| In Trump pitch at black college, its students were largely absent Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:54 PM PDT  What if Donald Trump was set to make a grand speech to black students, but no one was allowed to come?
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| On withholding aid to Central America, Mulvaney was correct: 'We do that all the time' Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:00 AM PDT  In an infamous press briefing last week, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney confirmed that the Trump administration is in the habit of using foreign aid to coerce compliance with U.S. policy. Central America is a case in point.
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| Russian woman convicted by U.S. of being agent returns home Posted: 26 Oct 2019 01:44 AM PDT  Russian national Maria Butina, who was jailed in the United States in April after admitting to working as a Russian agent, arrived in Moscow on Saturday, greeted by her father and Russian journalists who handed her flowers. "Russians never surrender," an emotional Butina told reporters at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, flanked by her father and the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman. Butina pleaded guilty in December last year to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Russia by infiltrating a gun rights group and influencing U.S. conservative activists and Republicans.
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| Bishops Ask Pope to Approve Married Priests, and Open the Way to Women Deacons Posted: 26 Oct 2019 01:19 PM PDT  Alberto Pizoli/AFP/Getty ImagesVATICAN CITY–A group of Roman Catholic bishops voted on Saturday 128 in favor and 41 against a proposal to lift a thousand-year-old ban on married priests. The 184 bishops ministering in the Amazon region voted that married "viri probati"—men of proven virtue—should be allowed to be ordained as priests for the purpose of delivering the major sacraments to Catholics in areas where no priests are assigned. Pope Says Maybe to Married PriestsNow Pope Francis must decide whether to sign off on the proposal, which many believe he just might do, which would also open up a debate on celibacy in the priesthood. The married men eligible for the priesthood would already have to be deacons which, for lack of a lengthy description, are a lighter version of priests. They can be married and they are allowed to perform many clerical functions, but not deliver holy mass. They can, however, deliver many of the sacraments including baptism, funeral and burial services, distribute holy communion known as the Eucharist, and preach the homily sermon so long as there is an ordained priest leading the mass. Deacons are either 'permanent,' meaning devout, sometimes married men who serve the church throughout the world, or 'transitional,' meaning those preparing for the priesthood. At a briefing in Rome on Saturday evening, Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny pointed out that all men ordained into the priesthood must be deacons first. With that in mind, what the Amazon synod fathers also decided is perhaps even more groundbreaking. On Saturday, they approved a proposal to open the long-closed door to the ordination of women as deacons by agreeing to study the matter. And if women are allowed to be deacons, that could one day pave the way to female priests. Did Pope Francis Just Pave the Way for Women Priests?Pope Francis, in spontaneous remarks closing the meeting ahead of a farewell mass on Sunday, promised he would keep an open mind . "I am going to take up the challenge that you have put forward," he said, "that women be heard." "We still have not grasped the significance of women in the Church," Francis said Saturday as nuns in attendance nodded their heads and the entire assembly erupted in applause. "Their role must go well beyond questions of function."What is perhaps most remarkable about the potentially groundbreaking decisions that might change the face of the church forever is that the two issues–the question of married priests and celibacy and that of women clergy—are based on a meeting about Catholics living in some of the most remote and poverty-stricken areas in the world. But the decision to move forward on both of these issues is one that may also cause a schism in the church. Even before the final vote, conservative Catholic militants had made their message clear, that the Amazon region should not be a pacesetter on these issues. Those from the Amazon region in attendance at the conference had brought with them five so-called Pachamama wooden statues depicting a scene with a naked, pregnant woman at the center that many conservatives described as "false idols." Conservative Catholic Twitter exploded with comments about Pope Francis worshiping the "pagan" statues and how they represented a church in demise. The same critics scoffed when Francis opened the summit by telling the prelates they could leave their cassocks at home and wear suits to the working sessions.Shortly before the vote, while those in attendance were finalizing their document, the statues were stolen from the church in Rome where they were kept during the synod meeting and thrown into the Tiber River.Roman police fished out the statues on Friday and gave them back to the pope who apologized for the act. On Saturday, the Pachamama statues were front and center inside the synod hall, undoubtedly boiling the blood of those who sought to destroy them. If the pope's response to the stolen statues is any indication, he may well heed the vote of the bishops on two of the most important issues the Catholic church has faced outside of clerical sex abuse and, with it, change the face of Catholicism forever. 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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| Woman drives motor home into Las Vegas-area casino after she was kicked out, police say Posted: 26 Oct 2019 10:41 AM PDT  A custodian suffered critical injuries in the incident at the Cannery casino but is expected to survive, according to authorities.
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| Mexican town turned to war zone fears new era of narco violence Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:29 PM PDT  Culiacán (Mexico) (AFP) - The bullet holes splashed across the walls are an unnerving reminder to residents of Culiacan: There is no telling when the narco violence that terrorized the Mexican city last week could return. People in Culiacan are used to living alongside drug traffickers. It is, after all, the state capital of Sinaloa, home to the powerful drug cartel of the same name and its jailed kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
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| Lion Air crash report points to Boeing, pilots, maintenance Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:59 PM PDT  Indonesian investigators found plenty of blame to go around for a Boeing 737 Max crash that killed 189 people a year ago. Investigators said in a report issued Friday that a combination of nine main factors doomed the brand-new Boeing jet that plunged into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff on Oct. 29, 2018. Many of the problems had been previously disclosed in a preliminary report that Indonesian authorities issued last year and in recent findings by U.S. and global safety experts who were privy to the investigation.
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| China's Military Parade Proves That Beijing Is Ready To Fight America Posted: 26 Oct 2019 02:30 AM PDT  Will the Pentagon's modernization initiatives be enough?
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| Steven Mnuchin may have gone against IRS warnings to help a friend get a major tax break Posted: 26 Oct 2019 11:12 AM PDT ![Steven Mnuchin may have gone against IRS warnings to help a friend get a major tax break]( "Steven Mnuchin may have gone against IRS warnings to help a friend get a major tax break") Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin may have used his position to help a billionaire friend earn a significant tax break and subsequent profits, despite the Internal Revenue Service warning against it, The New York Times reports. The Treasury Department, reportedly at the personal instruction of Mnuchin, made an area of land in Nevada owned by financier Michael Milken, who was reportedly an inspiration for the character of Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street, eligible for a federal tax break that it did not previously qualify for after alleged pressure from Milken's business partner other landowners. The IRS expressed its doubts about the decision, arguing in an internal memo obtained by the Times that "failure to apply the designation standards equally across the board will call into question the legitimacy of the process by which the designations were made." The memo also stated that the appearance of "arbitrary" Treasury standards like this one could open the "door for accusations that the determination process was influenced by political considerations or bias." Spokespersons for both Mnuchin and Milken, who are reportedly longtime friends, said the two men did not discuss the matter and Mnuchin had no knowledge of Milken's investments in Nevada. Regardless, the report has already spurred criticism. Read more at The New York Times. > THREAD: Let's start with this smoking-gun memo-obtained by The New York Times. Treasury at direct order of Sec. Mnuchin took what staff at IRS warned would be seen as a overtly political act & one could undermine the integrity of a multi-billion dollar Trump-era federal tax break pic.twitter.com/XrToQiBa1r> > -- Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) October 26, 2019> And the bottom line is that Mr. Mnuchin directed his staff to take a move that many strongly objected to, and which some saw as overtly political, and which stood to benefit his billionaire friend, Milken. (Nevada Gov sent in this letter 45 minutes after phone call with Mnuchin) pic.twitter.com/CnlzVcDAxF> > -- Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) October 26, 2019
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| 'He led from his soul': Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton remember Elijah Cummings in Baltimore Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:31 AM PDT  Former presidents and world leaders delivered powerful eulogies at the funeral for Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who died on Oct. 17 at age 68.
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| 'Disorder and chaos': Trump and Republicans mount furious impeachment fight Posted: 26 Oct 2019 05:00 AM PDT  A hearing room is invaded, the president's enemies are 'scum'. A bare-knuckle scrap has begun – but will it be enough?Donald Trump arrives for a rally in Lake Charles, Louisiana, earlier this month. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesDonald Trump has shown little taste for military adventure. He avoided the draft in Vietnam. He fell out with his once-beloved generals. He stunned the world by pulling troops out of Syria and abandoning America's Kurdish allies.But on the political battlefield, the president has shown how he and his allies intend to fight impeachment: with a blitzkrieg aimed at deflecting, distracting and discrediting. What he lacks in coherent strategy, he makes up for in shock and awe. Trump will send in the tanks and take no prisoners.It appears that most Republicans are still willing to march behind him, not by defending what many see as indefensible – the president's offer of a quid pro quo to Ukraine – but by throwing sand into the gears of the impeachment process. With the help of Fox News, they are set to intensify attacks on the legitimacy of the inquiry itself, demonising its leaders and sowing doubt wherever possible.The great unknown is whether the approach will prove as effective as their efforts to undermine the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, potentially boosting Trump in the 2020 election, or the case against him will be so compelling that he will be removed from office or defeated at the polls."Trump is using the same approach he did to subvert the Mueller report: undermining the legitimacy of the messenger, assigning political motives to those who testify and relying on the Fox News firewall to serve up propaganda to his base," said Kurt Bardella, a former spokesperson and senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee.> No matter who's working in the White House, we already know it will be blown to hell by Trump's tweets on any given day> > Kurt Bardella"The difference is that with Mueller we had a lot of time where we didn't know anything. In the impeachment inquiry we are getting a steady stream of new information that is providing context."House Democrats' impeachment inquiry is a month old. Unlike Mueller it has moved at warp speed, subpoenaing witnesses, gathering testimony and building evidence against the president some say makes it inevitable he will be impeached by the House and put on trial by the Republican-controlled Senate.This week Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, made the most damning allegations yet about a quid pro quo in which Trump threatened to suspend military aid and the offer of a White House meeting unless Ukraine agreed to announce investigations into political rivals including the former vice-president Joe Biden, a potential opponent in next year's presidential election.Taylor, a respected Vietnam war veteran with half a century of public service, also described an "irregular, informal policy channel" by which the Trump administration was pursuing objectives in Ukraine "running contrary to the goals of longstanding US policy". His evidence reportedly prompted "a lot of sighs and gasps" in the hearing room.The backlash from Trump was as swift as it was expected. Since the shadow of impeachment fell, the president has put down a daily barrage of tweets. Responding to Taylor and other members of his own party he sees as disloyal, he described "Never Trumper Republicans" as "human scum".Steve Scalise speaks after he and two dozen other Republicans stormed the room used by the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPAOn the same day, about 30 House Republicans barged into the secure facility where the impeachment depositions are being taken and ordered pizza. The testimony of a Pentagon official was postponed by more than five hours. The members complained about lack of transparency as evidence is being given behind closed doors.It was not their only gambit. Earlier in the week Republicans attempted to censure Adam Schiff, the chair of the House intelligence committee, for his handling of the impeachment inquiry, only for the Democratic majority to set the resolution aside. On Thursday Lindsey Graham, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee and a Trump loyalist, introduced a resolution condemning the inquiry as an unfair, secretive and designed to embarrass the president.In an ominous development, the justice department stepped up its review of the origins of Mueller's Russia investigation, giving prosecutors the ability to issue subpoenas, potentially form a grand jury and compel witnesses to give testimony and bring federal criminal charges. The move raised fears of a politically motivated ploy to burnish the overall narrative that Trump is a victim of the deep state, casting impeachment as Mueller 2.0.But there was still little sign of a war bunker where a strategy is being coordinated. Instead it appears to be a case of a scattergun and "fire at will", a measure of how ill-equipped the White House is for the battle to come. More than 1,000 days into Trump's presidency, its ranks are severely depleted.The chief strategist Steve Bannon is long gone. Stephanie Grisham, the press secretary, has never given a formal briefing to reporters in the west wing. Trump does not have a permanent chief of staff, only Mick Mulvaney in an acting capacity. Earlier this month Mulvaney held a disastrous briefing in which he blurted out a confession of a quid pro quo with Ukraine, only to issue a retraction later.It means there are fewer guardrails on a president who would be capricious, impulsive and mendacious even if surrounded by the best and the brightest.Bardella added: "No matter who's working in the White House, we already know it will be blown to hell by Trump's tweets on any given day. You can have the best organisation in the world but it's useless if the principal is so undisciplined." 'Clinton had a pretty good approach'The lack of structure could not be more different from the last president to be impeached, Bill Clinton, who set up a dedicated "war room" while getting on with the business of governing.Graham, now working with the White House on a better coordinated strategy but then an impeachment manager in the House, told reporters this week the Clinton example should be followed because he "had a team that was organised, that had legal minds that could understand what was being said versus the legal proceedings in question, and they were on message every day".The senator from South Carolina added: "President Clinton defended himself but he never stopped being president. And I think one of the reasons that he survived is that the public may not have liked what the president had done but believed that he was still able to do his job … I'm hoping that will become the model here."The sentiment was echoed by Chris Ruddy, a conservative media executive and friend of Trump. He told the Guardian: "Bill Clinton had a pretty good approach – better than Richard Nixon. It should be 'business as usual' where they're pushing legislation on healthcare, immigration, infrastructure."Public opinion does not favour removing Trump from office, Ruddy argued, so the White House should avoid a politically costly battle."We're in a political payback system where everyone is trying to out up each other. If you look at the poll numbers, he's actually holding up, although there's a hardening of people who favour impeachment and removal. He's not actually in a bad situation."Lindsey Graham talks about the Clinton impeachment while introducing a resolution condemning the House impeachment inquiry. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesOn Friday the Axios website reported "a de facto impeachment war room" had sprung up at the White House with the primary objective of ensuring that should the House impeach Trump, there will not be the 20 or more Republican defections required in the Senate to convict him."Almost every morning around 10am, there's an impeachment 'messaging coordination' meeting in either the Situation Room or the Roosevelt Room" involving senior officials, the report said.But critics argue that "messaging" is doomed from the start in this case because the facts are so devastating. Trump has openly encouraged Ukraine – and China – to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter. With Taylor's compelling evidence, it appears to be case closed. Some problems are unspinnable.Rick Tyler, a Republican strategist and Trump critic, said the president's exertion of pressure on the leader of Ukraine had been tantamount to blackmail and extortion."It was such an abuse of power. I can't think of a president who's done anything more impeachable or worse than that. It's indefensible and anyone who defends it is going to face some liabilities because it's so egregious."He described the Republican fightback as "lawlessness, disorder and chaos. Undermining the process and smearing the witnesses and engaging in 'whataboutism' is the main strategy. The question is whether they will be successful, as they were with Mueller, at discrediting the process. Democrats have to step up their game and be more transparent about what they're doing." 'An exercise in table-pounding'For all the noisy grandstanding this week, Republicans said little about the substance of the allegations. Their extraordinary invasion of the Scif [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] on Capitol Hill was fodder for TV networks and briefly stole the limelight from the damaging evidence being presented. It seemed a classic Trumpian ploy of shifting attention with a showy spectacle and earned thanks from the president for being "tough, smart, and understanding in detail the greatest Witch Hunt in American History".> The Scif incident was an exercise in table-pounding by Republicans … a very poor substitute for a strategy> > Bill GalstonBut whether it can be sustained is questionable. Democrats are gearing up for televised hearings that could begin next month and feature dramatic and damaging testimony from the likes of the former national security adviser John Bolton. Republicans are hamstrung by a torrent of revelations that makes today's deniable rumour tomorrow's smoking gun.Bill Galston, a former policy adviser in the Clinton administration, said: "If there is a White House strategy, I haven't discerned it up to now. It's very difficult to form a strategy that others are prepared to rely on and execute if you have reason to believe that that what is held to be true today might not be true tomorrow."The White House has a credibility problem and members of the president's party don't know what they don't know."There's a saying, 'If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.' The Scif incident we saw this week was an exercise in table-pounding by Republicans. What they're doing now is a very poor substitute for a strategy."Trump retains two not so secret weapons to amplify his message: fiery rallies, which he is holding with greater frequency, and conservative media.A survey published this week by the Public Religion Research Institute showed the group most loyal to the president is Republicans who watch Fox News. More than half of Republicans whose primary news source is Fox said almost nothing could change their approval of Trump. For Republicans who get their news elsewhere, the figure is considerably lower.Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, added: "If I was in the White House now, I would send a delegation to [Fox News host] Sean Hannity and say, 'Sir, you have more credibility with the president than anyone else. If you believe, as we do, that he needs a coherent strategy, can you make that case for us? We officially work for the president but you unofficially work for him.'"It seems like a joke but, as I sit here and think about it, I'm falling in love with the idea."
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| Entire Chinese submarine crew suffocated to death Posted: 26 Oct 2019 08:01 AM PDT  On April 25, 2003 the crew of a Chinese fishing boat noticed a periscope drifting above the surface of the water. The fishermen notified the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) which promptly dispatched two vessels to investigate to find all of the crew members dead.
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| Violence during Ethiopian protests was ethnically tinged, say eyewitnesses Posted: 26 Oct 2019 07:02 AM PDT  Much of the fighting seen during protests in Ethiopia this week was ethnically tinged, eyewitnesses said on Saturday, describing attacks by young men from the Oromo ethnic group against people from other ethnic groups. There were clashes in several cities in Oromiya, Ethiopia's most populous province, underscoring the spectre of ethnic violence that the United Nations says has already internally displaced more than 2 million people. After activist Jawar Mohammed said police had ringed his home in Addis Ababa and tried to withdraw his government security detail, his supporters quickly took to the streets on Wednesday and Thursday to protest against his treatment.
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| Flynn’s Lawyer Claims FBI Tampered with Interview Notes, Demands Charges Be Dropped Posted: 25 Oct 2019 02:06 PM PDT  Former national-security adviser Michael Flynn's lawyer claims in a new bombshell court filing that the FBI tampered with notes from his 2017 interview, during which Flynn pleaded guilty to lying.In a 37-page motion, attorney Sidney Powell called on the court to "dismiss the entire prosecution for outrageous government misconduct" over allegations that FBI agents manipulated a form summarizing Flynn's statements to investigators.The interview dealt with Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. In December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to charges that he lied to the FBI about his Russia contacts during his brief stint as national-security adviser. He is expected to be sentenced in December."Those changes added an unequivocal statement that 'Flynn stated he did not' — in response to whether Mr. Flynn had asked Kislyak to vote in a certain manner or slow down the UN vote [on sanctions]," Powell wrote. "This is a deceptive manipulation because, as the notes of the agents show, Mr. Flynn was not even sure he had spoken to Russia/Kislyak on the issue. He had talked to dozens of countries.""That question and answer does not appear in the notes, yet it was made into a criminal offense," Powell wrote in the motion. "The draft also shows that the agents moved a sentence to make it seem to be an answer to a question it was not."One of the FBI agents involved in the interview was Peter Strzok, who was fired from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team when text messages disparaging President Trump were discovered between him and FBI colleague Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.FBI brass sent Strzok and another agent to conduct an "ambush-interview" of Flynn explicitly to trap him into making statements they could claim were false, Flynn's defense team alleged."This amounts to conduct so shocking to the conscience and so inimical to our system of justice that it requires the dismissal of the charges for outrageous government conduct," Powell said.Flynn's defense team has also accused prosecutors of withholding classified information and other evidence favorable to Flynn."The government continues to hide evidence of the original 302 [the interview notes], other exculpatory texts, and other forms of information completely," Powell wrote.
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| 'Russians don't surrender': 'agent' Maria Butina arrives in Moscow Posted: 26 Oct 2019 04:21 AM PDT  Maria Butina clutched bouquets of flowers and exclaimed that "Russians don't surrender" as she arrived in Moscow on Saturday after serving nine months in a US jail for acting as a Russian government agent. Butina flew into Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after being deported from Miami following her release on Friday, AFP journalists said. "I didn't give up because I know I simply didn't have the right," Butina told a waiting crowd of journalists.
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| Tulsi Gabbard goes on Hannity, calls the impeachment inquiry secretive, says she's not seeking re-election Posted: 24 Oct 2019 11:28 PM PDT ![Tulsi Gabbard goes on Hannity, calls the impeachment inquiry secretive, says she's not seeking re-election]( "Tulsi Gabbard goes on Hannity, calls the impeachment inquiry secretive, says she's not seeking re-election") In a podcast last week, Hillary Clinton said an unidentified female 2020 Democratic presidential candidate is being groomed by Republicans to challenge the eventual Democratic nominee and help President Trump, with support from "a bunch" of Russian "sites and bots." Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) assumed (correctly) that Clinton was referring to her, and she really poured on the umbrage.To prove Clinton wrong, Gabbard went on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Thursday night -- she and Hannity both touted mistaken initial reporting that Clinton had claimed Russia, not Republicans, were "grooming" her for a third-party run -- and blamed Clinton (a former senator and secretary of state) for the last 18 years of U.S. wars, then echoed Republican complaints about the "transparency" of the House impeachment inquiry. "I don't know what's going on in those closed doors, we in Congress don't have access to the information that is being shared," said Gabbard, who isn't among the 59 Democrats and 48 Republicans who do have access.Gabbard did dodge some of Hannity's questions on Hunter Biden and Russian election interference, apparently getting Hannity to endorse paper ballots in national elections.After Hannity aired, Gabbard tweeted that she's "fully committed to my offer to serve you, the people of Hawaii & America, as your president & commander-in-chief. So I will not be seeking re-election to Congress in 2020." Since she's polling at 1.3 percent in the Democratic primary race, according to the RealClearPolitics average, that almost certainly means she's at least temporarily retiring from politics after she's passed over for the Democratic nomination -- or that she will, you know, run for president on a third-party ticket.
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| UPDATE 1-N.Korea tells U.S. not to ignore year-end deadline on Trump-Kim friendship - KCNA Posted: 26 Oct 2019 03:12 PM PDT ![UPDATE 1-N.Korea tells U.S. not to ignore year-end deadline on Trump-Kim friendship - KCNA]( "UPDATE 1-N.Korea tells U.S. not to ignore year-end deadline on Trump-Kim friendship - KCNA") North Korea said on Sunday there has been no progress in the North Korea-United States relations, and hostilities that could lead to an exchange of fire have continued, according to North Korea's state news agency KCNA. Kim Jong Un has set an end-of-the-year deadline for denuclearisation talks with Washington. Kim Yong Chol was the nuclear talks envoy to the United States for the discussions between the two countries before the second summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un in Vietnam in February ended in failure.
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| Hizbollah leader warns of civil war after days of Lebanon protests Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:21 AM PDT  The leader of Hizbollah on Friday warned Lebanon that nationwide protests calling for the overthrow of the government could lead to chaos and civil war. Hassan Nasrallah praised protesters for achieving "unprecedented" economic reforms but also suggested foreign intervention had a role in the demonstrations. Over a quarter of Lebanon's population are reported to have taken to the streets in anti-corruption protests over the past week. Hizbollah supporters have in recent days organised counter-attacks on the protests, which have so far remained largely free of sectarian division. The powerful Shiite group, which is backed regionally by Iran, is in coalition with the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Speaking to the nation for the first time on day nine of the mass protests, Nasrallah warned that he had "intelligence" of foreign "conspiracies" to drag Lebanon into civil war. Lebanon has been swept by more than a week of nationwide protests against the political elite Credit: AFP The leader claimed that the protests had started spontaneously, but were now being funded and organised by local and foreign actors who were exploiting the naivety of protestors. His speech echoed those given earlier this week by Mr Hariri and Michel Aoun, the country's president. On the streets, protesters appeared unmoved. "All of them means all of them" they chanted, in reference to the demand for the country's entire cabinet to be replaced. For the second day, security forces had to create human walls between the protestors and Hizbollah supporters in attempts to stop scuffles. "We are not going to stop our protests until we get what we want. We have been suffocated in these conditions for years. They have to go. All of them means all of them," said Hieba, a 42-year-old restaurant owner.
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| Birmingham couple charged with murder after abducted 3-year-old's body found in dumpster Posted: 26 Oct 2019 09:34 AM PDT  An Alabama couple have been charged with capital murder in the suffocation death of 3-year-old Kamille "Cupcake" McKinney who was found in a dumpster
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| Facebook pledged $1bn to help California's housing crisis. Can't they pay their taxes instead? Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:00 AM PDT  The goodwill offer will buy temporarily for the tech behemoth which has wreaked havoc on democracies across the worldFacebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. 'After Facebook offers up the billion, perhaps Zuckerberg will consider paying more taxes.' Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty ImagesOn Tuesday, Facebook announced it would contribute $1bn toward fixing California's existential housing crisis. This is a seemingly large number that will buy, temporarily, some goodwill for the tech behemoth, which has wreaked havoc on democracies across the world and hoovered revenue from news organizations.The $1bn in grants and loans would be used over the next decade. Elements include a $250m partnership with the state of California for mixed-income housing, $150m for subsidized and supportive housing for homeless people in the Bay Area, and $250m worth of land near Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters. It follows a $1bn pledge Google made earlier this year for a similar effort.Tech companies like Facebook have inexorably driven up rents in California's urban core, fueling wide-scale displacement and homelessness. Along with overly restrictive zoning, a failure of local municipalities to build more housing, and tenant laws that, until recently, were much friendlier to landlords, big tech's colonization of once affordable communities has ruined the lives of the working class and poor who can no longer afford to live near where they work.Yes, it's better that Facebook contributed $1bn to housing than nothing at all. But that fat round number is a sliver of California's $215bn budget and about 1/70th of Mark Zuckerberg's net worth. One billion, spent over a decade, will not significantly alter the lives of the people suffering most from the crisis. It amounts to little more than a PR salvo from a company in desperate need of a change in narrative.Were Facebook serious about paying reparations to the communities it has damaged, it would propose a figure far larger than $1bn. Zuckerberg would put his profits on the line to save California. But we know that won't happen. He is an oligarch of the new order, trying his best to mask his sin with a progressive sheen. He can't quite do it as well as he used to.After Facebook offers up the billion, perhaps Zuckerberg will consider paying more taxes. One of Facebook's great "accomplishments", as the Los Angeles Times reported in 2016, is dodging taxes. The tech giant offshored assets to Ireland, dropping its effective tax rate from 40 to 27% , beyond what was then the federal corporate rate of 35%.Paying more in taxes could help state and federal governments, which are actually accountable to voters, fund affordable housing initiatives. Locally, Facebook could make an actual difference by joining the titanic fight, set for November 2020, to repeal the hard limitation on raising California's property taxes that has existed since 1978.Affluent homeowners and commercial properties both see their increases capped annually; progressive policy wonks have long dreamed of increasing taxes on the major businesses, like Facebook, who pay relatively little to the state. There are businesses in California that have been paying property taxes based on assessments that haven't changed in 40 years.Facebook has been silent on repealing what is known in California as Proposition 13. If Facebook has any interest in doing more than carving out a crumb of its fortune for a meager housing initiative, it can start paying a tax bill commensurate with its civilization-altering wealth.If Facebook, however, inevitably joins other corporations in battling against raising taxes on businesses that could provide a windfall for schools and municipalities, it will, once again, expose itself for what it is: a hypocritical succubus on the body politic.
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| Execution of killer who boasted how he made victim suffer is delayed due to lethal injection drug shortage Posted: 26 Oct 2019 06:41 AM PDT  A prisoner who killed his cellmate with a makeshift knife, and a padlock in a sock, has had his execution delayed because Ohio has run out of lethal injection drugs.James Galen Hanna, 65, boasted that he made cellmate Peter Copas, 43, "suffer pretty good" after stabbing him in the eye with a modified paintbrush before beating him for two hours.
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| Impeachment witnesses are facing legal bills of $15,000 for testifying Posted: 25 Oct 2019 07:45 AM PDT  For the second time since Trump took office, an investigation into his conduct has set off a scramble across Washington for lawyers to represent witnesses and for the money to pay them.
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| Russian soldier kills 8 fellow servicemen in Siberia Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:03 AM PDT  The Russian Defense Ministry says a soldier killed eight of his comrades and wounded two others in a shooting outburst at a base in Siberia before being apprehended. The two wounded soldiers reportedly were in serious condition. Russia's Investigative Committee said it had opened a murder case against the suspect, whom it identified as 20-year-old Ramil Shamsutdinov.
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| Giuliani associate will have tough time keeping documents from prosecutors: experts Posted: 25 Oct 2019 10:20 AM PDT  On Wednesday, Lev Parnas pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court to using a shell company to donate money to a pro-Trump election committee and illegally raising money for a former congressman as part of an effort to have the president remove the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, has said Parnas and his co-defendant Igor Fruman helped Giuliani's push to investigate the president's Democratic political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Biden's son's work in Ukraine.
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| After woman set ablaze at Taco Bell in Florida, police investigate string of other fires Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:08 AM PDT  Tallahassee police responded to the Taco Bell Wednesday after a suspect allegedly doused the woman in gasoline and lit her on fire.
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| A fire in California's Sonoma County has burned nearly 22,000 acres. To avoid further risk, PG&E might orchestrate the state's largest-ever blackout. Posted: 25 Oct 2019 03:35 PM PDT  A wildfire ignited late Wednesday night in Sonoma County, California. The quick-moving blaze has spread across 21,900 acres, fueled by high winds.
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| Billions Almost Died: In 1969, Russia and China Almost Went to Nuclear War Posted: 26 Oct 2019 12:19 PM PDT  A scary close call.
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| Walmart’s Early Black Friday Deals on Tech Have Begun Posted: 25 Oct 2019 12:07 PM PDT  Save on electronics, home appliances, and more for the holidays.
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| Funeral set for girl abducted, killed in Alabama Posted: 25 Oct 2019 11:14 AM PDT  A funeral service is set for this weekend for a 3-year-old Alabama girl who was abducted from a birthday party and asphyxiated, and officials said Friday they are establishing a permanent reward fund in her memory. The service for Kamille McKinney was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, with burial to follow at Elmwood Cemetery. The funeral is planned for New Beginning Christian Ministry, where pastor Sylvester Wilson said the church has a 700-seat sanctuary and can use its fellowship hall as an overflow auditorium.
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| Marine Veteran Is Deported to El Salvador Posted: 26 Oct 2019 06:59 AM PDT ![Marine Veteran Is Deported to El Salvador]( "Marine Veteran Is Deported to El Salvador") A Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan was deported to El Salvador this week after several failed attempts to stay in the United States, where he had lived since he was 3 and had been convicted of several felonies, his lawyer and immigration officials said.The case was another chapter in the contentious debate over how the United States' immigration system handles military veterans who are not citizens and have been convicted of crimes, leaving them open to deportation.The deported man, Jose Segovia-Benitez, 38, who grew up in Long Beach, California, is in hiding in El Salvador after his removal Wednesday, his lawyer, Roy Petty, said Thursday night. Segovia-Benitez's background in the U.S. military makes him a target for kidnapping by gangs, Petty said."He's a Marine," Petty said. "He's tough. He's been in worse situations before. He's in good spirits."Lori K. Haley, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to answer questions about the case, saying in a statement, "Mr. Segovia-Benitez is a citizen of El Salvador who has repeatedly violated the laws of the United States."Segovia-Benitez was ordered removed in October 2018 and had been held at a detention center in Arizona for about a week before he was deported without advance notice, his lawyer said.Segovia-Benitez suffered a brain injury from an explosive device in Iraq and was honorably discharged from the military in 2004 after serving for five years, Petty said."He's been classified by the VA as 70% disabled for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder," Petty said, adding that his client had not received sufficient treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs.While in the military, Segovia-Benitez had applied for naturalization, Petty said, but because of his deployment and his injury, he was unable to complete the process.Segovia-Benitez repeatedly ran into legal trouble over the years. His felony convictions included assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment and narcotics possession, and he was sentenced to eight years in prison for corporal injury to a spouse.Petty said that people with traumatic brain injuries are more likely to act erratically.Carlos Luna, president of Green Card Veterans, an organization that works on behalf of veterans who are at risk of deportation or under removal orders, said Thursday: "The communities where these men and women come from are overpoliced. They are judged more harshly than other Americans."He added, "Veterans are no exception to any of these. In fact, we see an increased rate of veterans within our justice system."There is little data on how often veterans are deported, Luna said. The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report in June that said ICE had developed policies for handling cases of veterans who are not citizens and may face deportation, but the agency does not consistently adhere to those policies, and it does not consistently track the veterans.Segovia-Benitez was ordered deported Oct. 10, 2018, and he appealed his case with the Board of Immigration Appeals, which was denied, ICE said. He also filed two stay requests with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and those requests were also denied, according to the agency.Segovia-Benitez had nearly been deported Oct. 16 of this year, according to Petty. He was pulled off a plane bound for El Salvador after his lawyer contacted ICE arguing that his immigration case should be reopened. Segovia-Benitez was sent to the ICE facility in Arizona, where he was held until Wednesday.Segovia-Benitez's deportation was reported Wednesday by The Orange County Register, which had covered his case extensively.Efforts to stop Segovia-Benitez's deportation had reached Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who was asked to consider a pardon on an expedited basis, Petty said, adding that the governor was still weighing it.Vicky Waters, a spokeswoman for Newsom, said his office was "unable to discuss individual pardon applications but can assure that each application receives careful and individualized consideration."Segovia-Benitez's deportation added him to the list of deported people who have made national headlines after being deported to countries they had never visited or had left as children.Miguel Perez-Montes, an Army veteran who arrived in the United States legally when he was 8 and served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, was deported to Mexico in early 2018 after his application for citizenship was denied because of a 2010 felony drug conviction.Other deportation stories involving veterans have ended differently. Marco A. Chavez, a Marine veteran who was deported to Mexico in 2002, was allowed to return in 2017.Petty said he was still trying to reopen Segovia-Benitez's immigration case. "We're still able to present evidence showing that his life is in danger in El Salvador because of his service in the U.S. Marines," he said, adding that criminal defense lawyers are also working to reopen his criminal cases.Petty said it was "impossible to know" how long it could take to resolve Segovia-Benitez's case."Immigration could still choose to leave him outside of the country," he said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Beto O'Rourke 'open to the idea' of letting people use AR-15s, AK-47s at hunting clubs, gun ranges Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:41 PM PDT  Beto O'Rourke on Friday left the door open for allowing some people to keep assault-style weapons like AR-15s and AK-47s at gun ranges and hunting clubs.
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| Tens of thousands evacuated as wildfires rage in California Posted: 25 Oct 2019 01:28 AM PDT  California firefighters battled through the night to contain a fast-moving wildfire driven by high winds that was threatening to engulf thousands of buildings. Around 40,000 people were told to flee the Tick Fire, which was raging across 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares) just north of Los Angeles. The fire erupted as much of the state was under a red-flag warning because of gusty winds, high temperatures and low humidity which make perfect conditions for wildfires.
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| It looks like the Trump administration's pressure campaign against Ukraine may have gone further than freezing military aid Posted: 24 Oct 2019 06:53 PM PDT  John Bolton reportedly told an official that President Donald Trump was likely to oppose any policy that benefited Ukraine's newly elected government.
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| Kellyanne Conway defends heated phone call: 'I didn't say anything in that phone call I haven't said publicly before' Posted: 25 Oct 2019 09:13 AM PDT  Kellyanne Conway on Friday defended her heated phone call with a Washington Examiner reporter, denying criticism that she bullied or abused the journalist. "I didn't say anything in that phone call I haven't said publicly before," the counselor to the president told Fox News.
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| 13 bodies found near Mexican resort of Puerto Peñasco Posted: 25 Oct 2019 08:55 AM PDT ![13 bodies found near Mexican resort of Puerto Peñasco]( "13 bodies found near Mexican resort of Puerto Peñasco") Volunteer searchers found 12 skeletons and one decomposed body in a shallow pit in the desert near the Mexican resort of Puerto Peñasco. Prosecutors in the northern border state of Sonora said late Thursday that two of the bodies may be women. The bodies were found by a group of women known as the Searchers of Puerto Peñasco.
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| This General Wants to Launch Nuclear Weapons at North Korea and China Posted: 26 Oct 2019 04:30 AM PDT  If President Truman had let him.
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| Mexico asks Interpol to help find former oil union boss-source Posted: 26 Oct 2019 01:51 PM PDT ![Mexico asks Interpol to help find former oil union boss-source]( "Mexico asks Interpol to help find former oil union boss-source") Mexican prosecutors have requested help from Interpol to locate the former head of Mexico's oil workers union, Carlos Romero Deschamps, just days after he resigned amid allegations of wrongdoing, a government official said on Saturday. "The attorney general's office has asked for Interpol to intervene," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Earlier on Saturday, Mexican news network Milenio reported that the 76-year-old Romero Deschamps had left the country.
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| The Suwalki Gap Is NATO’s Achilles’ Heel and the Place Where Russia Could Start War Posted: 26 Oct 2019 02:11 AM PDT  Mladen Antonov/GettyThey came trundling through the town of Voronezh in western Russia in broad daylight on Oct. 3. Green army vehicles on flatbed train cars, apparently heading west, toward Russia's borders with Ukraine and Belarus.The next day, social media users spotted Russian-made armored vehicles speeding down a highway in Belarus. "The local forest is literally crammed with armored vehicles," reported Charter '97, a Belarusian news website.NATO Fearful as Trump Flip-FlopsRussia, like all major military powers, frequently moves its military forces around its own territory and deploys them to allied countries for exercises. The Belarusian and Russian armies as recently as September conducted a major military exercise involving 12,000 troops and 950 vehicles. What's remarkable—and, for many, worrying—about the October sightings is where they took place: near the Suwalki Gap, where two NATO countries, Poland and Lithuania, have a roughly 40-mile border running through heavily forested territory that separates close Russian ally Belarus from Russia's enclave on the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad. As tensions between Russia and the West escalate and Russia cements its land-grab in Ukraine, U.S. and allied military planners have cast a nervous gaze on this contentious bit of real estate. If the new cold war turns hot, the Suwalki Gap just might be where the fighting starts.For NATO, that's a problem. The Suwalki Gap, which some experts also call the "Suwalki Corridor," is on the alliance's territorial fringes, where European military might is at its thinnest. But it butts up against a major concentration of Russian forces in Kaliningrad. "The Suwałki Corridor is where the many weaknesses in NATO's strategy and force posture converge," Ben Hodges, Janusz Bugajski, and Peter Doran explained in a 2018 report for the Center for European Policy in Washington, D.C..Hodges, for one, knows what he's talking about. A retired U.S. Army general, Hodges from 2014 to 2017 commanded thousands of American ground troops in Europe. Right before retiring he organized NATO's first major exercise along the Suwalki Gap. "The gap is vulnerable," he warned at the time.With 29 member states including the United States, NATO possesses far more military power than Russia. But many of NATO's reserves of troops and tanks are based hundreds or, in the case of American forces, thousands of miles from potential battlefields such as the Suwalki Gap. Russia, on the other hand, has concentrated troops and vehicles in its Western Military District, just a short trip by road or rail to the Suwalki Gap.The imbalance is striking. In 2014 and 2015 the California think-tank RAND simulated a Russian attack across the Suwalki Gap. The Russians should be able quickly to mobilize 25 battalions—around 10,000 ground troops—for the assault, RAND calculated. NATO would be able immediately to mobilize just 17 battalions with around 6,800 troops.But the troop-count belies the true balance of power. Every battalion Russia could call up for the attack possesses armored vehicles, including heavy tanks. Just one of NATO's nearby units has any armored vehicles at all. And those vehicles are Stryker armored cars belonging to a U.S. Army reconnaissance unit. The Stryker's biggest weapon is a 30-millimeter-diameter cannon. Russian tanks pack 125-millimeter-diameter guns with an order of magnitude more explosive power.When RAND gamed out the Suwalki Gap battle, the results were chilling, if not surprising. "NATO's light forces were not only outgunned by the much heavier Russian units, but their lack of maneuverability meant that they could be pinned and bypassed if the Russian players so desired," RAND explained. "By and large, NATO's infantry found themselves unable even to retreat successfully and were destroyed in place."In RAND's admittedly extreme case-study, Russia quickly closes the Suwalki Gap, creating a territorial bridge between Belarus and Kaliningrad and cutting off NATO states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from the rest of the alliance. Such a move could incite a major war. Indeed, for Russia that could be the point—to start a fight that it views as inevitable, and to do so on its own terms. "While Russia is unlikely to start a military campaign just to capture Suwalki, it would undoubtedly try to secure this territory if conflict were to emerge in the region," Agnia Grigas, a Lithuania-born American political scientist and Russia expert, told The Daily Beast.There would be warning signs of an impending Russian attack, the experts at RAND and the Center for European Policy explained. Russian battalions could speed in and out of the Suwalki Gap, temporarily holding sections of the border and testing NATO's resolve. The possibility of Russia launching small-scale incursions as a prelude to a bigger assault helps to explain the alarm over the October troop-sightings. But secret probes are equally likely. These could involve the same type of "hybrid" Russian forces—basically, intelligence operatives and special forces commandos in disguise—that appeared in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula right before Russian tanks rolled in. These so-called "little green men" could scout out invasion routes, mobilize pro-Russian locals and prepare to seize government buildings and set up checkpoints. Detecting these interlopers is critical for NATO's defense. "NATO has to watch not only Russian build-up in Kaliningrad and Belarus but also Russia's soft power and intelligence operations in Suwalki," Grigas said.Ground Zero in the New Cold WarBut there's a problem. Lithuania controls one side of the Suwalki Gap. Poland controls the other. Both countries are NATO members, but they haven't always gotten along. "Poland and Lithuania are cooperating allies today but they have a history of tensions and conflict over territory and minorities," Grigas explained.The Kremlin could exploit those tensions, Grigas said. Russia might count on Lithuania and Poland refusing to share information as more and more little green men appeared in each other's territory.After years of war games, simulations and studies—and occasional scares such as Russia's October troop movements—NATO is well aware of its problems along the Suwalki Gap. And the alliance is taking steps to try to solve them.The U.S. Army has begun installing heavier weapons and other new gear on the Stryker armored vehicles that would be the first to fight any Russian invasion force. The Army has announced that in early 2020 it will practice deploying 20,000 troops from the United States to Europe in order to "build readiness within the alliance and deter potential adversaries." NATO in September set up a new headquarters in Germany whose sole job is speeding reinforcements around alliance territory. As for those Russian vehicles in the woods in Belarus? "I have no idea what is going on or whether it's significant," Pavel Podvig, an independent expert on the Russian military, told The Daily Beast. "I hope it's not."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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