| CDC study on COVID-19 in kids bolsters case for elementary school reopening Posted: 28 Sep 2020 11:26 AM PDT  The study adds nuance to prior findings that the risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, increases with age.
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| 'He has dementia': Rudy Guiliani makes unfounded claims about Biden during rambling Fox News interview Posted: 29 Sep 2020 06:41 AM PDT  The president's lawyer left Fox News hosts looking uncomfortable as he ramped up his fake conspiracies against Joe Biden
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| Michael Flynn's lawyer says she asked Trump not to pardon him Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:09 PM PDT  Under questioning from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, Sidney Powell acknowledged having spoken to Trump about Flynn within the last few weeks.
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| Nigeria's Boko Haram crisis: 'Bomb on donkey' used to ambush Borno governor Posted: 28 Sep 2020 09:11 AM PDT  Militants from an Islamic State-linked group strapped the animal with explosives in Borno state.
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| Texas sheriff indicted and booked in own jail after probe into Black man's death Posted: 28 Sep 2020 04:52 PM PDT  A Texas sheriff has been indicted on charges of destroying or concealing video in an investigation into the death in custody of a Black man, Javier Ambler, that was filmed by the police reality TV series "Live PD," prosecutors said Monday.
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| ‘Defund the police’ message on Starbucks cups gets barista fired in Texas Posted: 29 Sep 2020 10:00 AM PDT  Starbucks called the incident "unacceptable."
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| A hacker published thousands of students' grades and private information after a Nevada school district refused to pay ransom Posted: 28 Sep 2020 08:09 AM PDT  The school district suffered a ransomware attack during its first week of online classes and said law enforcement was investigating.
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| Singapore Airlines drops 'flights to nowhere' after outcry Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:36 AM PDT  Singapore Airlines said Tuesday it had scrapped plans for "flights to nowhere" aimed at boosting its coronavirus-hit finances after an outcry over the environmental impact.
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| A 3-Michelin star restaurant in Napa has burned down in California's latest wildfire Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:06 PM PDT  The Restaurant at Meadowood was engulfed by Napa Valley's Glass Fire on Monday morning and couldn't be saved.
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| Brake failure, 'egregious disregard for safety' caused NY limo crash that killed 20 people, NTSB says Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:12 PM PDT  Two years after the country's worst road transportation disaster since 2005, the NTSB finalized its report on the cause of the Schoharie, New York, crash.
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| Man dies after falling 100 feet from Oregon cliff while posing for photo in tree Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:07 PM PDT  Branch brake caused 43-year-old to plummet into ocean
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| Shepard Smith: Fox News’ Chris Wallace Won’t Tolerate Lies at Presidential Debate Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:34 AM PDT  Shepard Smith's new CNBC show is called simply The News. And with that in mind, the former Fox News anchor is trying his best to play everything right down the middle.Ahead of his premiere this Wednesday, Smith appeared on his new network colleague Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, where he offered up a series of non-committal, both-sides takes on the biggest news events of the week.Smith got in one joke about Donald Trump writing off $70,000 in hairstyling expenses but otherwise said he didn't expect the bombshell report on the president's tax returns to change any voters' minds. He similarly had little to say about the coming Supreme Court fight, telling Fallon, "Whether it'll affect the election or not, it probably will, you just don't know which way it's going to play.""Will conservatives be so happy about it that they come out and vote for more?" he asked. "Or will Democrats and people on the left say we can't let this happen again and come out and vote in bigger numbers? I don't think we'll know until we know."The anchor said definitively that there is no evidence of widespread fraud in vote-by-mail, but couldn't bring himself to criticize Trump for refusing to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose, only saying, "I'm not exactly sure what it is he is trying to accomplish."Smith's strongest convictions seemed to come when Fallon asked about Tuesday's night debate, which will be moderated by his former Fox colleague Chris Wallace. Stephen Colbert Unloads on 'Fake Billionaire' Trump for Massive Tax Grift"I expect Chris Wallace to be prepared," Smith said. "Nobody who has watched Chris Wallace thinks [anything] other than that he is a very tough, very thoroughly prepared journalist. And he has said repeatedly over the years, to me and publicly, 'My job is to stay out of the way and be unnoticed as much as possible.'""But he's not one to let a falsehood or a misrepresentation or a 'look over here' kind of shiny object thing just slide by the way," he continued. "He will hold them [accountable]. Both of them. He's not a partisan guy. He's searching for truth. He's trying to speak truth to power. And trying to get information to the public. That's what all journalists want to do."It's the same thing Smith is trying to do at CNBC after spending 23 long years at Fox News. "We're not going to have pundits, we're not going to have opinion," he said. "We'll bring you facts. The facts, the truth, the news."Ex-Fox News Anchor Shepard Smith Vows to Fight Disinformation With New CNBC Show"Sometimes people live in a world of just lies," he added. "And when that's happening and it rises to the public discourse, we'll point it out." Drawing an implicit contrast with Fox, Smith said, "We want to be a source of truth and honesty and we'll hold truth to power because that is our job.""The Founding Fathers didn't only put journalism in the Constitution for no reason," he said. "They put it there because it is important and journalists have a responsibility to get it right and tell it straight and that's what we're going to do."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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| Amnesty International to halt India operations Posted: 29 Sep 2020 07:48 AM PDT  The human rights watchdog tells the BBC that the move comes due to reprisal from the government.
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| Breonna Taylor neighbor wants to know why cop wasn't charged for shooting into his unit Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:00 AM PDT  "If that bullet went through my bed maybe I would have been dead too," Breonna Taylor's neighbor Stanley David said.
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| Pelosi says Democrats unveil new COVID-19 aid bill Posted: 28 Sep 2020 03:40 PM PDT  U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday that Democratic lawmakers unveiled a new, $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, which she said was a compromise measure that reduces the costs of the economic aid. In a letter to Democratic lawmakers released by Pelosi's office, she said the legislation "includes new funding needed to avert catastrophe for schools, small businesses, restaurants, performance spaces, airline workers and others." Pelosi in recent days has said she thinks a deal can be reached with the White House on a new coronavirus relief package and that talks were continuing.
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| 'Miracle on the Hudson' pilot Sully Sullenberger said he'll only fly with airlines that block the middle seat during the pandemic Posted: 29 Sep 2020 07:00 AM PDT  The pilot who famously landed a damaged plane on the Hudson shared his thoughts on airline safety amid coronavirus.
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| COVID-19 cases rising among US children as schools reopen Posted: 29 Sep 2020 11:40 AM PDT  After preying heavily on the elderly in the spring, the coronavirus is increasingly infecting American children and teens in a trend authorities say appears fueled by school reopenings and the resumption of sports, playdates and other activities. Children of all ages now make up 10% of all U.S cases, up from 2% in April, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported Tuesday. About two times more teens were infected than younger children, the CDC report said.
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| 'We just don't have words': At least 3 dead as California wildfires explode in wine country, forcing thousands to flee Posted: 28 Sep 2020 10:42 PM PDT  Thousands of California residents were forced to flee two new blazes on Monday that have killed at least three people and torched nearly 70,000 acres.
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| Fox News host floats bonkers conspiracy theory that Joe Biden will use listening devices at debate Posted: 29 Sep 2020 08:41 AM PDT  "The Trump team asked to inspect the ears of each debater for electronic devices or transmitters," Bill Hemmer says
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| Turkey Sends ISIS Warlord to Azerbaijan to Face Off Against Putin’s Armenian Allies Posted: 28 Sep 2020 12:33 PM PDT  ISTANBUL, Turkey—On Sunday afternoon, a video depicting a large convoy of Islamist Syrian rebel fighters yelling enthusiastically as they drove off to war circulated widely on Arabic social media. Fighters in the packed trucks, driving quickly past the group of children filming with their phones, could be heard yelling "Allahu Akbar!" and, "Our leader, 'til the end of time, is our master, Muhammad!"However, what shocked those watching the video weren't the shouts of the Syrian fighters but rather those of the children filming, who yelled back at the soldiers in a language unfamiliar to most Syrians following their country's nine-year war. "That's not Kurdish, right?" said one user in an online group where the video emerged. "If they were Kurds, you think they'd be cheering them on?" responded another with a laugh out loud emoji.Over the next several hours, rumors swirled that the video was shot in Azerbaijan, a small Turkic-speaking nation lodged between Iran and Russia, and that the Syrian rebel fighters had been sent there to prop up the Azeri government in its war against neighboring Armenia that had begun that day. According to high-ranking Syrian rebel sources that spoke to The Daily Beast, these rumors are true. The fighters that appeared in the circulated video were part of a group of 1,000 Syrian rebel soldiers sent in two batches from Turkey on September 22 and 24."500 Hamza Brigade fighters were flown last Tuesday from southern Turkey to the Azeri airbase at Sumqayit [30 kilometers north of the Azeri capital of Baku]", according to a source within the Syrian National Army (SNA) rebel outfit who requested anonymity. "Two days later, on Thursday, another 500 fighters from the Sultan Murad brigades rebel faction were similarly flown out to Azerbaijan."These claims were echoed by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Syrian opposition body that monitors human rights violations in the country. SOHR sources suggest more batches of Syrian rebel fighters are preparing to be deployed to Azerbaijan.The Hamza and Sultan Murad brigades are known within Syrian rebel circles as factions that enjoy especially close relations with Turkey, the last remaining patron of the Syrian opposition. Sayf Balud, commander of the Hamza brigades, however, is also known for his checkered past, in particular, as a former commander within the radical jihadist group ISIS.An ethnic Syrian Turkman from the town of Biza'a in Aleppo city's northern countryside, Balud originally joined the Abu Bakr Sadiq brigades, a moderate rebel faction near his hometown that received widespread support from Gulf states in the early years of the conflict. However, coming from a small, relatively unknown family, Balud failed to climb the ranks of Syria's rebel movement as quickly as he would have liked, and as others from more prominent backgrounds regularly did. By early 2013, Balud had joined ISIS, whose ranks were staffed mostly by foreigners who couldn't have cared less about the social status of their Syrian recruits.In July 2013, Balud appeared in an ISIS propaganda video shot in the border town of Tal Abyad after the group successfully captured the city from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). In the video, Sayf appears next to an Egyptian foreign fighter addressing a room full of two dozen captured YPG soldiers, who were assembled before an ISIS camera crew to officially repent for having joined an armed faction that ISIS' leadership described as being "at war with God."Over the next several years, Balud's star continued to rise, as the commander attained a level of status within ISIS that would have been unattainable in other rebel groups. Despite the large-scale defeat of ISIS across northern Syria at the hands of the YPG in 2016 and 2017, the cunning commander was able to leverage his history of fighting against Kurds to re-invent himself as a valuable client for another foreign patron: Turkey.By January 2018, when Turkish backed rebel forces launched "Operation Olive Branch" to take over the Kurdish canton of Afrin located in Syria's uppermost northwest corner, Balud regularly appeared in the group's propaganda videos as the official commander of the newly formed Hamza brigades. His status as an ethnic Turkman, a small minority within Syria whose likeness to their Turkish kinsmen across the border has pushed Ankara to grant many coveted privileges such as Turkish citizenship and sensitive leadership positions, further endeared Balud to his new patrons.According to SNA sources, Syrian rebel units now being sent to Azerbaijan by Turkey are almost exclusively led by ethnic Syrian Turkmen. "Sayf Balud is a Turkman. The Sultan Murad brigade's commander, Fahim Aissa, is a Syrian Turkman, like Balud. Turkey only trusts factions led by Syrian Turkman to carry out these missions. These are sensitive for Turkey politically, and they don't trust Syrian Arabs to lead them."Turkey's intervention in Azerbaijan is indeed sensitive. After a four-year lull in fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, fighting between the two countries erupted anew on Sunday in fighting that killed two-dozen fighters.Historically the Nagorno-Karabakh region has been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. But in 1991 Armenian factions within the region declared themselves independent. Three years of war over the disputed territory ended in 1994 with a Russian brokered ceasefire. The newly declared Nagorno-Karabakh republic was soon occupied by Armenia, which has since maintained de facto control of the area. With the exception of four days of fighting in April 2016, Sunday's clashes were the first major instance of renewed combat between both countries over the status of the area. Both sides accuse the other of having initiated the fighting on Sunday.Clashes continue, with dozens more casualties reported. Fighting alongside the Azeri regular forces were 1,000 Syrian rebel fighters, among them former jihadists led by ex-ISIS commander Sayf Balud. All About the OilTurkey's move to send Syrian rebels to face-off against Armenia, a longtime rival of Turkey, is just the latest in a long string of neo-Ottoman foreign adventures undertaken by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the last 6 months. Ankara has deployed both its armed forces and Syrian proxies to crack down on Kurdish PKK and YPG forces in northern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan throughout 2020.Turkey has also intervened in western Libya and waters throughout the eastern Mediterranean where its navy has threatened NATO allies France and Greece in an attempt to strongarm both countries and lay claim to gas reserves located within Greece's maritime borders.In Azerbaijan, Turkey is looking to demonstrate loyalty and prop up an oil-rich regime with which it has maintained close military ties since the 1994 ceasefire. Since 2005, they have launched numerous lucrative oil and gas initiatives including a pipeline that exports 1.2 million barrels of Azeri oil per day to the European Union (EU), earning Turkey upwards of $200 million in annual transit fees. In 2006, this cooperation expanded following the launch of the South Caucasus natural gas pipeline that annually exports 8.8 billion cubic meters of much needed Azeri gas to the Turkish market, a net importer of energy.In 2011, Turkey began work on an expansive natural gas production network called the Trans Anatolian Pipeline, which is projected to export 31 billion cubic meters of Azeri gas to the EU by 2026. Turkish shareholders, who own a 30 percent stake in the project, stand to make huge profits.Turkey's push to transform Azerbaijan into a lucrative oil and gas export hub is also motivated by Ankara's desire to come out from under Russia's shadow. Turkey depends on Russia for 40 percent of its fossil fuels, a reliance that has forced Ankara to treat Russia as a friendly nation despite the fact that the two countries share almost no common interests.The "Southern Gas Corridor," a term referring to the various pipelines emerging out of Azerbaijan, has been heavily cheered on by the EU, which also wants to break its dependence on Russian gas. No surprise then that Russia is on the other side in the ongoing dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.Nagorno-Karabakh is now the third theater where Russia and Turkey find themselves supporting opposite sides in an active Middle East conflict zone. In Syria, Russian support for dictator Bashar al-Assad and Turkey's support for the country's rebels such as Sayf Bulad and others led to direct conflict between both countries' armies earlier this year, resulting in the death of dozens of Turkish soldiers. In Libya, the situation is reversed, with Turkey supporting Libya's government and Russia supporting Khalifa Haftar, a renegade general and rebel leader who has sought to seize control of Libya's lucrative oil sector and capture the capital of Tripoli.In both conflicts, Sayf Bulad and the Hamza brigades have proven extremely useful to Turkey. Thousands of the group's fighters, including Sayf Bulad, were deployed to Libya last summer to help repel a major assault launched by Russian-backed Khalifa Haftar and in the bargain reclaim territory previously captured by the general. The Turkish backed authority in Tripoli is now safely guarded against external threats, while Turkish companies are set to gain lucrative contracts in Libya's oil and gas and reconstruction sectors.Within this context of great power struggles, Syria's rebels, once idealistic and seeking to liberate their country from dictator Bashar al-Assad, have found themselves reduced to pawns compelled to serve as mercenaries and shock troops used by Turkey to advance its foreign policy in a world where Ankara finds itself increasingly isolated. In doing so, they find themselves led by and mixed with fighters from the most vicious jihadist group the world has ever seen.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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| Portland police seize shields, arrest 24 before march; one officer hospitalized Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:29 AM PDT  At least 24 people were arrested when police broke up a planned march, then declared an unlawful assembly when protesters reorganized.
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| Trump Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett puts years of gun safety progress at risk Posted: 28 Sep 2020 02:00 AM PDT  Over 145,000 Americans have been killed by guns with Trump in office. If Barrett replaces Ginsburg, gun safety laws and more US lives are endangered
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| Body camera footage shows Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale being tackled by police outside his Florida home Posted: 28 Sep 2020 01:30 PM PDT  Candice Parscale called 911 on Sunday, saying her husband had loaded a firearm and threatened to hurt himself, according to a police report.
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| Alicia Silverstone defends her 9-year-old son’s long hair Posted: 28 Sep 2020 08:21 PM PDT  "We would never impose any social ideas about what hair on a boy or girl should look like," the actor wrote.
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| Auschwitz director offers to serve time in place of 13-year-old Nigerian sentenced to 10 years for blasphemy Posted: 29 Sep 2020 11:58 AM PDT  The director of the Auschwitz Memorial in Poland has offered to serve time for a Nigerian child who was convicted of blasphemy and ordered to spend ten years in prison by a Sharia court . In an open letter, Piotr Cywinski asked Nigeria's President to intervene and pardon 13-year-old Omar Farouq for the conviction. "As the director of the Auschwitz memorial, which commemorates the victims and preserves the remains of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps, where children were imprisoned and murdered, I cannot remain indifferent to this disgraceful sentence for humanity," he wrote. Omar Farouq was arrested earlier this year by religious police in Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city, after he had a 'blasphemous' conversation with an older man. His conviction by a religious court has provoked condemnation by the United Nations and global human rights groups. Mr Cywinski told The Telegraph that he felt he had to act when he heard about Omar. "When I heard about this story last week, I remembered that [Nigeria's] President Buhari visited Auschwitz in 2018. So I thought that maybe a voice coming from this difficult place would have some effect on him... I have kids that age. "There are some times we have to stop our own silence and try to do something. It's not enough to just like something on Facebook or retweet it." Mr Cywinski added that since he sent the letter last week, no one from the government had responded yet. Kola Alapinni, Omar's lawyer, told The Telegraph that the adolescent has been held in a prison for adults and not been allowed to see any legal representation. If Omar had been older, Mr Alapinni says, he would have been sentenced to death. At a federal level, Nigeria is a secular state. But 12 of the country's northern Muslim-dominated states have a Sharia system running in parallel to the secular courts. These courts can only try Muslims and regularly serve out medieval-style punishments. Mr Alapinni, a graduate of the University of Essex and a secularist campaigner, says he will keep fighting Omar's corner. "Section 10 of the constitution says Nigeria is a secular state. We are not Iran; we are no Saudi Arabia; we are not the Vatican. We are a multi-religious state with freedom of thought, expression and religion enshrined in the constitution," he says. "This should not be happening."
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| Mom’s sudden death left children fending for themselves for five days, Texas cops say Posted: 29 Sep 2020 05:46 AM PDT  School officials asked for a welfare check at the home when the 5- and 7-year-old brothers didn't show up all week.
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| Germany walks away from Lockheed, Boeing cargo helicopter offers Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:09 AM PDT  The surprise decision halts an acquisition race that was scheduled to a see a contract awarded in 2021.
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| South Carolina city apologizes to Black residents for racial injustice resulting from its policies Posted: 29 Sep 2020 11:49 AM PDT  The Spartanburg city council unanimously approved a resolution that acknowledges systematic racism.
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| Catholic voters can't ignore abortion or Kamala Harris' religious bigotry in 2020 election Posted: 28 Sep 2020 10:28 AM PDT  As Pope Francis has said, 'The right to life is the first among human rights.' So why make American Catholics feel like they shouldn't vote for life?
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| Massacre in Mexican bar leaves 11 people dead Posted: 28 Sep 2020 05:55 AM PDT 
A massacre in a Mexican bar left 11 people dead on Sunday (September 27). The attorney general's office in the central state of Guanajuato said the bodies of seven men and four women were found at the scene in the city of Jaral del Progreso in the early hours. Authorities added that another woman was also found with gunshot injuries. It comes as the country grapples with a record homicide rate - despite the government's promises to tackle gang violence. Guanajuato, a major car-making hub, has become a recurring scene of criminal violence in Mexico, ravaged by a turf war between the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel. In July, gunmen killed 24 people at a drug rehabilitation center in Guanajuato. It was one of the worst mass slayings since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office - pledging to reduce record levels of violence.
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| Trump's spy chief just released 'Russian disinformation' against Hillary Clinton that he acknowledged may be fabricated Posted: 29 Sep 2020 03:09 PM PDT  DNI John Ratcliffe said in a letter that the US intel community "does not know the accuracy" of the allegation or whether it's been fabricated.
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| Oregon hostage situation leaves ‘multiple people' dead Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:16 AM PDT  Officers responded to an address in Salem at around 12:30 pm on Monday
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| Lost wallet used as bait to lure alleged meth dealer into an arrest, Florida cops say Posted: 28 Sep 2020 04:05 PM PDT  The suspect showed up to the meeting spot with methamphetamine and $3,000 on his person.
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| The number of children with COVID-19 has risen 'dramatically' over the past 5 months, report finds Posted: 28 Sep 2020 09:01 PM PDT  Children make up 10% of COVID-19 cases, a big rise from 2.2% in April, the American Academy of Pediatrics reports. Increased testing isn't to blame.
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| Dr. Rebecca Grant says 'America First' Trump agenda grounded in domestic economic prosperity Posted: 28 Sep 2020 02:43 AM PDT  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo believes Trump administration foreign policy has made the world safer. Analysis from international relations expert Dr. Rebecca Grant.
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| U.S. missile destroyer ship breaks Navy record for longest stint at sea Posted: 29 Sep 2020 08:15 AM PDT  The USS Stout reached 208 days at sea Sept. 26 as the Navy has imposed restrictions on port visits to protect sailors from the coronavirus.
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| Air Force Completes 8-Year B-1 Bomber Battle Station Upgrade Posted: 28 Sep 2020 01:11 PM PDT  The service announced that it finished the Integrated Battle Station, or IBS, modification earlier this month.
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| Mueller prosecutor once said that if Republicans 'retain the House, we all need to retain criminal lawyers' because 'that's how bats--- crazy they are,' a new book says Posted: 28 Sep 2020 11:50 PM PDT  "I am not joking," the prosecutor, Jeannie Rhee, said, according to Andrew Weissmann's new book about the Mueller investigation.
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| Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women Posted: 28 Sep 2020 02:18 PM PDT  President Donald Trump's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court has close ties to a charismatic Christian religious group that holds men are divinely ordained as the "head" of the family and faith. Former members of the group, called People of Praise, say it teaches that wives must submit to the will of their husbands. Federal appeals judge Amy Coney Barrett has not commented publicly about her own or her family's involvement, and a People of Praise spokesman declined to say whether she and her husband are current members.
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| White nationalist from Charlottesville rally nicknamed ‘Crying Nazi’ is charged with threatening to rape a woman Posted: 28 Sep 2020 02:45 PM PDT  Christopher Cantwell sent a series of threatening text messages in bid to uncover information about leader of a far-right group
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| Zimbabwe: Elephants die from 'bacterial disease' Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:24 PM PDT  More than 30 elephants were found lying on their stomachs, according to wildlife officials.
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