| Woman facing hate-crime charge used SUV to strike boy before hitting Latina teen, police say Posted: 24 Dec 2019 10:51 AM PST  Nicole Marie Poole Franklin is also charged with a hate crime for calling people at a gas station racial slurs the same night as the hit-and-runs.
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| Iran to hold joint, four-day navy drill with Russia, China Posted: 25 Dec 2019 03:11 AM PST ![Iran to hold joint, four-day navy drill with Russia, China]( "Iran to hold joint, four-day navy drill with Russia, China") Iran's armed forces will hold a joint, four-day naval exercise with Russia and China in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, a spokesman said Wednesday. Visits to Iran by Russian and Chinese naval representatives have also stepped up in recent years. Iranian military spokesman Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi said the joint maneuvers, which are aimed at promoting regional security, will extend as far as the Sea of Oman.
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| A major Jewish group slammed Rudy Giuliani for saying George Soros, who survived the Holocaust, is 'hardly a Jew' Posted: 24 Dec 2019 02:03 AM PST  The Anti-Defamation League said comments from Giuliani — Donald Trump's lawyer — about George Soros could serve as a dog-whistle to anti-Semites.
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| ‘Kentucky horse killer’ hunted by police as six more bodies found after massacre Posted: 24 Dec 2019 05:29 AM PST  Six more horses have been found fatally shot in Kentucky, according to authorities, as the search continues for the person or people responsible for the massacre.Dumas Rescue, a local animal rescue group, has offered a $20,000 (£15,450) reward for information on the shootings as the total number of dead horses has risen to 20.
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| Japan Ruling Party Lawmaker Arrested in Casino Bribery Scandal Posted: 24 Dec 2019 09:34 PM PST ![Japan Ruling Party Lawmaker Arrested in Casino Bribery Scandal]( "Japan Ruling Party Lawmaker Arrested in Casino Bribery Scandal") (Bloomberg) -- Tokyo prosecutors arrested a ruling party lawmaker on suspicion of receiving bribes from a Chinese company seeking to invest in the casino industry, dealing a blow to already unpopular plans to open the country to the gaming industry.Liberal Democratic Party politician Tsukasa Akimoto, who had served as a vice minister in charge of promoting the establishment of casinos in the country, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of receiving payoffs of about 3.7 million yen ($34,000), the Tokyo Public Prosecutor's office said. The bribes included cash, plane tickets and hotel rooms, it said in a statement.The company was not named in the indictment and prosecutors didn't indicate what he did in return for the bribes. Three others who were related to the company were also arrested, prosecutors said.The Chinese firm suspected of paying the bribes runs online casinos and is headquartered in the southern city of Shenzhen, according to Kyodo News of Japan. It's also suspected of smuggling several million yen in cash into Japan without declaring it to customs, according to the report.Akimoto became the first sitting lawmaker to be arrested in about a decade, according to Kyodo."I was not involved in any wrongdoing," Akimoto said on his Twitter feed before the arrest.The nation legalized casino gambling in 2016 to great excitement in the industry, where many have long tried to get a foot in the door in a potential $20 billion gaming market. Companies including MGM Resorts International and Las Vegas Sands Corp. have spent heavily to get access to a gaming market that could become Asia's second-largest after Macau.Gambling Prize Worth $20 Billion Is Losing Its Luster in JapanThree years later, some of that enthusiasm is wearing off. A number of casino executives, who declined to speak publicly because of the sensitive nature of the casino approval process, told Bloomberg News that the procedure in Japan has been more difficult compared with other markets that have built gaming industries. At least one company, Caesars Entertainment Corp., has pulled out.Japan's law allows for the establishment of three casino resorts, and Osaka, Yokohama and Tokyo are among the local governments seeking to attract a casino or considering doing so, according to the country's tourism authority. Opinion polls show that the public opposes the idea.(Updates with statement from prosecutors)\--With assistance from Lisa Du, Isabel Reynolds and Takashi Hirokawa.To contact the reporters on this story: Jon Herskovitz in Tokyo at jherskovitz@bloomberg.net;Emi Nobuhiro in Tokyo at enobuhiro@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Kazunori Takada, Kana NishizawaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 9 Buildings That Prove Sustainable Architecture and High Design Are a Perfect Pair Posted: 25 Dec 2019 05:00 AM PST |
| Philippine typhoon Phanfone ruins Christmas for travelers, evacuees Posted: 24 Dec 2019 11:19 PM PST  Christmas turned to chaos for many holiday observers in the central Philippines as a typhoon with strong winds and heavy rains destroyed homes, cut off power and stranded travelers, disaster officials said on Wednesday. Typhoon Phanfone, rated category 2 by Tropical Storm Risk, was packing maximum sustained winds of 120 km per hour (75 miles per hour) with gusts up to 150 kph when it made landfall in the eastern province of Samar on Tuesday, weather and disaster officials said. More than 4,000 people have been evacuated in the Eastern Visayas region of the central Philippines, disaster officials said, although no deaths have been reported.
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| Christians are being persecuted around the globe. That's the real war on Christmas. Posted: 24 Dec 2019 04:00 AM PST  The next time you get offended when someone wishes you "happy holidays," remember those who won't get to celebrate those holidays at all.
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| AP Photos: Seniors join Indian citizenship law protests Posted: 25 Dec 2019 02:09 AM PST  Senior citizens in India's northeastern Assam state have protested against a new citizenship law passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government that excludes Muslims. About 1,500 senior citizens held a protest in the state capital, Gauhati, on Monday. "Until our last drop of blood, we will not allow them to implement it," said Gajendra Nath Pathak, 81, who joined the senior citizens' protest.
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| Durham Surprises Even Allies With Statement on FBI's Trump Case Posted: 24 Dec 2019 12:29 PM PST  WASHINGTON -- Whether investigating charges of torture by the CIA, rolling up an organized crime network or prosecuting crooked government officials, John H. Durham, the veteran federal prosecutor named by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the origins of the Russia inquiry, burnished his reputation for impartiality over the years by keeping his mouth closed about his work.At the height of the Boston mob prosecution that made his name, he not only rebuffed a local newspaper's interview request, but he also told his office not to release his resume or photo.That wall of silence cracked this month when Durham, serving in the most politically charged role of his career, released an extraordinary statement questioning one key element of an overlapping investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz.Horowitz had found that the FBI acted appropriately in opening the inquiry in 2016 into whether the Trump campaign wittingly or unwittingly helped Russia influence the election in Donald Trump's favor. In response, Durham, whose report is not expected to be complete for months, released a caveat-laden rebuttal: "Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the inspector general that we do not agree with some of the report's conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened."The statement seemed to support comments made half an hour earlier by Barr, who assailed what he called "an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign," based "on the thinnest of suspicions." Durham's decision to go public in such a politically polarized environment surprised people who have worked with him. They found it out of character for him to intervene in such a high-profile way in an open case."It's fair to characterize what John did as unusual in terms of his past practice and I don't know what the rationale was," said Kevin J. O'Connor, a former U.S. attorney for Connecticut who supervised Durham for several years in the early 2000s. "But I know John well enough to know that he did it because he -- not the AG or anyone else -- thought he had an obligation to."Others have been less willing to give Durham the benefit of the doubt, and it is clear he has placed his reputation for impartiality on the line by accepting this latest assignment.Durham's decision to speak out seemed to supply political fuel to Trump, who has repeatedly blasted the Russia inquiry as a "hoax" and a "witch hunt." At a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the day after Barr and Durham issued their statements, Trump called FBI agents involved in the Russia inquiry "scum.""I look forward to Bull Durham's report -- that's the one I look forward to," added Trump, who appointed Durham as the U.S. attorney for Connecticut in 2017.The inspector general's report makes no substantive reference to Durham's investigation. But before the report's release, Durham got into a sharp dispute with Horowitz's team over a footnote in a draft of the report that seemed to imply that Durham agreed with all of Horowitz's conclusions, which he did not, according to people familiar with the matter. The footnote did not appear in the final version of the report.A former Justice Department investigator who knows both Barr and Durham, a Republican, said that while the men were aware of each other's professional reputations, they are in no way close. Barr, who was unfamiliar with Durham's recent work, made quiet inquiries before appointing him to lead the investigation, this person said.The potential explosiveness of Durham's mission was further underscored by the disclosure that he was examining the role of John O. Brennan, the former CIA director, in how the intelligence community assessed Russia's 2016 election interference.Durham is known in New England's close-knit law enforcement community for working long days on his cases, and providing sought-after guidance on others'.Wearing gunmetal-frame glasses and a drooping goatee, he rises early and dresses in the dark, often mismatching his suit jackets and pants. His reputation for discretion, on top of a long record of successful high-profile prosecutions, are among the reasons he has been a go-to person when Washington -- under Republicans and Democrats alike -- needs someone to handle sensitive tasks.O'Connor, who was associate attorney general in 2008, was among those who recommended Durham lead an inquiry into the CIA's destruction in 2005 of videotapes depicting the torture of two operatives of al-Qaida.That investigation, started under an administration that had supported the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, continued into the Obama administration, which brought a very different agenda to the issue. After President Barack Obama took office, Durham's brief was expanded to include a criminal investigation into the CIA's role in the deaths of two detainees overseas, based on allegations of mistreatment by their interrogators.Durham completed the torture investigation in 2012. The Justice Department, under Attorney General Eric Holder, declined to prosecute anyone, saying that "the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt."John A. Rizzo, the CIA's former acting general counsel, was questioned for more than eight hours in the investigation.Durham "didn't personally question me, but he did the agency people who had contemporaneous knowledge of the plan to destroy the tapes, and he was very tough with them," Rizzo, who retired from the CIA in 2009, said in an interview.Despite the political uproar at the time, "there were no leaks and he certainly didn't issue any public statements," Rizzo recalled. "I just don't see him bending to political pressure, so I was surprised he made a statement here."Those who know him portray Durham as the consummate straight arrow who is unlikely to have bowed to pressure from Barr or anyone else in his current assignment. Durham declined to be interviewed for this article."He believes in four things: his family, his profession, his religion and the Boston Red Sox," said Hugh F. Keefe, a Connecticut defense lawyer who says Durham is so by the book, he once asked Keefe whether he had reported a free Red Sox ticket to the IRS. "If anyone thinks they can lead him like a horse to water, they're mistaken."Last year, Durham, a staunch Catholic, delivered rare public remarks at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford, Connecticut.The topic was his prosecution of John Connolly Jr., an FBI agent jailed for racketeering, obstruction of justice and murder stemming from his collaboration with Boston's notorious Winter Hill gang, led by James (Whitey) Bulger, an FBI informant.In a preface to his presentation, Durham said, "It is as important for the system for prosecutors to protect the secrecy of proceedings, not because we want them to be secret, but because we're not always right." He added: "Maybe accusations that are lodged against somebody are untrue. And again, we can destroy the person or persons if that information gets out."Durham was born in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, and received his law degree at the University of Connecticut in 1975. After a stint providing free legal advice to the Crow Indian tribe as part of what is now AmeriCorps, he worked as an assistant state's attorney in Connecticut until 1982, when he began a 35-year career as an assistant U.S. attorney, serving in a range of roles leading organized crime and public corruption prosecutions.He won 119 convictions from 1983 to 1989, including against associates of the Genovese, Gambino and Patriarca crime families, and provided evidence instrumental in convicting the Gambino boss John Gotti in New York.In 1989, fishermen found the body of William (The Wild Guy) Grasso, the Patriarca state boss from New Haven, Connecticut, dead of a gunshot wound in weeds near the Connecticut River.Durham, who colleagues said "could hear grass grow" on surveillance recordings, led a prosecution that linked mobsters in Connecticut and Rhode Island, even unveiling the first recorded mob-induction ceremony. Durham secured a raft of racketeering convictions against men linked to Grasso's murder, gutting the Providence, Rhode Island, based Patriarca mob. His doggedness, even after a note with his home address on it was found in a mobster-occupied Hartford, Connecticut, jail cell, earned him the nickname "Bull."In 1999, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Durham to lead an investigation into corrupt links, rumored for years, between FBI agents and their criminal informants in Boston. Prosecutions of Bulger and his accomplice Stephen (the Rifleman) Flemmi uncovered a relationship with FBI agents, a retired Massachusetts state trooper and others, in which the mobsters exchanged cases of wine, a stolen two-carat diamond ring, and money for "the keys to the kingdom of all organized crime information in Boston," Durham told the college audience last year.In late 2000, he uncovered government memos indicating that FBI officials were involved in framing four men for the 1965 murder of a mobster, to protect a hit man who was one of the bureau's informants, a scheme likely known to the bureau's director at the time, J. Edgar Hoover. Durham alerted defense lawyers. Two of the four men had died in prison, but the surviving two were released, and the government paid a $100 million civil judgment in the case.Durham and his team worked amid speculation that the Justice Department would pull the plug on what was becoming a deeply embarrassing prosecution. In 2000, a colleague told The Boston Herald that Durham would rather "pull an Archibald Cox" and resign than submit to pressure.In a Washington Post op-ed this month, Holder cautioned Durham, whom he said he has been proud to know for at least a decade, about joining Barr in disputing the inspector general's findings. "Anyone in Durham's shoes would do well to remember that, in dealing with this administration, many reputations have been irrevocably lost," he wrote.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| A paramedic has been charged with poisoning his wife with eye drops to collect a $250,000 life insurance payout Posted: 25 Dec 2019 08:42 AM PST  Joshua Hunsucker has been charged with first-degree murder, allegedly using eye drops to cause his wife's death.
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| Russia's most advanced fighter jet crashes, pilot lives Posted: 24 Dec 2019 07:09 AM PST  Russian officials say their most advanced fighter jet has crashed on a training mission but that its pilot bailed out safely.
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| Russia says U.N. chief turns blind eye over U.S. visa delays Posted: 25 Dec 2019 09:20 AM PST ![Russia says U.N. chief turns blind eye over U.S. visa delays]( "Russia says U.N. chief turns blind eye over U.S. visa delays") Russia's Foreign Ministry accused the U.N. secretary general of turning a blind eye to what Moscow says is U.S. delays in issuing visas for Russian officials seeking to travel to the U.N. headquarters in New York. Moscow says Washington has deliberately delayed issuing visas to Russian officials traveling to the U.N. headquarters, a move Russia has said could further damage strained relations.
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| Bank robber tosses cash in the air, saying "Merry Christmas" Posted: 25 Dec 2019 12:28 AM PST  A witness said the man held up a Colorado Springs bank but then got rid his haul because someone was tailing him outside.
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| Politics Editor at Evangelical Publication The Christian Post Resigns Over Pro-Trump Editorial Posted: 25 Dec 2019 08:00 AM PST  Napp Nazworth had worked at 'The Christian Post' for eight and a half years
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| At least 11 people have died in the Philippines after drinking coconut wine — a potent beverage about 4 times stronger than regular wine Posted: 24 Dec 2019 11:03 AM PST  Lambanog is made from distilled coconut sap and usually contains between 40% and 45% alcohol, making it much stronger than beer and regular wine.
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| See This Plane? Meet Russia's Very Own 'A-10 Warthog' Posted: 24 Dec 2019 05:00 PM PST  Meet the Su-25
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| Woman and two children found dead on Boston sidewalk on Christmas Day Posted: 25 Dec 2019 03:08 PM PST ![Woman and two children found dead on Boston sidewalk on Christmas Day]( "Woman and two children found dead on Boston sidewalk on Christmas Day") Boston Police Commissioner William Gross said on Wednesday detectives had few details about what happened to the three victims, whom he said were found unconscious on the pavement and pronounced "non-viable" at a local hospital.
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| You've sung about figgy pudding since childhood Christmases but do you know what it is? Posted: 24 Dec 2019 04:00 AM PST  People keep clamoring for figgy pudding in Christmas songs. But what the heck is it?
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| Nonstop violence as Baltimore nears record homicide rate Posted: 25 Dec 2019 04:24 AM PST  Baltimore could wrap up 2019 with its highest per-capita homicide rate on record as killings of adults and minors alike for drugs, retribution, money or no clear reason continue to add up and city officials appear unable to stop the violence. With just over 600,000 residents, Baltimore's homicide rate would reach approximately 57 per 100,000 residents if the death toll reaches 342. "It's a major concern for me, not just as a hopeful man but as a citizen of Baltimore who grew up in inner city Baltimore," said Carmichael "Stokey" Cannady, a reformed drug dealer turned community activist who wants to be mayor.
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| Former Hawaii governor says Tulsi Gabbard should resign Posted: 24 Dec 2019 02:24 AM PST  Neil Abercrombie said the Democrat's run for president is interfering with her job in Congress.
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| The Surveillance State Quietly Lost a Major Court Case Posted: 24 Dec 2019 01:31 AM PST  Republicans are publicly howling at the U.S. surveillance panopticon now that it ensnared Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. But it's hard to believe they'll do much to actually constrain it. When they controlled Congress, whatever Trump-prompted hesitancy Republicans had about the government's broadest and most intrusive activities dissolved when it was time to renew the authorities underlying them for another five years. They joined congressional Democrats in resurrecting those authorities, continuing an act of genuine bipartisanship that ravenously eats away at Americans' freedom.Relief may come instead from the courts. A little-noticed ruling earlier this month from a federal appellate court took a modest step toward curbing the FBI's practice of searching—warrantless—for Americans' data inside the National Security Agency's dragnets ostensibly aimed at foreigners. Congress may be disinclined to close what's known as the "backdoor search provision," but there's a renewed chance the courts might. In September 2011, authorities arrested Albanian citizen and Brooklyn resident Agron Hasbajrami at Kennedy Airport. Hasbajrami had a one-way ticket to Turkey and, prosecutors said, a plan to continue on to Pakistan to pursue jihad. Facing federal charges, Hasbajrami asked prosecutors if evidence against him derived from warrantless surveillance. In secret, they had collected Hasbajrami's emails through surveillance resulting from Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits the NSA to collect massive amounts of internet communications and associated data, including from Americans' international conversations, all without judicial approval or individual suspicion. Once obtained, the feds applied for a FISA warrant on Hasbajrami, thereby laundering their illicit surveillance for use in prosecuting him. Send The Daily Beast a TipThe government, following a practice of not revealing how such surveillance impacts criminal prosecutions, deceitfully neglected to tell Hasbajrami how they got his emails in the first place. As a result, Hasbajrami pleaded guilty in 2012 and began serving a 16-year sentence for material support to terrorism. But after the 2013 revelations of mass surveillance Edward Snowden provided to The Guardian and The Washington Post, the Justice Department revealed to Hasbajrami that it had lied to him. Hasbajrami argued that he had been denied critical information underlying his decision to plead guilty—as well as a shot at arguing his prosecution was unconstitutional—withdrew his plea, and sought to suppress the ill-gotten evidence. The case made its way to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued its ruling on Dec. 18. Judges in the case did not deal anything close to a death blow to Section 702. But, in a first for a federal appellate court, the judges found that warrantlessly searching through the NSA's Section 702 databases, as the FBI and the CIA are permitted to do, "could violate the Fourth Amendment, and thus require the suppression of evidence." Considering themselves without sufficient information to rule on the merits, they instructed the district court to investigate whether "such querying was reasonable." That's a far cry from stopping either the NSA's warrantless mass collection of internet data or the FBI's warrantless searches of what the NSA collects. It's uncertain what the district court will ascertain. But the appellate-court ruling is a step toward judicially mandated constraints on, at least, the downstream effects of such surveillance, and those effects include locking people up, so civil libertarians took what they could get. "Critically, the court holds that the government does not have carte blanche to amass Americans' emails and phone calls and search through them at will," noted the ACLU's Patrick Toomey, who submitted a brief in the case. The ruling comes after the secret spy panel known as the FISA Court ruled that the FBI's use of the backdoor search provision is overbroad, abusive and illegal. On one single day in December 2017, according to the court, the FBI conducted 6,800 searches through NSA databases of ostensibly foreign information using Americans' Social Security numbers. More broadly, the FBI's searches, the court found, were not "reasonably designed" to find evidence of crime, but were instead fishing expeditions. The total number of Americans surveilled remains unknown. The revelation that the FBI abused the backdoor-search provision made no political impact, as it concerned millions of Americans not named Donald Trump and its major effects will be felt by Muslims. Along with the Hasbajrami ruling, it highlights how the erosion of Americans' privacy, at scale, occurs with vastly fewer safeguards than the process to surveil Carter Page, a Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser who had been proximate to Russian intelligence for years.The FBI had to detail for the FISA Court why it believed Page was a legitimate target for foreign-agent surveillance and do so every 90 days for as long as it wished the surveillance to continue. In practice, Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz found, the applications to the FISA Court on Page contained material flaws, such as the omission of evidence that undercut the government's basis for the surveillance. As egregious as the FBI's manipulation of that process was in Page's case, no such process applies for surveillance under Section 702, which affects orders of magnitude more people. The director of national intelligence and the attorney general merely submit annual guidelines to the FISA Court purporting to describe how the mass surveillance will unfold. The government needs neither probable cause nor reasonable suspicion that any of the millions of people caught in the NSA dragnet committed any wrongdoing—only confidence that the supposed "target" of the surveillance is reasonably believed to be a foreigner overseas. Nor does the FBI require any judicial approval for any of its searches for Americans' data in the NSA digital storehouses. The appellate court in the Hasbajrami case called it "programmatic pre-clearance" for surveillance on a scale unthinkable even a generation ago. This sort of surveillance has proven a fixture of contemporary American life, however undetected it typically goes. Attempts at modifying it or abolishing it, launched by the civil-libertarian minorities of both parties, typically fall short. A recent effort at abolishing a highly abused domestic phone-data surveillance program wrapped into the PATRIOT Act was obviated by a Congressional budget deal that kept that and three other expiring PATRIOT provisions alive until March. One of the few consistent congressional opponents of overbroad surveillance is Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the intelligence committee who has fought the backdoor-search provision since its inception. "I'm glad some of my pro-surveillance colleagues are now interested in protecting Americans against unnecessary government surveillance. But anyone who has concerns about warrants overseen by a judge should be far more worried by backdoor searches of vast numbers of Americans' communications—searches performed without any court order whatsoever," Wyden told The Daily Beast. "When Sen. [Rand] Paul and I tried to reform this program last year, these same members voted against even modest reforms to protect Americans' rights. Let's be sure that protecting civil liberties applies to all Americans, not just Donald Trump and his cronies."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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| ByteDance Weighs TikTok Stake Sale Over U.S. Concerns Posted: 23 Dec 2019 07:05 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- China's ByteDance Inc. created one of the country's rare global hits with the addictive video app TikTok. Now the U.S. government is threatening that success as officials in Washington warn the service presents a security threat.The Beijing-based company, led by Chief Executive Officer Yiming Zhang, is weighing a range of options to address those concerns, according to people familiar with the matter. Advisors are pitching everything from an aggressive legal defense and operational separation for TikTok to sale of a majority stake, said the people, asking not to be named because the discussions are private. Selling more than half the business could raise substantially more than $10 billion, one person said.ByteDance would prefer to maintain full control of the business if possible, given its soaring popularity and profit potential. It may argue that TikTok presents no security threat or that the U.S. has no legal standing over the business.ByteDance has considered selling a chunk of TikTok if necessary to protect the value of the business, the people said. The most likely sale scenario would be for the company to sell a majority stake to financial investors, one person said. Earlier investors include SoftBank Group Corp., Sequoia Capital and Susquehanna International Group.Talks about TikTok's future are preliminary and no formal decision has been made, the people said. A representative for the company said there have been no discussions about any partial or full sale of TikTok. "These rumors are completely meritless," the representative said.ByteDance has emerged as the world's most valuable startup on the explosive popularity of TikTok, where more than a billion, largely young, users share short clips of lip-syncing and dance videos. But with escalating tensions between China and the U.S., American politicians have warned the app represents a national security threat and urged an investigation. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., better known as CFIUS, has begun a review of ByteDance's 2017 purchase of the business that became TikTok, Bloomberg News reported in November."I remain deeply concerned that any platform or application that has Chinese ownership or direct links to China, such as TikTok, can be used as a tool by the Chinese Communist Party to extend its authoritarian censorship of information outside China's borders and amass data on millions of unsuspecting users," Senator Marco Rubio wrote in a letter to the Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS.TikTok has said it strives to create a safe and positive online environment. "We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government; TikTok does not operate in China, nor do we have any intention of doing so in the future," the company said in October.It's not clear whether U.S. regulators have authority in the case. CFIUS historically has reviewed foreign companies' investments in the U.S., including acquisitions, for national security concerns, but Musical.ly, the app that would become TikTok, was a Shanghai-headquartered business when ByteDance purchased it two years ago for about $800 million. ByteDance didn't seek CFIUS approval at the time, perhaps because it was a deal between two Chinese companies, even though the app had a substantial following in the U.S.ByteDance may have a legal argument that the U.S. committee doesn't have legal standing to force a divestiture, like it did in the case of the gay dating app Grindr. Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. acquired the U.S. app in January 2018, but in May CFIUS required the company to sell off the service no later than June 2020 because it could give foreigners access to sensitive data. ByteDance may also be able to argue that its data is less sensitive or that all operations and data could be quarantined in a separate U.S. subsidiary. The Trump administration broadened CFIUS' powers last year.The advantage to selling a stake quickly would be to reap profits from TikTok's success now, rather than risk a deterioration in value if the U.S. takes punitive measures. ByteDance prefers financial backers rather than strategic investors, like a music or media company, to avoid conflicts in the future, one person said.Though ByteDance has become synonymous with TikTok, its business goes well beyond the music-oriented video app. Zhang founded the business in 2012 as a laboratory for the country's leading artificial intelligence engineers to come up with innovative products. His first hit was a news app called Jinri Toutiao, or Today's Headlines, which spawned dozens of copycats from rivals.In China, Zhang is the rare entrepreneur who has kept his independence from the country's twin giants, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Indeed, he built a reputation for raiding China's established tech giants for talent, paying premium compensation of $1 million or more a year.Toutiao became a model for how ByteDance could generate profit, creating a mobile experience that's a cross between Google and Facebook for would-be advertisers. The startup reached a valuation of $75 billion last year, according to CB Insights.TikTok was one of the most popular apps in the world last year with 656 million installs, according to Sensor Tower. It's on track to surpass that total this year, the research firm said. The U.S. has had about 124 million downloads.In October, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote to the acting director of National Intelligence, referring to TikTok as a "potential counterintelligence threat we cannot ignore." They said their concerns include the safety of data on the platform and possible foreign influence campaigns in the U.S."A company compromised by the Chinese Communist Party knows where your children are, knows what they look like, what their voices sound like, what they're watching and what they share with each other," Senator Josh Hawley said during a hearing in November. "All it takes is one knock on the door of their parent company, based in China, from a Communist Party official, for that data to be transferred to the Chinese government's hands whenever they need it."Even Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg called out TikTok, citing privacy and freedom of speech concerns after the Chinese firm allegedly scrubbed its platform of politically sensitive content, such as videos of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. TikTok, which has denied those allegations, announced in October it has formed a team that includes two former U.S. lawmakers to review its content moderation policy. It also said U.S. data is beyond the reach of China's government."We store all TikTok US user data in the United States, with backup redundancy in Singapore," it said in the October post. "Our data centers are located entirely outside of China, and none of our data is subject to Chinese law."ByteDance has been building TikTok's operations in the U.S., hiring hundreds and establishing American data centers to quarantine local information. It has also begun bringing on lobbyists in Washington, seeking to hire a U.S. policy chief and retaining the public affairs and lobbying firm Monument Advocacy, Bloomberg News reported last month.Zhang has hoped ByteDance would be able to retain full control of TikTok by splitting off the U.S. business operationally, one person said. But it's not clear whether that will be enough given the continued political pressure."While it tried to run its overseas operation independently from its China operation, given that the overseas operation is eventually held by the same entity that owns the China operation, it is hard to say that it is completely out of influence from the Chinese government," said Ke Yan, a Singapore-based analyst with Aequitas Research.A TikTok stake sale would likely push back any initial public offering for ByteDance. The company has considered an IPO in the U.S. or Hong Kong as soon as next year, but still needs to beef up its international operations and hire a chief financial officer. Selling equity in TikTok would provide the parent company with more cash and delay the need for a capital fundraising.Zhang and his investors would likely see benefits in buying more time for an IPO, given the U.S.-China trade war and recent stumbles by high profile startups such as WeWork and Uber Technologies Inc. SoftBank is a backer of all three companies and just engineered a bailout for WeWork.\--With assistance from Manuel Baigorri.To contact the reporters on this story: Zheping Huang in Hong Kong at zhuang245@bloomberg.net;Lulu Yilun Chen in Hong Kong at ychen447@bloomberg.net;Peter Elstrom in Tokyo at pelstrom@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Colum MurphyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Armed robbery suspect shot and killed by Air Force veteran was from Merced Posted: 24 Dec 2019 04:45 PM PST  Authorities have released the identity of the armed robbery suspect that was shot and killed by an Air Force veteran at Kam's Market in Bay Point store on Sunday.
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| History Forgot This: America And Great Britain Almost Went To War Over Canada Posted: 24 Dec 2019 04:00 AM PST  World War II would have gone far differently.
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| Outgoing Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is facing backlash for pardoning over 600 people, but criminal justice reform advocates say the anger is misplaced Posted: 23 Dec 2019 08:16 PM PST  Outgoing Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's pardoning decisions drew ire from the victims' families and prosecutors who worked the cases alike.
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| Close friend of Heidi Broussard charged with kidnapping, tampering with a corpse Posted: 24 Dec 2019 10:27 AM PST  Reaction and analysis from criminal defense attorney Bob Bianchi.
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| Iran fighter plane crashes near border, pilot's fate unknown Posted: 25 Dec 2019 01:38 AM PST ![Iran fighter plane crashes near border, pilot's fate unknown]( "Iran fighter plane crashes near border, pilot's fate unknown") An Iranian fighter jet went down on Wednesday in the north of the country, near the border with Azerbaijan, Iran's state television reported. The TV reported that the crash happened in the Sabalan mountainous region and that rescue teams and three search helicopters were looking for the pilot who was said to have contacted his base following the crash. The fighter jet was a recently overhauled MiG-29.
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| Turkey's Erdogan discusses Libya ceasefire during surprise Tunisia trip Posted: 25 Dec 2019 02:09 AM PST  Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan paid a surprise visit to Tunisia on Wednesday to discuss cooperation for a possible ceasefire in neighboring Libya, where Ankara supports the internationally recognized government. Erdogan, speaking at a joint news conference with Tunisia's President Kais Saied, also reaffirmed Ankara's willingness to send troops to Libya if it received such a request. Erdogan's visit to Tunis came a month after Turkey and Libya signed two separate accords, one on maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean and another on security and military cooperation.
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| President Trump says he hasn’t ‘thought’ about Roger Stone pardon Posted: 24 Dec 2019 12:01 PM PST  Roger Stone was convicted in November of lying to Congress to protect the president.
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| "I was taken": 7-year-old torn from dad at U.S. border Posted: 24 Dec 2019 09:03 PM PST  CBS News documentary "The Faces of Family Separation" follows the harrowing journey of four migrant families fleeing violence in Central America, only to be split apart after arriving in the U.S.
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| Two strong earthquakes hit central Colombia Posted: 24 Dec 2019 12:48 PM PST  Two strong quakes, of magnitude 6.0 and magnitude 5.8, struck central Colombia, the US Geological Survey has said.Buildings shook as the quakes hit.
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| This tiny transport aircraft is getting a makeover Posted: 25 Dec 2019 08:00 AM PST  Upgrades to the U.S. Air Force's C-21 fleet should wrap up in mid-2020.
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| Japan's Imperial Navy Once Seemed Unstoppable. Posted: 24 Dec 2019 08:00 AM PST  But then this happened.
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| New Zealand suspends search for remaining two bodies believed to be on the island where a surprise volcano eruption killed 19 Posted: 24 Dec 2019 06:55 PM PST  Police on Tuesday called off a search for two missing people presumed dead after one of New Zealand's most active volcanoes erupted earlier this month.
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| Ukraine opens probe over Russia's railway bridge to Crimea Posted: 25 Dec 2019 04:28 AM PST ![Ukraine opens probe over Russia's railway bridge to Crimea]( "Ukraine opens probe over Russia's railway bridge to Crimea") Ukrainian officials opened a criminal probe Wednesday after a passenger train from Russia arrived in Crimea via a new Russian-built bridge, arguing that the train illegally carried people across the Ukrainian border. Earlier this week Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurated the railway bridge to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
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| Michael Bloomberg says his White House campaign unknowingly used prison labor Posted: 24 Dec 2019 12:16 PM PST  Billionaire U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday said his campaign had unknowingly used prison workers to make telephone calls on his behalf. Bloomberg, who last month entered the Democratic Party race to face Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election, said the campaign had ended its relationship with a company that used prison labor for making phone calls. "We do not support this practice and we are making sure our vendors more properly vet their subcontractors moving forward," Bloomberg said in a statement.
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| Outlook for Managed-Care Stocks Brightens Despite 2020 Risks Posted: 24 Dec 2019 08:38 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- The outlook for managed-care stocks next year appears bright after a tumultuous 2019.The rise and fall of Senator Elizabeth Warren in the polls for the 2020 presidential election wrecked havoc on the S&P 500 Managed Care index, which sank as much as 21% in a two-month stretch amid fears private insurers would be disrupted. The index, however, is ending the year with its largest-ever quarterly gain since Bloomberg started tracking the data in 1994. Not only has Warren's rise in the polls lost momentum, her plans for Medicare for All have moderated."We'll probably end up having a more moderate Democratic candidate nominated," JPMorgan Chase analyst Gary Taylor said in a telephone interview. "You've got a status-quo incumbent president, potentially a moderate challenger: whoever wins doesn't seem to be driving a lot of change."Taylor reversed his cautious stance on insurers last week, citing diminishing political risks. He also questioned whether a single-payer system, as proposed by some Democratic presidential candidates, could pass Congress given the bipartisan opposition to the proposal.Goldman Sachs analyst Stephen Tanal shared the more optimistic view on insurer stocks next year, pointing out that steep pre-election sell-offs in the sector have historically been followed by outperformance.For now, markets broadly see President Donald Trump as the likely winner of the 2020 presidential election, according to data compiled by the PredictIt option site. Former Vice President Joe Biden pulled ahead of Warren in the site's Democratic nominee betting last month, followed by Senator Bernie Sanders."While the outcome of the 2020 election will matter for the stocks, the outcome of private insurance being banned carries low probability while other more moderate proposals do not represent substantial risk," Tanal wrote last week.Investors believe a second Trump term would be a continuation of the status quo, while Biden's proposal represents more incremental changes to the Affordable Care Act, which includes creating a "public option."Still, other analysts are reminding investors that while political fears may be fading, they aren't going away. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Glen Losev cautioned that volatility may return next year as the presidential campaign heats up.Here's what analysts are anticipating for health insurers in 2020:Goldman Sachs, Stephen TanalHealth insurance stocks "can work" despite the policy uncertainty, analysts led by Tanal wrote in a note earlier this month. Goldman's analysis of the past six election years, excluding 2008, found that the S&P Managed Care Index rose 29% in presidential election years on average, and outperformed the S&P 500 by 20% on average during the same period.The bank sees a 79% chance that either Trump is re-elected or a Democrat, who doesn't support eliminating private insurers, will win. The analysts pegged the probability of a Trump victory at 44%.On stocks, they recommend "leaning into quality" and reiterated a buy rating on UnitedHealth Group Inc., Humana Inc and Cigna Corp.JPMorgan Chase, Gary TaylorFears about the 2020 election cycle have been "accelerated into 2019," therefore the outperformance will also be "accelerated into 2020," Taylor wrote in a note last week.Regarding Medicare for All proposals, "if most Democrats and all Republicans oppose, how can it ever pass?" Taylor also questioned if a public option would be able to pass the Senate without a 60-vote supermajority that "appears improbable even by 2022." The most likely change appears to be an extension of Medicare that would allow Americans under 65 to buy coverage, which could expand the private Medicare Advantage market.Overall, health insurers' fundamentals are expected to keep up. Taylor sees a "Goldilocks" scenario in the market, in which a modest increase in patient use of medical care could benefit hospitals without hurting insurers, which are more geographically diversified.JPMorgan recommended overweight-rated Humana, UnitedHealth and HCA Healthcare Inc. as its top picks in 2020.Taylor sees managed-care outperforming its hospital peers and the broader market in the years ahead. However, the sector's 665% rally over the past decade may be hard to replicate, he said.Bank of America, Kevin FischbeckFischbeck turned more bullish on hospitals recently, saying that the bank's hospital surveys point to increased patient utilization this year. While that, coupled with a strong flu season, may boost facilities, it could pressure health insurers into the first quarter, he said."As a result, we think it's prudent to enter 2020 with a modestly more positive view on the near term results for hospitals and modestly more cautious view on near term upside on MCOs," he wrote.BofA downgraded Anthem to neutral while boosting HCA to buy earlier this month.What Bloomberg Intelligence SaysHealth insurers should experience volatility in 2020, similar to the previous year, driven by the U.S. presidential race and what changes it may bring. Fundamentals should remain stable in 2020, in our view, but less robust relative to the previous year. Similar to 2019, medical-cost trends are projected to be manageable, with enrollment growth mainly fueled by Medicare. However, rate increases for 2020 (Medicare Advantage and Marketplace) will be below the previous year. The return of the health-insurance fee, while expected, will pressure earnings growth in 2020 and keep generalists on the sidelines.\--Glen Losev, BI health-care analystSee AlsoMuted Year in M&A Ends With a Flurry of Deals, Uncertain 2020Bank Analysts Step to Sunnier Side as 2020 May Not Be So BadAnalyst Who Called WeWork Debacle Sees Risks in Direct ListingsBiotech Analysts See Deals, Drug Data Carrying 2020 PerformanceElection Year Once Again Rekindles Hope for Infrastructure PushChip Analysts Struggle to Get Excited About 2020 After RallyFacebook and Google Face 'Supercharged' Regulatory Risk in 2020Airbus Secures Lead Over Boeing as 737 Max Weighs Into 2020After 'Blood-Spilled' Year, Pot Firms Brace for Repeat in 2020Small-Caps Set to Retake 2020 Market Lead After Three-Year LagS&P 500 Melt-Up Is So Hot It's Making Cheerleaders Into SkepticsTo contact the reporter on this story: Tatiana Darie in New York at tdarie1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Jennifer Bissell-Linsk, Richard RichtmyerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Jihadists on motorbikes kill 35 civilians in Burkina Faso raid Posted: 24 Dec 2019 04:40 PM PST  An attack by militants in northern Burkina Faso has killed 35 civilians, almost all of them women, the president said, one of the deadliest assaults in nearly five years of jihadist violence in the West African nation. Seven soldiers and 80 jihadists were also killed in the double attack on a military base and the town of Arbinda in Soum province. The morning raid was carried out by dozens of jihadists on motorbikes and lasted several hours before armed forces backed by the air force drove the militants back. The army said the attack was of a "rare intensity". "A large group of terrorists simultaneously attacked the military base and the civilian population in Arbinda," the army chief of staff said in a statement. "This barbaric attack resulted in the deaths of 35 civilian victims, most of them women," President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said on Twitter, praising the "bravery and commitment" of the defence and security forces. Remis Dandjinou, the communications minister and government spokesman, later said that 31 of the civilian victims were women. The president has declared 48 hours of national mourning. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but jihadist violence in Burkina Faso has been blamed on militants linked to both al-Qaeda and Islamic State groups. Burkina Faso, which borders, Mali and Niger, has endured regular jihadist attacks which have left hundreds dead since the start of 2015 when militant violence began to spread across the Sahel region. More than 700 people have been killed and around 560,000 internally displaced by the violence, according to the United Nations. Attacks have targeted mostly the north and east of the country, though the capital Ouagadougou has been hit three times.
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