| 'Gaetz-crasher': Here's why a Republican lawmaker was barred from closed-door testimony Posted: 14 Oct 2019 01:38 PM PDT  When Republican congressman Matt Gaetz tried to attend an impeachment inquiry deposition Monday morning in the U.S. Capitol, he ran smack into the often arcane and confusing rules of Congress. Here's why he wasn't allowed to attend.
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| What's causing record rates of STDs? Posted: 14 Oct 2019 08:25 AM PDT  After decades of decline, rates of certain STDs have spiked to record levels, according to the CDC. What's causing the increase?
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| Nigerian police rescue 67 from 'inhuman' conditions at Islamic 'school' Posted: 14 Oct 2019 01:37 PM PDT  The raid in Katsina, the northwestern home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, came less than a month after about 300 men and boys were freed from another supposed Islamic school in neighboring Kaduna state where they were allegedly tortured and sexually abused. "In the course of investigation, sixty-seven persons from the ages of 7 to 40 years were found shackled with chains," Katsina police spokesman Sanusi Buba said in a statement.
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| Buttigieg Claims Warren and Sanders’ Medicare for All Is ‘Infringing on Freedom’ in New Ad Posted: 15 Oct 2019 09:39 AM PDT  Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released a campaign ad Monday evening taking aim at Medicare for All, the public health insurance proposal favored by several rival 2020 candidates, and proposing his alternative, "Medicare for All Who Want It."The South Bend, Indiana mayor's minute-long video, titled "Makes More Sense," features several political reporters and analysts praising his plan and juxtaposing it with Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All, which would require that roughly 160 million Americans' surrender their private insurance."Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren believe that we have to force ourselves into Medicare for All, where private insurance is abolished, there are 160 million Americans to get their insurance from their employer," CNN analyst Joe Lockhart says in a clip included in the ad.Buttigieg is "trying to focus on choice not infringing on people's freedom to make that decision voluntarily," NBC reporter Josh Lederman says in another segment."Medicare for All Who Want It is different than Medicare for All because this gives Americans a choice," Buttigieg said in an additional video that was released concurrent with the ad and explains his proposal. "If you prefer a public plan like Medicare, like I think most Americans will, you can choose it. But if you prefer to keep your private insurance, you can."Medicare for All Who Want It will be a "public insurance alternative for everyone, no matter their income" with the goal of making health care "far more affordable," according to the explanatory video.Buttigieg also vowed to release a "policy series" over the next several months to diagnose problems in the country's health care system, which is "too expensive, too complicated, and too frustrating.""I trust Americans to make our own decisions regarding the type of health care that makes the most sense for each of us and our families," the mayor said.Buttigieg's ad comes hours before he is set to face off against Warren, Sanders, and other fellow contenders for the Democratic 2020 presidential nomination during Tuesday night's debate in Ohio hosted by CNN and the New York Times.
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| Dutch family found in cellar 'waiting for end of time' Posted: 15 Oct 2019 08:43 AM PDT  Dutch police found a family of seven people hidden in the basement of a remote farmhouse where they had reportedly spent years "waiting for the end of time", officials said Tuesday. "I have never come across anything like this before," local mayor Roger de Groot told a press conference.
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| Woman will spend 60 years in prison for first-degree murder of boyfriend Posted: 15 Oct 2019 06:46 AM PDT  A woman who poured gasoline on the couch where her sleeping boyfriend lay and then shut the door after seeing him jump up and yell "hot, hot" will spend 60 years in prison for first-degree murder.
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| Soldier wounded during search for Bowe Bergdahl dies of his injuries Posted: 14 Oct 2019 03:40 PM PDT  A US soldier shot in the head during the 2009 search for army deserter Bowe Bergdahl has died from his injuries. Army Master Sgt. Mark Allen died on Saturday at the age of 46, 10 years after being injured in the hunt for his missing comrade. He spent 21 years in the army and national guard, and retired in 2013 on receiving the Purple Heart. He had been unable to walk or speak since a sniper shot him in the head in July 2009 while he was looking for Bergdahl, who had walked off his base in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years. At Bergdahl's trial, Allen's wife Shannon testified that it would take up to 90 minutes each morning to get her husband out of bed, showered, and dressed. She had to use a pulley system attached to the ceiling to move him. Shannon Allen, who testified during the trial of Bowe Bergdahl Mrs Allen did not learn about the circumstances surrounding her husband's injuries until 2014, after former president Barack Obama negotiated Bergdahl's release in a swap for five Taliban members detained at Guantanamo Bay. The Idaho-born soldier, now 33, was sentenced in January 2016 for desertion. During the trial he apologised to those injured. "I would like everyone who searched for me to know it was never my intention for anyone to be hurt, and I never expected that to happen," he said. He was reduced in rank from sergeant to private, ordered to forfeit $1,000 in pay for 10 months, and given a dishonorable discharge. He did not serve any prison time. Mrs Allen broke the news on Facebook on Sunday. "I'm heartbroken to let you all know that my husband passed away peacefully yesterday morning, with his family by his side," she said. "Over ten years ago, he sustained a severe head injury while serving in Afghanistan, which caused him lifelong health problems. "These past few months, he has faced some significant illnesses, and his body was finally ready to rest."
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| The Latest: Erdogan rejects call for ceasefire in Syria Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:51 PM PDT  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he rejects a call from U.S. President Donald Trump to declare a ceasefire and halt Turkey's military offensive in northeastern Syria. Turkey's leader also told a group of journalists Tuesday that he is not concerned about the presence of Syrian government troops moving into the city of Manbij, but does not want Syrian Kurdish fighters to remain.
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| Giuliani refuses to comply with impeachment subpoena as attorney steps down: ‘I don’t need a lawyer’ Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:32 PM PDT  Rudy Giuliani has said he will not co-operate with an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump and insisted he did not need a lawyer following the arrest of two business associates accused of campaign finance violations.The president's personal attorney posted a letter on Twitter to the House permanent select committee on intelligence in which his lawyer wrote: "Please accept this response as formal notice that Mr Giuliani will not participate because this appears to be an unconstitutional, baseless and illegitimate 'impeachment inquiry.'"
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| Fort Worth Officer Who Killed Atatiana Jefferson Charged With Murder. Here's What to Know About the Police Shooting Posted: 14 Oct 2019 02:11 PM PDT  Fort Worth Police Officer Aaron Dean shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson inside her her home early on Oct. 12. Here's what to know about the case.
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| View Photos of Our Sports Sedan Battle Between the Dodge Charger and Kia Stinger GT Posted: 14 Oct 2019 04:59 AM PDT |
| Jeep Gladiator Gets Even More Rugged as a Military-Spec Vehicle Posted: 15 Oct 2019 01:08 PM PDT  Jeep and AM General could re-enlist with the U.S. Army as soon as next year.
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| India blocks SMS services in Kashmir after trucker killed Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:53 AM PDT  Text messaging services were blocked in Indian Kashmir just hours after being restored when a truck driver was killed by suspected militants and his vehicle set ablaze, authorities said Tuesday. Separately, Indian officials said a 24-year-old woman died in the latest exchange of artillery fire with Pakistan over their de-facto border dividing the blood-soaked Himalayan region.
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| Netanyahu asks Putin to pardon American-Israeli jailed on drug charges Posted: 15 Oct 2019 10:17 AM PDT  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to pardon an American-Israeli woman sentenced to 7-1/2 years in jail for a few grams of cannabis found in her luggage at a Moscow airport. Naama Issachar's case has opened up an unusually public rift between Israel and Russia. Issachar was arrested in April after Russian police discovered 9 grams (0.3 oz) of cannabis in her bags during a layover in flights from India to Israel.
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| Trump meets with parents of British teen killed in crash Posted: 15 Oct 2019 06:04 PM PDT  President Donald Trump met Tuesday with the parents of a British teenager who was killed in a car crash involving an American diplomat's wife. The White House declined to say what message the president had delivered, but a spokesman for the family suggested they may have been disappointed by it. "Meeting with President Trump complete," tweeted the spokesman, Radd Seiger.
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| We found 85,000 cops who’ve been investigated for misconduct. Now you can read their records. Posted: 14 Oct 2019 05:25 PM PDT  USA TODAY is leading a national effort to obtain and publish disciplinary and misconduct records for thousands of police officers.
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| The US defense secretary gives US's strongest condemnation yet of Turkey's 'unacceptable incursion' in Syria Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:12 AM PDT  "Turkey's unilateral action was unnecessary and impulsive," Defense Secretary Mark Esper said, adding that US-Turkish relations was now "damaged."
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| The U.S. Military Has a Lot of Firepower in the Middle East to Deter Iran Posted: 15 Oct 2019 06:21 AM PDT  In response to Iran's actions, the U.S. has deployed 14,000 additional troops to the region since May. In addition to the most recent deployments, as Esper noted, this includes airborne early warning aircraft squadrons, maritime patrol aircraft squadrons, B-52 bombers, an amphibious transport dock, unmanned aircraft, engineering personnel, and the Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (CSG).
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| Booze run from behind bars: Inmates escape from Texas federal prison, return with whiskey Posted: 15 Oct 2019 08:11 AM PDT  The men left the prison grounds and cut through a neighboring ranch before getting caught by authorities.
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| Interactive Map Shows Exactly How Much Car Emissions Have Grown Where You Live Posted: 15 Oct 2019 06:25 AM PDT  New York Times map shows the best and worst places in the U.S. for emissions from vehicles.
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| Court Ruling Extends Vote Protest of Philippine Marcos’ Son Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:50 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The Philippines' top court on Tuesday decided to release the initial results of the vice-presidential vote recount, which the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos' son said will delay his chance to assume the post.Former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he is "frustrated" by the court's decision not to resolve his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo victory in the 2016 polls. Robredo is already halfway through her six-year term.The court instead decided to make public the result of the recount covering three provinces that will serve as basis for any further action on Marcos' challenge. It also asked the two camps to comment on Marcos' plea to nullify votes in three other provinces due to supposed irregularities in the 2016 elections."The proper vice president -- myself -- is being robbed of years of service," Marcos said in a televised interview. President Rodrigo Duterte, who has faced questions on his health, has repeatedly said Marcos is his preferred successor if he had to leave office before his single term expires in 2022.Robredo, leader of the opposition party, said she welcomes the court decision, as she urged the court to already junk Marcos' protest. "The mere fact that this has been dragging on for so long only provides Marcos a platform for his lies," she said in a separate televised briefing.(Updates with comments from Marcos and Robredo from fourth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Andreo Calonzo in Manila at acalonzo1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Cecilia Yap at cyap19@bloomberg.net, Muneeza NaqviFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Brazil probes whether 'ghost ship' carrying Venezuelan oil involved in spill Posted: 15 Oct 2019 01:27 PM PDT  A huge oil spill off Brazil's northeastern coast may have involved a "ghost ship" carrying Venezuelan oil in breach of US sanctions, an expert close to the probe into the disaster said Tuesday. Brazil has accused its South American neighbor of responsibility for the leakage that began in early September and affects a 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) stretch of the Atlantic coast -- charges Venezuela's state oil giant PDVSA denies. Describing the incident as "very complex and unprecedented," Brazil's navy says it is investigating "lots of hypotheses" for the cause of the massive spill, including a ship accident.
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| Dutch police discover family locked away for years in isolated farmhouse Posted: 15 Oct 2019 08:46 AM PDT  Dutch police acting on a tip-off discovered six young adult siblings who had apparently spent years locked away in a secret room in an isolated farmhouse "waiting for the end of time," local broadcasters reported on Tuesday.
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| All of the Google Pixel and Home Products on Sale Now Posted: 15 Oct 2019 12:39 PM PDT |
| GOP endorsement eludes indicted California congressman Posted: 14 Oct 2019 11:22 PM PDT  In a sign of a turbulent campaign to come, indicted U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter failed to win the endorsement Monday of his local Republican Party after arguing that he is the best candidate for the job despite his approaching federal trial. Hunter faced significant odds of winning the two-third support he needed for the nod from the San Diego Republican Party, with several other GOP candidates dividing the vote, including former Rep. Darrell Issa. "I've got this seat," Hunter said, with three other candidates seated beside him.
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| UPDATE 1-Erdogan says Turkey will never declare ceasefire in northern Syria Posted: 15 Oct 2019 03:42 PM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Erdogan says Turkey will never declare ceasefire in northern Syria]( "UPDATE 1-Erdogan says Turkey will never declare ceasefire in northern Syria") President Tayyip Erdogan told U.S. President Donald Trump that Turkey will never declare a ceasefire in northeastern Syria and that it will not negotiate with Kurdish forces it is fighting in its offensive into the region. Turkey pressed ahead with its offensive against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria on Tuesday despite U.S. sanctions and calls for it to stop, while Syria's Russia-backed army moved on the key city of Manbij that was abandoned by U.S. forces.
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| DNA testing could exonerate man 13 years after he was executed for rape, murder Posted: 15 Oct 2019 12:32 PM PDT  After Sedley Alley's execution in 2006 for Suzanne Marie Collins' murder, a judge now heard DNA testing arguments from the Innocence Project.
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| North Korea's Spy Submarines Have Performed Some Wild Missions—But This One Ended In Disaster Posted: 15 Oct 2019 11:06 AM PDT  A mechanical meltdown?
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| Amazon Pledges $1 Million More in Heated Seattle Elections Posted: 15 Oct 2019 11:36 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. is reaching into its deep pockets in an effort to make Seattle more business-friendly, pledging an additional $1 million to a corporate-backed group ahead of next month's contentious city council elections.The contribution disclosed on Tuesday brings Amazon's donations this election cycle to the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce's Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy (CASE) to $1.45 million, and likely cements the company's status as the biggest spender in its hometown's elections. The splurge marks a dramatic change for the e-commerce giant, which largely avoided city politics for most of its 25 years, even as it grew into Seattle's largest employer and contributed to a boom that brought about rapidly rising housing costs, snarled traffic and a homelessness crisis."We are contributing to this election because we care deeply about the future of Seattle," Amazon spokesman Aaron Toso said in an emailed statement. "We believe it is critical that our hometown has a city council that is focused on pragmatic solutions to our shared challenges in transportation, homelessness, climate change and public safety."Amazon's relationship with city hall was a focus of heated debate last year around a proposed tax on large businesses to fund services for the homeless. The city council passed -- and then, under pressure from a business-backed repeal effort, rescinded -- the so-called head tax after Amazon paused construction planning on a piece of its corporate campus and threatened to back out of a lease for a major downtown skyscraper. Amazon would later confirm its intent to sublease that building anyway.Seven of Seattle's nine city council seats are up for election this year.Socialist councilmember Kshama Sawant, who sought to link Amazon to the tax and has made calls to tax the company a fixture of her reelection campaign, faces a competitive race in the Nov. 5 general election. Egan Orion, a community leader from Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, is backed by CASE and individual contributions from more than a dozen Amazon executives.Amazon's latest commitment makes the company the biggest spender so far this election cycle, according to CASE, topping the $855,000 spent by a group affiliated with the Service Employees International Union. mazon this year has also hosted and sponsored city council candidate forums, and contributed $400,000 to a campaign to defeat a ballot measure that would cut Washington state car-tab taxes at the expense of transportation projects.To contact the reporter on this story: Matt Day in Seattle at mday63@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz, Robin AjelloFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| China inflation surges as pork prices soar Posted: 14 Oct 2019 09:48 PM PDT  China's consumer inflation accelerated at its fastest pace in almost six years in September as African swine fever sent pork prices soaring nearly 70 percent, official data showed Tuesday. Authorities have gone as far as tapping the nation's pork reserve to control prices of the staple meat, as the swine fever crisis could become a political and economic liability for the state. The consumer price index (CPI) -- a key gauge of retail inflation -- hit 3.0 percent last month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, up from 2.8 percent in August and the highest since since November 2013.
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| Boris Johnson is reportedly very close to agreeing a Brexit deal with the EU Posted: 15 Oct 2019 08:13 AM PDT  EU sources told Bloomberg that a deal could be concluded as early as Tuesday, with the UK set to agree a new compromise deal.
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| This church in Pennsylvania holds a ceremony to bless guns Posted: 15 Oct 2019 04:19 AM PDT  Dozens of couples carrying assault rifles took part in a blessing of their weapons at a church in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania. Members of the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, an unofficial sect of the Christian Unification movement, were invited to "show their willingness to defend their families, communities and nation". The weapons are meant to represent the "rod of iron" referenced in the biblical Book of Revelation, which was used to control God's enemies. The semi-automatic rifles are similar to the weapon used to kill 17 people in the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida in February 2018. The church believes that the Florida shooting could have been prevented if the teachers were armed. Members carry guns while some wear crowns, often made of bullets Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty In the aftermath of the tragedy the debate over gun control raged across America, with shocked students calling for immediate action on gun control. Despite this, the US's largest gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has hindered attempts to restrict the accessibility of firearms, using its financial and political clout. Weapons are not loaded and the guns are secured with zip ties to stop them firing Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Now, two decades on from the 1999 Columbine school shooting, it is easier to purchase assault rifles after a temporary ban under the Bush administration expired.
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| School suspends girls, says rape-awareness note was bullying Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:38 PM PDT  A 15-year-old girl was suspended for bullying after trying to draw attention to what she believed was an unaddressed problem of sexual assaults involving students at her high school. Aela Mansmann, a 15-year-old sophomore at Cape Elizabeth High School outside Portland, has been at odds with Cape Elizabeth Schools for a month after posting a note in a bathroom that said: "There's a rapist in our school and you know who it is." She and two other students who left similar notes were ordered suspended. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine is taking on Mansmann's case and calling on federal court to stop her suspension.
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| U.S. House passes legislation taking hard line on China over Hong Kong, Huawei Posted: 15 Oct 2019 04:19 PM PDT ![U.S. House passes legislation taking hard line on China over Hong Kong, Huawei]( "U.S. House passes legislation taking hard line on China over Hong Kong, Huawei") The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed four pieces of legislation taking a hard line on China, three related to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and one commending Canada's government in a dispute over the extradition of an executive from Huawei Technologies. All four measures passed by unanimous voice vote, as members of Congress - Democrats and Republicans - said they wanted to take an aggressive stance on China and show support for Hong Kong following four months of unrest in the city. One of the measures, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, would require the U.S. secretary of state to certify every year that Hong Kong was retaining its autonomy in order to keep receiving the special treatment that has allowed it to be a major financial center.
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| The Pro-Impeachment Movement’s New Play: Frame McConnell as a Trump Patsy Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:06 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast/GettyThe leading pro-impeachment group in the country unveiled a new ad on Tuesday morning targeting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as a patsy for Donald Trump. The Need to Impeach ad is part of a $3.1-million ad buy that the group has purchased to blanket the airwaves and social-media networks as a Democratic-led impeachment inquiry ramps up. But whereas the previous spots went after vulnerable Republican senators, this one goes after the man at the nexus of impeachment politics—and it does so through Republican-friendly channels. The ad will run predominantly on Fox News, including the network's morning show, Fox & Friends, of which the president is a religious viewer. "Mitch is afraid to cross Donald Trump," the spot goes. "Just look at what happened to Mitt Romney. So will Mitch defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic? Or protect Trump at all costs?"The notion that McConnell would bend his position on impeachment to the advertising whims of a group financed by Democratic presidential candidate and liberal donor Tom Steyer is, inherently, far-fetched. But the new spot doesn't appear to be an effort to move McConnell towards supporting impeachment so much as an attempt to solidify a narrative that the majority leader has to make a choice between protecting the Republican Senate's majority and standing by the president. "I do think it is important to point out how scared to death McConnell is of Donald Trump," said Kevin Mack, the chief strategist on Need to Impeach. "It seems like he is willing to sacrifice his own members to not incur the wrath of Trump." In addition to the cable-news buys, Mack said that Need to Impeach will also run preliminary digital ads in Kentucky to test out messaging among voters there. Two other ads will begin to run on Kentucky television soon, he said. 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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| When Cops Create Their Own Risk, Innocent People Die for Their Mistakes Posted: 14 Oct 2019 01:21 PM PDT  The video is puzzling and shocking. After receiving a call to a non-emergency number requesting that police check on a neighbor's house that had its doors open and its lights on, police approach silently. They look into an open door and into a brightly lit room, but they don't say anything. They then creep around the house, moving from light to dark. They use a flashlight. They keep moving around the edges of the house.Suddenly, in a mere moment, one of them spots movement in a window. The officer yells for the shadowy figure to put up her hands and then immediately fires a shot. Atatiana Jefferson was dead. She was 28 years old. According to her family's lawyer, she was playing video games with her young nephew when they heard "rustling" outside and "saw flashlights." There was a gun in the house, but there's no indication (yet) that she was holding it in her hand.But what if she was? Does a homeowner not have a right to investigate someone lurking on her property? Can she not arm herself at 2:30 a.m. when she hears a strange sound in the darkness?I've been looking closely at the police-shooting issue for many years, and I'm noticing a trend in many of the worst and most controversial shootings. The police make mistakes that heighten their own sense of danger, and then they "resolve" their own error by opening fire.The examples are easy to find. The worst and most recent is that of Dallas officer Amber Guyger, who made the dreadful mistake of entering the wrong house and then immediately dealt with the perceived "threat" by shooting the innocent man inside.But Guyger is hardly the only offender. Who can forget the terrible shooting of Philando Castile, gunned down as he tried to comply with conflicting commands from an obviously panicked officer — the officer told Castile to hand over his license and proof of insurance, but also to not reach for his gun. He shot Castile to death even as Castile was calmly telling him that he wasn't reaching for his gun.Then there's the extraordinarily gut-wrenching video of a cop killing Daniel Shaver as he sobbed and begged for his life. The officer's instructions were utterly incomprehensible. He told Shaver to not put his hands down for any reason. He also told him to crawl down the hall..No one should forget Andrew Scott. Police seeking a suspect showed up at the wrong house (without a warrant), did not turn on their lights, did not identify themselves as police, and pounded violently on the door late at night. When Scott answered his own door with a firearm in his hand, he was instantly shot dead.It wasn't until the tragic death of Willie McCoy that the trend truly became obvious. McCoy was sleeping in his car, blocking a drive-through window, with a gun in his lap. When he began to move, cops clustered around his car started screaming at him so loudly that the transcript of the video has to explain that the shouts weren't gunshots. Then, within three seconds, the officers riddled him with bullets. They startled him awake, and then killed him.In response, I wrote this:> When we evaluate police shootings, we wrongly tend to limit our analysis to the very instant of the shooting itself. The question of a cop's reasonable fear at that instant is allowed to trump all other concerns, and becomes the deciding factor at trial. I would argue, however, that officers act unreasonably when they don't give a citizen a reasonable chance to live — and giving a citizen a reasonable chance to live involves properly handling the situation so no weapon need be fired.Would Atatiana Jefferson still be alive if the cops had parked in front of her house and clearly identified themselves by shouting into the open door? Would they still be alive had they not lurked around a person's home without permission -- exactly like a person who was trespassing, perhaps with malign intent?There is absolutely no question that police have a difficult job. There is no question that even routine encounters and wellness checks can — on rare occasions — escalate to deadly violence. But there is also no question that time and again police have enhanced the risk to the public through their own mistakes. Poor tactics can yield terrible results, and police should not be able to use the "split-second decision" defense when they created the crisis.There is no greater violation of liberty than the loss of your own life in your own home at the hands of misguided, panicky, or poorly trained agents of the state. Absent compelling evidence not yet revealed to the public, it appears that the man who killed Atatiana Jefferson committed a criminal act. He deserves to face criminal justice.
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| What Did America Offer North Korea at Working-Level Talks? One Report Claims To Know. Posted: 15 Oct 2019 05:05 AM PDT  And it makes absolutely no sense at all.
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| Marianne Williamson isn't on the debate stage but reminded people she's still running Posted: 15 Oct 2019 05:39 PM PDT  "No, they're not the only Democratic candidates for President of the United States," she tweeted as the debate started.
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| Confessions of a cannabis farmer: The Vietnamese getting Brits high Posted: 14 Oct 2019 08:42 PM PDT  Holed up alone in a suburban British house thousands of miles from home, cannabis farmer Cuong Nguyen spent months carefully nurturing his plants, one of thousands of Vietnamese migrants working in the UK's multi-billion dollar weed industry. "All I ever wanted was to make money... whether it was legal or illegal," Cuong, who is now back in Vietnam, tells AFP. It was criminal career steered by the Vietnamese gangsters behind the UK's huge marijuana trade -- which researchers value at around 2.6 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) a year.
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| A 75-year-old cruise ship passenger jumped overboard a Carnival-owned ship between Portugal and Spain (CCL) Posted: 15 Oct 2019 11:14 AM PDT  A Costa Cruises representative said the woman "voluntarily" jumped from the balcony in her cabin on the Costa Pacifica ship.
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| Otters nearly drown large pet dog in group attack Posted: 15 Oct 2019 12:46 AM PDT  A pet dog has nearly drowned after reportedly being attacked by a group of otters.The alleged attack happened in Alaska, when Kenny Brewer went out for an evening walk with his wife, Kira, and their dog, Ruby – a 50lb husky mix.
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| Wildfires spread through parts of Lebanon, Syria Posted: 15 Oct 2019 08:25 AM PDT  Wildfires spread through parts of Lebanon on Tuesday after forcing some residents to flee their homes in the middle of the night, while others were stuck inside as the flames reached villages south of Beirut, authorities said. There were no reports of fatalities from the fires — among the worst to hit Lebanon in years. Fire crews were overwhelmed by the flames in the Mount Lebanon region early Tuesday, forcing the Interior Ministry to send riot police with engines equipped with water cannons to help.
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| 7 Indigenous Pioneers You Need to Know Posted: 14 Oct 2019 11:19 AM PDT |
| Putin’s Syria Gambit Delivers Again as Trump Sidelines U.S. Posted: 15 Oct 2019 05:56 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The Turkish troops who poured into Syria to battle Kurdish fighters abandoned by the U.S. may have inadvertently handed Russian President Vladimir Putin a strategic victory in the Middle East.Less than a week after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the intervention, Russia underlined its dominance in the region by warning of the limits of its patience with the operation. The Kremlin's message came after President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Turkey that left many in Congress unimpressed following his withdrawal of the last 1,000 U.S. troops from territory held by the Kurds for seven years during the Syrian war."We have always called on Turkey to exercise restraint and considered any military operation in Syria unacceptable," Putin's special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, said Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, where the Russian president was meeting with United Arab Emirates leaders. "Security along the Turkish-Syrian border must be ensured by deploying government troops."Putin has seized on the crisis to maneuver Syrian government forces into Kurdish-held territory, a major step in his efforts to restore President Bashar al-Assad's control over all of the country after Russia's military intervention tipped the war in his favor. The Kurdish-led authority in northeast Syria announced Sunday that it had struck a deal with Damascus and Moscow for the Syrian army to protect the northern border with Turkey after the U.S. pullout.The agreement gives the Kremlin undisputed leadership in shaping Syria's future, bolstering Putin's image in the Middle East, where he's already forged a partnership with Iran, created an oil alliance with Saudi Arabia and built close ties with Egypt's strongman President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Putin has also wooed Erdogan, who defied U.S. opposition to buy Russia's advanced S-400 air-defense system, and they have coordinated efforts to try to resolve the Syrian war despite tensions over the Kurds.Putin traveled to the U.A.E. from Saudi Arabia, where he made his first visit since 2007, reinforcing the Kremlin's efforts to exploit waning U.S. influence in the Middle East under Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama.'Searing Perceptions'"The split screen of Trump's shambolic withdrawal from Syria and Putin's" visit to the region "is searing perceptions of a new balance of power in the world," Brett McGurk, the former lead envoy for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, said on Twitter. He resigned in protest in December after Trump first announced a Syria pullout.Syrian government troops took full control of the key frontier city of Manbij and surrounding towns following the U.S. departure, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday in an emailed statement. Russian military police are patrolling the northeast border of Manbij province along the line of contact between Syrian and Turkish forces, it said.The U.S. has "abandoned partners, undermining others' trust," said Tom Tugendhat, a U.K. lawmaker from the ruling Conservative party and chairman of parliament's foreign affairs committee. Russia "is a key ally of both sides and wins either way," he said on Twitter.Russia won't permit any armed clashes between Turkish and Syrian forces, Lavrentiev told reporters."Putin has forced his allies and rivals to accept that he has essentially become the architect of the political and military balances in the Syrian conflict," Ayham Kamel, head of Middle East and North East research at Eurasia Group, said by email.Trump sought to regain the initiative on Monday by holding phone talks with Kurdish military commander Mazloum Abdi and Erdogan in the presence of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has pushed for "crippling" sanctions on Turkey. The U.S. president assured Abdi he would do "everything possible" to stop the Turkish incursion, Graham said on Twitter.Ankara says the offensive, which has provoked a wave of international condemnation, is necessary to push back Kurdish fighters it describes as terrorists linked to separatists inside Turkey.But Putin on Friday warned that the operation risked triggering a resurgent threat from Islamic State, with thousands of jihadists detained by the Kurds potentially able to escape. "This is a real threat to all of us," he told regional counterparts in Turkmenistan. The Kurds said Sunday that nearly 800 inmates affiliated with Islamic State had escaped from a detention center after Turkish shelling.The Turkish attack and U.S. pullback presented a perfect opportunity to achieve Russian goals in Syria and restore central control over the oil-rich northeast, according to Elena Suponina, a Moscow-based Middle East expert."Russia has always wanted the government to recover control of as much territory as possible," she said.(Updates with Syrian forces take Manbij in third paragraph.)\--With assistance from Selcan Hacaoglu and Ilya Arkhipov.To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net;Andrey Biryukov in Moscow at abiryukov5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Paul AbelskyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| British paedophile who operated in Malaysia, Cambodia found dead in prison Posted: 14 Oct 2019 05:29 AM PDT  One of Britain's most prolific child sex offenders, Richard Huckle, has died three years into a life sentence for abusing Malaysian and Cambodian children, Britain's Ministry of Justice said on Monday, with media saying he had been stabbed to death. Huckle, 33, who abused children and babies during a nine year period, was sentenced to life in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to 71 offences. Dubbed the country's worst paedophile by Britain's media, he was found stabbed to death in prison on Sunday after being attacked with a makeshift knife, the BBC reported.
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| Pullback Leaves Green Berets Feeling 'Ashamed,' and Kurdish Allies Describing 'Betrayal' Posted: 15 Oct 2019 06:46 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- U.S. commandos were working alongside Kurdish forces at an outpost in eastern Syria last year when they were attacked by columns of Syrian government tanks and hundreds of troops, including Russian mercenaries. In the next hours, the Americans threw the Pentagon's arsenal at them, including B-52 strategic bombers. The attack was stopped.That operation, in the middle of the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria, showed the extent to which the U.S. military was willing to protect the Syrian Kurds, its main ally on the ground.But now, with the White House revoking protection for these Kurdish fighters, some of the Special Forces officers who battled alongside the Kurds say they feel deep remorse at orders to abandon their allies."They trusted us and we broke that trust," one Army officer who has worked alongside the Kurds in northern Syria said last week in a telephone interview. "It's a stain on the American conscience.""I'm ashamed," said another officer who had also served in northern Syria. Both officers spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals from their chains of command.And the response from the Kurds themselves was just as stark. "The worst thing in military logic and comrades in the trench is betrayal," said Shervan Darwish, an official allied with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.The next flurry of orders from Washington, as some troops had feared, will pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria altogether. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Sunday that President Donald Trump had ordered the roughly 1,000 U.S. troops in the country's northeast to conduct a "deliberate withdrawal" out of the country in the coming days and weeks.The defense secretary's statement came after comments Friday pushing back on complaints that the United States was betraying allies in Syria -- "We have not abandoned the Kurds" -- even as he acknowledged that his Turkish counterpart had ignored his plea to stop the offensive.Army Special Forces soldiers -- mostly members of the 3rd Special Forces Group -- moved last week to consolidate their positions in the confines of their outposts miles away from the Syrian border, a quiet withdrawal that all but confirmed the United States' capitulation to the Turkish military's offensive to clear Kurdish-held areas of northern Syria.But as the Americans pulled back, the Kurds moved north to try to reinforce their comrades fighting the offensive. The U.S. soldiers could only watch from their sandbag-lined walls. Orders from Washington were simple: Hands off. Let the Kurds fight for themselves.The orders contradicted the U.S. military's strategy in Syria over the last four years, especially when it came to the Kurdish fighters, known as the YPG, who were integral to routing the Islamic State group from northeastern Syria. The Kurds had fought in Manbij, Raqqa and deep into the Euphrates River Valley, hunting the last Islamic State fighters in the group's now defunct physical caliphate. But the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, as the Kurdish and their allied Arab fighters on the ground are called, are being left behind.U.S. Special Forces and other troops had built close ties with their Kurdish allies, living on the same dusty compounds, sharing meals and common dangers. They fought side by side, and helped evacuate Kurdish dead and wounded from the battlefield."When they mourn, we mourn with them," Gen. Joseph L. Votel, a former head of the military's Central Command, said Thursday at the Middle East Institute.The Kurdish forces and U.S. military have survived previous strains, including Trump's sudden decision in December to withdraw all U.S. troops from northern Syria, a decision that was later walked back somewhat.This time may be different, and irreversible. "It would seem at this particular point, we've made it very, very hard for them to have a partnership relationship with us because of this recent policy decision," Votel said.As part of security measures the United States brokered to tamp down tensions with Turkish troops, Kurdish forces agreed to pull back from the border, destroy fortifications and return some heavy weapons -- steps meant to show that they posed no threat to Turkish territory, but that later made them more vulnerable when Turkey launched its offensive.Special Forces officers described another recent operation with Kurds that underscored the tenacity of the group. The Americans and the Kurdish troops were searching for a low-level Islamic State leader in northern Syria. It was a difficult mission and unlikely they would find the commander.From his operations center, one U.S. officer watched the Kurds work alongside the Americans on the ground in an almost indistinguishable symmetry. They captured the Islamic State fighter."The SDF's elite counterterrorism units are hardened veterans of the war against ISIS whom the U.S. has seen in action and trust completely," said Nicholas A. Heras, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, who visited the SDF in July to advise them on the Islamic State group, or ISIS.During the battle against ISIS, coordination between the U.S. military and the Syrian Democratic Forces has extended from the highest levels to rank-and-file fighters, according to multiple interviews with SDF fighters and commanders in Syria over the course of the campaign.SDF commanders worked side by side with U.S. military officers in a joint command center in a defunct cement factory near the northern Syrian town of Kobani, where they discussed strategy and planned future operations.The battle of Kobani that began in 2014 gave birth to the United States' ties to the Kurds in northeastern Syria. ISIS fighters, armed with heavy American-made artillery captured from retreating Iraqi army units, surrounded Kobani, a Kurdish city, and entered parts of it.Despite the Obama administration's initial reluctance to offer help, the United States carried out airstrikes against advancing ISIS militants, and its military aircraft dropped ammunition, small arms and medical supplies to replenish the Kurdish combatants.That aid helped turn the tide, the Kurds defeated ISIS, and U.S. commanders realized they had discovered a valuable ally in the fight against the terrorist group.Thousands of SDF fighters received training from the United States in battlefield tactics, reconnaissance and first aid. Reconnaissance teams learned to identify Islamic State locations and transmit them to the command center for the U.S.-led military coalition to plan airstrikes.Visitors to front-line SDF positions often saw Syrian officers with iPads and laptops they used to communicate information to their U.S. colleagues."For the last two years, the coordination was pretty deep," said Mutlu Civiroglu, a Washington-based Kurdish affairs analyst who has spent time in northeastern Syria. "The mutual trust was very high, the mutual confidence, because this collaboration brought enormous results.""They completed each other," he said of the SDF and U.S.-led coalition. "The coalition didn't have boots on the ground, and fighters didn't have air support, so they needed each other."That coordination was critical in many of the big battles against the Islamic State group.To open the battle in one town, SDF fighters were deposited by coalition aircraft behind the Islamic State group's lines. At the start of another battle, U.S. Special Operations forces helped the SDF plot and execute an attack across the Euphrates River.Even after the Islamic State group had lost most of its territory, the United States trained counterterrorism units to do tactical raids on ISIS hideouts and provided them with intelligence needed to plan them.Even in territory far from the front lines with the Islamic State, SDF vehicles often drove before and after U.S. convoys through Syrian towns and SDF fighters provided perimeter security at facilities where U.S. personnel were based.The torturous part of America's on-again, off-again alliance with the Kurds -- one in which the United States has routinely armed the Kurds to fight various regimes it viewed as adversaries -- emerged in 1974, as the Kurds were rebelling against Iraq. Iran and the United States were allies, and the Shah of Iran and Henry Kissinger encouraged the Kurdish rebellion against the Iraqi government. CIA agents were sent to the Iraq-Iran border to help the Kurds.The Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani did not trust the Shah of Iran, but believed Kissinger when he said that the Kurds would receive help from the Americans.But a year later, the Shah of Iran made a deal with Saddam Hussein on the sidelines of an OPEC meeting: In return for some territorial adjustments along the Iran-Iraq border, the shah agreed to stop support for the Kurds.Kissinger signed off on the plan, the Iraqi military slaughtered thousands of Kurds and the United States stood by. When questioned, Kissinger delivered his now famous explanation: "Covert action," he said, "should not be confused with missionary work."In the fight against ISIS in Syria, Kurdish fighters followed their hard-fought triumph in Kobani by liberating other Kurdish towns. Then the Americans asked their newfound Kurdish allies to go into Arab areas, team up with local militias and reclaim those areas from the Islamic State group.The U.S. military implored the SDF to fight in the Arab areas, and so they advanced, seizing Raqqa and Deir el-Zour, winning but suffering large numbers of casualties.The American-Kurdish military alliance against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq "began with us helping them," said Peter W. Galbraith, the former U.S. diplomat who has for years also been a senior adviser to the Kurds in both Syria and Iraq. "But by the end, it was them helping us. They are the ones who recovered the territory that ISIS had taken."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| 'Just a matter of time' before president removed following impeachment testimony: Former Trump aide Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:39 AM PDT  President Trump's ex-national security adviser, John Bolton, reportedly urged former Russia adviser Fiona Hill to warn the White House about a campaign to pressure Ukraine directed by the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, describing the latter as a "hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up."
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