| White House tells Democrats it will not cooperate with impeachment inquiry Posted: 08 Oct 2019 03:00 PM PDT  In a letter to House Democrats, White House counsel Pat Cipollone calls the impeachment inquiry "constitutionally invalid" and indicates the White House won't cooperate with it.
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| Polish politician rescues child and father from burning car Posted: 08 Oct 2019 04:45 AM PDT  A left-wing party leader in Poland has rescued a 2-year-old boy and his father from a burning car, winning praise across the political spectrum days before a national election. The car collided with a truck and began to burn Monday evening in Tabor, south of Warsaw. Robert Biedron witnessed the crash and helped the father and child until rescue officials arrived, fire officials reported.
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| EU tells British PM Johnson to stop playing 'stupid' Brexit blame game Posted: 08 Oct 2019 12:17 AM PDT  LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union accused Britain of playing a "stupid blame game" over Brexit on Tuesday after a Downing Street source said a deal was essentially impossible because German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made unacceptable demands. With just 23 days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the bloc, the future of Brexit remains deeply uncertain as both London and Brussels position themselves to avoid blame for a delay or a disorderly no-deal Brexit.
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| Germany holds Syrian crash truck hijacker for attempted murder Posted: 08 Oct 2019 11:34 AM PDT  German authorities Tuesday held on suspicion of attempted murder a Syrian man who hijacked an articulated lorry and smashed it into cars stopped at a traffic light in the city of Limburg, injuring several people. The 32-year-old will remain in custody, suspected of attempted murder and bodily harm as well as a traffic offence, Frankfurt prosecutors told AFP. Unconfirmed media reports said the Syrian national arrived with the massive migrant influx to Germany in 2015 and that his residency permit had expired on October 1.
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| 2020 Subaru Legacy vs. 2019 Honda Accord in Photos Posted: 07 Oct 2019 04:59 AM PDT |
| Conor McGregor's entourage have been accused of forcing a nightclub bottle service girl into their car after a booze-fueled evening in LA Posted: 08 Oct 2019 05:06 PM PDT  Insider uncovered the story while investigating Los Angeles nightlife company The H.wood Group, which is popular among celebrities.
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| Diplomat's Wife Suspected in Fatal U.K. Car Crash Returned to the U.S. After Telling Authorities She Would Stay. Here's What to Know Posted: 07 Oct 2019 03:42 PM PDT  U.K. officials are asking that diplomatic immunity be waived
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| Warren Defends Claim She Lost 1971 Teaching Job Due to Pregnancy Posted: 08 Oct 2019 06:47 AM PDT  Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren pushed back against allegations that she had lied about losing a teaching position in 1971 due to her pregnancy during an interview with CBS News on Monday night."All I know is I was 22 years old, I was six months pregnant, and the job that I had been promised for the next year was going to someone else. The principal said they were going to hire someone else for my job," Warren told CBS News, referring to job as a speech pathologist with in Riverdale, N.J.Her comments come in the wake of pushback that Warren has been untruthful about her discussion of the situation on the campaign trail. Warren has repeatedly described the story as one where she was "shown the door" because she became pregnant after one year teaching at the school. The Massachusetts Democrat has also repeatedly referenced the event as crucial for her path to politics, as it dashed her dreams of becoming a public school teacher and prompted her shift into public service.But in Warren's first known public discussion of the event, during a 2007 interview at the University of California, Berkeley, she gave a different account, saying "I worked in a public school system with the children with disabilities. I did that for a year … I went back to graduate school and took a couple of courses in education and said, 'I don't think this is going to work out for me.' I was pregnant with my first baby, so I had a baby and stayed home for a couple of years."Warren told CBS News that while she did not realize she had changed the phrasing in her discussion of the incident, she was moved to share more details about the incident due to her move into public life. "After becoming a public figure I opened up more about different pieces in my life and this was one of them. I wrote about it in my book when I became a U.S. Senator," she said in a statement released by her campaign.According to records obtained by The Washington Free Beacon on Monday, the Riverdale Board of Education approved a second-year teaching contract for a young Elizabeth Warren. Minutes from a board meeting two months later show that Warren offered a resignation instead, which was "accepted with regret."But Warren disputed the record, telling CBS News that she was in fact offered the job, but when her pregnancy was revealed the offer was rescinded."I was pregnant, but nobody knew it. And then a couple of months later when I was six months pregnant and it was pretty obvious, the principal called me in, wished me luck, and said he was going to hire someone else for the job," Warren said.
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| Police bust multi-billion pound drug smuggling gang after 50 tonnes of product are brought into the UK Posted: 08 Oct 2019 11:37 AM PDT  Britain's biggest ever drug smuggling gang has been smashed after billions of pounds worth of narcotics was brought into the UK, the National Crime Agency believes. Officers arrested 13 men aged between 24 and 59 on Tuesday across the country in dawn raids. The NCA seized 351 kilos of cocaine, 92 kilos of heroin, 250 kilos of cannabis and 1,850 kilos of hemp/hashish, with a total street value of more than £38 million, in three consignments in September 2018. Investigators believe more than 50 tonnes of drugs worth billions of pounds were imported from the Netherlands, between February 2017 and October 2018, hidden in lorries carrying vegetables and juice. Jayne Lloyd, NCA Regional Head of Investigations, said: "We suspect these men were involved in an industrial-scale operation - the biggest ever uncovered in the UK - bringing in tonnes of deadly drugs that were distributed to crime groups throughout the country. "By working closely with partners here and overseas, in particular the Dutch National Police, we believe we have dismantled a well-established drug supply route." The gang are believed to have imported billions of pounds worth of drugs Credit: AFP The arrests were made in London, Manchester, Stockport, St Helens, Warrington, Bolton, Dewsbury, and Leeds. Four men and two women from the Netherlands, who were arrested in April this year as part of the same investigation, are awaiting extradition to the UK. "We have got the top people in the group," said Ms Lloyd. "We believe it's probably the biggest conspiracy that's been seen in the UK." Investigators believe the arrests have disrupted the flow of drugs into the UK to be sold on by "county lines" gangs, who often use children as dealers. "Taking out this suspected organised crime group... will make, hopefully, a huge impact in relation to protecting the public and the economy," said Ms Lloyd. "You can see from where they've been arrested that the potential was that significant amounts of drugs coming into the UK would go to various areas in the UK. "We would be looking at vulnerable individuals who would then supply the commodity on behalf of other organised crime groups." The investigation is linked to an earlier NCA operation where 13 people were jailed after the seizure of more than 100kg of heroin in 2015.
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| Protesters move into Ecuador's capital; president moves out Posted: 08 Oct 2019 05:25 PM PDT  Thousands of indigenous people, some carrying long sticks, converged on Ecuador's capital Tuesday as anti-government protests and clashes led the president to move his besieged administration out of Quito. Violence has persisted since last week, when President Lenín Moreno's decision to end subsidies led to a sharp increase in fuel prices. The government declared an overnight curfew around key state installations and government buildings as well as vital infrastructure such as airports and oil refineries.
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| Ex-U.S. envoy Huntsman urges rethink of Russia sanctions in WSJ op-ed Posted: 08 Oct 2019 04:51 AM PDT  Days after ending his term in Moscow, former United States ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman has urged Washington to review its sanctions-dominated approach to Russia, questioning its efficiency and calling for dialogue. The U.S. has placed multiple layers of sanctions on Russia, its senior officials and largest companies, as well as businessmen it views as connected to the Kremlin, the bulk of them linked to Moscow's role in the Ukrainian crisis which began in 2014 and has yet to be resolved. In a column https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-needs-dialogue-with-moscow-11570488054 for the Wall Street Journal published on Monday, Huntsman argued that "sanctions have become our go-to foreign policy tool to admonish misbehavior" but not all of them are having the desired effect.
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| Mystery oil spills blot more than 130 Brazilian beaches Posted: 08 Oct 2019 11:05 AM PDT  The source of large blots of oil staining more than 130 beaches in northeastern Brazil remained a mystery Tuesday despite President Jair Bolsonaro's assertions they came from outside the country and were possibly the work of criminals. Tamar, a group dedicated to the protection of sea turtles, said the oil spill was "the worst environmental tragedy" it has encountered since its formation in 1980. The patches of oil began appearing in early September and have now turned up along a 2,000 kilometer (1,200 mile) stretch of Atlantic coastline.
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| Israel unveils the remains of 5,000-year-old city Posted: 08 Oct 2019 01:25 PM PDT  Israeli archaeologists on Sunday unveiled the remains of a 5,000-year-old city they said was one of the biggest from its era in the region, including fortifications, a ritual temple and a cemetery.
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| China Knows It Can't Protect Every Island It Builds (Think South China Sea) Posted: 07 Oct 2019 08:15 PM PDT  But Beijing is building them anyway.
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| Chicago teens stage 'die-in' to demand action on climate change; one man arrested Posted: 07 Oct 2019 07:24 PM PDT  Dozens of Chicago teens gathered across from Trump International Hotel and marched to City Hall Monday to demand action on climate change.
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| US F-16 warplane crashes in Germany with pilot taken to hospital Posted: 08 Oct 2019 07:58 AM PDT  An American F-16 fighter jet crashed Tuesday near the city of Trier in western Germany, the German air force told AFP, with the pilot surviving after using the ejector seat. After multiple emergency calls around 3:15 pm local time, emergency services reached the scene near the village of Zemmer, police said in a statement. The airman was taken to hospital. Police said it was not immediately clear how seriously he was injured in the crash. Authorities blocked off a large zone around the crash site including several roads, the police statement added, urging drivers to avoid the area. A spokesman for the nearby US military airbase at Spangdahlem told AFP he had no further information about the crash, its causes or the health of the pilot. Germany is no stranger to military aircraft crashes, including in its own shortage-plagued Bundeswehr armed forces. In June this year, two of the air force's Eurofighter jets crashed after colliding in mid-air in northeastern Germany. One of the pilots was killed, while the other ejected to safety. Less than a week later, a helicopter pilot died when his aircraft crashed near an army training centre. The last American military crash in Germany dates back to 2015, when one of the Spangdahlem base's F-16 fighters went down in northern Bavaria. In that incident, the pilot surviving after ejecting from the plane.
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| America’s Good Intentions in Syria Have Led to This Dismal Outcome Posted: 08 Oct 2019 03:30 AM PDT  Recent U.S. policy in Syria, from the moment that former U.S. ambassador Robert Ford showed support for Syrian protesters in 2011, has been one of good intentions that were mismanaged through conflicting policies. This week it led to the decision to withdraw. A new crisis will unfold in eastern Syria, an area that, liberated from ISIS, has seen too much war and where the people are just beginning to reconstruct their lives. Many are expressing feelings that the U.S. betrayed its partners, the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are mostly Kurdish. The larger context is that the U.S. has been seen as abandoning one group after another in Syria, reducing American influence in Syria and the region.It is at least the third time that President Donald Trump has sought to leave Syria. In March 2018, he said that the U.S. was leaving "very soon." In December 2018, he wrote that the U.S. was bringing the troops home after defeating ISIS. In fact, ISIS was not defeated on the ground until March 23, 2019, in its last pocket near the Euphrates river. ISIS sleeper cells are still active, and there are thousands of ISIS detainees in eastern Syria. However, Trump now says that Turkey or other countries will need to deal with the remnants of ISIS and the detainees in Syria.How did the U.S. get here? In 2011, Americans were outraged by scenes of Bashar al-Assad's regime cracking down on protests. There was bipartisan support for backing the Syrian protesters and then the Syrian rebels. At the time, the Obama administration had a vast spectrum of options, from giving them anti-tank missiles to carrying out airstrikes against Assad and punishing him for using chemical weapons. But Obama walked back from his 2012 red line on the use of chemical weapons.Washington shifted from directly opposing Assad to training and equipping Syrian rebels, a program that cost up to $1 billion and was largely seen as a failure by 2015. By this time, the U.S. was working on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the "Iran deal," and the overthrow of Assad, who is backed by Iran, was no longer a priority. ISIS had exploited the Syrian conflict to take over a third of Syria and Iraq, controlling the lives of 12 million people and committing genocide. The U.S. began anti-ISIS operations in Syria in September 2014 and helped the Kurdish fighters in Kobane resist ISIS. From there grew a unique partnership between the U.S. and these leftist Kurdish fighters, whom Turkey accused of being linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the U.S. views as terrorists. The U.S. supported the creation of the Syrian Democratic Forces in 2015 in eastern Syria, as a way to rebrand the Kurdish fighters and distance them from the PKK, so that Washington could train and equip them without appearing to support the party.The Obama administration had moved from opposing Assad, to arming rebel fighters, to fighting ISIS and signing the Iran deal. At each juncture it narrowed its goals. By the time Trump was elected, the U.S. mission in eastern Syria, encapsulated in Operation Inherent Resolve, was to defeat ISIS on the ground and diplomatically oppose Assad through lip service in Geneva.Trump vowed during his campaign to defeat ISIS, but he also wanted to show that there was a red line with respect to Assad's crimes. He ordered airstrikes against the regime in April 2017 and April 2018 but was reluctant to do more. He ended support for the rebels in July 2017, and a year later Damascus took back rebel areas that had previously enjoyed some U.S. support. By this time, Russia and Iran were deeply involved in Syria, supporting Assad, and Turkey had launched an operation in northern Syria to prevent the U.S.-backed SDF from expanding its areas of control.At each juncture, the U.S. found its choices narrowed in Syria, and America was isolated from having a say in the future of Syria as Russia, Turkey, and Iran excluded Washington from peace discussions they held at Astana. Nevertheless, by 2018, the U.S. and its SDF partners controlled a huge area in eastern Syria. National-security adviser John Bolton sought to push a strategy whereby America would hold on to eastern Syria until Iran left. The goal was to roll back Iranian influence and reduce Israel's fears about Iran using Syria to attack. Bolton never got his way.Trump's decision in December 2018 to leave Syria led to the resignation of defense secretary James Mattis and anti-ISIS envoy Brett McGurk. Bolton was gone by September 2019. Jettisoning these key officials, the White House narrowed its role in Syria even more, no longer seeing a way to use it as leverage against Iran. Since Trump didn't want to do nation-building in Syria, and wanted Europe or the Gulf states to foot the bill to keep ISIS detainees locked up, he saw the area as a sunk cost. As for Iran, he said the U.S. would use Iraq to "watch" it.All that was left of U.S. policy in Syria was the question of what to do about the U.S. partners, the mostly Kurdish forces that had been trained and that had done a phenomenal job defeating ISIS. The problem was that Turkey, sensing that Trump wanted to leave, kept threatening to launch an invasion of eastern Syria to attack the SDF. Turkey says it will resettle 2 million Syrians, mostly Arabs from elsewhere in Syria, in the Kurdish areas of eastern Syria.U.S. policy in Syria has been one of shutting one door after another to close off U.S. influence, at the same time that Iran, Russia, and Turkey are opening those doors to partition Syria for their own interests. The risks of U.S. withdrawal are clear. Not only will ISIS make some inroads, but Washington will lose influence in Syria, and America's image will be tarnished for appearing to abandon friends and being bullied into leaving. Iran is already calling the US an "irrelevant occupier" and saying that it's ready to help take over eastern Syria.Unfortunately, as the U.S. seeks to narrow its footprint and get out of the nation-building-humanitarian-intervention business that was a hallmark of the 1990s and early 2000s, Washington has chosen such a narrow goal that its allies are wondering whether there is a future for the U.S. in the Middle East. The U.S. had good intentions — the road to hell is paved with them — in Syria but badly mismanaged them. The result is that Iran, Russia, and Turkey got something and that all the U.S. got was a damaged reputation. It's a far cry from 2011 when Syrian protesters all across the country, including Kurds and Arabs, looked to Washington for leadership and support.
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| The Latest: Police called to bar 2 hours before shootings Posted: 07 Oct 2019 02:23 PM PDT  The Kansas City, Kansas, police chief says officers responded to reports of a disturbance at a bar two hours before a shooting left four people dead and five wounded. Interim police Chief Michael York said Monday that officers could not find the man suspected of causing the disturbance and had no information that he planned return to the Tequila KC bar. Police said Javier Alatorre, 23, and Hugo Villanueva-Morales, 29, were each charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
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| U.S. Supreme Court rejects Domino's bid to avoid disabilities suit Posted: 07 Oct 2019 08:36 AM PDT  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by Domino's Pizza Inc to avoid a lawsuit by a blind man who accused the company of violating a law barring discrimination against people with disabilities after he was unable to place an order online. The justices, on the first day of their new nine-month term, declined to hear Michigan-based company's appeal of a lower court ruling allowing the lawsuit by Guillermo Robles invoking the Americans With Disabilities Act to move forward. Robles said in his 2016 lawsuit that the Domino's website and mobile app were not fully accessible for him in violation of the 1990 law that bans discrimination based on disability.
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| Doomed Kiribati ferry crew drunk, victims died horribly: official report Posted: 08 Oct 2019 12:33 AM PDT  Crew members of an overloaded Kiribati ferry which sank in the Pacific claiming 95 lives were drunk, leaving passengers to die slow deaths from starvation and hypothermia, a damning report has found. "Most, if not all, victims died from hunger, dehydration and hypothermia," it found. The deaths of 84 passengers and 11 crew was the worst maritime disaster ever in Kiribati, a collection of 33 atolls and reefs scattered over an area the size of the continental United States.
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| Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower: Google Boss’ Daughter Scrubbed From Guardian Exposé Posted: 07 Oct 2019 12:18 PM PDT  Fairfax Media/GettyLONDON—Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, claims that Sophie Schmidt, the daughter of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, successfully campaigned for The Guardian to scrub her name from one of their bombshell data-abuse stories.In a memoir that will be published Tuesday, he says that The Guardian's willingness to back down in the face of Schmidt's legal threats—and "water down" a story that had already been published—convinced him that he could no longer trust the British newspaper alone to publish his allegations about Cambridge Analytica.Wylie had helped The Guardian report on Cambridge Analytica anonymously for months, but he said he was shocked when the newspaper amended a May 2017 story. That story originally claimed it was Sophie Schmidt who suggested to Alexander Nix, the former director of Cambridge Analytica's parent company SCL, that he should get in touch with Peter Thiel's Palantir and look into using data mining techniques to bolster their political operations."Any trust I had in The Guardian was wrecked when the paper failed to stand by its own reporting," he wrote, according to an excerpt of Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America seen by The Daily Beast.A Guardian news & media spokesperson said, "We are disappointed that this book appears to contain factual inaccuracies about the Guardian which were not put to us prior to publication."We have raised a number of concerns with the publishers and are talking to them about how they plan to rectify this."The reporter who wrote the story, Carole Cadwalladr, said it was incredibly difficult for British media organizations to stand up to well-resourced legal threats. "Schmidt bullied a British newspaper using British privacy laws. It's extraordinary that the daughter of Eric Schmidt—the man who says that privacy is dead—would be using U.K. privacy laws to get herself taken out of the piece," she told The Daily Beast."News organizations have difficult choices to make, don't have an endless pot of money, and have to make hard choices. It's a measure of the difficulty of publishing this work that The Guardian decided they couldn't defend that one."Schmidt was an intern at SCL when Wylie writes that she "introduced Alexander to some of the executives at Palantir." The New York Times later reported on Schmidt's alleged suggestion. Palantir, a secretive tech company, was co-founded by Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire and major Trump donor, who also sits on the board of Facebook."The idea that Cambridge Analytica had dealings with Palantir suggested by the daughter of Eric Schmidt the chairman of Google just seemed like a really massive deal because the whole piece was about the power of these Silicon Valley tech companies," Cadwalladr said.Wylie wrote that he was not one of the sources who had spoken to Cadwalladr about Schmidt, but he said he did know of Schmidt's role in the history of the company."The story wasn't remotely libelous. Schmidt threw a battalion of lawyers at The Guardian, with the threat of a time-consuming and expansive legal battle. Instead of fighting an obviously spurious lawsuit, the paper agreed to remove Schmidt's name several weeks after publication," he said. Cadwalladr emphasized that it was privacy concerns rather than libel that were raised. "Then Cambridge Analytica threatened to sue over the same article," Wylie writes. "And even though The Guardian had documents, emails, and files that confirmed everything I had told them, they backed down again. Editors agreed to flag certain paragraphs as 'disputed,' to appease Cambridge Analytica and mitigate the paper's liability. They took Cadwalladr's well-sourced story and watered it down. At this point, my heart sank. I thought, All right, I've just moved back to London, I haven't got a job, and I'm being asked to put my neck on the line for a newspaper that won't even defend its own journalism."Wylie had been in discussions about going public with his full story but now began to re-think.He said he was put in touch with Gavin Millar, a well-known London lawyer who had worked on the Edward Snowden case. Wylie said the lawyer suggested he give the story to a U.S. newspaper because the First Amendment provided a stronger defense against accusations of libel and "The New York Times was far less likely to back down than The Guardian had been, and it would never delete parts of articles after the fact."Wylie said he then gave The Guardian an ultimatum. "I reiterated to the paper's editors that I would not be cooperating or handing over documents until there was an agreement with The New York Times."Cadwalladr said: "He's right to say that it did dent his confidence in publishing in Britain but it was actually The Guardian's Katharine Viner who reached out to Dean Baquet at the New York Times to help set up the partnership."Wylie's revelations were published jointly by The Guardian and The New York Times. It eventually emerged that more than 87 million Facebook profiles had been compromised as part of a vast data collection operation. Cambridge Analytica, which worked for the Trump campaign in 2016, was bankrupted and Facebook was fined a record $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission.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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| Sexual abuse of slaves by students at Founding Father’s university revealed by historians Posted: 07 Oct 2019 04:59 AM PDT  The two young, white University of Virginia students had a secret.It was September 1826, and the men, both scions of wealthy southern slaveholding families, were suffering from the same sexually transmitted disease.
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| The United States Almost Bombed Iran in the 1990s Posted: 07 Oct 2019 01:39 PM PDT  "The Pentagon drew up military plans which ranged from launching cruise missiles at Iranian targets to undertaking a full-blown ground invasion of Iran."
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| Google suspended facial recognition research for the Pixel 4 smartphone after reportedly targeting homeless black people Posted: 07 Oct 2019 06:05 AM PDT  Google contractors said they were told to find people with darker skin tones to improve facial recognition on Google's upcoming Pixel 4 smartphone.
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| 2 ex-nursing home workers charged with bilking 98-year-old Posted: 07 Oct 2019 07:34 PM PDT ![2 ex-nursing home workers charged with bilking 98-year-old]( "2 ex-nursing home workers charged with bilking 98-year-old") A Cook County state's attorney's office spokeswoman said Monday that Tameeka Wolfe and Christina Wright were each charged with one felony count of financial exploitation of an elderly person. The charges stem from an investigation into allegations that employees at Symphony Residences of Lincoln Park cashed checks, made ATM withdrawals and transferred money from several of Grace Watanabe's bank accounts for about a year. Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert took emergency custody of the woman and removed her from the facility last year.
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| Fat is fabulous for bears in Alaska's Katmai National Park Posted: 07 Oct 2019 12:50 PM PDT  Alaska grizzly bears packing on pounds (kilos) for the winter are competing for more than the season's last salmon. Fat Bear Week has become a national internet sensation, pitting individual bears against each other in an online voting contest. At Katmai, a park in southwestern Alaska known for its bountiful salmon runs and the huge grizzlies - Alaskans call them "brown bears" - that feed on them, Fat Bear Week is an annual highlight.
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| View 2020 BMW M8 Gran Coupe Photos Posted: 08 Oct 2019 04:01 PM PDT |
| Russia warns against actions that 'inhibit peace process' in Syria Posted: 08 Oct 2019 10:30 AM PDT  Russia's security council said on Tuesday it was important to avoid hindering the peace process in Syria, following discussions with President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. The influential council discussed the creation of a constitutional committee in the country and "remarked that at this stage everyone should avoid any actions that can inhibit the peace process in Syria," he said. Peskov said earlier Tuesday that Russia "is following very closely how the situation is developing" and was not informed about the withdrawal of the United States from the region -- something that has sparked fears of a Turkish attack on Kurdish forces.
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| A senior border patrol agent quietly retired after he was charged with sexually assaulting a junior agent Posted: 07 Oct 2019 10:58 AM PDT  A senior Border Patrol agent retired after being arrested and indicted on sexual assault and kidnapping charges against a female colleague.
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| Homeland Security secretary booed off stage at university by pro-immigration activists Posted: 07 Oct 2019 10:44 AM PDT  Acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin McAleenan abruptly abandoned a speech at a university after he was shouted down by protesters.Speaking at a conference hosted by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute at Georgetown Law in Washington DC, Mr McAleenan had barely begun his speech when pro-immigration activists appeared. They held signs that read "Hate is not normal", changed and read out the names of children who have died at the US border under Donald Trump's administration.
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| 18-year-old 'hero' dies trying to save passengers after car crashes into Delaware canal Posted: 07 Oct 2019 07:01 AM PDT  A 16-year-old girl was found sitting near the scene of the crash on Sunday, Delaware State Police said. She told them the driver helped her to safety.
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| One U.S. Battleship Fired Nearly 6,000 Massive 16-Inch Shells During Vietnam War Posted: 08 Oct 2019 01:43 AM PDT  Over the course of her relatively short Vietnam patrol New Jersey fired 5,688 16-inch gun rounds and 14,891 five-inch gun rounds, far more than she fired during World War II and the Korean War combined.
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| Harley falters with electric bike debut, struggles to attract new generation Posted: 07 Oct 2019 01:49 PM PDT  Harley-Davidson is betting on electric motorcycles to attract the next generation of younger and more environmentally conscious riders to reverse declining U.S. sales.
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| Malaysia fines 80 people, groups for alleged 1MDB payments Posted: 06 Oct 2019 10:26 PM PDT  Malaysia's anti-graft agency on Monday ordered 80 people and groups to pay fines totaling about $100 million for allegedly receiving funds from the 1MDB state investment fund. Former Prime Minister Najib Razak's brother Nazir Razak, who heads the country's second-largest bank, was among those listed. Branches of Najib's party and others in the former ruling coalition were also listed, as were 23 companies.
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| UPDATE 2-Ethiopian Airlines flight makes emergency landing in Dakar, no casualties Posted: 08 Oct 2019 10:37 AM PDT ![UPDATE 2-Ethiopian Airlines flight makes emergency landing in Dakar, no casualties]( "UPDATE 2-Ethiopian Airlines flight makes emergency landing in Dakar, no casualties") An Ethiopian Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing minutes after taking off in Senegal on Tuesday because an engine had caught fire, an airport spokesman said. None of the 90 passengers or crew were injured, spokesman Tidiane Tamba told Reuters. The airline confirmed on Twitter that its Boeing 767 aircraft had to land unexpectedly at Senegal's Blaise Diagne International Airport near the capital Dakar because of "a technical problem" without providing more detail on the cause.
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| 12 Power Strips and Surge Protectors to Keep You Organized and Powered Up Posted: 08 Oct 2019 10:37 AM PDT |
| ‘Everyone is getting a little shaky’: Republicans consider turning on Trump as impeachment support grows across US Posted: 07 Oct 2019 05:36 AM PDT  Republican senators are becoming increasingly unnerved by Donald Trump's conduct, as national support for impeachment rises.Democrats have launched a formal impeachment inquiry, over concerns the president pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son.
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| Judge clears record of 21-year-old jailed 10 days for oversleeping jury duty: 'Totally rehabilitated' Posted: 08 Oct 2019 10:17 AM PDT  Deandre Somerville, 21, spent 10 days in jail after he overslept and missed jury duty. The Palm Beach County Circuit Judge since cleared his record.
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| Iran's Missiles Would Be a Real Problem During a War Posted: 07 Oct 2019 04:00 PM PDT  Bad for U.S. bases and aircraft carriers.
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| Trafficker: Honduran president sought money for campaign Posted: 08 Oct 2019 03:03 PM PDT  A Honduran former drug trafficker and mayor testified Tuesday that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández wanted thousands of dollars in bribes from him for his re-election campaign in 2017. On the witness stand on the fifth day of the drug trial against Hernández's brother Tony Hernández, Amílcar Alexander Ardón said that in return he would receive protection for his smuggling activities. Ardón, who was mayor of the Honduran city of El Paraiso, also alleged that Juan Orlando Hernández asked him to bribe mayors in two departments, or provinces, "because their polls had low numbers." He said he paid $500,000 in Lempira department and about $60,000 in Copan.
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| 'They told me that I was going to die': The US says El Salvador is safe for migrants, but transgender women living there fear for their lives Posted: 08 Oct 2019 06:35 AM PDT  A transgender woman living in El Salvador says MS-13 killed her friends and went after her next. She's been waiting for the US to grant her asylum.
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| China's tourists cut back foreign travel over 'Golden Week', choose patriotic destinations at home Posted: 08 Oct 2019 03:31 AM PDT ![China's tourists cut back foreign travel over 'Golden Week', choose patriotic destinations at home]( "China's tourists cut back foreign travel over 'Golden Week', choose patriotic destinations at home") Chinese mainland tourists cut back on trips and spending abroad during the long "Golden Week" holidays in early October, with a weaker yuan, political turmoil in Hong Kong and global tensions dampening their enthusiasm to travel too far from home. China is the single largest source of tourists in the world.
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| Trans people will be able to choose their gender for next census after bill passes final stage Posted: 08 Oct 2019 07:38 AM PDT  The next census will enable trans people to choose their gender for the first time, after the controversial Bill passed its final stage in the Houses of Parliament. A census collects demographic information about all UK residents and takes place in the UK every decade, with the next one planned for March 2021. However, on Tuesday, MPs concluded the third reading of the The Census (Return of Particulars and Removal of Penalties) Bill. This means that trans people will be able to input their gender in addition to the mandatory sex question. Trans rights campaigners have lauded the inclusion of new questions on the next census as "a major victory for equality". However feminist academics have warned against "self-identification" on the national survey claiming that it "does not exist to validate people's identities". It is now awaiting Royal Assent meaning it will become ratified in law. The Bill was introduced in the House of Lords on May 1, 2019, received its first reading in the House of Commons in June 2019 and its Second Reading in July 2019. He, she, and ze: A guide to modern gender pronouns The Bill adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of topics that a census may ask about in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland. It also provides that there is no criminal penalty for not responding to these questions and does not require either of these topics to be asked about. Following the conclusion of the third reading, Emma Meehan, assistant director of public affairs at the LGBT Foundation charity, said: "We are incredibly pleased that the Census will be more trans inclusive, and believe this is a major victory for equality. "Trans people experience high levels of discrimination and multiple barriers in accessing services, in part as there remains a complete lack of accurate population data for them. "This makes the provision of effective services supporting and meeting the needs of the community more challenging. Whilst there remains progress to be made, this is nonetheless an important step in ensuring that we live in a society where trans people are treated with the same dignity and respect afforded to everybody else." She added: "Trans people should not have to justify their existence, and the identities of trans people should not be up for debate." In response, Professor Rosa Freedman, professor of law, conflict, and global development at the University of Reading, said: "The census does not exist to validate people's identities." Which country is the best for economic gender equality? "The purpose of the census is to gather data that allows the government to plan for the population's needs. That includes healthcare, education, programmes to address youth violence, social services provisions, and many more issue areas. "The sex question is crucial to for the government to be able to plan for the needs of the country, whether it is looking at prostate and cervical cancers or at the gap in earnings between females and males." However Professor Freedman, who describes herself as a "radical feminist", added: "The government needs to be able to gather data on the rising numbers of transgender children and of detransitioners in order better to understand and provide for the needs of those groups. "None of these issues can be addressed if sex and transgender are conflated in the census. Instead of conflating sex and transgender, we need to have questions on both." The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for the census in England and Wales. It recently published its guidance on how it plans to ask a question on the topic of gender identity for the first time in a census in 2021. The question will be: 'Is your gender the same as the sex you were registered at birth?' and the ONS said this will be voluntary and only asked of people aged 16 and over. The census sex question has been in place since 1801, however the new guidance asks that people respond using their lived sex, whether that corresponds to what is on their birth certificate or not. An ONS spokesman said: "Securing royal assent of the Census Bill is an important part of our preparations for the 2021 Census. "The new voluntary questions on sexual orientation and gender identity, for people aged 16 and over, are now subject to Parliamentary approval in the Census Order and Regulations. "Gathering this information will ultimately help local communities by allowing charities, local and central government to understand the services people from different groups need and monitor equality."
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