| As COVID cases spike in Florida, Trump now says he's 'flexible' on convention format in Jacksonville Posted: 08 Jul 2020 08:46 AM PDT  With coronavirus cases exploding in Florida, the president now says he is "flexible" on plans to hold a large-scale, indoor Republican National Convention next month.
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| An Austin police officer appeared to grope a woman's breast after pulling her over for a traffic violation Posted: 09 Jul 2020 11:44 AM PDT  The Austin Police Department defended the officer's conduct, saying he followed the department's regulations and that no female officer was available.
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| NYPD forced to impose limit on officers filing for retirement amid 400% surge of personnel trying to quit Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:44 PM PDT  The New York Police Department (NYPD) has reportedly limited the number of retirement applications it will allow, after it saw a surge in requests in the last couple of months.The NYPD announced on Wednesday that 179 officers filed for retirement between 29 June and 6 July – a 411 per cent increase on the 35 who retired in the same time period in 2019.
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| 'I feel threatened': Unmasked Florida man's viral Costco outburst cost him his job Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:33 PM PDT  "He absolutely does not represent our values and no longer works at our agency," the CEO of Ted Todd Insurance said Tuesday.
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| Rare gorillas in Nigeria captured on camera with babies Posted: 08 Jul 2020 12:05 AM PDT  Conservationists have captured the first images of a group of rare Cross River gorillas with multiple babies in Nigeria's Mbe mountains, proof that the subspecies once feared to be extinct is reproducing amid protection efforts. Only around 300 Cross River gorillas were known to be alive at one point in the isolated mountainous region in Nigeria and Cameroon, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which captured the camera trap images in May. More color images were recovered last month. John Oates, professor emeritus at the City University of New York and a primatologist who helped establish conservation efforts for the gorillas more than two decades ago, was excited about the new images.
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| Nile dam dispute spills onto social media Posted: 08 Jul 2020 08:31 PM PDT  As Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan struggle to resolve a long-running dispute over Addis Ababa's mega-dam project on the Nile, some of their citizens are sparring online over their rights to the mighty waterway. For nearly a decade, multiple rounds of talks between Cairo, Addis Ababa and Khartoum have failed to produce a deal over the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Anxiety has mounted in downstream Sudan and Egypt, which fear for their vital water supplies after upstream Ethiopia declared plans to start filling Africa's largest dam reservoir in July.
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| Militants kill BJP politician Wasim Bari and his family in Kashmir Posted: 08 Jul 2020 07:58 PM PDT  A Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party politician was killed along with his brother and father in Indian administered Kashmir, officials said on Thursday. Wasim Bari, 38, and his family were attacked by militants at his residence in north Kashmir's Bandipora district on Wednesday night. All three were shot at point-blank range and died on the way to hospital. Authorities have arrested all 11 police personnel who were guarding him for dereliction of duties. Mr Bari's residence is a few meters away from the police station. This is the first attack on BJP workers in Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, when India stripped off the disputed region's autonomy. The killing of Mr Bari, who is survived by his wife and sister, has sent shock waves across political circles in Kashmir. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the attack.
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| 'Scared for my life' but needing a salary: Teachers weigh risks of COVID-19 Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:34 AM PDT  For teachers, the question is stark: Is the risk of catching COVID-19 worth continuing in a profession many love and need to fund retirement plans?
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| CDC says guidelines for reopening schools are 'not requirements' after Trump calls them 'impractical' Posted: 08 Jul 2020 11:16 AM PDT  After President Trump on Tuesday lashed out at what he called "impractical" and "expensive" guidelines for reopening schools published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency's director stressed that they are just guidelines, "not requirements."
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| El Salvador murder rate plummets; study says gangs may have informal pact with government Posted: 08 Jul 2020 07:56 AM PDT |
| Top US general slams Confederacy as 'an act of treason' and says the country needs to take 'hard look' at bases honoring its leaders Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:43 PM PDT  The Confederacy "was an act of treason at the time against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the US Constitution," Gen. Mark Milley said.
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| As One of Russia’s Leading Journalists Is Charged With Treason, a Chill Settles Over the Press Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:09 AM PDT  MOSCOW—When the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested journalist Ivan Safronov on charges of "state treason" this week, many of his friends were quick to remember what happened to his father. Both men covered news about national defense and Russia's space program and were recognized as authorities in their field. The elder Safronov, who also was named Ivan, wrote for the newspaper Kommersant until one day in 2007 he plunged out of a window to his death.The younger Safronov never believed the official conclusion that his father committed suicide. Neither did colleagues at Kommersant. "Defenestration," pushing people out of windows and blaming accidents or suicide, is viewed as a common, if conspicuous, technique allegedly used by Russian security services for extrajudicial executions.The younger Safronov took up the banner of investigative reporting at Kommersant and became one of the country's leading defense correspondents in his own right, but just recently took a job as a senior adviser to Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, Russia's major space agency. Rogozin told the TASS news agency on Tuesday that Safronov "did not have any access to classified information," and that he knew Safronov as an honest and professional man. Nonetheless, Safronov is alleged to have turned over national defense secrets to someone from what was initially reported as an unnamed "NATO country."Even One-Person Protests are Too Much for Vladimir PutinSafronov's lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, who specializes in treason cases, told The Daily Beast the allegations presented to the court "said that Czech intelligence had recruited Safronov in 2012 and that in 2017 he'd received a task from them to collect and pass information on Russian weapons sold to Africa. I believe they mean Egypt. The investigators surely do not admit that they accuse Safronov of his journalistic work." Pavlov said his client looked strong, brave and very much interested in all details of his case. "He asked me what to expect," Pavlov said. "Two of my five clients accused of treason are under house arrest, two are in prison. They all face up to 20 years of prison."Early Tuesday morning investigators searched the home of Safronov's friend, Taisya Bekbulatova, formerly with Kommersant and the independent publication Meduza and now editor-in-chief of Holod (Cold). Bekbulatova was denied access to her attorney during her interrogations, according to the Mediazona news website.By the afternoon, authorities at the Lefortovo court let a few reporters in to take photographs of Safronov, who was locked in the courtroom's cage.In the meantime, journalists were protesting one by one as "single pickets" (observing government regulations and social distancing) outside the historic headquarters of Soviet and Russian secret police, including the FSB, on Lubyanka Square. They held banners that said, "Journalism is not a crime." More than two dozen from five different publications were detained.All of this comes just as Vladimir Putin has engineered constitutional changes allowing him to remain, in effect, president for life. And nearly every day Russia hears of threats, arrests, investigations against independent journalists who might challenge his authority or the actions of his government. On Monday a Russian court found journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva guilty of "justifying terrorism" in one of her articles. The reporter for Radio Free Europe has to pay a large fine. But the state treason charges leveled against Safronov are a much more serious charge and signal greatly increased pressure on the press. Vladimir Solovyev, editor of Russia's only independent TV channel, Rain, told The Daily Beast, "We called our television show today 'They Have Come to Get Us.' We are outraged to see our friend and colleague Safronov being accused of ridiculous things." Solovyev said he would only believe the charges "if I see very precise detailed evidence." But in treason and espionage cases that kind of solid information is rarely made available to the public.Just a few years ago state treason charges were rare in Russia. From 1997 to 2008 there were only two or three cases a year. But eight people were charged with such crimes last year alone, and just a few weeks ago a Russian scientist was accused of passing secrets to China."We hear that FSB is in the process of releasing a law that would ban us from publishing anything about the FSB without an official approval signed by the FSB," says journalist Kirill Kharatyan, formerly with the business paper Vedomosti, where he was Safronov's editor.Footage broadcast of armed men taking Safronov away shocked independent journalists here n Russia. Andrei Soldatov, author of several important books about Russian intelligence operatives and occasional contributor to The Daily Beast, noted that before 2012 Russian journalists could not be charged with treason, since by definition independent reporters had no access to state secrets. "The FSB is making it clear to us that things are different now," Soldatov told us after Safronov's arrest. "I can think of only one reason: to point out to us which important topics are now closed to the public."Just like his father before him, 30-year-old Ivan Safronov covered the life of the Russian military and space industry workers objectively, starting nearly every piece with the words, "As Kommersant has learned." His scoops were well-sourced and drew a lot of attention. He carefully checked every piece of information on every story, whether he reported on a "superjet" catching fire, or a manager at Roscosmos stealing state money, or on the growing Russian military contingent in the Central African Republic. But in April last year Safronov published an explosive story about possible changes in Vladimir Putin's court: the director of Russia's foreign intelligence service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, coming to replace Valentina Matvuyenko as speaker of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russian parliament. The Kremlin denied the story and Safronov had to quit Kommersant, allegedly under pressure from the paper's owner, billionaire Alisher Usmanov. But Kommersant did not kill the story. It can still be found on its website.Safronov continued to report his sharp in-depth stories for Vedomosti until March of this year before finally taking the job at Roscosmos. "I have a feeling that Ivan was under constant pressure from threats," Safronov's former editor Kharatyan told The Daily Beast. "So he thought he would be safer if he got a job at a state agency, that that would protect him. But obviously that did not help."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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| What Ghislaine Maxwell's arrest means for Epstein case Posted: 08 Jul 2020 09:06 PM PDT  Insight from Cameron Lindsay, prison security expert, and criminal defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh.
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| Israel looked like a model for halting coronavirus. Here's how it 'lost its bearings.' Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:31 AM PDT  "It has been several weeks since Israel's compass for handling the pandemic has lost its bearings," wrote the public health director in her resignation.
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| Europe fears complacency; virus hits 'full speed' in Africa Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:30 AM PDT  Asian and European officials pleaded with their citizens Thursday to respect modest precautions as several countries saw coronavirus outbreaks accelerate or sought to prevent new flare-ups, while the virus showed no signs of slowing its initial advance in Africa and the Americas. Following two nights of anti-lockdown protests in Serbia, authorities banned mass gatherings in the capital of Belgrade amid an uptick in confirmed COVID-19 cases. Officials elsewhere in Europe warned of the risk of new flareups due to lax social distancing, while officials in Tokyo and Hong Kong reviewed nightclubs, restaurants and other public gathering spots as a source of their latest cases.
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| Trump has 91% chance of winning second term, professor’s model predicts Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:39 PM PDT  President Donald Trump has a 91 per cent chance of winning the November 2020 election, according to a political science professor who has correctly predicted five out of six elections since 1996."The Primary Model gives Trump a 91 percent chance of winning in November," Stony Brook professor Helmut Norpoth told Mediaite on Tuesday.
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| California officer under investigation for allegedly sharing 'vulgar image' of George Floyd; NAACP San Diego calls for his firing Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:03 PM PDT  A San Diego officer is under investigation for allegedly sharing an "altered photograph" of a "naked black male porn star" kneeling on George Floyd.
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| New York attorney general recommends reducing mayor's power over police Posted: 08 Jul 2020 12:52 PM PDT  New York Attorney General Letitia James recommended that New York City's mayor give up sole control over the city police commissioner's hiring, in a preliminary report released on Wednesday on her investigation into the policing of recent protests. "There should be an entirely new accountability structure for NYPD," James said in her report, which also recommended giving more power to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, a city agency that reviews police misconduct.
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| China’s Confucius Institutes Attempt to Rebrand Following Backlash Posted: 08 Jul 2020 09:35 AM PDT  China is attempting to rebrand Confucius Institutes following a worldwide backlash against the centers.Confucius Institutes, which are present on dozens of U.S. college campuses and at other foreign universities, carry the stated purpose of promoting Chinese language and culture. However, U.S. officials have singled out the institutes as propaganda centers that serve as an extension of China's "soft power."The Confucius Institute Headquarters in Beijing has changed its name to the "Ministry of Education Centre for Language Education and Cooperation." Additionally, the organization changed the name of its account on Chinese social-media app WeChat, although it is not clear if Confucius Institutes in other countries will themselves be renamed.The name change is "related to various kinds of pressure, but it is by no means succumbing to them," Sun Yixue, a professor at the International School of Tongji University in Shanghai, told the South China Morning Post. "It is a timely adjustment made by China to adapt to the new situation of world language and cultural exchanges, but this does not mean that all overseas Confucius Institutes should be renamed accordingly."Several American universities have shut their Confucius Institutes in the past several months, after the coronavirus pandemic led to increased public scrutiny of the U.S.-China relationship and Chinese influence on American campuses. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are currently in the midst of an investigation into the institutes."We cannot allow a dangerous Communist regime to buy access to our institutions of higher education, plain and simple," Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said in a statement upon announcing the investigation in May. "We owe it to the American people to hold China accountable and to prevent them from doing further harm to our country."
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| Aerosols are a bigger coronavirus threat than WHO guidelines suggest – here's what you need to know Posted: 09 Jul 2020 05:14 AM PDT  When someone coughs, talks or even breathes, they send tiny respiratory droplets into the surrounding air. The smallest of these droplets can float for hours, and there is strong evidence that they can carry live coronavirus if the person is infected.The risk from these aerosols isn't currently incorporated into the World Health Organization's formal guidance for nations, though. The WHO suggests that the coronavirus is primarily transmitted by coughing or sneezing large droplets into someone's face, not a longer-term threat that can be floating in the air.After pressure from scientists, that may soon change. This week, more than 200 scientists published an open letter to the WHO warning about airborne transmission of COVID-19 via aerosols and urging the organization to recognize the risks. The WHO has since acknowledged growing evidence of airborne spread of the disease, but it has not yet changed its advice to protect people from contracting COVID-19 from aerosols.As professors who study fluid dynamics and aerosols, we believe it is important for people to understand the risks and what they can do to protect themselves. What is an aerosol and how does it spread?Aerosols are particles that are suspended in the air. When humans breathe, talk, sing, cough or sneeze, the emitted respiratory droplets mix in the surrounding air and form an aerosol. Because larger droplets quickly fall to the ground, respiratory aerosols are often described as being made up of smaller droplets that are less than 5 microns, or about one tenth the width of a human hair. In general, droplets form as a sheet of liquid breaks apart. You've probably experienced this phenomenon by blowing soap bubbles. Sometimes the bubble doesn't fully form, but instead breaks apart into many droplets. Similarly, in humans, small sheets and strands of liquid – mucus – often stretch across portions of the airway. This most often occurs in locations where the airway opens and closes again and again. That happens deep within the lungs as the bronchioles and alveolar sacs expand and contract during breathing, within the larynx as the vocal folds vibrate during speech, or at the mouth, as the tongue and lips move while talking. The airflow produced by breathing, speaking and coughing breaks apart these sheets of mucus, just like blowing the soap bubble. [Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]The size of the droplets varies based on how and where they are produced within the airway. While coughing generates the largest quantity of droplets, research has shown that just two to three minutes of talking can produce as many droplets as one cough.Droplets that are smaller than 5 microns can remain suspended in the air for many minutes to hours because the effect of air drag relative to gravity is large. In addition, the water content of virus-carrying droplets evaporates while they are airborne, decreasing their size. Even if most of the fluid evaporates from a virus-laden droplet, the droplet does not disappear; it just becomes smaller, and the smaller the droplet, the longer it will stay suspended in the air. Because smaller diameter droplets are more efficient at penetrating deep into the pulmonary system, they also pose a much greater infection risk. The WHO guidelines suggested that the virus RNA found in small droplets wasn't viable in most circumstances. However, early research on the SARS-CoV-2 virus has shown that it is viable as an aerosol for up to 3 hours. Do masks protect from aerosol transmission?Face coverings and masks are absolutely necessary for protection against aerosol transmission. They serve a twofold purpose. First, they filter the air expelled by an individual, capturing respiratory droplets and thereby reducing the exposure risk for others. This is particularly important as they are most effective at capturing larger droplets that are more likely to have larger quantities of viruses encapsulated within them. This prevents the larger droplets from directly affecting someone, or evaporating down to a smaller size and circulating in the air. They also reduce the speed of the puff of air that is produced when sneezing, coughing or talking. Decreasing the velocity of the expelled air reduces the distance that droplets are initially transported into the person's surroundings. It is important to realize, however, that the protection provided by masks and face coverings varies depending on the material they are constructed from and how well they fit. Nevertheless, wearing face coverings to decrease airborne exposure risk is critical. Is staying 6 feet away enough to stay safe?The recommendation to maintain a 6-foot separation is based on a study by W. F. Wells in 1934 that showed an expelled water droplet either falls to the ground, or evaporates, within a distance of roughly 2 meters, or 6 feet. The study did not, however, account for the fact that following evaporation of the water in a virus-laden droplet, the nuclei remains, thereby still posing a risk of airborne infection.Consequently, while staying 6 feet from other people reduces exposure, it might not be sufficient in all situations, such as in enclosed, poorly ventilated rooms. How can I protect myself from aerosols indoors?Strategies to mitigate airborne exposure are similar to strategies for staying dry when it's raining. The longer you stay in the rain, and the harder it's raining, the wetter you will get. Similarly, the more droplets you are exposed to, and the longer you stay in that environment, the higher the exposure risk. Mitigating risk is therefore based on decreasing both aerosol concentration levels and exposure time. Aerosol concentrations can be reduced with increased ventilation, although recirculating the same air should be avoided unless the air can be effectively filtered prior to reuse. When possible, open doors and windows to increase fresh air flow. Decreasing the number of emission sources – people – within a space, and ensuring that face coverings are worn at all times can further decrease concentration levels. Methods of deactivating the virus, such as germicidal ultraviolet light, can also be used.Finally, reducing the amount of time you spend in poorly ventilated, crowded areas is a good way to reduce airborne exposure risk. Amir Mofakham, a research associate in mechanical engineering at Clarkson University, contributed to this article.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Here's how to stay safe while buying groceries amid the coronavirus pandemic * How to lower your coronavirus risk while eating out: Restaurant advice from an infectious disease expertByron Erath receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He is affiliated with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Physical Society, Division of Fluid Dynamics.Andrea Ferro receives funding from the National Science Foundation. She is affiliated with the American Association for Aerosol Research, the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate, and the International Society for Exposure Analysis. Goodarz Ahmadi receives funding from the National Science Foundation. He is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and also a Fellow of American Society of Thermal and Fluid Engineers (ASTFE). He is life member of International Society for Porous Media (InterPore).
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| If Trump strips international student visas, these states will lose hundreds of millions of dollars Posted: 08 Jul 2020 01:32 PM PDT  Six states had half the international student enrollment.
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| Wisconsin police officer rescues dog from burning house Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:09 PM PDT |
| The United States does not want Cuba and Venezuela to buy on Amazon Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  A minor nuisance that comes with U.S. sanctions is having to say goodbye to buying on Amazon.
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| Maxine Waters Foe Omar Navarro Gets Out of Jail And Attempts to Destroy Fellow Republican Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:55 AM PDT  Pro-Trump internet personality Omar Navarro emerged from a six-month stint in jail on a stalking charge last month, and immediately registered to run for Congress. Navarro, a perennial challenger to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), has registered to run for her seat again in 2022—assuming, perhaps logically, that Waters will once again prevail in her re-election request this November. But Navarro, who had nearly $50,000 in his campaign bank account as of March 31 even while he served his jail term, is not going to wait for those results before getting involved. He told The Daily Beast that he's going to send out mailers this election cycle denouncing Joe Collins, the Republican nominee currently running against Waters."Hey, I don't agree with him," Navarro told The Daily Beast. "I believe Maxine Waters is better than him."Asked for comment on Navarro's sour-grapes scheme to ruin Collins's already slim chances of winning this fall, Collins responded by accusing Navarro of having "daddy issues" without elaborating. "Omar Navarro is a joke," Collins told The Daily Beast. "He has the mentality of a four year old child throwing a temper tantrum and the testicular fortitude of a mouse." A Perennial Congressional Candidate Beloved by Trump World Was Just Arrested on Stalking ChargesThe scrapping between Collins and Navarro for the chance to lose to Waters highlights the odd incentives facing Republican challengers taking on famous incumbents in heavily Democratic districts. Running against Waters as a Republican would be a poor choice for anyone who actually wants to win. Indeed, Navarro has tried twice already, losing by more than 50 percentage points in 2016 and 2018. But for a GOPer interested in raising millions off of Waters's notoriety as a devoted Trump foe, and increasing his profile in the pro-Trump mediasphere, it works out great. Navarro raked in donations from low-dollar contributors and saw his stature on the online Trump right explode thanks to his quixotic earlier campaigns. Even the candidates themselves acknowledge the money that's at stake for whoever wins the right to face off against Waters. "The main reason Navarro is upset is because he's used to living off of his campaign donations and now he's facing the realization that, after being beaten by a real candidate with a shot at winning, he has to find a real job," Collins said in his email. For Navarro, that time in the bright lights of online Trumpy fame came to a halt when he was arrested in December in San Francisco after stalking ex-girlfriend and fellow Republican personality DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, who herself was running a doomed campaign against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Navarro eventually pleaded guilty to a stalking charge, and was sentenced to six months in San Francisco's jail, where he claims to have lost 30 pounds. Even while imprisoned in San Francisco, Navarro kept up his political profile. And he stayed on the ballot, losing the March Republican primary to Collins by a mere 250 votes—a 0.3 percent difference in the vote total. Undeterred by that loss, Navarro has tried to recast himself since being released from jail as the latest victim of deep-state prosecutors. While other Trump supporters who faced criminal charges were involved in international intrigue, however, Navarro has been faced with claiming that he was arrested on a local stalking charge because of some secret government scheme. "Full disclosure with you guys: in the past six months, yes, I have been in a county jail," Navarro told his more than 250,000 Twitter followers after being released from jail. Despite overwhelming evidence that Navarro violated Tesoriero's restraining order against him, including the fact that Navarro bashed Tesoriero to The Daily Beast in apparent violation of the order, Navarro claims that he only pleaded guilty because he would have become a "political prisoner" if he hadn't."I wouldn't have been judged by a jury of my peers, I would've been judged by a bunch of liberals, and they would have kept me locked up in there as a political prisoner," Navarro said in his Twitter video. "And that's not OK." While it might seem strange for the recently imprisoned Navarro to be confident he can win the 2022 primary to challenge Waters, he is aided by the fact that Collins has a bizarre history of his own.A Navy veteran, Collins has continuously switched parties since 2016, cycling between being a Democrat, a Republican, a member of the Green Party, and a member of the "Millennial Political Party." Collins has also filed a lawsuit over child support payments that is riddled with language echoing the nonsense legal language used by members of the far-right sovereign citizen movement. At one point in his lawsuit, in an apparent attempt to deploy a fringe legal theory, Collins claimed that his bodily fluids were worth $15 million—a bizarre detail Navarro has seized on in his campaign to bring down his rival. "You're the guy that's gonna take down Maxine Waters?" Navarro said in a video taunting Collins that he released in late June. "I'm sorry, but you're not gonna do that. And by the way, your bodily fluids are not worth $15 million." 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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| Russia and China veto Security Council resolution enabling aid to Syria Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:00 AM PDT  Russia and China vetoed a Security Council resolution on Tuesday that would maintain cross border aid to Syria's rebel-held northwest, in a move criticised as threatening millions of civilian lives. Russia instead proposed a resolution that would allow the delivery of aid through a single crossing point from Turkey for six months. Syria's closest ally, Moscow argues that aid should be delivered via Damascus across conflict lines. China said it was in favour of maintaining cross border aid but opposed the resolution because its drafters Germany and Belgium failed to include a condemnation of unilateral US sanctions on Syria. The veto was the 15th Russia had used since the start of the Syrian war in 2011, and the ninth for China. A European diplomat told AFP the veto was an "extremely negative development". "They want to strangle the population even more," the diplomat said, speaking anonymously, adding that aid "cannot reach the population from one" crossing point.
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| Black Americans report hate crimes, violence in wake of George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter gains Posted: 08 Jul 2020 11:20 AM PDT  Across the U.S., Black people have reported incidents of alleged hate crimes and violent backlash as Black Lives Matter has gained broad support.
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| 2 men arrested for looting stores in Santa Monica during protests Posted: 07 Jul 2020 05:43 PM PDT  Santa Monica Police arrested two suspects wanted for looting the REI and VANS stores during the protests against police brutality.
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| U.S. Attorney General Barr says Trump adviser Roger Stone's sentence fair Posted: 08 Jul 2020 06:08 PM PDT  U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Wednesday the prosecution of Roger Stone, President Donald Trump's longtime friend and adviser, was appropriate and his prison sentence of three years and four months was fair. Trump has argued that Stone, a 67-year-old veteran Republican operative and self-described "dirty trickster," was treated unfairly. Last month Trump declined to answer directly in a television interview when asked if he would issue Stone a pardon.
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| Female US Army soldier makes history by becoming the first woman to become a Green Beret Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:00 AM PDT  The female soldier has become the first to don the Green Beret worn by the Army's elite Special Forces.
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| Body of missing Connecticut school teacher who thought he had coronavirus found in waters off Long Island Posted: 08 Jul 2020 09:01 AM PDT  Gil Cunha, a Connecticut school teacher who has been missing since May 7, 2020 from his parents' home in West Haven, was found dead in the water off Long Island near Fire Island, New York. For three weeks prior to his disappearance, Gil had been self-quarantining in his room with COVID-19 symptoms. The West Haven Police Department and the Suffolk County Police Homicide Squad are investigating.
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| Virginia eliminates huge backlog of untested rape kits Posted: 08 Jul 2020 09:33 AM PDT |
| Canada 'lost track' of 35,000 foreigners slated for removal: audit Posted: 08 Jul 2020 10:29 AM PDT  Canada's Border Services Agency "lost track" of two thirds of some 50,000 foreigners who had been hit with expulsion orders, an audit presented to parliament on Wednesday found. The agency, which is responsible for enforcing removal orders, were unable to locate 34,700 foreigners, mainly asylum seekers slated for deportation because their requests had been rejected, the report by the Office of the Auditor General said. "Most orders had been enforceable for years, including criminal cases and failed asylum claimants," the report said.
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| 'Opioid overdoses are skyrocketing': as Covid-19 sweeps across US an old epidemic returns Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  The pandemic is creating the social conditions – no jobs, isolation, despair – that helped enable the opioid crisis to emerge in the first place. Now it's backIn West Virginia, they are bracing for the second wave.The epidemic that hit the Appalachian state harder than any other in the US finally looked to be in retreat. Now it's advancing again. Not coronavirus but opioid overdoses, with one scourge driving a resurgence of the other.Covid-19 has claimed 93 lives in West Virginia over the past three months. That is only a fraction of those killed by drug overdoses, which caused nearly 1,000 deaths in the state in 2018 alone, mostly from opioids but also methamphetamine (also known as meth).That year was better than the one before as the Appalachian state appeared to turn the tide on an epidemic that has ravaged the region for two decades, destroying lives, tearing apart families and dragging down local economies.Now coronavirus looks to be undoing the advances made against a drug epidemic that has claimed close to 600,000 lives in the US over the past two decades. Worse, it is also laying the ground for a long-term resurgence of addiction by exacerbating many of the conditions, including unemployment, low incomes and isolation, that contributed to the rise of the opioid epidemic and "deaths of despair"."The number of opioid overdoses is skyrocketing and I don't think it will be easily turned back," said Dr Mike Brumage, former director of the West Virginia office of drug control policy."Once the tsunami of Covid-19 finally recedes, we're going to be left with the social conditions that enabled the opioid crisis to emerge in the first place, and those are not going to go away."To Brumage and others, coronavirus has also shown what can happen when the government takes a public health emergency seriously, unlike the opioid epidemic, which was largely ignored even as the death toll climbed into the hundreds of thousands.The American Medical Association said it was "greatly concerned" at reported increases in opioid overdoses in more than 30 states although it will be months before hard data is available.> Clearly, what we have lost with the pandemic is a loss of connection> > Dr Mike BrumagePublic health officials from Kentucky to Florida, Texas and Colorado have recorded surges in opioid deaths as the economic and social anxieties created by the Covid-19 pandemic prove fertile ground for addiction. In addition, Brumage said significant numbers of people have fallen out of treatment programmes as support networks have been yanked away by social distancing orders."I'm a firm adherent to the idea that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection. Clearly, what we have lost with the pandemic is a loss of connection," he said."Many of the people who were using the programme either didn't have broadband or they didn't have cellphone service, especially those who were homeless. They just fell out of the programme," he said.The resurgence was not unforeseen. In March, as Covid-19 escalated, Donald Trump warned about the human toll beyond lives claimed by the virus. "You're going to have tremendous suicides, but you know what you're going to have more than anything else? Drug addiction. You will see drugs being used like nobody has ever used them before. And people are going to be dying all over the place from drug addiction," he said.Brumage and others who spoke to the Guardian were at pains to say they believed the scale of the government's response to Covid-19 is necessary. But they saw the mobilisation of financial resources and political will to cope with the virus in stark contrast to the response of successive administrations to the opioid epidemic.Emily Walden lost her son to an opioid overdose and now heads Fed Up!, a group campaigning to reduce the US's exceptionally high opioid prescribing levels."Congress immediately acted with coronavirus to help those that lost their jobs, to make sure that people were taken care of and it was addressed properly," she said. "Look at the difference with the opioid epidemic, which has largely been ignored by our federal government for 20 years."While the US government has thrown $6tn at coronavirus, the Trump administration dedicated just $6bn to directly dealing with opioid addiction over his first two years in office even though about the same number of people died of drug overdoses in that period as have now been lost to Covid-19.Brumage said federal health institutions have shifted their focus to coronavirus, including freezing a $1bn research project to find less addictive pain treatments.> You can think of Covid-19 as a hurricane whereas the opioid crisis is more like global warming. It's happening, it's slow, it's dangerous> > Dr Mike Brumage"It's robbed the oxygen out of the room and made it the sole focus of what's happening," said Brumage. "There's also a fatigue about the opioid crisis. You can think of Covid-19 as a hurricane whereas the opioid crisis is more like global warming. It's happening, it's slow, it's dangerous, but it's not happening at the same speed and scale as the coronavirus is having right now." Brumage attributes the difference in response in part to attitudes toward drug addiction."The difference between getting Covid and dying of an overdose is stigma around drug use. This has been ingrained across the United States – that people using drugs are somehow seen as morally deficient and so it becomes easier then to other and alienate those people," he said.Walden does not accept that explanation. Like many whose families have been devastated by opioids, she sees a personal and public health catastrophe perpetuated by the financial and political power of the pharmaceutical industry to drive the US's exceptionally high opioid prescribing rates which were a major factor in driving the epidemic."This comes down to lobbyists and money. People say it's stigma and it's not. There is stigma but it's about profits and greed," she said.Dr Raeford Brown, a former chair of the Food and Drug Administration's opioid advisory committee, is a longstanding critic of drug industry influence over opioid medical policy and the government's response to the epidemic. He sees a parallel with coronavirus with US states lifting strong social distancing orders too early under corporate pressure."The United States is not good at doing public health," he said. "It failed the test with opioids and it failed the test with viral pandemics. But coronavirus and pandemics, and the things like the opioid crisis, are much more likely to get us than the Russians or the Chinese are."
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| Army Reviewing 'Confederate Memorial' Featuring Slaves at Arlington National Cemetery Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:44 AM PDT  The presence of a huge memorial to the Confederacy at Arlington National Cemetery is under review.
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| Two arrested after coughing on Walmart employees, refusing to wear masks, AZ cops say Posted: 09 Jul 2020 08:36 AM PDT  Police said one of the suspects tried to flee the scene.
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| The authors of a study downplaying racism in police killings called their findings 'careless,' and retracted the paper Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:23 PM PDT  Study authors Joseph Cesario and David Johnson said they wished they'd been more careful after people used their research out of context.
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| Study shows ancient contact between Polynesian and South American peoples Posted: 08 Jul 2020 08:04 AM PDT  New genetic research shows that there was mingling between ancient native peoples from Polynesia and South America, revealing a single episode of interbreeding roughly 800 years ago after an epic transoceanic journey. The question of such contact - long hypothesized in part based on the enduring presence in Polynesia of a staple food in the form of the sweet potato that originated in South and Central America - had been keenly debated among scientists. Scientists said on Wednesday an examination of DNA from 807 people - from 14 Polynesian islands and Pacific coastal Native American populations from Mexico to Chile - definitively resolved the matter.
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| César Duarte: Fugitive Mexican ex-governor arrested in Miami Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:56 AM PDT  César Duarte fled Mexico in 2018 after being accused of embezzling millions to fund a lavish lifestyle.
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| Trump admin plans to block asylum seekers from U.S. by citing risk of COVID-19 Posted: 08 Jul 2020 03:35 PM PDT  Citing "potential international threats" from pandemics, the Trump admin announced plans to make public health risk a reason to deny asylum to migrants.
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| Deyanna Davis released from NYS custody Posted: 08 Jul 2020 03:45 PM PDT  Deyanna Davis released from NYS custody. She is still in Federal custody until Thursday.
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| Arrests and police raids follow Russia's vote to let Putin rule for life Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:10 AM PDT  An opposition governor was detained and several activists had their homes raided by the police on Thursday as Russia's latest crackdown on dissent gathers momentum. The flurry of arrests and criminal inquiries follow last week's vote in which nearly 78 percent endorsed constitutional amendments allowing Vladimir Putin to stay as president at least until 2036 when he turns 83. Sergei Furgal, the governor of the Khabarovsk region in Russia's Far East who beat a Kremlin candidate at the 2018 election, was arrested by camouflaged agents of Russia's top investigative body on Thursday morning and put on a plane to Moscow. The popular governor whose landslide win at the polls embarrassed the pro-Kremlin party, is accused of organising two contract killings as well as an attempted murder 15 years ago, according to the Investigative Committee, Russia's main federal investigating authority. Mr Furgal has not been charged with any crime. An unnamed source claiming to be linked to Mr Furgal says he has denied the allegations. Mr Furgal had been in Russian parliament for more than a decade before he won the Khabarovsk election in 2018, which has raised questions about the timing of the charges brought against him.
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| Feds: Top Ohio State Immunologist Lied About Chinese Funding and Ties to Research Groups Posted: 09 Jul 2020 11:29 AM PDT  Federal prosecutors allege that a top immunologist at Ohio State University illegally concealed Chinese funding for his research and attempted to flee the country before his arrest in Alaska in May.In a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday, the Justice Department accuses Song Guo Zheng, the Ronald L. Whisler MD Chair in Rheumatology and Immunology at Ohio State's medical school, of fraudulently obtaining federal grant funds from the National Institutes of Health and making false statements to investigators.Zheng, prosecutors say, obtained nearly $5 million in federal research grants without disclosing ties to Chinese entities and additional grant funds provided by them. The complaint and other filings in a federal court in Ohio indicate that Zheng has long been affiliated with Chinese research efforts called "Talent Plans" that U.S. officials have alleged are integral to Chinese government efforts to boost scientific and technological advancement in the country by having experts train and conduct research in the United States and elsewhere.According to prosecutors, Ohio State placed Zheng on administrative leave while it conducted its own investigation into those alleged omissions. Zheng, they say, quickly began making plans to return to his native China.Zheng's attorneys have not directly responded to the allegations in court. But the transcript of his arraignment indicates that Zheng, a U.S. permanent resident, has denied the charges against him. "I understand" the charges, Zheng told the court through a translator, "but I disagree with all of them."Ohio State confirmed that Zheng was an employee and said he'd been placed on unpaid leave, but declined to comment further. "Ohio State has been and continues to assist federal law enforcement authorities in every way possible," a university spokesperson told The Daily Beast in an email. "We cannot comment further at this time due to the ongoing law enforcement investigation."The U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of Ohio declined to comment when The Daily Beast first inquired about the Alaska arrest in late May. However, they provided a statement on Thursday after the criminal complaint was unsealed."We allege that Zheng was preparing to flee the country after he learned that his employer had begun an administrative process into whether or not he was complying with rules governing taxpayer-funded grants," said David M. DeVillers, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. "This is our office's third recent case involving the illegal transfer of intellectual property and research to China. This underscores our commitment to work with the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services, and our research institutions to protect our country's position as a global leader in research and innovation, and to punish those who try to exploit and undermine that position." A lawyer for Zheng did not respond to repeated requests for information. Efforts to reach Zheng personally were not successful.Zheng's case is just the latest federal prosecution of a U.S. academic whom the DOJ alleges had undisclosed ties to Chinese interests or funders. The department has also recently gone after researchers at Harvard University and the University of Kansas. In public remarks this week, the FBI Director Chris Wray stated, "We've now reached the point where the FBI is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours."Prosecutors say Zheng's case revolves around a failure to disclose Chinese funding in grant applications during his time at OSU and at two previous jobs at the University of Southern California and Pennsylvania State University.Zheng "had received numerous admonishments from both NIH and OSU regarding conflicts of interest, and I believe he failed to disclose his overseas activities because he knew they placed his NIH funding at risk," an FBI agent investigating the case told the court. According to prosecutors, Zheng gave conflicting answers when asked if he was involved with China's Talent Plan programs. Zheng told a law enforcement interviewed that he "had been recruited into the PRC talent plans but he did not accept the position because he did not want to spend nine months of the year in the PRC." But later in the interview, he appeared to acknowledge his participation, saying "he did not know he had to report his affiliation with talent plans."According to the criminal complaint, OSU notified Zheng of its administrative investigation in mid-May. Six days later, prosecutors say, he left Columbus, "contacted a friend and was afforded a seat on a charter flight back to the PRC and packed up numerous electronic devices and a significant amount of personal items." Prosecutors also presented evidence that Zheng and his wife planned to sell their house in Ohio.Prosecutors characterized that as an attempt by Zheng to flee the country. He was stopped at the Ted Stevens airport in Alaska. Zheng allegedly used his Chinese passport to board the flight and when the plane was deboarded, he quickly gave his carry-on luggage to a passenger he did not know. "When confronted," prosecutors said, "Zheng initially indicated he was moving permanently, then changed his story to indicate he was visiting a sick relative and later added he was looking for a job in the PRC."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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| Brazil: Bolsonaro reportedly uses homophobic slur to mock masks Posted: 08 Jul 2020 09:49 AM PDT  Top broadsheet says president taunted staffers wearing masks to protect against Covid-19 by claiming they were 'for fairies'One day after announcing he had tested positive for coronavirus Jair Bolsonaro has come under fire for allegedly using homophobic language to mock the use of face masks.The Folha de São Paulo, a leading broadsheet, claimed Brazil's far-right leader had baited presidential staff who were using protective masks, claiming such equipment was "coisa de viado" (a homophobic slur that roughly translates as "for fairies").Bolsonaro is a longstanding enemy of Brazil's LGBTQ+ community and during three decades in politics has made no secret of his homophobia."I have [parliamentary] immunity to say: yes, I'm homophobic – and very proud of it," he said in one filmed interview during his seven-term stint as a congressman.In a 2013 interview with Stephen Fry – which the British actor later called "one of the most chilling confrontations I've ever had with a human being" – Bolsonaro alleged "homosexual fundamentalists" were brainwashing heterosexual children so they could "satisfy them sexually in the future".Reports of Bolsonaro's latest homophobic remark drew immediate criticism.Thiago Amparo, a law professor and columnist, changed his Twitter profile to "fairy" and tweeted: "President, one day a fairy, like me and many others, will sit in the presidential chair, and be an infinitely better president than you were."Amparo said Bolsonaro's "disgraceful" reported remarks sent a dangerous message to Brazilian society that LGBTphobia was acceptable."It gives people rhetorical ammunition to perpetuate even more violence and discrimination against LGBT people," he said."Even if it was in a private conversation that he apparently made this comment, it is really just a reiteration of what he has been saying for his whole political career. He has built his political career around misogynist, LGBTphobic and racist comments like this."Thiago Theodoro, a journalist who presents a podcast called E aí, gay? (Hey, gay!), tweeted: "Do you know what's for fairies, president? Being proud of who we are. Having the courage to carry on. Loving, building families, surviving with dignity and happiness in our hearts, in spite of people like you."Brazil's presidential communication secretariat said it would not comment on the report.The Folha de São Paulo reported that despite Brazil's intensifying coronavirus crisis – which has caused nearly 67,000 deaths and 1.6 million infections – Bolsonaro insisted on greeting visitors with a handshake and shunned masks.Realizing such behaviour discombobulated guests, Bolsonaro dismissed fears of contamination as "nonsense".On Tuesday, as he used a reality show-style broadcast to announce his condition, Bolsonaro likened coronavirus to a downpour that would leave most people wet. He said: "I confess I thought I'd caught it way back. I'm the president of the republic and I'm on the front line. I don't shy away from my responsibilities, nor will I step back from the people."Many Brazilians wish he would.Amparo said Bolsonaro urgently needed to respect social distancing guidelines, appoint an experienced doctor as health minister, stop fighting with mayors and governors over efforts to contain Covid-19, and present a clear plan to help Brazil escape the health and economic crisis.He was not optimistic. "I think that politically he really believes he benefits from the chaos. Chaos is his way of ruling. The problem is that because of this political battle more than 60,000 people have died."Daniela Campello, a politics professor from the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said: "I think he's going to carry on taking exactly the same line – playing down the pandemic and trying to get across the message that this is an unavoidable catastrophe and that those dying are people who were already sick and for everyone else it's just a flu."
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| India raises concerns with U.S. over new rules for foreign students Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:12 AM PDT  India has conveyed its concerns to the United States about a new immigration order that could force a large number of Indian students to return home, the foreign ministry said on Thursday. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration issued a new rule this week that would bar foreign students from remaining in the United States if their universities are not holding in-person classes during the upcoming fall semester because of coronavirus. "We have urged the U.S. side that we need to keep in mind the role that educational exchanges and people to people relations have played in the development of our relations," Anurag Srivastava, spokesman at India's foreign ministry told a news conference.
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| Trump flag angered man so he dumped trash on resident’s lawn for months, NJ cops say Posted: 09 Jul 2020 08:54 AM PDT  "Some people are very passionate about their opinions."
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