| Trump lost — so what happens to the GOP? Posted: 07 Nov 2020 09:42 AM PST  The question of what happens to the Republican Party after the Trump presidency is not one that will be resolved by think tanks, symposiums or tidy theories. The most devoted and intense Republican partisans who vote reliably in primary elections will be the tail that wags the dog.
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| California students say they're 'deeply disappointed' after voters cast ballots against affirmative action Posted: 08 Nov 2020 08:16 AM PST  "It would have been a game-changer in increasing diversity and representation at UC," one student from UCLA said of the rejected Proposition 16.
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| Surgeon Who Saved Biden’s Life Recalls Fateful Prediction Posted: 08 Nov 2020 02:06 AM PST  Dr. Neal Kassell was standing by the door to the operating room when then-Sen. Joe Biden was wheeled in for a second aneurysm operation in May 1988.Biden reached up from the gurney and grabbed the neurosurgeon's arm."He looked me in the eye and said, 'Doc, do a good job, because someday I'm going to be president,'" Kassell told The Daily Beast on Saturday, after his former patient's prediction had come true.Biden rode the gurney on into the OR at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and Kassell followed once Biden had been anesthetized for his second microsurgical craniotomy.The first operation had been that February after a scan had located two aneurysms at the base of Biden's brain, the larger to the right, the smaller to the left. Kassell and a fellow neurosurgeon, Dr. Eugene George, decided to begin with the larger one. It was liable to burst at any moment, with possibly fatal results.Biden had withdrawn from the 1987 race for the Democratic nomination for president five months before. His chances of surviving that first operation and thereby having any future at all had been estimated at only 50-50.The first operation began with a surgical team cutting a hole in the top of Biden's skull and removing the plug of bone as if it were, by Kassell's subsequent description, "the top of a cookie jar." Kassell then used a microscope to guide a probe between the brain and the skull. He located the ballooned artery and was applying a spring clip to it when his view through the microscope was suddenly occluded by blood.The aneurysm had burst and Biden might very well have died right there on the table had the blood shot into his brain. It instead went the other way, and Kassell was able to clear the lens and finish securing the clip before there was any damage.In the recovery room, Biden was able to wiggle his fingers and toes and compute from a wall clock that the operation had taken nine hours. He would later write that he had come close enough to dying that he realized "a single moment of failure—even one so public and wounding as the end of my presidential campaign—could not determine my epitaph."What Do We Actually Know About Our Aging POTUS Candidates' Health?By the time of the second operation three months later, Biden was again ready to turn fate into destiny. The moment came when he gazed into Kassell's eyes and made the prediction that some might have assumed to be at least partly in jest.Biden ran for the Democratic nomination in 2008, dropped out—and became Barack Obama's vice-president in 2009. He might have run again for president in 2016 had he not been still unnerved by son Beau Biden's death from brain cancer at Walter Reed the year before.Joe instead focused on launching the White House Cancer Moonshot initiative, and Kassell agreed to serve on its Blue Ribbon Panel. Hillary Clinton ran for president, got the nomination, and lost to Donald Trump.When the pandemic hit, Kassell was one of thousands of doctors who were deeply offended and alarmed by Trump's anti-scientific approach. Trump grew only more aggressively ignorant as nearly a quarter million Americans died of COVID-19."Unimaginable," Kassell told The Daily Beast.Thanks in part to Kassell, Biden was around to make another presidential run. He cited the science and wore a mask and sought to preserve social distancing as he proceeded to win the Democratic nomination.Donald Trump Jr. and his ilk cited Biden's past brain operations as proof he was not up to the job. Kassell retorted that he had seen Biden's brain and it was just fine; the clips still in his brain actually made it less likely those arteries would rupture.Meanwhile, Trump learned nothing after he caught COVID-19 and had a brief stay of his own at Walter Reed. He remained indifferent to the ever-mounting number of unlucky souls who did not recover as he had. He announced that the pandemic was all but over, saying "we're rounding a turn," even as the county was witnessing a record spike in cases.But such a depressing number of Americans still supported him that the early results on Election Day raised the possibility that he would get another term before Biden pulled ahead.On Saturday, four days after an election that was initially too close to call, multiple TV networks declared Biden the winner. Trump had proven unable to dismiss Biden votes as easily as he had dismissed COVID-19 cases. Those of us who had dreaded a second Trump term welcomed what felt like deliverance such as his favorite poet, Seamus Heaney, described in verse written for a Northern Ireland theatre company in 1990.> "History says don't hope> > On this side of the grave.> > But then, once in a lifetime> > The longed for tidal wave> > Of justice can rise up.> > And hope and history rhyme."Word that justice had indeed risen up to couple hope with history reached Kassell at home on Saturday. His daughter, Nicole Kassell, a film director who won an Emmy for HBO's Watchmen, sent her father a video of the spontaneous celebrations near her home in Harlem. Cars were honking. People were cheering and dancing in the streets."Pandemonium," the doctor said in an approving tone.Dr. Kassell recounted to The Daily Beast what Biden had said to him that day 32 years ago while being wheeled in for the second brain operation. The Daily Beast noted that the successful efforts by Kassell and his surgical team in addressing the two aneurysms had kept Biden among the living. And that now meant we will have a new president who will actually address the pandemic.Kassell responded with a line from the Bible."Save one life, you save the world."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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| A 73-year-old Texas man was accused of stealing posts from 'hundreds' of political campaign signs for 3 years, police say Posted: 08 Nov 2020 12:32 PM PST  The Collin County Sheriff Office said "Republican, Democrat, and Independent have had hundreds of T-posts holding their campaign signs stolen."
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| Letters to the Editor: Stop reporting ballot counts as if Biden and Trump are still in a race Posted: 08 Nov 2020 03:00 AM PST  Voting is over. What's going on now is merely determining who won, not who is "in the lead" or "closing in" on victory.
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| Thai police use water cannon to stop pro-democracy march to palace Posted: 08 Nov 2020 04:10 AM PST  Thai police on Sunday fired water cannon on pro-democracy protesters who were trying to march to the royal palace to deliver demands for reform to the unassailable monarchy.
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| ‘The pride of our village’: Kamala Harris' historic election as vice president celebrated in India Posted: 08 Nov 2020 10:41 AM PST  Harris' uncle, who lives in New Delhi, said he plans to travel to Washington for the vice president elect's inauguration.
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| Texas dog accidentally shoots owner after its paw got stuck in trigger of gun, tucked in the man's waistband Posted: 08 Nov 2020 06:03 AM PST  Police said the dog owner had a lucky escape as the bullet passed clean his leg.
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| 'It's a slaughter,' doctors say of new coronavirus wave Posted: 07 Nov 2020 07:25 AM PST  Coronavirus hospitalizations have been rapidly climbing, leading to concerns that we may once more see what we saw over the spring and early summer: crowded intensive care units, overwhelmed hospitals, deaths that could have been prevented.
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| President-elect Joe Biden speaks to the nation Posted: 07 Nov 2020 06:19 PM PST 
In a speech from Wilmington, Del., the president-elect said he hoped to unify the nation.
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| Gottlieb says Biden to take office at likely "apex" of coronavirus surge Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:25 AM PST  Gottlieb predicted the nation will see a record number of hospitalizations this week.
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| AOC said she might quit politics, as some centrist Democrats blame progressives for House losses, NYT says Posted: 07 Nov 2020 08:01 PM PST  "I don't even know if I want to be in politics," she told The New York Times. She said the Democratic party has been hostile to progressive causes.
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| Letters to the Editor: Why oppose affirmative action? Obama explained it well Posted: 07 Nov 2020 03:00 AM PST  In his 2008 speech on race, then-candidate Obama explained why both Black people and white people feel dehumanized.
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| French moderate imam requests extra police protection amid death threats over support for Macron Posted: 08 Nov 2020 06:06 AM PST  One of France's highest profile imams has appealed to President Emmanuel Macron for increased police protection after receiving "thousands" of death threats over his condemnation of terrorist attacks. Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Paris suburb of Drancy and a leading Muslim moderate, said he had received a torrent of new threats since he spoke out against the beheading of a French teacher last month. Mr Chalghoumi described Samuel Paty, the teacher murdered after showing his class cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, as a "martyr for freedom of expression, and a wise man who has taught tolerance, civilisation and respect for others". As president of the Conference of Imams of France, Mr Chalghoumi has worked to improve relations between Muslims and Jews. He supports France's ban on the face veil and has called for tolerance of caricatures of the prophet. The 48-year-old Tunisian-born imam has lived under police guard since Islamic State called for his "execution" following the 2015 Paris attacks. He now believes the danger has risen sharply with the surge in threats on social media. An Arabic post on Twitter said: "We urge true Muslims of France to allow Chalghoumi to join the history teacher and also become a martyr of the nation." Another post intercepted on the Telegram messaging service described Mr Chalghoumi as "your new target" and called on followers to "execute him because he is filthier than those French infidels".
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| A televangelist who referred to the coronavirus as a 'privilege' has died from it Posted: 07 Nov 2020 07:42 PM PST  "This coronavirus may be a privilege, because I'll tell you right now, there is a much bigger judgment coming," televangelist Irvin Baxter once said.
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| Heavy fighting near key town in Karabakh Posted: 07 Nov 2020 08:03 AM PST  Armenia reported Saturday that "fierce combat" with Azerbaijani forces took place overnight near the town of Shusha, a key stronghold in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
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| States will eventually abolish the Electoral College. Here's why (and how). Posted: 07 Nov 2020 03:00 AM PST  The National Popular Vote would finally eliminate the false premise that the construction of our Electoral College was meant to protect small states.
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| Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Several Others Have COVID Posted: 06 Nov 2020 08:12 PM PST  White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has contracted COVID-19—weeks after an outbreak infected a slew of Trumpworld figures, including the president.Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson and Trump campaign aide Nick Trainer have also tested positive, according to Bloomberg. At least two other White House staffers are also ill, according to multiple media reports.The news comes just two weeks after Meadows shockingly admitted on television that the Trump administration has decided it is "not going to control the pandemic."And it broke on a day that the United States set a new record for coronavirus cases, tallying another 122,000 positive tests as hospitalizations soar.As The Daily Beast has reported, Meadows has aggressively shunned masks and has mocked others for taking precautions in the midst of a pandemic that has killed more than 230,000 Americans."You guys, with all your masks... You look very different than you used to," he snarked at reporters trying to ask him questions as he walked—maskless—indoors with Jared Kushner in June.> White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, to reporters: "You guys, with all your masks... You look very different than you used to." > @politico's @JakeSherman: "We're just trying not to die." > pic.twitter.com/aD7KvgHNLH> > — David Gura (@davidgura) June 9, 2020White House journalists have identified Meadows as one of the administration officials they feel is endangering the health of those around him."It's absolutely outrageous," one prominent correspondent told the Daily Beast last month."They have literally put lives in jeopardy, they have put people's health in jeopardy—there's no other way to describe it when you have multiple White House staffers getting sick with COVID and they're still not taking precautions. I don't know how else to describe it other than it's just reckless and shows a lack of regard for other human beings—especially the press."Mark Meadows Might Be the Second Most 'Reckless' Man in the White HouseMeadows has even questioned the effectiveness of masks, even though scientific studies have proven they slow the spread of the virus."If masks is the panacea for everything, if that's the way that we open back our economy and get everybody back to work, I will gladly wear my mask each and every day if that's what makes the difference. And it doesn't," he said in September.When COVID-19 broke out in Vice President Mike Pence's office last month, Meadows reportedly tried to keep it secret. Pressed about that, he tried to justify it by saying that he did not believe "sharing personal information is something we should do."His illness was announced the night before Joe Biden was declared the 46th president of the United States and just moments after the former vice president addressed the nation about the status of vote-counting and spoke movingly about the toll the coronavirus had exacted in the last eight months.Bloomberg reported that Meadows was with Trump at campaign headquarters on Tuesday and was back on Wednesday. He was not wearing a mask either time.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Joe Biden is only the fifteenth Vice President in history to become President Posted: 07 Nov 2020 08:20 PM PST  Biden also is the second president ever to be elected not immediately following their term as vice president.
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| Hurricane warning issued for Florida Keys as strengthening Eta takes aim Posted: 08 Nov 2020 07:47 AM PST  Eta emerged from Cuba and into the warm waters of the Florida Straits on Sunday where restrengthening of the storm is expected to occur prior to its third strike on land -- this time, in the Florida Keys as a 1 on the AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes. Eta made the second landfall of its lifespan thus far after striking east-central Cuba Sunday morning as a strong tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. The storm's first landfall was at Category 4 hurricane strength in Nicaragua last week. Hurricane watches and warnings are in effect for the Florida coast from Deerfield Beach to Bonita Beach and the Florida Keys from Ocean Reef to the Dry Tortugas, including Florida Bay. Tropical storm warnings are also in effect for portions of Florida, Cuba and the northwestern Bahamas. As of 7 p.m. EST Sunday, Eta was centered 90 miles south of Miami, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. Present movement is to the northwest at 14 mph. Satellite imagery on Sunday showed Eta less organized than a day prior due to interaction with Cuba as well as southwesterly wind shear, or the change in direction and/or speed of winds at increasing heights in the atmosphere. The wind shear was whisking the storm's robust thunderstorms north and east of the center of the storm. This satellite imagery from Sunday morning, Nov. 8, 2020, shows Eta emerging from the northern coast of Cuba. (CIRA at Colorado State/GOES-East) But, forecasters say that as the storm continues to move away from Cuba and conditions become more conducive for strengthening, Eta could reach Category 1 hurricane strength (maximum sustained winds of 74-95 mph) just prior to or after a projected landfall in the Florida Keys Sunday night. Regardless of exact intensity, South Florida will endure heavy rainfall, strong winds, storm surge flooding and isolated tornadoes. The Florida Keys and Peninsula have largely dodged impacts amid a record-setting Atlantic hurricane season, which has spawned 28 named systems. If Eta does in fact make landfall in the Keys as a hurricane, it would be the first such storm to do so in November since Hurricane Kate in 1985, according to Philip Klotzbach, a Colorado State University meteorologist. "Beyond Cuba, Eta is expected to take a westward turn Sunday night into Monday as it moves into the Florida Straits and across the Keys," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski said. CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP Officials have been asking Floridians to take precautions ahead of the storm. Crews spent Thursday cleaning storm drains in Miami Beach in anticipation of Eta. Meanwhile, the city of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, distributed free sandbags to residents on Friday. In preparation for the storm, the City of Miami's COVID-19 Mobile Testing Unit (MTU) and Mobile Testing Unit Call Center will be closed Monday, Nov. 9. Operations are expected to resume on Tuesday, Nov. 10. Soaking rain was already beginning to move across South Florida Sunday morning, and rain and wind will only increase heading into Monday as Eta closes in. Eta, likely as a strong tropical storm (maximum sustained winds 37-73 mph) or Category 1 hurricane strength, will bring wind gusts of 60-70 mph across South Florida and the Florida Keys, with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 90 mph, into Monday. This can cause damage to trees and power lines and cause any loose objects such as lawn furniture and trash cans to become dangerous projectiles. A more broad swath of 40- to 60-mph wind gusts is expected to extend into central Florida by early Monday, especially along the coastal regions, with localized damage possible. Heavy rain from Eta, totaling 4-8 inches across a broad area of South Florida with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 16 inches, is expected to cause flooding problems, particularly in poor-drainage areas. "In Miami, the heavy rain combined with strong and persistent easterly (onshore) wind will likely lead to more significant flooding in immediate coastal areas," Pydynowski said. Forecasters expect a 1- to 3-foot storm surge to batter coastal areas of southwestern and South Florida, with locally higher amounts around Miami. Coastal concerns will be just as high even far away from the center of the storm as persistent and strong easterly winds push water onshore along the east coast of Florida. A storm surge watch is in effect from Golden Beach to Bonita Beach, including Biscayne Bay, while a storm surge warning is in effect for the Florida Keys from Ocean Reef to the Dry Tortugas, including Florida Bay. "In addition, due to a strong easterly (onshore) flow between Eta and a large high pressure area centered farther north over the mid-Atlantic states, minor coastal flooding and beach erosion can occur along the beaches of Georgia, South Carolina and southern North Carolina around times of high tide through Monday," Pydynowski said. As is typically the case with tropical systems, there will be the risk of an isolated tornado or two being spawned in any rainbands north and east of the center of the storm. Due to the threat for heavy, flooding rainfall, damaging winds, storm surge and a number of other economic factors, Eta will be a 1 on the AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes for Florida. The RealImpact™ Scale is a 6-point scale with ratings of less than one and 1 to 5. In contrast to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which classifies storms by wind speed only, the AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale is based on a broad range of important factors. Localized downpours will continue to pester the Sunshine State Monday night into Tuesday, but the center of Eta is expected to drift far enough westward to limit damaging wind impacts by that point. It is at this point that Eta's path becomes a bit less clear. "Late in the week, a non-tropical storm moving through the eastern United States could draw Eta northward across the southeastern U.S.," Pydynowski said. In this scenario, another U.S. landfall would be in play, this time somewhere along the upper Gulf Coast. "However, if Eta misses the connection with this non-tropical storm passing to its north, Eta may then remain in the Gulf of Mexico into the upcoming weekend. At that point, it is possible Eta could continue to meander in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, perhaps drifting slowly to the west or even to the south," Pydynowski said. A drift to the south and west could bring rain and wind to western Cuba later Monday into Tuesday, with a brush of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula possible. The storm may then sit and swirl over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico for several days. As a result of the possibilities that remain on the table with Eta's path this week, all interests from western Cuba to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the southeastern U.S. should closely monitor the forecast in the coming days. Eta has already made history and matched the strength of the strongest storm of the tumultuous 2020 hurricane season -- Hurricane Laura -- when its winds peaked at 150 mph prior to slamming Central America earlier last week. Eta joined the ranks of eight other tropical systems in the Atlantic this season and underwent rapid strengthening, which is defined by a tropical system that experiences an increase in its maximum sustained winds by 35 mph within 24 hours. Its winds increased from 70 mph to 150 mph -- just shy of Category 5 strength -- in just 24 hours. Hurricane season doesn't officially end until Nov. 30. Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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| Rep. Jim Jordan on election 'misconduct' Posted: 07 Nov 2020 07:26 AM PST  Republican Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan reacts to the latest on the election on 'Fox & Friends Weekend.'
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| AOC Says ‘Not a Single Member of Congress’ Campaigned on Socialism, Blames House Defeats on ‘Republican Attacks’ Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:10 AM PST  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Sunday dismissed concerns among some members of her party that the label of "socialist" hurt House Democrats who lost their reelection bids this week.In a leaked conference call between congressional Democrats on Thursday, Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia warned that the party must never use the words "socialist" or "socialism" again, saying that "we lost good members because of that" and predicting that Democrats will get "torn apart" during the next midterm elections otherwise."Why is she wrong?" host Jake Tapper asked Ocasio-Cortez Sunday on CNN.The New York progressive responded that Republicans launched "very effective rhetorical attacks" against Democrats this election cycle but insisted that socialism was not on the ballot."But I think one of the things that is very important is to realize that very effective Republican attacks are going to happen every cycle, and so the question is how do we defend ourselves against that?" Ocasio-Cortez said."If you look at some of the arguments that are being advanced, that 'Defund the Police' hurt or that arguments about socialism hurt, not a single member of Congress that I'm aware of campaigned on socialism or defunding the police in this general election," she continued, saying such language came in the form of "slogans" or "demands" from progressive activist groups.Democrats lost seats but retained a slim majority in the House. The party also failed to wrest control of the Senate as two Senate races in Georgia head toward run-off elections that will determine which party controls the upper chamber.The question now, she said, is "how can we build a more effective Democratic operation that is stronger and more resilient to Republican attacks," adding that she sees "many areas that we can point at in centralized Democratic operations that are extraordinarily weak," such as the party's digital campaigning, an area where Republicans are "quite strong.""The Democratic party is still campaigning largely as if it's still 2005," she charged.The 31-year-old first-term congresswoman, who has described herself as a "democratic socialist," said there are "very deep divisions" within the party at least in the House caucus, and that with a slimmer majority it will be more important to unify against Republicans.
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| Kamala Harris' Indian ancestral village celebrates her victory as she becomes Vice President of the United States Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:24 AM PST  Thulasendrapuram, population 350, was the Indian home of Harris' maternal grandfather, P.V. Gopalan.
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| Beijing loyalists target Hong Kong judges after protester acquittals Posted: 07 Nov 2020 07:04 PM PST  The acquittal of dozens of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters -– often accompanied by withering court criticism of police –- has triggered a backlash from Beijing loyalists demanding an overhaul of a judicial system long known for its independence.
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| Rupert Murdoch-owned US outlets turn on Trump, urging him to act with 'grace' Posted: 06 Nov 2020 11:20 PM PST  Fox News, Wall Street Journal and New York Post all show stark change of tone as their former champion faces 'presidential endgame' * US election 2020 live: follow the latest news, results and reaction * Trump v Biden – full results as they come inMultiple Rupert Murdoch-owned conservative media outlets in the United States have shifted their messaging in a seeming effort to warn readers and viewers that Donald Trump may well have lost the presidential election.The new messaging appears to be closely coordinated, and it includes an appeal to Trump to preserve his "legacy" by showing grace in defeat. The message is being carried on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post – all outlets avidly consumed by Trump himself, especially Fox.One Fox News host, Laura Ingraham, an intimate of the president ever since she spoke at the 2016 Republican national convention, made an astounding statement that seemed directed at Trump personally, advising him to accept defeat "if and when that does happen" with "grace and composure" and appealing to his sense of his own legacy.Ingraham said in part: "If and when it's time to accept an unfavourable outcome in this election, and we hope it never comes, but if and when that does happen, president Trump needs to do it with the same grace and composure he demonstrated at that town hall with Savannah Guthrie. So many people remarked about his tone and presence. Exactly what he needs."Now losing, especially when you believe the process wasn't fair, it's a gut punch. And I'm not conceding anything tonight, by the way. But losing, if that's what happens – it's awful. But president Trump's legacy will only become more significant if he focuses on moving the country forward."> Laura Ingraham prepares her audience for the likely possibility that the President will lose the election pic.twitter.com/tG50EIHj60> > — Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) November 7, 2020The Wall Street Journal has published an opinion piece with almost the exact same message. It is titled "The Presidential Endgame" and subtitled "Trump has the right to fight in court, but he needs evidence to prove voter fraud"."Mr Trump's legacy will be diminished greatly if his final act is a bitter refusal to accept a legitimate defeat," the piece warns.Here is how the article opened: "Perhaps it was inevitable that Donald Trump's re-election campaign would end as his presidency began: with the president claiming victory and his frenzied antagonists denouncing him as a would-be fascist. The reality is that the US can and probably will have a normal election outcome regardless of the shouting between now and then."Mr Biden is leading in enough states to win the presidency, and if those votes survive recounts and legal challenges, he will be the next president."The New York Post – which before the election was the launch vehicle for wild and desperate attacks on Joe Biden's son Hunter – has produced a front page that all but proclaims a Biden victory:> This is a significant front page - the Murdoch empire preparing for a transfer of power..... election2020 pic.twitter.com/tUJE0CdFK4> > — Nick Bryant (@NickBryantNY) November 7, 2020Top editors at the Post have "told some staff members this week to be tougher in their coverage" of Trump, the New York Times reported, citing two anonymous employees of the paper.The Times piece said: "On Thursday, in a sudden about-face, Rupert Murdoch's scrappy tabloid published two articles with a wildly different tone. One accused the president of making an 'unfounded claim that political foes were trying to steal the election'. The headline on the other described Donald Trump Jr as the 'panic-stricken' author of a 'clueless tweet'."News coverage at Fox News has similarly shown little patience with the lies about voter fraud Trump is advancing in hopes of reversing the election.Asked about the Trump campaign's assertion that Republican observers had not been allowed to observe vote-counting, the Fox correspondent states flatly: "That's not true. It's not true. It's just not true."> Holy crap Fox News is going rogue and telling the truth. > > This is amazing...pic.twitter.com/e9xDED5gbq> > — Rex Chapman���� (@RexChapman) November 7, 2020> It is *incredible* to watch Rupert Murdoch assert his power and realize the degree to which *he's* the actual power center in all of this. https://t.co/z3VBvsqVLV> > — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 7, 2020
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| Jill Biden: Who is America’s next First Lady? Posted: 07 Nov 2020 09:04 AM PST  For Dr Biden, who has four university degrees, says she plans on continuing to work full time as a community college professor even if her husband becomes the world's most powerful politician. If that plays out Dr Biden, who has five grandchildren, would become the first first lady to to have a career outside of the White House. "If we get to the White House, I'm gonna continue to teach," she told CBS News.
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| Bolivians decorate skulls with sunglasses and cigarettes to honor the dead Posted: 08 Nov 2020 08:17 AM PST  Bolivians celebrated the Day of Skulls over the weekend, a colorful tradition rooted in ancient indigenous beliefs that is meant to bring good fortune and protection by honoring the dead. Known as "ñatitas," the skulls are decorated and paraded to the cemetery a week after All Saints Day. The festival this year coincides with the inauguration of Bolivia's new President Luis Arce, which caps a turbulent year for the Andean country that has been rattled over the last year by political upheaval and the coronavirus pandemic.
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| Lots of finger pointing as Honolulu rail runs out of money Posted: 08 Nov 2020 07:24 AM PST  Susan Galicha can see Honolulu's rail cars being tested on elevated tracks just minutes from her home. The rail line — one of the nation's most expensive per capita — may have to end a long way from both downtown and the hotel district in a nondescript light industrial area featuring a bus depot and a highway interchange. The latest cost estimate for the 20-mile (32-kilometer) rail line is $9.1 billion — nearly double the $5.5 billion budgeted at the time of the project's 2011 groundbreaking.
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| Ethiopia's army chief sacked as Tigray fighting continues Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:49 AM PST  A reshuffle comes just days after the PM ordered a big military operation against Tigrayan forces.
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| Officials report rampant fraud in Paycheck Protection Program Posted: 08 Nov 2020 12:18 PM PST |
| McCarthy: Republicans close enough to control House floor Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:24 AM PST  Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., discusses ongoing legal battles of the election and Nancy Pelosi's bid for reelection as House speaker.
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| Third World War a 'risk', the head of the military warns, as he calls on Government for long-term funding Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:55 AM PST  There is a "risk" of a Third World War due to growing global uncertainty, the head of the military has warned, as he called on the Government to commit to "long term" funds for the armed forces. General Sir Nick Carter said that the increase in regional conflicts playing out across the world could ramp up into a "full-blown war". The Chief of the Defence Staff said that the world was a "very uncertain and anxious place" during the coronavirus pandemic and suggested that "you could see escalation lead to miscalculation". "We have to remember that history might not repeat itself but it has a rhythm and if you look back at the last century, before both world wars, I think it was unarguable that there was escalation which led to the miscalculation which ultimately led to war at a scale we would hopefully never see again," Sir Nick said. He told Sky News' Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the military also needed long-term investment from the Treasury in order to deliver on "modernisation". It comes after reports of a clash between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor on the issue of defence spending. Boris Johnson is said to have called for a £15 billion package of funding until 2025 while Rishi Sunak is in favour of a one year settlement worth £1.9 billion as part of the spending review. However, Sir Nick said negotiations with Downing Street and the Treasury were "going in a very constructive way". Confirming he would be seeking a multi-year package, he said: "Clearly we're going to argue for something like that because we need long-term investment because long-term investment gives us the opportunity to have confidence in modernisation."
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| Kamala Harris, shattering racial and gender barriers, makes history as first woman vice president Posted: 07 Nov 2020 08:40 AM PST  Sen. Kamala Harris made history three times Saturday as the first woman, first Black person and first Asian American to be elected to the vice presidency, according to the Associated Press, which called the race.
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| Couple who waved guns at St Louis protesters sue news photographer Posted: 08 Nov 2020 01:55 PM PST  A St Louis couple facing felony charges for waving guns at Black Lives Matter protesters who marched near to their home have alleged that a photographer trespassed onto their property to capture the confrontation. Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who are both attorneys in their 60s, filed a lawsuit in the St Louis Circuit Court against photographer Bill Greenblatt and United Press International, who provided the photo for publications. The McCloskeys are also suing Redbubble, an online marketplace for print-on-demand products that has carried merchandise featuring the image of the couple.
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| Cambodia shuts schools in capital area as virus precaution Posted: 08 Nov 2020 06:10 AM PST  Schools in Cambodia's capital and the surrounding area will be shut for two weeks as a precaution after Hungary's foreign minister tested positive for the coronavirus after visiting Cambodia last week, the Education Ministry said Sunday. Schools throughout Cambodia reopened last Monday after being closed since March due to the coronavirus, but with limited class sizes and hours. Public and private schools in Phnom Penh, the capital, and the surrounding province of Kandal will be closed again for two weeks, the Education Ministry said in a statement.
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| A Motorcycle Rally in a Pandemic? 'We Kind of Knew What Was Going to Happen.' Posted: 07 Nov 2020 07:06 AM PST  STURGIS, S.D. -- Albert Aguirre was amped as he and a buddy skimmed across the South Dakota plains, heading to join 460,000 bikers for a motorcycle rally shaping up to be a Woodstock of unmasked, uninhibited coronavirus defiance."Sit tight Sturgis," Aguirre, 40, posted on Facebook on Aug. 7 as he snapped a photo of the sun sifting through the clouds. "We're almost there!"A month later, back home in the college town of Vermillion, South Dakota, Aguirre was so sick he could barely take a shower. He had not been tested but told friends that it had to be COVID-19.Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York TimesInfectious-disease experts had warned about the dangers of cramming thousands of revelers into the Black Hills of South Dakota at the height of a pandemic. But it was the 80th anniversary of the annual Sturgis rally, and bikers were coming no matter what.South Dakota's Republican governor, a vocal opponent of lockdowns, gave her blessing, local leaders set aside their misgivings, and thousands of people from every state in the nation rolled down Sturgis' Main Street.In the aftermath, hundreds of people have gotten sick, and Sturgis has become a rumbling symbol of America's bitter divisions over the coronavirus, even now, as cases continue to surge, surpassing more than 121,000 daily infections Thursday, and the nation's death toll crosses 235,000.Some called the rally a declaration of freedom and went home with T-shirts declaring, "Screw COVID I Went to Sturgis." But others in deeply conservative South Dakota now say it recklessly helped seed a new wave of cases raging out of control in the state.Family members who stayed away are angry at relatives who attended and brought the virus home. Sturgis council members who approved the rally have been bombarded with death threats. And health experts and politicians are still fighting over how many cases Sturgis may have caused across the country.After the crowds streamed home like some huge exhalation, coronavirus cases tied to the rally began popping up as far away as New Hampshire. Infection numbers climbed in the Dakotas and in the neighboring states of Wyoming and Nebraska, where thousands of residents had returned from Sturgis.In all, cases spread to more than 20 states and at least 300 people -- including revelers' families and co-workers who never set foot in South Dakota, according to state health officials. Twin sisters who had worked at a bike-washing stand in Sturgis tested positive. So did a local paramedic. And a motorcycle mechanic's family in Rapid City.Health officials said a lack of contact tracing and the sheer scale of the event have made it impossible to know how many people were infected directly or indirectly because of Sturgis."We don't know if we'll ever know the full extent," said Dr. Benjamin C. Aaker, president of the South Dakota State Medical Association. "These people go home and get sick with coronavirus. They don't have any way of knowing whether they picked it up at the rally or back in California."Aguirre's friends said they would likely never know whether he got sick at Sturgis, at a bar or restaurant in his hometown as college students returned, or somewhere else altogether.But friends said that by early September, Aguirre -- a big guy and fiercely loyal friend who loved cooking and the Wu-Tang Clan -- had been sick for more than a week and was struggling to breathe and eat. He called a local clinic but worried he could not afford to go to a hospital because he did not have insurance, according to friends and the chief of the Vermillion Police Department."Hanging in there?" a friend, Dan Herrera, texted Aguirre on Sept. 5."About to get in the shower and see how much energy that uses," Aguirre replied."Good luck."Three days later, Herrera texted Aguirre to check in.This time, there was no answer.'Do You Want Me to Build a Wall Around Sturgis?'Like every year, banners strung across Main Street proclaimed, "Welcome Harley Riders." Downtown was blocked off for motorcycle parking. And despite rising case counts and growing criticism, Gov. Kristi Noem told Fox News in August that the state was handling the virus and glad to host the rally. "We hope people come," she said.But behind the scenes, many in the 7,000-person city of Sturgis were on edge.Three City Council members wanted to call it off, but they changed their votes at the last minute after several large concert venues, including the Buffalo Chip campground and Rushmore Photo and Gifts, sent letters threatening legal action against the city. Sixty percent of residents who answered a city-sponsored survey wanted to postpone the rally, but city officials said they were boxed in."I said back in March, do you want me to build a wall around Sturgis or a wall around South Dakota, because that is the only way we could have stopped them," Mayor Mark Carstensen of Sturgis said.The backlash came quickly. After the rally concluded, city officials were flooded with death threats day and night by phone, email and mail.In response, the city scrubbed its website of all personal contact information and replaced it with a generic phone line. The death threats ramped up another notch after a study suggested the event resulted in an estimated 250,000 coronavirus infections across the country.Mike Bachand, a City Council member, was among those who received death threats for his vote to host the event. The messages continue to come in, he said.Rod Woodruff, owner of the Buffalo Chip, which is outside the city limits of Sturgis and is used as a campground by motorcyclists during the rally, said he could not rationally see how the event could end up being a superspreader event and was skeptical of some of the cases being linked back to the event. Woodruff said he did not know of anyone who contracted the virus at the campgrounds.Democrats and some conservatives in South Dakota say the rally turned their state into a petri dish. They say Sturgis and other mass gatherings like President Donald Trump's Fourth of July rally, the state fair and an early-September Mustang car rally in Sturgis helped send the state's infection rate soaring to one of the highest in the nation. The state is averaging about 1,100 cases a day, compared with fewer than 100 in much of August and September.But other conservatives accuse the news media and Democrats of inflating case counts and exaggerating the rally's toll to smear its bikers. They said the number of infections was negligible compared with the thousands who attended and pointed out that many rallygoers spent the week outdoors, camping and zooming through Spearfish Canyon and the Badlands.'I've Never Seen Him So Sick'Back home, quietly, people were getting sick. And health departments in different states were struggling to trace where they had gotten sick or who else they might have infected on long road trips that spanned hundreds of miles.In Rapid City, Holly Sortland had feared the virus would find her family, especially her 15-year-old son who has a heart defect. Her husband was a motorcycle mechanic in Sturgis, and though he wore a mask and tried to stay away from the rally crowds, a co-worker had been going maskless to the bars. Five people at his bike shop tested positive."We kind of knew what was going to happen," Sortland said. "I've never seen him so sick."By mid-August, Sortland said, her husband was running a 101-degree fever and shed about 10 pounds. When she got flowers for her birthday, she realized that she could not smell them -- a symptom that she, too, had COVID-19. A positive coronavirus test confirmed it.A contact tracer with the South Dakota Department of Health called the family to ask where her husband worked, but he worried about getting into trouble with his boss given the stigma that swirls around the virus, Sortland said. When she talked with the tracer, she said, she was not asked about her family contacts or where she had shopped.To date, the Health Department has reported 125 coronavirus cases among state residents who attended the rally. Derrick Haskins, a department spokesman, said the agency only conducts contact tracing on South Dakota residents.The Minnesota Department of Health in September connected 74 cases to the rally -- 51 people who attended and 23 others who came into contact with them later. A man in his 60s who attended the rally contracted the virus and died. He is the only rallygoer whose death has been attributed to the coronavirus."It is very challenging to trace the infections that attendees may have spread after they returned from Sturgis," said Kris Ehresmann, director of infectious disease epidemiology at the Minnesota Department of Health. "We were able to link several infections at a Minnesota wedding to someone who had gone to Sturgis, but we were not able to definitively state there was a direct link. The web just becomes too complicated."In North Dakota, the Health Department traced 30 cases back to the event, said Nicole Peske, a spokeswoman for the agency. That number, she added, does not include any secondary coronavirus cases that may have resulted if someone contracted the virus from someone who was at the rally.Peske said the agency was still investigating the cases linked to the event.The illnesses cut rifts among friends and families. In the rural panhandle of western Nebraska, Heather Edwards watched with frustration after a cousin who had worked at the rally tested positive and then shrugged off the seriousness because she had a mild case. A woman in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, seethed after her sister returned home from Sturgis, went to a wedding with a pasta buffet and tested positive the next day.Heidi Morgan, a conservative Republican who lives in the Black Hills, said some friends from Nebraska who attended Sturgis got sick after returning home. They refused to get tested out of a belief that the rally's opponents wanted to use higher infection numbers as a political weapon."There's that feeling of, 'We're not going to add to the numbers,'" said Morgan, who said her family had taken the pandemic seriously, guided by their Baptist faith in putting others' welfare first. "I'm trying to convince them that's not true."'Not Knowing Is the Hardest Part'Aguirre was found dead at home Sept. 10. The officers who moved his body wore gowns and protective gear because of the coronavirus risk, according to Chief Matt Betzen of the Vermillion Police Department. A posthumous test for the virus came back positive, according to the county coroner.South Dakota's Health Department has not connected any deaths to the rally, and Aguirre's friends said they have been struggling to get answers or information about how and where he got sick, and wondering whether they could have helped."I don't understand why he went to Sturgis and didn't take COVID seriously," said Jon Esmay, a friend who had not spoken with Aguirre in a few months. "Mostly I'm just angry that someone who talked to or saw him more often didn't get him to the ER. I'm angry that I didn't talk to him more often."Dustin Van Balen, who considered Aguirre to be like an adopted brother, said he had been trying to piece together a timeline using Aguirre's phone. But he said they might never have answers."Not knowing is the hardest part," he said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Jacob Blake accepts plea bargain, dropping sexual assault charges Posted: 07 Nov 2020 08:55 AM PST  Jacob Blake, a Black recovering after being shot in the back by Wisconsin police officers earlier this year, had been facing charges of sexual assault prior to his shooting. Prosecutors decided to drop two of those charges on Friday in exchange for a guilty plea to lesser charges. Blake, 29, back in May was accused of one count of third-degree sexual assault and one count of criminal trespass, according to New York Times.
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| Deadly Tropical Storm Eta targets Florida, would be state's first landfall of historic hurricane season Posted: 08 Nov 2020 02:39 PM PST  Eta targeted Florida after storming through Central America as a Category 4 hurricane, triggering deadly mudslides that destroyed entire villages.
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| Georgian police fire water cannon at protesters who say polls were rigged Posted: 08 Nov 2020 08:11 AM PST  Dozens were injured when Georgian police fired water cannon against hundreds of protesters who gathered outside the Central Election Commission (CEC) on Sunday to support an opposition call for a rerun of Oct. 31 parliamentary elections which they say were rigged. Police said protesters tried to storm the CEC building. "As the protesters used violent methods and did not obey the instructions of the police, the Interior Ministry used proportional force within its powers," the ministry said in a statement.
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| Who will tell Trump to go? Not Melania or Jared, reports say Posted: 08 Nov 2020 11:33 AM PST  Confusion reigns as accounts of attempts to talk president into conceding to Joe Biden are swiftly shot down * Wrecking ball: the damage Trump could still do * Trump returns to the golf course – US politics liveAs Donald Trump spent Sunday morning visiting one of his golf clubs and doubling down on bogus election fraud claims, conflicting reports emerged about whether the president's family and top advisers were advising him to admit defeat.The disparate reports probably reflected a White House in deep turmoil, some officials digesting the scale of their defeat in the presidential election but others, especially Trump himself, cling to a false narrative that the election was somehow stolen.Citing two sources, CNN reported that Jared Kushner, Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, had spoken to him about conceding. Another source told CNN Trump's wife, Melania, told him that it was time to accept Joe Biden's victory.Melania Trump was then yet to make a public statement on the election but had reportedly voiced her opinion in private."She has offered it, as she often does," CNN reported this source as saying.Later on Sunday she tweeted support for her husband, saying: "The American people deserve fair elections. Every legal – not illegal – vote should be counted."Shortly after noon, the New York Times said a White House official disputed CNN's reporting on Kushner. This official claimed that Kushner had advised Trump to seek "legal remedies".Axios also reported on Kushner's counsel. "A second source close to Kushner confirmed he had not advised Trump to concede," the news site said.Any advice would appear to have had little impact on Trump himself, who continued to tweet false and baseless allegations of electoral fraud and had yet to call Biden to concede the race, a longstanding tradition in US politics. There was little sign that the president's two oldest sons, Eric and Don Jr, were advising him to concede.Both the Times and Axios described behind-the-scenes conversations.According to the Times, White House advisers and staffers convened on Saturday at Trump campaign headquarters. After campaign officials explained that any legal strategy likely would not change election results, Kushner asked some to explain this to Trump. When they asked Kushner if he should also be part of this conversation, Kushner reportedly said he would participate in subsequent discussions.According to Axios, a source claimed there were some uncomfortable conversations in Trump's circle, and that the majority accepted that Biden had won.A spokeswoman for Melania Trump did not immediately respond to the Guardian's request for comment.Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has emphatically pushed for legal intervention. CNN also reported that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who tested positive for Covid-19 this week, had discussed next moves with Trump's legal team.Regardless of Trump's view of the outcome, there has been no communication between the White House and Biden's camp.Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders told CNN's State of the Union that while "a number of Republicans from the Hill have reached out … I don't believe anyone from the White House has."
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| Hundreds of African migrants reach Canary Islands Posted: 08 Nov 2020 07:09 AM PST  More than 1,600 African migrants have landed on Spain's Canary Islands over a two-day period, a rate last seen a decade ago, emergency services said. The body of one person who had died during the perilous journey was recovered by rescuers in waters near the island of El Hierro, the Canary Islands emergency services said. Another person was airlifted by helicopter to a local hospital for an unspecified health problem. More than 1,000 arrived Saturday alone on the islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and El Hierro, after setting out on around 20 barely seaworthy craft, a spokeswoman for the Canary services told AFP.
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| Army, Marines Want New Machine Guns to Replace the M240 and 'Ma Deuce' Posted: 07 Nov 2020 11:56 PM PST |
