| Mark Zuckerberg says he personally told President Trump that some of his 'rhetoric was problematic' Posted: 04 Sep 2020 08:11 AM PDT  Facebook's new election policies will apply to the president. Trump's campaign responded by saying he's being "silenced by the Silicon Valley Mafia."
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| A shark latched onto a Florida man’s arm and decided to stay awhile, video shows Posted: 04 Sep 2020 11:58 AM PDT  A small shark hung onto a Florida beachgoer's arm relentlessly over the weekend, and the victim acted like it was no big deal.
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| DC Police release body camera footage from fatal shooting Posted: 03 Sep 2020 12:31 PM PDT  Police in the nation's capital on Thursday released body camera footage from the officer who fatally shot a Black teenager a day earlier, leading to protests outside Mayor Muriel Bowser's home and a police station. Deon Kay, 18, was shot in the chest Wednesday afternoon in the midst of a foot pursuit with police officers. The officer turns around, sees Kay running a few feet behind him and fires a single shot into Kay's chest.
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| 19 Black families purchase 96 acres of land to create a 'safe haven' for Black people Posted: 03 Sep 2020 02:51 PM PDT  Nineteen Black families purchased more than 96 acres of land in Georgia to create a safe space free of oppression. Eventually, they hope to grow the area into an incorporated, self-sustaining community.
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| McEnany begins WH briefing criticizing Pelosi for hair salon visit, shows video on loop Posted: 03 Sep 2020 11:40 AM PDT  White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany opened Thursday's White House press briefing by criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after a video surfaced showing Pelosi inside a salon without a mask, which violates local health guidelines.
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| Remains of sailor killed in Pearl Harbor returned home Posted: 03 Sep 2020 09:34 AM PDT  Navy Fireman First Class Hadley Heavin, 23, was on the USS West Virginia when torpedoes and bombs destroyed the battleship on December 7, 1941.
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| Part of Trump’s border wall at risk of collapse just months after it was built Posted: 04 Sep 2020 06:57 AM PDT  Part of the Trump administration's border wall between the US and Mexico is at risk of collapsing just months after it was constructed, new engineering reports claim.The border wall, constructed at the shore of Rio Grande, which forms part of the border between the US and Mexico, is at risk of collapsing due to construction flaws, new reports to be filed in federal court this week allege.
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| The Democrats’ Dangerous Delegitimization of the Election Posted: 03 Sep 2020 12:14 PM PDT  A recent deep dive in the Washington Post's Outlook section, "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" exploring various potential outcomes of the 2020 presidential election, found that in "every scenario except a Biden landslide, our simulation ended catastrophically." According to the Post, any other outcome is destined to spark "violence" and a "constitutional crisis."Or, in other words, nice country you got there . . .Every assumption in the article, written by Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor and co-founder of the Transition Integrity Project, is awash in the conspiratorial paranoia that's infected the modern Democratic Party. It's a world where Trump officials -- played, quite implausibly, by Joe Biden partisans Michael Steele and Bill Kristol -- are "ruthless and unconstrained right out of the gate" but the genteel statesmen of Team Biden "struggled to get out of reaction mode." It is a place where Republicans aren't only reflexively seditious and autocratic, but a "highly politicized" Supreme Court tries to steal the election.In their "war game" scenarios, however, it's the Democrats who refuse to accept the will of courts to adhere to the constitutionally prescribed system rather than hysteria, and it's the Democrats who wishcast the wholly imaginary "popular vote" into existence.One of the scenarios, we learn, "doesn't look that different from 2016" -- a contest in which, it must be pointed out, not one vote has been proven to be uncounted or altered. In that outcome, America is confronted with "a big popular win for Mr. Biden, and a narrow electoral defeat."In the real world, incidentally, that scenario is called a "Trump victory."In the fictional war game, however, John Podesta, playing the role of Biden, contends that his party won't let him concede the race, and instead alleges "voter suppression" -- the catch-all go-to every time a Democrat loses -- and persuades the Democratic governors of Trump-won states such as Wisconsin and Michigan to send pro-Biden electors to the Electoral College. In the meantime, California, Oregon, and Washington threaten to secede from the union if Trump takes office. The Democratic House unilaterally names Biden president. "At that point in the scenario," the New York Times' Ben Smith explains, "the nation stopped looking to the media for cues, and waited to see what the military would do."This scenario is what a real-life "coup" might resemble. It is, needless to say, utterly insane that Democrats would destroy the nation's long-standing and peaceful transition because they refuse to accept the mandated process of electing the president. All of which is to say the proactive -- and retroactive -- delegitimization of the Trump presidency has been a successful four-year project. It permeates the entire Democratic Party's information complex.First, Democrats convinced millions of Americans that a handful of inept and puerile social-media ads were enough to overturn a presidential election in the most powerful nation on earth. By 2017, a majority of Democrats believed that vote tallies had been tampered with by Russians, somehow without a trace of evidence.Since then, Democrats have been working to convince themselves there is no legitimate way in which Trump could win the election again. A large number of high-profile left-wing columnists have laid the groundwork to make this case and high-profile politicians have joined them. Hillary Clinton's advice to Biden not long ago was to not concede defeat on the night of the November 3 election no matter what happens. In January during the impeachment trial, Representative Adam Schiff said, "The President's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won." House speaker Nancy Pelosi has noted that "Let the election decide'" is a "dangerous position" because Trump is already "jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.""It's worth pointing out that *almost* no one thinks Trump will actually win more votes," Chris Hayes told his followers not long ago. "I think if he wins the electoral college and loses the popular vote *again* you're looking at the worst legitimacy crisis since secession."A far bigger crisis for the United States is that liberal pundits tell their audience that the method of winning an election in the United States, one that every president in history of the country relied on, should be considered a crisis of legitimacy.What is worth pointing out as well is that the dynamics of the presidential election would be completely different if the popular vote actually existed. But candidates do not compete for the popular vote, so they can neither "win" nor "lose" it. If they did try to win the popular vote, they would cater to the largest population centers, and no one else, and elections would look very different. I'm not sure that that setup would work out for Democrats exactly as they imagine, but it doesn't matter. A popular vote undercuts federalism, one of the foundational ideas of the Founding. And that's the point.If you haven't noticed, it's working. A recent USA Today poll found that 28 percent of Biden's supporters say they aren't prepared to accept a Trump victory as "fairly won," and 19 percent of President Trump's supporters say the same about a potential Biden victory. So a significant minority of American voters don't believe the next election will be legitimate before it has even been conducted. What happens when every long line at the polls and every Facebook meme and every delayed mail-in ballot is turned into a nefarious plot by the enemy to snatch democracy from the rightful winner? It's going to be ugly, indeed. If their "war games" are to be believed, that's what Democrats are counting on.Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article stated that "almost half" of Americans doubt the legitimacy of the next election. It has been updated to more accurately reflect the poll numbers it cites.
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| Fauci tells colleges: Don't send students home during campus outbreaks Posted: 03 Sep 2020 02:06 PM PDT  "It's the worst thing you could do," Fauci said of college students returning home during campus coronavirus outbreaks.
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| Fort Hood soldier dies after collapsing at the Texas base Posted: 04 Sep 2020 09:59 AM PDT |
| 8 kids rescued across US after North Carolina cop infiltrates child porn chat group Posted: 03 Sep 2020 01:13 PM PDT  A 5-year-old was rescued on an oil rig in the North Sea after her father was implicated, prosecutors said.
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| 2 'fat-phobic' Airbnb hosts have been slammed for banning guests weighing over 220 pounds Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:40 AM PDT  "Specifying a certain weight is fat-phobic as it's discriminating against people who have a larger body," fat activist Lindsay McGlone said.
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| President Trump "celebrated" teen gunman, lieutenant governor says Posted: 04 Sep 2020 08:29 AM PDT  "He's virtually celebrated this person who has killed two people on our city streets and severely injured another," he told "CBS This Morning" co-host Anthony Mason Friday.
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| Iranian judge in Romania committed suicide, prosecutors say Posted: 04 Sep 2020 06:50 AM PDT  A fugitive Iranian judge whose corpse was found in a Bucharest hotel in June had committed suicide by jumping from a hotel's 5th floor, Romanian prosecutors said on Friday. Gholamreza Mansouri, 52, fled corruption charges in Iran last year, one of several judges accused during a high-profile trial. European pro-democracy groups had also accused him of human rights violations.
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| California making 'a lot of progress' on reopening theme parks, but Gov. Newsom isn't ready to say when Posted: 03 Sep 2020 11:02 AM PDT  California is making "a lot of progress" toward reopening Disneyland and other theme parks, Gov. Gavin Newsom says. But he isn't ready to talk dates.
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| Iowa Sen. Ernst suggests COVID-19 deaths inflated, later issues clarification Posted: 03 Sep 2020 04:38 AM PDT  The Republican lawmaker's comments echoed a baseless conspiracy about the virus. Her state is a pandemic hot spot.
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| Image of Palestinian under Israeli soldier's knee sparks outrage Posted: 04 Sep 2020 08:09 AM PDT  Footage of an Israeli soldier throwing a Palestinian activist to the ground and kneeling on his neck has sparked outrage in the Palestinian territories and beyond.
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| Mark Zuckerberg reportedly intervened after a Facebook employee posted a controversial defense of police in the wake of Kenosha shootings Posted: 02 Sep 2020 06:25 PM PDT  The post about "well-intentioned law enforcement officers who have been victimized by society's conformity to a lie" sparked outrage from employees.
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| Japan bracing for dangerously powerful typhoon Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:15 AM PDT  Japan is bracing for a dangerously powerful typhoon approaching its southern regions this weekend on the heels of an earlier storm that injured dozens of people in the country and on the Korean Peninsula. Typhoon Haishen, or Sea God in Chinese, could bring nearly unprecedentedly severe rain, rough waves and high tides to Okinawa and Kyushu by early Sunday, Japan Meteorological Agency officials said. Agency weather forecaster Yoshihisa Nakamoto, in a televised news conference, urged people in the typhoon's path to take precautions and secure extra stocks of water, food and other necessities.
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| Trooper arrested after video shows him ripping off protester’s mask in Tennessee Posted: 04 Sep 2020 12:13 PM PDT  Harvey Briggs was fired after video of the incident went viral.
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| Trump mocks Biden for wearing face masks: ‘He’s got some big issues’ Posted: 04 Sep 2020 02:25 AM PDT  Donald Trump, who has avoided wearing masks in public amid the coronavirus pandemic, mocked his Democratic opponent for being "a man who likes a mask".Speaking in front of hundreds of supporters packed into an airport hangar in Pennsylvania on Thursday, the US president's comments came as he appeared to abuse state coronavirus restrictions on outdoor events of more than 250 people.
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| Jacob Blake makes court appearance from hospital bed Posted: 04 Sep 2020 04:11 PM PDT  The black man whose shooting by police triggered protests faces charges unrelated to that incident.
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| Another record-breaking heat wave is building in the West Posted: 03 Sep 2020 10:24 AM PDT  In some areas the heat will be even more intense than the historic heat wave just a couple of weeks ago.
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| Congresswoman blocked from touring mail facility by Postal Service police Posted: 04 Sep 2020 01:38 PM PDT  "If DeJoy thinks he can just throw a bed sheet over what's going on behind these doors, he is sadly mistaken," the congresswoman said.
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| College professor with COVID-19 symptoms dies after struggling to breathe during Zoom lecture Posted: 04 Sep 2020 10:31 AM PDT  A college professor in Argentina experiencing COVID-19 symptoms died after gasping for breath while conducting a Zoom lecture.
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| A Florida high school student was charged with a cyberattack that caused chaos during the first week of online classes Posted: 04 Sep 2020 07:57 AM PDT  The attack crashed the district's online learning platform and blocked students from logging on during the first week of online classes.
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| Macron decries 'Islamic separatism,' defends blasphemy Posted: 04 Sep 2020 04:13 AM PDT  French President Emmanuel Macron criticized Friday what he called "Islamic separatism" in his country and those who seek French citizenship without accepting France's "right to commit blasphemy." Macron defended satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that helped inspire two French-born Islamic extremists to mount a deadly January 2015 attack on the paper's newsroom. The weekly republished the images this week as the trial began of 14 people over the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and on a kosher supermarket.
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| The Navy sent him to prison for smuggling explosives. A ‘wanted’ poster for him was sent to the Keys Posted: 03 Sep 2020 05:41 PM PDT  A U.S. Navy sailor on the lam for almost 15 years after escaping military prison in Washington state where he was beginning a three-year sentence for trying to smuggle explosives into the country could be in South Florida, officials say.
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| Joe Biden says QAnon supporters should get a mental health check while calling the conspiracy theory ‘totally bizarre’ Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:18 PM PDT  Joe Biden has said that the far-right conspiracy group QAnon should get a mental health check before the president has an opportunity to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.The Democratic presidential candidate made the comment during a campaign speech in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday after he was asked what he thought about the conspiracy group.
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| Jessica Krug: George Washington University professor says she lied about being black Posted: 04 Sep 2020 08:02 AM PDT  A blog written by Jessica Krug, a white woman, admits to falsely claiming black identity for years.
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| Dubai seeks to attract wealthy foreign retirees as expats leave Posted: 03 Sep 2020 01:25 AM PDT  Dubai is seeking to attract wealthy foreign retirees as the economy of the Middle East trade and tourism hub reels from the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices, prompting many expatriates to leave. It will grant visas renewable every five years to resident expatriates and foreigners over the age of 55 who fulfil specific financial conditions, the government media office said. To be eligible, they must have a monthly income of at least 20,000 dirhams ($5,445) or 1 million dirhams in cash savings, or 2 million dirhams worth of property in Dubai.
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| Why were police at Breonna Taylor's home? Here's what an investigative summary says Posted: 04 Sep 2020 06:00 AM PDT  The reason for targeting Breonna Taylor's apartment for a search warrant after midnight has been a key question since she was fatally shot.
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| 3 deaths, 147 coronavirus cases now tied to Maine wedding Posted: 04 Sep 2020 12:57 PM PDT  The three people who died as a result of the outbreak did not attend the wedding.
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| Does $27 million have a smell? That’s how this agent found it, U.S. Customs says Posted: 03 Sep 2020 05:02 AM PDT  A $27 million smuggling operation got sniffed out Saturday before the ferrying boat could reach the U.S. Virgin Islands, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Puerto Rico said.
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| Australian mom handcuffed for advocating against lockdown Posted: 03 Sep 2020 01:43 AM PDT |
| U.S. to allow Indian air carriers to conduct ground handling operations Posted: 03 Sep 2020 02:20 PM PDT |
| New tsunami simulations show 'the big one' could cause devastation on Washington coast Posted: 03 Sep 2020 04:16 AM PDT  Experts advise residents to prepare after Washington State Department of Natural Resources simulations show coastal communities would be devastated by a large Cascadia Subduction Zone event.
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| Biden describes talk with Jacob Blake during Kenosha visit: 'He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him' Posted: 03 Sep 2020 02:28 PM PDT  Jacob Blake "talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, how whether he walked again or not, he wasn't going to give up," Joe Biden told community members in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
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| Texas Governor Declares a Victory Over COVID. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 12:55 AM PDT  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has already seen his state's reopening waylaid by a resurgent coronavirus pandemic this summer, so a recent tweet from the governor that seemed to indicate he could be ready to do it all over again has alarmed local officials."I'm concerned about how far he goes," Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, a Democrat, told The Daily Beast. "I'll have to wait and see where he goes."The dynamics are just the latest in ongoing tensions between the red state governor and local blue leaders. In a tweet Monday, Abbott touted that he "said last month that Texas wouldn't have anymore lockdowns—despite demands from mayors & county judges insisting on," such a move. "Since my last orders in July, Covid numbers have declined—most importantly hospitalizations," Abbott said in the tweet. "I hope to provide updates next week about next steps." The governor's tweet came in response to an account called "Deep in the Heart of Texas" tweeting at Abbott that "those of us in the restaurant industry need this clarity in our future," after pointing to a video of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis saying earlier that day "we will never do any of these lockdowns again." No other details were given by the governor and a spokesperson for Abbott did not respond to requests for comment seeking more information. The stakes for Abbott are high in Texas after the state's reopening capsized this summer and cases surged, hitting nearly 10,800 new daily cases on July 15, according to state data. That same month, some Democratic leaders called for the governor to give them the power to do local stay at home orders.The state's situation may have improved since then, but Peter Jay Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, said Texas still has "a pretty high level of transmission." "I don't know what the goals are then by rolling back," Hotez said. "There's no victory here. There's still a very poor quality of life in the metro areas in Texas." As of Wednesday, the state's test positivity rate stood at 8.98 percent, according to state health data, while hospitalizations in the state had fallen from nearly 10,900 on July 22 to 4,075 as of Thursday's report with the daily new case number coming in at 3,899. And with those numbers in mind, the upcoming flu season is seen as another challenge that wouldn't be made easier if the state reopens too quickly. "Whether it's Texas or not… I don't really understand why we would consider relaxing any type of public health measures that we have in place like masking and distancing and certain high risk areas being off limits, more or less, until we get past the flu season at least," said Dr. Rodney E. Rohde, professor and chair of the clinical laboratory science program at Texas State University. Texas Just Hit 10,000 COVID Deaths, and It's 'Flying Blind'A handful of elected officials and public health experts stated bluntly that now isn't the time for the governor to make a reopening push, with the possible reopening of bars in the state a major worry for some like Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. "If the governor opens bars back up, or makes masking permissive rather than a requirement then he'll squander the gains that we've worked so hard for and the community has sacrificed so long for and we'll be right back in the mess that we were in a month after Open Texas," Jenkins, a Democrat, warned. The Houston area in particular has been hit hard by the coronavirus, and in Harris County the risk level is still listed as severe, meaning there is "a severe and uncontrolled level of COVID-19," according to the county's website. As The Daily Beast previously reported in July, a surge in cases were flooding the area's health care system as calls for a lockdown became more persistent. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who in mid-July called for a two-week shutdown, picked the governor apart in a statement this week about the Republican's handling of the pandemic pointing to "disastrous" results following the state's reopening in May as he worried about the future. "And now that numbers are better like in April, the governor is about to embark on the same course again," Turner, a Democrat, said. "It is frustrating that he is making decisions that impact all of us without including local officials in the process. The State is about to repeat its mistake, expecting a different result."After Texas began reopening in May, Abbott's reopening push fell apart in late June as the state's coronavirus situation worsened and he halted the state's re-opening over concerns about hospitalizations and new cases. In the days to come, the Republican also closed bars, limited restaurant capacity and made a statewide mask executive order for "counties with 20 or more positive COVID-19 cases," according to a July 2 statement from the governor's office. More than 40 counties are exempt from the order, according to the Texas Division of Emergency Management. When both policies and behaviors in Texas became more relaxed in early May that led to "alarming increases in cases and hospitalizations," in some places the following month Lauren Ancel Meyers, the director of the University of Texas at Austin COVID-19 modeling consortium, told The Daily Beast. The stricter policies and change in behavior that came about because of that then slowed transmission of the virus, Meyers said. "The longer we hold on to the precautionary behavior and the policies the more we will see cases and hospitalizations continue to decline," Meyers said. "It's reasonable to consider changes in policy that may provide some economic and social relief, however, only if done with extreme caution and really strong messaging around the responsibility we all have to take precautions when we're going out in public, to not go out in public if we or anyone in our household even has the slightest symptom of COVID. " While some local officials were clearly troubled by what could come from Abbott's office next week, Deaf Smith County Judge D.J. Wagner welcomed the idea of easing statewide restrictions. "Oh absolutely," the Republican said. "Yeah, we've got to get on with life." That wasn't a feeling shared on the Texas/Mexico border by Maverick County Judge David Saucedo. The local Democrat warned that he didn't think "we're out of the woods yet," and lamented that numbers in border communities have been "pretty high.""In my community, I'm seeing that we're still a hotspot," Saucedo said. "…After every holiday we've seen an uptick in cases go up and we don't want to get into that danger zone again."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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| Humans almost solely responsible for mammal extinctions in past 126,000 years, study finds Posted: 04 Sep 2020 10:27 AM PDT  Human activity was the cause of 96 per cent of mammal extinctions in the past 126,000 years, rather than climate change, according to a new study. The arrival of humans to Australia around 65,000 years ago and the Americas some 24,000 years ago caused particular spikes in animal extinctions, according to the study in Science Advances. The researchers found similar results in Madagascar and the Caribbean, where animal extinction rates shot up after the arrival of the first humans. The study by a team of researchers from Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK predicts as many as 558 species could be lost in the next hundred years, amid the highest spike in extinction rates since non-avian dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago. That compares to just 351 mammal species extinctions since the beginning of the Late Pleistocene 126,000 years ago, although rates have already been rising rapidly, with 80 species lost in the last 1,500 years. The conclusion that historical extinctions have been driven by human activity contradicts earlier studies which have suggested that climate change was responsible, in particular for the extinction of megafauna such as woolly rhinos and mammoths 12,000 years ago. The scientists compiled a large dataset of fossils and found "essentially no evidence for climate-driven extinctions", said co-author Daniele Silvestro. But the authors of the study, which was published in Science Advances, warned that climate change now poses a unique threat to animal species. "Together with fragmented habitats, poaching, and other human-related threats, it poses a large risk for many species," said Mr Silvestro. Current extinction rates are around 1,700 times higher than those at the beginning of the Late Pleistocene, the authors say. "Reconstructing our past impacts on biodiversity is essential to understand why some species and ecosystems have been particularly vulnerable to human activities – which can hopefully allow us to develop more effective conservation actions to combat extinction," said co-author Professor Samuel Turvey at ZSL (Zoological Society of London).
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| One killed, three people wounded in Miami-area shooting, police say Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:18 AM PDT  One man was killed and three others wounded in what Miami-Dade County police say was a drive-by shooting late Thursday night.
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| Alleged Boogaloo members face terrorism charges in Minnesota Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:41 PM PDT  Two men who prosecutors say are members of an anti-government extremist group, who toted guns on Minneapolis streets during unrest following the death of George Floyd and spoke about shooting police, blowing up a courthouse and killing politicians, have been charged with federal terrorism counts. Michael Robert Solomon, 30, of New Brighton, Minnesota, and Benjamin Ryan Teeter, 22, of Hampstead, North Carolina, are members of the "Boogaloo Bois," authorities say.
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