| Trump says war would lead to 'end' of Iran Posted: 20 May 2019 04:23 PM PDT  President Donald Trump says Iran would face its 'official end' if a war broke out between the two countries.
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| Hospital that treated baby cut from womb investigated Posted: 21 May 2019 03:02 PM PDT  CHICAGO (AP) — The agency that licenses and inspects health care facilities in Illinois has started an investigation of a suburban Chicago hospital where doctors treated a baby brought in by a woman claiming to be his mother, a spokeswoman for the agency said Tuesday. The woman was charged weeks later with killing the actual mother and cutting the child from her womb.
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| Is It Cheaper To Buy A 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback From Britain? Posted: 20 May 2019 01:03 PM PDT  This immaculate 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback is estimated to sell at British auction for $95K. It's hard not to whisper Steve McQueen's name when presented with a Ford Mustang 390 GT Fastback, even if it isn't a 1968 model. The American classifieds may provide evidence of eye-watering sums being traded for healthy Fastback specimens, but it's not always the case in Great Britain.
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| Google and Android system start to cut ties with Huawei Posted: 19 May 2019 09:50 PM PDT  US internet giant Google, whose Android mobile operating system powers most of the world's smartphones, said Sunday it was beginning to cut ties with China's Huawei, which Washington considers a national security threat. In the midst of a trade war with Beijing, President Donald Trump has barred US companies from engaging in telecommunications trade with foreign companies said to threaten American national security. The measure targets Huawei, a Chinese telecoms giant in Washington's sights that is listed by the Commerce Department among firms with which American companies can only engage in trade after obtaining the green light from the authorities.
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| Guatemalan teen dies at Border Patrol station, 5th minor to die in US custody in 6 months Posted: 20 May 2019 06:09 PM PDT  Customs and Border Protection said the 16-year-old from Guatemala was found unresponsive during a welfare check in the Rio Grande Valley.
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| Eiffel Tower climber in custody after daring ascent Posted: 20 May 2019 05:19 PM PDT ![Eiffel Tower climber in custody after daring ascent]( "Eiffel Tower climber in custody after daring ascent") Rescuers successfully talked down a man who scaled the upper heights of the Eiffel Tower on Monday, forcing the monument's evacuation, and handed him over to police. Television channels ran live shots as rescuers perched on the 324-metre (1,063-foot) tower's wrought-iron struts, just below the highest viewing platform, tried to persuade the unknown man to give himself up. The lattice tower, named after its designer and builder Gustave Eiffel, is one of the world's most recognizable landmarks.
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| China's Navy Is Growing So Fast Its Running Out of Names For Its Warships Posted: 21 May 2019 03:32 AM PDT  China's navy has a new problem: not enough names for its rapidly growing fleet of warships."China is running out of provincial capitals to name new destroyers, and it might have to turn to other big domestic cities, which reflects the country's rapid naval development in recent years," according to Chinese newspaper Global Times.The People's Liberation Army Navy recently named its first Type 055 destroyer the Nanchang, which is the capital city of East China's Jiangxi Province.One of the three other Type 055 destroyers will be named Lhasa, the capital of Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, according to Chinese media. That just leaves Nanning and Taipei as the names of provincial capitals for destroyers (Taipei is Taiwan's capital, though Taiwan has not yet declared independence as a separate nation from China).Which means non-capital cities will have to bequeath their names to Chinese destroyers. The latest destroyer is named Qiqihar, which is a non-capital city in in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. A few ships have been named after major cities, such as the Shenzen, a Type 051 destroyer."Chinese destroyers and frigates should be named after big and medium Chinese cities, according to the naval vessels naming regulation," Global Times said. "This means naming of destroyers does not necessarily have to use provincial capitals, as it was a non-binding tradition."
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| Bernie Sanders Launches a Deeply Misguided Attack on Charter Schools Posted: 20 May 2019 01:27 PM PDT  One of the great benefits of living life well outside the Beltway is that it's easy to take my eyes off the swamp, look to the states surrounding me, and see places where politics actually function as they're supposed to. I can even, occasionally, see those issues on which Democrats and Republicans might work together, united in common purpose, for the common good.Exhibit A: the charter-school movement. It's granted an invaluable degree of educational choice to families who long lacked the flexibility that prosperous suburban and upper-middle-class parents take for granted, and its extraordinary growth is a bipartisan achievement.There are times when it seems like everyone likes charter schools. The Trump Department of Education has issued hundreds of millions of dollars in charter-school grants. The Obama administration invested in charter schools. As Newark mayor, Democrat Cory Booker "bet big" on charter schools, and athletes and celebrities have personally invested in their success, often with outstanding results.Of course, not every charter school is good. Not every charter school is a success. But if there has ever existed anything like a broad point of left–right agreement in the American education debate, it's that charters represent a vital piece of the educational puzzle, an option that can and does transform students' lives.So why did Bernie Sanders announce last week that, if elected president, he would declare war on charter schools? His poorly named Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education (after all, urban, nonwhite students are among the prime beneficiaries of charter-school choice) would "ban for-profit charter schools," and "halt the use of public funds to underwrite new charter schools" until they complied with a series of federal conditions that would change their governance and facilitate their unionization (many charter-school faculties aren't unionized). In so doing, it would remove many of the distinctive qualities that helped make charter schools truly competitive with conventional public schools.It's tempting to explain the plan as little more than coalition politics, Sanders's effort to cozy up to the teachers' unions at the expense of student welfare. But that's unfair. I know enough people in the greater Bernie orbit to know that they sincerely believe a unionized public-school monopoly in K–12 education represents the best chance for new generations of kids. They believe that, properly funded and led, such a system would facilitate academic achievement and social cohesion.But here's the core problem: The interest in a collective solution to a series of individual educational challenges understates the reality that choice, by itself, is a vital value in a child's education. And the power of choice cannot be measured by test scores alone, even though the best charter schools yield spectacular results.I think about my own parenting experience. Like many millions of American families who take their power over their kids' education for granted, we enjoy multiple privileges a poor family doesn't. We have the job flexibility to live in any number of places, and we can afford housing in a good school district. If we lived in a county or town with a struggling school district, we could afford modest private-school tuition. And back when we lived in Center City, Philadelphia — at a time when we couldn't easily move and couldn't afford private school — we were fortunate enough to win a lottery to put our oldest child in an outstanding charter elementary school.With each of the choices we've made for our kids' education over the years, test scores were among the least important factors we considered. We wanted to know the culture of the school and the character of the teachers. We wondered about athletic opportunities. We were concerned with peer and parental influence. The school was going to play a part in raising our children, and a slight percentage change in a math or language test score was meaningless compared to our concern with the growth and development of their personal characters.The Sanders approach wouldn't take away choice from parents like us. We could still find private schools. We could still move to better school districts. We could still home school. Charter schools exist in the suburbs and in rural America, but they haven't had the same impact there that they've had in American cities. We'd barely feel the effects of the Sanders policy; its brunt would instead be borne by America's most vulnerable families. Sanders's plan tells those families that he knows what's best for them, that his partners in the unions know how to build the schools they need better than they do.This is anything but equity. It's anything but fairness. One of the enduring challenges of American public life is the sad reality that children face fundamentally different educational opportunities through the accident of birth. The existence of choice itself is a luxury. It's a thing of immense value, and many millions of parents can't even comprehend a life where they don't have the true, final word over their child's education.I'm writing these words as I fly to give a series of speeches in Texas sponsored by the Texas Charter Schools Association and the National Review Institute. I've been writing and speaking about school choice for much of my adult life. I've been litigating on its behalf for just as long. And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that the desire to choose what's best for one's own child crosses racial, religious, and partisan lines. It's a broadly felt human need.Bernie Sanders makes his intentions crystal clear. In his plan, he writes, "We do not need two schools systems; we need to invest in our public schools system." This is exactly wrong. One size does not fit all. Sanders looks at parents and declares that he knows best. Parents should look back at him and respond, quite simply: I know my child, and I want to shape his destiny. Your collective solutions cannot meet my family's needs.Editor's Note: A previous version of this article contained a reference to the success of LeBron James's I Promise school in Akron, Ohio, as an example of celebrity support for charter schools. The I Promise School is not a charter but a nontraditional public school that operates within the Akron public-school system. We regret the error.
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| Ford to cut 7,000 jobs, 10% of global staff Posted: 20 May 2019 07:21 AM PDT  Ford plans to cut 7,000 jobs, or 10 percent of its global workforce, as part of a reorganization as it revamps its vehicle offerings, the company said Monday. The reorganization will involve some layoffs and reassignments and should be complete by the end of August, a Ford spokeswoman said. Ford has been phasing out most sedan models in the United States as more consumers have opted for pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.
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| Iran Accelerates Production of Enriched Uranium as Tensions Rise Posted: 20 May 2019 01:06 PM PDT  The semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Behrouz Kamalvandi, an official at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, as saying that Iran had increased its output of 3.67% enriched uranium as of Monday, and that the United Nations nuclear watchdog had been informed. Crucially, Iran hasn't increased the level to which it is enriching beyond the agreed limit. Tehran has already announced it stopped complying with a 300-kilogram cap on the storage of enriched uranium and heavy water imposed by the multilateral accord, and said it would abandon limits on uranium enrichment unless Europe throws it an economic lifeline within 60 days, setting an ultimatum for the survival of the landmark agreement.
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| Abortion ban: Georgia prosecutors refuse to enforce 'heartbeat' law Posted: 21 May 2019 03:37 AM PDT  District lawyers in Georgia have announced they will not prosecute women for getting an abortion after the US state effectively banned the procedure.Georgia governor Brian Kemp signed the controversial "heartbeat" abortion ban into law earlier in the month – giving the southern state one of the most restrictive laws in the US.The legislation, which has provoked outrage among women's rights groups, bans abortion once cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo. This can be as early as six weeks – at which point most women do not yet know they are pregnant. The bill imposes jail sentences for women found guilty of aborting or attempting to abort their pregnancies, with the potential for life imprisonment and the death penalty. It is not scheduled to come into effect until 1 January and is expected to face challenges in the courts – with it potentially being postponed. But anti-abortion activists hope challenges will lead to the US Supreme Court reversing Roe vs Wade – the landmark Supreme Court decision which legalised abortion nationwide in 1973 – especially with new conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh sitting on the court.The Supreme Court has previously ruled that states cannot ban abortion before a foetus is viable – about 23 to 25 weeks.District prosecutors for Georgia's four most populous counties – Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb – have said they would not, or could not, prosecute women under the controversial new law."As District Attorney with charging discretion, I will not prosecute individuals pursuant to HB 481 [the heartbeat bill] given its ambiguity and constitutional concerns," DeKalb County district attorney Sherry Boston told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution."As a woman and mother, I am concerned about the passage and attempted passage of laws such as this one in Georgia, Alabama, and other states."She added: "There is no language outlined in HB 481 explicitly prohibiting a district attorney from bringing criminal charges against anyone and everyone involved in obtaining and performing what is otherwise currently a legal medical procedure".According to the publication, the technical language of the bill means that district attorneys could potentially seek a murder charge against someone who breaches the heartbeat law."As a matter of law (as opposed to politics) this office will not be prosecuting any women under the new law as long as I'm district attorney," Gwinnett County DA Danny Porter said. He said he did not think it would be possible to prosecute a woman for either murder or unlawful abortion if she got an abortion after six weeks.John Melvin, acting District Attorney of Cobb County, echoed this position, saying women could "absolutely not" be prosecuted under the unlawful abortion statute.Fulton County district attorney Paul Howard "has no intention of ever prosecuting a woman under this new law", a spokesperson said, adding that he also would not prosecute abortion providers.Georgia's new bill does include exceptions for cases involving rape, incest, or in situations where the health of a mother is in danger."Planned Parenthood will be suing the State of Georgia. We will fight this terrible bill because this is about our patients' lives," Dr Leana Wen, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said.Georgia's bill comes after Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a controversial abortion bill into law last week that is the most restrictive abortion bill in the US.Under the law, doctors would face 10 years in prison for attempting to terminate a pregnancy and 99 years for carrying out the procedure. The abortion ban, which has been branded a "death sentence for women", would even criminalise performing abortions in cases of rape and incest. Ms Ivey said the new law might be "unenforceable" due to Roe v Wade but said the new law was passed with the aim of challenging that decision.Alabama state lawmakers compare abortions in America to the Holocaust and other modern genocides in the legislation – spurring Jewish activists and abortion rights groups to rebuke the bill as "deeply offensive."Alabama's new bill comes as politicians in several other states propose legislation to restrict abortion – with some 16 other states looking at new measures.More than a dozen other states have passed or are considering versions of Georgia's law. Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have also approved bans on abortion once a foetal heartbeat is detected. On Friday, Missouri lawmakers passed a bill banning abortions after eight weeks.Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia vowed to sue on the day the governor signed Georgia's heartbeat bill. It has also fuelled many in the entertainment industry to threaten to boycott Georgia."We're putting lawmakers on notice: Your votes are far outside the mainstream, and we will now spend our time and energy launching a campaign to replace you," Staci Fox, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast, said at the time.A federal judge blocked a heartbeat bill in Kentucky which was scheduled to come into effect instantly as it could be unconstitutional, while Mississippi passed a six-week abortion law in March that is not due to come into force until July and is also facing challenges.Ohio passed a similarly restrictive law in 2016 which was vetoed by the governor.
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| 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback Restoration Is A Work Of Art Posted: 21 May 2019 03:38 AM PDT  The Ford Mustang is an American automotive icon known the world over. Ford's pony car is the four-wheeled embodiment of the American dream. Petty's Garage is well-known for its work on modern Mustangs, enhancing their performance and producing limited edition special models.
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| Boeing dismissed chance of 'bird strike' that may have caused second 737 Max crash Posted: 21 May 2019 08:25 AM PDT  * US investigators believe bird collision may have triggered crash * Ethiopian Airlines crash occurred months after Lion Air disasterTwo local boys examine debris gathered by workers during the continuing recovery efforts at the crash site in Bishoftu, Ethiopia, in March. Photograph: Jemal Countess/Getty ImagesBoeing officials, shortly after the first fatal crash of its 737 Max jet, played down the likelihood that a bird strike could impair the plane's sensor equipment. Now investigators are exploring whether such a situation led to a second deadly accident just five months later.According to the Wall Street Journal, US aviation authorities believe a bird collision may have set off the sequence of events that led to the downing of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max in March, in which 157 people died.American Airlines pilots called a meeting with Boeing last November after a Lion Air Max crashed in Indonesia, killing all 189 passengers and crew.The Journal reviewed a recording of the meeting in which Mike Sinnett, Boeing's vice-president of product strategy, raised and dismissed the possibility that a bird strike could trigger a second crash by affecting the Max's controversial sensor system.Sinnett told the pilots he was "absolutely" confident that heightened pilot awareness following the Lion Air disaster had further reduced the chances of another accident.Ethiopian Airlines has been facing criticism of its pilots' conduct in the wake of the crash. At a House hearing into the accidents last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator, Daniel Elwell, said pilot error contributed to the crash.In both crashes, the Max's anti-stall system, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (Mcas), appears to have forced the planes' noses down shortly after takeoff, leaving the pilots struggling unsuccessfully to right the jets before they crashed.The Mcas system may have been reacting to faulty information from sensors that could have been damaged by a bird strike.Ethiopian Airlines has rejected accusations that its pilots contributed to the crash. Officials have said Boeing failed to provide cockpit alerts that would have warned the pilots about sensor errors.Last week, the airline said its pilots followed procedures set out by the FAA and Boeing but "none of the expected warnings appeared in the cockpit, which deprived the pilots of necessary and timely information".Nine countries and the US justice department are currently investigating the crashes.
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| Prosecutors: Agent called migrants savages before hitting 1 Posted: 20 May 2019 04:26 PM PDT  PHOENIX (AP) — A Border Patrol agent in Arizona sent texts calling immigrants "savages" and "subhuman" the month before using his patrol vehicle to knock over a Guatemalan man who was trying to flee, prosecutors say.
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| Dog sitter caught walking around naked in customer's home Posted: 21 May 2019 10:50 AM PDT  A dog sitter has been caught on camera walking around her client's house naked. Rosie Brown hired Casey Brengle to look after her two dogs, Penny and Daisy, while she went to a wedding for four days.
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| InterDigital expects to be able to license 5G tech to Huawei, despite U.S. ban Posted: 20 May 2019 06:34 PM PDT  InterDigital and Qualcomm are the two major American holders of patents for wireless networking technology, including the 5G networks rolling out this year in China. Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order restricting the ability of U.S. firms to sell technology to Huawei, though officials on Monday eased some of those restrictions for 90 days. InterDigital, which generates revenue by developing wireless technologies and then licensing out the patents, said it believes it can continue its efforts to strike a 5G deal with Huawei because export control laws do not cover patents, which are public records and therefore not confidential technology.
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| Could One of America's Allies Take Down the F-35 Program? Posted: 21 May 2019 01:01 AM PDT  What does America need to save its troubled F-35 stealth fighter?Turkey, that's what.Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan recently warned that the multinational F-35 program, of which Turkey is a member, would fail if Turkey were excluded. Turkey is facing sanctions, including being dropped from the F-35 program if it goes ahead with purchasing Russia's S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, which has raised Washington's fears that F-35 secrets might be leaked to Russia. The U.S. has stopped shipping equipment to Turkey for that nation's planned purchase of 100 F-35s, while the first two aircraft officially delivered to Turkey are still in the United States.For its part, Ankara is adamant that it has a right to purchase both American stealth fighters and Russian anti-aircraft missiles, despite the fact that the S-400 is one of the most likely Russian weapons to be used against the F-35. "We were surely not going to remain silent against our right to self-defense being disregarded and attempts to hit us where it hurts," Erdogan said at a Turkish defense trade show. "This is the kind of process that is behind the S-400 agreement we reached with Russia.""Nowadays, we are being subject to a similar injustice - or rather an imposition - on the F-35s ... Let me be frank: An F-35 project from which Turkey is excluded is bound to collapse completely."
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| How do Democrats beat Trump? Hickenlooper says Biden's backward-looking message isn't the way Posted: 20 May 2019 11:33 AM PDT  "When you are rebuilding, never say you are going to rebuild what was there before," Hickenlooper told USA TODAY. "It won't satisfy. "
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| Ukraine's Zelenskiy calls early elections as he disbands parliament in first act as president Posted: 20 May 2019 02:41 AM PDT  Ukraine's new president dismissed parliament and called a snap election just moments after being sworn into office on Monday. Volodymyr Zelensky, whose Servant of People party has no representation in the current parliament, also used his inaugural address to promise an end to the war in the east of the country and asked MPs to fire several key officials including the current defence minister. "All my life I tried to do all I could so that Ukrainians laughed," Mr Zelensky, a television comedian, told MPs during a ceremony in the parliament in Kiev. "Now I will do all I can so that Ukrainians at least do not cry any more." Mr Zelensky, 41, won the presidency last month with a landslide run-off victory against incumbent Petro Poroshenko, who had been in power since 2014. He had no prior political experience, and he was mostly known for his role in a television comedy 'Servant of the People', in which he played a school teacher who accidentally becomes president of Ukraine after ranting against corruption. He named his party after the TV show. Zelenskiy greets his supporters as he walks to take the oath of office ahead of his inauguration ceremony Credit: REUTERS Critics say he has given few specific details about his plans for presidency and have questioned his links to Ihor Kolomoisky, a billionaire oligarch who had fallen out with the previous government. On Monday he dispensed with the traditional motorcade and arrived at the parliament building on foot, he stopping to pose for selfies and high-five his cheering supporters who gathered outside. Inside, he delivered a punchy and at times confrontational speech in which he said his priority would be ending the war, which has claimed at least 13,000 lives since Russia sent troops across the border to support a separatist uprising in 2014. "I'm ready to do everything so that our heroes don't die there," he said. "I'm ready to lose my popularly and, if necessary, I'm ready to lose my post so that we have peace," he said. He said he would begin by demanding Russia release Ukrainian prisoners. When one MP heckled for switching from Ukrainian into Russian in an appeal to residents in the east, he snapped back: "Thank you for continuing to divide our people". He also spoke against a deep-rooted culture of corruption among the government officials, saying politicians themselves had created "the opportunities to bribe, steal and pluck the resources." He suggested the MPs should lift their own right to immunity from prosecution and demanding the dismissal the defense minister, the head of the Security Service, and the prosecutor general. The next elections for the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's single-house parliament, were scheduled to take place in October. Mr Zelensky said they would be brought forward to July. The move appears designed to help his party win a majority of seats before the surge of popularity on which he rode to office dissipates. In a symbolic move Volodymyr Groysman, the current prime minister, said he would resign Wednesday, inviting Mr Zelenskiy to take full responsibility for the country. If parliament accepts his resignation, he will remain as a caretaker prime minister until the snap election. Russian media reported that no officials were invited to the ceremony from Moscow. The Kremlin said Vladimir Putin would not congratulate Mr Zelensky on his electoral victory until there was progress in ending the war.
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| PHOTOS: Vivid Sydney 2019 Posted: 20 May 2019 01:34 PM PDT ![PHOTOS: Vivid Sydney 2019]( "PHOTOS: Vivid Sydney 2019") An illuminated trail of almost 300 lit lanterns of endangered species will glow every night at the zoo during Vivid Sydney which runs from May 24 throughout Sydney with hundreds of lit buildings and exhibits which attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
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| Mississippi judge who blocked 15-week abortion ban hears arguments on fetal heartbeat law Posted: 21 May 2019 01:49 PM PDT  Mississippi's fetal heartbeat law which bans abortions after approximately six weeks could be blocked or upheld by Judge Carlton Reeves.
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| ‘Fox & Friends’ Bashes Pete Buttigieg’s Fox News Town Hall: He Showed ‘No Courage’ by Attacking Us Posted: 20 May 2019 08:04 AM PDT  The morning after Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg took aim at stars Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham during a Fox News town hall event, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade blasted the South Bend mayor as cowardly, suggesting Democrats shouldn't come on Fox if they're going to attack the network's primetime hosts.During Sunday night's forum with anchor Chris Wallace, Mayor Pete acknowledged the controversy over his participation, considering fellow Democratic contenders Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris have refused network invitations and the DNC has barred Fox from hosting any 2020 primary debates. Buttigieg conceded that his fellow candidates do have a point, ripping into Carlson and Ingraham for their inflammatory rhetoric."I get where that's coming from especially when you see what goes on with some opinion hosts on this network," Buttigieg declared. "I mean when you've got Tucker Carlson saying that immigrants make America dirty. When you've got Laura Ingraham comparing detention centers with children in cages to summer camps."With fellow host Steve Doocy noting Monday morning that Buttigieg received loud applause from the New Hampshire audience for wanting to get rid of the Electoral College, Kilmeade claimed the mayor had stacked the crowd."Because they are all his friends," the pro-Trump Fox host replied. "I think he is related to the whole audience."After that little conspiratorial bit, Kilmeade then tore into the Indiana mayor for his criticism of Fox's hard-right opinion side."Don't hop on our channel and continue to put down the other hosts on the channel, or the channel," Kilmeade exclaimed. "If you feel that negative about it, don't come."He added: "Because for him to go out there and take shots at our primetime lineup without going on our primetime lineup shows, to me, absolutely no courage."Buttigieg, meanwhile, also told Wallace that there are reasons "why anybody has to swallow hard and think twice before participating in this media ecosystem," noting that Fox News opinion hosts don't operate in "good faith."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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| Ring doorbell video captures man kidnapping Texas girl, 8 Posted: 20 May 2019 07:50 AM PDT  The kidnapping was caught on Ring doorbell video, showing the man pull up and take Salem from her mother's arms.
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| Exclusive: Google suspends some business with Huawei after Trump blacklist - source Posted: 20 May 2019 01:35 AM PDT  Holders of current Huawei smartphones with Google apps, however, will continue to be able to use and download app updates provided by Google, a Google spokesperson said, confirming earlier reporting by Reuters. "For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices," the spokesperson said, without giving further details. The suspension could hobble Huawei's smartphone business outside China as the tech giant will immediately lose access to updates to Google's Android operating system.
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| Huawei to the Danger Zone: Chinese Telecommunications Company Threatens Britain's National Security Posted: 20 May 2019 10:21 AM PDT  The news that the United States has put Huawei on the Entities List comes as the Henry Jackson Society publishes a report on the prospect of including Huawei into the United Kingdom's build of 5G. I coauthored this report alongside Member of Parliament Bob Seely and Professor Peter Varnish. My job was to look into claims around Huawei's place within China's foreign-policy strategy. We have all seen claims around it being too close to the PLA or China's security services, but were they actually true? Were these claims just an overly-protectionist America seeking to discredit a successful Chinese tech competitor to Apple and Silicon Valley? This whole discussion took place in the wake of a UK National Security Council meeting in late April, during which time—if the Telegraph newspaper is to believed—the council decided that Huawei could take part in a limited part of the UK's 5G network.Our findings were absolutely clear: Huawei was constrained, influenced and directed by the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese state in a multiplicity of ways.Economic Direction
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| Trump’s Huawei Attack Is a Serious Mistake Posted: 20 May 2019 03:30 AM PDT  The nuclear missile the U.S. just launched at Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is a case in point. Last week, the Commerce Department placed Huawei and nearly 70 of its affiliates on an "Entity List," which means that U.S. suppliers may now need a license to do business with them. If the ban is applied stringently, it could drive one of China's most high-profile companies — employing more than 180,000 people — out of business.
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| Australia's conservatives secure majority government: ABC Posted: 19 May 2019 11:21 PM PDT  Australia's ruling conservative coalition is set to secure a governing majority in its shock election victory over the centre-left Labor Party, the national broadcaster ABC projected Monday. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Liberal-National coalition will hold at least 77 seats in the 151-member lower house, one more than needed to govern on its own, ABC's election analysts projected. A number of close races across the vast island continent were still to be officially decided following Saturday's vote, with the formal count by the Australian Electoral Commission not expected to conclude until later this week.
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| Apple offered to buy Tesla back in 2013 for more than it’s worth today Posted: 21 May 2019 09:30 AM PDT  For years, analysts have maintained that Apple needs to move past the iPhone and look for additional revenue streams. Consequently, many analysts over the years have proposed that Apple would be well advised to make a blockbuster acquisition and snatch up a company like Netflix or Tesla.Interestingly enough, it turns out that Apple actually did make an effort to acquire Tesla six years ago at a valuation of $240 a share. Incidentally, Tesla's share price has been reeling lately and is currently hovering in the $200 range. Word of Apple's efforts to acquire Tesla was brought to light by analyst Craig Irwin of Roth Capital Partners who revealed the interesting tidbit on CNBC (via Electrek) earlier today."Around 2013, there was a serious bid from Apple at around $240 a share," Irwin said."This is something we did multiple checks on," Irwin added. "I have complete confidence that this is accurate. Apple bid for Tesla. I don't know if it got to a formal paperwork stage, but I know from multiple different sources that this was very credible."Notably, there have been rumblings over the years regarding Apple's interest in Tesla, but this is the first time we've seen a report that Apple was legitimately trying to make a serious play for the electric automaker.You might also recall reports from a few years back which revealed that Elon Musk, sometime in mid-2013 -- sat down for a meeting with Apple's mergers and acquisitions chief Adrian Perica and, rumor has it, Tim Cook himself.Apple, of course, has been busy working on its own car initiative -- known as Project Titan -- for the past few years, though it remains to be seen if anything concrete ever manifests from its efforts. Early reports hinted that Apple was set on designing and building its own car, though a plethora of technical challenges ultimately resulted in a few rounds of layoffs and employees being shifted over to other projects. Last we heard, Apple's Project Titan is still ongoing but is now focused on autonomous systems as opposed to designing a car from the ground up.Interestingly, and somewhat uncharacteristically, Tim Cook confirmed this during an interview a few years ago. "We're focusing on autonomous systems," Cook said in 2017. "It's a core technology that we view as very important."Lastly, with Morgan Stanley recently noting that Tesla shares may sink to $10/share in a worst-case scenario, it will be interesting to see if Apple might swoop in and pick up the company at a huge discount.
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| Mountain region of Slovakia named best destination in Europe 2019: Lonely Planet Posted: 20 May 2019 02:16 PM PDT  A wild, rugged, mountainous region of Slovakia dotted with plunging waterfalls and lakes and hiking trails has been named the top European destination of 2019 by the travel experts at Lonely Planet.
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| If You Crash a Mercedes-Benz in the Future, It Could Deploy a Robot to Warn Other Drivers Posted: 21 May 2019 05:30 AM PDT  This cute Roomba-like robot is designed to deploy from the back of a crashed vehicle to warn approaching traffic of danger.
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| AP Explains: How Yemen's rebels increasingly deploy drones Posted: 21 May 2019 06:36 AM PDT  DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — In Yemen, the high-pitched whine of drones has been a part of life for over 15 years, ever since the first U.S. drone strike here targeting al-Qaida in 2002. But now, Iran-backed Houthi rebels increasingly deploy drones in Yemen's brutal civil war.
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| Trump says tariffs making companies leave China, a deal can't be '50-50' Posted: 19 May 2019 08:11 PM PDT  In an interview with Fox News Channel recorded last week and aired on Sunday night, Trump said that the United States and China "had a very strong deal, we had a good deal, and they changed it. Trump took the step after China soured the negotiations by seeking major changes to a deal that U.S. officials said had been largely agreed. Since then, China has struck a sterner tone in its rhetoric, suggesting that a resumption of talks aimed at ending the 10-month trade war between the world's two largest economies was unlikely to happen soon.
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| New laws bring confusion, uncertainty for abortion clinics Posted: 21 May 2019 12:54 PM PDT  HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Abortion clinics are facing protesters emboldened by a flurry of restrictive new state laws as they reassure confused patients that the laws have yet to take effect, abortion providers said.
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| Trump stops ex-White House counsel Don McGahn testifying to Congress Posted: 20 May 2019 03:02 PM PDT  * Justice department says McGahn cannot be compelled to talk * House panel chair Jerry Nadler condemns interventionDon McGahn has been subpoenaed to appear before the House judiciary committee on Tuesday. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty ImagesDonald Trump has blocked the former White House counsel Don McGahn from testifying before Congress about the special counsel report on Russian election interference, prompting sharp criticism and even threats of impeachment.In a legal opinion released on Monday, the justice department said lawmakers on Capitol Hill cannot compel McGahn, who was subpoenaed by the House judiciary committee, to answer their questions under oath."The Department of Justice has provided a legal opinion stating that, based on long-standing, bipartisan, and constitutional precedent, the former counsel to the president cannot be forced to give such testimony, and Mr McGahn has been directed to act accordingly," the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said in a statement."This action has been taken in order to ensure that future presidents can effectively execute the responsibilities of the office of the presidency."McGahn is a central figure in special counsel Robert Mueller's report, often standing in the way of Trump's efforts to obstruct justice. According to investigators, McGahn threatened to resign when the president ordered him to have Mueller fired.McGahn was also dispatched by Trump to convince the former attorney general Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation. (Sessions did not heed the president's demands.)Travelling to a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump was asked why he was asking McGahn to defy a congressional subpoena. "Well, as I understand it, they're doing that for the office of the presidency, for future presidents," he replied, according to a pool report. "I think it's a very important precedent. And the attorneys say that they're not doing that for me. They're doing it for the office of the president. So we're talking about the future."The White House's intervention was condemned by Jerry Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the judiciary committee. "The Mueller report documents a shocking pattern of obstruction of justice," he said in a statement. "The president acted again and again – perhaps criminally – to protect himself from federal law enforcement."Don McGahn personally witnessed the most egregious of these acts. President Trump knows this. He clearly does not want the American people to hear firsthand about his alleged misconduct, and so he has attempted to block Mr McGahn from speaking in public tomorrow."The move is the latest example of the Trump administration's "disdain for the law", added Nadler, who said the committee will meet as planned on Tuesday morning and still expects McGahn to appear.Another Democratic member of the committee, David Cicilline, went further in his criticism, suggesting that impeachment of Trump would be warranted if McGahn did not respond to the subpoena."Let me be clear: if Don McGahn doesn't testify, it is time to open an impeachment inquiry," he told the MSNBC network. "The president has engaged in an ongoing effort to impede our ability find the truth, to collect evidence, to do our work … No one is above the law, including the president of the United States."Cicilline admitted he did not know if his view was shared by other members of Democratic leadership but added: "We may well be forced into a position to have to open a formal inquiry in order to facilitate the collection of the evidence that we need to see."The justice department's legal opinion does not prevent McGahn testifying if he so chooses, although it would be potentially at risk to his own career. Trump has mused about instructing Republicans to cease dealing with his law firm, Jones Day, the Associated Press reported.Matthew Miller, former director of the office of public affairs for the justice department, tweeted: "Just show up and testify, McGahn. This isn't about some garden-variety Congressional-executive branch dispute, but as one of your predecessors described it, a cancer on the presidency. Think about your place in history."McGahn was subpoenaed by Nadler last month and, under instruction by the White House, failed to meet an initial deadline to appear before the committee. Nadler threatened to hold McGahn in contempt of Congress if he did not meet a second deadline of 21 May.McGahn, who left the White House last year, has increasingly become the subject of Trump's ire following the release of the redacted Mueller report. Last week, the president tweeted he was "never a big fan" of McGahn and suggested it was the former White House counsel, and not Mueller, who was on his chopping block at the time of the investigation.The Trump administration has repeatedly blocked attempts at oversight by the Democratic-controlled House. Last month it instructed the former personnel security director Carl Kline not to testify at a hearing into alleged lapses in White House security clearance procedures. Last week the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, refused to comply with a congressional subpoena to hand over Trump's tax returns.Nadler's committee has previously voted to hold the attorney general, William Barr, in contempt for refusing to provide the unredacted Mueller report and underlying evidence to Congress.
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| Boeing Had Big Plans to Build Its Very Own F-35 (And Flopped) Posted: 20 May 2019 02:59 PM PDT  The fundamental issue with the Joint Strike Fighter was that is was always an overambitious program to replace multiple specialized types with one aircraft in the hope that it could perform every role equally well. The result is predictably a jack-of-all-trades but master of none.On October 26, 2001, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that Lockheed Martin's X-35 had won the Joint Strike Fighter contest over Boeing's X-32.(This first appeared in late 2015.)The win secured Lockheed's future as the manufacturer for all of America's fifth-generation fighter platforms. But Lockheed's resultant F-35 has suffered myriad delay, technical glitches, unrecoverable technical shortfalls and massive cost overruns. Already the largest ever defense program with an estimated price tag of $233 billion in 2001 for a total of 2,866 aircraft, the F-35 program is now estimated to cost more than $391 billion for 2,457 jets, according to the Government Accountability Office.Moreover, while the short-takeoff vertical landing F-35B was originally projected to achieve initial operational capability with the U.S. Marines in 2010, it only reached that milestone in 2015—five years late. Meanwhile, the conventional F-35A and the F-35C carrier variant were both slated to achieve initial operational capability with Block 3 software in 2012—but that software block is now scheduled to be delivered for operational testing in 2017 at the earliest.
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| These impossibly sleek Pixel 4 renders look so much better than the iPhone 11 Posted: 21 May 2019 05:17 AM PDT  The Pixel smartphone series began its life as a shameful iPhone copycat. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise since the original Pixel and Pixel XL phones were designed by Google in partnership with HTC. Once a market leader, HTC had already fallen quite far at that point, and it had just released its own iPhone 6 copycat in hopes of boosting sales. Google's first-generation Pixel phones were based on the design of that iPhone 6 ripoff, which was called the HTC One A9s. The Pixel was basically an Android-powered iPhone 6, while the Pixel XL was an Android-powered iPhone 6 Plus. The only real difference in designs was the big glass panel the Pixel phones had on the back.Google's current-generation Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL aren't quite as blatant when it comes to copying Apple. Of course, the larger Pixel 3 XL still takes inspiration from Apple's latest iPhone models and includes a big notch at the top of the display. If everything we've heard so far pans out, however, Google's Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones will be nothing like Apple's iPhone XS or the next-generation iPhone 11. Instead, they'll take design cues from Samsung's Galaxy S10 series -- and if the results end up looking anything like the renders you're about to see in this post, there's a very good chance that Google's 2019 Pixel phones will look even better than the iPhone 11 series handsets Apple is planning to release later this year.Thanks to months worth of leaks and rumors, we know almost exactly what Apple's iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Max, and iPhone 11R will look like when they're announced this coming September. In a nutshell, the iPhone 11 is going to be a copy of the iPhone XS, but it'll have a huge square camera bump on the back that houses Apple's new triple-lens camera system. Here's what it'll look like when Apple unveils the iPhone 11 series in a few months:It doesn't look bad, not by a long shot, but it also isn't anything special. For the second time, Apple plans to use almost the same exact smartphone design for three straight years instead of two, just like the company did with the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 7.In contrast to the iPhone 11 series phones set to debut in September, rumors suggest Google's next-generation Pixel 4 lineup will feature a complete design overhaul. Google is said to have ditched the massive, unsightly bezels on its Pixel 3 phones in favor of an all-screen design with hole-punch cameras just like the Galaxy S10 from Samsung. In fact, the Pixel 4 will supposedly have one hole-punch selfie camera like the Galaxy S10 and S10e, while the larger Pixel 4 XL will apparently have dual selfie cameras in an oblong cutout, just like the Galaxy S10+.Graphic designer Jonas Daehnert, who goes by @PhoneDesigner on Twitter, has seen the same rumors as the rest of us. Unlike the rest of us, however, Daehnert has the chops to turn those rumors into reality by mocking up lifelike smartphone designs. He recently turned his attention to the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, and the results are absolutely stunning. Take a look:And here's his vision of the Pixel 4 XL in white:There may end up being a few things here and there that are off the mark. For example, the latest rumor suggests that Google's new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones won't have any buttons on them at all. But for the most part, these renders are likely a very good indication of what we can expect from the real Pixel 4 series phones once Google releases them this coming October.
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| 2019 Petty’s Garage Warrior Mustang Available To Public Posted: 20 May 2019 07:16 AM PDT  In 2017, Military Auto Source (MAS) teamed up with Petty's Garage to offer deployed performance enthusiasts an exclusive opportunity – to own a new custom-built Warrior Edition Mustang. This highly successful collaboration continued on for the 2018 model year, with a 2018 Petty's Garage Warrior Mustang and F-150.
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| You'll never be able to drive this rare 2019 Range Rover Sport — but I did Posted: 20 May 2019 09:35 AM PDT  Land Rover's Range Rover Sport plug-in hybrid has luxury and performance but its range may not justify the price.
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| The 11 Best Deals During Walmart's Memorial Day Weekend Sale Posted: 20 May 2019 12:31 PM PDT |
| Trump: U.S. will respond with 'great force' if Iran attacks interests Posted: 20 May 2019 04:43 PM PDT  "I think Iran would be making a very big mistake if they did anything," Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Monday evening for an event in Pennsylvania. "If they do something, it will be met with great force but we have no indication that they will." His comments came as two U.S. government sources said the United States strongly suspects Shi'ite militias with ties to, and possibly encouragement from, Iran fired a rocket on Sunday into Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. The sources, who are familiar with U.S. national security assessments and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States was still trying to establish which militia fired the Katyusha rocket on Sunday and the extent, if any, of Iranian involvement.
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| GMC Limits the Sierra's New CarbonPro Bed to a Pricey Option Package Posted: 20 May 2019 01:51 PM PDT  The carbon-composite bed in the 2019 GMC Sierra will be available on a limited basis this summer and more widely in the 2020 model.
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| Trump’s Defiance Fuels Impeachment Push as McGahn Skips Hearing Posted: 21 May 2019 09:20 AM PDT  It's a dilemma that only grew more pressing on Tuesday, when former White House Counsel Don McGahn defied a congressional subpoena by declining to testify before the House Judiciary Committee at the direction of the White House. The impeachment process would strengthen Democrats' legal case for enforcing subpoenas, but it would open them to political attacks from Republicans who already say they are rushing toward a predetermined outcome -- and one that would be rejected in the GOP-controlled Senate. The White House has been goading Democrats into opening an impeachment proceeding by fighting many of the current subpoenas on the grounds they're not related to a clear legislative purpose.
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| China's Tariff List Advertises Its Trade War Weakness Posted: 20 May 2019 10:31 AM PDT  Unless Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his advisors are completely incompetent, there's only one way to interpret Beijing's list of U.S. products that will be slapped with retaliatory tariffs on June 1 if the trade war with the United States isn't somehow deescalated pronto: China increasingly realizes that it's playing a losing hand in the trade war, and its counter-moves have been made mainly for public consumption in China.After all, the ostensible purpose of retaliation is inflicting enough pain on the target to change behavior. Therefore, you'd think that most of the new China tariffs would hit products that generate major earnings either for the entire U.S. economy or for key political constituencies (as with the previous import taxes on soybeans). But according to a compilation by Quartz.com, few of the goods scheduled by China to take the biggest (25 percent) tariff hits merit these definitions. Indeed, many aren't even made in the United States anymore, or certainly not in meaningful quantities, much less exported to any measurable extent to China.If you doubt that such items are found on China's list, then check out the following American-made products that Quartz contends will get hit by those steepest Chinese tariffs, and the dollar value of their exports to the People's Republic in 2018. They are ostensibly judged to contain the greatest economic and/or political shock potential.Women's swimsuits: $2,542.Miscellaneous knitted or crocheted fabrics: $2,893.Men and boys' underwear: $229,455.Men and boys' wool/animal hair trousers: $49,629.Men and boys' overcoats: $4,900.
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| Raleigh police charge 79-year-old man in child sex case Posted: 19 May 2019 07:12 PM PDT  Raleigh police have a charged a 79-year-old man in connection with a child sex case.
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| You can now pre-order Honda's first 100% electric urban car Posted: 21 May 2019 04:00 AM PDT  Honda has announced that its very-first 100%-electric production model is now available for pre-order in advance of its late-2019 launch. A prototype of the "Honda e" was previewed at the Geneva Car Show in March 2019.
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