| Former top Navy SEAL who oversaw the Osama bin Laden raid says the US is 'under attack from the president' Posted: 17 Oct 2019 02:25 PM PDT  The retired Navy SEAL William McRaven said a retired general told him, "'I don't like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!'"
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| Police arrest 2nd suspect in case of isolated Dutch family Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:58 PM PDT  Dutch police said Thursday that a group of people discovered on an isolated farm this week may have been kept there against their will for up to nine years, as they arrested a 67-year-old man who says he is the father of the group. The man who raised the alarm after walking into a local bar and ordering five beers for himself also says he belongs to the family. While the six people on the farm and the man who raised the alarm say they are all from the same family — a father and six siblings all now young adults — police say they are still investigating their exact relationship as none of the siblings appears to have been registered with authorities.
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| Rep. Elijah Cummings' death comes after procedure kept him away from office for weeks Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:31 AM PDT  As chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Reform Committee, he helped lead the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
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| Beto O’Rourke Dunks on ‘Disgraced TV Host’ Bill O’Reilly Posted: 16 Oct 2019 08:11 AM PDT  Bill O'Reilly, who was ousted by Fox News two-and-a-half years ago following decades of sexual-harassment allegations and payouts to victims, made a desperate bid for relevance this week when he decided to live-tweet the fourth Democratic presidential primary debate. Among O'Reilly's insights were that he found the "Trump bashing festival" by the candidates "boring," he wanted Joe Biden to "fight back" harder and that Elizabeth Warren "wants a wealth tax to pay for free stuff, lots of free stuff. Lots." Later, he added, "The Democrats on the stage hate Turkey. The country, not the meal. They might be right." Then came former Rep. Beto O'Rourke's answer to a question about Warren's wealth tax proposal. "I think it's part of the solution," he said, before going on to accuse Senator Warren of being "more focused on being punitive and pitting some part of the country against the other instead of lifting people up and making sure that this country comes together around those solutions." "I think of a woman that I met in Las Vegas, Nevada," O'Rourke continued. "She's working four jobs, raising her child with disabilities, and any American with disabilities knows just how hard it is to make it and get by in this country already." It was this anecdote that caught O'Reilly's ear. He wasn't buying it. "Beto says he met a woman working FOUR jobs," he tweeted. "And raising a special needs child. I don't believe him. Sorry." The response from O'Rourke came with receipts. Along with a photo of the woman and her disabled daughter, he replied, "This is her. Her name is Gina. Her daughter's name is Summer. The problem with our economy is she has to live in her car—while a disgraced TV host like you makes millions." O'Reilly, who at one point had enough money to shell out at least $32 million in sexual harassment settlements before Fox News finally decided to cut him loose, had nothing to say in response to that.But the tweet did get a response from health care expert and former Obama administration official Andy Slavitt, who tweeted, "I would invite @BillOReilly to get a real understanding of what life is like for many in the disability community or raising a special needs or chronically ill child. But that would be cruel to the people who'd have to meet him." Stephen Colbert Takes Bill O'Reilly to Task Over His $32 Million Sexual-Harassment SettlementRead 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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| Hong Kong Activist Renews Call for March After Hammer Attack Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:41 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- One of Hong Kong's most prominent protest organizers -- including a march planned for Sunday -- was recovering after being attacked on the street by men wielding hammers.Jimmy Sham -- convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front, which has organized many of the city's largest peaceful protests -- issued a plea from his hospital bed Thursday for police to allow the march go ahead in the Tsim Tsa Tsui area as planned. Sham was assaulted by four to five men Wednesday while on his way to a meeting in nearby Mong Kok -- the second time he's been attacked since August."When Jimmy was at his street counter, many of the citizens expressed that they really hope there will be a safe march on Sunday," the Civil Human Rights Front said in a statement Thursday. "Jimmy therefore urges the Police to issue Letter of No Objection, so that Hongkongers can express their views."The Civil Human Rights Front has helped organize several of the largest protests ever held in the former British colony, including two largely peaceful marches in June that drew more than a million people. The demonstrations have since mushroomed into a broader push for greater democracy, leading to regular clashes between protesters and police and occasional incidents of mob violence.On Thursday, Hong Kong's embattled leader, Carrie Lam, was forced to repeatedly halt a question session in the city's legislature as opposition lawmakers demanded her to step down and address other protester demands. The coming weekend will be the Asian financial center's 20th-straight weekend of unrest.See also: Hong Kong Police Targeted With Remote-Controlled ExplosiveNg Tak-nam, chief police inspector for the Mong Kok area, condemned the attack on Sham, which he said appeared to have been premeditated. "The police will investigate impartially and seriously, regardless of the person's background and identity," Ng told reporters.Sham, who is planning to join the district council elections next month, was attacked in August by two masked men with a baseball bat and knife. Police have arrested three men in connection with that earlier case, charging two of them with conspiracy to assault causing bodily harm. The third is on bail pending further investigation.The Civil Human Rights Front said that the assailants in the latest attack appeared to be aiming for Sham's head, elbows and knees. The group said he suffered several wounds, but had no broken bones."The Civil Human Rights Front strongly condemns the acts of the perpetrators," the group said. "It is not hard to link this incident to a spreading political terror in order to threaten and inhibit the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights."(Updates with recovery in headline and first paragraph)\--With assistance from Justin Chin.To contact the reporter on this story: Shelly Banjo in Hong Kong at sbanjo@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Ben SharplesFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| CORRECTED-EXPLAINER-Democrats Warren and Sanders want wealth tax; economists explain how it works Posted: 17 Oct 2019 04:00 AM PDT ![CORRECTED-EXPLAINER-Democrats Warren and Sanders want wealth tax; economists explain how it works]( "CORRECTED-EXPLAINER-Democrats Warren and Sanders want wealth tax; economists explain how it works") From 1982 to 2018 the share of U.S. wealth held by the 400 richest Americans is estimated to have grown from 1% to around 3.5%, or probably around $3 trillion. According to Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the University of California at Berkeley economists who developed that estimate, that's in part because the wealthiest American families declare only a small portion of their actual economic gains in any given year as income, while leaving the rest invested in stocks and other assets, to grow in value. Saez, 48, has been involved in a series of what are considered groundbreaking studies of U.S. income, inequality and economic mobility that involved both developing techniques to impute income based on holdings of wealth, and extensive access to U.S. Internal Revenue records.
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| Mystery as plane carrying Russian arms smugglers crashes in Congo Posted: 16 Oct 2019 12:43 PM PDT  The Democratic Republic of Congo has one of the world's worst aviation safety records, so reports that an aircraft had tumbled into a remote forest last week caused few international ripples. Since then, however, a deepening mystery over the nature of the cargo and the identity of those on board has left the Congolese government facing awkward questions. The fate of the stricken plane, a mysterious Antonov-72 so far only identified by its former registration number, EK-72903, may also provide a glimpse into the murkier side of Russia's attempts to reassert its influence in Africa. The details remain scant. Last Thursday, the plane crashed 59 minutes after taking off from the eastern city of Goma bound for the capital Kinshasa. None of the eight people on board survived, officials said. The passengers were identified as the personal chauffeur of Felix Tshisekedi, Congo's president, and three of his bodyguards. An armoured vehicle used by the president was also on board. A more troubling disclosure followed when two of the four-strong crew were identified. Vitaly Shumkov and Vladimir Sadovnichy, the plane's pilots, were not only Russian nationals, they both appeared to have a background in gun running. The plane, too, has a murky past. EK-72903 was once owned by an Armenian company whose proprietor has been linked to arms smuggling elsewhere in Africa. Whether the crew were somehow furthering Kremlin interests remains unknown. However, there is no secret that Russia hopes to regain the influence the Soviet Union once wielded in Africa by wooing its leaders with arms sales, private security and "political technologists" adept at winning elections. Such attempts have often been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Vladimir Putin who has been accused of masterminding attempts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election. Mr Prigozhin allegedly had Congo in his sights after Russia announced in May that it was sending a team of army specialists to the country. Some Russia media outlets speculated that Mr Prigozhin, was on board the plane ahead of a meeting with President Tshisekedi. That is almost certainly untrue. Slumming it on an Antonov is generally not Mr Progozhin's style. "He wouldn't get into a plane like that," a Congolese government official said. "This gentleman is an oligarch and if he travels then he travels on his own plane." The official said that while Mr Prigozhin had not been scheduled to meet President Tshisekedi, other Russian government representatives had requested a meeting to discuss the upcoming summit. It is unclear if any were on board. At least two people described as being "of eastern European origin" were also on the plane. They have not yet been identified, adding to the intrigue surrounding the flight. For the moment, whoever else was on board the plane remains unknown. With some sources saying there may have been 11 people rather than eight on board, UN officials were attempting to identify the remains of the dead — some of whom had been hastily buried — last night. Even that might not put an end to the intrigue of what happened aboard EK-72903. Congo rarely gives up its mysteries. In 1961, a plane departing the country with then UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld on board crashed. Three inquiries failed to determined the cause of the crash and Hammarskjöld's death remains a mystery to this day.
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| Donald Trump pours gasoline on Syria. Now Turkey-Kurds-Russia blowup may one day burn USA. Posted: 16 Oct 2019 04:10 PM PDT  Surrendering to Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan has yielded in 10 days a humanitarian crisis and wins for Bashar Assad, ISIS and Iran: Our view
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| Judges grapple with misconduct claims in Jodi Arias case Posted: 17 Oct 2019 03:03 PM PDT  Appellate judges who will decide whether to reverse Jodi Arias' murder conviction in the gruesome 2008 killing of her former boyfriend grappled Thursday with who was responsible for whipping up publicity during the salacious trial and whether alleged misconduct by a prosecutor should cause the verdict to be tossed. A lawyer for Arias told the Arizona Court of Appeals that prosecutor Juan Martinez improperly questioned witnesses, ignored rulings on evidence, courted publicity and made an unfounded accusation that an expert on her defense team had an inappropriate relationship with Arias. Terry Crist, a lawyer for the Arizona attorney general's office, told the judges that he believes Martinez may have occasionally violated court rules, but none of his actions should lead to a reversal of the conviction.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Subaru Crosstrek Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:00 AM PDT |
| US troops bombed their own anti-ISIS headquarters as Turkey-backed fighters closed in during Trump's hasty retreat Posted: 16 Oct 2019 03:00 PM PDT  After Turkish forces fired on US positions on Friday, Turkish-backed forces advanced on the anti-ISIS base in Syria.
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| South Korea’s Moon Sees Approval Rating Hit New Low Amid Scandal Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:09 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The approval rating for South Korean President Moon Jae-in hit a record low in a poll released just days after he issued a public apology for the resignation of a scandal-tainted minister who was a close political ally.The support rate for Moon's government was at 39%, according to data released Friday by Gallup Korea, which conducts regular tracking polls. The resignation of Cho Kuk -- a former justice minister who resigned just five weeks after taking the job -- added to Moon's woes that include a tepid economy, a trade war with Japan, and North Korea snubbing his overtures for talks.The approval rating slipped from 43% a week ago, with 53% of respondents saying they disapproved of the Moon government, Gallup said. Major reasons cited by the public for faulting Moon included economic mismanagement and his personnel appointments.Moon's appointment of Cho on Sept. 9 touched a nerve with many as they questioned why a person whose family was being probed for financial irregularities should lead the ministry conducting the investigation. Protests also spread to university campuses with students angered about reports that Cho may have used his influence to help his daughter win admission to a prestigious college.Moon came to office in 2017 with an approval rate above 80% with calls to increase employment and cut into income inequality. But he has presided over an economy forecast to expand this year at the weakest pace in a decade. Exports -- a key pillar of the Korean economy -- have fallen for ten straight months, and hurt corporate investment and hiring.To contact the reporter on this story: Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz, Peter PaeFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Israel envoy demands probe after effigy of Jewish tycoon left at Ukraine synagogue Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:08 AM PDT  The Israeli ambassador to Ukraine asked police on Thursday to find and punish people who left a red paint-spattered effigy of tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, who holds a Ukrainian Jewish community leadership post, on the steps of the main synagogue in Kiev. Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine's richest men, is in the public eye over his business ties to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who came to fame as the star of TV show on a channel Kolomoisky owns. Kolomoisky is president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, one of several Jewish community bodies in the country.
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| Ancient Cambodian city found using aerial mapping Posted: 16 Oct 2019 08:55 AM PDT  An ancient settlement, known has the 'lost city' of Cambodia, has been rediscovered by scientists using aerial mapping after remaining hidden in dense jungle for centuries. Mahendraparvata, believed to have been the first capital of the Khmer Empire, a powerful Southeast Asian state that existed during the Angkor period from the 9th to 15th centuries, had long-eluded archeologists, who knew of its existence but were unable to map it out because of the difficult terrain. Studies of the city were further hampered by landmines leftover from the Khmer Rouge, who used the location in the Phnom Kulen highlands as a last stronghold when their regime came to an end in 1979 in the Cambodian-Vietnamese War. In a new paper, published this month in the academic journal, Antiquity, an international team has revealed what they say is a definitive reconstruction of the form of the early Angkor-period capital, with the help of airborne laser scanning, a technique known as Lidar. "Despite its importance as the location of one of the Angkor period's earliest capitals, the mountainous region of Phnom Kulen has, to date, received strikingly little attention," point out the report's authors, led by Jean-Baptiste Chevance from the Archaeology and Development Foundation in the UK. Predating the more famous Angkor Wat by 350 years, the roads, temples and carvings of Mahendraparvata are still being unearthed Credit: NYTNS / Redux / eyevine Their recent efforts began in 2012 when Damian Evans of the French Institute of Asian Studies in Paris and his colleagues scanned the region with lasers from planes. It gave them an incomplete snapshot of the ruins and so they returned in 2015 to scan a larger area alongside a ground-based survey. The result was "a very full and detailed interpretation of that city," Mr Evans told the New Scientist. The city was built on a plateau, covering some 40 to 50 square kilometres, and the team found that it was laid out in a grid structure, with each square in the grid revealing traces of buildings, including temples and grand palaces. "It shows a degree of centralised control and planning," he said. "What you're seeing at Mahendraparvata.. speaks of a grand vision and a fairly elaborate plan." Experts now aim to date the structures. Mahendraparvata, does not seem to have been used as the capital for long because its mountainous location was unsustainable for inhabitants. The heart of the Khmer Empire shifted to the city of Angkor, which lay to the south on a floodplain, and became the site of the now world-famous 12th century Angkor Wat temples. It has remained a source of fascination to historians, however. "The city may not have lasted for centuries, or perhaps even decades, but the cultural and religious significance of the place has lasted right up until the present day," said Mr Evans.
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| Doing it for the 'gram? Royal Caribbean says no to that, bans guest from ever sailing again Posted: 17 Oct 2019 02:44 PM PDT ![Doing it for the 'gram? Royal Caribbean says no to that, bans guest from ever sailing again]( "Doing it for the 'gram? Royal Caribbean says no to that, bans guest from ever sailing again") Doing it for the 'gram? Royal Caribbean Cruises doesn't seem to think that's a good idea, particularly when it's dangerous.
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| Why Mexico Is Cooperating with Us on Immigration Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:42 PM PDT  One of the reasons border apprehensions have dropped from their alarming peak in May is that Mexico has been pretty aggressive in stopping third-country nationals from traversing its territory on their way north to make bogus asylum claims so they can be released into the U.S.But why has Mexico been willing to work with us like this? It's especially curious because in the past, Mexico was not at all eager to help us limit illegal immigration, a pattern we might have expected to intensify with last year's election as president of left-wing populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (commonly known as AMLO, pronounced as a word rather than initials).No doubt President Trump's tariff threats had some effect. Three-quarters of Mexico's exports go to the U.S., and despite increased integration of our economies over the past couple of decades, they still need us a lot more than we need them. Also, Trump's mercurial temperament clearly has the Mexicans worried that he could do something rash (similar to Iran's fears about Reagan if the hostages weren't released before he was inaugurated).But it's unlikely that these things would be enough to move a sometimes touchy nationalist like AMLO. Rather, I think a big part of the explanation is that the current flow of illegals is mainly made up of foreigners, not Mexicans. Earlier waves of mass infiltration across our southern border consisted mainly of Mexicans, and while Mexico quickly took back its people who had been nabbed by the Border Patrol, it did little if anything to reduce the flow. They did establish a police-like unit of the country's immigration agency called Grupo Beta, which worked on Mexico's northern border (opposite our southern border), but its remit was to help potential illegals with water and first aid and protect them from criminals.But the current flow is very different. Yes, there are still a significant number of Mexicans sneaking across the border, but fewer than there used to be. Mexico's economy has grown and developed to a point where fewer people see the need to emigrate. Also, there just aren't that many able-bodied, working-aged people left in rural areas of Mexico, which is now about as urbanized as the U.S.The current illegal flow, by contrast, is mainly non-Mexican, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador (the "northern triangle" countries of Central America), but with growing numbers from Haiti, Cuba, various African countries, and even the Middle East. There had always been a small number of what the Border Patrol calls OTMs (Other Than Mexicans), but they now constitute the majority of the flow.When the first caravan to catch the world's attention passed through Mexican towns on its way north in spring 2018, it was often welcomed with mariachi bands, offers of food and water, and even medical checkups. But as more caravans arrived, plus many migrants in smaller groups, all drawn by loopholes in American law that facilitated their release into the U.S., the welcome started to wear out. As the Washington Post wrote this spring:> But six months and several caravans later, much of that welcome has dried up. Most media have left. And the people of Mapastepec, and other places that have been overwhelmed, are showing their fatigue with the growing stream of migrants.> > "People . . . previously opened their doors to these migrants, but they do not have much extra money here," said Roberto Sarabia, 56, who works at a small grocery store. "What little they could give, they've already given."Exhaustion has turned to resentment. As the Central American illegals started piling up in Tijuana, preparing to cross to San Diego, local residents last November staged a protest; the NPR report offered a sense of the mood:> Demonstrators held signs reading "No illegals," "No to the invasion" and "Mexico First." Many wore the country's red, white and green national soccer jersey and vigorously waved Mexican flags. The crowd often slipped into chants of "Ti-jua-na!" and "Me-xi-co!" They sang the national anthem several times.Tijuana's mayor at the time, who was in political hot water generally (he subsequently lost his bid for reelection), rushed to try to take advantage of the situation by sporting a "Make Tijuana Great Again" red baseball cap.> Con ustedes el alcalde de Tijuana, Juan Manuel Gastélum, capaz de decir "que me perdonen las organizaciones defensoras de DH, pero los derechos humanos son para humanos derechos" … CaravanaMigrante pic.twitter.com/DkSuKeFBaF> > — Risco (@jrisco) November 16, 2018And it's not just Tijuana. The El Paso Times recently wrote about the newly developed Cuban community across the river in Juarez. Many Cuban illegals are giving up on their U.S. asylum gambit and deciding to settle down in Juarez (proving they were really economic migrants all along). And it's creating resentment. As a burrito seller said of the Cubans, "They don't get along with Mexican people. They get in a little group by themselves. A lot of people don't like them here." And a business consultant complained, "There are people who are coming looking for a handout, who want us to help them, when they could also look for work."The flow of illegals passing through Mexico to make bogus asylum claims in the U.S. has grown so large that some of them aren't bothering to head all the way to the border and are applying for asylum in Mexico instead. The number of asylum applications submitted to Mexico's refugee agency (COMAR) more than tripled in the first eight months of this year compared to the same period in 2018. The asylum burden seems to have gotten so bad that the refugee agency has removed the helpful video it used to host on its website explaining how to apply.And over the weekend, a large group of illegal aliens from Africa, the Caribbean, and Central America tried to set out on another caravan in southern Mexico, but were stopped by police and the National Guard (a new paramilitary force established by AMLO specifically for border control). Most telling was this bit of video from a Mexican news outlet, showing the commander of a National Guard platoon addressing his men before confronting the latest caravan. He starts his pep talk by saying, "No one will come to trample our country, our land!"> "Nadie va a venir a pisotear nuestro país, nuestra tierra", son las palabras de un comandante de pelotón de la GuardiaNacional durante la redada de hoy contra migrantes haitianos y africanos.> > �� @Chechetc corresponsal de @WRADIOMexico pic.twitter.com/9YexXMqMsF> > — Salvador Zaragoza A. (@SalvadorZA) October 13, 2019None of this is to say that our border has been fully secured, or that we don't need to plug the loopholes that sparked this flow in the first place, or that interior measures such as E-Verify, workplace enforcement, and curbing sanctuary cities are no longer needed. And it's entirely possible that if Mexico hits a serious economic road bump in the future, a new Mexican-illegal surge will take place, and the political calculus will be very different.But for now, the United States and Mexico have a confluence of interests in stopping the flow of third-country "asylum-seekers" heading for the American border. Mexicans love their country, as they should, and they're tired of foreigners using it as a doormat.
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| Rudy Giuliani’s Twitter Feed Is a Boomer Conspiracy-Theory Sh*tshow Posted: 17 Oct 2019 02:29 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by Kristen Hazzard/The Daily Beast/GettyWhen Rudy Giuliani logs into Twitter, he's presented with a world where the recent California power outages were staged by military operatives rooting out cannibal-pedophiles deep in their underground bunkers. It's a place where President Donald Trump only betrayed the Kurds because they were running black sites for a global deep-state cabal; where former Trump Russia adviser Fiona Hill ran an anti-Trump spy ring out of the White House; where former Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta eats children; and where the pope is about to seize world power, and maybe already has. It is the worst that the right-wing internet fever swamp has to offer, and it is all right there, waiting for Giuliani to consume. With the president's personal lawyer now in hot water for helping to orchestrate an apparent pressure campaign to get the Ukrainian leadership to launch investigations beneficial to Trump's domestic political needs, the question being routinely asked is what compelled him to act in these ways. To answer that question, it's worth examining the dozen of hardcore conspiracy theory accounts that populate Giuliani's Twitter timeline. Giuliani, after all, has become a fairly regular user of the platform, having posted to it more than 1,000 times and routinely favoriting content during the course of any given day. But he only follows 224 people (as of Wednesday). A good chunk of those follows are conventional Trumpworld figures, including the president himself (Trump was Giuliani's earliest follow), Judicial Watch chief Tom Fitton, opinion writer John Solomon, and former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka.But many of those 224 dabble in far darker realms of the far-right conspiracy theory internet than the usual rantings of a Fox News primetime broadcast. For instance, Giuliani follows writer Ella Cruz—the author of an Amazon self-published book called Ring of the Cabal: The Secret Government of The Royal Papal Banking Cabal, which alleges that the New World Order will soon impose the "mark of the beast" on all humanity. In August, Cruz tweeted at Giuliani, warning him that Hillary Clinton murdered pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. Though Giuliani doesn't often RT or even like the content produced by the people he follows his taste for conspiracy theories does occasionally shine through, such as in August, when he quote-tweeted conspiracy theorist Matt Couch, a prolific promoter of the baseless idea that former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was murdered by Hillary Clinton. Couch has become so vocal in his attacks on the Rich family that Rich's brother filed a defamation suit against him. Giuliani promoted a tweet from Couch questioning the police narrative about Rich's 2016 murder, and later told The Daily Beast there are "legitimate questions" about the investigation. Giuliani follows a number of accounts that promote the QAnon conspiracy, which alleges that Trump is engaged in a secret war against cannibal-pedophiles in the Democratic Party, Hollywood, and Wall Street. Nearly 5 percent of the accounts that Giuliani follows have explicit QAnon references permanently on their Twitter pages, either in the form of pinned tweets, Twitter names, bios, or header images. Many more of them frequently tweet and retweet QAnon messages from popular promoters of the conspiracy theory. Several accounts Giuliani follows recently retweeted a video, shot in a dimly lit, anonymous living room, starring a man claiming that Navy SEALs and Marines had recently rescued "2,100 children from California Underground bases." There is no evidence that this is actually true. Other accounts that Giuliani follows are prone to promoting a wild potpourri of various conspiracy theory claims. Among them are that Barack Obama is engineering the Trump impeachment process to install Michelle Obama in the White House, or that Hillary Clinton plans to kill off each Democratic presidential candidate so she can become president herself. Others allege that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg secretly died months ago, but that her death is being covered up. Taken together, the accounts circle around a few popular right-wing targets: the Clintons, the Obamas, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Several accounts Giuliani follows recently claimed, without any proof, that Omar had donned a disguise to take part in a gathering of left-wing antifascist activists. Another promoted a long-discredited idea that a photograph proves Omar attended a terrorist training camp (in fact, the picture was taken years before Omar was even born).Many of the accounts Giuliani follows have just a few hundred or thousand followers, raising questions about how he became aware of them in the first place. But Giuliani also follows some of Twitter's leading right-wing conspiracy theorists. Giuliani follows SGT Report, a sort of clearing house for anti-vaccine activists and other conspiracy theorists that has more than 500,000 subscribers on YouTube.The degree to which Rudy's Twitter consumption informs his world view is inherently unknowable. Giuliani hasn't favorited any of tweets from the conspiracy theory accounts. Reached for comment, he declined to say why so many obscure conspiracy theory Twitter accounts make up the relatively small number of total accounts that he follows on Twitter."Never saw any of that," Giuliani wrote in a text message.But there is some anecdotal evidence that Giuliani has embraced or, at a minimum, begun to echo the world that he has built for himself on that platform and it is not just because of his penchant for promoting conspiracy theories about billionaire George Soros and former Vice President Joe Biden. Earlier this month, Giuliani appeared on an internet TV radio show hosted by Bill Mitchell, a diehard Trump fan who has frequently promoted QAnon online. Asked ahead of the interview why he was going on the show, given Mitchell's QAnon connection, Giuliani asked for proof that Mitchell supports QAnon. After The Daily Beast sent Giuliani one article proving Mitchell's support for QAnon, the former prosecutor stopped responding to text messages.Giuliani's own Twitter use has accelerated since he took on a starring role in Trump's Ukraine scandal, according to social media analytics site SocialBlade. In October 2018, Giuliani had 29 average monthly tweets. A year later, he averages 132 tweets a month, according to SocialBlade.Many of the fringe accounts Giuliani follows have rallied to his defense as the Ukraine investigation heats up and echo his most conspiratorial insinuations about the Biden family. One account Giuliani follows, for example, regularly urges him and Trump to sue Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over impeachment. Several of the conspiracy theorist Twitter users that Giuliani follows have, in turn, cited their social media connection to the former New York City mayor as a way of burnishing their credibility. "It's an honor that he follows me," Couch, the Seth Rich conspiracy theorist, told The Daily Beast.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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| China detains 2 US citizens who ran teaching program Posted: 17 Oct 2019 06:37 AM PDT  China said Thursday it detained two U.S. citizens on suspicion of organizing others to illegally cross the border, amid sharpening tensions between the sides over trade, technology and other sensitive issues. Police in the eastern province of Jiangsu arrested Alyssa Petersen and Jacob Harlan on Sept. 27 and Sept. 29, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. "The department handling the case has informed the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai in a timely manner, arranged U.S. diplomats to conduct consular visits and protected the legitimate rights and interests of the two," Geng said at a regular press briefing.
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| How Can This Be? The Mid-Engine Corvette's Forward Visibility is Actually Worse Than the Front-Engine C7's Posted: 16 Oct 2019 01:00 PM PDT  And our test data proves that it's not just a perception.
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| Hong Kong chief abandons policy speech; protest leader hospitalised Posted: 16 Oct 2019 06:49 AM PDT  Hong Kong's embattled leader abandoned a State of the Union-style speech on Wednesday after she was shouted down by opposition lawmakers on a day that also saw a prominent protest leader left bloodied by hammer-wielding thugs. Lam's speech was swiftly dismissed by protesters who called for a new rally on Sunday. The city's unelected pro-Beijing leader, who has historic low approval ratings, tried twice to begin her policy address inside the Legislative Council, three months after the building was trashed by masked protesters.
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| Anti-Trump businesswomen are nervous about Warren, and the Democratic debate didn't help Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:00 AM PDT  In her fight against corporate America, Warren is turning off a key group of voters who want to oust Donald Trump: the liberal women who work there.
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| A woman sues San Antonio after a police officer pulled out her tampon in public Posted: 17 Oct 2019 04:52 PM PDT  The city of San Antonio will vote this week on a proposed settlement that would award a woman $205,000, after she accused a police officer of inappropriately searching her and pulling out her tampon in public.
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| Peek Inside Eero Saarinen’s Iconic General Motors Technical Center Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:22 AM PDT |
| GM’s Idled Ohio Plant Staying a Symbol for Trump Attacks Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:16 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Co. is proceeding with plans to part ways with the massive Ohio car factory it's operated for more than half a century, all but cementing the facility's status as a political liability for President Donald Trump.The United Auto Workers couldn't persuade GM to reconsider its decision to close Lordstown Assembly Plant, the union confirmed Thursday in a document summarizing the contract agreed to yesterday. The fate of the factory has been fodder for Trump's critics for almost a year, and the attacks are certain to continue on the campaign trail.Two candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination -- former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- name-dropped Lordstown during the party's debate Tuesday. Buttigieg called the closed Chevrolet Cruze plant "one more symbol of the broken promises that this president has made to workers."GM announced in late 2018 it wouldn't allocate future product to the plant. The automaker has been in discussions to sell the facility to Lordstown Motors, an affiliate of fledgling electric-truck maker Workhorse Group Inc. While the UAW fought for GM to keep the factory in the fold, it settled for an all-new battery plant that will be built nearby and create about 1,000 jobs. Lordstown Motors plans to create 400 jobs initially, according to GM.But workers at the Lordstown battery factory will be paid less than what vehicle assemblers make, people familiar with the arrangement said. They'll be compensated under a separate agreement from the master contract UAW members are expected to vote on in the coming weeks, one person said.Union DecisionTrump spoke with UAW President Gary Jones on Wednesday about the tentative agreement. On Thursday, the union's local presidents and chairman -- roughly 200 officials -- are deciding whether to put the deal to a vote of the entire membership and if workers will return to their jobs before ratification.While its leadership was deliberating, the union released a summary of the four-year contract on its website. It includes offers of $11,000 ratification bonuses for senior workers, $60,000 early retirement buyouts for up to 2,060 employees and annual raises and lump-sum payouts.Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio told reporters he was concerned the Lordstown assembly plant wasn't part of the tentative agreement."We have earned the right to have a vehicle there by doing the right thing for GM," Portman said.'No Place to Go'Union members from Lordstown showed up at the UAW's meeting in Detroit to protest the fate of their factory."These people all have families in Lordstown," said Dan Morgan, shop chairman of UAW Local 1112, which represents the remaining workers. "They put faith in the UAW. If they don't put a product in there, then they have no place to go."This could be a big problem for the hundreds of workers in Ohio who didn't accept GM's offer to be transferred to the company's other factories.They may have to find work at the battery facility at less pay, or hope that the possible deal with Lordstown Motors works out. The latter option is a long shot -- the company is led by the founder of Workhorse, which reported just $6,000 of revenue last quarter.GM wants to continue with the sale to Lordstown Motors. If those talks fall apart, GM could either close the factory or put it on standby. The company has put plants on hiatus before and brought them back, including facilities in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and Orion Township, Michigan.'Don't Move'GM stopped making the Chevrolet Cruze at Lordstown in March. Soon after, Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden both took shots at the company for not investing in the Ohio community.During a July 2017 rally in nearby Youngstown, Trump told supporters "don't move, don't sell your house," because his administration would bring jobs back to the area."I've met with these members of the UAW who are striking outside of facilities in Cincinnati, in Lordstown, Ohio, which has just been devastated, decimated by GM and their malfeasance," O'Rourke said Tuesday. "What they want is a shot."(Updates with details of the agreement starting in the second paragraph.)\--With assistance from Justin Sink and Mark Niquette.To contact the reporter on this story: David Welch in Southfield at dwelch12@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Trudell at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net, Kara WetzelFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| APNewsBreak: Skeleton unearthed beneath California peak Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:25 PM PDT  The climbers were closing in on the top of California's second-highest peak when they came upon the grisly discovery of what looked like a bone buried in a boulder field. Tyler Hofer and his climbing partner moved rocks aside and discovered an entire skeleton. The discovery a week ago beneath Mount Williamson unearthed a mystery: Who was the unfortunate hiker?
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| Dior Apologizes for Showing China Map without Taiwan in Meeting with Chinese College Students Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:38 AM PDT  Luxury brand Christian Dior apologized on Thursday for showing students a map of China that didn't include Taiwan in a closed-door recruiting session at Zhejiang Gongshang University in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou."Dior first extends our deep apologies for the incorrect statement and misrepresentation made by a Dior staff member at a campus presentation," read a statement by Dior on Weibo, a Chinese social-media platform similar to Twitter. "Dior always respects and upholds the One China policy, strictly safeguards China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and treasures the feelings of the Chinese people."In a video, later posted online, of the question-and-answer session that followed the presentation, a female student asks why Taiwan, which the Chinese government considers a part of China, wasn't included on the map of China shown by Dior representatives. One representative answered that the map was too small, to which the student replied that the map did include the island of Hainan south of China, which is similar in size to Taiwan. Another representative interjected that Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China together form "Great China."The company's apology to China drew condemnation from Taiwanese officials."@Dior's apology to the PRC government is a mistake," Taiwanese foreign minister Joseph Wu shot back on Twitter. "Its employee was correct in showing the Chinese map without Taiwan."The controversy comes after the NBA was accused of buckling to Chinese censorship in a similar spat earlier this month.On October 4, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted, "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong." The Chinese Basketball Association immediately moved to cut all ties with the Rockets, and Chinese streaming service Tencent announced that it would not show any Rockets games for the coming year. Morey subsequently released a statement apologizing to Chinese fans, and the NBA publicly condemned Morey for his tweet supporting the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The NBA faced widespread condemnation from U.S. elected officials, who blasted what they called its weak response to China's demands.
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| Russia Prepares the Way for Bashar al-Assad’s Brutal Endgame in Nothern Syria Posted: 16 Oct 2019 02:01 AM PDT  GAZIANTEP, Turkey—After eight years of Syrian civil war, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and the displacement of half the Syrian population, U.S. President Donald J. Trump's decisions have created conditions for Bashar al-Assad's regime to re-assert control over nearly one-third of the country that had been outside its grip since 2012. Far from reining in U.S. adversaries, Trump's presidency will likely be remembered as one through which Assad, this century's greatest mass murderer, managed finally to claw his way back to a position of undisputed authority. Trump Just Enlisted America in a New Axis of EvilThis is the way that's playing out on the ground in what is, admittedly, still a complicated situation.The news began Tuesday morning with Russian pro-Kremlin journalist Oleg Blokhin streaming a live video from inside the recently abandoned American al-Sa'idi'a base in Syria on the western outskirts of the Manbij countryside. "Good morning to everyone from Manbij," exclaimed Blokhin. "I'm at the American military base right now, where they were until yesterday morning. Already, we're here [instead]. We're going to examine now how they were living here, what they were so busy with, and what's going on." A second video would show Blokhin as he mockingly played with a boom barrier at the entrance to the base, appearing to check whether or not it worked. "It's in good condition," he assured the cameraman, with a slight grin. Blokhin, who works for the pro-Kremlin ANNA news network, previously covered the activities of Russian private military contractor Wagner as it trained pro-Assad militiamen in January, and later accompanied Russian and pro-Assad forces during the latter's successful August campaign to take back the town of Khan Sheikhoun. Now, he stood gloating on a former U.S. military base. Other pro-Assad media soon conducted similar tours of other U.S. bases abandoned by American soldiers. Reports throughout the day Tuesday would also claim U.S. troops pulled out of two new additional locations including the eastern town of Tal Baydar and the Kharab Ashak base west of Ain Aissa. Shortly before U.S. troops withdrew, ISIS families still being detained at a nearby prison facility in Ain Aissa reportedly set fires throughout the camp in a renewed attempt to try to escape. In addition to exemplifying the momentous shift underway as Assad's vital ally Russia finally replaces the United States as the primary party in northern Syria capable of liaising with most all of the parties to the conflict, Blokhin's livestream carried a special significance for locals in Manbij. Over the past week, including several days after Trump's shock announcement that U.S. troops would withdraw from Syria, American soldiers at the al-Sa'idi'a base actually continued carrying out near-daily patrols in the western and northern Manbij countryside that helped successfully ward off previous attempts by Syrian regime forces to set up positions in the area. That offered hope to those in Manbij who oppose the regime—that U.S. military institutions might be capable of coercing the Turkish president to adopt a compromise that saw U.S. troops remain in the area until Turkish-backed forces were capable of assuming control. But those hopes along with more than 16 months of U.S.-Turkish diplomacy were dashed Tuesday as the American troops made their final withdrawal from the area, paving the way for Russian and Syrian regime forces to roll in free and unopposed. Elsewhere, in Ain Aissa and Tal Tamr, towns located along the M4 highway, northern Syria's main artery and transportation route, Russian and regime forces established permanent checkpoints and bases to ensure control of the strategic route in the face of oncoming Turkish assaults. Those reinforcements appeared to have helped the SDF capture three villages from Turkish-backed forces in the immediate vicinity north of Tal Tamr later that night. While the arrival of regime forces undoubtedly has provided much needed relief for the SDF on several fronts, doing so will come with a cost. As the SDF welcomes more Syrian regime reinforcements into its territory, the group undoubtedly will lose future leverage it would need in order to preserve a role for itself within civil governing institutions throughout northeast Syria. On Monday, the SDF's largely toothless civil wing, the Syrian Democratic Council, issued a directive to local councils in the area to continue to perform their duties "as previously," insisting that "nothing has changed" and that the agreement with the regime constituted no more than a temporary military alliance to protect Syria's borders. However it's unlikely that the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Council, or other SDF-backed institutions within the group's self-proclaimed "Autonomous Administration" will be able to preserve any modicum of independence as their reliance on the Assad regime becomes more solidified. And, following the failure of Russian-Turkish negotiations throughout Tuesday to reach a ceasefire between the warring parties, that reliance looks set to intensify. Negotiations between Moscow and Ankara began Tuesday morning following condemnation of Turkey's campaign by the Kremlin's special envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev. A high-ranking Free Syrian Army military source in Manbij told The Daily Beast that Turkey gave orders Tuesday morning to its FSA proxies to halt temporarily their assault while both sides attempted to reach a solution. During that time, numerous pro-regime demonstrations were held in Manbij as the Syrian army sent several armored tanks into the city. According to local sources on the ground, some of these demonstrations were led by pro-regime figures that previously had been arrested by the SDF but were recently released following the Russian and Syrian regime entrance to the city. The Russian-Turkish talks come one day after the official Facebook page for the Russian defense ministry's Hmeimim base issued a stern warning for Turkey and its allies not to "behave recklessly in entering an open war with government troops." That was issued shortly after the Russians allegedly concluded an agreement with the SDF to allow Russian and regime troops to enter the cities of Kobani and Manbij. Yet despite the repeated warnings and attempts to hold talks, by Tuesday night Turkish-backed forces re-launched their assault. Thousands of civilians fled the border city of Kobani as a result of renewed Turkish assaults on the city in an attempt by the latter to capture the site of a former U.S. base recently abandoned nearby. Shortly after, our military source would claim renewed orders had been given by Ankara to re-launch operations in Manbij by dawn. Speaking to Reuters while returning from the Azerbaijaini capital Baku, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared undeterred by recent U.S. sanctions imposed on Ankara, by the arrival of regime reinforcements into the area, or by international condemnation of his country's assault. "They say 'declare a ceasefire.' We will never declare a ceasefire," Erdogan said. "They are pressuring us to stop the operation. They are announcing sanctions. Our goal is clear. We are not worried about any sanctions."Shortly after, local media and activists would report a Turkish airstrike on the strategic town of Aun al-Dadat, the site of a former U.S. base in the north Manbij countryside along the al-Sajur River that has since been occupied by SDF and regime units. Nawaf al-Mustafa, an activist living several miles away in Manbij city, said he could hear the explosion from his home. "I heard an explosion and thought it might have been an ISIS suicide attack," he said. "But it wasn't, news came in shortly after that Turkish forces instead were bombing Aun al-Dadat."Look Who's Back! Trump Handed Terrorists a Free Pass.Ahmed Qalqali, another anti-regime activist, would send out an alert to the families of FSA fighters to several WhatsApp groups used by locals to follow the news. "Any young man in Manbij who has a brother fighting on the front lines with the FSA should avoid sleeping at home tonight," hinting at the possibility of SDF-regime house raids in response to the attacks. "Try to stay with a friend or someone to whom you're not blood related." Despite the Turkish insistence to continue fighting, in reality the tide seems to be turning against Ankara and its proxies. Despite managing to gain control of the strategic border town of Tal Abyad, after nearly one week of fighting Turkish-backed forces have been unable to capture Ras al-Ain, a city of just over 30,000 that has managed to put up stiff resistance and ward off Turkish incursions. Manbij, a city of nearly 100,000, will require much greater strength and political will in order to be captured.Recent U.S. sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on key Turkish ministers and cabinet officials will also likely further hamper Ankara's ability to freely wage war against the SDF, while significantly raising the cost of doing so. Nonetheless, these factors are unlikely to push Erdogan to end the campaign, as domestic pressures to create space to resettle Syrian refugees that have proven a burden to the Turkish economy threaten to destabilize his government. What will likely ensue will be a committed, albeit slow and protracted campaign to achieve Ankara's goal of carving out a safe zone in Manbij and along the entirety of Turkey's border with Syria. However, the likely delay in achieving further Turkish gains will also give the Syrian regime a larger window to calmly mobilize and deploy its forces throughout the region while still being able to exploit the threat posed to the SDF by Ankara in order to slowly grab more power in northeastern Syria. Further, the expansion of Syrian regime troops throughout the area doesn't seem to be a prospect that much bothers the Turkish president, so long as they don't mix with SDF and other armed Kurdish elements. Also while speaking to reporters in Baku, Erdogan stated, "The regime entering Manbij is not very negative for me. Why? It's their lands after all," he said. "But, what is important to me is that the terrorist organization does not remain there… I told this to Mr. Putin as well. If you are clearing Manbij of terrorist organizations, then go ahead, you or the regime can provide all the logistics. But if you are not going to do this, the people there are telling us to save them." By "terrorist organizations," Erdogan means primarily the Kurds who were backed by the United States in the fight against ISIS.Such a statement from a head of state who for eight years has been among the most enthusiastic supporters of the Syrian revolution to topple Assad is indicative of the extent to which international calculus surrounding the Syrian issue has changed. It will likely encourage the Assad regime to consider the possibility of going after and eliminating the SDF itself if doing so may once and for all put an end to the activities of their meddlesome Turkish neighbor. Such a prospect may occur as part of a broader swap or deal whereby Turkey would also agree to withdraw its troops from the broader Idlib region, where Ha'it Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of al Qaeda's former Syrian branch, Jabhat al-Nusra, and other FSA groups have been engaged in a bloody standoff with the Syrian regime for over a year.Erdogan's statements make perfectly clear that, following Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops, the cards increasingly lie in the hands of the Assad regime and its Russian ally. 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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| Turkey's Air Force Has Stealth Fighter Dreams Posted: 16 Oct 2019 10:30 PM PDT  No F-35s or Su-57s? Could Turkey just build their own? What about China?
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| Mexican Asylum Seekers Are Facing Long Waits at the U.S. Border. Advocates Say That's Illegal Posted: 16 Oct 2019 10:08 AM PDT  A new 'metering' practice is particularly dangerous for Mexican asylum seekers
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| Cartel gunmen terrorize Mexican city, free El Chapo's son Posted: 17 Oct 2019 05:01 PM PDT  Heavily armed fighters surrounded security forces in a Mexican city on Thursday and made them free one of drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's sons, after his capture triggered gunbattles and a prison break that sent civilians scurrying for cover. Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said a patrol by National Guard militarized police first came under attack from within a house in the city of Culiacan, 1,235 km (770 miles) northwest of Mexico City. After entering the house, they found four men, including Ovidio Guzman, who is accused of drug trafficking in the United States.
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| The Latest: Probe after Chicago chief found lying in car Posted: 17 Oct 2019 03:36 PM PDT  Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has asked the department to investigate his actions after he was found lying down in a car near his home. Police department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says Johnson indicated he parked his car after feeling lightheaded. The 59-year-old Johnson underwent kidney transplant surgery in August 2017.
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| This sick 5-year-old boy got a wish trip to Disney World — and another wish on the flight there Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:49 AM PDT  Allegiant, working with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, made a five-year-old boy's dream vacation to Walt Disney World that much more special.
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| Trump rips ABC News reporter over network’s Syria screw-up Posted: 16 Oct 2019 12:57 PM PDT  President Donald Trump called on ABC's chief White House correspondent at Wednesday's news conference and then proceeded to call out his network for a recent error covering Syria. During the Q&A portion, Trump selected ABC's Jonathan Karl, who asked the president about his decision to abandon Kurdish allies in Syria. "Even after all you have seen — ISIS prisoners freed, all the humanitarian disaster — you don't have any regret for giving Erdogan the greenlight to invade?" Karl asked, referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
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| Mexico Throws $900 Million at Labor to Entice Democrats on USMCA Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:30 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is pledging close to $1 billion to implement a law to improve labor conditions that U.S. Democrats say is key to passing a stalled North American trade accord.Mexico's Finance Ministry will ask lawmakers to boost the budget that was already presented to congress by $69 million for next year, Lopez Obrador stated in a letter he sent to U.S. Representative Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He promised another $830 million over the following three years to fund the labor overhaul.The expensive pledges seem to be working, as both the White House and House Democrats are becoming increasingly upbeat about the stalled U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, known as USMCA. But AMLO's steep austerity measures for most of his other ministries amid a stagnant economy present a challenge to his carrying out those promises.Neal said he was very pleased with Mexico's demonstration of good faith, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer separately told a Bloomberg Government audience on Thursday that Democrats are "working hard to get to yes." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she's "optimistic" about finishing work on the accord, although "we are not there yet."AMLO, as Lopez Obrador is known, also said he'd tell the relevant authorities to carry out a "frontal attack" against labor impunity.To contact the reporter on this story: Nacha Cattan in Mexico City at ncattan@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Robert JamesonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Thirty years after devastating quake, is San Francisco ready for the next? Posted: 16 Oct 2019 10:00 PM PDT  The 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta quake killed 63 in 1989. Decades later, the Bay Area is still plagued by structural threats and flammable fuelsIn a 17 October 1989 photo, a California highway patrol officer checks the damage to cars that fell when the upper deck of the Bay Bridge collapsed onto the lower deck after the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco. Photograph: George Nikitin/APOn the afternoon of 17 October 1989, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake rocked the San Francisco Bay Area, killing 63 people and causing $13bn in damages as it toppled a chunk of the Bay Bridge, colapsed a section of freeway in Oakland, and crumbled thousands of buildings from San Francisco to Santa Cruz.Thirty years later, California will launch an earthquake early warning app, the first to cover the whole state, developed by UC Berkeley and the California Office of Emergency Services. The decades since the Loma Prieta quake have been remarkably quiet – yet it's not a matter of if, but when, the next large earthquake will rattle the Bay Area, and the consequences will undoubtedly be severe.There are multiple faults to worry about in the Bay: the infamous San Andreas is a system, with branches that run up the San Francisco peninsula, along the East Bay foothills through Oakland and Berkeley and further inland through Dublin and Walnut Creek.Just this week, a 4.5-magnitude quake with an epicenter in the Pleasant Hill area shook the region.An antenna to send data stands on a rise above an earthquake monitoring well, right, powered by a solar electric panel, lower left, as scientists from the US Geological Survey set up an earthquake monitoring station on the San Andreas fault. Photograph: Reed Saxon/APIn the case of a major earthquake, experts are particularly worried that "ground failures" will cause widespread structural damage in many parts of the region built on landfill and sand. The California Geological Survey's most recent map of earthquake hazards shows huge swaths of the inner Bay Area are in "liquefaction zones", meaning that during a major earthquake, the ground could be shaken so violently that it would very temporarily soften into jelly. "People love to ask the question: is X place prepared for X disaster? Is California prepared for the next earthquake? The answer to that question, 99.99% of the time, is no," said Dr Samantha Montano, assistant professor of emergency management and disaster science at the University of Nebraska Omaha. "The way we think about preparedness is really kind of weird. When we talk about it day to day: do you have an emergency kit, yes or no? Just because you have that doesn't mean you're prepared for an earthquake – there's a lot more going into that."For any community facing a potential wide-scale disaster, the preparation is twofold: mitigating risk and preparing for the inevitable management of the emergency.While newer, stricter building codes put in place after Loma Prieta have required more quake-resilient construction, thousands of buildings in the Bay Area were built using old, shaky standards. Oakland passed an ordinance in 2019 requiring owners of vulnerable apartments to retrofit their structures. In San Francisco, where retrofits were due to be completed in 2018, about three-quarters of susceptible units have been quake-prepped.Politicians in Berkeley cited earthquake risk as one motivator for moving to ban natural gas hook-ups in new buildings earlier this year.Officials and others evacuate a man, Erick Carlson, from the Cypress section of Highway 17, now called Interstate 880, in Oakland, California, following the Loma Prieta earthquake. Photograph: Michael Macor/The Oakland Tribune/AP"We have basically allowed ourselves to pump a toxic flammable greenhouse gas producing an expensive liquid into our homes across earthquake fault lines," the Berkeley city councilmember Kate Harrison said at the time. "It will seem crazy in 100 years. We can see that this is a dangerous situation."The East Bay had perhaps a little taste of that danger earlier this week: following the mid-sized East Bay quake, two of the area's five refineries shut down due to the "upset" and their built-up gasses flared.Later, on Tuesday, a NuStar energy fuel storage facility suffered an explosion and large fire, leading many to speculate the earthquake had triggered the accident. A spokesperson could not confirm the cause of the explosion, which some in the area said felt like yet another earthquake."We want local governments to really be taking the lead and making sure not only that there's a plan for the city's government but also that they're integrating the plans with communities and businesses – particularly businesses like refineries, where there could be an added hazards," said Montano.> BREAKING : WOW! You can see the tank's top being blown off during this giant explosion at a NuStar refinery in Contra Costa County. According to fire officials, 3 large tanks of ethanol are burning. @kron4news https://t.co/b1zIju9159 pic.twitter.com/IYy6NNcRhP> > — Amy Larson (@AmyLarson25) October 15, 2019Environmental justice activists in the East Bay city of Richmond cite this kind of risk in the bigger quakes to come."When the Hayward fault shifts, and we have that earthquake, the reality is, large portions of the Chevron refinery are built on landfill," said Andrés Soto, an organizer with Communities for a Better Environment in Richmond. "And despite the best assurances from Chevron about how they've secured their refinery in the event of an earthquake, nature seems to have a way of conquering man-made structures."A transition away from the fossil fuels that in turn contribute to several other impending California environmental disasters could help make the Bay Area more resilient when the big one inevitably hits.
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| Washington Group Fighting Affirmative Action Used Proud Boys As Guards Posted: 17 Oct 2019 03:16 PM PDT  John Rudoff/GettyAn anti-affirmative action campaign used members of the Proud Boys for security—and is now claiming it didn't realize its protection team was an organization labeled a hate group.On Nov. 5, voters in Washington state are set to decide on the future of Referendum 88, a measure that would allow affirmative action hiring in public jobs. The measure has support from civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but faces opposition from a state veterans group and the organization Washington Asians for Equality, which claims the measure would lead to preferential treatment for some groups. This summer, some of those opponents partnered with a more notorious organization: the Proud Boys, who featured the signature drive in a recently surfaced propaganda video.The Proud Boys—designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center—prioritizes street fights and has extensive connections to more explicit white supremacist organizations. But unlike many other extremist groups, the Proud Boys frequently cozy up to the more mainstream right. Their current leader, Enrique Tarrio, is a Florida director of Latinos for Trump, despite marching in 2017's deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.Republicans Are Adopting the Proud BoysIn the August video, a Washington Proud Boy claims Referendum 88 backers solicited the Proud Boys' help in delivering signatures to the secretary of state's office.The group "gave us a call asking for security to help take the signatures for Referendum 88 down to the capitol building," he says in the video, which referendum supporters like the group Washington Fairness surfaced this week.The video goes on to show the group riding in a truck with the signatures and speaking into walkie-talkies for reasons that are not immediately apparent. The clip concludes with an advertisement for gas masks, which the Proud Boy says he used during a summer brawl with anti-fascists in Portland, Oregon.Reject Ref. 88, the organization that allegedly hired the Proud Boys, disavowed knowledge of them."The Referendum 88 petition drive worked with many volunteers during the signature gathering phase," organizer Linda Yang said in an email. "We didn't know the association of these individuals you refer to, nor did they tell us. The Reject Ref.88/I-1000 campaign welcomes people from all walks of life who believe in equality for all, regardless of race. Those who don't believe in that principle—be they on the far left or the far right—are not welcome in this campaign."But as the Seattle Stranger noted, Yang even appeared in the Proud Boys' video, explaining her opposition to Referendum 88. In the video, she gives different account of her group coming to work with the Proud Boys. After trying and failing to hire a security company to help deliver referendum signatures, "I got a call saying 'hey there's a group, they're willing to help,'" she said in the video. "I said 'we'll take it.'"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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| Romney Blames Trump Admin. for Syria Chaos: ‘This Is Not a Surprise’ Posted: 16 Oct 2019 03:10 PM PDT  Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah) was sharply critical of the Trump administration's handling Turkey's invasion of Northern Syria during a press conference with reporters Wednesday afternoon, questioning why the president did not make "a clear agreement with Turkey as to what they would do, and what they would not do" before ordering a withdrawal of American troops from the region.> Sen. Romney on US troop withdrawal from northern Syria: > > "Turkey let us know what they were going to do. This is not a surprise. Everybody told the administration what would happen … The reality is what's happening in Syria is a result of our decision." pic.twitter.com/8sy3yhFeDq> > -- NBC News (@NBCNews) October 16, 2019"This is not a surprise. Everybody told the administration what would happen if we pulled our troops out precipitously," Romney said. "Instead, there should have been a negotiation beforehand, we should've sat down with Turkey and said, 'Alright, look: We're willing to talk to you about your concerns, let's see if we can negotiate a program here where we protect the Kurds, where we can make sure the ISIS prisoners are kept in place, and where we honor our commitments to our friends the Kurds, as well as our alliance with you, Turkey.'""At this stage, it's trying to cover ourselves as well as we can and look like we're being tough and we're putting sanctions on Turkey and so forth, but the reality is the decision was made by this administration which has led to the Turks going into Syria and wiping out our friends, the Kurds. That's what's unacceptable," Romney added.The chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism went on to say that neither he nor the subcommittee's ranking member, Senator Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) were briefed on the decision to withdraw troops ahead of time, and to voice hope that the White House would provide the subcommittee a transparent explanation of the process that led to the move.Romney and Murphy released a statement October 7 that called the Syria withdrawal "a betrayal that will have grave humanitarian and national security consequences."Turkey's invasion of Northern Syria entered its eighth day Wednesday, amid heavy fighting that has displaced over 130,000 people and attracted Russian and Syrian troops to the region.Romney's comments marked the latest twist in an often-testy relationship with Trump that has publicly soured amid disagreements over the House's impeachment inquiry and the Syria withdrawal. On Wednesday, the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group, released a 30-second ad which paints Romney as a "Democrat secret asset" who is "plotting to take down President Trump with impeachment."
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| RIP Stealth? In 1999, a U.S. F-117 Stealth Fighter Was Hit By a Missile Posted: 16 Oct 2019 08:00 PM PDT  Sorry, but stealth is not perfect. Here is what happened.
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| Chicago principal who watched boy's forced ejection retires Posted: 17 Oct 2019 04:20 PM PDT ![Chicago principal who watched boy's forced ejection retires]( "Chicago principal who watched boy's forced ejection retires") A Chicago elementary school principal who looked on as a security guard physically forced a fourth-grader out of the building on a cold day has retired. Cynthia Miller retired from her job at Fiske Elementary School on Friday. In a letter to parents, she wrote that leaving wasn't easy but was the right thing to do, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
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| See Photos of the Volvo XC40 Recharge Electric SUV Posted: 16 Oct 2019 09:45 AM PDT |
| Donald Trump says Elijah Cummings will be 'very hard, if not impossible, to replace' Posted: 17 Oct 2019 06:59 AM PDT  As chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Cummings played a key role in various investigations of Trump, and the two often clashed.
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| Why the UAW's Deal With General Motors Is Unlikely to Give Workers What They Really Want Posted: 16 Oct 2019 05:24 PM PDT  The strike, which started on Sept. 15, is the longest GM work stoppage since the 1970s
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| Mulvaney on quid pro quo: 'We do that all the time' Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:45 AM PDT  Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney addressed the press on Thursday and said the Trump administration does quid pro quos "all the time."
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| McConnell Says He Wants ‘Something Stronger’ than House Resolution Condemning Syria Troop Withdrawal Posted: 17 Oct 2019 09:37 AM PDT  Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he would like to see "something stronger" than the bipartisan resolution the House passed on Wednesday condemning President Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria."I believe it's important that we make a strong, forward-looking strategic statement. For that reason my preference would be for something even stronger than the resolution that the House passed yesterday, which has some serious weaknesses," McConnell said in a Senate floor speech.The resolution overwhelmingly passed the House in a 354 to 60 vote, with 129 Republicans voting in favor. It states that Congress "opposes the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria" and demands the White House present a plan to support Kurdish fighters and prevent ISIS from regaining a foothold in the area.Trump announced last week that he would withdraw American troops stationed in the north part of Syria, saying he did not want the U.S. to "police" the area any longer. The decision was condemned by many in Trump's party, including some of his closest allies, who anticipated that a U.S. troop withdrawal would clear the way for the invasion of the region subsequently launched by Turkey and leave the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who have fought alongside by U.S troops in an alliance against ISIS, open to attack.However, while McConnell said he was "encouraged" by the resolution, he complained that it is "narrowly drafted," and does not address several crucial issues such as the Sunni Arab and Christian communities in Syria."It is curiously silent on the issue of whether to actually sustain a U.S. military presence in Syria, perhaps to spare Democrats from having to go on record on this question," McConnell remarked. "Many of us will have much more to say on the subject very soon," he added.
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