| Ex-GOPer Amash doubles down on call for Trump impeachment Posted: 07 Jul 2019 01:48 PM PDT  Days after declaring his independence from his Republican Party, Rep. Justin Amash reaffirmed his belief that "there's a strong case" to bring up articles of impeachment against President Trump. The newly independent Michigan lawmaker, who was the only GOP member to call for impeachment proceedings after Robert Mueller's report was released, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was making a mistake in not moving forward. From a strategic position, she's making a mistake," Amash said in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" Sunday.
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| California earthquake: more major quakes and months of aftershocks likely, seismologists say Posted: 07 Jul 2019 01:39 AM PDT  Up to 30,000 aftershocks could hit California in the next six months after the US state was hit by two major earthquakes in 48 hours last week, seismologists have warned. They were part of a continuing sequence of tremors that would affect the area for months, said Lucy Jones, of the California Institute of Technology and said the earthquakes. The region could see more than 30,000 minor earthquakes over six months, with one or two magnitude 6 quakes expected, her colleague and fellow seismologist Egill Hauksson, added. Up to 190 magnitude 3 earthquakes could take place over the next week alone, with a 12 per cent probability of a magnitude 6 earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).Magnitude 3 earthquakes are big enough to be felt and any earthquake over magnitude 4 is big enough to cause damage to buildings."It is a wake-up call for the rest of the state and other parts of the nation, frankly," California Governor Gavin Newsom said, voicing concerns about the possibility of major aftershocks in the months to come. He said that residents should make sure they know how to respond if more natural disasters strike.Friday's evening's earthquake was the largest one Southern California in nearly 20 years. Centred 11 miles from Ridgecrest, a small town with around 28,000 residents it struck the same area of the desert where a 6.4-magnitude temblor hit on ThursdayThe earthquake was felt by millions across an area ranging from Sacramento, the state capital in the north, to Mexico and including the Las Vegas and Los Angeles counties.It came off the back of hundreds of "foreshocks" that rattled the region late last month. Those left behind cracked and burning buildings, broken roads, obstructed railroad tracks and leaking water and gas lines and prompted the evacuation of the US Navy's largest single landholding, the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the Mohave Desert.Only a few injuries were reported, but two houses were reported to have caught fire from broken gas pipes; water gushed from zigzagged cracks in the busted pavement; and deep fissures were seen snaking across the Mojave Desert.In Ridgecrest, local fire and police officials said they were initially swamped by calls for medical and ambulance service.But police Chief Jed McLaughlin said there was "nothing but minor injuries such as cuts and bruises, by the grace of God."In Trona, a town of about 2,000 people considered the gateway to Death Valley, fire officials said up to 50 structures were damaged. San Bernardino County Supervisor Robert Lovingood said the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) delivered a tractor-trailer full of bottled water because of damage to water lines. Newsom declared a state of emergency for the county. The USGS has issued a red alert for economic losses, meaning that extensive damage is probable and that the disaster is likely widespread. Estimated economic losses are at least $1 billion dollars."Past events with this alert level have required a national or international level response," the USGS said in its assessment.Mr Newsom estimated more than $100m (£79m) in economic damages and said President Donald Trump called him to offer federal support in the rebuilding effort."He's committed in the long haul, the long run, to help support the rebuilding efforts," Mr Newsom, a Democrat, said of his leader. "There's no question we don't agree on everything, but one area where there's no politics, where we work extremely well together, is our response to emergencies," he added. The USGS said the aftershock activity is decreasing faster than average. Aftershocks are minor earthquakes that take place as the displaced crust adjusts to the effects of the main earthquake. It is normal for aftershocks to take place for weeks after a major shock, although their number decreases over time. A large aftershock can temporarily increase the numbers again.With aftershocks expected and temperatures forecast to reach 38 Celsius over the next several days, officials were taking precautions.The California National Guard sent 200 troops, logistical support and aircraft. Major General David Baldwin said the Pentagon had been notified and the entire California Military Department was put on alert. The California Office of Emergency Services also brought in cots, water and meals and set up cooling centres in the region. Additional reporting by Associated Press
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| Starbucks barista asks police officers to leave because customer 'did not feel safe,' police union claims Posted: 07 Jul 2019 08:11 AM PDT  The barista allegedly asked the officers to move out of the customer's line of sight or to leave.
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| Malta to relocate 65 migrants after rescue ships defy Italy ban Posted: 07 Jul 2019 01:53 PM PDT  Malta's prime minister said Sunday his country would relocate to other EU nations 65 migrants from the Alan Kurdi rescue ship, after two other boats defied efforts to stop them landing in neighbouring Italy. All 65 were transferred to a Maltese navy ship on Sunday evening, the German charity Sea-Eye which operates the boat said in a statement, adding that its vessel had been refused entry to Valetta port. Premier Joseph Muscat tweeted earlier that "following discussions with the EU Commission and the German government", the 65 people would be transferred from the Alan Kurdi to a Maltese military "asset which will then enter a Maltese port".
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| Spy Photos of the 2021 Volkswagen GTI Mark 8 Posted: 08 Jul 2019 07:31 AM PDT |
| Iranian tanker wasn't headed to Syria: Iran deputy foreign minister Posted: 07 Jul 2019 03:07 AM PDT ![Iranian tanker wasn't headed to Syria: Iran deputy foreign minister]( "Iranian tanker wasn't headed to Syria: Iran deputy foreign minister") An Iranian tanker captured by British Royal Marines in Gibraltar was not headed to Syria, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday in a press conference broadcast live on state TV. Royal Marines seized the tanker on Thursday for trying to take oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions, a dramatic intervention described as "maritime robbery" by Araqchi. The minister said the giant tanker has a capacity of up to two million barrels of oil and that is why it was travelling through the Strait of Gibraltar rather than the Suez Canal.
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| Son of prominent South Korean defector moves to North Korea Posted: 08 Jul 2019 03:56 AM PDT  The son of the highest-profile South Korean to defect to North Korea has arrived in the North to permanently resettle, North Korean state media said. The state-run Uriminzokkiri website reported that Choe In-guk, about 72, arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, on Saturday to dedicate the rest of his life to Korean unification at the guidance of leader Kim Jong Un. Choe said he decided to live in North Korea for good because it was his parents' "dying wishes" for him to "follow" North Korea and work for its unification with South Korea, according to a written statement published on the website.
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| Migrant children held in Texas facility need access to doctors, says attorney Posted: 07 Jul 2019 10:00 PM PDT  'Inhumane' conditions for detained children amount to 'emergency public health crisis', says attorney who visited centerOvercrowding at the US border patrol station in McAllen, Texas, on 10 June. The team who visited the center in Clint found children did not have adequate access to drinking water or food. Photograph: Handout/Getty ImagesHundreds of children at a migrant detention center in Texas are being held in "inhumane" conditions that amount to an "emergency public health crisis" and should be allowed immediate access to doctors, according to an attorney who gained rare access to the facility.Elora Mukherjee, the director of Columbia Law School's immigrant rights clinic, was one of six attorneys to visit the detention center in Clint as part of ongoing litigation about an agreement that states unaccompanied children can't be held in US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities for more than 72 hours.The team found that children had no adequate access to medical care, had no basic sanitation, were exposed to extreme cold and did not have adequate access to drinking water or food."I've been visiting children detained in federal immigration custody for 12 years," Mukherjee told the Guardian. "I have never seen anything like this before. I have never seen, smelled, had to bear witness to such degrading and inhumane conditions."The UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Monday said she was "appalled" at the conditions. "As a paediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of state, I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions," the statement quoted Bachelet as saying.Two weeks ago, the attorneys met with 60 children between the ages of five months and 17 years to interview them about the conditions in the facility, which is holding 350 children. Some had bodily fluids including breast milk, urine and mucus stained on their clothes and many were wearing the same clothes they had crossed the border in, days or weeks earlier.An aerial view of the border patrol facility in Clint, Texas, where attorneys reported migrants had been held in disturbing conditions. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty ImagesIn the past, Mukherjee said she would raise concerns about conditions with the lead counsel in the case, who would then pursue a remedy. This time, however, the conditions were so shocking the attorneys were compelled to approach the media.Mukherjee noted that seven children have died in federal immigration custody or shortly after being released, compared to no such deaths in the 10 previous years. "We were extremely concerned that more children might die if we didn't go public," she said.At Clint, attorneys learned a flu epidemic had left children quarantined, but were blocked from interviewing them in-person to ensure they were receiving proper medical care and instead communicated with some of the oldest children by phone.A week before their visit to Clint, at a similar facility in McAllen, Texas, lawyers and a pediatrician had identified five detained babies who needed immediate hospitalization and were transferred to a local hospital's neonatal intensive care unit."The conditions within which they are held could be compared to torture facilities," the physician, Dolly Lucio Sevier, wrote in a medical declaration obtained by ABC News.CBP initially denied the attorneys' reports, but its own watchdog, the homeland security department's Office of Inspector General, had already put together – then released last week – reports warning of dangerous overcrowding in border patrol facilities.On 10 June, the auditor said it witnessed "serious overcrowding" in four of five facilities and prolonged detention at the other five facilities – of both adults and children – that needed to be addressed immediately.Overcrowding observed by the Office of Inspector General at the border patrol station in McAllen, Texas, on 11 June. Photograph: Handout/Getty ImagesCBP said in a statement it "leverages our limited resources to provide the best care possible to those in our custody, especially children. As DHS and CBP leadership have noted numerous times, our short-term holding facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis."In response to the slew of devastating reports, the health department, which takes custody of unaccompanied migrant children until they can be paired with relatives or foster parents, is expanding its shelter network.And the House oversight committee said it will hold a hearing on Wednesday about the treatment of migrants at detention facilities.Also next week, an independent mediator in the case that spurred the attorneys' visit to Clint is due to provide a report about the detention centers before 12 July, according to court documents. That same day, Lights for Liberty vigils are planned around the country to protest the government's failure to adequately care for these children.Jennifer Nagda, policy director at the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, said that the issue stems from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) treating detention centers as part of enforcement instead of a site for protecting adults and children."It is incredibly frustrating when you know that on the part of homeland security, it is not due to a lack of resources, it is due to a lack of intention," Nagda said. "They have sufficient funds to provide three decent meals a day and a mattress a child can sleep on and a bathroom they can use privately."Nagda is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of advocates who have been raising concerns about immigration detention facilities while the US rapidly expanded immigration detention in the past two decades.The number of detained migrants increased in 1996 after then president Bill Clinton signed a pair of laws that introduced mandatory detentions for asylum seekers and legal immigrants who had committed crimes and allowed for indefinite detention.Nagda said after a decade working in this field, she was still shocked by the reports that emerged in recent weeks and was concerned a similar situation was replicated at other border facilities.Despite the grim reality at the border, Nagda clung to the power public outcry could have to change the current conditions. She thinks activists should specifically be pushing for children in detention to have access to pediatricians or medical experts with experience helping children and to have child welfare experts in the facility."Those kinds of agency changes will only happen in response to extraordinary public pressure and I think the public should take heart that their anger, and rallying and marches could actually influence how this agency spends money and cares for families arriving at the border," Nagda said, highlighting the role protests played in bringing an end to family separation in the summer of 2018.
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| Pete Buttigieg Uses Essence Festival to Start His Rehab With Black Voters Posted: 07 Jul 2019 03:34 PM PDT  Josh Brasted/GettyNEW ORLEANS—Pete Buttigieg entered the 25th annual Essence Fest Sunday morning with nothing to lose. Polls show the South Bend mayor with little to no support among black voters and his handling of a recent police shooting has had him on the defensive for weeks while his rivals—several of whom appeared at Essence on Saturday—have been building momentum.Which is why on a brutally sweltering day he found himself in a dark suit and tie, walking into the New Orleans Convention Center to do a set as Tyler Perry's warm-up act.On his way in, Buttigieg stopped to chat with the two black women who manned his campaign table outside the Power Stage, where a panel on how to help formerly incarcerated black women reenter society was just wrapping up. A handful of older black women spotted Buttigieg, and queued up for photos, smiling broadly and chatting with the young mayor.Buttigieg on Police Reform in His City: 'I Couldn't Get It Done'A television crew soon materialized, drawing more onlookers, many of whom had no idea who was standing at the small throng's center. With 15 minutes before his speech was set to start, a staffer interrupted. "I'm sorry but we have to go, his speech is about to start," he explained to a handful of middle-aged black women—who ignored his pleas to let the candidate off the hook. After a few more handshakes and selfies, the diminutive Buttigieg was finally hustled off backstage, where he'd wait to try and reintroduce himself to black America.An early star of the 2020 Democratic primaries, Buttigieg's momentum stalled after South Bend police shot and killed 54-year-old Eric Logan in June. Although Buttigieg's handling of housing and gentrification issues had already become problematic issues for many black voters and pundits, the Logan shooting sent the campaign into a tailspin. Criticism only increased after a viral video of Buttigieg being confronted by Logan's family and protesters came out in which Buttigieg appeared to say he wasn't asking for their vote. Then during the debate Buttigieg failed to right the ship, and, even though he admitted he did not handle issues like growing diversity on South Bend's police force adequately, he caused further questions for black voters unhappy with his answers.While Buttigieg's zero support with black voters is of huge concern for his campaign, it also offers the political neophyte something of an opportunity. The lack of support in part reflects his lack of popularity due to his record, but it also shows that he's simply unknown in much of the black community—something Rev. Al Sharpton obliquely highlighted in introducing Buttigieg. "I told him it took me two weeks to learn to say his name right, but don't worry about that it took me a month to say Obama's name right," Sharpton joked.From the start of his brief remarks, it was clear Buttigieg was aiming to reframe the narrative about his handling of race issues, though he was careful to not avoid his, or his party's, recent problems. He invoked Logan's name in acknowledging a lack of success in dealing with police brutality while mayor, repeatedly lamented "systemic racism" in education, health care, and housing, and even criticized the Democratic Party for being "under the spell of the idea of colorblindness."Buttigieg also focused much of his remarks on black women, at one point calling for a national law outlawing "natural hair discrimination" and arguing that black women are "not just the backbone of the Democratic Party, but the bone and sinew that is making our democracy whole. We have seen time and time again, especially in the last couple elections, that when black women mobilize, outcomes change."During a Q&A; with Sharpton, Essence CEO Michelle Ebanks, and Essence owner Richelieu Dennis, Buttigieg used a question about former Vice President Joe Biden's apology for praising segregationist senators to argue for greater accountability and involvement in race issues for white politicians. "I think it was a step forward. When you're responsible for something you've got to own it," he said, adding that "especially white candidates need to find their voices on this issue."Aside from a few small groups of vocal white supporters in the audience, Buttigieg's reception was polite, if largely muted. Some of his lines hit: for instance, when he declared "our entire health-care system is burdened by racism, when black women are dying from maternal complications at three times the rate of white women" much of the crowd applauded and cheered. But other obvious applause lines, notably his denunciation of workplace discrimination against black women for their hair style, landed flat. In fact, probably the biggest Buttigieg-related applause came after the candidate was off-stage during an interview with Perry. As the interview was closing, Perry—wearing a winter jacket despite the 100 degree temps in New Orleans—jokingly complained "Mayor Buttigieg got five hours up here!" which sent the audience in hysterics.After the event, it didn't appear that Buttigieg had won over vast swaths of the audience. But that was never really in the cards, nor did it seem to be the point for his campaign. Essence is, after all, a celebration of blackness and, specifically, black women. And Buttigieg's calm, straightforward approach to public speaking doesn't quite match the upbeat nature of much of the festival. Indeed, while former first lady Michelle Obama was given the rock star treatment Saturday night—addressing the main stage in the Superdome to thunderous applause—none of the four other presidential candidates brought down the house. For instance, while Sens. Corey Booker (NJ), Elizabeth Warren (MA), and Kamala Harris (CA) were greeted warmly on Saturday, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke—who like Buttigieg is a relatively unknown figure in the black community—was given a reception similar to Buttigieg.Reactions to Buttigieg's speech were decidedly mixed. For some attendees, Buttigieg's appearance at least put him on their radar in a positive way. Lisa Bush said that while she didn't know anything about Buttigieg before seeing him Sunday, she liked what she heard and wanted to learn more about the political newcomer. "He used a lot of buzzwords that aroused my interest," Bush said. The 60-year-old educator from New Orleans also said she thought it was positive that he even came to Essence, which many white politicians have avoided."I congratulate him for just having the courage to… present his white face to a black audience," she said.Still, for other black voters, Buttigieg's record as mayor remains a disqualifier. "Am I fan of his? No, I am not," said Angela Jackson, a New Orleans medical professional. Jackson, who has lost two family members to police violence, said the Logan shooting and Buttigieg's response was deeply troubling, and that while some of what he said sounded positive, she remained concerned with a lack of specific, concrete policy proposals. "It's very disheartening to me… these race issues are very serious for our community," Jackson said."It's just insane that we live in the 21st century and we're still dealing with these issues… I just feel like I'm living in Jim Crow."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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| Biden Explains Delay in Apologizing for Segregationist Comments Posted: 07 Jul 2019 02:24 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden said he waited more than two weeks to apologize for comments about segregationist senators because he hadn't had a chance to do so, even though the delay kept the controversy alive and might have cost him in some polls.The former vice president addressed the issue directly on Saturday because it was "the first opportunity I had to do it in a fulsome way," he told reporters Sunday, explaining that he wanted to speak in South Carolina -- where blacks account for 60% of the Democratic primary electorate -- and in front of "an audience that in fact would be the most likely to have been offended by what was said.""If any comments I made were taken in a way that people took offense from them, then I am truly sorry for that. That was not my intention," Biden said Sunday, echoing his remarks to a predominantly African-American crowd in Sumter a day earlier when he said he was "sorry for the pain and misconception I may have caused."Black voters account for about a fifth of the Democratic vote, and the South Carolina primary in February is the first next year with a predominantly black electorate. A strong showing there often has foreshadowed enduring strength nationally with African Americans. The winner in South Carolina has gone on to win the Democratic nomination in four out of the past five contests.Rivals CriticizeThe controversy erupted in mid-June after Biden recalled his Senate interactions with two prominent advocates of segregation, triggering criticism from two black rivals for the presidency, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker."He says he's sorry, I'm going to take him at his word," Harris, a California Senator, told reporters Sunday in Hartsville, South Carolina. "But again, that doesn't address the issue of busing in America.""We cannot rewrite history about what segregationists were doing at that time on a number of issues," she added.Asked about Harris's comments, Biden instead pointed to differences he has with her on other issues, such as health care. "I don't want to do away with Obamacare and start all over and trash it," he said.Obama TiesHarris also offered implicit criticism of Biden's reliance on his ties to former President Barack Obama, which he cited Saturday as a reason his record on race shouldn't be questioned."When it comes time to pull the level and for people to actually vote in this presidential election, they're going to make their decisions based not just on who we're associated with, but they're going to make their decisions based on the work we've done and, most importantly, our plans for the future of America," she said.Biden laughed when asked if he was too reliant on Obama's reputation in selling himself to voters. "I say let's talk about the future instead of talking about the past. That's what I say," he said.On Sunday afternoon, Biden appeared at a town hall in Charleston hosted by State Senator Marlon Kimpson, who made the event's only reference to the Harris-Biden split as he and voters in the audience asked about education, gun control and care for veterans.Kimpson, who is holding town halls with many Democratic candidates, warned voters not to "fall prey to anyone's attempt to manufacture a fight to drive media attention or to save a failing campaign.""I do not find it useful to re-litigate issues from 1950 or 50 years ago or 25 years ago," Kimpson said. "We've spent far too much time talking about the past" and candidate should be talking about the future.Speaking a moment later, Biden said: "I find it really refreshing to talk about the future."To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, ;Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Max BerleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Shutdown Showdown: How the Strait of Hormuz Factors into the U.S.-Iran Crisis Posted: 07 Jul 2019 01:02 AM PDT  The recent mining of two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, attributed to Iran by the United States, offers an important window into the strategic thinking of Iran and similarly situated regional powers. The incident is notable because the act of mining a limited number of vessels makes relatively little sense when viewed through the lens of traditional patterns of coercive behavior. Limited coercive acts typically have little value with regards to gaining concessions from a determined opponent. Generally, these acts may serve as a visible demonstration of a state's willingness to enact some other, more substantial threat, such as shutting down the Strait of Hormuz outright. However, this requires the state making the threat to have the capacity to make good on its more substantial threats and for its opponents to believe that it is willing to incur the risks entailed. Iran, however, could not shut down the Strait of Hormuz for very long even if it wished to—something noted by President Donald Trump—and is unlikely to incur the substantial risks that an attempt would entail. Iran's opponents, then, clearly don't see its limited provocations as harbingers of something worse.
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| Department of Justice hands 2020 census-related questions to new team of lawyers Posted: 08 Jul 2019 10:12 AM PDT  The Department of Justice on Sunday announced that a new team of lawyers will take over 2020 census-related questions.
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| Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Speaker Nancy Pelosi attack each other over border funding vote Posted: 08 Jul 2019 02:10 AM PDT  Republican strategist Kimberly Klacik and Democratic strategist Kevin Walling weigh in on the divide in the Democratic Party as we head into the 2020 election cycle.
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| Border agency knew of troubling Facebook posts in 2016: acting secretary Posted: 07 Jul 2019 08:11 AM PDT  U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials knew in 2016 about a private Facebook group where border agents posted racist and misogynistic comments, acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan said on Sunday. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) service came under fire over the issue last Monday, when the nonprofit news site ProPublica reported that offensive content had been posted on a private Facebook group for current and former CPB officers. McAleenan said the Facebook page was a private site run by a group of individuals in their off-duty hours and not under CBP control.
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| Boston suburb reflects broad changes in US immigration Posted: 07 Jul 2019 11:03 AM PDT  Guatemalan bakeries, Honduran restaurants and Salvadoran markets are joining an already ethnically diverse mix of businesses in downtown Chelsea, a tiny industrial city across the Mystic River from Boston. Among them is Catracho's, a modest Honduran eatery recently purchased by Johanna Mateo, who was born in New York and raised in Honduras until she was 12, when she joined her older sister in Chelsea. "I always wanted to reinvest in Chelsea," said Mateo, 27, who plans to expand to a vacant storefront next door.
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| The Incredible Guts of Thae Yong-ho Posted: 08 Jul 2019 03:30 AM PDT  Editor's Note: In the current issue of National Review, Mr. Nordlinger has a piece about Thae Yong-ho. The below is a larger treatment.People who manage to leave North Korea are often known as "defectors" -- even when they are ordinary citizens, rather than government officials or military personnel. That's because, when you are born in North Korea, you are deemed to belong to the state. If you leave, you have defected, and you are a traitor.Thae Yong-ho is a defector in a more widely understood sense. He was North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom when he went over to the South Koreans in 2016. He is one of the highest-ranking North Korean officials ever to defect. He is something rare in the world: a messenger from a closed and isolated society, a "hermit kingdom," as North Korea is called.• I have met him at the Oslo Freedom Forum, the annual human-rights gathering here in Norway's capital. Thae speaks good English with a slight British accent. He is elegant, knowledgeable, and self-assured -- a man you can imagine in diplomatic work.• He was born in 1962, and he grew up a true believer. There is little choice in North Korea. You are commanded to worship the Kims as gods. You know hardly anything about the outside world (although this is less true now than it was when Thae was growing up). He read books about Communist liberators who sacrificed their lives for the equality of man. Thae wanted to dedicate his life to that end too.I learn something from him that I have never heard before: North Korea has a version of the Ten Commandments -- with the ruling Kim, whoever he is (there have been three since the founding of the state), in place of God.Thae attended the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies. He joined the WPK, the Workers' Party of Korea, i.e., the ruling party. He entered the foreign ministry in 1988. And, in 1996, he had his first foreign posting -- to Denmark.• That was a revelation. He expected beggars in the street and the ruthless exploitation of workers. Instead, he found a happy, peaceful, healthy society, with ample social welfare. This pricked at the young diplomat's brain.He also started to see North Korea, and its ruling Kims, as outsiders saw them. In the mid 1990s, there was a terrible famine in North Korea. Thae understood that this was the result of natural disasters, and that the leader, Kim Jong-il, was doing everything possible to relieve the problem.All North Korean diplomats, wherever they were posted, were instructed to get food aid from their host governments. Thae went to the Danish foreign ministry. They were happy to oblige. But they had questions: Why was Kim Jong-il investing millions in nuclear weapons when people were starving? Why was he spending millions on a mausoleum for Kim Il-sung (his father and predecessor) when people were starving? These were hard questions to answer.Thae came face to face with the hypocrisy of the regime he was serving, and had been taught to revere. North Korean delegates arrived in Denmark to buy cows, for the special use of the Kim family. This would keep the Kims in dairy products and beef. Other delegates arrived to buy beer for the North Korean elites. These things were a far cry from the equality of man.Thae began to experience "doublethink," in Orwell's immortal and useful coinage. Part of him held on to the true faith, the North Korean Communist faith; another part of him had plain doubts.• He was later posted to Britain. One of his duties was to speak to Communist and socialist groups -- people who loved North Korea. He duly sang the praises of his country to them. But he knew, already, that it was a false song. He felt sorry for these deluded Brits. He also felt sorry to deceive them, or to keep them in their delusions -- but he had no choice: It was his job.• Then there was the matter of his boys, his two sons. In an atmosphere of freedom -- namely, Britain's -- they, too, were experiencing doublethink. And they had some hard questions for their father at the dinner table."Why is there no Internet in North Korea? YouTube helps you with your homework. You can go there and learn how to figure out a math problem. Our government is supposed to be for education. They say that they are doing everything possible for education. So why don't they allow the Internet?"Thae Yong-ho found he had to tell them the truth: If North Koreans had the Internet, they would learn things about the Kims, which would lead them to challenge the Kims' rule. This, the Kims could not have.The two boys were teased at school, by their British classmates. You know how schoolkids are. "You're from North Korea? You ate your dogs, right?" "Hey, you have long hair! That's not allowed in your country. I'm going to call Chairman Kim, and he will send someone to bring you back!" Etc.• Periodically, the family would indeed go home to North Korea. And naturally, the boys' friends there were curious -- curious about life in Britain, curious about a world outside North Korea. The Thae boys could not tell them the truth. It would be dangerous to speak of the wonders of freedom -- the Internet, an abundance of food, and all that.They asked their father what they should do. He suggested that they re-read Oliver Twist -- and give their friends some stories out of that book. About the misery and exploitation of Britain.Yes, you can read Dickens in North Korea. A few months ago, I talked with Vladimir Bukovsky, the Russian dissident. He spent twelve years in the Soviet Gulag. He told me that, in prison libraries, you could read Dickens (and Dreiser).• Thae Yong-ho pondered his fate, and his family's, and North Korea's. Maybe he could wait the Kim regime out. Maybe it would collapse before too long -- certainly in his lifetime. Then, in 2009, Kim Jong-il announced that his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, would succeed him. This dispirited Thae. The end of the regime was not in sight.• A tidbit: Thae would have an encounter with Kim Jong-un's older brother, Kim Jong-chul, in London. Kim Jong-chul is a big fan of Eric Clapton, the British rocker. In 2015, Thae accompanied Kim Jong-chul to hear Clapton in the Royal Albert Hall. (I write about this family, among others, in my book Children of Monsters.)• Slowly, inevitably, defection crept into Thae's mind. He would not consider it while his family was separated. Diplomats could not have all of their children with them abroad -- someone had to be left hostage, back in North Korea. So, Thae and his wife would have one son or the other with them in Britain. But in 2014, Kim Jong-un changed the policy. Now they had both of their sons with them -- which changed the equation.But what about other relatives back home? The Kim regime is a firm believer in guilt by association. If one person steps out of line, his family and even his friends and colleagues pay for it. This keeps North Koreans in line.• There came a time when Thae Yong-ho was recalled from London to Pyongyang. Why was a mystery. Maybe they were going to punish him, for some infraction unknown to him. This happens to North Koreans routinely. They don't know they have done something wrong until they are being imprisoned, tortured, or killed.In 2013, many of Thae's diplomatic colleagues around the world were recalled and then -- who knows what happened to them? Apparently, they had some kind of association with Jang Song-thaek, the dictator's uncle, whom the dictator turned against (and, of course, killed).• Thae thought about his sons. What kind of future would they have in North Korea? Could he really consign them to that kind of life, when they had already enjoyed a free life? And what about their children, and their children? Thae decided he would "cut off slavery at my generation," as he puts it. This far and no farther. No matter what, his sons and grandchildren and so on would not be slaves. He made a break for it.The North Korean government called him "human scum" and, for good measure, accused him of child rape. (This accusation is a specialty of Communist governments, and of some post-Communist ones too, such as Putin's.)A delicate, awful question: What happened to Thae Yong-ho's brothers, sisters, and other relatives in North Korea? Sitting here in Oslo, I don't ask him. But previous interviewers have. He assumes his relatives are in camps. It weighs very, very heavily on him. Unspeakably so. Knowing this already, I don't need to ask.• I do ask him about his personal security. Does he have worries? "I have a lot of worries," he says, "but I am heavily protected when I am in South Korea. The South Korean government knows that I am No. 1 on the assassination list." And "I know this will go on till the last day of the Kim regime."• Let me pause, now, to relate something that happened in the days after Thae Yong-ho and I talked. Do you know about the recent fad of "milkshaking"? Protesters throw milkshakes on public figures they dislike. This happened to Thae as he was entering the Grand Hotel here in Oslo. The attacker, or "milkshaker," was a Norwegian leftist, apparently.In the Free World, hard as it may be to believe, some people despise North Korean defectors as traitors, liars, and defamers. They take essentially the same view as the Kim regime itself.When Thae was "milkshaked," his guards quickly subdued the attacker, and the man was soon arrested. Online, his comrades celebrated him. One of them said, "He got arrested for ruining a rich defector's coat and deserves a lot of support and love right now."It was just a milkshake, true -- nothing serious. But Thae didn't know that at first. He thought of Kim Jong-nam, the dictator's half-brother, who was killed when two women smeared him with a foreign substance in the Kuala Lumpur airport.• Back, now, to our conversation, and another question: How do South Koreans, his brother Koreans, treat Thae? It depends, he says. South Korea is polarized on the issue of North Korea. People on the left treat him with scorn. I remark that they might try living in North Korea, if they think it's so great -- which makes Thae smile.Around the world, people view the Korean War (1950–53) as a war between the North and the South. In South Korea, says Thae, many people view it, instead, as a war between Left and Right. And there is deep sympathy for the Left.Think of it: Left and Right did not fight merely theoretically. They did not fight merely with words. They fought with arms. East Germany and West Germany never fought a war against each other. The Koreas did. And this war reverberates, says Thae, even now.In South Korea, he meets people on the left who struggled for democracy and human rights in their country, when it was under dictatorship. Yet many of these same people are reluctant to talk about democracy and human rights for North Koreans. They want to change the subject.I remark to Thae that it must be bewildering to him to meet apologists for dictatorships -- especially North Korea's, the worst -- in free countries. Yes.• What does he think about the unusual relationship between the American president, Trump, and the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un? Thae says that he understands the need to discuss nuclear issues -- but does not understand why Trump depicts Kim as a "nice guy" or even a "normal person." "Kim Jong-un is a tyrant, a dictator, and a criminal."• Jeane Kirkpatrick used to describe North Korea as "a psychotic state," something of which the world had very little experience. Thae Yong-ho often describes life inside North Korea as "unimaginable." He is trying to get people to imagine it. He wrote a memoir, Cryptography from the Third-Floor Secretariat. He started a blog.• His goal, or dream, is nothing less than the end of the regime. He would like to see the Korean Peninsula reunited on democratic terms. Does he have a strategy? Yes. First and foremost, he wants to encourage North Korean elites to recognize what they surely know or suspect already, in their doublethinking: The Kim regime is corrupt, nasty, and lying.He knows what it's like to be a North Korean elite. He was one. Eventually, this doublethinking will tip over into a more resolute thinking: Yes, the North Korean regime is wrong. It smashes everything that a human being has a right to have.Thae does not think that this regime will fall tomorrow, oh no. But he thinks it will fall, as the people of North Korea learn more about themselves and others, and, in disgust at having been misled and oppressed, rise up.• Before he and I part, I ask Thae, "Do your former colleagues and other North Korean elites admire you, secretly?" "Yes," he says. "Do you know this for sure?" I ask. "Of course," he answers. They know, better than anyone else, the sheer guts of what Thae Yong-ho has done.
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| Hong Kong police arrest five after new night of clashes Posted: 07 Jul 2019 08:51 PM PDT  Five people were arrested during overnight clashes in Hong Kong between riot officers and anti-government protesters, police said Monday, as the political violence rocking the international hub shows no sign of abating. The city has been plunged into its worst crisis in recent history following a month of huge marches as well as separate violent confrontations with police involving a minority of hardcore protesters. Sunday night saw fresh political violence break out in the district of Mongkok as police baton-charged small groups of masked, largely young protesters who were walking along roads and refused to disperse following another massive, peaceful rally earlier in the day.
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| View Photos of the BMW X7 Pickup Concept Posted: 08 Jul 2019 11:19 AM PDT |
| Trump approval rating jumps to highest level of his presidency in Washington Post/ABC News poll Posted: 07 Jul 2019 06:04 PM PDT  His high of 44% is lower than the average approval rating for every other president going back to Harry Truman.
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| U.S. to seek death penalty for murder of Chinese grad student Posted: 08 Jul 2019 03:00 AM PDT ![U.S. to seek death penalty for murder of Chinese grad student]( "U.S. to seek death penalty for murder of Chinese grad student") U.S. prosecutors were expected on Monday to argue that an Illinois man who kidnapped, raped and murdered a Chinese graduate student two years ago should be executed. A jury in U.S. District Court in Peoria, Illinois, found Brendt Christensen, 29, guilty last month of the abduction and murder of Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While Illinois has outlawed the death penalty, federal prosecutors trying Christensen under U.S. kidnapping laws had said they planned to seek the death penalty if he was found guilty.
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| Wife of arrested Chinese ex-Interpol president sues agency Posted: 07 Jul 2019 01:44 AM PDT  The wife of former Interpol President Meng Hongwei is suing the international police agency, accusing Interpol of failing to protect him from arrest in China and failing to protect his family. Meng's wife Grace Meng said her lawyers filed a legal complaint in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands. Interpol said Sunday it strongly disputes the allegations.
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| Rainbow flag again set on fire at New York gay bar Posted: 08 Jul 2019 05:35 AM PDT  A rainbow flag was set on fire at the entrance to a New York City gay bar on Monday — the second such incident at the same club in just over a month. Alibi Lounge owner Alexi Minko said staff members, alerted by someone on the street, found the flag had been set aflame between 12:20 a.m. and 12:45 a.m. New York City police were already investigating a possible anti-gay bias crime after rainbow flags at the Harlem bar's entrance were torched just after midnight May 31, a day before the start of the city's Pride Month celebrations.
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| Dog owners told to feed pet before post arrives and lock them in room for ten minutes after postman has left, under Royal Mail guidance Posted: 07 Jul 2019 04:00 PM PDT  Dog owners should feed their pets before the postman arrives and lock them away for ten minutes after he leaves, the Royal Mail has said following a spate of attacks. Every week in the last year around 47 postmen and women were attacked by dogs in the course of their work, new figures show. There were 2,484 dog attacks on postal staff in the past year, representing an increase of 9% on the year previously. Attacks have left some mail workers with "permanent and disabling injury" the report said. In response the Royal Mail has issued a set of guidelines to dog owners to prevent further attacks in which it warns even the most lovable dog can pose a danger to delivery workers. Among the postal services' advice is to give your dog some food to occupy them while mail is being delivered. Pet owners should shut their canines in a secure room when the postman comes knocking and "wait 10 minutes after mail has arrived to let your pet back into your hallway". In several postcodes, attacks on postal workers have risen. Telford has seen the rate of dog attacks quadruple, Royal Mail said. A Royal Mail postal van Credit: Luke MacGregor/Reuters In the last year, 883 or 35% of dog attacks on postal workers happened at the front door or in the garden, the report said. Tina O'Toole, a postwoman who has been working in Warrington for three years was set upon and bitten on the leg by a dog in the front garden of a property she was delivering to. Ms O'Toole received treatment in hospital for her injury and required a skin flap. She was unable to work for five weeks following the incident. "The day before the attack, the dog had attempted to grab the mail through the box. That made me think it was quite aggressive," Ms O'Toole said. "On the day of the attack… I turned to leave the premises when I heard the dog barking and running up behind me. As I was attempting to get through the gate I felt pain to my right calf. Ms O'Toole said she "went int shock" when she saw the blood seeping through her trousers. "It would have been much worse if I was wearing shorts. Neighbours called the ambulance and I was rushed to hospital."
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| No Matter 18,000 Lost Jobs, Germany OK With Deutsche Bank Cull Posted: 08 Jul 2019 04:49 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel's government will look past Deutsche Bank AG's cutting a fifth of its workforce as the German lender commits to an overhaul.Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing's bid to reboot the bank is viewed in Berlin as a necessary change, according to an official with direct knowledge of the issue who asked not to be named. Despite the headline 18,000 job cuts, normally a red flag for politicians, the Frankfurt-based lender's makeover is seen as necessary to cut fat and boost the bank's profitability. In addition, the government welcomes a step back from investment banking and a renewed focus on German businesses.Deutsche Bank's failure in April to combine with Commerzbank AG, in which the government has a stake of about 15.5%, was a stinging defeat for Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, whose bid to rescue a potential national champion got little public support from across the political spectrum.That left Deutsche Bank to its own devices and Sewing on Sunday pledged to do what many in Germany's political ranks have always called on it to do: drop its ambitions as a global investment bank and return to its German-lending roots.Olav Gutting, a lawmaker for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union who sits on the finance committee of the lower house of parliament, called the overhaul "bold" given a challenging business environment in which lending money is hardly profitable any more. "This is very ambitious," Gutting, who in the past has ruled out any form of state involvement in helping Deutsche Bank, said in a message, adding that job cuts naturally concerned politicians. "But I'm crossing my fingers, because we need a Deutsche Bank present globally."A spokesman at Germany's Finance Ministry declined to comment on the overhaul plans.Markets have had a mixed view on the overhaul for a bank viewed by German regulators as systemically relevant, with risk gauges falling and its euro convertible bonds climbing. Deutsche Bank shares fell 1.7% in afternoon trading after seesawing in the morning. (Updates with CDU lawmaker comments in fifth, sixth paragraphs.)To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net;Birgit Jennen in Berlin at bjennen1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Raymond ColittFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| What Has Become of Abdul-Salaam Ojeili's Syria Posted: 07 Jul 2019 12:59 PM PDT  Following a stalemate that had lasted, imperfectly, from September 2018, the Syrian government and their Russian allies launched a campaign in early May against opposition-held territory in Syria's northwest. If a larger campaign against Idlib province is coming, then it could be the death knell for the Syrian opposition as a force within the country's borders. Aside from the significant territory east of the Euphrates controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and pockets of Turkish-occupied territory in the north, the Syrian government will have reclaimed the country following eight years of war. While this may still be some time away from becoming a reality, it is a fitting time to assess how the Syrian opposition failed in its objective to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and end the regime his father began in 1970.Over the course of eight years, the Syrian conflict went from complex to more complex, but its origins, of course, were in the idea that the Syrian government, and its president Bashar al-Assad, had lost the legitimacy to govern the country. The conflict evolved from peaceful protesters standing off against a dictatorial government, to a roughly two-sided war of rebels versus government, then to a total breakdown of the state into at least four distinct areas of control: the Syrian government, ISIS, the SDF and the opposition.So what went wrong? We all remember the hope that permeated the news media and social media in 2011, when everyone was convinced that the Arab world's "spring" had finally come. Eight years later, however, the Syria that remains is not what anyone envisioned when they took to the streets to protest against the government. Given the Arab Spring's track record around the region, it would be naïve to dismiss an argument that pinpoints an Arab-worldwide phenomenon that explains the failure to democratize in the region.
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| India 'dosa king' seeks delay to life sentence for love-saga murder Posted: 08 Jul 2019 04:06 AM PDT  The founder of a trailblazing Indian restaurant chain sentenced to life for murder launched a Supreme Court appeal to delay the beginning of his term Monday, citing ill-health. P. Rajagopal, the wealthy founder of the Saravana Bhavan chain of eateries popular across India and beyond was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in 2004 over the killing of a love rival. Reports say Rajagopal, 71 and known as the "Dosa King" was obsessed with the daughter of an employee and wanted to marry her.
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| Police officers praised after paying for woman's groceries instead of arresting her for shoplifting Posted: 07 Jul 2019 10:22 AM PDT  Three New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers have been praised after they paid for a woman's groceries when she was caught attempting to steal the goods.The moment at a Manhattan Whole Foods was captured by a fellow shopper, who snapped a photo and posted it on Twitter.The image shows the woman burying her head in her hands, while the three officers stand around her at the cash register, paying for the food."I know that the police make split second decisions each day, so for the police to pay for the woman's food without hesitation was powerful," Paul Bozymowski, the individual who took the photo, told The Independent. "It was incredibly moving to see such a genuinely kind moment."The officers have since been identified as lieutenant Louis Sojo, and officers Esnaidy Cuevas and Michael Rivera, who said during a press conference that officers all around the city act in this way frequently – but that these actions are rarely seen.During that press conference on Friday they said they were heading into the store to when they were told by security guards that the woman was stealing food."I asked her, 'What's going on?' She told me she was hungry," Mr Sojo said. "So, I looked in her bag. I decided – we decided – to say 'We'll pay for her food'."He added that they were not expecting the reaction they received."You know, I've been doing this for 22 years. This is not the first time I've paid for food. This is not the first time they've paid for someone's food," Mr Sojo said."We don't go out and do it all the time, but, you know, when you look at someone's face and you notice that they need you, and they're actually hungry. It's pretty difficult as a human being to walk away from something like that. We weren't raised like that. So, it's the right thing to do."Mr Bozymowski, for his part, said he did not think many in the supermarket noticed the police officers and their act of kindness. But, he said he was glad his photo had resonated."When I posted the photo, I certainly didn't think it would get this amount of attention. I'm happy it is," he said. "If the story can inspire others to be generous and kind, then that's good for all of us."
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| Affordable Care Act threatened as Trump administration, GOP states fight US House, Democratic states in court Posted: 07 Jul 2019 12:25 PM PDT  The health care law has helped insure 20 million people since 2010 and survived two Supreme Court battles in 2012 and 2015, but it's threatened again.
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| India's latest Google probe sparked by junior antitrust researchers Posted: 08 Jul 2019 03:50 AM PDT  Two junior Indian antitrust research associates and a law school student were behind a complaint that sparked a probe into Google's alleged anti-competitive practices in the country, in what has become another regulatory challenge for the U.S. firm. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) ordered a full-blown investigation into Alphabet Inc's Google in April for alleged abuse of its Android platform to hurt rivals, but the complainants' names came to light only when the order was made public last week. The case was filed by Umar Javeed and Sukarma Thapar, who work as research associates at the CCI, and Umar's brother Aaqib, a law school student who interned with the CCI briefly in 2018, their LinkedIn profiles showed.
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| Months of aftershocks could follow big California earthquake Posted: 06 Jul 2019 08:00 PM PDT  Officials in Southern California expressed relief Saturday that damage and injuries weren't worse after the largest earthquake the region has seen in nearly 20 years, while voicing concerns about the possibility of major aftershocks in the days and even months to come. No fatalities or major injuries were reported after Friday night's 7.1-magnitude earthquake, which jolted an area from Sacramento to Mexico and prompted the evacuation of the Navy's largest single landholding, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the Mojave Desert. The quake struck at 8:19 p.m. Friday and was centered 11 miles (18 kilometers) from Ridgecrest, the same area of the desert where a 6.4-magnitude temblor hit just a day earlier.
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| Inside Ellen Van Dusen's Colorful Brooklyn Brownstone Posted: 08 Jul 2019 05:00 AM PDT |
| 2019 Honda Insight vs. 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid: Which Affordable, Normal-Looking Hybrid Is Best? Posted: 08 Jul 2019 05:00 AM PDT  Both of these compact hybrid sedans can be had for less than $24,000-see which one you should buy.
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| To Dim Guaido's Appeal, Maduro Offers Venezuela His Own Version Posted: 08 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Juan Guaido, the 35-year-old head of Venezuela's opposition, arrived this year with Tigger-like energy. He bounced around holding rallies in the poorest neighborhoods, showing up onstage at a relief concert, trying to sway troops to his side outside a military base. The middle-aged regime of Nicolas Maduro, dominated by burly revolutionaries in Castro-chic fatigues and dated facial hair, needed to counter him. Enter Hector Rodriguez. Increasingly visible in Maduro's circle of trust, the 37-year-old governor of Miranda state regularly draws crowds at events in Caracas and was sent to Oslo in May to negotiate with the opposition. He shows up in tailored button-down shirts or polos to make soothing statements about dialogue and unity. He has a fashionably shaved pate. He grins.Venezuela under Maduro has fallen into dysfunction and international condemnation. Hunger is rampant, and the mainstay oil industry continues to devolve. With Maduro deeply unpopular amid the devastation -- but with Guaido so far unable to dislodge him -- Rodriguez is increasingly visible as the regime retools itself for a long haul. In some Chavista circles, his name is now whispered as the regime's best chance of holding onto power if an international coalition forces new elections."Hector Rodriguez is a liked figure; he's seen as a different kind of Chavista, open to dialogue and able to charm the opposition members who were once Chavez supporters," said Felix Seijas, head of pollster Delphos. "If handled right, he could be a figure that could give life to Chavismo and make it competitive."Maduro's natural successors would be Diosdado Cabello, who heads the supreme National Constituent Assembly created by Maduro's government in 2017 or Industry Minister Tareck El Aissami. But both are unpopular and have been sanctioned by the U.S., which accuses them of money laundering and drug trafficking, among other offenses. This limits their ability to act on a global stage."Eighty percent of the people reject Maduro, and nobody likes Cabello or El Aissami. With the emergence of a young leader like Guaido, the only option left is Hector Rodriguez," said political scientist Luis Salamanca of Venezuela's public Central University in Caracas. "If a democratic election is agreed upon, Rodriguez would be the candidate."Rodriguez traveled to Oslo with Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez and Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, two close allies of Maduro. After the inconclusive negotiations, Maduro appeared a couple of times with Rodriguez on state television to congratulate him for his effort.Rodriguez, who rarely speaks to the press and declined requests for an interview, has been conspicuous at key moments. In 2017, when Maduro announced the country's decision to stop paying its foreign debt, Rodriguez sat by his side on national television. He was also at the presidential palace on Jan. 23, the day Guaido claimed the constitution made him interim president because the regime stole the election. QuicktakeWhy Venezuela Has Two Presidents, One Thorny Standoff: QuickTakeBut Rodriguez has cultivated an image as a domestic powerhouse. Rather than making showy threats against the yanquis, he focuses publicly on fighting crime, cultivating fallow land for cocoa exports and promoting a food program in Miranda schools."I like Rodriguez better than Maduro," said Maria Victoria Ballesteros, a Miranda state school teacher. "Maduro doesn't do anything right. If Rodriguez orders a highway repair, he actually shows up to supervise the work."His image belies his actual accomplishments. Rodriguez equipped Miranda police with dozens of SUVs, bicycles and motorcycles and has increased the number of officers. But Miranda reported the second-highest rate of violent deaths in Venezuela last year, with 124 homicides for every 100,000 people, according to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory. Local cocoa producers fear he will take over production and sell it to allies in China or Turkey.And despite his promotion of food programs, almost 11% of children in Miranda 5 years old and younger suffer from acute malnutrition, according to the Catholic charity Caritas.Yet some regime supporters believe Rodriguez -- relatively young and unsullied -- could one day take the reins of the socialist revolution. "He has all the profile, the commitment, maturity, talent and the trajectory to assume a presidential candidacy," said Ricardo Sanchez, a Constituent Assembly member who's known Rodriguez since college.Born in a modest beach town in northeast Venezuela, Rodriguez has two children with his wife, Dubraska Moreno. He first stood out as a student leader at Central University, where he obtained a law degree. While he hewed to the socialist ideology of the late President Hugo Chavez, he had good relationships with students in the opposition. He's even admitted to calling opposition lawmakers including Stalin Gonzalez and Miguel Pizarro friends, a bold move in a nation that imprisons dissidents as traitors. Pizarro has since fled the country.Chavez, who died of cancer in 2013, saw Rodriguez as someone who could perpetuate his program of redistributing Venezuela's oil-created wealth."Rodriguez emerges the same year as the year the young generation of students like Guaido," said Nicmer Evans, a Central University political scientist and disaffected regime supporter. "Chavez liked him for his conceptual depth and his oratorical skills. He saw in Rodriguez some kind of relay generation."Rodriguez first dazzled Chavez with his fiery speeches during a wave of 2007 protests, where he stood his ground against student activists after the president closed the popular channel RCTV, which took an opposition editorial line. The next year, Chavez named him chief of staff. Since then, he has run ministries devoted to education, youth and sports and led the ruling party in the National Assembly, since bypassed by the Constituent Assembly.In 2017, Rodriguez became Miranda's governor by a margin of 6% in an election decried by the opposition as a fraud. The elections agency, which is controlled by the government, moved dozens of voting centers at the last minute, displacing some 225,000 voters. Opposition observers also were forcibly removed from several centers.Rodriguez "knows how to work in teams," said Victor Clark, a close friend and governor of Falcon state, who met Rodriguez in college. "He knows how to listen and ask questions. He is analytical and disciplined."That might not be enough. Even if Maduro somehow left the scene, Rodriguez would drag the weight of his ruinous economy, one so bad 4 million Venezuelans have left the country. Evans said Rodriguez must know that his window of opportunity to assume real leadership is limited. "He knows that this is a disaster and he is sinking with the country's collapse," Evans said. To contact the author of this story: Alex Vasquez in Caracas at avasquez45@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net, Melinda GrenierFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Hundreds of thousands march across Europe for Gay Pride Posted: 06 Jul 2019 08:27 PM PDT  Four hundred thousand people turned out on the streets of Madrid Saturday for a Gay Pride parade dedicated this year to pioneers of the LGBT+ cause, amid growing fears of fresh repression with the rise of the far-right in Europe. The slogan for this year's march was "History, struggle and memory" and participants marked 50 years since the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969 which were the foundation of the gay rights movement worldwide. Catholic Spain at the time was controlled by dictator General Francisco Franco and homosexual acts were illegal.
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| Woman suing L.A. fertility clinic claims she gave birth to someone else's babies in IVF mix-up Posted: 08 Jul 2019 12:43 PM PDT  A couple in New York City is suing a Los Angeles fertility clinic, alleging they gave birth to someone else's children after an IVF mix-up.
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| Bodies of woman, 3 children found in rental car in apparent murder-suicide in New York Posted: 08 Jul 2019 09:35 AM PDT ![Bodies of woman, 3 children found in rental car in apparent murder-suicide in New York]( "Bodies of woman, 3 children found in rental car in apparent murder-suicide in New York") A tow truck driver discovered the bodies of a woman and three children in New York on Sunday.
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| Iran's Zarif calls on UK to immediately release captured oil tanker Posted: 08 Jul 2019 04:19 AM PDT  The capture of an Iranian oil tanker by Britain has set "a dangerous precedent and must end now", Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter on Monday. "Iran is neither a member of the EU nor subject to any European oil embargo. UK's unlawful seizure of a tanker with Iranian oil on behalf of #B_Team is piracy, pure and simple.
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| First lady Melania Trump in West Virginia for opioid talk Posted: 08 Jul 2019 12:24 PM PDT  First lady Melania Trump visited West Virginia on Monday to learn how a city at the center of the nation's opioid epidemic is grappling with the crisis. "I am here to give you my support," Trump told participants in the roundtable discussion. West Virginia has the country's highest fatal opioid overdose rate and has struggled, like many other states, to confront the many aspects of the problem.
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| F-35 Is Old: Russia Could Turn Its Su-57 Into a 6th Generation Stealth Monster Posted: 07 Jul 2019 03:18 AM PDT  Russia could turn its first fifth-generation fighter, the Sukhoi Su-57, into a sixth-generation fighter the former head of the Russian Aerospace Force, chief Col. Gen. Viktor Bondarev recently told TASS."This is actually a splendid plane and it can embrace both fifth-and sixth-generation features. It has huge modernization potential," Bondarev, now chairman of the Federation Council Defense and Security Committee, said. "Importantly, it is the best among the existing versions by its stealth characteristics. It incorporates all the best that is available in modern aviation science both in Russia and in the world," he added.(This first appeared in late 2017.)As reported by Franz-Stefan Gady in an extensive piece for The Diplomat, Russian defense officials have repeatedly claimed that hardware elements designed for a future sixth generation fighter have been tested on the Su-57 prototype, including flight and navigation systems as well as advanced electronic warfare and radar systems.Noteworthy Russia revealed the design of a new sixth-generation fighter aircraft for the first time in March 2016. According to Russian defense officials, the new aircraft is slated to be available in manned and unmanned configuration and could take to the air for the first time in the late 2020s.
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| Facebook Libra digital currency will carry hidden costs Posted: 07 Jul 2019 09:10 AM PDT  When Facebook announced its intention to get into the money business, we wondered what would be next. Its own court system? An army?: Our view
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| How Bernie Sanders is trying to walk the fine line between warring Democrats, split Republicans and a divided America Posted: 07 Jul 2019 08:15 AM PDT  Bernie Sanders was elected to the House in 1990 after branding himself an outsider and defying calls to join a Democratic Party he had long bashed as "ideologically bankrupt."Nonetheless, Mr Sanders, a democratic socialist who won Vermont's lone House seat as an independent, quickly sank into a funk when Democratic conservatives circulated a list of nasty things he had said about them over the years — ostracising him from their caucus and blocking his committee assignments for a few nerve-frazzling days."That was emotionally very difficult — it was a very, very difficult period," Mr Sanders, who is not known for his sentimentality, said in a recent interview. "I'll never forget it. You come into the House, you expect to come to work, and you find that the majority leadership doesn't know where they are going to sit you — if they are going to sit you."He marked the moment, in an I-will-never-go-hungry-again kind of way. As time and circumstance changed, Mr Sanders gradually evolved from a marginalized gadfly in the House to a reliable Democratic vote in the most insider-y club in Washington, the US Senate.The change says much about the power of a senator compared with that of a congressman, but even more about the deep pragmatism of Mr Sanders' do-it-yourself political career, a quality that has propelled him to the top tier of the Democratic presidential field for 2020.Bernie Sanders, in effect, cut a bargain, eschewing the role of in-house rebel for the freedom to create and nurture his brand as the outsider, ever scornful of half-loaf compromise."Nobody walks the line between insider and outsider better than Bernie — nobody," said Virginia's Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016.Indeed, Mr Sanders, though still a registered independent, is increasingly emphasising his hidden life as a get-along "Democrat" in an attempt to broaden his appeal and woo away voters who might otherwise reject his brand of insurgent politics for more mainstream candidates, like former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris of California."He's a Democrat," said his campaign manager, Faiz Shakir.During his 12 years in the Senate, Mr Sanders, 77, has voted in favour of virtually every major piece of legislation, procedural motion or budget compromise pitched by his leaders — especially when his no vote would have affected the outcome.In the process, he has forged surprisingly close ties with Harry Reid, the wily former majority leader from Nevada, and Reid's successor as Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York.In turn, those senators have given him a platform from which to launch his big progressive policy agenda, including Medicare for all and free college tuition.The Sanders two-step — voting with leadership, but unhappily — not only reflects his innate, if tempered, disdain for the establishment but also allows him to play the maverick even as he's playing nice.One Democratic senator, who likes Mr Sanders, half joked that it was politically "important" for him to appear ticked off "at all times." Mr Sanders did not dispute the general point.A big part of Mr Sanders' compliance stems from something he has seldom declared in his speeches: personal loyalty to Reid. In contrast to the hostility in the House, Reid welcomed the independent enthusiastically to his conference in 2006.Their relationship faced a test in late 2009, when Reid summoned him to his office to nail down support for the Affordable Care Act, even though Mr Sanders viewed it as a "pathetic" substitute for the federally funded single-payer system he had long championed — and some Mr Sanders supporters were pushing him to oppose the bill."I'm not happy, Harry!" Sanders said shortly after sitting down in the leader's office, according to people familiar with the exchange. "But I'm voting yes. So you don't have to worry about me."A handful of conservative Democrats played hardball, but Sanders did not. He made two requests after pledging his loyalty: funding for community health centres, and a floor vote for a federally funded single-payer system, the basis for his current Medicare-for-all proposal.He got the money, and Mr Reid reluctantly agreed to schedule the vote; Mr Sanders later withdrew the single-payer vote in the interest of speeding up passage of the bill, at Mr Reid's request."When you have a relationship with the US Senate leader, who you consider a friend, you cannot blackmail him," Mr Sanders said. "It's a two-way street. When I need help — and I think I wasn't overly aggressive in demanding help on every bill, as some people do — Harry was there for me, and when he needed my support, I was there for him."In 2017, Mr Sanders repeated the favour. Republicans in the majority tried to bring his Medicare-for-all proposal to the floor, in hopes of forcing endangered moderate Democratic incumbents into a party-splintering vote.Mr Schumer persuaded a yet again disappointed Mr Sanders to urge all Democrats, especially influencers weighing 2020 presidential bids, to vote "present," rather than yes or no, to short-circuit the sabotage attempt.But accommodation is not the same as accomplishment. Mr Sanders' record of legislative achievement has been slender and sporadic, with two notable exceptions: the passage of a bipartisan veterans health bill in 2014 and his success inserting $11bn for community health centre into the Obamacare bill a decade ago."He introduces about 25 bills of substance a year," said Craig Volden, a University of Virginia professor who runs a project rating the effectiveness of legislators, adding, "He has kind of a low batting average."Mr Volden's system rated Mr Sanders as "below expectations" for much of his tenure in the Senate, based on bills passed or considered by committees.That is the lowest rating of any of the seven senators seeking the presidency, far behind the leader of the pack among 2020 Democrats, the bipartisan deal-cutter Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota — and a few notches lower than Mr Sanders' main competitor on the left, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.His work as ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee has been mixed. Mr Sanders has had trouble recruiting and retaining first-class staff for the committee and has often called on Washington's Democratic Senator Patty Murray, a highly regarded legislative technician who served as committee chair, to lend the expertise of her aides on complex budget matters, according to three Democratic senators and two aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity.Mr Sanders bridles at boring technocratic toil and once impatiently asked an aide, "What's the news for today?" during a discussion of ho-hum committee business, one former staff member recalled.Mr Sanders said his main goal had always been to move the Democratic Party to the left, rather than work within the system to hammer out compromise measures. And he has had an impact on select issues, pushing the leadership of both parties to challenge President Donald Trump on his support of Saudi intervention in Yemen.When asked for his most significant legislative accomplishment in the past year, he pointed to bills that would pressure large employers like Amazon, Disney and Walmart to improve their pay and benefits.That measure is unlikely to see the floor, he conceded, but the "point of the legislation was to tell Amazon, to tell Disney, we are going to stand with workers — you can have significant success without ever passing a piece of legislation."Despite wearing his curmudgeon's attitude with pride, Mr Sanders has gone out of his way to maintain a positive working relationship with Warren, huddling with her in a Senate hallway recently to smooth over a fracas between the campaigns on Twitter.He worked closely with John McCain, on a major bipartisan veterans health care reform bill in 2014. Later, he asked McCain if he could use his image during the presidential campaign, to push back on Ms Clinton's claim that his legislative record was all "pie in the sky" with no real accomplishment. McCain was tickled and quickly said yes.Mr Sanders can often be less than attentive to the small but significant personal interactions that foster deep loyalty to him. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the only Democrat in the upper chamber to back Mr Sanders' challenge to Ms Clinton in 2016, has yet to endorse him in the 2020 race. In fact, Sanders has not even reached out to formally request Merkley's endorsement a second time, an omission one person close to Merkley viewed as a blunder.And even Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the one Senate Democrat so far to endorse him for 2020, has not entirely forgotten the irritation Mr Sanders has brought him over the years. There was that time in 1974 when Mr Sanders' third-party challenge nearly cost him his first election to the Senate."I was running to become the first Democratic senator in the history of Vermont," Leahy recalled in an interview. "Bernie knew that 95 per cent of the votes he got would come from me and not the Republican, but he ran anyway."Then Mr Leahy paused."But, you know, he's a likable guy."The New York Times
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| Deutsche Bank says to slash 18,000 jobs by 2022 Posted: 07 Jul 2019 09:55 AM PDT  Germany's biggest lender Deutsche Bank said Sunday it would cut 18,000 jobs by 2022, as the former leading light of the country's financial sector looks to escape years of turmoil. The slashing of around one in five of its workforce, to 74,000 employees, is an unprecedented round of departures for Deutsche. The bank said the layoffs would reduce annual costs by six billion euros ($6.7 billion) over the same period.
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| Make your Instant Pot feel like new with this 12-piece accessory set, on sale today for $25 Posted: 07 Jul 2019 07:34 AM PDT  Looking for a way to make your Instant Pot even more versatile than it already is? We have just the thing. The Tecvinci 12 Pcs Accessories Set is compatible with every Instant Pot model with a capacity between 5 quarts and 8 quarts. It has a bunch of different items that bring new functionality to your Instant Pot -- our favorite is the silicone egg mold -- and it's on sale today for $24.99!Here are the bullet points from the product page: * PERFECT INSTANT POT SET: Our product comes in a full kit of 12 pieces instant pot accessories which perfectly meets almost your needs for making the best meals.! Include: 1*Stainless Steel Steamer Basket, 1*Non-stick Springform Pan, 1*Egg Rack,1*Silicone basting Brush, 1*Silicone Egg Mold, 1*Plate Clip,1*Silicone Trivet Mats, 3*Magnetic Cook Time Cheat Sheets, 1*Food Tong, 1 pair of mini Mitts and Bouns Free Recipe Ebook ( START DOWNLOAD BY SCANNING THE QR CODE THAT STICKED ON THE BOX) * SUPER VERSATILE: Steam favorite veggies, meats in the steamer baskets, bake delicious cake in the cheesecake pan, cook a dozen eggs with stackable egg steamer rack, lift food out of deep pot with food tongs and mits, adhere 3 different magnetic cheat sheets to fridge & pot to convert your favorite recipes, protect your kitchen surfaces with silicone trivet mats. * PREMIUM QUALITY AND 100% SAFETY: Your safety is our first priority. We only using the FDA certificated material of food-grade silicone and 304 stainless steel, which is PBA free. These products are easy to clean, sturdy, durable and dishwasher safe. * FITS 5, 6 & 8 QT AND OTHER BRAND PRESSURE COOKER：this set is compatible with most instant-Pot models including IP-DUO50, IP-DUO60, IP-LUX60 and IP-DUO80. It also fits other multi quarts (6 quarts and above) electric pressure cookers such as Kuhn Rikon, Power XL, Cuisinart, Fagor, Costaway, Faberware, T-fal, Elite, GoWise, Secura and Gourmia. * 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE: This 12 pieces pressure cooker accessories set includes everything you need to cook without costing you a lot of time and money to buy each piece individually, will leave a lasting impression on your cooking and baking for years to come, you won't disappointed!
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| Jim Beam bourbon warehouse fire still burning Thursday more than 42 hours after it started Posted: 07 Jul 2019 08:45 AM PDT ![Jim Beam bourbon warehouse fire still burning Thursday more than 42 hours after it started]( "Jim Beam bourbon warehouse fire still burning Thursday more than 42 hours after it started") The Woodford County Fire Department is waiting to extinguish the Jim Beam warehouse fire "because of the environmental consideration."
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