| AP Analysis: Saudi oil attack part of dangerous new pattern Posted: 17 Sep 2019 08:58 AM PDT  The assault on the beating heart of Saudi Arabia's vast oil empire follows a new and dangerous pattern that's emerged across the Persian Gulf this summer of precise attacks that leave few obvious clues as to who launched them. Beginning in May with the still-unclaimed explosions that damaged oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, the region has seen its energy infrastructure repeatedly targeted. "Iran can count on public skepticism to afford it some deniability under any circumstances, but an attack of this magnitude stands a much greater chance of provoking very severe diplomatic and military consequences," warned Michael Knights, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
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| Wisconsin brothers charged with operating counterfeit vaping cartridge operation Posted: 17 Sep 2019 11:15 AM PDT  Tyler and Jacob Huffhines ran an operation that cranked out 3,000 to 5,000 counterfeit vaping cartridges each day, authorities say.
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| UPDATE 1-Russia detains two N.Korean vessels after one opens fire - reports Posted: 17 Sep 2019 08:35 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Russia detains two N.Korean vessels after one opens fire - reports]( "UPDATE 1-Russia detains two N.Korean vessels after one opens fire - reports") Russian border guards have detained two North Korean boats in Russian territorial waters in the Sea of Japan after one of them attacked a Russian patrol, local media cited the Federal Security Service (FSB) as saying on Tuesday. A Russian border patrol discovered two North Korean schooners and 11 motorboats fishing illegally off its far eastern coast and detained the first vessel, prompting the second one to open fire, the FSB was quoted as saying. Three Russian border guards were wounded in the incident.
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| French boy, 10, dies 8 years after supermarket burger poisoning Posted: 16 Sep 2019 07:57 AM PDT  A French boy aged 10, who fell gravely ill in 2011 after consuming a beef burger from supermarket discounter Lidl that was infected with E.coli bacteria, has died of complications stemming from his poisoning, the family's lawyer said. The boy, Nolan, died on Saturday "as a consequence of his poisoning", the family's lawyer Florence Rault told AFP on Sunday. Rault said that Nolan had not "ceased to suffer" after consuming the burger in June 2011.
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| NYC to Allow 1.1 Million Students to Skip Class for Climate Protests Posted: 17 Sep 2019 05:49 AM PDT  New York City public schools will allow 1.1 million students to skip classes Friday in order to attend the planned "climate strike" ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit.The protests aim to press the Summit for immediate action to stop climate change, and are geared specifically for the participation of young people.Reactions to the decision have been ecstatic in some cases, as protest organizers contemplate what they hope will be the largest climate change protest in the history of the U.S."This completely changes things, and it's our doing," Xiye Bastida, 17, a senior at Beacon High School in Manhattan, told the New York Times. Some teachers at her school were planning to accompany students to the protests even before the school district granted permission to do so."We're not against the school system," she said. "We need the schools to work with us because our larger goal is to stop the fossil fuel industry."
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| A Florida couple was arrested on DUI charges. Then they had sex in the back of a police car Posted: 17 Sep 2019 03:53 PM PDT  Aaron Thomas, 31, and Megan Mondanaro, 35, were arrested in Florida after they had sex in the back of a patrol car, according to police.
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| California woman rescued by cops who stopped her abductor over vehicle violations Posted: 15 Sep 2019 09:46 PM PDT  Northern California cops free a woman who says she was being held captive. The bruised and upset woman told police she had been kidnapped four days prior. They began questioning her after they arrested the driver of the vehicle she was a passenger in.
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| Trump says homeless people are living in 'our best highways' and building entrances and people have told him they want to 'leave the country' over it Posted: 17 Sep 2019 01:56 PM PDT  The Washington Post has previously reported that the Trump administration is looking for ways the federal government can reduce homelessness.
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| Half of the 147 tigers rescued from Thai temple have died Posted: 16 Sep 2019 05:43 PM PDT  More than half the tigers rescued three years ago from a Buddhist temple in Thailand where they served as a popular tourist attraction have died of disease, wildlife officials said Monday. The tigers were vulnerable to illness because of inbreeding, leading to laryngeal paralysis causing respiratory failure, said national parks official Patarapol Maneeorn. The DNA of all 147 confiscated tigers could be traced to six tigers who were the original breeding stock, said Patarapol, head of the department's Wildlife Health Management Division.
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| Saudi Arabia knows its defences are not up to war with Iran Posted: 16 Sep 2019 09:50 AM PDT  The smoke rising above above Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq oil field might seem at first like the justification Riyadh has been waiting for. If the White House is to be believed, Iran launched an unprovoked attack on the kingdom's most important oil facilities. Saudi Arabia would be within its rights to strike its Iranian archrivals in response. In an evening tweet, Donald Trump even appeared to give Saudi Arabia a say in whether the US would attack Iran. "[The US is] waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" Saudi Arabia has the power to bring fire and fury down on its most-hated foe but may be reluctant to actually use that power. The reality is the Saudis are deeply skittish about the prospects of any war with Iran because they know they will be Tehran's main target. If fighting breaks out between the US and Iran, the Iranians will have relatively few chances to strike America directly. They could target US ships in the Persian Gulf or order their Shia militia proxies to harass American forces in Iraq. But most of their fire is likely to be aimed at the soft underbelly of Saudi Arabia, which is well within range of Iran's missiles on the other side of the Gulf. Strikes against Saudi oil plants "Saudi Arabia will not support a war with Iran that has a Saudi return address on it," said Joshua Landis, director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "Saudi Arabia would support a war between the US and Iran, if Saudi Arabia could hide behind the US, but not one where the Saudis must step out in front, because the Saudis would lose." Although the kingdom is the world's third largest defence spender after the US and China, its military is fairly ineffective and would struggle against Iranian forces hardened by decades of unconventional warfare across the region. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, openly lamented the disparity between the quality of his troops' weapons and the paucity of their fighting skills. "It is unacceptable that we are the world's third or fourth biggest country in military spending but our army is ranked in the twenties [in ability]," he said in 2016. "There is a problem." Mohammed bin Salman had lamented his forces' capabilities Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo That problem has been mercilessly exposed on the battlefields of Yemen, where Saudi forces equipped with state-of-the-art British and American weaponry have been fought to a stalemate by ragtag Houthi rebel fighters backed by Iran. This vulnerability explains why, despite Riyadh's strong rhetoric towards Iran, the Saudis have often looked to de-escalate in the face of Iranian provocations. After two Saudi oil tankers were bombed in a mysterious sabotage attack in May, the US pointed the finger directly at Iran. Yet, Saudi Arabia hemmed and hawed and appeared reluctant to place the blame on anyone. In their initial statements about this week's attack, Saudi officials have confirmed the weapons were Iranian-made but have not gone as far as the US in directly blaming Iran. As with the tanker attacks, they may now say that a lengthy investigation is needed to determine the culprits, giving time for passions to fade. The kingdom surely dream of ridding itself of its rivals in the Islamic Republic across the narrow water. But if the price of confronting Iran is far more smoke billowing above burning Saudi oil fields then Riyadh will probably look for a way to back down.
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| Divided Fed set to cut interest rates this week, but then what? Posted: 16 Sep 2019 10:04 PM PDT  Deep disagreements within the Federal Reserve over the economic outlook and how the U.S. central bank should respond will not stop policymakers from cutting interest rates at a two-day meeting that began on Tuesday. An oil price spike after attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities over the weekend added to the list of risks facing an economy already slowed by ongoing trade tensions and global weakness. At one end of the Fed's large boardroom table sit St. Louis Fed President James Bullard and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who are expected to argue for a steep reduction in borrowing costs to counter low inflation and an inverted Treasury yield curve.
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| Is Russia's Crazy Status-6 Nuclear Weapon a Great Idea or a Really Bad One? Posted: 16 Sep 2019 10:00 AM PDT  Let's take a look.
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| Georgia homeowner kills three teens wearing masks in possible 'stand your ground' case Posted: 17 Sep 2019 02:15 PM PDT  The fatal shooting of three teens by a Georgia homeowner this week could be a 'stand your ground' case, the Rockdale County Sheriff says.
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| Putin Loses Legendary Approval-Rating Crown to His New Neighbor Posted: 16 Sep 2019 09:00 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Want the lowdown on European markets? In your inbox before the open, every day. Sign up here.Vladimir Putin takes great pride in his sky-high approval rating. But with Muscovites rising up and a new government instilling hope in Ukraine, he's being outshone by the president next door, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.It's still early days for the administration in Kyiv. While pushing a raft of popular reforms, Zelenskiy, 41, remains in his honeymoon period, while cries he's too close to a local billionaire grow louder.The 66-year-old Putin, meanwhile, is approaching two decades as Russia's leader. Economic expansion has fizzled out, and along with it the spending largess that kept the masses happy.The last time his popularity sagged meaningfully, Putin famously got a boost after annexing Crimea from Ukraine and fomenting a war between the two former allies.Zelenskiy has a long way to go to match the 89% rating Putin reached back then.To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Langley in London at alangley1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrea Dudik at adudik@bloomberg.net, Gregory L. WhiteFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Osama bin Laden's youngest son, Hamza, had taken up terrorism to 'avenge' his notorious father Posted: 16 Sep 2019 07:00 AM PDT  Hamza bin Laden, the son and presumed heir of Osama bin Laden to lead Al Qaeda, was killed by a US operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
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| Las Vegas man faces weapons charge in synagogue, other plots Posted: 17 Sep 2019 11:03 AM PDT  A former security guard accused of compiling bomb components and guns to kill people at a Las Vegas synagogue and of drawing up plans to attack a bar catering to LGBTQ customers or a fast-food restaurant has been indicted on a federal firearm charge, court records show. Conor Climo's court-appointed attorney, Paul Riddle, said Tuesday that Climo plans to plead not guilty at his arraignment Wednesday on the one-count indictment filed Sept. 11 in U.S. District Court in Nevada. Climo, 23, was arrested Aug. 8 and remains in federal custody pending arraignment Wednesday in Las Vegas on a charge of possessing "firearms, specifically destructive devices" found at his home.
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| Couple reveal they are raising child 'gender neutral' and haven't even told close family their baby's sex Posted: 17 Sep 2019 09:34 AM PDT  A couple have decided to keep their baby's sex a secret from close relatives in a bid to avoid gender bias. Hobbit Humphrey, 38, and Jake England-Johns, 35, refer to their 17-month-old child, Anoush, with the pronoun, "they", and dress them in both girls' and boys' clothing. The married couple, who are members of the climate action group, Extinction Rebellion, have been accused of "virtue signalling". However, they are keen to let their child, Anoush, choose their own gender identity when they are old enough, because they wish for them to "grow into their own person". Close family members have not been told the child's sex and grandmother, Camille, only found out when she changed a nappy. The couple, who live on a houseboat in Keynsham, Somerset, discussed the ways in which they could challenge gender bias after discovering Ms Humphrey was pregnant. Mr England-Johns told the BBC's Inside Out: "The neutral in gender neutral refers to us trying to behave neutrally towards our child rather than trying to make them neutral." "Eventually, we decided that we wouldn't tell people whether they were a boy or a girl … in order to create this little bubble for our baby to be who they are," Ms Humphrey said. However their decision has sparked some controversy. Rosa Freedman, Professor of law conflict and global development at the University of Reading, said: "While this is an individual case the worry would be that in the unlikely event many parents took up this way of parenting, that the NHS, government, and service providers would not know what to plan for in the future as they would not know how many boys or girls exist." "Parents concerned about gendered social construct would do better to fight patriarchy, homophobia and transphobia rather and try to virtue signal to their friends and communities so they can get praise." The couple have said that the reaction to their decision has been mixed. However Mr England-Johns said: "But over a year in, it's clear that we are serious and gradually people have got used to it. "Although, that still doesn't stop some pretty confused looks from old ladies in the park when they come up to us and ask if they're a boy or a girl. It can take a bit of explaining. "We are quite good now at holding space for people's discomfort in us going, 'Oh well, actually we don't tell anyone, we're not telling anyone for now."
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| Surprising Facts You Didn't Know About Rhinos Posted: 17 Sep 2019 11:59 AM PDT |
| Iran charges three detained Australians with spying Posted: 17 Sep 2019 06:20 AM PDT  Iran has charged three detained Australians with spying, a judiciary spokesman said on Tuesday, after the reported arrest of a travel-blogging couple and an academic. Two of the Australians were alleged to have used a drone to take pictures of military sites, while a third was accused of spying for another country, spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told reporters. It was the first official confirmation that Australians have been detained in Iran after the families of three of them said last week they had been arrested in the Islamic republic.
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| Hurricane Humberto: Storm strengthens to hurricane, moves toward Bermuda Posted: 15 Sep 2019 08:26 PM PDT  Humberto reached hurricane strength late Sunday night, according to the National Hurricane Center.
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| Exclusive: Russia carried out a 'stunning' breach of FBI communications system, escalating the spy game on U.S. soil Posted: 16 Sep 2019 02:00 AM PDT  Russian compounds and diplomats in the U.S. played key roles in a counterintelligence operation that stretched from the Bay Area to the nation's capital, according to former U.S. officials.
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| 'A war zone': Propane explosion kills firefighter, injures 8 others, levels building in Maine Posted: 16 Sep 2019 03:12 PM PDT  A firefighter was killed and eight others were injured when a powerful propane explosion destroyed a new building Monday in Farmington, Maine.
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| GM stops paying for health insurance for striking union workers; talks continue Posted: 17 Sep 2019 08:18 AM PDT  General Motors Co shifted health insurance costs for its striking workers to the United Auto Workers union as its members walked the picket line for the second day on Tuesday. The UAW on Monday launched the first company-wide strike at GM in 12 years, saying negotiations toward a new national agreement covering about 48,000 hourly workers had hit an impasse. This year's talks between the union and GM, Ford Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) were expected to be tough, with thorny issues such as healthcare costs, profit-sharing and the use of temporary workers on the table.
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| A flight in India was delayed when a swarm of angry bees covered the cockpit window and attacked staff who tried to remove them Posted: 17 Sep 2019 02:54 AM PDT  Firefighters were eventually brought in to get the plane, with 135 passengers and Bangladesh's information minister on board, to take off.
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| The Latest: Pelosi swears in 2 North Carolina congressmen Posted: 17 Sep 2019 04:06 PM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has sworn in two Republicans who won special elections in North Carolina last week. One is conservative Dan Bishop. As a state legislator, he wrote North Carolina's 2016 law restricting which public bathrooms transgender people may use.
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| Biden's 1960s gang fight yarn: Son of 'bad dude' Corn Pop confirms his father knew Dem frontrunner Posted: 17 Sep 2019 10:27 AM PDT  The saga of Joe Biden's mysterious story from the 1960s, in which he and a man called Corn Pop almost battled with a knife and a chain but ultimately did not, may have been confirmed.Mr Biden has told the story of a 1962 confrontation with a man who frequented a public pool in Wilmington, Delaware where he was a lifeguard several times, including in his book. But a video of him retelling it at an event in 2017, at the pool's dedication ceremony after it was renamed for him, resurfaced earlier this week.
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| Did a Russian-Made Submarine 'Sink' A U.S. Navy Nuclear Attack Sub? Posted: 17 Sep 2019 06:13 AM PDT  Back in 2015, Indian media claimed that one of New Delhi's Russian-built Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarines managed to "sink" a nuclear-powered U.S. Navy Los Angeles-class attack submarine during exercises in October of that year.
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| Book Review: Justice Neil Gorsuch’s A Republic, If You Can Keep It Posted: 17 Sep 2019 03:30 AM PDT  Just over 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan nominated a former Yale law professor, then serving as a D.C. Circuit judge, to the Supreme Court. His views on the meaning of the Constitution were considered by some of the political class to be iniquitous. The nominee's constructive criticism of the mainstream of legal analysis was its failure to show allegiance to the actual language of the Constitution. "I don't think the Constitution is studied almost anywhere, including law schools. In law schools, what they study is what the court said about the Constitution. They study the opinions. They don't study the Constitution itself."Of course, the nominee was Robert Bork. His view that the Constitution had an ageless meaning was cruelly savaged by Senator Ted Kennedy. "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids," and other shameful regressions would exist. Critics condemned Bork's view that the words in the Constitution mean now what they meant when written in 1787. No living, breathing, mutating Constitution for Bork. At his death in 2012, some labeled him the "original originalist."The Senate rejected Bork's nomination, but his approach to constitutional interpretation has thrived — though by no means has it conquered. Justice Neil Gorsuch in his new book explains and vigorously promotes originalism. The significance of that form of analysis is indicated by the title he chose for his book: A Republic, If You Can Keep It. Those were the words of Benjamin Franklin in explaining what the Constitutional Convention had created. The centrality of originalism to the survival of the Republic, Gorsuch writes, arises from separation of powers. If judges abandon their constitutional role of simply interpreting (though often it is not so simple) what the political branches have done, they are assuming the roles that the other branches are to perform.Gorsuch says the book is for the general citizenry, not academics. He wants to revive and encourage "interest in the Constitution of the framers' design and the judge's role in it." Even with that goal, the author gives those who are knowledgeable, imperfectly so like this subordinate federal judge, a lot to ponder. A significant part of Gorsuch's book reprints speeches, court opinions, and other prior writings. Much new is interspersed, though.This is not a memoir. Readers who want the details of his selection and confirmation for the Supreme Court will not be sated. One's appetite is whetted at the beginning of the book, when Gorsuch discusses receiving the White House call, being interviewed, and being announced. Then the book's final chapter, as the author previews it, "collects some of the statements I made during and shortly after the nomination and confirmation process." That's it. Justice Gorsuch may have decided that persuasively presenting his principles about the judicial role was both more appropriate and more important than recounting a recent political battle. Clarence Thomas is the one current justice who has written extensively about his confirmation controversies, but he waited 17 years to publish. As a personal aside, I too wrote about the pains and sufferings of a difficult confirmation, mine merely for a circuit court. I waited six years until the wounds had (mainly) healed.There is just a little about his personal background. What is recounted can be charming. Gorsuch quickly describes several ancestors, including a grandfather in Denver who was a trolley-car driver, then a lawyer. This is the ancestor who had an awful voice but enjoyed using it to sing — loudly. A grandmother's family built a small hotel near a railroad depot in Wyoming, which still stands and is used by the current generation during visits to the area.Mom and Dad were both lawyers, though the father little enjoyed being one. What he passed on to his son was a love of the outdoors, of camping, hunting, and skiing, but of fishing most of all. Gorsuch's mother graduated from college at age 19 and from law school at 22. She became the first female assistant district attorney in Denver, and later was a state legislator. Gorsuch's wife is a native of England. He gives a brief description of her background and their meeting while he was studying for a doctorate in England. She agreed to marry him and move to Colorado, then fell in love with the West.Introduced to fishing by his father, Gorsuch has considerable knowledge of its mysteries. He recounts an amusing episode with a possibly novice fly-fisherman, Justice Antonin Scalia. There was no calm casting of lures for Scalia during a visit to Colorado — "he would storm over in his waders" to a spot Gorsuch thought was promising, surely scaring any fish. An affecting photo of the two, a Supreme Court justice and his not-yet-successor, is included, neither man in waders but a lake and a boat behind them.In Justice Scalia's defense, he was an able hunter. The head of an elk he named Leroy which once adorned his chambers is now on the wall in Justice Gorsuch's.The book is divided into only seven chapters. Within most of them are previous writings by the author, including lengthy excerpts from judicial opinions. He analyzes the importance of separation of powers in one chapter and of originalism and textualism in another. A chapter on the "Art of Judging" focuses on the need for courage to strive for the correct result and not the comfortable, easy one. He argues that good intentions have led to the worst Supreme Court decisions, such as Dred Scott, which found constitutional protection for slavery in 1857, and Korematsu, which in 1944 found no constitutional barrier to imprisoning American citizens during wartime if their country of origin, Japan, had started a war with the United States. He argues convincingly that the two decisions resulted from the Supreme Court's seeking what appeared to be the best policy results at the time, as opposed to applying the plain language of the Constitution.It is an optimistic book, urging the avoidance of cynicism and promoting reasonable discourse on the issues that divide us. One way he has literally taught such perspectives is in a class on ethics at the University of Colorado. He asks, over at least the silent groans of many students, that they write their own obituary. Their written responses often show they are receiving what he is trying to give them, which is an understanding that what most of us, on reflection, will want to be remembered for are such things as kindness, love of family, a contribution to the world around us.Gorsuch's writing style is conversational, as are many of his court opinions. He leavens his descriptions of legal debates with asides such as, after admitting that letting courts update the Constitution to reach the best results was not "completely insane," saying that many things might not be insane but are still ill-advised — a point he often makes to his teenage daughters.In addition to using originalism to interpret the Constitution, Gorsuch promotes adoption of its close relative, textualism, to interpret statutes. Both approaches rely on the words of the relevant text as they would have been understood at the time of their creation. He acknowledges that these tools do not always provide a clear answer. Revising a Churchill quote about democracy as a form of government, he says that at the very least, originalism "is the worst form of constitutional interpretation, except for all the others." It provides considerable determinacy; as much as humanly possible, it leaves out of judicial analysis the policy desires of judges; it allows the compromises inherent in our form of government to be upheld — Congress decides what statutes are to do, and the difficult method to amend the Constitution remains the only way revisions are made. The fact that judges are largely expected to wander free of such texts was recently, and startlingly, made apparent to me when an attorney in his oral argument stated dismissively that the only thing the other side had to support its position was the statute, while his side had the case law.Those whom the justice most admires are identified along the way. Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy, for whom Gorsuch clerked, are among them. A long-ago Tenth Circuit judge, Alfred Murrah, is another, highlighted for his tireless work ethic and as a representative of the people who toil quietly in the service of country. Also receiving considerable praise are such historic figures as George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, and Theodore Roosevelt. Gorsuch quotes the segment of TR's speech about credit belonging not to the critic but to the person in the arena, with "face marred by dust and sweat and blood," who, through defeat or victory, is not to be found among the "cold and timid souls." By praising both the tireless Judge Murrah and this part of TR's legacy, Gorsuch is urging his citizen audience to strive mightily, and as he emphasizes, also calmly and respectfully, to preserve this Republic.Three years after his confirmation defeat, Robert Bork wrote a book detailing his disagreements with the direction of the Supreme Court and explaining the benefits of originalism, closing with a lengthy narrative of his blocked path to the Court. Fortunately for Gorsuch and for the nomination process more generally, his selection was not met with the hyperbolic condemnation that Bork's invoked. His book about originalism comes two years after his confirmation victory. Justice Gorsuch has written a temperate book, with civility shown to all. Such fairness, though, does not reduce the fervor with which he urges that we keep this country a republic.
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| The High-Risk Strategy That Could Hand Democrats the White House Posted: 17 Sep 2019 10:16 AM PDT  Democratic voters live in clusters — but there's a way to take advantage of that
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| Boy Scout leader sang naked in front of kids, and organization failed to investigate: Lawsuit Posted: 16 Sep 2019 12:03 PM PDT  A Boy Scout leader who was accused of singing naked in front of several young boys was not investigated by his troop despite multiple complaints.
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| Sheriff indicted for plotting to kill deputy who had tape of his 'racially offensive' remarks Posted: 17 Sep 2019 11:57 AM PDT  A North Carolina sheriff was indicted for obstruction of justice for allegedly plotting to kill one of his deputies.
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| Belgian F-16s scrambled to intercept 2 Russian nuclear-capable supersonic bombers over the Baltic Sea Posted: 17 Sep 2019 01:23 PM PDT  The Belgian Air Force intercepted two Russian Tu-160 supersonic, nuclear-capable bombers at close range in Baltic airspace.
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| Migrants say they face danger before court in Texas tents Posted: 17 Sep 2019 02:25 PM PDT  Abel Oset was seized with panic. The two were going to plead their case in a court set up inside a tent in Laredo, Texas, beamed via video conference to a judge in another city — the latest attempt to clear a massive backlog of asylum cases. Oset dreaded the very real possibility that he and his 22-year-old son would be sent back over the international bridge, back to Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas, and its cartels and violence.
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| Earth warming more quickly than thought, new climate models show Posted: 17 Sep 2019 07:59 AM PDT  Greenhouse gases thrust into the atmosphere mainly by burning fossil fuels are warming Earth's surface more quickly than previously understood, according to new climate models set to replace those used in current UN projections, scientists said Tuesday. The new calculations also suggest that the Paris Agreement goals of capping global warming at "well below" two degrees, and 1.5C if possible, will be challenging at best, the scientists said. "With our two models, we see that the scenario known as SSP1 2.6 -- which normally allows us to stay under 2C -- doesn't quite get us there," Olivier Boucher, head of the Institute Pierre Simon Laplace Climate Modelling Centre in Paris, told AFP.
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| Spooked by Modi's plastics ban, India Inc seeks clarity, exemptions Posted: 17 Sep 2019 06:03 AM PDT  Companies in India will seek exemptions from the government's planned ban on certain plastic items, fearing the move will disrupt supply chains and raise costs ahead of a festive season, according to sources and an industry document seen by Reuters. India is likely to impose a nationwide ban on plastic bags, cups, small bottles, straws and some types of sachets next month as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts to reduce use of pollution-causing, single-use plastic. "This has created an existential issue for multiple sectors," said the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), a lobby group, in a two-page draft note, seen by Reuters, which is likely to be finalised and sent to the government in the coming days.
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| Afghan president narrowly avoids Taliban bomb in worst violence since collapse of US negotiations Posted: 17 Sep 2019 09:15 AM PDT  Taliban suicide bombers killed at least 48 people and wounded dozens more in two blasts Tuesday - one at a campaign rally for the president and the other in Kabul - with the insurgents warning of more violence ahead of elections. The first attack saw a motorcyclist detonate a suicide bomb at a checkpoint leading to a rally where Ashraf Ghani, the president, was addressing supporters in central Parwan province, just north of the capital, killing 26 and wounding 42. Just over an hour later another blast also claimed by the Taliban rocked central Kabul near the US embassy. Authorities initially did not give casualty figures, but later said 22 people had been killed and a further 38 wounded. The explosions came after Donald Trump, the US president, abruptly ended talks with the Taliban earlier this month over a deal that would have allowed the US to begin withdrawing troops from its longest war. One of the bombs was detonated near the US Embassy in Kabul Credit: AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi In a statement sent to media claiming responsibility for both blasts, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack near Mr Ghani's rally was deliberately aimed at disrupting the September 28 elections. "We already warned people not to attend election rallies, if they suffer any losses that is their own responsibility," the statement said. An image from the scene near Mr Ghani's rally, roughly an hour's drive north of Kabul, showed the remains of a burnt motorcycle, with a body on top, covered by a blanket and next to a badly damaged police car. Taliban control in Afghanistan Women and children were among the causalities, Parwan hospital director Abdul Qasim Sangin said. The president, who was speaking to his supporters at the time of the blast, was unhurt but later condemned the attack, saying the incident proved the Taliban had no real interest in reconciliation. "As the Taliban continue their crimes, they once again prove that they are not interested in peace and stability in Afghanistan," said Mr Ghani in a statement.
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| A flight from Vietnam to South Korea was delayed for 11 hours after the pilot arrived at the airport and realized he had lost his passport Posted: 17 Sep 2019 10:13 AM PDT  T'Way Air said it was investigating the incident and how the pilot lost his passport, and that it put passengers in a hotel and fed them breakfast.
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| John Oliver rips apart Donald Trump's 'stand in line' immigration rhetoric Posted: 16 Sep 2019 09:09 AM PDT  John Oliver has ripped apart Donald Trump's immigration rhetoric in a scathing new video, detailing the complexities of the immigration process in order to paint a more accurate picture of how people acquire the right to live and work in the United States.The host tackled the topic on his HBO show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
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| House of Ukraine's former top central banker set on fire Posted: 17 Sep 2019 05:58 AM PDT  The home of Ukraine's former central bank chief has been burned to the ground, the third chilling incident involving the banker over the past few weeks. Police said in a statement Tuesday that they are investigating a suspected arson attack late Monday on the house of Valeria Gontareva outside the capital, Kyiv. Gontareva has said she has received threats from Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who lost his PrivatBank to a government nationalization that was carried out while Gontareva was at the helm of the central bank in 2016.
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| The Attack on Saudi Arabia Is the Crisis Iran Was Waiting For Posted: 17 Sep 2019 03:30 AM PDT  A sophisticated drone and cruise-missile attack on Saudi Arabia's largest oil-processing facility on Saturday has sent shock waves through the world's oil markets and leaves the U.S. and allies at a crossroads about how to deal with a growing threat from Iran and its supporters. This is the crisis Iran has been waiting for, with pro-regime media tweeting about the "unprecedented attack" and parroting the threats of Yemen's Houthi rebels against Saudi oil infrastructure.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said Iran was behind the attack, and U.S. officials have released satellite images and spoken to media about details of the sophisticated assault. The attack showcases Iran's precision weapons guidance. This is a threat that has been increasing for years. The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act apprised Congress of Iran's ballistic-missile program and drones. Israel also warned about similar threats in early September, asserting that Iran was transferring precision missile guidance to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran has been boasting about its drone, cruise-missile, and precision munitions since a large drill it undertook in March.However, Tehran has also been stymied in how to employ its arsenal, weighing the responses it wants to give in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran deal, in May 2018. For a year Iran used its good-cop, bad-cop routine, threatening to walk away from provisions of the deal if European and other countries didn't work to get around Washington's sanctions. But in May Tehran changed tactics. As sanctions took a bite, Tehran intimated that if Iran couldn't export oil, neither would others. Washington has accused Iran of being behind the sabotage of six ships in May and June as well as the downing of a U.S. drone in June. Rockets also fell near U.S. bases in Iraq. Iran has also worked through its Houthi rebel allies in Yemen to supply know-how behind drone and air-defense technology. Pompeo says Iran is behind at least 100 attacks originating in Yemen.All this was window dressing for the more massive long-range attack that was to come this week. Two previous long-range attacks had targeted oil facilities west of Riyadh and near the border with the United Arab Emirates. In the latter attack, Iran's Press TV claimed ten Yemeni drones had been responsible. The early hours of September 14 showed fires and explosions at Abqaiq. Satellite images revealed damage to almost 20 buildings, including liquified-natural-gas storage tanks. The damage wasn't chaotic, as it would have been if someone tossed explosives and hoped they would hit their mark. Rather it was precise; one image shows four storage tanks hit in the same location.This level of precision is important. As salient was the ability of a force purported to include dozens of drones and cruise missiles to evade air-defense systems in eastern Saudi Arabia near Bahrain. This should be an area, not far from the U.S. naval base in Bahrain and the Al-Udeid base in Qatar, as well as U.S. bases in the UAE and Kuwait, that would be well defended. Whether the attack originated directly from Iran or from Iran-backed Houthis, either scenario shows how extremely proficient Iran and its allies have become with drones and missiles. This is an indigenous weapons program that outpaces Iran's nearest neighbors, with the exception of Israel. It is a threat that requires U.S. air defense and radar to help confront. The larger question for the Trump administration is not just about defending allies, but also about whether it wants to try to deter Iran. Despite warnings since May that Iranian actions would meet with retaliation, Washington has been reticent to retaliate militarily, preferring a campaign of "maximum pressure." It is hard to ignore the Iranian regime's pronouncements on September 10 that the departure of National Security Advisor John Bolton showed that the U.S. had failed in its pressure campaign. It is also hard to believe that the sophisticated Abqaiq attack was planned in only four days.Tehran would have known that an unprecedented attack on key Saudi Arabian oil facilities by so many drones would raise eyebrows about claims that the poor and isolated Houthi rebels were behind it. The attack sends a clear message: This can get worse; end the sanctions and don't risk the world's oil supply. Iran thinks that Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies won't risk a conflict, and the Iranians think they called the Trump administration's bluff in June. September 14 was a gamble but also a clear message felt across the Middle East. The era of Iran's sophisticated precision-guided drone and cruise-missile attacks is here.
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| France gives more people iodine pills in case of nuclear accident Posted: 17 Sep 2019 10:20 AM PDT  France will soon start distributing radioactivity-blocking iodine pills to an additional 2.2 million people living near the country's 19 nuclear power plants, to be taken in case of accidental radiation leaks, regulators said Tuesday. The ASN nuclear safety authority had announced in June an extension of the safety radius to 20 kilometres (12 miles) of each plant, up from 10 kilometres set in 2016, when some 375,000 households were prescribed the pills. The watchdog said Tuesday that affected residents will receive a letter in the coming days with a voucher to collect stable iodine tablets from pharmacies, as well as information on what to do in case of a nuclear accident.
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