| Trump defense on Russian bounty story falls flat, even with Republicans Posted: 30 Jun 2020 04:42 PM PDT  White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has defended the president over reports that Russia offered Taliban fighters a bounty on U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
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| Couple recorded pulling weapons on protesters outside their St. Louis home Posted: 30 Jun 2020 03:47 AM PDT  Sunday night's demonstration was sparked by mayor releasing names and addresses of "defund police" advocates.
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| Venezuela general accused with Maduro unable to pay attorney Posted: 30 Jun 2020 01:21 PM PDT  A former Venezuelan general who was organizing a volunteer army to overthrow Nicolas Maduro says he is unable to afford a legal defense in a U.S. narcotics case that charges him alongside gis homeland's socialist president. Gen. Cliver Alcala surrendered in March to face U.S. accusations that he led with Maduro and two others for two decades a narcoterrorist conspiracy that sent 250 metric tons of cocaine a year to the U.S. and turned the Venezuelan state into a platform for violent cartels and Colombian rebels. Prior to his surrender, Alcala was working with a former U.S. Green Beret, Jordan Goudreau, to train at secret camps in Colombia a volunteer army of Venezuelan military deserters plotting an incursion to remove Maduro.
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| Simon Cheng: UK asylum for ex-consulate worker 'tortured in China' Posted: 01 Jul 2020 08:09 AM PDT  Simon Cheng is granted asylum in the UK almost a year after he was detained by Chinese authorities.
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| U.S. Air Force pilot killed in fighter jet crash at South Carolina base Posted: 01 Jul 2020 05:18 AM PDT |
| ‘Beat it, little f***er.’ Officers laugh after shooting rubber bullets at protesters. Posted: 01 Jul 2020 03:20 PM PDT  Warning: This article contains profane language.
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| Study finds asteroid impact, not volcanoes, made the Earth uninhabitable for dinosaurs: 'Only plausible explanation' Posted: 30 Jun 2020 12:09 PM PDT  A new study found what happened to the Earth's dinosaurs. An asteroid strike blocking out the sun for years and causing permanent winters was cause.
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| Texas Bar Owners Sue Over Reimposed Coronavirus Restrictions Posted: 30 Jun 2020 07:36 AM PDT  Several Texas bar owners on Monday sued over Governor Greg Abbott's order to shut down their businesses again as coronavirus cases in the state soar.Texas reported a record high on Monday of 5,913 individuals hospitalized for the coronavirus, and new cases of the virus rose on Saturday to a record daily high of 6,263 confirmed new cases. Deaths from the virus have remained level, however.The bar owners filed lawsuits in Austin, Houston, and Galveston, charging that the governor has exceeded his authority under the state constitution to order bars to close again and claiming that the restrictions are being unfairly imposed on bars while other businesses, such as nail and hair salons, are allowed to continue operating. The owners are demanding that Abbott call the state legislature into a special session to handle the issue."Gov. Abbott continues to act like a king," said Jared Woodfill, a lawyer representing the bar owners. "Abbott is unilaterally destroying our economy and trampling on our constitutional rights."Abbott rolled back his state's reopening process on Friday, singling out activity in bars as a driving factor of the spike in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations Texas has experienced."As I said from the start, if the positivity rate rose above 10%, the State of Texas would take further action to mitigate the spread of COVID-19," the Republican governor said. "At this time, it is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars."The governor's slowdown of the reopening process reimposes restrictions on businesses he had allowed to reopen at partial capacity, including bars, restaurants, gyms, malls, and bowling alleys. Bars were required to close at 12 p.m. on Friday but are allowed to remain open for delivery and take-out orders. Restaurants may operate dine-in service at 50 percent capacity, down from the 75 percent capacity Abbott approved earlier this month. The majority of gatherings of 100 or more people must gain approval from local governments.The announcement came two days after Abbott warned that the coronavirus is now spreading in Texas at an "unacceptable rate" and pleaded with residents to wear masks in public and continue practicing social distancing.Several other states have seen their coronavirus cases spike in the last several weeks, including Florida, Arizona, and California. Along with Texas, Alabama, Missouri and Nevada.
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| Why Amy McGrath could cost Republicans the U.S. Senate, even if she loses to Mitch McConnell Posted: 01 Jul 2020 09:36 AM PDT  Political analysts see the chances of Democrats winning enough seats to seize control of the Senate in the Nov. 3 U.S. election rising, with President Donald Trump's sliding poll numbers endangering a growing number of Republican incumbents. McConnell, a tenacious political survivor, has endured election challenges in the past and is still expected to defeat McGrath, who on Tuesday emerged as her party's nominee to challenge him.
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| Iran police question four after deadly Tehran blast Posted: 01 Jul 2020 06:53 AM PDT  Iranian police on Wednesday questioned four people as part of investigations into a powerful explosion that killed 19 people at a Tehran clinic the night before, state media reported. The blast at the Sina At'har health centre in the upmarket northern neighbourhood of Tajrish caused damage to nearby buildings and sent a plume of thick black smoke into the sky. It was the second such incident to hit Tehran within days, after a gas tank explosion near a military complex east of the capital late last Thursday that authorities said caused no casualties.
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| With a pen stroke, Mississippi drops Confederate-themed flag Posted: 30 Jun 2020 09:22 AM PDT  With a stroke of the governor's pen, Mississippi is retiring the last state flag in the U.S. with the Confederate battle emblem — a symbol that's widely condemned as racist. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the historic bill Tuesday at the Governor's Mansion, immediately removing official status for the 126-year-old banner that has been a source of division for generations. "This is not a political moment to me but a solemn occasion to lead our Mississippi family to come together, to be reconciled and to move on," Reeves said on live TV just before the signing.
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| Australia seeks long-range missiles in Indo-Pacific defence shift Posted: 30 Jun 2020 11:59 PM PDT  The country is to significantly lift military spending amid rising US-China instability, its PM says.
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| See How One Modern Family Restored Its Ancestral Family Estate in England Posted: 30 Jun 2020 11:23 AM PDT |
| More than 400 US Army paratroopers flew almost 5,000 miles to practice a long-range Pacific island invasion Posted: 01 Jul 2020 02:23 PM PDT  The drill "demonstrated that we are capable of deploying anywhere in the US Indo-Pacific Command area at a moment's notice," a commander said.
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| How America Bombed Nazi Germany Back into the Stone Age (And Won World War II) Posted: 01 Jul 2020 04:00 PM PDT  By the time the invasion of France began, American bomber losses had dropped to negligible proportions, and the Luftwaffe had been virtually driven from the skies over its own homeland.
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| Martin Gugino, the Buffalo protester pushed to the ground and injured by police, released after nearly a month in hospital Posted: 30 Jun 2020 05:38 PM PDT  The 75-year-old man who fell to the ground after being pushed by Buffalo police officers in a viral video was released from the hospital Tuesday.
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| Lawmakers urge ICE to release families together following court order Posted: 30 Jun 2020 08:12 AM PDT  A federal judge last week ordered ICE to release all minors the agency is detaining with their parents, citing new coronavirus cases.
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| Trump Says Coronavirus Will Just ‘Disappear,’ Brags He Looks Like ‘Lone Ranger’ in Mask Posted: 01 Jul 2020 01:18 PM PDT  With coronavirus cases surging to all-time highs and states reversing reopening plans, President Donald Trump once again claimed on Wednesday that the deadly virus would eventually just "disappear." At the same time, the president appeared to change his tune on face-coverings, telling Fox Business that he's "all for masks" while boasting about the single time that he was spotted wearing one, claiming he thought he "looked OK" and that he resembled the "Lone Ranger."Speaking to Fox Business host Blake Burman from the White House, the president bragged that the economy is recovering in a "very strong fashion" as states reopen businesses and public spaces following stay-at-home orders. "And I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus," Trump continued. "I think that at some point, that it's going to sort of just disappear, I hope."Rand Paul's Coronavirus Fix: 'We Just Need More Optimism'Burman, meanwhile, wondered aloud that Trump "still believes" that the disease will just go away, as he's asserted many times in the past. "I do. I do. Yeah," the president said. "Sure. At some point. I think we will have a vaccine very soon, too."Since February, the president has repeatedly assured the public that the virus would "disappear" in the near future. For instance, in early February, the president claimed that it would "go away by April." Later that month, when the nation's cases were still in double-digits, he confidently declared that it would be "close to zero" in a couple of days. Even in recent weeks, after deaths had already exceeded 100,000, the president insisted it will fade away even without a vaccine.Burman eventually moved on to recent studies and models that show that mandatory mask-wearing not only would have a health benefit to the public, but would also be a net positive economically as it would help prevent lockdown. Furthermore, in recent days, some of Trump's top allies at Fox have urged the president to wear a mask."So if there is an economic benefit, sir, and there is a public health benefit, sir, why not go forward and say there should be mandatory masks all across this country?" Burman asked.Trump replied that he didn't think a mandatory order was necessary because "many places" in the country feature people living "very long distances" from each other. Then the president, who has openly mocked his political opponents for wearing masks and has avoided publicly wearing face coverings, claimed he was "all for masks.""I think masks are good," he stated, prompting the Fox host to press whether he'd wear one."I would—I have. I mean, people have seen me wearing one," a rambling Trump responded. "If I'm in a group of people where we're not, you know, ten feet away but usually I'm not in that position and everyone's tested because I'm the president, they get tested before they see me but if I were in a tight situation with people, I would absolutely."North Carolina's Top Two Officials Are at War Over CoronavirusBurman, meanwhile, asked whether the public would see the president wear one at some point. The only instance of the president having been spotted with a face mask occurred during a May trip to a Ford plant, where Trump briefly donned a mask away from the press in a back area while viewing some classic cars."I mean, I have no problem. Actually, I had a mask on," Trump said, referencing the Ford plant moment. "I sort of like the way I looked, OK? I thought it was OK. It was a dark black mask and I thought it looked OK. Looked like the Lone Ranger. But no, I have no problem with that. I think—if people feel good about it they should do it."The Lone Ranger, for the record, wore a domino mask over his eyes.Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar Shut Down Meghan McCain's COVID OutburstRead 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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| `You broke my wrist!' Police sued for taking down wrong man Posted: 30 Jun 2020 10:12 PM PDT  Body camera video shows Antonio Arnelo Smith handing his driver's license to a Black police officer and answering questions cooperatively before a white officer walks up behind him, wraps him in a bear hug and slams him face-first to the ground. "Oh my God, you broke my wrist!" the 46-year-old Black man screams as two more white Valdosta officers arrive, holding him down and handcuffing him following the takedown. One eventually tells Smith he's being arrested on an outstanding warrant, and is immediately corrected by the first officer: They've got the wrong man.
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| U.S. tech chief executives expected to testify before House panel in late July Posted: 01 Jul 2020 03:12 PM PDT  The chief executives of the four U.S. tech giants -- Amazon.com, Facebook, Alphabet's Google and Apple -- will testify before the U.S. Congress in late July as part of an ongoing antitrust probe into the companies, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai of Google and Apple's Tim Cook will appear as part of the probe by the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel, the sources said.
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| Ex-Canada PM Mulroney calls for revised relations with China Posted: 01 Jul 2020 08:43 AM PDT  Canada must have an "urgent rethink" of its relationship with China, former prime minister Brian Mulroney said Wednesday as tensions build over the possible extradition to the United States of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Conservative Mulroney backed his Liberal successor Justin Trudeau's rejection of any exchange of Meng, who was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018, for two Canadians who were detained in China in apparent retaliation. Mulroney said Canada's hope that China would emerge as a constructive partner in international relations had been proven wrong, referring in particular to Beijing's militarization of the South China Sea.
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| America's M2 Carbine: The Rifle That Made the U.S. Military Great on the Battlefield Posted: 30 Jun 2020 09:30 AM PDT  Small numbers of M2s made their way to the troops in the closing engagement of World War II in the Pacific, particularly in the brutal Battle for Okinawa. However, they saw wider-scale action five years later in the Korean War.
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| Rep. Francis Rooney kicked off GOP Steering Committee Posted: 30 Jun 2020 11:22 AM PDT  Republicans were frustrated that the Florida Republican hadn't been showing up for votes or meetings.
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| Stonewall Jackson removed from Richmond's Monument Avenue Posted: 01 Jul 2020 11:45 AM PDT  Work crews wielding a giant crane, harnesses and power tools wrested an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson from its concrete pedestal along Richmond, Virginia's famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday, just hours after the mayor ordered the removal of all Confederate statues from city land. Mayor Levar Stoney's decree came weeks after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the removal of the most prominent and imposing statue along the avenue: that of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which sits on state land.
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| Joe Biden hits President Trump over Russian bounty reports, coronavirus response Posted: 30 Jun 2020 04:32 PM PDT  Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden publicly takes questions for first time in months; Doug McKelway reports.
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| Iran sentences former journalist to death for fuelling unrest Posted: 30 Jun 2020 04:24 AM PDT |
| Saudi triples VAT in unpopular virus-led austerity push Posted: 30 Jun 2020 08:42 PM PDT  Saudis braced Wednesday for a tripling in value added tax, another unpopular austerity measure after the twin shocks of coronavirus and an oil price slump triggered the kingdom's worst economic decline in decades. Retailers in the country reported a sharp uptick in sales this week of everything from gold and electronics to cars and building materials, as shoppers sought to stock up before VAT is raised to 15 percent. The hike could stir public resentment as it weighs on household incomes, pushing up inflation and depressing consumer spending as the kingdom emerges from a three-month coronavirus lockdown.
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| Meet the Douglas B-66 Destroyer: A Tactical Light Bomber and Recon Aircraft Posted: 30 Jun 2020 09:00 PM PDT  How well did it perform?
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| Coronavirus: Senate passes surprise extension of application deadline for PPP loans Posted: 30 Jun 2020 07:16 PM PDT  The Senate passed an extension for the Paycheck Protection Program to August 8 by unanimous consent Tuesday night.
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| Nicola Sturgeon and her husband will have to give evidence under oath to Alex Salmond inquiry Posted: 01 Jul 2020 07:00 AM PDT  Nicola Sturgeon and her husband will be forced to give evidence under oath to a Scottish Parliament inquiry into the mishandling of misconduct claims against Alex Salmond, it has been announced. The specially-convened Holyrood committee tasked with examining the Scottish Government's handling of harassment complaints made against the former First Minister confirmed it will take the unusual step when questioning witnesses. Some MSPs on the committee argued taking sworn evidence under oath was necessary given the seriousness of its inquiry and to maximise the accuracy of witness evidence amid "conflicting" claims. Refusing to take an oath is an offence punishable by up to three months in jail or a £5,000 fine. Giving false evidence could attract a five-year prison sentence.
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| 'Our war-time president has surrendered' -Biden on Trump Posted: 30 Jun 2020 12:07 PM PDT 
"We don't need a cheerleader Mr. President, we need a President, Mr. President," Biden said. Speaking in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, the former vice president argued that earlier action by Trump would have reduced the number who fell ill and the economic impact of the virus.
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| DNC Claims Trump ‘Glorifying White Supremacy’ By Attending Fireworks at Mt. Rushmore Posted: 30 Jun 2020 06:29 AM PDT  In a since-deleted tweet, the Democratic National Committee accused President Trump of "holding a rally glorifying white supremacy" by attending the fireworks display at Mount Rushmore on Independence Day."Trump has disrespected Native communities time and again. He's attempted to limit their voting rights and blocked critical pandemic relief. Now he's holding a rally glorifying white supremacy at Mount Rushmore — a region once sacred to tribal communities," the DNC tweeted early Tuesday morning. The tweet linked to a story by The Guardian, which reported that some Native American groups are planning protests at Mount Rushmore in response to Trump's expected attendance on July 3."Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that's still alive and well in society today," Native American activist Nick Tilsen told the British paper. "It's an injustice to actively steal indigenous people's land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide."DNC press secretary Brandon Gassaway did not return a request for comment on why the tweet was deleted. The Trump campaign immediately seized on the incident, tweeting that "Joe Biden's Democrat Party says Mount Rushmore and 4th of July celebrations 'glorify white supremacy.'""To stop this insanity, you have to vote on November 3rd," the campaign stated.Trump has faced allegations of white supremacy from prominent Democrats in the past. Last August, Biden claimed while on the campaign trail that "everything the president says and has done encourages white supremacy." Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) a potential running-mate for Biden, has explicitly called Trump a white supremacist."He's done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He's done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country," Warren said last August while campaigning for president in Iowa.
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| How the explosive YouTube war between James Charles and Tati Westbrook brought the value of vitamin supplements into question Posted: 30 Jun 2020 02:52 PM PDT  Westbrook and Charles' falling out and Westbrook's apology video raised questions about the value of supplements.
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| Arizona Is in COVID Hell—and Forced to Go After Rogue Gyms Posted: 01 Jul 2020 03:01 PM PDT  Arizona set a record Wednesday for new coronavirus cases, and 90 percent of the state's ICU beds are filled. But that's not stopping some gym owners from ignoring new lockdown rules and opening for business—prompting Gov. Doug Ducey to launch a crackdown on rogue fitness fanatics.Ducey released an executive order Monday shutting down all bars, gyms, theaters, water parks, and inner tubing locations until at least July 27, calling the latest COVID-19 case numbers "brutal." It was a swift turnaround from his declaration earlier this month that he would not impose new restrictions despite the growing case numbers—and many gym owners weren't happy about it."If this is truly as bad as we are being told, I don't think health clubs closing tomorrow is going to solve the problem," Mountainside Fitness owner Tom Hatten said in a press conference, as the number of COVID-19 deaths in the state topped 1,600. "I don't think [ending] tubing is going to solve the problem. I don't think closing a movie theater that hasn't been open is going to solve the problem."Hatten has filed a lawsuit against the governor, claiming the order is a violation of his due process and equal protection rights. In the suit, he claimed to have purchased "state of the art sanitation equipment" and rearranged the gym facilities in order to keep customers safe, and said the governor's office had not provided a promised reauthorization form that would have let him reopen. At the press conference, Hatten called the order "arbitrary" and said businesses needed "clarity" from the government. On Tuesday, police hit a Scottsdale Mountainside Fitness location with a citation that could result in a fine of up to $2,500. A spokesperson for the governor's office told ABC15 that Ducey had spoken with police chiefs that day and told them to be more aggressive in enforcing the order.On Wednesday, the Arizona Liquor Department reportedly suspended two liquor licenses for the Biltmore location of Life Time Fitness, another gym franchise that refused to follow the governor's order. (In a statement, Life Time Fitness said it is "incredibly committed to our members, who have clearly indicated their desire to have uninterrupted access to the expansive array of health and entertainment services, amenities and programs we provide.")Reopening Gyms Early Is Tearing a South Florida City ApartThe ramped-up enforcement seemed to be having an effect on at least a few franchises. An employee at Desert Fitness, which posted on Facebook Tuesday that it would remain open, said the gym had decided to cease operations as of Wednesday morning. "It's either stay open and take the fines that they issue or go to court over it, and we are not willing to do either of those things," said the employee, Hunter, who declined to give his last name.Megan Burrola, the assistant manager at CycleBar in McCormick, said her studio had also decided to shut down as of Wednesday morning, after speaking with government and police officials. The cycling studio had initially tried to claim that its smaller size exempted it from the shutdown order, and Burrola said management was still pursuing that avenue."We're working with our legal team because we do believe we qualify as a more private boutique, not a fitness center," she said. A spokesperson for the governor said in a statement that the order was clear: "Gyms and other indoor fitness clubs or centers, regardless of size, shall pause operations until at least July 27." But a number of fitness destinations seemed set on staying open because of their smaller size. A PureBarre studio in North Scottsdale kept its doors open Wednesday, writing on Instagram that the studio's "small, 'boutique' setting" made the owners "confident in our ability to safely operate and remain open." (In a response to a comment from someone calling the decision "very disappointing," owner Marirose Weyand wrote that she would "like the negative comments and energy dismissed from this page." She did not respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment.)BodyVision Fitness, a gym in Glendale, also wrote on Facebook that it would stay open due to its classification as a "micro-gym." The company did not respond to calls and emails about who, exactly, had classified them as such.And an employee at the YogaSix studio in Scottsdale told The Daily Beast that her location had also resumed classes as of Wednesday morning. Five people showed up to that morning's class, where participants are not required to wear masks."We actually feel strongly that our boutique fitness studio concept doesn't fall under the category of a gym," said the employee, Heather, who declined to give her last name. "It's just such a safe space compared to restaurants that are still open and grocery stores and so many places that are still open," she continued, adding, "We're here for the wellness of our members."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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| Beijing asks some U.S. media to submit information about their China operations Posted: 01 Jul 2020 12:32 AM PDT  China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that the Chinese government has asked some U.S. media outlets present in the country to submit information about their China operations. Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian named the Associated Press, National Public Radio, CBS and United Press International news agency as companies asked to submit the requested information in writing within seven days. The AP has requested more information about the Chinese government's requirements and "will review them carefully," a spokeswoman for the outlet said.
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| Navy SEAL who oversaw the bin Laden raid says he's the 'biggest fan of the millennials you'll ever meet' Posted: 30 Jun 2020 03:46 PM PDT  "You've never seen them in a firefight in Afghanistan," the former US Navy SEAL commander said about millennials.
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| F-35 Are Dangerous Stealth Fighters. Too Bad They Are Missing One Thing. Posted: 01 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  The Pentagon's F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters, which it has made the lynchpin of its twenty-first-century air warfare strategy, simply can't fly far enough. Why not stealth tankers?
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| Fact check: Democratic Party did not found the KKK, did not start the Civil War Posted: 01 Jul 2020 10:50 AM PDT  Frequent claims that the Democratic Party of the 19th century either started the Civil War or formed the KKK are false, according to historians.
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| Homeowner shoots woman trying to steal his Nazi flag, Oklahoma cops say Posted: 30 Jun 2020 03:56 PM PDT  Authorities said the victim is expected to recover.
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| Israeli lawmakers approve phone tracking of virus cases Posted: 01 Jul 2020 12:24 PM PDT  Israel's parliament approved a law Wednesday granting the country's internal security agency limited authority to use phone surveillance to track coronavirus cases as the country struggles to contain a second outbreak. The Israeli government had authorized the Shin Bet to use the technology in March during the peak of the country's coronavirus outbreak, despite public outcry over privacy concerns. The Knesset, Israel's parliament, voted 51-38 in favor of granting the Shin Bet power to use phone surveillance to retrace the steps of people infected with COVID-19 and identify others who came in contact with them in the previous two weeks.
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| The Strategies of Dementia Politics Posted: 30 Jun 2020 03:30 AM PDT  Joe Biden is tragically suffering a mental eclipse and sliding away at a geometric rate. Understandably, his handlers have kept him out of sight. He stays off the campaign trail on the pretext of the virus and his age-related susceptibility to COVID-19 morbidity.I say "pretext" without apology. Quarantine should not have otherwise stopped Biden over the past three months from doing daily interviews, speeches, and meetings. But each occasion, however scripted, rehearsed, and canned, would only have offered further daily proof that Biden is cognitively unable to be president or indeed to hold any office.Often Biden cannot finish a sentence. Names are vague eddies in his mind's river of forgetfulness. He is in a far more dire mental state than a physically failing FDR was in his 1944 campaign for a fourth term.The earlier career of a healthy Biden illustrates that he was not especially sharp even when in control of most of his faculties. We recall the former sane/nutty Biden of Neal Kinnock plagiarism, his "put y'all in chains" demagoguery, the studied racism of Biden's riffs about a "clean" and well-spoken Obama, and the sane/insane Corn Pop stories. All are the trademark of a once fool Joe Biden, who was at least alert when compared with his current catalepsy. If Donald Trump can be ungrammatical, Biden is agrammatical -- he simply streams together half-thoughts without syntax and then abandons the sentence entirely.If Trump repeats vocabulary, Biden increasingly searches for words, any noun, whatever its irrelevance to the point he is making. Biden seems to suffer dyscognitive seizures, in which for moments he has no idea what he is doing or saying or where he is -- a tragic, nearly epileptic condition. In scary episodes, the pale, scaly, and frozen visage of Biden appears almost reptilian, like a lizard freezing and remaining stationary as it struggles to process signals of perceived danger.Inserting memorized answers into rehearsed questions, as if the entire con was spontaneous, only reveals how his once episodic dementia has become chronic as he loses his prompt and place. It was understandable that his handlers saw opportunity in secluding Biden during Trump's tweeting, alongside the contagion, the lockdown, the recession, and the rioting that in voters' minds had equated fear of chaos with the culpability of the current commander in chief.But there were always problems with placing Biden in suspended animation in his basement, even as he seemingly surged ahead of Trump in the early-summer polls.One, seclusion, quiet, and the absence of intellectual stimuli often only enhance dementia, while travel, conversation, and new imagery and experiences tend to unclog for a bit the congested neuron pathways. The more Biden "rests up," the more he seems to be non compos mentis in his rare staged interviews. His brain is like a flabby muscle, and restful disuse does not make it firmer.Two, in theory there should be a shelf life to a virtual presidential candidate. True, Biden has climbed in the polls, as the public never sees or hears him — in the manner that an unpopular lame-duck Obama disappeared to the golf courses and retreats in 2016 and yielded the media spotlight to the dog and cat fighting between Trump and Clinton. Obama then discovered that the more he retreated from the public eye, the more the public liked the old idea, rather than the current reality, of him.So too the ghost model was supposed to work for Biden.He is a cardboard candidate, but at least he's not on the front lines of commentary on statue toppling and the contagion, and so he can be blamed for neither.But by avoiding the campaign trail, Biden is only postponing the inevitable. He is compressing the campaign into an ever-shorter late-summer and autumn cycle. If he really agrees to three debates (he may not agree to any at all), and if he performs as he usually now acts and speaks, then he may end up reminding the American people in the eleventh hour of the campaign that they have a choice between a controversial president and a presidential candidate who simply cannot fulfill the office of presidency. And if Biden is a no-show, Trump will probably debate an empty, Clint Eastwood–prop mute chair.Why, then, is Biden the nominee at all — other than that he leads in the delegate count and surged after Democrat back-roomers panicked when Bloomberg imploded and Bernie surged? As a result, politicos forced or enticed all the other primary candidates to vacate and unite around someone nominally not a socialist.Is one consolation that Biden's dementia offers a credible defense that he has "no recollection" that he was in on Obama's efforts to surveil an oppositional campaign and abort a presidential transition?While all Democrats know that the cat must be belled, no one wishes to step forward to do it and remove Biden — and indeed no one knows how to steal a nomination from an enfeebled winner and hand it off to an undeserving but cogent alternative. Take out Biden in August, and who knows what sort of candidate stampede might follow in today's insane landscape?So what are these strategies of dementia other than putting Biden on ice while redefining the election as Trump versus the media's version of the virus, lockdown, and economic stagnation?Pity is one pretext. The progressive media have put Biden's blank stares and word searching off limits. We are not supposed to remember that Trump was hounded by progressive M.D.s, to the point that he took — and aced — the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test, an examination that no one in his right mind would suggest Biden now take, given that the results would be no surprise.Dementia is also about the only valid reason one can legitimately say "I don't remember." So ask Joe Biden about those early January 2017 strategy sessions in which Obama, Biden, and their henchmen plotted the surveillance of the Trump campaign and the destruction of Michael Flynn — and he can honestly say, "What administration?" Ask Biden about his illiberal past statements, his associations with neo-Confederate senators, or his plagiarism, and without guile he can retort, "What? What plagiarism? What senators?" Burisma? Hunter Biden's Chinese lucre? He will look dumbfounded and turn to an aide to ask, "What is Burisma and who is Hunter?"Democrats also knew that they would lose with an Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, or Bernie Sanders as their masthead. The primaries, even heavily loaded to the left-wing base, taught them that well enough. The hard-left agenda of winter 2020 went nowhere, and it will go less than nowhere in the fall after months of televised arson, looting, and gratuitous violence.In contrast, even a cardboard-cutout version of Biden offers them the veneer of the "moderation." A Bill Clinton–style Biden phantom, if elected, can allow a passageway for a leftist surrogate into the presidency, the same way that Harry Truman, a centrist, was put on the ticket in 1944 to save the country from Vice President Henry Wallace's Communism.Translated, that means the Democratic donor class accepts that they cannot win while siding with the mobs on the street and their appeasers and apologists — and yet the latter leftists are needed to provide the missing 5 to 7 points for victory. With a wink and nod, the vice-presidential candidate will be seen as assuming the presidency and giving to the Left what they could not achieve through a presidential election — while old Joe Biden from Scranton stares at the TV screen a bit longer to prove he's not a raving socialist.Also expect the Democrats to push the following strategies harder and harder, as they square the circle of a demented candidate who nonetheless could prove enormously useful — if he can just get elected.Expect more calls to cancel the debates as corrupt, fluff, reality-TV pizzazz and utterly unnecessary. Anticipate that the virus lockdown will be prolonged nearly until Election Day and will de facto lead Democrats to call for a Zoom campaign: Biden talking to the camera with a teleprompted script behind the screen.Election Day voting, we will be told, is merely an ossified construct. The key to our new electoral process is not Neanderthal driving into a COVID-infested polling booth, but rather voter-harvested mail-in ballots.Expect the vote in November to be declared in advance warped, stolen, and invalid — and then declared valid and fair if Biden wins.Expect blue states to remain economically mired in quarantines, in hopes of aborting a recovery. Democratic leaders will never really crack down on what heretofore have been blue-state rioting and looting; the chronic chaos and recession will be kept alive and geared to the November election.Are there problems with such Biden basement strategies? Lots.A hard-left candidate for vice president will have to do the campaign messaging as a public auxiliary of, and in line with, Joe Biden. She will privately reassure her base that it's all a moderate con, assuming that leftist voters are sophisticated and cynical enough to be willing to be lied to now for the sake of gaining power shortly.It will also be problematic to assure the country that Joe Biden is 110 percent fit to be president in November but then to leak to the public by February 2021 that he's crazy and it's past time for his radical vice president, regrettably, to move him out.Using Biden as an empty vessel also assumes that he is at least a vessel. But what if Biden, say, on October 25, 2020, has one of his blank-outs? Or what if he announces once again, but this time at his final rare press conference: "I am going to beat [be] Joe Biden!" What then? Do they call Christopher Steele out of retirement to do a hasty file on Joe Biden, the delusional nut, and use Yahoo or Mother Jones again to leak the dirt in order to switch the order of the Democratic ticket?Given the current racial hysteria, how do Democratic handlers muzzle the not always latently bigoted Biden? Often dementia is a cruel pathway to the truth, freed from normal self-censorship, politeness, and social awareness. Meaning: What if Biden has more "you ain't black" moments, or Corn Pop storytelling, or he mimics a black accent to riff about chains, "clean" blacks, and such? And in the present climate, will people be forgiving when he brags that his home state of Delaware was once a "slave state"? One or two such outbursts could shrink his share of the black vote to 80 percent, which would lead to losses in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida.In the chaos of July, Biden's handlers have been acclaimed geniuses for anesthetizing him. But in the different season of October, he may finally be forced out from his lockdown, in the wild manner that soon-to-be looters and arsonists at last emerged from quarantine in June — pent-up, angry, incoherent, and self-destructive.
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| 'Significant number' of people may have some natural immunity to coronavirus Posted: 01 Jul 2020 10:40 AM PDT  Large numbers of the population may have natural immunity against coronavirus even if they have never been infected, scientists believe. Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, who is leading an Oxford team to develop a vaccine, said there was likely to be a "background level" of protection for a "significant number of people". Recent studies have suggested the immune system can be primed by other coronaviruses, such as the common cold, giving the body a head start in fighting off Covid-19. Research shows that a separate part of the immune system, T-cells, respond to chains of amino acids produced by different types of coronaviruses and may be responsible for stopping the virus in people who never show symptoms. Crucially, those T-cells die off in older people, which may be why they are far more likely to develop a more serious illness. Speaking to the Commons science and technology select committee, Sir John said: "What seems clear is you do have cross-reaction from T-cells that are activated by standard endemic coronaviruses. I think they are present in quite a significant number of people.
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| The rate of positive coronavirus tests is increasing. Here's a state-by-state breakdown. Posted: 01 Jul 2020 01:32 PM PDT  The rate of positive coronavirus tests is increasing, mostly in states with an uptick in cases.
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| UK COVID-19 death toll nears 55,000 including suspected cases Posted: 30 Jun 2020 01:47 AM PDT  The United Kingdom's suspected COVID-19 death toll has hit 54,852, according to a Reuters tally of official data sources that underlines the country's status as one of the worst hit in the world. The Reuters tally comprises fatalities where COVID-19 was mentioned on death certificates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland up to June 19, and up to June 21 in Scotland. It also includes more recent hospital deaths.
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