| Aftershocks continue in California desert Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:05 PM PDT  Aftershocks of last week's big earthquakes are still rumbling beneath the California desert, but seismologists say the probability of large quakes continues to decline. The U.S. Geological Survey said the chance of a quake larger than Friday's 7.1 temblor is less than 1% and the chance of a magnitude 6 or higher is down to 6%. Both were centered near the Mojave Desert towns of Ridgecrest and Trona, which suffered cracked buildings, blocked roads and several house fires.
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| Iranian ships tried to block British oil tanker in Persian Gulf Posted: 11 Jul 2019 06:25 AM PDT  Iranian ships attempted to obstruct a British-flagged commercial oil tanker as it sailed in the Persian Gulf, Britain's Defense Ministry said.
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| Guatemalan mother brings AOC to tears with account of harrowing conditions at border detention facilities Posted: 10 Jul 2019 03:56 PM PDT  A Guatemalan migrant recounts the death of her baby after entering the United States and being detained.
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| Tourist says she was raped, thrown off resort balcony in Dominican Republic Posted: 10 Jul 2019 08:21 AM PDT  A New York City woman claims she was raped and thrown off a second-floorbalcony in the Dominican Republic last month, according to WABC
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| What the A-10 Warthog Would Do in a Second Korean War Posted: 11 Jul 2019 12:00 AM PDT  North Korea has a very large army that may number 3.5 million men and women, although the quality of the forces is open to question and skepticism.The much-maligned A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack airplane could prove to be a savior if fighting breaks out with North Korea. However, the US Air Force wants to get rid of the plane, and is not asking for funds to fix the wings on some 100 A-10s, which therefore may end up in the scrap yard.In any conflict with North Korea, a US-South Korean-Coalition's objective will be to knock out North Korea's nuclear facilities and missiles. This will surely involve strategic bombers and maybe even stealth aircraft. But one immediate consequence will be that North Korea will attack South Korea, probably aiming first at neutralizing US and Korean forces by destroying bases, airfields, depots and equipment.This first appeared in January 2018.North Korea has a very large army that may number 3.5 million men and women, although the quality of the forces is open to question and skepticism. The country also has a considerable armored capability. There are 4,200 tanks, 2,200 armored personnel carriers, 8,600 artillery pieces and 4,800 multiple rocket launchers. While most of these are of old designs, if North Korea is able to move them in position, cross the DMZ and mount an attack on the south, its army could quickly defeat the south.Recommended: How North Korea Could Start a WarRecommended: This Is What Happens if America Nuked North Korea
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| Boycott the Oven With These Summer Slow Cooker Recipes Posted: 10 Jul 2019 10:28 AM PDT |
| Hundreds of blindfolded goats airdropped into mountain range Posted: 10 Jul 2019 03:17 AM PDT  For the second straight summer, mountain goats are flying in Olympic National Park.Officials this week began rounding up the sure-footed but non-native mammals from remote parts of the park, where humans introduced them in the 1920s, to relocate them to the Cascade Mountains, where they do belong.Animal capture specialists called "gunners" and "muggers" sedate the animals with darts or capture them in nets, blindfold them, pad their horns and fly them — on slings dangling from a helicopter — to a staging area. There, they're looked over by veterinarians and outfitted with tracking collars before being trucked to the Cascades and once again flown by helicopter, this time into their new alpine habitats.The relocations began last year, following a years-long stretch of planning and public comment, with 115 of the roughly 725 mountain goats in the Olympics being moved to the Cascades.Officials captured 17 Monday and Tuesday at the start of a two-week goat relocation period, including a kid about 6 weeks old, which got a ride on a mugger's lap inside the helicopter instead of hanging beneath it.The Olympics have few natural salt licks. That makes it more likely goats there will be attracted to the sweat, urine and food of hikers, potentially endangering the hikers. One goat fatally gored a hiker in 2010.A coalition of state and federal agencies and American Indian tribes is behind the effort, which involves closing parts of the park, including the Seven Lakes Basin and Klahhane Ridge. A second two-week closure period is planned for August."Mountain goat relocation will allow these animals to reoccupy historical range areas in the Cascades," Jesse Plumage, a U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist, said in a news release.The capture of the goats was contracted out to Leading Edge Aviation, a company that specialises in animal capture and relocation.The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife plans to release the goats at six sites in the Cascades. They include the Chikamin area in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, Preacher Mountain in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Hardscrabble Ridge and mountain peaks south of Darrington.Rich Harris, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist leading the agency's work to move the goats, told The Seattle Times this month that of those relocated last year, about 65 to 70 survived the winter. Half of the 10 relocated kids survived, he said.Agencies contributed to this report
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| UK Labour under pressure over anti-Semitism after BBC doc Posted: 11 Jul 2019 03:25 AM PDT  Britain's Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn came under renewed pressure over anti-Semitism on Thursday after a string of former officials spoke out about the party's failure to tackle discrimination in a BBC documentary. Former officials, including the main opposition's former general secretary Iain McNicol, broke non-disclosure agreements to allege that members of Corbyn's inner circle had interfered with investigations into anti-Semitism in the left-wing party. Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson, who has been critical of Corbyn, said the revelations were "harrowing".
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| Some of Putin’s Top Cops Are Mobsters. Even KGB Vets Are Ashamed. Posted: 10 Jul 2019 01:35 AM PDT  Michael Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin/ReutersMOSCOW—Crime scandals involving Russia's most powerful law enforcement agency have rocked this capital, exposing some phenomenal corruption at the heart of President Vladimir Putin's power structure. Ranking officers of the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, are allegedly involved, as are members of some of its most elite units. In April, authorities arrested three officials from the FSB's Department K, which deals with economic crimes and financial counterintelligence. Kirill Cherkalin, the former head of the unit, and Andrey Vasilyev and Dmitry Frolov, his associates, were jailed on suspicion they took huge bribes from banks and other commerce they were supposed to supervise. A video purported to show the equivalent of $185.5 million being hauled out of Cherkalin's residence. The initial charge against him involved a single bribe worth $850,000.The Liberation of Ivan Golunov Felt Like a Burst of Freedom in Russia, but Not for LongOne might think those arrests made by the internal affairs division of the FSB would make other criminals in the security force lie low. But no. Others were allegedly robbing banks. Last week RBC, one of Russia's most respected newspapers, reported the arrests of four FSB agents from the Alfa and Vympel special forces units, and two more from Department K. The number has since grown to 15 suspects, according to press reports. But the FSB has confirmed only two arrests.While supposedly conducting legitimate searches, or shepherding shipments of currency, the accused are supposed to have removed the heavy ballistic plates from their bullet-proof vests and stuffed them with money instead, but such details have not been confirmed officially.There must be massive turmoil in the depths of the gloomy FSB headquarters, the nerve center of Russia's police power located just across Lubyanka Square from the buildings of the Kremlin's administrative offices. All of Russia's leading newspapers reported that Instead of providing security, FSB agents robbed the Metallurg Bank, reportedly controlled by a former officer in Military Intelligence (the GRU) named Yury Karasev. If true, that's an interesting wrinkle since the FSB and GRU are rival secret services.Moscovskij Komsomolets, a newspaper with a circulation approaching one million copies, says in its Friday report: "Generals of the special services were shocked to hear about the arrests of FSB agents accused of a bank robbery on Ivan Babushkin Street and of stealing 140 million rubles ($2.2 million.)" Veteran agents of the Soviet KGB, the predecessor of the FSB, said they were disgusted by the scandal."This is the first time in the entire history of the Russian secret police when we see the triumph of greed that surpasses greed—so many officers of elite departments committing crimes," retired Maj. Gen. Aleksei Kandaurov told The Daily Beast. "The FSB is not a security service any longer, it has changed its status completely: it is now a service that enforces Putin's rule, and in exchange abuses its authority for purposes of enrichment."Gen. Kandaurov remembers the last days of the KGB, which had an infamous heritage dating back to the Cheka at the time of the revolution, and the NKVD under Joseph Stalin. As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 there was popular rage against the Communist regime's symbols and its obsession with secrecy, but the officers of the KGB—among them one Vladimir Putin—saw themselves as defenders of a regime and indeed an empire that they had served all their lives. They worked on fixed salaries.On the night of August, 22, 1991, Kandaurov watched from the window of his office as thousands of protesters demanded the removal of the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the Bolshevik leader Vladmir Lenin appointed to be the director of the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage (Cheka). Dzerzhinsky is seen as the symbol of the Bolseviks' political repressions and mass killings. "We represent in ourselves organized terror—this must be said very clearly," Dzerzhinsky proclaimed during the period known as the Red Terror that began in 1918.The modern state security agency, FSB, has been reviving the memory of Dzerzhinsky just as Putin has burnished the reputation of Joseph Stalin. Today many officials hang portraits of the secret police founder on their walls. In 2017 the agency celebrated the 100th anniversary of Cheka-NKVD-KGB-FSB, as a proud successor. But veterans see the current organization as an inglorious pretender to the fame of the older ones."FSB agents should stop hiding behind the KGB reputation, behind Dzerzhinsky. If he were alive, he would have executed most of these corrupt officers as his ideological enemies," Kandaurov told The Daily Beast. When the KGB Wanted You Dead, This Is How They Killed YouRussia has glorified "Alfa" and "Vympel" as legendary, heroic special operators who saw service in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s and many other more secretive theaters. At the Balashikha Cemetery near Moscow there are sad rows of tombstones where each is marked with an "A" or "V" for the soldiers of these units who gave their lives rescuing hostages during the Beslan school siege in September 2004. In the past few years Russian special operators have died anonymously in secret operations in Ukraine."Today's thugs in the special forces put shame on all the past heroes," a retired KGB officer and corruption fighter, Gennady Gudkov, told The Daily Beast. "The FSB violates its authority for 'operative activities,' which was given to them to stop transactions for terrorism or drug deals. Now a group of elite FSB and special forces units used their authority to rob a bank; but the bank informed Moscow police investigators and the organized criminal group was arrested."A channel on the Telegram messaging service covering the latest news about Russian gangsters, oligarchs and bureaucrats, said on Monday that authorities fired the head of Moscow's FSB Directorate, Alexey Dorofeyev.Last month police tried to stop an investigation by a Medusa Project reporter, Ivan Golunov, into Dorofeyev's links to a corrupt funeral business. After spending months researching figures and beneficiaries of the funeral industry, Golunov discovered some links connecting shadowy figures and senior FSB officers. But somebody decided to stop the reporter from publishing: police planted drugs on Golunov and kept him behind bars for five days, while thousands of people joined protests in support of the journalist.Russian veterans of secret services gossip about three "towers" of FSB power: the richest one is allegedly supported by the almighty Putin's ally, Igor Sechin, the head of the vast Rosneft energy company; the second one also enjoys enormous financial resources and is backed by another of Putin's long-time friends, Sergey Chemizov, the head of the Russian arms export agency; the third, the weakest financially, nonetheless has the best network of secret agents and is backed by the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin. Some see a connection between these rivalries and the revelations about high-level criminality."It feels like everything is falling down," a major general of the FSB reserve, Alexander Mikhailov, told reporters last week. "I want to tell you that all the old employees are shocked by what is happening. During my entire service in the Moscow KGB, and I worked there for 20 years, there were only three criminal cases.""None of the people from the old guard understands where that number of criminals in the system came from," said Mikhailov. "It is also disturbing that today we are confronted with the widest range of units that are involved in criminal activity. We repair it in one spot and it breaks down in another one."There are no checks and balances at FSB management, Gudkov pointed out. "The Soviet KGB was massively repressive, you can blame that service for anything, but not for corruption. The worst we could hear about was a colleague sleeping with somebody's wife or some secret agent bringing a pair of sneakers for a colleague from abroad—that was already a big enough scandal to write a report," Gudkov remembered. "Even in our worst nightmare we could not imagine officers stealing millions of dollars, robbing banks. What will we hear next? The Russian Federal Security Service robbing the Kremlin's treasury or the Central Bank's reserves?" 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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| Small leak found from nuclear Soviet sub that sank in 1989 Posted: 11 Jul 2019 02:06 AM PDT ![Small leak found from nuclear Soviet sub that sank in 1989]( "Small leak found from nuclear Soviet sub that sank in 1989") A small radiation leak from a Soviet nuclear submarine that sank 30 years ago has been found, Norwegian researchers said Thursday, but it poses no risk to people or fish. The institute said that findings were around 100 Becquerel (Bq) per liter as opposed to around 0.001 Bq per liter elsewhere in the Norwegian Sea. Several samples taken in and around a ventilation duct on the wreck of the submarine contained far higher levels of radioactive cesium than you would normally find in the Norwegian Sea, the institute said in a statement.
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| New Orleans is already flooded — and the worst may be yet to come: Forecasters are predicting a hurricane Posted: 11 Jul 2019 06:33 AM PDT  New Orleans was already hit by a storm that left its streets swamped. Now, meteorologists say a hurricane could be on its way
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| How one freshman congresswoman plans to save the Affordable Care Act Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  Nobody in Washington seems to like the Affordable Care Act. Republicans want to repeal it, claiming it gives too much power to the federal government. Democrats argue that it doesn't go far enough: Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to replace the ACA with Medicare for All, which would get rid of private insurance entirely.
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| The Jeep Gladiator Has No Competition Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:00 AM PDT  It's a four-door convertible. It's a pickup truck. It'll tow a boat. Now let me tell you which one to get.
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| The Burr vs. Hamilton duel happened 215 years ago today Posted: 11 Jul 2019 03:00 AM PDT  Today marks the anniversary of the deadly duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. What caused the sitting vice president to duel a Founding Father on the cliffs overlooking New York City?
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| NASA shake-up in new race to the moon Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:52 PM PDT  As NASA scrambles to meet U.S. President Donald Trump's mandate to return humans to the moon by 2024, two longtime heads of NASA's human exploration wing were demoted Wednesday in a slew of administrative shakeups, officials said in an internal memo. The biggest change to rock the agency is the demotion of Bill Gerstenmaier, who was leading the efforts to return humans to the lunar surface. The agency's chief Jim Bridenstine announced the changes in an internal memo to employees, signaling the latest leadership changes.
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| Super Weapon? The Air Force Wants a (New) Nuclear Armed Cruise Missile Posted: 10 Jul 2019 04:02 AM PDT  Should major global powers be immersed in a high-stakes, dangerous escalation of tension, raising the possibility of a nuclear confrontation, could the existence of a long-range nuclear-armed cruise missile provide that unique additional variable necessary to keep the peace?Such is the Air Force thinking when it comes to the current developmental trajectory for its emerging Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO) -- a new, aircraft-launched nuclear cruise missile engineered to prevent nuclear conflict by holding enemy targets at risk potentially inaccessible to other methods of attack.The LRSO 'will allow the Air Force to 'counter adversaries' ever-improving integrated air defense with a lethal, tailorable, standoff nuclear strike capability," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, told an audience at a recent Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Nuclear Deterrence event, according to transcripts.The LRSO will be operational by 2030, Goldfein said.The weapon will provide commanders with a wider range of options, as a bomber-launched nuclear cruise missile brings the prospect of deterring nuclear attack without needing to have a stealth bomber actually penetrate the airspace. Naturally, this lowers risk and also increases the deterrence posture by virtue of letting a potential adversary know there are a wide range of methods through which a response might be possible. Interestingly, the existence of nuclear weapons, according to Goldfein and other U.S. Air Force senior leaders, - is entirely based upon the notion of deterrence -- bringing the prospect of massive destructive power to achieve the opposite effect - stopping nuclear war before it happens.
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| Slain Danish student's mother urges death sentences in Morocco trial Posted: 11 Jul 2019 10:39 AM PDT  Salé (Morocco) (AFP) - The mother of a Danish student beheaded along with another Scandinavian woman while hiking in Morocco's High Atlas mountains called Thursday for the suspected jihadist killers to face the death penalty as their trial neared its end. "The most just thing would be to give these beasts the death penalty they deserve, I ask that of you," said Helle Petersen in a letter read by her lawyer in an anti-terrorist court in Sale, near the capital Rabat. "My life was destroyed the moment that two policemen came to my door on December 17 to announce my daughter's death," the mother of 24-year-old Louisa Vesterager Jespersen wrote in the letter, read out in total silence and with the defendants' faces impassive.
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| Jeffrey Epstein's opulent New York mansion said to contain bizarre, disturbing art Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:26 PM PDT  The extravagant home of financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein reportedly contains a plethora of odd and disturbing art pieces, including a collection of prosthetic eyeballs and a painting of Epstein in a prison yard. Epstein has been arrested on charges of sex trafficking, and authorities have found a collection of pornography believed to contain images of children stored inside his New York estate.
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| 'Criminal act' caused Crete death of likely American victim Posted: 10 Jul 2019 10:08 AM PDT  Antonis Papadomanolakis told The Associated Press Wednesday that final confirmation was still needed to confirm the identity of the body found Monday outside the port city of Chania, but he added it was highly likely it was Suzanne Eaton, a 59-year-old molecular biologist, who was reported missing last week. "The only thing we can say is that the (death) resulted from a criminal act," the coroner said. Eaton, who worked at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany, had been attending a conference in Crete.
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| Woman who claimed to be Uber driver charged with smuggling immigrants in New Mexico Posted: 11 Jul 2019 04:00 PM PDT  The driver, Evelyn Limas, has been charged with one felony count of smuggling undocumented immigrants.
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| Mexican President Warns Others May Leave Government After Urzua Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:15 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, under pressure after the resignation of his finance minister, warned other officials may quit his government as part of the deep policy changes he is leading."In a democratic government there are always differences and disagreements," Lopez Obrador said Wednesday at his daily press conference. "You have to get used to the changes and there could even be other resignations."The Mexican peso dropped as much as 0.8%, leading emerging markets currency losses for a second straight session. It fell 0.4% to 19.2344 per dollar at 9:01 a.m. in New York.AMLO, as the Mexican leader is known, said the resignation of Carlos Urzua on Tuesday stems from disagreements over the country's national development plan. Urzua also disagreed about the management of Mexico's state-owned banks, the president said, adding that the former finance minister had clashed with his Chief of Staff Alfonso Romo and with the head of Mexico's tax collection agency."This is a government of free men and women. Suddenly someone can say 'I don't agree with the government's path'," AMLO said, adding that no other resignation has been presented to him so far. "What I want to make clear is that the way of doing politics won't change at all."To contact the reporters on this story: Carlos Manuel Rodriguez in Mexico City at carlosmr@bloomberg.net;Cyntia Barrera Diaz in Mexico City at cbarrerad@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Walter BrandimarteFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Armoured van spills thousands of dollars in cash across major highway. Police are asking for it back Posted: 10 Jul 2019 11:23 PM PDT  An armoured truck spilled thousands of dollar bills onto a busy highway, prompting chaos as commuters pulled over to pick up fistfuls of money.On Tuesday before sunset, a fluttering swirl of cash blowing through the air brought traffic to a halt and people into the street when a side door of an armoured Garda truck suddenly opened on a highway.About $175,000 (£140,000) in bills spilled out and were carried away by the wind over a section of Interstate 285, which encircles Atlanta, Georgia, police said.The bills scattered to the shoulder of the six-lane westbound section of the highway. Some floated across the divider into eastbound lanes. Bills blew into the woods or sank into storm drains.More than a dozen commuters screeched to a halt or veered off to the shoulder of the highway near the Dunwoody Road exits, police said. They scooped up bills from the pavement and returned to their vehicles with fistfuls, and sometimes armloads, of cash.One of them was Randrell Lewis, an Uber Eats driver who was en route to Alpharetta, Georgia."I just saw a cloud full of what looked like leaves," he said in an interview. "No, it was money. I could not believe my eyes. I am not going to lie. The first thing I did was I pulled over and started picking up some money. Everybody started pulling over and it was crazy."Within minutes, Mr Lewis said, he had snatched up about $2,000 in singles, fifties and hundreds. He returned $2,094 on Wednesday, police said."I just wanted to really make sure I am not going to get in trouble for this," he said.As investigators from the Dunwoody Police Department scoured videos on social media of the spontaneous cash grab, reports filtered in on Wednesday of people stopping on their morning drives on the half-mile stretch of highway to see if there was anything left to scavenge, Sergeant Robert Parsons, a department spokesperson, said."If the temptation is there, and you see money falling from the sky, most people would probably take the money," he said.The nation's highways have been accidentally generous before. In 2004, an armoured truck carrying $2 million flipped over on the New Jersey Turnpike during the evening rush, spilling tens of thousands of dollars in coins.Last year, the back door of a Brink's armoured truck swung open during the morning rush on Interstate 70 near Indianapolis, Indiana, losing an estimated $600,000 in cash onto the highway. A few months later, a Brink's armoured truck was driving on Route 3 in East Rutherford, New Jersey, when one of its doors malfunctioned and money blew out onto the roadway.Some returned the money to police, while others made off with sacks of cash. In the East Rutherford incident, police recouped about $6,000.As authorities did elsewhere when the highways were unexpectedly giving, the police in Dunwoody, a suburb north of Atlanta, were watching on Wednesday to see how the limits of ethical behaviour would play out."Heads up Dunwoody, it's cloudy with a chance of cash," the department said on Facebook, adding, "While we certainly understand the temptation, it's still theft and the money should be returned."In an interview, Mr Parsons said that officers received a 911 call around 8pm on Tuesday about people "frantically" scooping up the money near the Ashford Dunwoody Road exit along the highway, which is bordered by creek beds, trees and office towers."Multiple callers said there was cash flying all over the road," he said.By the time officers arrived, people who had pulled over to grab the bills were nowhere to be seen, Mr Parsons said."People likely saw the police lights coming over the highway," he said. "'Oops, time to go! Police are here! Party's over!' "Officers spoke to the Garda employees, who had stopped the truck on the shoulder after passing drivers had gestured to them that a door was open.About $200 was retrieved from the highway and surrounding woods — a small fraction of the estimated $175,000 believed to have gone missing, or into peoples' pockets, he said.Detectives were trying to contact drivers by looking for license plate numbers on mobile phone videos that had been posted on social media. But Mr Parsons said authorities had no intention of prosecuting anyone who returns the money."No harm, no foul," he said. "But you need to turn that money in."The New York Times
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| US-made missiles found at base used by Libyan rebels to attack Tripoli are ours, France admits Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:31 AM PDT  France on Wednesday admitted that it is the owner of American-made anti-tank missiles found at a rebel military base in Libya, raising awkward questions about European involvement in the civil war. France's Army Ministry said the four Javelin missiles discovered at a base used by General Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army were intended for "self-protection of a French military unit deployed to carry out intelligence and counter-terrorism operations." "Damaged and unusable, the armaments were being temporarily stocked at a depot ahead of their destruction," it said in a statement on Wednesday. It said the weapons, found in the mountains south of Tripoli by forces loyal to the UN-backed government, were never intended for sale or transfer to any party to Libya's conflict. The statement did not explain how many French soldiers are in the country or why they were operating in close proximity to Gheryan, the LNA's main headquarters for its controversial assault on Tripoli. The discovery of javelin missiles at Gheryan was first reported by the New York Times. Chinese-made shells with United Arab Emirates markings were also discovered. The missiles were discovered on a rebel base in Gharyan when UN-recognised government forces recaptured the city Credit: Anadolu Agency At least 1,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced since Gen Haftar launched his assault on Tripoli in a bid to overthrow the UN-backed government of national accord in April. France, like all permanent members of the UN Security Council, officially recognises the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). But Fayez Al-Sarraj, the prime minister of the GNA, has publicly protested French support for Gen Haftar since the battle began. Some observers have also accused Paris of providing the general with diplomatic cover by watering down European Union statements about his attack on Tripoli. Jalel Harouchi, a Libya analyst at the Clingedael Institute, said the discovery made it "impossible for Paris to credibly deny its deep preference" for Gen Haftar's faction in the civil war. "For several years now, it has sought to prop up Marshal Haftar, help him defeat his opponents and take power in Libya," he said. Territorial control in Libya "In any event, other foreign states, such as the UAE, violate the Libya arms embargo much more egregiously than France does." Gen Haftar, who heads a rival administration in the east of the country, has sought to portray himself as a potential secular strongman able to deal robustly with the threat of Islamist extremism in Libya. He is believed to enjoy backing from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, and has also visited both Paris and Moscow to seek support. He has courted the United States, which provided him with asylum after he fell out with Muammar Gadaffi in the 1980s. Last week the United States blocked a British-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution that would have condemned an LNA airstrike on a migrant holding centre that killed at least 40 people. The FGM 148 Javelin is a US-manufactured shoulder-launched missile designed to destroy modern tanks by striking them from above, where their armour is thinnest. They cost about £135,000 a piece.
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| Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful Kamala Harris unveils plan to tackle rape kit backlog Posted: 11 Jul 2019 11:59 AM PDT  U.S. Senator Kamala Harris on Thursday pledged the nation's backlog of rape kits needing review would be processed by the end of her first four-year term if elected president. Harris estimated she would invest $1 billion to eliminate the backlog, which she said would cover an estimated 225,000 kits that remain untested. Rape kits are collected when a victim reports an assault and DNA or other physical evidence is collected.
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| Meet India's BrahMos II: The World's Fastest Supersonic Cruise Missile? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 12:47 AM PDT  With the BrahMos II venture put on indefinite hold, the Indian military is forging ahead with new, long-range and deep-dive versions of their BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.Earlier this week, BrahMos CEO Sudhir Kumar Mishra announced that vertical deep-dive and 500 kilometer-range BrahMos variants are ready to enter India's missile arsenal: "India has successfully test-fired a vertical deep dive version of BrahMos, the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile, that can now change the dynamics of conventional warfare...the upgraded version of the missile with enhanced range of up to 500 km is also ready." Both of these new variants will feature the Mach 2.8 speed of the original BrahMos missile, roughly three times the speed of sound.As the name implies, vertical deep-capability allows the missile to be fired at a "near-vertical" trajectory of 90 degree, climbing fourteen 14 kilometers before making making a steep dive toward its target. Mishra asserts that this will make BrahMos more effective on mountainous terrain and against bunkers as well as large surface vessels, suggesting that these improvements are aimed at bolstering Indian missile strike capability vis-à-vis China amid ongoing tensions over the Tibet region.
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| French supermarket managers ousted over safari hunting snaps Posted: 10 Jul 2019 08:39 AM PDT  It was meant to be a trophy picture, showing their success on safari, but the photo of a French couple posing beside a lion they had shot ended up costing them their jobs. Managers of a supermarket in L'Arbresle, a small town in eastern France, the pair had in 2015 taken part in a so-called captive hunt that involves shooting at animals kept inside an enclosed area. Such a set-up virtually guarantees a kill for private trophy hunters.
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| Jeffrey Epstein: How the sex-trafficking investigation could shed light on corruption Posted: 10 Jul 2019 01:42 PM PDT  The wealthy financier pleaded not guilty to sex-trafficking charges, but revelations about his past have sparked accusations of corruption.
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| Spanish-language reporter released from immigration custody Posted: 11 Jul 2019 02:26 PM PDT  A Spanish-language reporter who has been facing deportation since his arrest 15 months ago while covering an immigration protest in Tennessee was released Thursday from custody as his case proceeds. Manuel Duran was released from an Alabama detention center on a $2,000 bail set by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Gracie Willis said. "I feel like I'm reborn," Duran said in a statement released by the center.
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| U.S. officials push for sanctions on China over oil purchases from Iran Posted: 11 Jul 2019 11:08 AM PDT  Such a move would complicate trade talks between the two countries and further strain the relationship.
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| Viking bones and DNA will decay quickly as Greenland thaws Posted: 11 Jul 2019 06:00 AM PDT  Viking settlers abandoned Greenland some 600 years ago. But the frozen ground has preserved centuries of the seafarers' hardy existence on the western shores of the remote landmass, including bones and DNA. The Vikings, though, didn't first step foot on Greenland. The Saqqaq people arrived there first, around 3,800 years before the Vikings, as did other nomadic peoples. Yet now, all of their culturally invaluable organic remains are under threat from amplified Arctic warming -- the fastest changing region on Earth. Archaeologists, geochemists, and climate scientists traveled to Greenland and collected soil samples from seven archaeological areas to determine how vulnerable the sites are to warming. Their research, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, found these organic archaeological remains (also known as organic carbon) will accelerate their decay as they become exposed to increasingly warmer climes and hungry microorganisms."If temperatures go up, degradation rates will increase," said Jørgen Hollesen, lead author of the research and a senior researcher at the National Museum of Denmark.> "Arctic Amplification" ---> temperatures in the Arctic are warming more than twice as fast as the global mean temperature > > For more info: https://t.co/eJxuGk9tXr pic.twitter.com/rAtcO47Euq> > -- Zack Labe (@ZLabe) June 29, 2019Global temperatures are certainly expected to go up. Eighteen of the 19 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and Greenland specifically is now melting at rates Arctic scientists have called "off the charts." What's more, dwindling Arctic sea ice this year is on pace to either break or nearly break its record for lowest extent. On the shores of Greenland inhabited by the Vikings, warmer summers allow the ground to thaw and exposes the soil to oxygen, allowing microbes to thrive and consume previously preserved remains. "The higher the temperature, the higher the rate of consumption," Hollesen said succinctly."They'll decay very rapidly," agreed Christopher Rodning, an archaeologist at Tulane University who had no involvement in the research. There are some 6,000 archaeological sites around Greenland, and they are invaluable relics of the Viking past, and of peoples before and after them. "The archaeological sites have a lot to teach us about those [historical] episodes," said Rodning. Especially if these sites have preserved organic remains, like food stored in a freezer."As an archaeologist I can say it's really exciting when we do find an object made out of wood, or animal bone," Rodning said. These materials can reveal the contents of ancient diets, the diseases people carried, and rare genetic material. "They have huge potential to help understand the lives of these people," he said.Brattahlid, a Viking colony.Image: Werner Forman Archive / ShutterstockHollesen and his team are keenly aware of this reality, so they're now working to gauge which sites around Greenland are most vulnerable to warming, in order that the remains be preserved or excavated before they're gone. It's like archaeological triage.If temperatures keep trending as they are today, a scenario climate scientists call "business as usual," up to 70 percent of the organic carbon inside the coastal remains could decay over the next 80 years (by 2100). Even if humanity begins ambitiously slashing its carbon emissions by mid-century, some 30 percent of these organic remains could degrade by then, according to the research. And farther inland, where many Viking settlers were buried, over 35 percent of organic material could be lost by 2050. SEE ALSO: Choose your future Greenland, EarthlingsAfter collecting soil from different Greenland sites, Hollesen and his team exposed the soil to different temperatures in a laboratory, and measured the oxygen consumption by microbes, because the microbes need oxygen to survive. Then, his team projected how much degradation these microbes would achieve at different climate scenarios -- climate scenarios that are based specifically on how much heat-trapping carbon humans emit into the atmosphere this century.Centuries ago, the Vikings came and went from Greenland, while other peoples, the Inuit, didn't leave. Answers about why some cultures continued to adapt to the harsh Arctic, while others left, are likely stored in the warming, decaying, Greenland soil."As archaeologists, these are questions we still need to be asking," said Rodning. WATCH: Ever wonder how the universe might end?
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| Oliver North Claims NRA’s Leader Defamed Him Posted: 11 Jul 2019 02:31 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Former National Rifle Association President Oliver North accused the group's leader, Wayne LaPierre, of defaming him, forcing him out of the gun rights group and retaliating after North raised questions about lavish spending and financial mismanagement.In a court filing Thursday, North said the NRA falsely accused him of fomenting a failed "coup" to get LaPierre, once a "long-term, close personal friend," to step down. Instead, North lost the power struggle and resigned in April after saying he had quietly tried to protect the NRA and its mission.LaPierre, aided by the NRA's outside counsel, William Brewer, has since used adverse publicity to "undermine North and his efforts to address allegations of financial misconduct at the NRA," according to the filing.North is responding to an NRA lawsuit filed last month in New York state court in which the gun group claims he's not entitled to legal fees. North says the NRA's bylaws require the association to cover fees stemming from a May 3 inquiry by the Senate Finance Committee and any other queries he may receive from law enforcement or investigative bodies about the gun rights group.The NRA has been in turmoil since North left his unpaid presidency. It suspended its chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, after accusing him of joining North and the NRA's former advertising and public relations firm, Ackerman McQueen Inc., in the failed coup. Cox has left the association, and Ackerman McQueen cut ties after LaPierre accused it of breach of contract.New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating the NRA's finances. The group claims in a lawsuit that the state illegally discouraged banks and insurers from doing business with it. The NRA also sued Ackerman McQueen, which produced the now-defunct NRATV. The advertising firm countersued.North said he objected in April to LaPierre receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in clothing, private jet travel, and other personal benefits paid by Ackerman McQueen. He also sought an independent review of Brewer's law firm, which North said was billing the NRA $2.9 million a month in fees.Ackerman McQueen hired North in 2018 after he left Fox News, when LaPierre "urged and convinced" him to take on the new role. However, Ackerman McQueen has been "unable to pay" North since late June. The NRA's lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen "appears to be motivated by Brewer's long-simmering animosity toward his current in-laws, who run Ackerman McQueen," according to North's filing."The NRA views this as a misguided attempt to deflect from reality -- Col. North played a central role in an extortion scheme that caused the issues for which he now seeks indemnification," Brewer, the outside NRA attorney said in an email. "The NRA will not look the other way when it appears that crimes against the association have been committed by people motivated by their own self-interests."(Updates with details of lawsuit and NRA attorney's response.)To contact the reporters on this story: David Voreacos in New York at dvoreacos@bloomberg.net;Neil Weinberg in New York at nweinberg2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey D Grocott at jgrocott2@bloomberg.net, Joe SchneiderFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| View 2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Photos Posted: 10 Jul 2019 05:00 AM PDT |
| UPDATE 1-Iranian boats 'harass' British tanker in the Gulf -U.S. officials Posted: 10 Jul 2019 05:44 PM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Iranian boats 'harass' British tanker in the Gulf -U.S. officials]( "UPDATE 1-Iranian boats 'harass' British tanker in the Gulf -U.S. officials") Five boats believed to belong to Iranian Revolutionary Guards approached a British oil tanker in the Gulf on Wednesday and asked it to stop in Iranian waters close by, but withdrew after a British warship warned them, U.S. officials said. Earlier on Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Britain would face "consequences" over the seizure of the Iranian tanker. Tensions between Iran and the United States and its allies have risen sharply since Washington stepped up economic sanctions against Iran and moved to bring the country's oil exports to zero as part of a "maximum pressure" policy to make Iran halt actions that it said undermined regional security.
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| US Coast Guard storms submarine carrying thousands of pounds of drugs Posted: 11 Jul 2019 07:16 AM PDT  The U.S. Coast Guard seizes and dumps 39,000 pounds of cocaine and 900 pounds of marijuana off the waters of Colombia; William La Jeunesse reports.
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| Afghan warrior Massoud's image becomes national icon Posted: 09 Jul 2019 07:11 PM PDT  In Kabul, it is hard to miss the late Ahmad Shah Massoud. More than 17 years since his assassination, the legendary fighter who battled the Soviets and the Taliban has become something of an Afghan icon. The feats of the "Lion of Panjshir", named for his home valley north of Kabul, has earned him a devoted following in war-weary Afghanistan.
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| Florida deputy arrested for planting meth, other drugs in nearly 120 cases: what we know Posted: 11 Jul 2019 11:47 AM PDT  Former Jackson County, Florida deputy Zach Wester was arrested for allegedly planting drugs on unsuspecting motorists before arresting them.
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| The Latest: Governor seeks federal declaration due to Barry Posted: 11 Jul 2019 02:54 PM PDT  Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has asked the Trump administration for a federal declaration of emergency ahead of Tropical Storm Barry's expected landfall late Friday or early Saturday along the state's coast. In a letter Thursday to President Donald Trump, Edwards asks that the state receive supplementary federal resources as soon as possible should they be needed. Edwards says it is necessary that critical pre-positioning be provided through federal assistance.
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| Donald Trump earns place in history with how America treats migrant children Posted: 11 Jul 2019 06:43 AM PDT  On immigration, there's room for disagreement. But on kids crammed into border detention centers, there ought to be no room for debate: Our view
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| Whoops: India's Navy Left Nearly Sunk Its Own $3 Billion Nuclear Submarine Posted: 09 Jul 2019 09:00 PM PDT  Call it a lesson learned for the Indian navy, which managed to put the country's first nuclear-missile submarine, the $2.9 billion INS Arihant, out of commission in the most boneheaded way possible.The modern submarine is not a simple machine. A loss of propulsion, unexpected flooding, or trouble with reactors or weapons can doom a sub crew to a watery grave.Also, it's a good idea to, like, close the hatches before you dive.(This article originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter. This article first appeared in 2018.)Call it a lesson learned for the Indian navy, which managed to put the country's first nuclear-missile submarine, the $2.9 billion INS Arihant, out of commission in the most boneheaded way possible.The Hindu reported yesterday that the Arihant has been out of commission since suffering "major damage" some 10 months ago, due to what a navy source characterized as a "human error" — to wit: allowing water to flood to sub's propulsion compartment after failing to secure one of the vessel's external hatches.
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| MH370 pilot in control ‘until the end’, French investigators suspect Posted: 11 Jul 2019 08:37 AM PDT  The pilot of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was in control of the plane "until the end", French investigators reportedly suspect, after gaining access to "crucial" flight data. The readouts "lend weight" to suspicions that he crashed into the sea in a murder-suicide, they were cited as saying. The revelations based on Boeing data came days after a new account suggesting the pilot may have been clinically depressed, leading him to starve the passengers of oxygen and then crash the Boeing 777 into the sea. MH370 was on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, when it vanished and became one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries. In July last year investigators released a 495-page report, saying the plane's controls were probably deliberately manipulated to take it off course but they were not able to determine who was responsible. The only country still conducting a judicial inquiry into the crash is France, where two investigating magistrates are looking into the deaths of three French passengers, the wife and two children of Ghyslain Wattrelos - an engineer who met the judges on Wednesday. According to Le Parisien, they informed him that Boeing had finally granted them access late May to vital flight data at the plane maker's headquarters in Seattle. This included numerous documents and satellite data from Britain-based company Immarsat. They were obliged to sign a confidentiality contract, meaning the documents cannot be cited in court. The investigators also visited Immarsat headquarters in the UK. Investigators say it will take "a year" to scour all the data received from Boeing Credit: Laurent Errera/AP It will take "a year" to sift through all the data and "nothing permits us to say the pilot was involved," according to the plaintiffs' lawyer, Marie Dosé. However, French investigators cited by Le Parisien said the data "lends weight' to the idea that "someone was behind the control stick when the plane broke up in the Indian Ocean". It cited a source close to the inquiry as saying someone was flying the plane "until the end." "Certain abnormal turns made by the 777 can only have been carried out manually. Someone was in control," the source was cited as saying. Asked whether the data pointed to a deliberate crash, the source said: "It's too early to assert it categorically but there is nothing to suggest anyone else entered the cockpit." Mr Wattrelos, who lost family members in the crash, hailed the "incredible" work of the judges, who he said "were able to note that the case was riddled with incoherences". "For example, we know that the data initially provided by Malaysian authorities on the plane's altitude were wrong. And I hope that by analysing all the data collected at Boeing, they will discover a problem that will jump out at them," he told Le Parisien. But he said he remained convinced that the plane was "taken down". "I don't know why or where but I'm convinced of it," he said. Mr Wattrelos said that French investigators could meet FBI agents to discuss the case "over the summer in Paris". More than 30 bits of suspected washed up debris have been collected from various places around the world. A modern mystery | Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Last month, friends of the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, told aviation specialist William Langewiesche that he had become obsessed with two young models he had seen on the internet after his wife left him, and that he "spent a lot of time pacing empty rooms." Mr Langewiesche wrote: "There is a strong suspicion among investigators in the aviation and intelligence communities that he was clinically depressed." An electrical engineer quoted in the account in The Atlantic magazine said that, after depressurising the plane, the pilot probably made a climb which "accelerated the effects of depressurising, causing the rapid incapacitation and death of everyone in the cabin." The oxygen masks in the main cabin were only designed to last 15 minutes in an emergency descent below 13,000ft. The pilot, however, would have had access to oxygen in the cockpit and could have flown for hours. Writing in the Atlantic, Mr Langewiesche said: "The cabin occupants would have become incapacitated within a couple of minutes, lost consciousness, and gently died without any choking or gasping for air." One theory claims the pilot conducted a series of manouveres to "ditch the plane" - but some experts argue it would have been impossible for him to remain conscious during the emergency landing. Pater Foley, the head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), has suggested to the Australian Senate the pilot was unconscious when the plane crashed into the Indian ocean. Mr Foley said: "Today we have an analysis of the flap that tells us it is probably not deployed. "We have an analysis of the final two transmissions that say the aeroplane was in a high rate of descent. "We have 30 pieces of debris, some from inside the fuselage, that says there was significant energy at impact ... We have quite a lot of evidence to support no control at the end." He added: "We haven't ever ruled out someone intervening at the end. It's unlikely."
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| DeVos sued over student loan forgiveness program that denies 99 percent of applicants Posted: 11 Jul 2019 08:23 AM PDT ![DeVos sued over student loan forgiveness program that denies 99 percent of applicants]( "DeVos sued over student loan forgiveness program that denies 99 percent of applicants") The AFT's lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of arbitrarily and capriciously rejecting loan forgiveness applications.
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| Germany steps up warnings about right-wing Identitarian Movement Posted: 11 Jul 2019 04:18 AM PDT  Germany's domestic intelligence agency (BfV) classified the Identitarian Movement as an extreme right-wing group on Thursday, a sign that authorities are increasingly worried about radicals with anti-Islamic and racist views. The murder last month of a prominent regional politician by a suspected neo-Nazi shook Germans and prompted the interior minister to warn that right-wing extremism was a threat to Germany's democratic system. The Identitarian Movement has not been directly linked to the killing, but the intelligence agency said the group discriminated against non-Europeans and Muslims and as such was incompatible with the constitution.
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| Here's a fact: We went to the moon in 1969 Posted: 11 Jul 2019 08:07 AM PDT  Fifty years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, some people insist it never happened and was all a big hoax by the U.S. government. The suspicions arose even as the lunar landing was taking place in 1969, said Roger Launius, NASA's former chief historian.
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| Media watchdog slams Pakistan curbs on TV broadcasters Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:22 AM PDT  A global media watchdog has slammed Pakistani authorities over the removal of three television channels from the country's airwaves, saying the move was "indicative of disturbing dictatorial tendencies" as pressure mounts on journalists in the South Asian nation. The statement from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) comes days after AbbTakk TV, 24 News, and Capital TV all had their broadcasts cut, after screening a press conference with opposition leader Maryam Nawaz. Pakistani authorities say the channels were unavailable due to "technical issues", but RSF described the outage as an act of "brazen censorship".
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| A Missouri suspect was hiding from police. A loud fart gave him away Posted: 10 Jul 2019 08:24 AM PDT ![A Missouri suspect was hiding from police. A loud fart gave him away]( "A Missouri suspect was hiding from police. A loud fart gave him away") Law enforcement officers in Missouri managed to find a suspect they were looking for after he farted and gave away his position.
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| Mackenzie Lueck case: Gruesome details revealed in slaying of Utah college student Posted: 11 Jul 2019 08:36 AM PDT  The charred body of slain University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck was discovered bound in a shallow grave, prosecutors said Wednesday as formal charges were filed against her suspected killer.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Posted: 10 Jul 2019 05:00 PM PDT |
| Fewer F-35s? Air Force Looks to Buy 80 F-15Xs Instead Posted: 11 Jul 2019 05:00 AM PDT  Nevertheless as Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group of Fairfax, Virginia, said in an email to Bloomberg "The U.S. Air Force fighter budget is unlikely to grow by much, so the fear is that replacing the F-15 fleet, rather than upgrading the old F-15s, would take cash away from F-35 procurement."As we have reported, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) is reportedly requesting an upgraded version of the Boeing F-15 Eagle fighter jet in its 2020 budget, despite pushback from lawmakers and earlier skepticism from top USAF officials.The first batch of eight F-15X Advanced Eagle aircraft (fewer than the expected 12 fighters) could be proposed in the fiscal 2020 budget that will be unveiled next month.However the USAF is planning to acquire as many as 80 F-15Xs over a period of five years.According to Bloomberg, the Air Force will propose buying the F-15X without reducing the fleet of 1,763 F-35s that it has long planned, the people said. The service would purchase 48 of the 84 F-35s that were called for last year in the Pentagon's plan for 2020, with the remainder going to the Navy and Marines, according to program documents.
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| Biden Keeps His Lead as Warren Gains in Poll: Campaign Update Posted: 11 Jul 2019 03:24 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Former Vice President Joe Biden still lead the Democratic primary field, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday shows, but Senator Elizabeth Warren is steadily gaining ground.Biden leads with 26%, and he is followed by Warren with 19%. Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Bernie Sanders are tied with 13%. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg pulled in 7%.Polling throughout the race has shown Biden with a sizable lead, but in recent weeks that edge has started to narrow.The latest poll shows Warren and Harris continuing to surge after the first Democratic debates last month in Miami. Meanwhile, Sanders continues to lose ground to Warren, his progressive rival.Former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke and entrepreneur Andrew Yang are at 2%. None of the other candidates topped 1%.Despite Biden's steady lead, only 12% of voters said they were locked into their top choice more than six months before the Iowa caucuses.The poll shows Biden remains the top choice for African American voters, as well as older Democrats and those who describe themselves as moderate or conservative. By contrast, Warren performed the best with self-identified liberals and voters between the ages of 18 and 49.As for voters' second choice candidate, Harris came in first with 14%, followed by Warren with 13%, Sanders with 12% and Biden with 10%.The poll of 800 registered voters was conducted between July 7-9. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.Gillibrand Vows 'Deadbeat' Tax to Save Jobs (3:45 p.m.)Democratic presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand vowed to hold companies that outsource jobs accountable, saying President Donald Trump has failed to deliver on his campaign promise to keep jobs in the U.S.The New York senator's plan includes a "deadbeat company tax" that aims to punish large corporations that move operations overseas. If 25 or more jobs are moved the company would receive financial penalties and clawbacks of local, state and federal funds, she said.Gillibrand said she'd start an economic disaster aid fund to help local communities deal with layoffs. The fund would make federal resources available for infrastructure, grants for job creation, job training and mortgage payment loans."As president, I promise to fight for workers the same way President Trump fights for executives. And no corporation will stand in my way," she said. -- Catherine DodgeKamala Harris Says She'll Fix Rape-Kit Backlog (2 p.m.)Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris unveiled a $1 billion plan to help states eliminate backlogs on rape kits, which are used by health professionals to gather evidence in sexual assault cases.In a news release, Harris's campaign pointed out that it was making the announcement as "the case of Jeffrey Epstein, who was indicted this week for sex trafficking and faces accusations of raping teenage girls, draws further scrutiny."The California senator's campaign said the policy is intended to help states eliminate their backlog within four years. About 225,000 known untested rape kits had been uncovered in the last decade, it said.States will have to implement four steps to receive funding: provide yearly reports on the number of untested rape kits, require that all new rape kits be submitted and tested in a short time, track rape kits and make their status available to victims, and make the kits widely available. -- Sahil KapurButtigieg Outlines Plan to Boost Racial Justice (11:20 a.m.)Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg detailed a multibillion-dollar initiative to address racial inequality in heath care, education, entrepreneurship, the criminal justice system, housing, the environment and voting rights.Buttigieg's campaign has been roiled by his handling of racial issues in South Bend, Indiana, where he is mayor. In June, he suspended his campaign and returned home to address protests by black residents after a white police officer shot and killed a black man. Buttigieg has struggled to attract minority voters and the most recent polls show him essentially polling at zero among black Democrats.The "Douglass Plan" he presented Thursday aims to show "how the federal government can intentionally dismantle racist structures and systems" through "unprecedented" economic investment in African American communities.The proposal, named after the 19th century black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, includes creating health equity investment zones and a data base identifying health threats, increasing funding for Title 1 and investing $25 billion into historically black colleges and universities, ensuring increased access to capital for black entrepreneurs and reducing the incarceration rate by 50%.He also calls for abolishing private federal prisons, eliminating the imprisonment of people for drug offenses and expunging the record of drug offenders. -- Emma KineryBiden to Outline His Post-Trump Foreign Policy (06:00 a.m.)Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden on Thursday will outline his plan to remake U.S. foreign policy after four years of Donald Trump's leadership.The address in New York will be the former vice president's first major effort to highlight an area where he has far more experience than any of his rivals for the presidency, according to a campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity.Biden will focus on the need to repair and reinvigorate U.S. democracy, equip Americans to better succeed in the global economy and put the country back at the head of the table in mobilizing collective action on global threats.He also will promise to convene a gathering of the world's democracies during his first year in office as a step toward rebuilding alliances frayed by the Trump administration, the official said.The speech comes after several rocky weeks for Biden, whose advantage in polls has narrowed amid scrutiny of his record on racial issues and a rocky performance at the first Democratic debate last month in Miami.Biden was involved in foreign policy for much of his political career. He was the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than a decade and, as vice president, had a key role in advising President Barack Obama on foreign policy matters.But focusing on his international expertise might not bring much political gain: In June, just 3% of Americans surveyed by Gallup said foreign policy and national security-related issues were the country's most important problem.Biden has already come under fire from some of his rivals as the only candidate in the race who voted in 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq. The other 2020 contender who was in the Congress at the time, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, voted against military action.And rivals are likely to point out that Obama didn't always follow Biden's foreign policy advice. In 2009, the president sided with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over Biden in approving a troop surge in Afghanistan. Biden urged Obama not to go forward with the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. But Obama approved the mission, which Biden has since touted as an accomplishment of their administration.The official wouldn't point to any major breaks from Obama's policies, saying Biden would respond to new challenges and restore some of the policies and practices that Trump eliminated. He would also put renewed emphasis on fighting climate change, including by re-entering the Paris climate agreement and pushing countries to make commitments that go beyond that pact.The former vice president would use the democracy summit to ask social-media and other technology companies to agree to take steps to guard against abuses of technology around the world.In addition, Biden will call for rebuilding U.S. alliances and retaking the U.S. role as a leader of multilateral coalitions to stand up to authoritarian regimes, the official said.Biden won't get into many regional specifics, though he will say that if Iran returns to compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord, the U.S. would also rejoin the agreement under his watch while pushing to strengthen and lengthen it, the official said. -- Jennifer EpsteinSanders Goes on Hiring Spree in New Hampshire (5 a.m.)Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign has been on a hiring spree in New Hampshire in the past two months, as the Vermont senator tries to fend of challenges from Elizabeth Warren and other rivals who also are investing heavily in the first-in-the-nation primary state.The campaign now has 45 staffers there, a nearly 45% jump since May, according to Carli Stevenson, deputy director of Sanders's New Hampshire operation. Joe Caiazzo, the campaign's state director, said the new hires primarily will be used to connect with the thousands of Granite State voters who volunteered for Sanders's 2016 primary race against Hillary Clinton.Sanders won by 22 points in that primary, and he's counting on a repeat early next year to help propel him through the rest of the Democratic contests. Recent polls in the Granite State have him in second place there behind national front-runner Joe Biden. Warren, from neighboring Massachusetts, has visited the state more than twice as often as Sanders.The Sanders campaign also plans to add four satellite offices in the New Hampshire, bringing its total number of offices there to six. In addition to headquarters in Manchester, the campaign opened another office in Hudson. Locations for the new offices include Dover, West Lebanon, Portsmouth and a second satellite office in Manchester, Stevenson said. -- Laura LitvanHere's What Happened Wednesday:Sanders published a list of "anti-endorsements" on his presidential campaign website with quotes from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other luminaries of Wall Street and beyond. "Bernie Sanders, in my opinion, doesn't have a clue," Leon Cooperman, a former partner at Goldman Sachs, is quoted as saying. "It has the potential to be a dangerous moment," Blankfein said of Sanders's campaign. "In 2016 I saw Bernie Sanders and the kids around him. I thought: 'This is the antichrist!"' said Home Depot Inc. Co-Founder Kenneth Langone. In a statement Sanders said of the business leaders quoted: "we welcome their hatred."Two days after announcing his presidential candidacy, billionaire Tom Steyer has already spent $1.4 million on television commercials in the key first nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Few candidates have done a single TV ad yet, and none has spent as much money as Steyer. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York launched ads Tuesday targeting Trump in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, where she will be traveling this week. Representatives Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts ran TV ads in June. Former Maryland Representative John Delaney, the first to join the race, bought a TV ad during the 2018 Super Bowl.\--With assistance from Laura Litvan, Jennifer Epstein, Sahil Kapur, Emma Kinery and Catherine Dodge.To contact the reporter on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Court rules against Florida officials on medical marijuana Posted: 10 Jul 2019 01:33 PM PDT ![Court rules against Florida officials on medical marijuana]( "Court rules against Florida officials on medical marijuana") A Florida appellate court ruled that the state's approach to regulating marijuana is unconstitutional, possibly allowing more providers to jump into a market positioned to become one of the country's most lucrative. If the ruling stands, it could force state officials to lift existing caps on how many medical marijuana treatment centers can operate in Florida. Tuesday's ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee was another setback for Florida officials trying to regulate the burgeoning marijuana industry more tightly.
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