| Trump fumes over Ilhan Omar's 'welcome home' crowd Posted: 19 Jul 2019 06:46 AM PDT  After claiming he wasn't happy that his supporters broke into a "send her back" chant at his rally in North Carolina, President Trump on Friday fumed over the media coverage of Rep. Ilhan Omar's return to Minnesota.
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| Alleged American ISIS Sniper Brought Home by the Defense Department to Face Charges Posted: 20 Jul 2019 01:49 AM PDT  An American citizen who allegedly served as a sniper for ISIS and became a leader for the terrorist group is expected to appear in federal court on Friday after being returned to the United States by the Defense Department, officials said.Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, who was born in Kazakhstan and became a naturalized U.S. citizen, is charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to ISIS, the Justice Department announced on Friday.A U.S. official confirmed to Task & Purpose that the Defense Department had transported Asainov from Syria to the United States. Asainov had been in the custody of Syrian Democratic Forces.No further information about the military's role in transporting Asainov, to the United States was immediately available.Asainov is accused of leaving Brooklyn in December 2013 to fight for ISIS in Syria, a Justice Department news release says. After becoming an ISIS sniper, he was promoted to become an "emir" in charge of training fighters how to use weapons and also tried to recruit someone else to leave the United States and become an ISIS fighter.Prosecutors claim Asainov tried to buy a scope for his rile by paying roughly $2,800 to a confidential informant, the news release says."Asainov subsequently sent the confidential informant two photographs depicting the defendant holding an assault rifle fitted with a scope," the news release says. "He messaged one associate exclaiming, in reference to ISIS, 'We are the worst terrorist organization in the world that has ever existed' and stating that he wished to die on the battlefield."
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| Philippine police seek sedition charges against VP, Duterte critics Posted: 19 Jul 2019 06:14 AM PDT  Philippine police have recommended sedition charges against the vice president and other opposition figures, a move slammed Friday as an attempt to stifle dissent under President Rodrigo Duterte. Police allege Vice President Leni Robredo, Catholic Church leaders and opposition politicians plotted to destabilise the Duterte government by implicating him in the narcotics trade. Duterte launched a war against the drug trade when he came into power three years ago.
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| A Group of German Leaders Tried to Kill Hitler in 1944. Here’s Why They Failed Posted: 19 Jul 2019 07:27 AM PDT  The Führer was dead, and Europe was potentially freed from the Nazi scourge. Or so it initially seemed
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| US heatwave: National Weather Service bakes biscuits inside hot car in safety warning about leaving children or pets Posted: 20 Jul 2019 09:08 AM PDT  The National Weather Service has baked biscuits inside a hot car, in a safety message about the peril of leaving children or pets inside a vehicle.As a heatwave takes grip of large swathe of the US, with up to 200m people expected to be affected by a heat index of up to 115f degrees (46c), the officials performed the experiment inside a car in Nebraska to show how hot vehicles can become when left unattended. To demonstrate the dangers, the NWS staff set about baking the biscuits in the city of Omaha, using only heat from the sun."If you are wondering if it's going to be hot today, we are attempting to bake biscuits using only the sun and a car in our parking lot," NWS Omaha said on Twitter. "We will keep you posted with the progress."CNN said four biscuits were placed on a baking sheet on the dashboard of a car and left to sit in the sun. After 60 minutes, the pan had reached 175.2f (80c) and the tops of the biscuits reached 153f. The back seat registered 120.4f in the shade.It said, four hours later, the tops of the biscuits were nearly finished baking, but the bottoms remained doughy.The car had to be turned around to adjust for the changing angle of the sun.> Biscuits are starting to get a slightly golden tinge to them. pic.twitter.com/ptL24RHQfs> > — NWS Omaha (@NWSOmaha) > > July 18, 2019The experiment was carried out to warn people about the dangers of leaving children or pets inside vehicles, even for for a short period of time. US summers frequently come with stories of tragic deaths as a result of a toddler or baby being left in a car.CBS News said six people had died in connection with the heat – four people in Maryland, one in Arizona, and another in Arkansas.Several events were cancelled in New York City, including OZY Fest and the NYC Triathlon.The NWS said the east coast and midwest are likely to see temperatures in the upper 90s, combined with high humidity. Experts are urging people to limit their time outside and drink lots of water. Cities in Vermont and New Hampshire are opening shelters where people can cool off. Some power outages have been reported in Philadelphia and after storms in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Police in Braintree, Massachusetts, asked residents "to hold off" all criminal activity until the extreme heat is over."Folks. Due to the extreme heat, we are asking anyone thinking of doing criminal activity to hold off until Monday," the department wrote on Facebook. "It is straight up hot as soccer balls out there. Conducting criminal activity, in this extreme heat is next level henchmen status, and also very dangerous."Additional reporting by Associated Press
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| Funeral service held for 86 Muslims killed by Serbs Posted: 20 Jul 2019 10:10 AM PDT  PRIJEDOR, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Several thousand people attended a funeral service in Bosnia on Saturday for 86 Muslims who were slain by Serbs in one of the worst atrocities of the country's 1992-95 war. Relatives of the victims, religious leaders and others gathered at a soccer stadium near the eastern town of Prijedor, standing solemnly behind lines of coffins draped with green cloths. The Serbs later threw bombs onto the bodies, which made identifying the victims difficult.
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| Ex-NRA Ad Firm: Um, Wayne LaPierre is Lying Posted: 19 Jul 2019 10:46 AM PDT  Lucas Jackson/ReutersIn a new filing against the National Rifle Association, lawyers for ad agency Ackerman McQueen suggest that longtime NRA executive Wayne LaPierre is lying about a critical moment in the gun rights group's recent leadership shake up. At issue is multi-million-dollar litigation between the NRA and its ex-ad firm. In court filings of its own, the NRA has alleged that Oliver North, the groups's former president, was ousted in part because he withheld information from the NRA about payments he took from Ackerman McQueen, which had served as the gun rights group's primary ad contractor until just months ago. The NRA claims North kept the nature of his deal with Ackerman McQueen a secret from LaPierre and the gun group's leadership. But in a July 16 filing that was reviewed by The Daily Beast, Ackerman McQueen alleges that LaPierre himself helped negotiate the deal between their firm and North. And they hint that they have documentation to prove it. In a statement, the NRA denied the suggestions. "The facts are clear – Mr. LaPierre and the NRA had no idea that Col. North was negotiating to become an employee of Ackerman McQueen," said Andrew Arulanandam, managing director of NRA Public Affairs. "And to the extent Col. North was pushing a contrived narrative about Mr. LaPierre and the NRA, he was conflicted. He was an employee of Ackerman at the time he was allegedly scheming with the agency to unseat Mr. LaPierre." It's a messy new chapter in the months-long legal battle between the NRA and the ad firm it used for more than three decades. And it comes as the gun group has jettisoned senior staff and faced revolts from grassroots activists and donors. "LaPierre negotiated the terms of the North Contract directly with Lt. Col. North and a detailed term sheet was sent to AMc [Ackerman McQueen] for completion of the formal agreement," the filing reads. The NRA's then-treasurer, Wilson "Woody" Phillips, also reviewed and approved North's contract with the firm, according to the filing, and the NRA board's audit committee green-lit the contract as well. "On at least two occasions, counsel for the NRA has reviewed the North Contract," the filing adds. NRA Pulls the Plug on NRATVAckerman McQueen's insistence that NRA officials were aware of the contract with North is directly at odds with the contention the NRA made in a suit it filed against the ad agency in April. North was ousted from the NRA that month during the group's annual meeting and has since accused LaPierre of gross mismanagement and making highly questionable expenditures. The NRA, meanwhile, has alleged that North tried to oust LaPierre in a coup. And in a separate suit in May, it accused Ackerman McQueen of breach of contract by leaking information about both LaPierre and the NRA's finances. Ackerman McQueen had been a central force behind the NRA's evolution from a gun rights group to a conservative cultural institution. As part of that mission, the ad firm helped launch and manage NRATV, the NRA's recently shuttered internet-video arm. The NRA has alleged in court that Ackerman McQueen had refused to share its analytics with the gun group. But In its July 16 filing, Ackerman McQueen claims that the opposite is true. "Two days before the lawsuit was filed, LaPierre was in AMc's office and was in attendance for the presentation of the NRATV analytics," it reads. "LaPierre walked out of the meeting." A spokesperson for the NRA's legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The filing indicates that the fight between the NRA and Ackerman shows no signs of losing steam. Earlier this week, longtime NRA director of public affairs Jennifer Baker left the group. And a month ago, the group parted ways with its longtime top lobbyist, Chris Cox. 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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| Iran tanker crisis 'ominous' for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, husband says Posted: 20 Jul 2019 11:59 AM PDT  The husband of jailed British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said he is worried her future has become "more uncertain and ominous" after Iran's seizing of a UK tanker in the Gulf. Richard Ratcliffe has expressed concerned for his wife, whom he has not heard from since she was moved on Monday from Tehran's Evin prison to a psychiatric hospital. Mr Ratcliffe said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, who had recently ended a 15-day hunger strike, has not been allowed contact for almost a week. "We were hoping now it is the start of a new week in Iran that we might at least get access. Nazanin's dad is going down today again to try," Mr Ratcliffe told the Telegraph. "I told the Foreign Office yesterday that in my view we should now regard Nazanin as held incommunicado." He said it was not known what treatment she was receiving or how long she was expected to remain in hospital. At Evin prison, she had been allowed regular phone calls to Mr Ratcliffe and her lawyer. "With the tankers, obviously everything feels rather more uncertain and ominous," he said. "It reminds me of the very earliest days when she disappeared under IRGC control," he added. "But I have promised myself I will wait a full week before really panicking." Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose British nationality is not recognised by Tehran, is serving a five-year sentence for espionage, charges she denies. Days before she was transferred, she told relatives: "Three and a bit years later (...) look at me now - I ended up in an asylum. It should be an embarrassment. "Prison is getting harder and harder for me. I hate being played in the middle of a political game. I just hate it." Mr Ratcliffe said he was concerned what the decision by Iran's Revolutionary Guards to move her to hospital meant, as when they were involved "bad stuff happens". It was the powerful Revolutionary Guard which on Friday seized the British-flagged Stena Impero after warning it would retaliate the UK's "unlawful" impounding of an Iranian ship. Amid statements on the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, Jeremy Hunt, Foreign Secretary, tweeted on Saturday that he was "very concerned about this week's transfer of Nazanin to an IRGC (Revolutionary Guard Corp) hospital. "We'd hoped this meant she was getting medical treatment she needs but the fact that she has been cut off from contact with her family is giving us huge cause for concern." The Foreign Office has tried to keep separate Mrs Zaghar-Ratcliffe's case and the military manoeuvrings in the Persian Gulf, but there are concerns they are being linked by the Islamic Republic.
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| Bernie Sanders campaign reportedly resists unionized staff demands for $15 per hour Posted: 19 Jul 2019 05:55 AM PDT  Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders has pledged that he will raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour if he wins the White House in 2020.
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| 'Send Him Back': Virginia Democrats vow to boycott Jamestown celebration if Trump attends Posted: 20 Jul 2019 11:43 AM PDT  Virginia state Democrats say they'll boycott an event commemorating representative democracy in America if President Donald Trump comes.
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| Ahead of U.S. deadline, Mexico minister has fulfilled migration enforcement pledge Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:18 PM PDT  Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Friday that Mexico has followed through on its commitment to the United States to reduce migration from Central America, as a deadline in a bilateral pact approaches. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to travel to Mexico City to discuss migration and trade with Ebrard on Sunday, a day before the end of a 45-day period in which the Mexican government pledged to significantly lower the number of people trying to cross the U.S. border illegally.
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| See the 2020 Chevy Corvette C8 Driving on the Road Undisguised Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:37 PM PDT |
| Florida sheriff to investigate Epstein's work release Posted: 19 Jul 2019 06:28 PM PDT  A Florida sheriff launched an investigation Friday into whether his department properly monitored the wealthy financer Jeffrey Epstein while he was serving a sentence for soliciting prostitution from underage girls. The inquiry will focus on whether deputies assigned to monitor Epstein in a work-release program violated any rules or regulations, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said in a statement. Under a 2008 plea deal, Epstein was allowed to spend most of his days at the office of his now-defunct Florida Science Foundation, which doled out research grants, rather than in the county jail.
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| A Passenger Was Fined $105,000 and Banned for Life for 'Extremely Disruptive Behavior' on an Airplane Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:09 PM PDT  She was also banned for life by British budget carrier Jet2
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| The Mystical Megachurch Ruling Over Soccer Star Megan Rapinoe’s Hometown Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:41 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyIn the hours after Megan Rapinoe and the U.S. women's national soccer team's World Cup victory, the footballer celebrated on Instagram with a photo of her hometown paper, the Record Searchlight. The caption read: "Hometown love is the best kind of love." Rapinoe grew up in the small logging town of Redding, California, and has maintained a close relationship with the community. She runs spring soccer clinics, regularly comes home for the annual Redding Rodeo, and even spearheaded a fundraiser after the Carr Fire destroyed several local homes. In the past, the town has celebrated their homegrown celebrity: in 2015, Redding declared July 21 "Megan Rapinoe Day," named a street in her honor, and changed the address of their soccer field to "15 Rapinoe Way," after her jersey number. But Redding's relationship with Rapinoe has grown uneasy. In a recent Record Searchlight letter to the editor, a resident called the soccer player "a selfish unpatriotic bigot and a total disgrace to our national team." In a follow-up article, an ex-firefighter told the Searchlight he "hope[s] she breaks her legs." As a general rule, Redding skews conservative. Shasta County, represented by Republican Doug LaMalfa in the House, is one of the most solidly red counties in California—roughly 64 percent of local voters are registered Republicans and in 2016, the county turned out overwhelmingly for Trump, including Rapinoe's father. In June, when Rapinoe kneeled during the National Anthem in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, she irked many of her old neighbors. That sentiment compounded when Rapinoe announced she would not go to the White House if she won the World Cup, and joined the roster of public figures singled out on the president's Twitter. "The team being invited to the White House, Americas house, is an honor," said Karen Margrave, a Redding realtor who first expressed her anger on Facebook. "It doesn't matter whether or not you like the President, you're representing Americas Soccer Team! Everything doesn't have to be political."How 'Walking Protest' Megan Rapinoe Became U.S. Soccer's Middle Finger to TrumpRapinoe's international celebrity has put Redding and its political fault lines in the spotlight. But the politics of Redding are complicated beyond simple party affiliations, in part because the town is also home to another divisive, wildly successful, cultural claim to fame: the Bethel Church. The multimillion-dollar revivalist megachurch has stirred controversy in Rapinoe's hometown and throughout the religious world for its embrace of consumerist Christianity, extensive gay conversion therapy programs (Rapinoe is an out lesbian), and semi-mystical practices. Bethel members believe that miracles can occur on earth, and YouTube is filled with footage of their efforts: from faith healing, to "fire tunneling" (where members form a "tunnel" with two lines and speak in tongues to people passing through), to "grave sucking"—where someone lies on a grave to "suck up" the dead person's blessings. Bethel wields immense local influence: of Redding's 90,000 residents, 11,233 are Bethel members, according to a report from northern California magazine A News Cafe. They maintain an extensive media presence—including a TV subscription service with 19,000 subscribers, two weekly podcasts with downloads in the millions, several well-attended annual conferences, and a music production arm with multiple chart-topping hits. (Justin Bieber is a fan; last year, he covered one of their singles, "Reckless Love"). Media and product sales alone earned Bethel some $23 million last year, according to A News Cafe, but the registered "nonprofit" organization also generates income from a K-8 academy called Bethel Christian School, an online and summer program called WorshipU, the Bethel School of Technology, the Bethel Conservatory of the Arts, and recently announced plans for the Bethel Business School. Most famously: they operate the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, where each year some 2,000 students pay $12,050 to study at the unaccredited three-year seminary, also known as "Christian Hogwarts."Bethel plays a unique role in the political landscape of Redding. The town's mayor, Julie Winter, serves on Bethel's Board of Elders and the church—which reported earnings of $60.8 million last fiscal year, in an area with a $46,389 median income—has funded several city initiatives. In 2011, when Redding considered closing its civic auditorium for financial reasons, Bethel offered to lease and manage it for the town, putting in some $1 million for repairs and paying an annual rent of $750,000, according to a press release from last year. In 2017, when the police force faced budget cuts, Bethel donated $500,000 to the unit, and then an additional $740,000 to pay the salaries of four officers. Just months later, the council unanimously voted to approve construction for a new, $96-million church campus, despite widespread local concern. As an enthusiastic article in Zôcalo Public Square put it: "Bethel's engagement with Redding is big and broad, touching almost every aspect of civic life."The church's strengthening grip on the town has bred suspicion and resentment among non-Bethel residents which far exceeds any angst over Megan Rapinoe. Spokespeople for the Bethel Church, the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, Bethel President Bill Johnson and Bethel Senior Associate Leader Kris Valloton declined to speak with The Daily Beast for this story. In a statement provided by email, a Bethel representative wrote: "We celebrate the US Women's Soccer Team's historic fourth win of the World Cup and join in applauding our hometown's talented athlete, Megan Rapinoe, and the success she has achieved on the world stage!"The roots of Bethel date back to 1954, when the church opened in Redding as an affiliate of a two-year-old Pentacostal congregation called the Assemblies of God. For years, Bethel existed as a modest offshoot. That changed in 1996, when a pastor named Bill Johnson signed on to lead the ministry. According to Johnson's personal biography, he accepted the job on a single condition: "I was born for revival and would pursue revival—this was not negotiable." Once he took over, the church began to grow and, as Johnson put it, "to see many healings including multiple cases of cancer healed." In 1998, Johnson and an auto repairman-turned-prophet named Kris Vallotton opened the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. The goal, according to an alumni report, was to "equip and deploy revivalists who passionately pursue worldwide transformation in their God-given spheres of influence." The first class had 36 students; by 2010, there were 1,500. Now, the school boasts more than 10,000 alumni. Creative CommonsMuch of the local resentment toward Bethel involves their practice of "faith healing," or the belief that physical ailments can be cured by prayer. According to Redding residents, it's common for Bethel members to approach pedestrians and offer to help with minor ailments. "They stop you and ask to pray for something that they think is wrong with you," said Nathan Blaze, a 15-year Redding resident and the administrator of two Redding-themed meme pages: "Redding Be Like" and "Bethel Memes." But Bethel members direct faith healing at more serious and permanent conditions. Will Smith, a former Bethel member who lives in the Bay Area, said congregants often approach his friend's son, who lives with cerebral palsy, offering to cure his illness—a gesture the child and his parents find distressing. Faith healers believe all health concerns are curable with enough effort, from cancer to HIV to actually being dead—Bethel maintains something called a "Dead Raising Team." In a survey of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry alumni from 2018, graduates claimed to have healed 50,000 people since last year, "including several dead raisings!" It's a practice that secular citizens have found traumatic: In 2008, a Shasta County man sued a Bethel student over an accident which left him paraplegic. The man claimed she had pushed him off a cliff and, upon thinking he had died, attempted to faith heal him rather than call 9-1-1 (a judge later ruled in favor or the student).Still, the practice continued. On January 2, 2014, a 15-year-old boy named Orian LeBlanc suffered from an asthma attack and collapsed in the street. A Bethel student named Andrea Martin found his body. According to the boy's grandmother, Donna Zibull, doctors said LeBlanc was still alive when she found him—he had passed out from lack of oxygen and cardiac arrest. But in a post on Facebook, Martin claimed the boy had already died and that after she'd prayed, paramedics had revived him. LeBlanc spent six days in the hospital in a vegetative state before passing away on January 8, 2014. According to Zibull, the Dead Raising Team visited him there and spent four days chanting, speaking in tongues, claiming they saw God in the room, and promising his mother Orian would come back. "I know it's a hard call for anyone to come upon that situation, but afterwards, the Bethel lady brought several people up to [Orian's] room," Zibull said. "They were up there for like four days, trying to revive him... It got too out of control. We had to just ban them from the room." After her grandson's death, Zibull got involved with a small group of Redding residents and started a Facebook page called "Concerned Citizens About Bethel." They started with about 40 people, but the group quickly grew to several thousand members. In 2017, Zibull took over the group and renamed it "Investigating Bethel." Zibull held meetings, passed out stickers, and scheduled protests around Bethel's faith healing conferences. The group began keeping count of local businesses owned by Bethel members. And they started getting concerned about an idea at the crux of the church's ideology: the "Seven Mountain Mandate."Megan Rapinoe of the USA celebrates after scoring during the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup France Quarter Final match between France and USA at Parc des Princes on June 28, 2019, in Paris, France.Richard Heathcote/GettyThe "Seven Mountain Mandate" is the belief, held across several Pentacostal and Charismatic movements, that in order for Jesus to return to earth, churches must influence and infiltrate the seven major pillars of society: government, media, arts and entertainment, education, family, religion, and business. In the book The Rise of Network Christianity, which includes deep investigations into Bethel's practices and ideology, Brad Christerson and Richard Flory claim that the goal of the mandate is to radically transform cities, ethnic groups, and nations as opposed to just individuals. "If Christians permeate each mountain and rise to the top of all seven mountains," they write, "society would have biblical morality, people would live in harmony, there would be peace and not war, there would be no poverty."It's a stance that helps explain Bethel's investment in producing their own media, opening schools, sponsoring local arts, and expanding local businesses. It also is why Zibull, Blaze, Smith and others grew concerned over the church's role in local and national politics. Colton Redwine, a former Bethel student who was dismissed from the school after coming out as gay, pointed to the church's political track record on legislation related to homosexuality, which it opposes and believes can be altered with conversion therapy. In 2018, Bethel came down hard against three bills in the California state legislature: AB 1779, AB 2119 and AB 2943, which aimed to restrict gay conversion in California, including prohibiting licensed mental health officials from offering conversion therapies. The church released statements and sent letters to legislators opposing the bills. In a live-streamed lecture called "What Would Jesus Do In A PC World?," Bethel's second-in-command, Kris Vallotton, urged the congregation to reach out to officials and get the bills withdrawn. When Investigate Bethel led a protest rally, Vallotton walked back his comments, but maintained opposition to the bills. Smith, a former Bethel member, said he left the church after its president, Bill Johnson, and his wife, Beni Johnson, made public statements of support for Trump following the 2016 election, citing their opposition to abortion, "open border policies," welfare, same-sex marriage, socialism, and higher taxes, among other things. "I had always picked up on little subtle conservative points in their sermons, but it didn't bother me," Smith said. "It was really around 2016, when Trump started becoming a big figure in the election, that my thoughts on Bethel started to change. People call Megan Rapinoe political, but it became clear to me that they were very politically motivated."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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| Court docs show Hope Hicks in contact with Michael Cohen during hush-money discussions Posted: 19 Jul 2019 08:44 AM PDT  Potentially contradicting her congressional testimony, Hicks might have been present for discussions about hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels.
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| Will Taiwan Get the New F-16V Fighters It Desperately Wants? Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  On July 8, the U.S. State Department announced it would approve a $2.2 billion arms deal with Taiwan including 108 Abrams main battle tanks and 250 Stinger man-portable surface-to-air missiles—a deal which elicited new sanctions from Beijing on the companies involved. But the announcement was more notable for what the approval didn't include—a nearly done-deal for sixty-six F-16V jet fighters built fresh off the F-16 production line in Greenville, South Carolina.This would have been the first sale of new Western combat jets to Taiwan since 1992—a fact not unrelated to Beijing's claims that sales of jet fighters to the "renegade province" constitute a redline.This stance caused three prior U.S. presidents to shy away from additional jet sales, but from the beginning, the Trump administration has proven consistently willing to disregard Beijing's sensitivities regarding Taiwan. The absence of the F-16V deal from the July 8 approval was likely linked to U.S.-China negotiations to end a simmering trade war. Perhaps the Trump administration delayed or canceled the F-16V approval to avoid sabotaging the talks, or is withholding the jets as a possible bargaining chip to extract concessions from Beijing.For now, the deal's fate remains uncertain as Taipei and its allies in Congress lobby strongly for it to proceed.Taiwan's Precarious Status
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| U.S. adviser Bolton travels to Japan, South Korea amid trade dispute Posted: 20 Jul 2019 03:19 PM PDT  President Donald Trump on Friday offered his help to ease tensions in the political and economic dispute between the United States' two biggest allies in Asia, which threatens global supplies of memory chips and smartphones. Lingering tensions, particularly over the issue of compensation for South Koreans forced to work for Japanese occupiers during World War Two, worsened this month when Japan restricted exports of high-tech materials to South Korea.
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| Hong Kong police seize explosives as rival camps rally Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:37 PM PDT  Police in Hong Kong discovered a stash of a powerful homemade explosive as the semi-autonomous Chinese city readied for another major pro-democracy protest on Sunday following a pro-Beijing rally that attracted thousands. Materials voicing opposition to an extradition bill that has sparked more than a month of demonstrations in Hong Kong were found at the site, local media said, but a police spokesman said no concrete link has been established and that the investigation is continuing. In a rally that aimed to counter the pro-democracy movement, thousands of people filled a park in central Hong Kong on Saturday to support the police, who have been accused of using rough tactics on protesters.
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| Gabbard, AOC join lawmakers to call on Puerto Rican governor to resign over corruption scandal Posted: 20 Jul 2019 09:19 AM PDT  Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has joined a growing chorus of lawmakers calling for the resignation of the Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.
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| Some asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico help each other Posted: 20 Jul 2019 03:43 PM PDT  A small group of asylum seekers sit under a canopy on the side of a road leading into the United States, chatting to pass the time as a blazing desert sun pushes the heat into triple digits and fumes roll in from dozens of cars lined up to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Coming from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba and many other countries, they're waiting in San Luis Río Colorado, Mexico, to seek asylum at the official border crossing just south of San Luis, Arizona. "Here, you have nobody but each other," Julio Montenegro, a 33-year-old Guatemalan who has been waiting for several weeks, said on a hot afternoon in late June.
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| For Planned Parenthood, No Doctors Need Apply Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:30 AM PDT  Poor Leana Wen. She took Planned Parenthood's propaganda a little too seriously. And now she's out of a job.For the longest time, Planned Parenthood has insisted that it's a health-care organization, and it only cares about abortion — supposedly a tiny share of its business — insofar as it's a function of health care.Whenever Republicans have threatened Planned Parenthood's funding over abortion, the response was, Abortion? Don't be silly. We are all about Pap tests and breast exams.The hiring of Wen as president seemed the natural extension of this line of argument. How serious is Planned Parenthood about health care? For the first time in a half a century it had a physician, with "Dr." in front of her name, one who was once the health commissioner of Baltimore, leading the organization.BuzzFeed wrote a mostly favorable piece on Wen's ascension eight months ago headlined, awkwardly in order to honor the trope that abortion is health care, "Planned Parenthood's New President Wants to Focus on Nonabortion Health Care."The first sign of trouble should have been that Wen felt compelled to immediately tweet that the headline misconstrued her vision. "Our core mission," she wrote, presumably under internal pressure, "is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care."But Wen, it turns out, wasn't single-mindedly devoted to abortion enough. With her ouster, Planned Parenthood's mask, never very firmly in place to begin with, has slipped. No matter its political spin during fights over its funding, no matter what its glossy printed materials say, no matter how dishonestly it presents the statistics related to its services, the organization is about abortion first and last, now and forever.In a letter tweeted after her firing, Wen cited "philosophical differences" with the leadership of the board. Namely, she had come to Planned Parenthood "to run a national health care organization." The board wanted "to double down on abortion rights advocacy."It's truly extraordinary to have this breach out in the open, given how vested Planned Parenthood has been in its image as a mere health-care provider. When Barack Obama became the first — and one hopes, the last — president to address a Planned Parenthood conference in 2013, he talked almost entirely about health care. In fact, he didn't mention the word "abortion" once.Planned Parenthood always says abortion is only 3 percent of its services, an absurd factoid designed to mislead. Providing pregnancy tests and performing abortions are both Planned Parenthood services, although one is obviously much more consequential and central to its mission than the other.The more telling way to look at it is that Planned Parenthood performs roughly a third of all abortions in the country, about 330,000 a year, according to its annual report.If performing a significant share of the country's abortions were merely incidental to its mission, it would gladly give it up. If you told any other federally funded group that it might have to forswear a small sliver of its business to continue to get public dollars, it wouldn't be a difficult choice. Or, if Walmart had to decide between, say, selling Bounty paper towels and everything else on its shelves, it wouldn't be a close call.The internal complaint about Wen was that she was too concerned with what is, if we take Planned Parenthood's spurious accounting seriously, 97 percent of its business. So what's wrong with that? The context of her ouster is the continued pressure on Planned Parenthood from the Trump administration and in Republican states, which, if nothing else, is smoking Planned Parenthood out. The firing of Wen, coupled with the decision to forgo Title X funding rather than stop providing abortion referrals in keeping with a new Trump administration rule, makes the group's true priority obvious, if there were any doubt.An interim president has been named, and the implicit guideline for filling the permanent role will surely be: No doctors need apply.© 2019 by King Features Syndicate
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| AOC confronts Trump administration official over 'images of my violent rape' on Facebook Posted: 19 Jul 2019 08:17 AM PDT  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has powerfully confronted a Trump administration official over a secret Facebook group for border agents, that contained twisted jokes about migrant children and showed computer generated images of her being raped and sexually assaulted.The existence of the group, consisting of current and former members of the nation's border patrol agency often referred to as CBP, was revealed earlier this month by an investigative journalism site.This week, the New York congresswoman, who recently visited migrant detention facilities overseen by the US authorities and spoke of her horror at what she saw, questioned the acting head of the department of homeland security about the Facebook group and its contents. It existence was detailed by ProPublica."Did you see the posts planning physical harm to myself and congresswoman Escobar," Ms Ocasio-Cortez asked Kevin McAleenan, referring to Veronica Escobar, another Democratic congresswoman who visited the facilities.Mr McAleenan, the acting homeland security secretary, replied: "Yes. And I directed an investigation within minutes of reading the article."She continued: "Did you see the images of officers circulating photoshopped images of my violent rape?"Mr McAleenan replied: "Yes, I did."Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who last year became the youngest women elected to Congress, asked if those people who made the posts were still working and responsible for the care of women and children. "We've already put individuals on administrative duties, I don't know which ones correspond to which posts and we've issued cease and desist orders to dozens more," he replied.Speaking at a hearing of the House of Representative's overnight and reform committee, the congresswoman asked Mr McAleenan if the Trump administration's controversial family separation policy had led to a "dehumanising culture" within the agency. "We do not have a dehumanising culture at CBP," said Mr McAleenan. "This is an agency that rescues 4,000 people a year."According to The Hill, Ms Ocasio-Cortez responded: "So you don't think that having 10,000 officers in a violent, racist group sharing rape memes of members of Congress points to any concern of a dehumanised culture?"
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| Problem: Iran Is Using Western Technology Against U.S. Drones Posted: 18 Jul 2019 11:00 PM PDT  For years, Iran has been successful in smuggling drone parts in spite of international sanctions, and now its smuggling efforts have moved into counter-drone markets. Iran shot down a RQ-4A Global Hawk drone last week. Several years ago, in 2011, it demonstrated its evolving capabilities at drone interception when it captured a RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone. To down the Hawk, Iran claimed to use the 3 Khordad surface-to-air missile system. Prior to that, Iran supposedly jammed the communication links of the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone, taking control of the drone inside Iranian territory, later reverse engineering it to produce the Shahed-171 and Saeqah drones. So, on top of drone capabilities, Iran has some counter-drone capabilities—that is the ability to detect, identify, track and/or control unmanned aircraft. It also boasts powerful cyber-attack capabilities that can be used to control enemy drones. Efforts should now focus on preventing Iran from enhancing these capabilities by countering its attempts to obtain Western counter-drone technology.
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| Trevor Noah on Why Those Racist Trump Rally Chants Against Ilhan Omar Were ‘Extra-Disturbing’ Posted: 18 Jul 2019 07:25 PM PDT  Comedy CentralOn Thursday night, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah addressed President Trump's bordering-on-fascist rally the night before at Williams Arena in Greenville, North Carolina—you know, the one where Trump worked up his crowd into a lather till they unleashed a racist chant against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). "And obviously and importantly, Omar has a history of launching vicious, anti-Semitic screeds," offered Trump, to loud chants of "SEND HER BACK!" from the crowd. (Note: Omar has no such history.) "Wow. Send her back. A U.S. citizen, send her back," offered a defeated Noah. "It almost makes you miss the innocent days when all Trump's crowd wanted to do was imprison a woman without trial. Lock her up! Lock her up! Because that was horrible, but at least Hillary would be able to stay in the country.""There have been several disturbing moments in the Trump presidency, but for some reason, this one moment felt extra-disturbing," the comedian continued. "It's the same way I felt when Ted Cruz grew a beard: I didn't think it could get any worse, but here we are. And I'm far from the only one who felt that way about this moment in the rally. Pretty much everyone who watched this thing was sickened by what they saw." Trump, for his part, later told reporters he "felt a little bit badly" about the racist chants and claimed that he tried to cut them off during the rally by "speaking very quickly" (he did exactly the opposite—pausing for effect). "Wait, what?!" Noah exclaimed. "Sometimes I think this guy thinks, like, cameras don't exist. How is Trump going to say he wasn't happy with that chant? He inspired the chant. He's the one who tweeted they should go back." Seth Meyers Grills Meghan McCain: Your Rep. Ilhan Omar Comments Are 'Dangerous'"I don't know what's a worse lie: Trump saying that he didn't like the chant or that he quickly stopped the crowd from chanting," added Noah. "He didn't stop anything. He was basking in that moment like an iguana soaking up racist sun. He let that chant go on for so long, Usain Bolt could have won a gold medal in that time." "Here's the thing: We've seen this before from Trump… he gets his supporters worked up, he pretends to be shocked, and then it becomes one of his greatest hits when he's on the road." The late-night host then left all Republican politicians silent over the racist chant with a message: "Grow some balls." 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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| See the Mid-Engined 2020 Chevy Corvette from Every Angle Posted: 18 Jul 2019 08:15 PM PDT |
| Lawmaker describes 'unacceptable' border detention conditions, meets with US citizen in Border Patrol custody Posted: 20 Jul 2019 12:46 PM PDT  A U.S. lawmaker described 'unacceptable' border detention facilities while meeting with a U.S. citizen in Border Patrol custody.
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| Irish, EU governments sound out Johnson to avoid no-deal Brexit: Sunday Times Posted: 20 Jul 2019 03:16 PM PDT  Ahead of Boris Johnson's likely election next week as Britain's prime minister, EU countries are secretly wooing him in a bid to thrash out a new Brexit plan that would avoid a no-deal disaster, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. German and French figures as well as the Dutch and Belgian governments have also established contact with Johnson's team and signaled an intention to do a deal, it added. In a limited extract released on Saturday evening ahead of publication, the paper reported that Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has indicated Dublin is prepared to compromise.
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| Murderer deemed too old for prison released early, kills again Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:50 AM PDT  Albert Flick first landed in prison in 1979, when he was found guilty of stabbing his wife to death in front of her young daughter. Now, the 77-year-old, who a judge previously deemed too old to pose a threat, has been sentenced to prison again for a nearly identical crime.
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| Saudi Arabia has decided to host US troops: Saudi defence ministry Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:23 PM PDT  Saudi Arabia has decided to host US troops in a joint move with Washington to boost regional security, the kingdom's defence ministry said, as tensions soar in the Gulf. "Based on mutual cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the United States of America, and their desire to enhance everything that could preserve the security of the region and its stability... King Salman gave his approval to host American forces," a ministry spokesman was quoted by Saudi state news agency SPA as saying. Saudi Arabia has not hosted US forces since 2003 when they withdrew following the end of the war with Iraq.
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| Journalist reporting on immigration released from ‘inhumane’ US migrant detention centre after 15 months Posted: 19 Jul 2019 02:22 AM PDT  There were bugs, and the showers were cold. Air conditioning was not available, but the heat was turned on inexplicably.If you didn't have family in the United States to send money for food, you would go hungry.Those are just some of the conditions Manuel Duran described after he was released from a US immigration detention centre.As a journalist in Memphis, Tennessee, Mr Duran had been reporting on immigration enforcement officials and sordid conditions for more than a decade by the time they took him into custody last year.Now, he says he's experienced the neglect himself."I've seen the cruelty of the mass detention of immigrants firsthand," Mr Duran told reporters in Spanish on Wednesday, "and it is unnecessary and inhumane."Mr Duran, a native of El Salvador, had been working for the Spanish-language news outlet Memphis Noticias.After being released last week from 15 months in detention, Mr Duran, 43, decried what he called the brutal treatment of immigrants by Donald Trump's administration.Detention centres have faced severe overcrowding in the past several months, prompting outrage and calls for change.Unlike many reporters who focus on immigration, Mr Duran has lived through the detention conditions he covers.Migrants did not get enough food at any of the four facilities where Mr Duran was held, he said at the news conference on Wednesday.They had to buy rations with money sent by their families, and if they didn't have relatives in the United States, the migrants would go hungry.The holding facilities were infested with cockroaches and spiders, Mr Duran said. At Etowah County Detention Centre in Alabama, he said he had to bathe with cold water from hoses for two months.The air conditioner was being repaired for most of the spring, Mr Duran said, and the heat was turned on at one point, making it difficult to sleep."I've seen the disastrous effect of Trump's anti-immigrant policy," Mr Duran said. "I've seen working men, businessmen, who have lived their whole lives in this country and who haven't committed crimes crying and longing to reunite with their families."Mr Duran alleged that ICE had singled him out for detention because he was a journalist from El Salvador.His attorneys at the Southern Poverty Law Centre also argued in a court document that law enforcement had arrested and detained Mr Duran in an attempt to suppress his reporting critical of immigration enforcement."In the US, we are made to believe that freedom of the press is valued, but I can tell you all that under the Trump administration, this isn't true," Mr Duran said.He was released from detention on bond on 11 July while the Board of Immigration Appeals considers whether to grant him asylum because journalists face dangerous conditions in El Salvador, his attorneys said.Gracie Willis, a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Centre, said Mr Duran decided to speak to reporters about his experience in detention because he considers journalism a form of advocacy."I think for him, it was important for him to speak to the press, who are his brothers and sisters in his vocation – to inform them about the things that he saw," Ms Willis said.On 3 April 2018, Mr Duran was reporting on a protest of local police helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when Memphis police arrested him while they were trying to clear people from the street, according to Mr Duran's attorneys.Mr Duran was charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of a highway, the lawyers wrote in the court document, but the charges were dropped two days later.Instead of releasing Mr Duran from jail, his attorneys said he was turned over to ICE and brought on an eight-hour bus ride to the LaSalle detention centre in Jena, Louisiana – without access to a bathroom and with his wrists, ankles and waist in shackles.Mr Duran migrated to the United States in 2006, when his television reporting in El Salvador subjected him to death threats, his attorneys wrote.He missed an immigration court hearing the next year because he was not told about it, according to his lawyers, causing a judge to issue a removal order for him.ICE on Thursday did not respond to a request for information about his case and for a response to his criticisms of the detention centres.Mauricio Calvo, the executive director of advocacy group Latino Memphis, said many other immigrants face the same conditions that Mr Duran described.Attorneys from Latino Memphis, an organisation that provides services and advocates for policies that benefit Latinos, were part of Mr Duran's legal team."This guy had a lot of support because he's a journalist and all these different things," Mr Calvo said, "but we have 500 cases at Latino Memphis, and most people cannot get the attention that Manuel did."Mr Duran is not the first foreign-born journalist to be detained by ICE.Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, a Mexican reporter, migrated to the United States in 2008 after he says soldiers broke into his home and took his identity documents.He and his son Oscar were denied asylum in 2017 and temporarily detained. Their immigration cases are ongoing.Washington Post
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| Facebook’s Former Security Chief Says It’s ‘Reasonable’ To Assume China Is Infiltrating Google Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:32 AM PDT  Facebook's former security chief Alex Stamos suggested Tuesday that it is very possible that China and Russia have subverted Google's employees."It is completely reasonable to assume that MSS and SVR have subverted employees at all the major tech companies," Stamos said in a Twitter threadTuesday, noting tech billionaire Peter Thiel's accusations that China's Ministry of Security "likely" infiltrated Google."This is part of the threat model for all competent tech security teams when building internal controls, monitoring and response," he added. Thiel, a high-profile supporter of President Donald Trump, criticized Google's work with the Chinese during a speech Sunday to the inaugural National Conservatism Conference."How many foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated your Manhattan Project for AI? Does Google's senior management consider itself to have been thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese intelligence?" Thiel asked at the conference.He added: "Is it because they consider themselves to be so thoroughly infiltrated that they have engaged in the seemingly treasonous decision to work with the Chinese military and not with the U.S. military." Thiel, who sits on the board of Facebook, suggested his questions warrant the attention of federal investigators.
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| 'Horrific for all': Pentagon intelligence chief says Iran does not want war Posted: 19 Jul 2019 04:19 PM PDT  A U.S. Marines helicopter takes off from the flight deck of the USS Boxer during its transit through Strait of Hormuz. ASPEN, Colo. — As tensions in the Persian Gulf continued to ramp up on Friday afternoon amid news that Iran had seized a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Army Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, concluded that Iran does not want to start a war with the U.S. or its allies. Answering a question posed by CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto in Aspen, Colo., about the latest incident, Ashley declined to give a specific response to the news, but later said that none of the United States' major adversaries or competitors, including Iran, China and Russia, wants to start a war.
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| The Very Real Aircraft of Area 51 Posted: 19 Jul 2019 08:47 AM PDT  Never mind the UFOs, here are eight wonder planes that have called the secret base their home.
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| Kentucky host Matt Jones yanked amid speculation he'll challenge Mitch McConnell Posted: 20 Jul 2019 08:27 AM PDT ![Kentucky host Matt Jones yanked amid speculation he'll challenge Mitch McConnell]( "Kentucky host Matt Jones yanked amid speculation he'll challenge Mitch McConnell") Sports radio host Matt Jones is being pulled from his "Hey Kentucky!" anchor job until he makes a decision on running for U.S. Senate in 2020.
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| EU plans to offer Boris Johnson no-deal Brexit extension: The Guardian Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:02 AM PDT  "It will be described as a technical delay to save Boris from political embarrassment but then we will have time to find an agreement," a senior EU diplomat told the newspaper http://bit.ly/2xWScq9. Johnson could maintain the stance of being on course to leave EU without an agreement while keeping open the option of coming to a deal with the bloc, according to the proposal cited by the Guardian. EU leaders are discussing steps to be taken in the event Johnson presses ahead with exiting the European Union without a transition deal on Oct. 31, the newspaper said.
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| 41 Low-Carb Breakfasts You'll Actually Want To Eat Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:20 PM PDT |
| Slim chance of ever finding Chinese scholar's body Posted: 19 Jul 2019 02:54 PM PDT  Brendt Christensen, a former doctoral student in physics at the University of Illinois, abducted Yingying Zhang in 2017 from a bus stop. In filings before the trial began in June, prosecutors acknowledged they considered a plea deal with Christensen after his arrest in late 2017 in which they would abandon plans to seek the death penalty if he divulged what he did with the remains and where they could be found. State and federal officials conducted widespread searches for Zhang's remains for months to no avail, according to an FBI agent who testified at the trial.
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| Shrine to Apostle Peter unearthed: Israeli archaeologist Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:51 AM PDT  Excavations in Israel's Galilee have uncovered remains of an ancient church said to mark the home of the apostles Peter and Andrew, the dig's archaeological director said Friday. Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret Academic College, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, said this season's dig at nearby El-Araj confirmed it as the site of Bethsaida, a fishing village where Peter and his brother Andrew were born according to the Gospel of John.
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| The U.S. Government Has Found a Devious Way to Hire More Bureaucrats Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:22 AM PDT  These salaries are underwritten by the $235 billion the federal government lays out to nonprofits each year. To constrain the growth of central government, conservatives have fought to keep down the number of federal bureaucrats.This strategy has failed.Since the 1960s, the number of federal employees has remained constant at about 2 million, yet federal power has greatly expanded.This phenomenon arises because Washington has outsourced many civil service functions to contractors, nonprofit groups, and lower levels of government.According to New York University professor Paul Light, the true size of the federal government's "blended workforce" is now somewhere between 7 million and 9 million people.The biggest portion of the blended federal workforce consists of federal contractors. Today, there are about 3.7 million federal contractors—almost twice as many as there were in the 1960s.These contractors fill a wide range of functions: security in war zones, statistical analyses, janitorial services, management consulting, and almost everything in between. Many of these functions were once performed by the largely blue-collar federal workforce of the mid-20th century.
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| 'Clearly a racist act': After biracial boy dragged by school bus, school settles lawsuit Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:02 PM PDT !['Clearly a racist act': After biracial boy dragged by school bus, school settles lawsuit]( "'Clearly a racist act': After biracial boy dragged by school bus, school settles lawsuit") The teen's mother sued the school district in May, alleging a bus driver intentionally closed the door on her 13-year-old biracial son's backpack.
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