a fantastic price, but it won't be available for very long.Here's some additional info from the product page: * 【Listen For Longer】Up to 7 hours of playtime and fully charged in just 1.5 hours. * 【Superior Sound】QualcommⓇ aptX™ audio brings your music alive for a heightened listening experience. * 【Fits Like A Glove】 Slim build, ergonomically designed for exceptional comfort. * 【Water Resistant】 Interior nano coating effectively protects against liquids. * 【What's In The Box】Soundbuds Slim+, multiple EarTips, multiple EarWings, Cord Management Clip, Cord Shirt Clip, USB 2.0 charging cable, carrying pouch, metal carabiner, our 18-month warranty and friendly customer service.
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| Conor McGregor video: UFC fighter snatches man's phone and smashes it on ground Posted: 11 Apr 2019 02:44 AM PDT  Video footage of Conor McGregor snatching a man's mobile phone and smashing it on the ground has surfaced after the UFC fighter reportedly reached an out-of-court financial settlement following his arrest earlier this year.The Irishman was detained by police in Miami in February following an incident outside the Fontainebleau Hotel.American news outlet TMZ has now obtained footage of the incident involving the former two-weight UFC champion, in which he can be seen displaying his familiar 'powerwalk' as fans attempt to get a picture with him.But McGregor appears to stop in his tracks when he takes exception to one man taking a photograph after his flash went off on his camera.The 30-year-old can then be seen to grab the man's phone after extending his arm towards him, before throwing it onto the ground and stomping on it repeatedly.The man, who TMZ claim is named Ahmed Abdirak, attempts to retrieve his phone only for one of McGregor's entourage to restrain him and allow McGregor to continue the destruction and take it with him as he walks away.Watch the video below...The civil lawsuit surrounding the incident has since been dropped, with an out-of-court settlement reached after Mr Abdirak initially sought damages of $15,000 (£11,460).
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| The 2020 Jeep Gladiator JT Pickup is runaway hit. Here's how we'd spec ours. Posted: 11 Apr 2019 07:30 AM PDT  We did battle with the Jeep Gladiator's configurator to figure out (and show you) how we'd order ours.
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