| In Trump impeachment trial, Nadler presses case by quoting Lindsey Graham — from 1999 Posted: 23 Jan 2020 12:25 PM PST  Rep. Jerry Nadler employed a video clip of Sen. Lindsey Graham during Thursday's testimony of Donald Trump's impeachment trial to make the case that a president need not have committed a crime in order to be removed from office.
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| US military investigating after finding Pornhub video of Navy service members shot through peephole Posted: 24 Jan 2020 01:34 PM PST  The Navy is reportedly investigating videos found on the website Pornhub that they believe show unsuspecting service members through a peephole in a bathroom.The videos were discovered earlier this month by an agent from the Naval Criminal Investigative Series, according to a report by NBC News.
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| Cruz Claims Schiff’s Opening Argument Makes Hunter Biden’s Testimony ‘Critical’ Posted: 23 Jan 2020 06:18 AM PST  Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) told reporters Wednesday that House impeachment manager's Adam Schiff's focus on the propriety of President Trump's request for an investigation into the Bidens made it "critical" that Hunter Biden testify about his role on the board of Burisma."I think the House managers made a very serious strategic error today," Cruz told ABC News. "Adam Schiff's arguments to open the day today directly drew into question Hunter Biden and made not only his testimony relevant, which it already was, but it is now critical."The Texas Republican explained that if Democrats argue that any allegations of corruption against Hunter Biden and former vice president Joe Biden are a "scam," such claims are "directly relevant" and need to be explored.Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow later declined to comment on Cruz's argument.Cruz first floated the idea of "witness reciprocity" for testimony from Biden in exchange for the testimony of former national security adviser John Bolton on January 14.In an interview Tuesday with CBS News, Schiff said that Biden's testimony would be immaterial to the case and "would not be appropriate," implying that the testimony would amount to a continuation of "the same smear campaign that was foiled when his plot was discovered.""Hunter Biden, for example, can't tell us anything about whether the president withheld military aid, whether he withheld that aid to coerce Ukraine to conduct political investigations. Or why he wouldn't meet with the president of Ukraine," Schiff said. "That's an illegitimate abuse of the trial. And the chief justice, who may have an opportunity to rule on the materiality of witnesses, as well as the senators, should not permit that kind of abuse."Speaking Wednesday after news that Democrats were allegedly weighing Cruz's swap deal, Schiff again shot down any testimony from the Bidens."They want to use this trial to smear the Bidens. That's not the purpose of the trial and the senators should not allow it to be abused in that way," Schiff told reporters.
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| U.S. charges former Mexican police commander in El Chapo-linked cocaine investigation Posted: 24 Jan 2020 10:31 AM PST  U.S. prosecutors on Friday charged a former Mexican federal police commander with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from Mexican drug cartels to help them send cocaine into the United States, in a case linked to imprisoned drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.
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| 4 killed in plane crash at Southern California airport Posted: 22 Jan 2020 05:48 PM PST  There was no immediate word on a cause or the model of the plane that crashed at Corona Municipal Airport in California.
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| Damaged By Drone Strike: Suleimani's Sainthood Is Now Being Questioned Posted: 24 Jan 2020 07:52 AM PST  Iran's brand is thinning among the Shi'a and Suleimani's departure creates breathing room for the Shi'a in the region.
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| Victims' bodies still at New Orleans Hard Rock Hotel months after collapse Posted: 23 Jan 2020 09:19 AM PST  * Wind blows tarp off one of two bodies amid ruins * Unstable building to be imploded in MarchThree months after the partial collapse of the Hard Rock hotel construction site on the tip of New Orleans's historic French Quarter, a macabre reminder of the tragedy that claimed three lives was visible to passersby this week.Among the collapsed building's twisted remains and rubble, the dangling legs of a wedged corpse were revealed to the public after a tarpaulin sheet covering the body was blown away by wind.The gruesome sight came as city officials are scrambling to dismantle the 18-storey, 350-room hotel, which remains an eyesore and still holds the trapped remains of two workers, Quinnyon Wimberly and José Ponce Arreola.After images of the exposed corpse provoked outrage on social media, city firefighters installed a new tarp on Wednesday afternoon. As of Thursday morning the covering remained intact, as police maintained a heavy presence around the collapsed building.The mayor of New Orleans, LaToya Cantrell, urged members of the public and the media not to photograph or share images of the body."To be clear: capturing or sharing images of the victims in such a condition is irresponsible, it is indefensible, and it is not who we are as New Orleanians," a statement from the mayor's office read. "We urge news outlets, residents, and social media users to have nothing to do with making a tragic situation needlessly worse."Cantrell has faced significant criticism for her handling of the saga and it remains unclear if the collapse is being criminally investigated. Last week, city officials announced new plans to implode the building by mid-March, after the firm that owns the site – 1031 Canal Street Development – had lobbied for a gradual demolition process that would have extended into next year.The mayor's office said on Wednesday that "respectful recovery of the remains" is still a "top priority" but that the building's continued instability had made recovery "extremely difficult and very dangerous". One of the bodies is trapped over 11 storeys above street level.A spokeswoman for the mayor's office declined to comment further on Thursday.The city is preparing for the annual Mardi Gras season, which draws about a million tourists to New Orleans in February and brings in about $400m to the local economy.The collapse has also drawn attention to the plight of the city's undocumented community after one worker, Delmer Joel Ramírez Palma, was deported to Honduras by federal authorities, having been hospitalized due to injuries sustained during the incident.Ramírez Palma had alerted authorities to dangers in the construction process before the collapse and was interviewed by Spanish language TV in the aftermath. He had lived in New Orleans for 18 years.Several lawsuits have been filed against the project's developers and contracts, citing allegations of negligence. Plaintiffs include both bystanders and workers injured during the collapse.
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| Donald Trump is suddenly scared of Mike Bloomberg — as he should be Posted: 23 Jan 2020 02:30 PM PST  Mike Bloomberg probably isn't going to win the Democratic nomination for president. But he might beat Donald Trump anyway. The reason? Well, there are a couple billion of them — namely, the $2 billion Bloomberg plans to spend on Democrats' behalf.
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| Trump imposes visa restrictions on pregnant women to target 'criminal' birth tourism Posted: 23 Jan 2020 09:53 AM PST  The United States will no longer issue tourist tourist visas to foreign women travelling to the country on tourist visas, citing security concerns arising from so-called "birth tourism".The new rules were unveiled by the State Department on Thursday, and seek to put an end to the practice of giving birth in the US so that the child can obtain US citizenship.
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| Australia's Kangaroo Island is looking for volunteers to feed animals injured in bushfires Posted: 24 Jan 2020 07:10 AM PST  Nearly half of Kangaroo Island was burned by the bushfires this month alone. The RSPCA has posted an application form.
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| The outbreaks of both the Wuhan coronavirus and SARS started in Chinese wet markets. Photos show what the markets look like. Posted: 24 Jan 2020 08:37 AM PST  The Wuhan coronavirus outbreak started in a Chinese wet market, where livestock and poultry are sold alongside animals like dogs, hares, and civets.
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| Warren responds after angry dad confronts her on student loans Posted: 24 Jan 2020 07:53 AM PST  In the exchange, a father asked Warren if he is getting "screwed" because he saved money for his daughter's education.
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| Want To Start A War With America? Go Try To Sink An Aircraft Carrier Posted: 23 Jan 2020 01:00 PM PST  Iran and China shouldn't test their luck.
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| Virologist who helped identify SARS on coronavirus outbreak: 'This time I'm scared' Posted: 23 Jan 2020 02:58 PM PST  Experts are seeing shocking similarities between the coronavirus that has now spread beyond China and the SARS outbreak of 2003.Like the infectious pneumonia that has killed at least 17 people, SARS was caused by a coronavirus that originated in China. But when one of the virologists who helped identify the SARS virus visited Wuhan, where this virus originated, he didn't see nearly enough being done to fight it. People were out at markets without masks, "preparing to ring in the New Year in peace and had no sense about the epidemic," Guan Yi of the University of Hong Kong's State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases told Caixin. Airports were hardly being disinfected, Guan continued, saying the local government hasn't "even been handing out quarantine guides to people who were leaving the city."The city did disinfect the market where the virus has been traced to, but Guan criticized Wuhan for that, saying it hurts researchers' abilities to track down the virus's source. "I've never felt scared," Guan told Caixin. "This time I'm scared."A case involving the coronavirus was identified in Washington state on Wednesday, and cases have also been identified in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. A total of 639 cases were confirmed in China.More stories from theweek.com Trump debuts official Space Force logo — and it's literally a ripoff of Star Trek 14 dead, hundreds injured after 6.7 earthquake in eastern Turkey Donald Trump and the moral decline of the pro-life movement
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| Belarus' leader blasts Russia for pushing merger of 2 states Posted: 24 Jan 2020 05:44 AM PST  The president of Belarus on Friday accused Moscow of pressuring his country to merge with Russia and vowed not to let it happen. The statement comes amid stalled talks on further strengthening economic ties between two countries, seen in Belarus as Moscow's plot to swallow its post-Soviet neighbor.
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| Biden Calls DACA Recipients ‘More American Than Most Americans’ Posted: 24 Jan 2020 06:29 AM PST  Former vice president Joe Biden said at a campaign event in Iowa Thursday that most undocumented immigrants benfitting from the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program are "more American than most Americans.""These kids have come, they've done well, most of these kids — there's a lot of them . . . they in fact have done very, very well," Biden said. "In many cases, they're more American than most Americans are because they have done well in school. They believe the basic principles that we all share. I think they should, in fact, put on a path to citizenship."Biden, who earlier this week said he would fire any ICE agent attempting to deport illegal immigrants who had not committed a felony, has been an outspoken defendant of former president Barack Obama's immigration record."We didn't lock people up in cages. We didn't separate families. We didn't do all of those," the former vice president said during the September Democratic debate. In November, the U.N. revealed that Obama held over 100,000 illegal immigrant children in detention in 2015.DACA is currently facing a Supreme Court decision on its survival, after the Trump administration decided to end it in 2017.A November report from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services showed that approximately one in 10 DACA recipients have an arrest record, after President Trump tweeted many had criminal backgrounds."Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from 'angels.' Some are very tough, hardened criminals," Trump wrote on November 12.Trump has also stated he would be open to a "deal" with Democrats to allow DACA recipients to stay in the U.S.
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| In southern Poland, archaeologists discover WW2 plane wreck Posted: 24 Jan 2020 06:26 AM PST ![In southern Poland, archaeologists discover WW2 plane wreck]( "In southern Poland, archaeologists discover WW2 plane wreck") Archaeologists have discovered the wreck of a U.S.-made bomber flown by the Soviet Red Army in World War Two, along with the remains of four crewmen killed when it crashed in southern Poland, private broadcaster TVN reported. Marta Wrobel in the town of Bierun during the war and told TVN that the blast from the crash had been powerful enough to blow out windows and doors. The remains of the four Soviet crewmen who perished in the crash will be laid to rest at a nearby Red Army cemetery.
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| 'Serious safety risk': Man arrested after pointing laser at planes, temporarily blinding one pilot Posted: 24 Jan 2020 08:46 AM PST  Two planes were struck by a laser, temporarily blinding one pilot, as they flew into Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport on Wednesday night.
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| A Bank Wouldn't Take His Bias Settlement Money. So He's Suing. Posted: 24 Jan 2020 12:12 PM PST  Last week, Sauntore Thomas, a black man from Detroit, had a victory over profiling when he settled a race discrimination case against his former employer.But as he learned this week, it was too soon to celebrate.When he tried Tuesday to deposit the money at his TCF Bank, a new lawsuit says, he met resistance that escalated with a call to the police and what amounted to a claim of racial discrimination against the bank. The lawsuit called it "banking while black."After the assistant branch manager called the police, Thomas, 44, was questioned by two Livonia Police Department officers in the lobby for about an hour, Thomas and his lawyer, Deborah Gordon, said in interviews Thursday. He was also accused of fraud, even after Gordon texted screenshots of documents showing that he had just won the funds from the settlement, Gordon said."I have had this with black clients before," Gordon said. "There can be a lot of questions when they suddenly have money."Lt. Charles Lister, the investigative bureau commander at the police department, said that Thomas was not handcuffed or patted down, that the two officers were in the bank with him for 50 minutes and that two others briefly waited outside."He was never told he could not leave by our officers," Lister said.Thomas, whose story first appeared in The Detroit Free Press, had collected the checks from the Jan. 13 federal settlement with his former employer, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Circuit Court for the county of Wayne.On Jan. 21, Thomas went to the TCF branch in Livonia, Michigan, where he has had a checking account since 2018, it says. He asked to open a savings account, obtain a new debit card, deposit the money and get cash back, the lawsuit says.But he did not get far. The lawsuit says he was told by the assistant branch manager that the system was malfunctioning, that the checks had to be "verified" and "called in," and that he needed to answer a question: "How did you get this money?" The lawsuit says that the assistant branch manager went into a back room and called the Livonia Police Department.In an interview Thursday, Thomas said that two police officers arrived, while two were posted outside the bank. Thomas said one of the officers inside the bank told him, "'Can you come over here and speak with us?' And I said, 'Who, me?'"He said he was told to take his hands out of his pockets, which he did, and go to a back room, which he refused to do."He thought I was a threat," Thomas said. "I was just trying to do some banking."TCF did not immediately reply to an email or phone calls seeking comment.The Free Press quoted a bank spokesman, Tom Wennerberg, as saying that race was not a factor and that the checks showed a watermark that read "void" when scanned by the bank. Wennerberg said the three checks were for $59,000, $27,000 and $13,000. Gordon said she was unable to disclose the amount of the checks.After Thomas was questioned by the officers and they spoke to Gordon, he left without depositing the checks, the suit continues. Thomas' "race was a factor" in the bank's decision to "treat him less favorably than other individuals," it says.The lawsuit, which alleges race discrimination and names TCF Financial Corp. as the defendant, is seeking a jury trial.Wennerberg said in an interview Thursday that Thomas had little previous activity on his account and the assistant branch manager, who is black, believed the checks could be fraudulent because they "visually" did not match previous checks."We take extra precautions involving large deposits and requests for cash, and in this case, we were unable to validate the checks presented by Mr. Thomas and regret we could not meet his needs," Wennerberg said."We really want to apologize for the experience," he said. "Local police should not have been involved."Before he left the bank that day, Thomas closed his TCF account; he then went to another bank, where he opened a new account and deposited the checks, he said. They cleared the next morning and Thomas was able to buy a used car that he had his eye on for $6,000, he said.But TCF bank had filed a police report against Thomas, alleging check fraud, according to the lawsuit. On Jan. 22, a Livonia detective asked Gordon in an email for a contact at Thomas' former employer, Enterprise, the rental car company, so that the officer could ask about the settlement checks and "confirm that they are not fraudulent," the email said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Philippine President Duterte threatens to end military deal with U.S. Posted: 24 Jan 2020 08:51 AM PST  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned the United States on Thursday he would repeal an agreement on deployment of troops and equipment for exercises if Washington did not reinstate the visa of a political ally.
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| Senators struggle without their phones at Trump's impeachment trial, where all electronics are banned Posted: 23 Jan 2020 12:14 PM PST  Senators had a hard time following the strict no-phone policy while listening in on 12-hour days of arguments during Trump's impeachment trial.
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| Italy's Crazy World War II Strategy of "Human Torpedoes" Posted: 23 Jan 2020 07:00 PM PST  Was it successful?
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| 2 elephants escaped a circus in Russia and rolled around in the snow before being recaptured Posted: 24 Jan 2020 07:20 AM PST  Two elephants escaped a circus in Yekaterinburg, Russia. One of them rolled around in the snow. It took a dozen people to wrangle them.
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| Donald Trump shares image of Barack Obama scaling Trump Tower Posted: 24 Jan 2020 03:49 AM PST  Donald Trump has tweeted a photoshopped image of Barack Obama scaling the walls of Trump Tower with suction cups and holding binoculars.The image, which was posted without a caption, appeared to be a reference to Mr Trump's claims that Mr Obama and the FBI illegally spied on him.
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| U.S. health officials confirm second U.S. case of Wuhan coronavirus Posted: 24 Jan 2020 07:32 AM PST  Of the 63 people under investigation from 22 states, 11 have so far tested negative, CDC said on a conference call with reporters. News of the woman in Chicago infected with the virus that originated in Wuhan, China, followed the announcement earlier this week of a man from Washington state who was diagnosed with the virus after returning from Wuhan.
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| St. Louis prosecutor, police at odds again over traffic stop Posted: 24 Jan 2020 08:26 AM PST  St. Louis police internal affairs investigators are looking into a traffic stop involving the city's elected prosecutor, the latest episode of a strained relationship between Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner and police. Gardner was pulled over at 5:51 p.m. on Dec. 23, more than an hour after sunset, because she was driving in downtown St. Louis without her headlights on. The officer wrote in a memo to his supervisor, obtained and posted by KMOV-TV, that his sole intention was to inform the driver to turn on the lights.
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| Why Pay Off Your Student Loans if the Government Will Do It for You? Posted: 23 Jan 2020 03:30 AM PST  America's mountain of student-loan debt keeps growing ever higher. But the factors driving the increase have changed, as detailed in a fascinating new report from Moody's.It used to be that we could blame colleges for failing to control their costs. But for the past decade or so, college costs have actually grown in line with the median household income, and the "origination" of new student loans has slowed down a little. The reason we haven't seen a similar slowdown in overall student debt is that borrowers are making less progress on their loans. And a lot of the time they're doing it on purpose — because they participate in programs that were dramatically expanded during the Obama years, and that forgive debt entirely so long as the borrower first makes small payments for a set period of time.Among students who graduated between 2006 and 2008, 60 percent made at least some progress on reducing their loan balances during their first five years post-graduation, despite the recession precipitated by the 2008 financial crisis. Students who left school between 2010 and 2012 faced a better job market as the economy slowly began to recover, but only 51 percent of them reduced their balances. In the aggregate, borrowers today are repaying only 3 percent of their loans each year, despite the "baseline" student loan being one that is paid back in ten years.When someone doesn't manage to reduce his loan balance, there can be several reasons. One is that he's not earning enough money to make significant payments. This is especially likely when a student either failed to graduate or attended a program that doesn't lead to real job opportunities — both of which are especially likely at for-profit and two-year schools, enrollment in which was high in the aftermath of the recession. (It has fallen off since). Some borrowers also opt for longer repayment terms, meaning they pay off their loans more slowly than they otherwise would.But the report also points to another factor that would seem to have a lot of explanatory power, especially when it comes to those with the highest debts: the still-growing popularity of "income-based repayment" (IBR) and similar programs, which were overhauled and dramatically expanded during the Obama years. Under these programs, students can make small payments for a decade or two, often not even covering the interest on their loans, and have the entire debt forgiven at the end.This is not necessarily a bad idea in principle, but — as Jason Delisle has noted previously in this space — the programs were structured in a way that encouraged their abuse by people with incredibly high debt levels, especially from graduate studies rather than two- or four-year degrees. As Delisle wrote,> Under current law, anyone who takes out a federal student loan today can enroll in IBR and have his payments fixed at 10 percent of his income, less an exemption of $18,700 (which increases with household size). . . . Then, after 20 years of payments (or only ten years for those working in any government or non-profit job), all of the remaining balance is forgiven, no matter how high it is.He further points out, that, using the Department of Education's own debt calculator, someone with $80,000 in debt and an income of $60,000 could receive $62,000 in debt forgiveness if he works for the government. Someone with $150,000 in debt and a $75,000 salary could pay for 20 years and still receive $82,000, more than half the initial balance. Meanwhile, as noted in the Moody's report, the median amount borrowed is just about $17–18,000.Income-based repayment is a giveaway to people who choose to spend abnormally large sums on higher education, often earning graduate degrees, but go on to make unremarkable middle-to-upper-middle-class salaries. It's far less generous to someone with a modest debt, even if that person also earns a modest income. It's simply not possible to wring $62,000 or $82,000 in debt forgiveness out of the system if you're a normal borrower and didn't take out anywhere near that much in loans to begin with.The Moody's report further demonstrates that income-based programs are, indeed, highly attractive to people with big debts: "Only 5% of the total balances of borrowers who owe less than $5,000 are covered by [income-driven repayment programs]. Meanwhile, 53% of the balances of borrowers who owe more than $200,000 are in IDR programs." And unsurprisingly, heavy borrowers have a disproportionate impact on student loans in general: Folks who borrow $20,000 or less represent 55 percent of borrowers but only 14 percent of the overall debt.All of this needs to be kept in mind as we ponder proposals to shovel even more money at people who carry student debt. College really does cost too much, but the costs seem to have finally stabilized. And those with incredibly high debt already have options for getting rid of it — overly generous options that many of them are enthusiastically taking advantage of, at taxpayer expense.The concept of income-based repayment is not a bad one. Indeed, I think it would be an enormous improvement for more colleges to base the amounts they get repaid on the amounts students earn after graduating. But there's no justification for structuring such a program as a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to people with graduate degrees.
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| No qualms for India's hangman before first job of executing rapists Posted: 24 Jan 2020 12:53 AM PST  Pawan Kumar feels zero sympathy for the four men he is due to hang next month for a 2012 gang rape and murder that appalled India. The group set to meet their demise before dawn on February 1 -- although it may be delayed -- were convicted for a brutal crime against Jyoti Singh, a 23-year-old student. Angry demonstrations by tens of thousands of people broke out across the vast South Asian nation, sparking soul-searching about the plight of Indian women and leading to heavier sentences for sex crimes.
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| New Moon Photos! Get Your New Moon Photos Here! Posted: 23 Jan 2020 02:38 PM PST |
| White House breaks silence on Jeff Bezos phone-hacking scandal, calls Saudi Arabia an 'important ally' Posted: 23 Jan 2020 10:10 AM PST  The White House weighed in on reports that Saudi Arabia hacked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' phone, saying it takes the situation seriously.
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| Brexit Deal Clears Parliament, Paving U.K.’s Way to Leave the EU Posted: 22 Jan 2020 09:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit deal cleared its final hurdles in Parliament, bringing the crisis that paralyzed U.K. politics since the country voted to leave the European Union almost four years ago to a close.The passage of the law vindicates Johnson's gamble to call an election last month in which he asked voters to back his blueprint for leaving the bloc on Jan. 31. His 80-seat majority in the elected House of Commons meant he could sweep aside objections from pro-EU politicians in the upper chamber of Parliament, the Lords, and break the deadlock that cost his predecessor, Theresa May, her job last year."At times it felt like we would never cross the Brexit finish line, but we've done it. Now we can put the rancour and division of the past three years behind us," Johnson said, according to an emailed statement.Later Wednesday, members of the unelected House of Lords formally dropped their opposition and accepted the legislation as approved by the Commons. The bill will now go to Queen Elizabeth II who will sign it into law, putting Britain on track to leave the EU in eight days' time.The agreement with the EU will now need to be formally ratified by the European Parliament on Jan. 29, before the U.K. leaves the bloc at the end of the month. Britain will then enter a transition period, scheduled to last until the end of the year, during which it will continue to be bound by EU laws until it negotiates a new trade deal with the remaining 27 member states.Johnson is expected to sign the agreement in the coming days, and the European Council and Commission presidents may sign it Friday in Brussels, according to a U.K. government official.U.K., EU Draw Battle Lines as the Hard Part of Brexit Begins"We're in a very happy position in that we leave the EU in a position of absolute grace and uniformity," Johnson said as he answered questions from the public about the future negotiations with Brussels on Facebook. "We are in perfect alignment with our EU friends and partners."Looking ahead, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid acknowledged Johnson's Dec. 31 deadline for reaching a new trade deal with the EU was "tight.""Both sides recognize that it's a tight timetable, a lot needs to be put together in the time that we have, but it can be done," Javid said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "And it can be done for both goods, where we want to see free trade, zero tariffs, zero quotas -- but also on services."The House of Lords had tried to amend the Brexit legislation to enhance EU citizens' rights in Britain, allow judges -- rather than ministers -- to decide on the use of rulings by European Courts, and to ensure unaccompanied refugee children can join family in the U.K. All the measures were rejected by the Commons. Johnson's government rejected these changes and pushed the Lords to back down.\--With assistance from Lucy Meakin, Olivia Konotey-Ahulu, Ian Wishart and Jessica Shankleman.To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Penny in London at tpenny@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Edward EvansFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| After interview, Pompeo cursed at reporter, yelled: 'Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?' Posted: 24 Jan 2020 03:52 PM PST  Sec. Pompeo unloaded on NPR host Mary Louise Kelly after an interview in which she questioned him about Ukraine and other hot-button issues, NPR said.
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| Inside the mile-long California homeless camp that is tearing a town apart as Silicon Valley house prices soar Posted: 24 Jan 2020 07:12 AM PST  Inside the mile-long California homeless camp that is tearing a town apart amid soaring Silicon Valley house pricesOn the outskirts of Santa Rosa, the first real city to emerge as you drive through the rolling wine country north of San Francisco, two new settlements hum with life. On one side of a chain link fence, construction workers raise a new neighborhood of handsome, two-story homes. Rich Bay Area people might eye these as second homes, or rental investments.
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| Tennessee governor signs anti-LGBT adoption bill Posted: 24 Jan 2020 01:00 PM PST  Tennessee has become the latest state to assure continued taxpayer funding of faith-based foster care and adoption agencies even if those organizations exclude LGBT families and others based on religious beliefs. Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill Friday without fanfare or an official announcement, making it the first law to be implemented in Tennessee this year. Some faith-based agencies had already not allowed gay couples to adopt.
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| Parishioner Who Stopped Texas Church Shooter Criticizes Bloomberg on Gun-Control Efforts Posted: 23 Jan 2020 01:41 PM PST  The armed parishioner who took down a shooter at a Texas church in December criticized former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's gun control efforts on Wednesday."Mr. Bloomberg, had we operated by his standards or his wishes, the carnage would have been significantly greater because the individual still, after the shooting, still had seven live rounds in his gun and three more in his pocket," Jack Wilson said in an interview on Fox News. Wilson, a member of West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, fired a single round at an armed intruder on December 29, killing the assailant.Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey hit back at Wilson in a Thursday appearance on Fox."Mr. Bloomberg supports his right to carry a gun," Sheekey said. "We salute him. But the question is, should anyone who is criminally insane be able to get a gun? I would say no."Earlier in January, while speaking about the Texas incident, Bloomberg appeared to criticize policies that loosen restrictions on gun control."Somebody in the congregation had their own gun and killed the person who murdered two other people, but it is the job of law enforcement to have guns and to decide when to shoot," Bloomberg said. "You just do not want the average citizen carrying a gun in a crowded place."Bloomberg has been heavily involved in gun-control efforts over the years. His proposals for the 2020 presidential election include universal background checks and "red flag screening" measures. In 2013, Bloomberg founded Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit that advocates for stricter gun control measures.
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| Vast virus quarantine in China as cases emerge in Europe, S. Asia Posted: 24 Jan 2020 02:09 PM PST  A massive quarantine effort covering 13 cities was in effect in China on Saturday aimed at containing a deadly virus, as the death toll climbed to 26 and the first cases of the disease were reported in Europe and South Asia. China on Friday imposed transport bans in an area covering a staggering 41 million people, as the United States confirmed its second case of the SARS-like virus that has reached almost a dozen countries. The virus has also spread to densely populated South Asia, where Nepal confirmed one case, and Europe, where two cases were reported in France.
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| 'The new evidence raises deeply troubling questions': did Arkansas kill an innocent man? Posted: 23 Jan 2020 07:00 AM PST  Revealed: two years after Ledell Lee was executed, damning evidence emerges that experts say could prove his innocenceThe day before Ledell Lee was executed on 20 April 2017, he talked to the BBC from death row. He said that while he could not prevent the state of Arkansas from killing him, he had a message for his executioners: "My dying words will always be, as it has been: 'I am an innocent man'."Almost two years after Lee was strapped to a gurney and injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs, it looks increasingly likely he was telling the truth: he went to his death an innocent man. New evidence has emerged that suggests Lee was not guilty of the brutal murder of a woman in 1993 for which his life was taken.The deceased inmate's sister Patricia Young lodged a lawsuit on Thursday with the circuit court of Pulaski county, Arkansas, petitioning city authorities and the local police department in Jacksonville to release crime scene materials to her family.The ACLU and the Innocence Project, who are investigating the case on the family's behalf, believe state-of-the-art forensic examination of the materials, including DNA testing and fingerprint analysis, could definitively prove Arkansas did indeed execute an innocent man.An 81-page filing in the lawsuit provides damning new evidence that key aspects of the prosecution case against Lee were deeply flawed. The complaint includes expert opinion from a number of world-leading specialists who find glaring errors in the way forensic science and other evidence was interpreted.The lawsuit also includes a bombshell affidavit from Lee's post-conviction attorney who admits to having struggled with substance abuse and addiction throughout the years in which he represented him.Lawyers who prepared the filing, led by Cassandra Stubbs of the ACLU and the Innocence Project's Nina Morrison, conclude: "It is now clear that the state's forensic experts from trial misinterpreted the evidence in plain sight, and their flawed opinions were further distorted by the state in its zeal to convict [Lee] of the crime. The new evidence raises deeply troubling questions about the shaky evidentiary pillars on which the state executed Ledell Lee."Innocence has always been the achilles heel of America's death penalty: how to justify judicially killing prisoners who may have been wrongfully convicted. The question is far from academic: since 1973 no fewer than 167 death row inmates have been exonerated.The most harrowing question is whether innocent prisoners have been executed before the flawed nature of their convictions emerged. In recent years, there have been several cases that, with near certainty, suggest that innocent men have been put to death.They include Cameron Todd Willingham executed in Texas in 2004 for allegedly having caused a fire that killed his three young daughters. After the execution, further evidence emerged that conclusively showed that he could not have set the fire.The Columbia Human Rights Law Review carried out a groundbreaking investigation in which it concluded Carlos DeLuna was innocent when he was executed – also by Texas – in 1989. The six-year study discovered that the convicted prisoner had almost certainly been confused with another man, a violent criminal who shared the name Carlos.Now Ledell Lee looks as though he may be added to the grim rollcall of the wrongly executed. He relentlessly insisted he was not guilty from the moment he was arrested less than two hours after the brutally beaten body of Debra Reese was discovered in her home in Jacksonville on 9 February 1993.The difficulties with the case against Lee began almost immediately. He was picked up nowhere near the crime scene and was not in possession of any possessions that could be linked to the break-in at Reese's home.The only evidence against him was inconclusive at best. There were two eyewitnesses, but they gave conflicting reports of the suspect's identification.> In recent years, there have been several cases that, with near certainty, suggest innocent men have been put to deathThe crime scene was shocking, with blood splattered over the walls and floor. Yet when Lee was arrested on the same day detectives could find no blood on his clothes or body including under his fingernails and nothing was found in a forensic search of his house.Given the paucity of evidence, it is not surprising that it took two trials to find Lee guilty and sentence him to death. The first trial collapsed after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.The ACLU and Innocence Project took up Lee's case very late in the day having been asked to get involved shortly before his scheduled execution date. What they discovered when they opened the case records astounded even these experienced death penalty lawyers.Very quickly they established there were major problems with the prosecution case against Lee. One area that especially concerned them was the inadequacy of Lee's legal representation, both during the second trial in which defense attorneys inexplicably failed to call alibi witnesses that could have placed Lee elsewhere at the time of the murder, and in terms of the help he received at the appeal stage of his case.At one post-conviction hearing, a lawyer working for the state of Arkansas approached the judge and raised concerns about Lee's attorney, Craig Lambert. "Your honor, I don't do this lightly, but I'm going to ask that the court require him to submit to a drug test," the counsel said. "He's just not with us … His speech is slurred."In an affidavit obtained since Lee's execution, signed by Lambert in October, the lawyer admits: "I was struggling with substance abuse and addiction in those years. I attended inpatient rehab. Ledell's case was massive and I wasn't in the best place personally to do what was necessary."Partly as a result of poor legal representation, terrible errors were made in Lee's defense – both at trial and for years afterwards during the appeals process. The complaint goes into detail about these "deeply troubling" shortcomings.One of the key examples relates to the marks found on the victim's cheek. The state's experts mistakenly interpreted the marks as having come from a pattern on a rug in Reese's bedroom where she had been beaten to death with a wooden tire club.In fact, the filing says, the pattern on the body's cheek did not match that on the rug. Instead it was consistent with the murderer stomping on Reese's face directly with his shoe.That is critically significant because the shoes that Lee was wearing that day, which the state used during the trial as evidence against him, were incompatible in the composition of their soles with the injury pattern on Reese's face.To establish this point, an affidavit is provided by Michael Baden, former chief pathologist for New York who is recognized internationally as a leading forensic pathologist. He concludes: "The soles of Mr Lee's sneakers have a much more closely spaced pattern than was transferred in the cheek imprint."That inconsistency is just one of many that were uncovered when Baden and four other specialists were invited to review the case.Lee was executed in a flurry. When the state of Arkansas realized its supply of one of its three lethal drugs, the sedative midazolam, was about to expire at the end of 2017 with no hope of replacing it due to a global ban on medicines being sent to the US for use in executions, it went into overdrive.It announced plans to kill eight prisoners in 11 days.The declaration prompted revulsion from around the US and the world and accusations that the state was engaging in conveyor-belt executions. It was in that climate that attempts by the ACLU and the Innocence Project to have materials gathered at the crime scene of Reese's murder released for DNA testing fell on deaf ears.Though the lawyers presented a strong argument that DNA testing could be crucial in casting doubt on Lee's conviction and pointing towards the real killer, a federal district court denied the request on grounds that Lee had "simply delayed too long" in asking for the materials.It is too late now for Lee. But his lawyers hope that it is not too late to get to the bottom of the case posthumously.The city of Jacksonville is in possession of a rich array of crime scene materials including "Negroid" hairs collected from Reese's bedroom and fingernail scrapings likely to contain DNA from the actual killer – Lee or otherwise."This evidence can now be tested with state-of-the-art methods unavailable at trial, and compared to Mr Lee's unique DNA profile," the filing says.After a welter of legal challenges, Arkansas succeeded in killing four prisoners in one week, including the first double execution held in the US in a single day since 2001. The first of the four to die was Ledell Lee.Should Arkansas now agree belatedly to hand over the crime scene materials for testing, he may yet be proven to have been, just as he always said he was, an innocent man.
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