| Trump asking foreign countries for help against Biden violates law, Election Commission chair warns Posted: 03 Oct 2019 12:39 PM PDT  FEC chair Ellen Weintraub posted a reminder about U.S. election law following Trump's latest requests to foreign nations.
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| Shot HK protester charged by police, as gov moves to 'ban face masks' Posted: 03 Oct 2019 07:59 AM PDT  A teenage pro-democracy protester shot by a Hong Kong police officer was on Thursday charged with rioting, as authorities were reportedly set to ban the wearing of face masks at public rallies. Tsang Chi-kin, 18, was hit in the chest during clashes on Tuesday, a day which saw some of the worst violence in almost four months of unrest. It came as reports emerged that Hong Kong will soon ban the wearing of face masks at protests, in a clampdown on pro-democracy rallies that have rocked the strife-torn city.
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| AP Exclusive: Many problems at jail where inmates escaped Posted: 03 Oct 2019 09:35 AM PDT  CLEVELAND (AP) The overcrowded Ohio county jail from which four inmates escaped last weekend has been repeatedly cited by state inspectors for its lack of a security perimeter, broken security cameras and a lack of records showing whether officers conducted daily inmate counts, The Associated Press has learned. The male inmates who escaped overpowered two female corrections officers at the Gallia County Jail near the southern tip of Ohio using a handmade shank early Sunday. A report by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction after an inspection in December obtained by the AP said the jail was at double its capacity of 21 inmates and overall had failed to comply with 77 state standards.
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| Bob Woodward Enrages Audience at Times Reporters’ Book Event Posted: 02 Oct 2019 10:32 PM PDT  Dominik Bindl/GettyVeteran reporter Bob Woodward was accused of derailing an event on Wednesday night with the two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein sexual-abuse story that ushered in the MeToo movement. At the Sixth & I synagogue in Washington, D.C., to discuss their new book, She Said, about the consequences of the Weinstein scandal and what his accusers went through, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey attempted to have a meaningful discussion about rape culture and how the MeToo movement has changed society. But they were reportedly repeatedly interrupted by Woodward—with questions that left the audience at once outraged and baffled. "Tomorrow there will be stories about how horribly Bob Woodward bombed this discussion. Repeatedly asked why Harvey Weinstein did what he did. The authors responded, multiple times: power. He accused them of dodging the question," ProPublica reporter J. David McShane tweeted. Reporter Kara Swisher, the co-founder of Recode, described Woodward's behavior during the discussion as "interruptive, not focused on the women who were victimized by Harvey Weinstein and weirdly obsessed with that creep, it's a exercise in how not to interview."Robyn Swirling, the founder of Works in Progress, an organization that aims to confront sexual harassment in progressive spaces, wrote a tweet thread detailing the audience's frustration with Woodward, who she said repeatedly failed to let Kantor and Twohey speak. On the topic of Weinstein, Woodward was said to prefer to focus on the disgraced movie mogul's motives rather what his alleged victims endured. "Showing exactly why he was the wrong person to have any sort of public (or private) discussion about metoo," Swirling wrote, Woodward repeatedly asked Kantor and Twohey why Weinstein allegedly preyed on so many young women. When they answered that they believed it was about power, Woodward reportedly said, "It's about sex also though, isn't it?'"The audience repeatedly booed him, though Woodward, apparently undaunted, went on to claim Weinstein's behavior constituted a "weird foreplay," Swirling tweeted. Later in the discussion, he reportedly asked Kantor and Twohey, "Did you find any women who made up allegations? That's very important" before asking them if they believed Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford's allegations were credible enough to be published. Kantor and Twohey exposed decades of sexual-harassment allegations against Weinstein in a bombshell New York Times report in late 2017, sparking a reckoning of sorts in Hollywood, Weinstein's downfall, and the rise of the MeToo movement. Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual abuse and misconduct by dozens of women, faces a sexual assault trial in New York in January. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| New whistleblower comes forward regarding Trump’s tax audit Posted: 02 Oct 2019 07:31 AM PDT  A new whistleblower complaint alleges that "possible misconduct" occurred in an effort to influence the audit of President Trump's taxes.
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| It's a girl! Florida deputy pulls over speeding car, helps deliver baby Posted: 02 Oct 2019 05:29 PM PDT  Deputy Robert Pounds ran back to his patrol car, got a pair of latex gloves and a fresh blanket, and delivered the baby almost immediately.
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| Why the Japan-South Korea Trade War Is Worrying for the World Posted: 03 Oct 2019 03:20 AM PDT  The U.S.-China trade war is inflicting the most damage to the global economy, but it's Japan and South Korea's spat that's more concerning.
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| Russia's Next Military Move: Selling Radar That Can Detect Hypersonic Weapons? Posted: 03 Oct 2019 05:44 AM PDT  Russia says it will sell radars in the Middle East that are designed to detect cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons.
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| Professor: Trump Must Resign or ‘Dangerous Individuals’ Will ‘Kill and Maim’ Posted: 03 Oct 2019 02:12 PM PDT  A professor at Georgia Southern University has declared that "people have already died" because of Donald Trump -- adding that the media must pressure him to resign or else "dangerous individuals" will "kill and maim."A linguistics and writing professor, Jared Yates Sexton, made the comments on Twitter on Saturday, and screenshots of them were obtained by Campus Reform.According to Sexton, the media "must push against that impulse to juice impeachment for profit," and start pressuring Trump to resign instead -- or else a bunch of bloodthirsty maniacs will be the end of us all."Trump is going to try everything, Fox is going to try everything, and they're going to both further the injuring of societal reality and inspire dangerous individuals to kill and maim," he stated."There's a vast number of people in this, people who have been taught their whole lives that they might need to kill in case of a coup or corrupt takeover," Sexton continued. "Trump and Republicans signal to them constantly. They're more than ready to see this as the occasion."Sexton then reiterated the need for the media to "assert pressure" on Trump "to resign so we can avoid this story going to a place that risks lives.""People have already died," he stated. "More will if this crisis isn't dismantled carefully."Now, Campus Reform later interviewed Sexton, and his comments there perhaps (and only perhaps) seem like a bit (but only a bit) of a walkback from his original tweets -- although he certainly did double down on his view that Trump is "dangerous." In the interview, though, Sexton clarified that he doesn't believe that people will "die simply because Trump remains in office," but that he does "believe there is a danger in President Trump and Republicans continually mentioning coups and civil wars as history, both recent and past, shows that individuals do kill when rhetoric like this permeates media.""For instance, Dylann Roof's killings were predicated by radicalizing propaganda that told him he must take his country back," he told the news source.(President Obama, not Trump, was in office at the time of Roof's murders.)"My concern is that the President has obviously committed impeachable offenses and that the fight over impeachment, considering there [are] already calls for a civil war, will be dangerous for Americans," Sexton continued.Okay. First of all, let me just say that I am certainly not someone who thinks that Donald Trump is perfect. For example, as a pro-immigration libertarian, I couldn't agree less with his views on that issue -- such as his desire to spend taxpayer money building a wall (no matter how "beautiful" he assures me it would be). What's more, I believe that he's said things that warrant criticism, and have not been hesitant to offer my own. In fact, like Sexton, I was also bothered by his tweet predicting that there would be a "Civil War" should he be impeached.Here's the difference, though: Despite having my own issues and concerns regarding the president, I have always managed to remain at least hinged in my criticism of him. For example: I have never even insinuated that he was a murderer, as Sexton did in his tweets. Now, of course, it's been easy for me to refrain from doing so -- because I myself happen to find such statements to be patently ridiculous and rooted in hysteria and prejudgments rather than in fact. For example (as I discussed in my column yesterday) last spring, CNN, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and Vox all ran stories on a single study reporting a 226 percent increase in hate-related incidents in connection to Trump's rallies. Without looking into context or alternative explanations for the numbers, Democratic politicians from Representative Ilhan Omar to Senator Bernie Sanders weighed in to use the study as unequivocal evidence that Trump's rhetoric was absolutely causing hatred and violence. When reporters for Reason looked into the numbers, however, they found that Hillary Clinton actually had an even higher increase in hate incidents related to her rallies -- ultimately concluding that the increase that had been categorically blamed on rhetoric was actually more than likely due to the fact that politicians often choose to hold rallies in larger cities, where "the raw number of crimes is generally mechanically higher."All things considered, people like Sexton may want to contemplate being more measured in their own rhetoric when discussing Trump's presidency -- not for me, not for Trump or his supporters, but for themselves. Aside from the fact that a Trump resignation is quite obviously never going to happen under any circumstances (seriously, I'd bet my cat against it) speaking in clear, hysterical hyperbole is never the way to win anyone over to anything. Although it may energize the hard Left, talk of Trump being a murderer or "literally Hitler" or the like sounds like overblown nonsense to everyone else. The problem, of course, with people hearing you spew what they consider to be nonsense is that they're going to be far more likely to write you off even when you may have a legitimate point. What's more, that sort of talk makes Trump supporters further view the president as a victim, constantly being scourged with the lashes of outrageous allegations. You may be trying to push people away from Trump, but all you end up doing is pushing his supporters further toward him.
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| Bernie Sanders was hospitalized with chest discomfort and has cancelled all 2020 campaign events until further notice Posted: 02 Oct 2019 02:07 PM PDT  Sen. Bernie Sanders, 78, was hospitalized in Las Vegas, Nevada, due to chest discomfort and has canceled all 2020 campaign events indefinitely.
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| ACLU challenges deportation of man to El Salvador Posted: 03 Oct 2019 09:56 AM PDT ![ACLU challenges deportation of man to El Salvador]( "ACLU challenges deportation of man to El Salvador") The American Civil Liberties Union is demanding that the federal government return a Salvadoran man to the United States after he was deported despite a court order allowing him to remain here. In its brief filed Wednesday, the ACLU of New Hampshire said that José Daniel Guerra-Castañeda was deported last month by U.S. Immigration and Enforcement to El Salvador and is in a crowded jail there. A federal judge in Boston ruled last month that Guerra-Castañeda could remain in the United States to fight deportation efforts over an alleged murder he committed in El Salvador.
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| India-Pakistan nuclear war could kill 100 million Posted: 02 Oct 2019 06:30 PM PDT  The year is 2025 and militants have attacked India's parliament, killing most of its leaders. New Delhi retaliates by sending tanks into the part of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan. Fearing it will be overrun, Islamabad hits the invading forces with its battlefield nuclear weapons, triggering the deadliest conflict in history -- and catastrophic global cooling, with temperatures not seen since the last Ice Age.
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| New York sues big U.S. student loan servicer for abusing borrowers Posted: 03 Oct 2019 11:30 AM PDT ![New York sues big U.S. student loan servicer for abusing borrowers]( "New York sues big U.S. student loan servicer for abusing borrowers") New York state on Thursday sued one of the largest federal student loan servicers, whose practices the U.S. government singled out for criticism earlier this year, saying it abusively treated borrowers working in lower-paying public service jobs. The lawsuit by state Attorney General Letitia James adds to a growing list of complaints by borrowers and regulators against the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, which operates as FedLoan and American Education Services. James said FedLoan has "failed miserably" as the sole servicer since 2012 for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which excuses borrowers who work in public service for 10 years from repaying their loans, provided they make some qualifying payments.
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| Because of Larry Nassar, Michigan State has the most rapes reported in a year in campus safety report Posted: 03 Oct 2019 12:53 PM PDT  The annual Clery Act report, which is mandated by the federal government, includes more than 1,000 rapes – most attributed to Larry Nassar.
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| China's Robot Submarines Could Be the Ultimate Underwater Spy Posted: 02 Oct 2019 11:45 PM PDT  How worried should Asia and America be?
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| Michael Avenatti Takes Stormy Daniels to Court for Millions in Legal Backpay Posted: 03 Oct 2019 12:12 PM PDT  Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastEmbattled lawyer Michael Avenatti is taking legal action against his ex-client Stormy Daniels for $2 million in legal fees from their infamous "hush agreement" lawsuit against President Donald Trump. Avenatti, who currently faces federal criminal charges set for trial next month, filed an attorney's lien on Thursday. It alleges that despite "repeated demands that Ms. Daniels fulfill her contractual obligations and pay for the millions in legal fees and costs she has enjoyed for her benefit over the last approximate 19 months, including in this case, she has refused."Avenatti, 48, claims the porn star refuses to pay up because she is a "celebrity," and is therefore "entitled to free legal services and costs" and to "manufacture and fabricate facts designed to impugn the reputation of her counsel and falsely accuse him of a multitude of acts.""But the law does not work that way Ms. Daniels wishes," reads the court filing, filed in the United States District Court in the Southern District of Ohio."I look forward to the facts and the truth about what really happened coming to light," Avenatti told The Daily Beast when reached for comment. His lawyer, Tom Warren, added: "Mr. Avenatti did an enormous amount of high quality legal work for Ms. Daniels under intense pressure and scrutiny. He made significant personal sacrifices for her benefit. He deserves to be paid by her, not criticized."Daniels and her lawyer did not respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment. The porn actress and Avenatti became household names in January 2018 after filing a lawsuit to nullify a "hush agreement" Daniels made with then-candidate Trump and his former fixer Michael Cohen just before the election. Since then, the two had a very public falling out back in May, and Avenatti has been hounded by legal troubles and currently faces federal charges in two states. In California, prosecutors alleged he stole $300,000 from Daniels and spent it on flights, hotels, restaurant deliveries, and to bankroll his law firm. And a New York grand jury indicted him in March for allegedly trying to extort Nike for $25 million.Avenatti's court filing this week alleges the initial February 2018 retainer agreement he made with Daniels was for "$100 up-front payment," prompting his firm to spend "thousands of attorney and staff hours, and a significant out-of-pocket-expenses." During his retention, Avenatti said he bailed Daniels out of jail "following her arrest in Columbus Ohio in July 2018" after a strip-club brawl and led the "successful efforts" to have the charges dropped."Despite the significance of his work, Ms. Daniels has yet to directly pay a single dollar to Mr. Avenatti or Avenatti & Associates, APC for their legal services beyond the $100.00 she initially paid back in 2018," the lien states. "Ms. Daniels is required to pay her lawyers." Avenatti has previously told The Daily Beast that "any and all other monies raised via a legal fund would go toward my legal fees and costs." Daniels and Avenatti alleged in her lawsuit, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, that Cohen paid her $130,000 during the 2016 campaign to stay quiet about an affair she had with then-reality TV star Trump a decade before he ran for office (the president admits to the payoff but denies the sexual tryst). The payoff allegations ultimately led to a federal investigation charging Cohen with eight campaign-finance violations. He pleaded guilty in August, admitting he made illegal payments at Trump's direction, and was sentenced to three years behind bars.But, in May, a little over a year after that lawsuit was filed, Daniels and Avenatti announced their split in a pair of tweets."I have retained Clark Brewster as my personal lawyer and have asked him and his firm to review all legal matters involving me," Daniels wrote. "Upon completion of Mr. Brewster's review and further consultation with me, I anticipate Mr. Brewster will serve as my primary counsel on all legal issues." Less than 15 minutes later, Avenatti responded with his own statement claiming he terminated his relationship with Daniels in February but would not disclose the reasons due to "attorney-client privilege."In his new legal action, Avenatti says he decided to cut ties after "Daniels became increasingly difficult, uncooperative, erratic, and unpredictable, and began falsely accusing people closely aligned with her (but not Mr. Avenatti) of theft without any legitimate basis.""Ms. Daniels' false accusations in some instances were targeted at friends of 20 years and her private security detail," the filing alleges. The letter states the firm also decided to sever ties after "prior false accusations (which you chose to make public before communicating them to me—I found out from a reporter)" and Daniels' "general lack of appreciation for our work and the thousands of hours we have devoted to you, which we have largely done for free at great expense to me and my firm."Avenatti concluded in the letter that the firm did not intend to make "any public announcement relation to our decision to no longer represent" Daniels and thanked her for the opportunity to serve as her counsel.Michael Avenatti Indicted on 36 Counts by Federal Grand JuryStormy Daniels' 'Gay Dads' Back Lawyer Michael Avenatti in Latest DramaStormy Daniels Files Defamation Lawsuit Against TrumpThis story has been updated to reflect the correct date of the lawsuit's filing.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Joe Biden’s Gun-Control Plan Is a Constitutional Disaster Posted: 02 Oct 2019 12:22 PM PDT  This morning, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden unveiled his "Plan to End Our Gun Violence Epidemic," and it's a mess. It contains provisions that would bankrupt gun manufacturers for the crime of selling fully functional, legal firearms. It would ban the sale of the most popular rifles in America and the standard-capacity magazines made for America's most commonly used handguns. Oh, and to incentivize a voluntary buyback of existing "assault weapons," it would grant the owners of such weapons a choice: sell your rifle to the government or join a firearms registry.Put simply, Biden's plan would leave law-abiding citizens outgunned in their own homes by predatory criminals, and place virtually every gun-maker at risk of financial ruin. This is what Democratic "moderation" looks like?Biden begins his plan by pledging to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a 2005 law that was designed to shield gun-makers from liability for "harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended." This is a solid basic principle. If a terrorist uses an SUV in a ramming attack or puts a bomb in a van, it's not the automaker's fault. Why should it be the gun-maker's fault if if an evil man uses a lawful product unlawfully?It shouldn't be. Yet there are all too many Americans (and American judges, especially in state courts) who view the manufacture and sale of guns as morally suspect, and of so-called assault weapons as inherently illegitimate. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act stands as a firewall against activist litigation designed to put gun companies out of business. Biden would destroy that firewall.What of his proposed assault-weapons ban? Let's be clear — what the Biden plan calls "weapons of war" are not the weapons that our soldiers carry into combat. Instead, AR-style rifles are among the most popular civilian firearms in the United States. They are extraordinarily useful for self-defense, and they're rarely used to commit crimes. (Indeed, rifles more broadly are used to kill fewer people than blunt objects or hands and feet.) Yes, they have been used in several high-profile mass killings, but there's no meaningful evidence indicating that banning them would decrease mass shootings. In fact, they've been used in mass shootings in states that already ban them.Taken together, Biden's bans on the sales of assault weapons and the magazines that come standard with millions of popular rifles and handguns would create the perverse result of placing law-abiding Americans at a distinct disadvantage in defending themselves from criminals. With hundreds of millions of magazines already in circulation, the foreseeable threat comes from a criminal armed with just such a magazine. That's one reason why police officers carry equivalent weapons. It's one reason why bans on standard-capacity magazines tend to contain exceptions for law-enforcement officers. But if police can protect themselves from common domestic threats, why can't my family?Biden wants to give existing assault-weapon owners a choice: Sell your weapon to the government or register it with the government. But we know registration is a failed policy, one that's routinely met with massive public indifference. It's estimated that as many as 1 million New Yorkers have defied the Empire State's assault-weapon-registration law, and as many as 85 percent of Connecticut assault-weapon owners have flouted the Nutmeg State's registration requirement. A California registration requirement has had compliance rates as low as 3.6 percent. If states are the laboratories of democracy, then registration is a lab experiment that's failed.Biden's proposal also contains now-standard calls for universal background checks and his own hobby-horse, so-called smart guns that present enormous technological and practical challenges, including challenges that could hamper their use in self-defense, when innocent lives are on the line. And while I support properly drafted "red flag" laws, I have little confidence in the due-process protections that a Biden administration would endorse.There are good elements to Biden's proposal. Stricter enforcement of laws prohibiting straw purchases would be a welcome way of cracking down on a method we know criminals use to obtain guns. Forwarding failed background-check requests to law enforcement could deter individuals who know they're prohibited purchasers from attempting to slip through cracks in the system. But the heart of the plan is a direct attack on the gun industry and on the inherent right to self-defense of America's law-abiding citizens.One final note: While it's important to highlight the injustice of Biden's proposals, it's also worth mentioning that draconian Democratic gun-control proposals are partly the fault of a Supreme Court that has been woefully delinquent in taking and deciding Second Amendment cases. We cannot expect the Court to rapidly develop a body of case law as rich and detailed as its First Amendment jurisprudence, but we have a reasonable right to expect it to definitively decide whether the government can, in fact, ban the nation's most popular firearms and most widely used magazines.Until that question is answered, though, our body politic will continue to confront a series of escalating Democratic gun-control proposals. Those proposals will have virtually no chance of passing at the federal level. But they'll still demonstrate the vast, growing cultural and political divide over American gun rights.
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| The History of “Nine-O-Nine”, the B-17 Bomber that Crashed Posted: 03 Oct 2019 02:28 PM PDT  The bomber involved in Tuesday's fatal crash in Connecticut never made it to war, but served as a search and rescue plane and water bomber.
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| Satellite images show activity around Iranian-flagged tanker Posted: 03 Oct 2019 01:04 AM PDT  Satellite images released on Thursday show that a once-detained Iranian-flagged oil tanker sitting off the coast of Syria has been approached by a smaller Iranian tanker, an indication the ship could be preparing to transfer its cargo. Images released by Maxar Technologies show the Jasmine alongside the Adrian Darya 1 on Wednesday, with mooring lines between them and a crane deployed on the larger vessel. The Adrian Darya 1, formerly named the Grace 1, was detained off the British overseas territory of Gibraltar in July while carrying $130 million in crude oil, on suspicion of breaking European Union sanctions by taking the oil to Syria.
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| Feuding children reach truce on funeral for Mexican superstar Jose Jose Posted: 02 Oct 2019 09:01 PM PDT  After days of drama involving a missing corpse, a family feud and a soundtrack of heartbroken love songs, late Latin singing sensation Jose Jose's children have set aside their differences and agreed on plans for his funeral, the Mexican government said Wednesday. Jose Jose, known as "The Prince of Song," one of the most famous Mexican singers of all time, died Saturday in Miami at age 71. Jose Jose will be given a funeral Friday in Miami, the ministry said in a statement.
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| Fish-hunting 'iron dragon' soared over Australia in age of dinosaurs Posted: 03 Oct 2019 08:02 AM PDT ![Fish-hunting 'iron dragon' soared over Australia in age of dinosaurs]( "Fish-hunting 'iron dragon' soared over Australia in age of dinosaurs") A winged beast dubbed the "iron dragon" soared above Australia during the age of dinosaurs, hunting fish in rivers and lakes, according to scientists who found that continent's most complete fossil representing the flying reptiles called pterosaurs. Paleontologists on Thursday said fossils of the pterosaur, named Ferrodraco lentoni, were unearthed in the Australian state of Queensland. The creature, which lived about 96 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, boasted a 13-foot (4-meter) wingspan, a bony crest at the tip of its upper and lower jaws and spike-shaped teeth perfect for a diet of fish.
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| Florida man shot and killed son-in-law in case of mistaken identity, sheriff says Posted: 03 Oct 2019 04:34 PM PDT  A Florida man will not face charges after authorities said he shot and killed his son-in-law who had flown from Norway as a birthday surprise.
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| Rudy Giuliani has been asking an imprisoned Paul Manafort for information on Ukraine Posted: 02 Oct 2019 09:31 PM PDT ![Rudy Giuliani has been asking an imprisoned Paul Manafort for information on Ukraine]( "Rudy Giuliani has been asking an imprisoned Paul Manafort for information on Ukraine") Unable to chat face-to-face with Paul Manafort due to his imprisonment, Rudy Giuliani has been communicating with President Trump's former campaign manager through his lawyer, seeking information on Ukraine.Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, told The Washington Post this week that he's spoken with Manafort via an intermediary several times over the last few months. Giuliani, who said he's been investigating Ukraine since last year, asked Manafort about a ledger The New York Times reported on in August 2016. This secret ledger, discovered by Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau, showed that former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's political party paid Manafort $12.7 million in cash.Giuliani said he thinks that this ledger was faked and is the key to proving the already debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that meddled in the 2016 presidential election, seeking to help Hillary Clinton. Manafort said the ledger doesn't exist, Giuliani told the Post. The FBI had a case open against Manafort prior to the 2016 election and the discovery of the secret ledger. After being convicted of tax and bank fraud last year, Manafort pleaded guilty to laundering money he received from Ukraine.
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| 'Gigantic' iceberg breaks away from ice shelf in Antarctica Posted: 02 Oct 2019 01:38 PM PDT  A colossal iceberg roughly the size of Los Angeles or Sydney, Australia, and weighing an estimated 347 billion tons broke off from the Amery Ice Shelf in Antarctica last week.The 630-square-mile iceberg, named D28, separated from the ice shelf on September 26, next to a location scientists had been watching for nearly 20 years. The area was known as the "Loose Tooth," because it appeared to be barely hanging on to the ice shelf in recent years."We first noticed a rift at the front of the ice shelf in the early 2000s and predicted a large iceberg would break off between 2010-2015," said Helen Amanda Fricker, one of the lead researchers on the team studying D28, said in a statement from the Australian government's Antarctic division.The Antarctic division also released stunning aerial footage showing the "gigantic" hunk of ice that until last week had been hanging on by a thread. Below is a video animation made from satellite imagery showing the moment the break-away iceberg split from the Amery Ice Shelf.> A 1600 km² iceberg broke off Amery Ice Shelf, as seen in @CopernicusEU Sentinel-1 radar images. This part, coined the "Loose Tooth" by @helenafricker and colleagues, has been hanging by a thread since 2002 (https://t.co/IUhXDCWOFF) and finally gave way last week.@sentinel_hub pic.twitter.com/GG60Sk52GB> > -- Bert Wouters (@bert_polar) September 30, 2019The GIF shows the iceberg rotating westward, apparently pushed by the prevailing easterly winds, which reached speeds of 40 mph, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Jim Andrews."The calving will not directly affect sea level, because the ice shelf was already floating, much like an ice cube in a glass of water," Dr. Galton-Fenzi said in the statement released by the Australian Arctic division.However, Fenzi said scientists are interested to see if the loss of ice will influence the ocean melting under the remaining ice shelf and the speed at which the ice flows off the continent.Amery is the third-largest ice shelf in Antarctica, and is a key drainage channel for the east of the continent -- a closely-watched piece of real estate that researchers have been studying since the 1960s.Currently, there are instruments deployed on the ice measuring the impact of ocean melt and ice flow. "We don't think this event is linked to climate change, it's part of the ice shelf's normal cycle, where we see major calving events every 60 to 70 years," Fricker said.If the calving isn't linked to climate change, then what should people make of it? "I like to think of it as being akin to our fingernails -- they grow and break off -- at least if we don't keep them clipped," Andrews said.
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| Judge Pressures Prosecutors to Decide Whether to Pursue a Case Against McCabe Posted: 02 Oct 2019 05:00 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has come under increasing pressure in its investigation of the former deputy FBI director Andrew G. McCabe, as a federal judge threatened to release internal department records unless prosecutors decide whether to move forward with or abandon the politically charged case.Judge Reggie B. Walton of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who is presiding over a lawsuit over FBI documents related to McCabe's firing last year, said at a hearing on Monday that he would soon begin releasing them. The Justice Department has argued that the materials should stay confidential while prosecutors investigate McCabe over whether he lied to internal investigators about dealings with the news media."You all have got to cut and make your decision," Walton said, according to a transcript. "It's not a hard decision, and I think it needs to be made. If it's not made, I'm going to start ordering the release of information because I think our society, our public, does have a right to know what's going on."McCabe, long a target of President Donald Trump's, was the subject of a scathing report by the Justice Department inspector general's office that faulted him for violating media policy and repeatedly misleading its investigators. They were asking about an October 2016 Wall Street Journal article about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. McCabe, working through the FBI press office, had authorized a spokesman and a bureau lawyer to speak to a reporter to rebut allegations that he had slowed the inquiry.McCabe was fired in March 2018, hours before retirement benefits would have kicked in, and the inspector general referred his findings to federal prosecutors in Washington a month later.Walton's stern warning came as prosecutors grappled with whether to bring charges in what is a seemingly straightforward case with a limited set of facts and witnesses that has been under investigation for 19 months."This matter is a high-profile matter," Walton said. He added that as long as prosecutors hold off on deciding how to proceed, they "undermine the credibility not only of the Justice Department because it's not making these hard decisions, but also the court."McCabe's lawyers have argued that the case is weak and that he is being singled out because of the president's disdain for him. Trump has relentlessly attacked McCabe, potentially complicating any prosecution. McCabe has said the president targeted him to undermine his standing as a witness to whether he obstructed justice in the Russia inquiry.In August, McCabe's lawyers met with Jeffrey A. Rosen, the deputy attorney general, to make a last-ditch appeal for prosecutors to drop the case. Their pleas were rebuffed, and an indictment appeared imminent. But the grand jury hearing the case reconvened last month after weeks without meeting but did not indict McCabe, raising questions about whether prosecutors delayed a vote by jurors to avoid a rare and embarrassing setback of their declining to hand up an indictment.Other setbacks have emerged for the government. One prosecutor on the case left the Justice Department and has said it lacked merit while another left on what seemed like the eve of a possible indictment.A key witness in the case -- Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer whom McCabe authorized to speak to the Wall Street Journal reporter -- also told the grand jury that he was not motivated to lie about the episode because he was authorized to speak with reporters and thus did not violate media policy. Her sympathetic testimony to McCabe would most likely be a problem for prosecutors.Another important witness who testified before the grand jury, Michael Kortan, the spokesman involved in the episode, could not immediately remember how the leak unfolded.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group, sued in July 2018 for the records related to McCabe's dismissal. The organization is seeking access to investigators' notes taken during Kortan's interview, which could be exculpatory to McCabe, the group's lawyer, Anne Weismann, argued during the hearing."We're in dark times," she told the judge, saying that growing evidence showed that Trump was abusing his powers to go after perceived enemies in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. McCabe, she said, was "swept up in that."The judge seemed to acknowledge her point, noting that Trump was "going after the courts, too." He later added, "I totally appreciate what you just said and share many of the same concerns that you have expressed."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Biden invests in an insurance policy against Warren’s surge Posted: 03 Oct 2019 02:00 AM PDT  Joe Biden's campaign is ramping up its investment in Super Tuesday states, anticipating a Democratic race that narrows to two candidates by early March. The increase in staffing across the 14 states that will vote March 3 comes as Biden's polling figures have declined and Elizabeth Warren's have surged, particularly in states like Iowa and New Hampshire where she's heavily invested in field organization. Many of the states on the Super Tuesday map — which includes a handful of Southern and Border states — play to his strengths among African-American voters and more moderate Democrats.
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| More benefits planned for some Oklahoma death row inmates Posted: 03 Oct 2019 08:58 AM PDT  OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) Some of the 44 death row inmates housed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester will soon be moved from the prisons maximum-security H-Unit to another unit to give them more benefits and access to the outdoors, the states new prisons boss said. In a letter released by the agency on Thursday, the Department of Corrections Interim Executive Director Scott Crow told officials with the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma that the agency plans to move qualifying inmates to its less restrictive A-Unit by the end of October. The ACLU had threatened legal action over what it says are potential constitutional violations of the rights of death row inmates, mostly by confining them to their cells for 23 hours per day.
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| Spokesman defends dishevelled Duterte as 'very hygienic' Posted: 03 Oct 2019 06:11 AM PDT  President Rodrigo Duterte's spokesman on Thursday defended the Philippine leader as "very hygienic" and nice-smelling after he was mocked on social media for looking dishevelled in a meeting with the Russian prime minister. The 74-year-old Duterte was in Russia on a working visit and sat down for the talks with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday. In pictures of the meeting, Duterte was seen in a rumpled suit with his tie hanging loose as the two posed for pictures and shook hands.
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| Tyshawn Lee murder trial: Chicago prosecutors urge jury for a 'just' ending to boy's short life Posted: 03 Oct 2019 03:31 PM PDT  Closing arguments began Thursday in the case of Tyshawn Lee, a 9-year-old boy was shot and killed in one of Chicago's most horrific crimes.
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| A vegan said she was 'poisoned for life' after accidentally eating meat. Here's the reality of what happens when you stop being vegan. Posted: 02 Oct 2019 02:44 PM PDT  Eating meat after years of veganism is rarely dangerous, but it may cause physical and mental symptoms, a dietitian said.
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| The B-2 Bomber Has More Firepower Than an Aircraft Carrier Posted: 03 Oct 2019 12:50 AM PDT  Could the B-2 stealth bomber be the most dangerous plane ever built?
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| Fox Host David Asman Fawns Over Trump for Attacking Wrong Paper for NYT’s Border Moat Story Posted: 02 Oct 2019 11:00 AM PDT  Minutes after President Donald Trump unleashed a lengthy and vicious attack against the wrong newspaper for reporting on his desire for snake-filled moats and the ability to shoot migrants at the border, Fox Business Network host David Asman gushed over the president's unhinged and false remarks.Serving Wednesday as the "One Lucky Guy" on Fox's daytime talk show Outnumbered, Asman immediately applauded Trump for railing against the media and Democrats while speaking to reporters at the White House."I think that there is a phrase he will hear a lot of from the president," Asman declared. "Who are you going to believe, you know that phrase, who are you going to believe? The fake media or me? Are you going to believe the Democrats, or are you going to believe me? Are you going to believe the rumor mill, the Beltway, or me in the transcripts?"Asman went on to say it is a good strategy for Trump to go after the Washington Post because they "have been caught several times with the news that did not turn out to be true." During his White House remarks, the president blasted the Post for first reporting that he pressed aides and officials to place a moat at the border "stocked with snakes and alligators" and that he told his staff to order soldiers to shoot migrants in the legs."That is the Trumpian way right now," the Fox Business host said.That story, however, first appeared in The New York Times, and is excerpted from an upcoming book by two of the paper's reporters."I think he feels he is winning," Asman noted later. He added: "The sense is that he feels like he is winning. He thinks he has a jump on the media, that he has a jump on the Democrats by releasing the information that he has to show discrepancies and so forth, that is just my sense here. We were talking about his speech at the U.N., which was very low-key, and then he gave a presser after that Wednesday, and he did seem to be down. I think that he has regained his energy somewhat."As for the president's claim that the report is "fake news," Fox News—along with several other outlets—confirmed key aspects of the Times story."A source who was in the room at the time confirmed the conversation about shooting migrants in the legs to Fox News late Tuesday," the network noted in its report.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Netanyahu weighing Likud leadership election: party spokesman Posted: 03 Oct 2019 09:04 AM PDT  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering a snap leadership vote in his Likud party, a spokesman said on Thursday, adding a new twist to Israeli politics after two deadlocked general elections this year. A leadership vote would give Netanyahu an opportunity to win a new mandate from his party after his failure to secure a parliamentary majority in national elections in April and last month left him politically weakened. In a statement, the party spokesman said Netanyahu was weighing the idea "to shatter the illusion of a Likud rebellion" against him and persuade any political rivals who might be anticipating one that they should join a unity government with him now.
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| Cool air to usher in 1st frost of season in parts of the northeastern US this weekend Posted: 03 Oct 2019 03:57 AM PDT  As cooler air settles over the Northeast into the weekend, some areas will go from experiencing record heat to the first frost of the season in the span of just a few days.Summer's last hurrah left its mark in the record books across the region during the first two days of October. Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and New York City are among the cities that experienced their hottest October days on record at midweek, as temperatures soared into the middle and upper 90s F."When comparing highs from the peak of the heat this week to the late-night and early-morning lows this weekend, some locations will experience a 50-degree-Fahrenheit swing," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said.The main surge of crisp, fall air will come in the wake of a fast-moving storm system bringing rain and thunderstorms on Thursday."As that storm begins to pull away late Thursday night and Friday morning, rain may mix with or change to a bit of snow over the mountains of northern New York state and New England," Sosnowski said.Cool and blustery weather will follow in the storm's wake, with high temperatures on Friday likely to be in the 40s, 50s and 60s from north to south across the region. Highs in the 70s will be confined to the Chesapeake Bay region. As the sky remains clear and winds diminish at night, temperatures are expected to plummet to their lowest levels yet this season."Most outlying areas located north and west of the major metro areas will have a pretty decent chance of seeing the season's first frost on Friday night," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Carl Babinski said. The colder weather should help to reduce the bug population and pollen levels in the region, according to Sosnowski.People heading out on Saturday morning to go to college football tailgates, leaf peep or pick out pumpkins will need to layer up.Saturday should be fairly sunny, but also the coolest day of the two this weekend, with temperatures snapping back up on Sunday, according to Babinski.Highs are forecast to return to the 60s in western New England and 70s in the lower mid-Atlantic on Sunday following respective highs in the 50s and 60s at the start of the weekend.Accompanying the temperature rebound at the end of the weekend will be the return of rain as a new storm approaches. Fans heading to Sunday's AFC North rivalry game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens at Heinz Field will want to bring along a poncho or umbrella with showers possible throughout the day.AccuWeather meteorologists are monitoring the potential for the region to receive a thorough soaking from this storm later Sunday through Monday, depending on the storm's exact speed and whether tropical moisture comes into play.Regardless, any rain will be of benefit as abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions have expanded across the region in recent weeks.Another cool, dry and frosty spell is likely to follow this round of wet weather by the middle of next week. Download the free AccuWeather app to receive the latest forecast for your area. Keep checking back for updates on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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| Taiwan warns Chinese could be barred entry over anti-HK violence Posted: 02 Oct 2019 05:31 PM PDT  Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen warned Thursday that mainland Chinese who attacked Hong Kongers or damaged "Lennon Walls" could be barred from the island following a recent spate of such incidents. The walls plastered in colourful sticky-notes, posters and slogans that have sprung up across Hong Kong have also been set up in Taiwan, mostly in university campuses. Taiwan held a Hong Kong solidarity rally last weekend which was largely peaceful, although Hong Kong popstar Denise Ho -- a staunch democracy advocate -- had red paint thrown at her by an unidentified assailant as she spoke to local media.
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| Indictment: ‘Party and play’ sex and drug use turned deadly Posted: 03 Oct 2019 07:18 AM PDT  Wealthy California political donor Ed Buck was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury for two overdose deaths in his West Hollywood apartment and charged with providing methamphetamine to three other men, one of whom survived two overdoses. The indictment returned in U.S. District Court charged Buck with distributing meth resulting in the deaths of Timothy Dean in January and Gemmel Moore in 2017. Buck had previously been charged in Moore's death after his arrest last month.
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| North Korea tests submarine-launched missile a day after saying it will resume nuclear talks with US Posted: 03 Oct 2019 12:23 PM PDT  A day after saying it would resume nuclear talks with the US, North Korea said it successfully test-fired a submarine-launched missile.
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| Tech exec's body found in BMW after abduction in Santa Cruz, officials say Posted: 02 Oct 2019 03:48 PM PDT  Police say Tushar Atre was kidnapped from his California home around 3am and officers located vehicle that afternoonAuthorities say Tushar Atre, the 50-year-old owner of a digital marketing company, was abducted on Tuesday from his home in Santa Cruz. Photograph: APThe 50-year-old owner of a California marketing company was abducted from his oceanfront home in Santa Cruz and later found dead near his white BMW, authorities say.The Santa Cruz county sheriff's office has released few details on the case. But on Tuesday, it reported it had received a 911 call early in the morning from the home of Tushar Atre, the owner of the digital marketing company Atre Net Inc.Atre had been kidnapped from his home around 3am "during a crime", the office said, and he was last seen getting into a white BMW SUV.Deputies located the car on Tuesday afternoon in the Santa Cruz Mountains and found a body in the same location."We have some unfortunate news, we have found the car associated with this case along with a deceased person," the office said in a Facebook statement on Tuesday afternoon.On Wednesday afternoon, the office confirmed the body found was identified as Atre. "We have reason to believe the motive was robbery," a sheriff's office statement on Facebook said.Police are looking for at least two people in connection with the case, the local station KTVU reported on Tuesday.
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| Your History Book Missed It: Japan Started the Pearl Harbor Attack with Submarines Posted: 03 Oct 2019 03:47 AM PDT  An hour before the air attack, a squadron of tiny Japanese midget submarines attempted to slip into the harbor's defenses, like burglars in the night, to wreak havoc on Battleship Row. Unlike the aerial assault, the sailors failed spectacularly — and the story is often forgotten.
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| China Won’t Save the World Economy This Time Posted: 02 Oct 2019 09:14 PM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- U.S. recession indicators are growing stronger and there's one bigger-than-usual reason why the world should be worried: China isn't coming to the rescue this time.In the past week alone, a gauge of U.S. manufacturing unexpectedly fell to its weakest reading in a decade and payrolls at private companies grew less than forecast. Economists are starting to wonder whether the U.S. has approached so-called stall speed, the slowest pace of growth without careening into a recession. The International Monetary Fund, meanwhile, will likely downgrade global growth estimates this month.One of the engines that drove a global economic recovery after the last two downdrafts in America – the relatively shallow one in 2001 and the catastrophe that began in 2007 – was China. As the financial crisis escalated, Beijing opened a floodgate of credit and cut interest rates, which stoked demand for everything from Australian coal to German cars.We're unlikely to see anything like that this time. Beijing has shown little appetite for another round of massive fiscal stimulus as it atones for the profligacy of the last decade, which left a massive buildup of debt and fueled asset bubbles.While Chinese authorities have been juicing the economy the past year, they have been very careful about how they go about it. Economists keep predicting cuts in the benchmark interest rate; but those haven't been forthcoming, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Shuli Ren wrote recently. The People's Bank of China has preferred trims to lenders' reserve requirements, as officials focus on the best way to channel credit to certain sectors of the business world. Open-slather easing, it isn't. That doesn't augur particularly well for the prospects of a global recovery. The financial crisis saw the world's most consequential central banks coordinate rate cuts, with China's participation. Beijing's involvement made China a serious player in the global monetary order.How likely is it that the PBOC will happily sign off on something with the Fed once again? With President Donald Trump sitting in the White House, not very. Then again, Trump has already likened Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Desperation has been known to make odd bedfellows in pursuit of shared short-term goals. The good news is that any steps China does take will have ripple effects given its sheer size. Gross domestic product is now about $14 trillion, compared with barely more than $1 trillion in 2001 and about $4 trillion in 2007. Chinese firms continue to plow investment into neighboring countries and Beijing-funded lenders like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank may well step up to provide cash to struggling economies.Let's keep things in perspective, though. China is now recording quarterly economic growth of about 6%, not the 15% notched in 2007 or the roughly 10% in 2001. The executives and politicians who tripped over themselves to praise China's model of development are noticeably quieter now.Not every recession is like 2007, nor are they always accompanied by a financial collapse. The next slump, whenever it comes, will still be painful, so the U.S. might want to start casting about for an enthusiastic partner. It's probably a mistake to expect that'll be China this time around – it's not only less willing, but less able.To contact the author of this story: Daniel Moss at dmoss@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Rachel Rosenthal at rrosenthal21@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies. Previously he was executive editor of Bloomberg News for global economics, and has led teams in Asia, Europe and North America.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Giuliani Says Some of the Documents State Dept IG Handed to Congress Came From Him Posted: 03 Oct 2019 12:39 AM PDT  Shannon Stapleton/ReutersAfter State Department Inspector General Steve Linnick briefed Congress on Wednesday and handed over materials that some Democrats said amounted to a packet of "propaganda" apparently designed to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani proudly told CNN that some of these documents originated with him."What Giuliani told me is that he somehow routed this information—this is at the end of March, earlier this year—he says he routed that to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo," reporter Michael Warren said on CNN Wednesday night. "He did say that he received a call a couple of days later from Pompeo who said that he had gotten these documents and that he would refer it for investigation.""Giuliani telling me he was frustrated he never heard anything back from the State Department thereafter," Warren added.The chairs of the House Intelligence, House Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees released a joint statement hours earlier expressing concerns about the "urgent" briefing that they had been summoned to by the State Department. The documents given to lawmakers at that briefing "raise troubling questions about apparent efforts inside and outside the Trump Administration to target specific officials," the statement said, including former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Biden's son Hunter."The documents provided by the Inspector General included a package of disinformation, debunked conspiracy theories, and baseless allegations in an envelope marked 'White House' and containing folders labeled 'Trump Hotel,'" the statement read. "These documents also reinforce concern that the President and his allies sought to use the machinery of the State Department to further the President's personal political interests."The committee chairmen further noted that the IG "stated that his office interviewed Secretary Pompeo's Counselor, Thomas Ulrich Brechbuhl, who informed the Inspector General that Secretary Pompeo told him the packet 'came over,' and that Brechbuhl presumed it was from the White House."Giuliani later appeared on Fox News' Hannity, where he boasted about the Ukrainian documents he had fed to the State Department in the spring. "And the committees, I guess, they were sitting there figuring out how they can do impeachment based on nothing and what they got shoved down their throats, it's a complete, total absolutely terrific prosecutorial outline of why Joe Biden is so guilty," Giuliani exclaimed to Trump-boosting host Sean Hannity. "It's a joke for me to describe it to you."Giuliani also credited conservative columnist John Solomon—who apparently shared his Ukraine stories with Giuliani's allies before publication—with helping to get his Ukraine-Biden narrative to the forefront."Ultimately it was John Solomon, who should get a Pulitzer Prize, by the way, put them all on tape, so it's all memorialized on videotape," he declared, referencing Solomon's interviews with Ukrainian figures. "This is as solid as it can get."Earlier this week, Congress subpoenaed Giuliani for records relating to the Ukraine controversy that blew up following a whistleblower's complaint about the infamous July 25 call in which President Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens. The president's attorney has since hired a lawyer to represent him during the congressional investigation.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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| The Gift Guide for the Sophisticated Geek Posted: 02 Oct 2019 02:37 PM PDT |
