| Western allies back UK over tanker seizure Posted: 20 Jul 2019 07:41 AM PDT  Iran's seizure of a UK-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz has ramped up tensions in the Gulf region after the US military claimed it had downed an Iranian drone. US President Donald Trump said he would hold talks with Britain about the tanker's seizure by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
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| California city set to ban gendered words like 'manhole' and 'manpower' Posted: 18 Jul 2019 12:54 PM PDT  The City Council in Berkeley, Calif., votes to remove gender-specific words from its municipal code.
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| UPDATE 1-UK's Hunt says Iran may be on "dangerous path" after seizing tanker Posted: 20 Jul 2019 01:39 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-UK's Hunt says Iran may be on "dangerous path" after seizing tanker]( "UPDATE 1-UK's Hunt says Iran may be on \"dangerous path\" after seizing tanker") British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday that he was worried that Iran had taken a "dangerous path" after it seized a British-flagged tanker on Friday in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Fars news agency reported that the Stena Impero had been taken to the port of Bander Abbas, which faces the strait, after it said the tanker had been involved in an accident with an Iranian fishing vessel.
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| See the 2020 Chevy Corvette C8 Driving on the Road Undisguised Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:37 PM PDT |
| Man arrested after allegedly raping 4-year-old girl in McDonald's play area bathroom Posted: 19 Jul 2019 12:34 PM PDT  Oklahoma authorities are investigating after a man allegedly raped a 4-year-old girl inside the bathroom of a McDonald's in Midwest City.
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| A Passenger Was Fined $105,000 and Banned for Life for 'Extremely Disruptive Behavior' on an Airplane Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:09 PM PDT  She was also banned for life by British budget carrier Jet2
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| Palm Beach Sheriff Investigating Handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s 2009 Work Release Posted: 19 Jul 2019 08:26 AM PDT  The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office has launched an internal investigation into why financier Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to use his own private driver and make unsupervised stops at his private residence during his work release from the county jail when he served time in 2008 and 2009, according to a new report by West Palm Beach Contact 5 News. Epstein, who pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor in Palm Beach County in a secret non-prosecution agreement in 2008, was given carte blanche when it came to how he conducted his work-release program, according to documents seen by the news organization. REVEALED: We Found Billionaire Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's Secret CharityAmong the 464 pages of deputy logs scrutinized by Contact 5 are countless examples of how Epstein was able to spend unsupervised time at his private mansion, where he stands accused of running a child-sex-trafficking ring, when he should have been at his office. The work-release guidelines stipulate that a deputy in charge of his supervision was supposed to be with Epstein at all times when he was out of the county jail, which clearly did not happen, according to the logs seen by Contact 5.The logs also show that deputies left him alone in his home for as much as three hours at a time on at least nine occasions despite the clear regulation that the perpetrator "is not to leave his designated workplace for any reason, with the exception of returning to the PBSO stockade, or for emergency medical treatment."Epstein was allowed to leave his cell for 12 hours a day six days a week after Sheriff Ric Bradshaw signed off on his petition for work release after he acted as a "model prisoner" during his initial months of lockdown, which he spent in a single cell often relegated to those who have testified against others or who are under threat. Epstein was such a good inmate, he was elevated to the role of houseman, Chief Deputy Michael Gauger told the Palm Beach Post, referring to the special status that would allow him to leave his single cell to carry out duties like sweeping and mopping floors, collecting food trays, and delivering linens. "He never complained," Gauger said.After Contact 5 questioned the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office about its investigation, spokeswoman Teri Barbera admitted that deputies did not follow Epstein from the jail to his office on Australian Avenue, according to news reports.When asked for clarification, the spokesperson sent Contact 5 an email responding, "Don't forget that Epstein had a GPS ankle bracelet on him and we would know if he diverted from the route from the stockade to his office."But the logs show that, on several occasions, officers noted problems with Epstein's GPS bracelet, including at least two times when they escorted him out of his workplace to "test the system." On one occasion, officers wrote that they waited across the street from Epstein for a long period of time while the GPS system reset. The deputies were also asked to wear suits and act cordially with Epstein, who was not registered as a sex offender at the time despite the credible accusations against him.Bradshaw has now ordered the internal investigation into his department to "determine if any actions taken by the deputies assigned to monitor Epstein during his work-release program violated any agency rules and regulations, during the time he was on PBSO work-release program."At least one woman has accused Epstein of sexually propositioning her in his office while he was on work release. "Sheriff Bradshaw takes these matters very seriously," the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office said in a statement Friday. "All aspects of the matter will be fully investigated to ensure total transparency and accountability."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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| Ilhan Omar, US congresswoman in eye of political storm Posted: 18 Jul 2019 02:04 PM PDT  To her supporters, Ilhan Omar embodies the American dream, but to Donald Trump and his loyalists the refugee-turned-congresswoman has made clear with a string of controversial comments that she is a dangerous radical. The Somali-born Muslim lawmaker came to the United States as a child and eventually won a seat in Congress. On Thursday the first-term Democratic lawmaker became the focus of a raging debate on race and American values after Trump's supporters began chanting "Send her back!" at a campaign rally with the president.
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| Dozens of whales wash up on Icelandic beach Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:07 AM PDT  Dozens of beached whales have been discovered on a secluded stretch of sand in west Iceland where people rarely tread. The eerie photographs show what appears to be around 20 pilot whales, partially buried in the sand and rotting on Löngufjörur beach. A pilot from Reykjavík took the photographs while ferrying American tourists around the island. The morbid discovery was only made this week by air as the area is inaccessible by car and has few visitors, except the occasional hiker. Edda Elísabet Magnúsdóttir, a marine biologist and whale specialist, told local news website Iceland Monitor that it was hard to confirm when the mammals washed up on the beach. "The most important thing to look at is that these are deep-sea whales, common at the continental margin," she said. "They mainly feed on squid, which is why they're good at diving deep. When they enter shallow waters, most of them have a tendency to become disoriented. They use echolocation for orientation, for finding one another, estimating the depth, and so on. "But a sloping, sandy bottom appears to increase their disorientation. There are numerous examples of them having beached where there is such a sandy, sloping bottom." She added that pilot whales tend to swim in close-knit groups, which increases the risk of a large number being beached at once. It comes after 145 pilot whales were found stranded on an island in New Zealand, of which half were already dead. The other half had to be put down.
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| Two Delta Air Lines planes clip wings at Boston Logan International Airport Posted: 20 Jul 2019 07:30 AM PDT ![Two Delta Air Lines planes clip wings at Boston Logan International Airport]( "Two Delta Air Lines planes clip wings at Boston Logan International Airport") Two Delta Air Lines planes touched wings at Boston Logan International Airport as a flight was arriving to its gate Friday night.
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| US weather: Potentially deadly heat wave set to break records Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:32 AM PDT  The hottest weather in years is stifling two-thirds of the United States, stretching from Texas and Oklahoma northeastward to Maine. The National Weather Service is using strong language to describe the hazards posed by this event.The Weather Service forecast office in Chicago, for example, is calling this "one of the hotter and more humid air masses since 2012."By the time this event ends by Tuesday, 86 per cent of the Lower 48 states will have experienced high temperatures of at least 90 degrees (32C), and close to 50 per cent will have seen temperatures reach or exceed 95 degrees (35C).On Friday morning, forecasters at the Weather Service forecast office in Philadelphia wrote that this heat wave would be "prolonged, dangerous, and potentially deadly." Warning of a heat index as high as 115 degrees (46C) on Saturday, forecasters noted: "Heat related illnesses and death can occur in minutes on days such as these in cases of over- exertion or entrapments in hot vehicles. Because of this, extreme caution should be exercised over the weekend with regards to the heat."Expansive areas of high pressure, with one located over the central states and another out in the western Atlantic will yield near record warmth for multiple days.The heat wave, which comes in the midst of what may turn out to be the hottest month Earth has recorded since instrument records began in the late 19th century, poses a public health threat to tens of millions. In a typical year, heat is the top weather-related killer in the US, beating out tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and other weather hazards.Because this event is occurring at the height of summer, it's difficult to set temperature many all-time hot temperature records. However, the Weather Service still anticipates many records to fall, especially for warm overnight temperatures.This heat wave stands out for the high humidity that is accompanying it, as a vast heat dome helps drive Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean moisture northward.Dew point temperatures, which are a measure of the amount of water vapor in the air, have climbed well into the oppressive humidity category. The high dew points will also prevent overnight low temperatures from falling significantly overnight.Already, in Chicago on Friday morning, the temperature had not fallen below 81 degrees (27C) for the low, which – if it holds through midnight – would break the daily record warm overnight minimum temperature, which was 79 degrees (24C), set in 2011.Such high overnight lows will increase the risk to public health from this hot weather. Heat-related illnesses increase when the human body is not given time to cool off overnight. Heat stress and poor air quality can exacerbate other illnesses and even lead to heat stroke, which can be deadly.The groups most vulnerable to heat-related illnesses include the elderly, chronically ill, children and outdoor workers. Pets are also vulnerable, particularly if they are left in areas without air conditioning and proper hydration.During the day, the humidity levels will combine with air temperatures near the century mark to drive heat index values – which is how hot it feels to the human body – as high as 110 to 115 degrees (43C to 46C), particularly along the East Coast, according to Weather Service forecasts.Along the northern periphery of the heat dome will be what meteorologists refer to as the "Ring of Fire." This is the battle zone between the heat wave air mass and cooler air to the north. In this area, strong winds in the upper atmosphere can spark severe thunderstorms, including complexes of storms that cause wind damage for hundreds of miles, known as a derecho.The Weather Service is forecasting such an event today across the Great Lakes, for example, with more storms along the heat dome's periphery throughout the weekend.As the climate warms because of human activities, numerous studies have shown that heat waves such as this one are becoming more common and intense, as well as longer-lasting. It's one of the most robust conclusions of climate science, since as you increase the global average temperature, the odds of hot extremes increase even faster.According to NOAA data, summer nights have warmed at nearly twice the rate as summer days in the United States, making heat waves a more formidable threat to public health.Climate change attribution studies have shown that global warming has dramatically increased the likelihood of extreme heat events. In fact, one study published in 2019 found the record-breaking summer heat wave in Japan during 2018 "could not have happened without human-induced global warming."In addition, the National Climate Assessment, published by the Donald Trump administration last year found heat waves are on the increase in the United States and have been since the 1960, though the 1930s still stand out as having the most extreme heat events on record in the US, due to weather variability and land use practices at the time.Washington Post
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| Brazil alerted companies about U.S. embargo on Iran: Bolsonaro Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:13 PM PDT  The Brazilian government has been alerting local companies about the extent of sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran and the possible consequences in case of noncompliance, President Jair Bolsonaro said on Friday. "There is this problem, the U.S. unilaterally imposed these sanctions on Iran. Brazilian companies have been informed by us about this situation and are running a risk there," Bolsonaro told reporters.
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| Ex-NRA Ad Firm: Um, Wayne LaPierre is Lying Posted: 19 Jul 2019 10:46 AM PDT  Lucas Jackson/ReutersIn a new filing against the National Rifle Association, lawyers for ad agency Ackerman McQueen suggest that longtime NRA executive Wayne LaPierre is lying about a critical moment in the gun rights group's recent leadership shake up. At issue is multi-million-dollar litigation between the NRA and its ex-ad firm. In court filings of its own, the NRA has alleged that Oliver North, the groups's former president, was ousted in part because he withheld information from the NRA about payments he took from Ackerman McQueen, which had served as the gun rights group's primary ad contractor until just months ago. The NRA claims North kept the nature of his deal with Ackerman McQueen a secret from LaPierre and the gun group's leadership. But in a July 16 filing that was reviewed by The Daily Beast, Ackerman McQueen alleges that LaPierre himself helped negotiate the deal between their firm and North. And they hint that they have documentation to prove it. In a statement, the NRA denied the suggestions. "The facts are clear – Mr. LaPierre and the NRA had no idea that Col. North was negotiating to become an employee of Ackerman McQueen," said Andrew Arulanandam, managing director of NRA Public Affairs. "And to the extent Col. North was pushing a contrived narrative about Mr. LaPierre and the NRA, he was conflicted. He was an employee of Ackerman at the time he was allegedly scheming with the agency to unseat Mr. LaPierre." It's a messy new chapter in the months-long legal battle between the NRA and the ad firm it used for more than three decades. And it comes as the gun group has jettisoned senior staff and faced revolts from grassroots activists and donors. "LaPierre negotiated the terms of the North Contract directly with Lt. Col. North and a detailed term sheet was sent to AMc [Ackerman McQueen] for completion of the formal agreement," the filing reads. The NRA's then-treasurer, Wilson "Woody" Phillips, also reviewed and approved North's contract with the firm, according to the filing, and the NRA board's audit committee green-lit the contract as well. "On at least two occasions, counsel for the NRA has reviewed the North Contract," the filing adds. NRA Pulls the Plug on NRATVAckerman McQueen's insistence that NRA officials were aware of the contract with North is directly at odds with the contention the NRA made in a suit it filed against the ad agency in April. North was ousted from the NRA that month during the group's annual meeting and has since accused LaPierre of gross mismanagement and making highly questionable expenditures. The NRA, meanwhile, has alleged that North tried to oust LaPierre in a coup. And in a separate suit in May, it accused Ackerman McQueen of breach of contract by leaking information about both LaPierre and the NRA's finances. Ackerman McQueen had been a central force behind the NRA's evolution from a gun rights group to a conservative cultural institution. As part of that mission, the ad firm helped launch and manage NRATV, the NRA's recently shuttered internet-video arm. The NRA has alleged in court that Ackerman McQueen had refused to share its analytics with the gun group. But In its July 16 filing, Ackerman McQueen claims that the opposite is true. "Two days before the lawsuit was filed, LaPierre was in AMc's office and was in attendance for the presentation of the NRATV analytics," it reads. "LaPierre walked out of the meeting." A spokesperson for the NRA's legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The filing indicates that the fight between the NRA and Ackerman shows no signs of losing steam. Earlier this week, longtime NRA director of public affairs Jennifer Baker left the group. And a month ago, the group parted ways with its longtime top lobbyist, Chris Cox. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Will Taiwan Get the New F-16V Fighters It Desperately Wants? Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  On July 8, the U.S. State Department announced it would approve a $2.2 billion arms deal with Taiwan including 108 Abrams main battle tanks and 250 Stinger man-portable surface-to-air missiles—a deal which elicited new sanctions from Beijing on the companies involved. But the announcement was more notable for what the approval didn't include—a nearly done-deal for sixty-six F-16V jet fighters built fresh off the F-16 production line in Greenville, South Carolina.This would have been the first sale of new Western combat jets to Taiwan since 1992—a fact not unrelated to Beijing's claims that sales of jet fighters to the "renegade province" constitute a redline.This stance caused three prior U.S. presidents to shy away from additional jet sales, but from the beginning, the Trump administration has proven consistently willing to disregard Beijing's sensitivities regarding Taiwan. The absence of the F-16V deal from the July 8 approval was likely linked to U.S.-China negotiations to end a simmering trade war. Perhaps the Trump administration delayed or canceled the F-16V approval to avoid sabotaging the talks, or is withholding the jets as a possible bargaining chip to extract concessions from Beijing.For now, the deal's fate remains uncertain as Taipei and its allies in Congress lobby strongly for it to proceed.Taiwan's Precarious Status
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| ‘I am disgusted’: New Yorkers react to Trump telling congresswomen to ‘go back’ to their countries Posted: 18 Jul 2019 01:14 PM PDT  New Yorkers, like much of the country, have some strong opinions about the latest controversy engulfing President Trump. "I am disgusted at the Republicans," said Randi, of Manhattan. "I can't believe no one stands up to him. I thought of myself as independent, and I'm forced into being a Democrat."
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| S. Korean man kills himself as dispute with Japan escalates Posted: 19 Jul 2019 02:52 PM PDT  An elderly South Korean man died on Friday after setting himself on fire outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul as a bitter diplomatic dispute over wartime forced labour compensation took a fatal turn. The row has seen Tokyo restrict exports of chemicals vital to Seoul's world-leading chip and smartphone industry in an escalation of a decades-long dispute over Japanese forced labour during World War II.
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| Bernie Sanders defends staff pay after complaints his campaign isn't paying $15 an hour Posted: 19 Jul 2019 01:44 PM PDT  Bernie Sanders defended his campaign's compensation package after an article highlighted concerns that staffers weren't receiving the $15-an-hour wage he champions.
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| For Planned Parenthood, No Doctors Need Apply Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:30 AM PDT  Poor Leana Wen. She took Planned Parenthood's propaganda a little too seriously. And now she's out of a job.For the longest time, Planned Parenthood has insisted that it's a health-care organization, and it only cares about abortion — supposedly a tiny share of its business — insofar as it's a function of health care.Whenever Republicans have threatened Planned Parenthood's funding over abortion, the response was, Abortion? Don't be silly. We are all about Pap tests and breast exams.The hiring of Wen as president seemed the natural extension of this line of argument. How serious is Planned Parenthood about health care? For the first time in a half a century it had a physician, with "Dr." in front of her name, one who was once the health commissioner of Baltimore, leading the organization.BuzzFeed wrote a mostly favorable piece on Wen's ascension eight months ago headlined, awkwardly in order to honor the trope that abortion is health care, "Planned Parenthood's New President Wants to Focus on Nonabortion Health Care."The first sign of trouble should have been that Wen felt compelled to immediately tweet that the headline misconstrued her vision. "Our core mission," she wrote, presumably under internal pressure, "is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care."But Wen, it turns out, wasn't single-mindedly devoted to abortion enough. With her ouster, Planned Parenthood's mask, never very firmly in place to begin with, has slipped. No matter its political spin during fights over its funding, no matter what its glossy printed materials say, no matter how dishonestly it presents the statistics related to its services, the organization is about abortion first and last, now and forever.In a letter tweeted after her firing, Wen cited "philosophical differences" with the leadership of the board. Namely, she had come to Planned Parenthood "to run a national health care organization." The board wanted "to double down on abortion rights advocacy."It's truly extraordinary to have this breach out in the open, given how vested Planned Parenthood has been in its image as a mere health-care provider. When Barack Obama became the first — and one hopes, the last — president to address a Planned Parenthood conference in 2013, he talked almost entirely about health care. In fact, he didn't mention the word "abortion" once.Planned Parenthood always says abortion is only 3 percent of its services, an absurd factoid designed to mislead. Providing pregnancy tests and performing abortions are both Planned Parenthood services, although one is obviously much more consequential and central to its mission than the other.The more telling way to look at it is that Planned Parenthood performs roughly a third of all abortions in the country, about 330,000 a year, according to its annual report.If performing a significant share of the country's abortions were merely incidental to its mission, it would gladly give it up. If you told any other federally funded group that it might have to forswear a small sliver of its business to continue to get public dollars, it wouldn't be a difficult choice. Or, if Walmart had to decide between, say, selling Bounty paper towels and everything else on its shelves, it wouldn't be a close call.The internal complaint about Wen was that she was too concerned with what is, if we take Planned Parenthood's spurious accounting seriously, 97 percent of its business. So what's wrong with that? The context of her ouster is the continued pressure on Planned Parenthood from the Trump administration and in Republican states, which, if nothing else, is smoking Planned Parenthood out. The firing of Wen, coupled with the decision to forgo Title X funding rather than stop providing abortion referrals in keeping with a new Trump administration rule, makes the group's true priority obvious, if there were any doubt.An interim president has been named, and the implicit guideline for filling the permanent role will surely be: No doctors need apply.© 2019 by King Features Syndicate
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| Hong Kong police seize explosives ahead of weekend protests Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:54 AM PDT  Police in Hong Kong discovered a stash of a powerful homemade explosive as the semi-autonomous Chinese city readied for another major pro-democracy protest on Sunday. Materials voicing opposition to an extradition bill that has sparked more than a month of demonstrations in Hong Kong were found at the site, local media said, but a police spokesman said no concrete link has been established and that the investigation is continuing. In a rally that aimed to counter the pro-democracy movement, thousands of people filled a park in central Hong Kong on Saturday to support the police, who have been accused of using rough tactics on protesters.
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| EU plans to offer Boris Johnson no-deal Brexit extension: The Guardian Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:02 AM PDT  "It will be described as a technical delay to save Boris from political embarrassment but then we will have time to find an agreement," a senior EU diplomat told the newspaper http://bit.ly/2xWScq9. Johnson could maintain the stance of being on course to leave EU without an agreement while keeping open the option of coming to a deal with the bloc, according to the proposal cited by the Guardian. EU leaders are discussing steps to be taken in the event Johnson presses ahead with exiting the European Union without a transition deal on Oct. 31, the newspaper said.
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| AOC confronts Trump administration official over 'images of my violent rape' on Facebook Posted: 19 Jul 2019 08:17 AM PDT  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has powerfully confronted a Trump administration official over a secret Facebook group for border agents, that contained twisted jokes about migrant children and showed computer generated images of her being raped and sexually assaulted.The existence of the group, consisting of current and former members of the nation's border patrol agency often referred to as CBP, was revealed earlier this month by an investigative journalism site.This week, the New York congresswoman, who recently visited migrant detention facilities overseen by the US authorities and spoke of her horror at what she saw, questioned the acting head of the department of homeland security about the Facebook group and its contents. It existence was detailed by ProPublica."Did you see the posts planning physical harm to myself and congresswoman Escobar," Ms Ocasio-Cortez asked Kevin McAleenan, referring to Veronica Escobar, another Democratic congresswoman who visited the facilities.Mr McAleenan, the acting homeland security secretary, replied: "Yes. And I directed an investigation within minutes of reading the article."She continued: "Did you see the images of officers circulating photoshopped images of my violent rape?"Mr McAleenan replied: "Yes, I did."Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who last year became the youngest women elected to Congress, asked if those people who made the posts were still working and responsible for the care of women and children. "We've already put individuals on administrative duties, I don't know which ones correspond to which posts and we've issued cease and desist orders to dozens more," he replied.Speaking at a hearing of the House of Representative's overnight and reform committee, the congresswoman asked Mr McAleenan if the Trump administration's controversial family separation policy had led to a "dehumanising culture" within the agency. "We do not have a dehumanising culture at CBP," said Mr McAleenan. "This is an agency that rescues 4,000 people a year."According to The Hill, Ms Ocasio-Cortez responded: "So you don't think that having 10,000 officers in a violent, racist group sharing rape memes of members of Congress points to any concern of a dehumanised culture?"
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| Sen. Elizabeth Warren takes to Twitter to announce her preferred pronouns Posted: 19 Jul 2019 06:08 PM PDT  Is this Warren's attempt at appearing 'woke'? Reaction from journalist Chadwick Moore on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'
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| Iraqi refugee Nadia Murad to Trump: ISIS killed family. Trump responds: 'Where are they now?' Posted: 20 Jul 2019 05:30 AM PDT  Nadia Murad, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, was one of 27 survivors of religious persecution that visited with President Trump on Wednesday.
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| Hong Kong protesters use signals, Post-its to hone skills Posted: 19 Jul 2019 05:54 PM PDT  Hong Kong's youth are no rookies when it comes to protests. Using a range of new tactics, they have helped rally hundreds of thousands of fellow Hong Kong residents to take to the streets over the past month. The Hong Kong-based web forum LIHKG and Telegram, the encrypted messaging app, have served as crucial organizing platforms for the largely leaderless protests.
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| 3 sentenced for violence at Virginia white nationalist rally Posted: 19 Jul 2019 03:19 PM PDT  Three members of a white supremacist group were sentenced Friday to between two and three years in prison for punching, kicking and choking anti-racism protesters at a white nationalist rally in Virginia and political rallies in California. Members of the now-defunct Rise Above Movement were caught on camera assaulting counterprotesters before a planned "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. Benjamin Daley, Michael Miselis and Thomas Gillen each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to riot.
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| View Photos of the Lexus GXOR Concept Posted: 18 Jul 2019 09:59 AM PDT |
| British-flagged tanker seized by Iran in escalation of Gulf tensions as second ship also veers off course Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:07 AM PDT  A British-flagged oil tanker was seized by Iran on Friday night, in a major escalation of tensions along one of the world's most vital oil shipping routes. The Stena Impero had been en route to Saudi Arabia but made an abrupt change of course and began moving towards the Iranian island of Qeshm, according to data relayed by maritime tracking services. The ship "went dark", meaning its identification system was turned off, at 16:29 UK time and nothing has been heard from her or her 23 crew since. Northern Marine, a Clyde-based subsidiary of the ship's Swedish owner Stena AB, confirmed that a "hostile action" had preceded the vessel's change of course on Friday afternoon. They issued a statement saying it had been "approached by unidentified small crafts and a helicopter during transit of the Strait of Hormuz while the vessel was in international waters." The ship turned suddenly into Iranian waters Credit: marinetraffic.com/PA Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that they stopped the tanker at the request of the maritime authority in the Iranian province of Hormozgan on suspicion it has "violated international maritime law", but did not elaborate. There were also concerns about a second oil tanker, the British-operated, Liberian-flagged Mesdar, which turned sharply north towards Iran's coast, about 40 minutes after the Stena Impero's course shift. There was no immediate word from the Guards about the second tanker or from the operator of the second tanker on what had prompted the change in direction along the vital international oil shipping route. Tracking data showed the Stena Impero was in the same area where a United Arab Emirates-based vessel was detained on Sunday and where a British vessel, the British Heritage, was blocked by Iranian forces earlier this month. A Cobra meeting was held between officials from the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and other Government departments on Friday night to determine the UK's response. A Whitehall source told the Telegraph of the Stena Impero: "It does look like it has been hijacked. Ships don't follow that pattern. It turned right and straight into Iranian waters. It is really concerning that this has happened. "It looks on the face of it as though the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have boarded and taken a UK-flagged ship. It appears to be linked to events around the Grace 1 tanker." British authorities seized the Iranian Grace 1 supertanker off the coast of Gibraltar on July 4, on suspicion it was carrying crude to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions. The fate of the tanker has been at the centre of escalating tensions between the UK and Iran and seen as a pawn in the standoff between the Islamic Republic and the West. Jeremy Hunt, Foreign Secretary, had hinted last Saturday that the UK would release the ship if Iran promised its cargo would not go to the Syrian regime. He said talks between him and counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif had been productive. However, a court in Gibraltar on Friday extended for 30 days the detention of the vessel, which was carrying two million barrels of oil. Revolutionary Guards have been threatening retaliation for its impounding and the move would likely have aggravated an already-tense situation. Tensions have been building for weeks in the Persian Gulf. On 10 July, a British warship, the HMS Montrose, intervened to drive three Iranian military vessels that were attempting to divert the British Heritage. Iran seized a Panama-flagged ship on Sunday, it alleges, for "smuggling oil to foreign countries". However, mystery has surrounded the capture as no country has come forward to claim the ship or its cargo. The vessel, however, was only carrying a very small amount and it had been thought Iran had seized it as merely a show of strength. The US then on Thursday claimed to have downed an Iranian drone that had been flying too close to one of its navy ships. The USS Boxer, an amphibious assault craft, destroyed the drone after it came within 1,000 yards in the Strait of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Gulf However, Iran denied the claims and released footage on state TV to proof it was still in possession of the drone. The latest incidents will only increase fears for security along the Strait of Hormuz, through which almost one-fifth of the world's oil passes. Oil prices rose on Friday night in reaction to the news. After one of the worst performing weeks since May, oil started the day firmer but slipped as the US and Iran continued to trade brickbats. The later rise initially still left it well down on the previous week. Oil was down more than 8pc this week overall when markets in London closed. Iran has threatened to close the Strait if it cannot export its oil. The Trump administration is trying to block Iran's exports as a way to pressure it to renegotiate the landmark 2015 nuclear deal it abandoned last year. The UK, which is understood to have seized the Grace 1 after a request from the US, is trying - alongside the EU - to keep the accord alive, believing it is the best chance to stop Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapon.
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| 80+ Healthy Dinners You'll Actually Look Forward To Eating Posted: 18 Jul 2019 01:30 PM PDT |
| Philippine police seek sedition charges against VP, Duterte critics Posted: 19 Jul 2019 06:14 AM PDT  Philippine police have recommended sedition charges against the vice president and other opposition figures, a move slammed Friday as an attempt to stifle dissent under President Rodrigo Duterte. Police allege Vice President Leni Robredo, Catholic Church leaders and opposition politicians plotted to destabilise the Duterte government by implicating him in the narcotics trade. Duterte launched a war against the drug trade when he came into power three years ago.
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| Cummings: Trump doesn't know how it feels to be treated 'like less than a dog' Posted: 18 Jul 2019 07:37 PM PDT  Rep. Elijah Cummings said that Trump's recent 'go back' comments caused him to remember being attacked by a white mob as a child in 1962. Trump doesn't "fully understand what it feels like to be treated like less than a dog," Cummings explained.
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| Journalist reporting on immigration released from ‘inhumane’ US migrant detention centre after 15 months Posted: 19 Jul 2019 02:22 AM PDT  There were bugs, and the showers were cold. Air conditioning was not available, but the heat was turned on inexplicably.If you didn't have family in the United States to send money for food, you would go hungry.Those are just some of the conditions Manuel Duran described after he was released from a US immigration detention centre.As a journalist in Memphis, Tennessee, Mr Duran had been reporting on immigration enforcement officials and sordid conditions for more than a decade by the time they took him into custody last year.Now, he says he's experienced the neglect himself."I've seen the cruelty of the mass detention of immigrants firsthand," Mr Duran told reporters in Spanish on Wednesday, "and it is unnecessary and inhumane."Mr Duran, a native of El Salvador, had been working for the Spanish-language news outlet Memphis Noticias.After being released last week from 15 months in detention, Mr Duran, 43, decried what he called the brutal treatment of immigrants by Donald Trump's administration.Detention centres have faced severe overcrowding in the past several months, prompting outrage and calls for change.Unlike many reporters who focus on immigration, Mr Duran has lived through the detention conditions he covers.Migrants did not get enough food at any of the four facilities where Mr Duran was held, he said at the news conference on Wednesday.They had to buy rations with money sent by their families, and if they didn't have relatives in the United States, the migrants would go hungry.The holding facilities were infested with cockroaches and spiders, Mr Duran said. At Etowah County Detention Centre in Alabama, he said he had to bathe with cold water from hoses for two months.The air conditioner was being repaired for most of the spring, Mr Duran said, and the heat was turned on at one point, making it difficult to sleep."I've seen the disastrous effect of Trump's anti-immigrant policy," Mr Duran said. "I've seen working men, businessmen, who have lived their whole lives in this country and who haven't committed crimes crying and longing to reunite with their families."Mr Duran alleged that ICE had singled him out for detention because he was a journalist from El Salvador.His attorneys at the Southern Poverty Law Centre also argued in a court document that law enforcement had arrested and detained Mr Duran in an attempt to suppress his reporting critical of immigration enforcement."In the US, we are made to believe that freedom of the press is valued, but I can tell you all that under the Trump administration, this isn't true," Mr Duran said.He was released from detention on bond on 11 July while the Board of Immigration Appeals considers whether to grant him asylum because journalists face dangerous conditions in El Salvador, his attorneys said.Gracie Willis, a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Centre, said Mr Duran decided to speak to reporters about his experience in detention because he considers journalism a form of advocacy."I think for him, it was important for him to speak to the press, who are his brothers and sisters in his vocation – to inform them about the things that he saw," Ms Willis said.On 3 April 2018, Mr Duran was reporting on a protest of local police helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when Memphis police arrested him while they were trying to clear people from the street, according to Mr Duran's attorneys.Mr Duran was charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of a highway, the lawyers wrote in the court document, but the charges were dropped two days later.Instead of releasing Mr Duran from jail, his attorneys said he was turned over to ICE and brought on an eight-hour bus ride to the LaSalle detention centre in Jena, Louisiana – without access to a bathroom and with his wrists, ankles and waist in shackles.Mr Duran migrated to the United States in 2006, when his television reporting in El Salvador subjected him to death threats, his attorneys wrote.He missed an immigration court hearing the next year because he was not told about it, according to his lawyers, causing a judge to issue a removal order for him.ICE on Thursday did not respond to a request for information about his case and for a response to his criticisms of the detention centres.Mauricio Calvo, the executive director of advocacy group Latino Memphis, said many other immigrants face the same conditions that Mr Duran described.Attorneys from Latino Memphis, an organisation that provides services and advocates for policies that benefit Latinos, were part of Mr Duran's legal team."This guy had a lot of support because he's a journalist and all these different things," Mr Calvo said, "but we have 500 cases at Latino Memphis, and most people cannot get the attention that Manuel did."Mr Duran is not the first foreign-born journalist to be detained by ICE.Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, a Mexican reporter, migrated to the United States in 2008 after he says soldiers broke into his home and took his identity documents.He and his son Oscar were denied asylum in 2017 and temporarily detained. Their immigration cases are ongoing.Washington Post
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| Christ Cathedral, formerly Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, reopens after renovation Posted: 18 Jul 2019 08:44 PM PDT  The former Crystal Cathedral in Orange County is newly remodeled, renamed and is now a Catholic church.
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| 9-year-old girl dies after bounce house blown into power lines Posted: 20 Jul 2019 02:27 AM PDT ![9-year-old girl dies after bounce house blown into power lines]( "9-year-old girl dies after bounce house blown into power lines") A 9-year-old Reno girl has died from injuries she suffered when strong winds blew an inflatable bounce house with three children inside into power lines last weekend.
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| Britain to cut Huawei decision from telecoms review -sources Posted: 19 Jul 2019 05:45 AM PDT |
| Ex-University of Illinois Ph.D. Candidate Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder of Visiting Chinese Scholar Posted: 18 Jul 2019 03:25 PM PDT  HandoutA federal jury sentenced the former University of Illinois physics doctoral student who kidnapped and murdered a visiting Chinese scholar to life in prison on Thursday.Brendt Christensen, 29, was found guilty last month during his trial at the U.S. District Court in Peoria, after his own defense team admitted that he was responsible for 26-year-old Yingying Zhang's death.Though Illinois no longer has capital punishment in state cases, Christensen could have been sentenced to death because he was convicted in federal court. As the jury, which deliberated for over eight hours, did not reach a unanimous vote on the death penalty, Christensen was automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Thursday.He reportedly flashed a smile to his defense attorneys after the verdict was read. Christensen abducted Zhang in June 2017 from a bus stop in Urbana, about 140 miles southwest of Chicago, by posing as an undercover officer, prosecutors said. Once back at his apartment, authorities say he raped, choked, and stabbed Zhang, then beat her with a baseball bat and decapitated her.Zhang's body was never found.Body of Slain University of Utah Student Mackenzie Lueck Was Found Bound in Shallow GraveChristensen was implicated in the death when his then-girlfriend, Terra Bullis, wore an FBI wire to the vigil for Zhang's disappearance; Bullis recorded Christensen telling her about how he raped and killed Zhang, whom he called his 13th victim. (An FBI agent during the trial said authorities have not yet been able to corroborate that Christensen killed another 12 victims but also haven't ruled it out.)When Christensen saw the crowd at the vigil, Bullis testified that he told her: "They're all here for me."On the recording, Christensen called Zhang "valiant" in her fight to survive and said she was "stronger than any victim I've ever had.""I won't tell you where she is. I won't tell anyone. They will never find her," he said.In an effort to convince the jury to let him live, Christensen's defense team had showed videos of him as a child.But Assistant U.S. Attorney James Nelson said on Wednesday during the government's closing arguments that "justice must be done.""Sentence Brendt Christensen to death," he said. "All murderers start out as innocent children. Sometimes children grow up to be cruel adults. The defendant is not in here because of what he did when he was 12.""The defendant killed Yingying Zhang for sport," Nelson added, explaining that Zhang's family had so much hope for her bright future.Family of Slain University of Utah Student Lauren McCluskey Files $56 Million Lawsuit Against School"That's why Yingying fought so hard," he said. "She had so much to live for."During the trial, prosecutors said that Christensen decided even before Zhang's arrival in the United States that he would kill "a petite woman who could easily be disposed of" and that she was his "ideal victim." Authorities told the jurors that Christensen approached a different young woman earlier that same day, posing as an officer, but that woman refused to get in the car.Last week, Zhang's family—and Christensen himself—cried as her father described the last time he saw her alive at a train station on her way to the U.S."She is part of me as if my life without her would not be complete," Ronggao Zhang testified at Christensen's sentencing. "To tell you the truth, I do not know how to live the rest of my life.""This wonderful daughter of mine, she is my everything," Zhang's mother, Lifeng Ye, said in her testimony. "Our entire family does not know how to carry on."Zhang's fiancé, Xiaolin Hou, told the jurors that her death "totally changed the track of my life" and "took away the most important person in my 30 years of life."Missing Pregnant Teen Found Slain, Her Baby Ripped From Her WombAfter Christensen was convicted, Zhang's father said in a statement that her family "will not give up" on their wish to "find Yingying and bring her home."Christensen's mother, Ellen Williams, testified during his sentencing that it would be "devastating" if her son was executed, and defense attorneys pointed to her testimony, as well as Christensen's good behavior in jail, in their case for a life sentence. In her closing arguments, federal defender Elisabeth Pollock asked for mercy for Christensen, emphasizing that he sought help for his mental health issues before ultimately killing Zhang."He's leaving prison in a casket," Pollock said. "The only question is when."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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| Trump says he is seeking the release of rapper A$AP Rocky at Melania’s request Posted: 19 Jul 2019 11:12 AM PDT  The president said he had never heard of rapper A$AP Rocky until his wife asked him to help free him from prison in Sweden.
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