| India launches air strike in Pakistan; Islamabad denies militant camp hit Posted: 26 Feb 2019 07:06 PM PST ![India launches air strike in Pakistan; Islamabad denies militant camp hit]( "India launches air strike in Pakistan; Islamabad denies militant camp hit") Pakistan said it would respond at a time and place of its choice, with a military spokesman even alluding to its nuclear arsenal, highlighting the escalation in hostile rhetoric from both two sides since a suicide bombing in Kashmir this month. The spokesman said a command and control authority meeting, which decides over the use of nuclear weapons, had been convened for Wednesday, adding: "You all know what that means." The air strike near Balakot, a town 50 km (30 miles) from the frontier, was the deepest cross-border raid launched by India since the last of its three wars with Pakistan in 1971 but there were competing claims about any damage caused. The Indian government, facing an election in the coming months, said the air strikes hit a training camp belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the group that claimed a suicide car bomb attack that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on Feb. 14.
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| Porsche to make electric SUV: the Porsche Macan gets an overhaul Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:52 AM PST ![Porsche to make electric SUV: the Porsche Macan gets an overhaul]( "Porsche to make electric SUV: the Porsche Macan gets an overhaul") The Porsche Macan is getting an electric makeover. The Porsche SUV will be converted into a battery-powered model, the VW luxury brand announced.
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| Trump and Kim Are Meeting One-on-One at This Historic Hanoi Hotel Posted: 27 Feb 2019 12:53 AM PST  The $300 a night Metropole is redolent with colonial history
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| Attacked and powerless, Venezuela soldiers choose desertion Posted: 26 Feb 2019 08:14 AM PST  CUCUTA, Colombia (AP) — The simple house on a street ridden with potholes in this town on Colombia's restive border with Venezuela has become a refuge for the newly homeless: 40 Venezuelan soldiers who abandoned their posts and ran for their lives.
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| Why Do Some People Wish the Attack on Smollett Happened? Posted: 26 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  The reactions of many on the left to the case of Jussie Smollett prove two important things: 1. There is little racism in America. 2. The Left -- white and black -- is morally and psychologically impaired.There is no doubt that most Americans on the left, including black Americans, are distraught over the fact that Smollett faked the "racist" attack on him. Apparently leftists, Democratic leaders, and, most depressingly, many of his fellow blacks wish Smollett had been attacked by white racist homophobes.Representative Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.), a white leftist, tweeted, "I hope this was not something that Mr. Smollett did to himself, or created."Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart told MSNBC there has been "an atmosphere of menace and hate" since Donald Trump was elected president, which made "people want to believe" Smollett's story. Exactly. Capehart, a black leftist, wanted to believe that racists yelling "This is MAGA country" beat up blacks.Another black leftist who writes hate columns for the Washington Post, Nana Efua Mumford, wrote: "I wanted to believe Smollett. I really did." Again, exactly. Mumford wanted to believe that racists yelling "This is MAGA country" beat up blacks.Corey Townsend, the social-media editor of The Root, a black-oriented website (founded in 2008 by Harvard black-studies scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.), opened his column on his private doubts that Smollett was attacked as he claimed with the words, "I wanted to be wrong." Three paragraphs later: "But still, I wanted to be wrong."This should tell you a great deal about how morally and psychologically sick the Left is. And their reactions prove how little racism there really is in America.Here's the proof of both these assertions: When American Jews, even most left-wing Jews, heard of the mass killing of Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue, how many were hoping the shooter was truly an anti-Semite, and how many were hoping he was a mentally deranged individual who could have just as easily shot up a church? Or, if a well-known Jew had been beaten at 2 a.m. on a Chicago street, how many American Jews would have wanted the attackers to be Jew-haters, and how many would have wished they were just thugs who wanted money?As a Jew who has been deeply involved in Jewish culture all my life, I am pretty certain the majority of Jews -- certainly liberal and conservative Jews, and even most left-wing Jews -- would have wished that neither the Pittsburgh synagogue nor the theoretical attack on a Chicago street I conjured up were perpetrated by anti-Semites.Why is that? Why do almost all Jews wish attackers of Jews not be anti-Semites, but so many blacks and so many white leftists wish Smollett had been attacked by racists?Because Jews want to believe there is little anti-Semitism in America while most black leftists and most white leftists want to believe there is a lot of racism in America.And why is that? Because the Left and many American blacks are politically and personally dependent on one of the greatest mass libels in history -- namely, that America is a racist country. If just one one of five black Americans woke up tomorrow and announced, "You know, this a great country for anyone, including a black person, to live in, and the truth is the vast majority of white Americans bear no ill will toward blacks (or any other race or ethnicity)," that would end the Democrats' chances of winning national elections. The Democratic party is dependent on nearly universal black acceptance of the leftist libel of America.And what about the personal? Why do so many black Americans, living in the freest country for all its citizens -- and in the least-racist multiracial, multiethnic country in history -- want to believe America is racist? That is one of the most important questions all Americans need to address at this time.And there is another one, which I posed in my column last week: Does the Left believe its own lies?
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| Upland: 7-month-old baby girl allegedly killed by her mother identified Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:50 PM PST  The 7-month-old baby girl allegedly killed by her mother in Upland has been identified by police.
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| Justice Department loses appeal to block AT&T-Time Warner merger, won't appeal again Posted: 26 Feb 2019 05:02 PM PST ![Justice Department loses appeal to block AT&T-Time Warner merger, won't appeal again]( "Justice Department loses appeal to block AT&T-Time Warner merger, won't appeal again") The Justice Department, which lost its latest attempt to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, will not appeal the U.S. District Court of Appeals ruling.
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| Boeing unveils unmanned combat jet developed in Australia Posted: 26 Feb 2019 05:10 PM PST  Boeing Co on Wednesday unveiled an unmanned, fighter-like jet developed in Australia and designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft in combat for a fraction of the cost. The U.S. manufacturer hopes to sell the multi-role aircraft, which is 38 feet long (11.6 meters) and has a 2,000 nautical mile (3,704 kilometer) range, to customers around the world, modifying it as requested. The prototype is Australia's first domestically developed combat aircraft since World War II and Boeing's biggest investment in unmanned systems outside the United States, although the company declined to specify the dollar amount.
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| Pakistan 'captures Indian pilot after shooting down two jets in dogfight over Kashmir' Posted: 27 Feb 2019 02:31 AM PST  Two planes shot down over Kashmir border Pakistan claims to have two pilots held Sources: jets shot down in 'four-on-four' dogfight Both countries dispute each other's claims Analysis: Pakistan and India need help climbing down, or risk another war over Kashmir Pakistan has claimed to have shot down two Indian jets and captured a pilot after a dogfight over Kashmir, igniting fears of an all-out conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Tensions remain high on the Asian Subcontinent where tens of thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers face off along the disputed Kashmir boundary. There are competing claims regarding the exact details of what has taken place, but Pakistan's Major General Asif Ghafoor said a pilot was in Army custody. Pakistan had earlier said it was holding two pilots. Ghafoor said the jets had been shot down after Pakistani planes earlier Wednesday flew across the Line of Control, the de facto border in disputed Kashmir, to the Indian side in a show of strength, hitting non-military targets including supply depots. Although this version of events is disputed by India, the Pakistani official said: "The Pakistan Air Force was ready, they took them on, there was an engagement. As a result both the Indian planes were shot down and the wreckage of one fell on our side while the wreckage of the other fell on their side." Pulwama suicide attack - Map Initially, the Indian Air Force (IAF) denied Pakistani claims, despite videos of the two pilots in Pakistani captivity being broadcast by state media. The IAF is also decried claims that two Indian fighter aircraft had been shot down. But later on Wednesday a foreign ministry official told a press conference in Delhi that there was an "aerial engagement", conceding just one Indian jet was shot down. IAF sources said that there were four Pakistani F-16 fighters against four IAF MiG-21 Bison combat aircraft and the dogfight happened in a chase. The four Pakistani fighters are believed to have tried attacking an ammunition dump at Nowshera near the Line of Control in Kashmir, when they were chased by four Indian planes. India claims it has also shot down one of the Pakistani fighter jets. The incident is the latest in a dangerous sequence of events between the two countries, whose ties have been under intense strain since a February 14 suicide bombing in Indian Kashmir that killed 40 troops. Islamabad insisted the latest move was in self defence and officials said strikes had been taken at non-military targets avoiding civilian casualties. Ghafoor said: "We do not want escalation, we do not want to go towards war," at a press conference in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, calling for talks with New Delhi. Pakistan closed its airspace Wednesday, "until further notice", the civil aviation authority and the military said. A military spokesman said the decision had been taken "due to the environment". How did we get here? The claim came a little over 24 hours after Delhi said it had struck a Jaish-e-Mohammad training camp near Balakot where it said militants were preparing for imminent terrorist attacks. Islamabad had denied any camp was struck, but on Tuesday warned India to prepare for a surprise and vowed a "befitting" response at a time and place of its choosing. In a statement headed "Pakistan strikes back", the foreign ministry said the action was not retaliation " to continued Indian belligerence". "Pakistan has therefore, taken strikes at non military target, avoiding human loss and collateral damage. Sole purpose being to demonstrate our right, will and capability for self defence. Pakistani soldiers stand next to what Pakistan says is the wreckage of an Indian fighter jet shot down in Pakistan controled Kashmir at Somani area in Bhimbar district Credit: AFP A spokesman for Pakistan's military said that Indian jets had then crossed the line of control and the Pakistan air forces had gone on to shoot two of them down inside Pakistani airspace. "One of the aircraft fell inside Azad Jammu and Kashmir, while other fell inside Indian Occupied Kashmir. One Indian pilot arrested by troops on ground while two in the area," said Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor. There was no immediate response from Delhi, but Indian media did report an Indian air force jet crashed in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Wednesday morning. Delhi said on Tuesday it had said it had struck a pre-emptive blow against the Pakistan-based militant group it blames for a suicide bomb that killed at least 40 paramilitary police in Kashmir earlier this month. The force of jets destroyed a hilltop training camp near Balakot where Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) jihadists were preparing an imminent attack, the country's foreign minister said. But Pakistan dismissed that claim as "fictitious" and "self-serving", saying its own jets had intercepted the raiding force and seen it off. Pakistan's military said the Indian jets dropped their payload of bombs "in haste" as they fled and they caused no damage after landing in deserted forest. Indian soldiers gesture near the remains of an Indian Air Force helicopter after it crashed in Budgam district, outside Srinagar on February 27, 2019 Credit: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP Villagers near Balakot said they had been woken by jets and four blasts in an area close to a JeM madrassa. But they denied heavy casualties and said the damage was largely to trees. One person was wounded. "We saw trees fallen down and one house damaged and four craters where the bombs had fallen," said Mohammad Ajmal, a 25-year-old who visited the site told Reuters. Another neighbour, who declined to be named, said JeM ran a nearby Islamic school. An Indian attack had been widely predicted as Narendra Modi faced domestic outrage over the bomb attack in Pulwama blamed on JeM. A history of trouble Pakistan has long been accused of harbouring and supporting militant groups as tools of its foreign policy in India, Kashmir and Afghanistan. JeM is a primarily anti-India group that forged ties with al Qaeda and has been on a UN terrorist list since 2001. India says the JeM was also behind the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament and on an Indian air force base in 2016. Pakistan denies any involvement in the Pulwama attack and has challenged Delhi to deliver actionable intelligence on who carried out the attack. Indian and Pakistan: timeline of a testy relationship Western diplomats now fear any counter retaliation by Pakistan could dangerously escalate the stand-off and trigger an international crisis. One diplomat said both sides must try to carefully measure their action to satisfy domestic nationalist fervour, while not provoking all out war. However with an Indian general election only weeks away, Mr Modi had come under intense pressure to act. As news channels on both sides of the border became increasingly bellicose, a Pakistani military spokesman even alluded to its nuclear arsenal, highlighting the escalation in hostile rhetoric. Indian soldiers and Kashmiri onlookers stand near the remains of an Indian Air Force helicopter after it crashed in Budgam district Credit: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP The spokesman said a command and control authority meeting, which decides over the use of nuclear weapons, had been convened for Wednesday, adding: "You all know what that means." The Indian strike 30 miles from the frontier was thought to be the first strike inside its neighbour's territory since their 1971 war. Indian military sources said 12 French Mirage 2000 fighters crossed the line of control dividing the adversaries in Kashmir on their raid into Pakistani territory at around 3.15am local time. Accompanied by an airborne early warning and control aircraft and a mid-air re-fueller, the Mirages reportedly employed 1,000kg precision guided munitions to hit their targets in a mission that lasted a few minutes. Kashmir: why the tension? The Kashmir dispute dates from 1947. The partition of the Indian sub-continent along religious lines led to the formation of India and Pakistan. However, there remained the problem of over 650 states, run by princes, existing within the two newly independent countries. In theory, these princely states had the option of deciding which country to join, or of remaining independent. In practice, the restive population of each province proved decisive. As a result, both India and Pakistan control parts of Kashmir, but claim it in its entirety and have fought two wars over Kashmir since Partition in 1947. Where do we go now? Pakistan have claimed the two pilots are being treated well, according to its state media. One is in hospital and one has been arrested, but there are question marks over where this tit-for-tat will go next. Islamabad has said it does not want to escalate the situation to a full-blown war - a sentiment echoed by those around the world. China is renewing calls for Pakistan and India to take steps to avoid a further deterioration of ties following the latest flare-up. Indian army soldiers arrive near the wreckage of an Indian aircraft after it crashed in Budgam area Credit: Mukhtar Khan/AP Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters at a daily briefing on Wednesday that "both Pakistan and India are important countries in the subcontinent of South Asia." He added that China hopes "they will keep in mind the regional peace and stability, exercise restraint, take effective measures to strengthen dialogue, and maintain two sides' fundamental interests and the regional peace and stability." Lu also said: "We hope they will avoid deterioration of the situation." China is longstanding close ally and arms supplier to Pakistan, but has also sought better ties with its southern neighbor and Asian rival India. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also urged the two countries to exercise restraint and avoid escalation at any cost, and said in a statement he had spoken to foreign ministers from Indian and Pakistan to "encourage both ministers to prioritise direct communication and avoid further military activity." Sign up for your essential, twice-daily briefing from The Telegraph with our free Front Page newsletter.
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| Was the media biased against the Covington students? Posted: 27 Feb 2019 05:12 AM PST  Conservatives accuse media organizations of trafficking in stereotypes that Trump supporters are bigots. Two recent incidents have strengthened conservatives' belief that liberal journalists are implacably opposed to Donald Trump and his supporters: the 18 January encounter between a group of Kentucky students and a Native American activist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and the claims by Jussie Smollett that he had been attacked by hoodlums shouting racist and anti-gay slurs.
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| The 9 Best 2019 Cars for Less Than $20,000 Posted: 26 Feb 2019 07:51 AM PST |
| The Latest: Election dates in US House race set next week Posted: 27 Feb 2019 12:13 PM PST  RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Latest on the unresolved North Carolina congressional race (all times local):
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| Why Did Senate Democrats Refuse to Protect Infants? Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  A moral catastrophe unfolded on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Monday. Forty-four Democratic senators voted against legislation that would have required doctors to give the same care to infants who survive abortion procedures that they would give to any other infant.One after another, Democratic senators took to the floor to smear the bill as an attack on women's health care, a baseless criticism that they failed to substantiate. In the process, they revealed their belief that allowing unwanted infants to perish after birth constitutes a form of women's health care.Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) reintroduced his Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in direct response to Virginia governor Ralph Northam's endorsement of permitting mothers and doctors to let infants die of neglect. "The infant would be delivered," Northam said, explaining a hypothetical case in which a woman in labor wanted an abortion. "The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."This "discussion" is what Democrats voted on Monday to preserve — a discussion not about health-care options for women but about whether or not to extend health care of any kind to newborn infants. With their votes and their speeches, 44 U.S. senators embraced Ralph Northam's position, which, despite attempting to clarify, he has never retracted."I want to ask each and every one of my colleagues whether or not we're okay with infanticide," Sasse said at the start of floor debate on Monday. "This language is blunt. I recognize that. It is too blunt for many people in this body. But frankly, that is what we're talking about here today. Infanticide is what [the bill] is actually about."Though Sasse's bill failed to pass, it succeeded in forcing Democrats to take a stance on infanticide, and though they refused to do so explicitly, the reality of their disgraceful position was abundantly clear.During floor debate, Senator Tina Smith (D., Minn.) said that the bill "puts Congress in the middle of the important medical decisions that patients and doctors should make together without political interference."Democratic senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii said it represents the idea that "the moral judgment of right-wing politicians in Washington, D.C., should supersede a medical professional's judgment and a woman's decision.""It makes no sense for Washington politicians who know nothing about these individual circumstances to say they know better than the doctors, patients, the family," said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.). "The bill is solely meant to intimidate doctors and restrict patients' access to care and has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with protecting children.""This is how our medical system is supposed to work," Smith added later in her remarks. "Physicians and patients making decisions together based on patients' individual needs."Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois labeled the bill an effort to "bully doctors out of giving reproductive care." And Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) said the legislation "would interfere with the doctor–patient relationship and impose new obstacles to a woman's constitutionally protected right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health.""Conservative politicians should not be telling doctors how they should care for their patients," Hirono said. "Instead, women, in consultation with their families and doctors, are in the best position to determine their best course of care."All of these statements take as their premise a fundamental lie about the legislation. No part of the born-alive bill limits abortion access or regulates abortion methods in any way. It involves abortions only to the extent that the infants in question survived them. Nor does the bill mandate any particular kind of care for these infants; it merely requires that these nearly aborted newborns be afforded "the same degree" of care that "any other child born alive at the same gestational age" would receive.But these statements from Democrats are more than mere falsehoods. They expose a sinister reality: There is no daylight between their argument and that of Ralph Northam. They have admitted that they believe that denying medical care to infants can constitute legitimate women's health care, classified under the untouchable umbrella of "reproductive rights."That was the ultimate triumph of the attempt to pass the born-alive bill. Though Democrats managed to block the legislation, it forced the moral equivocators of the Democratic party to step out from behind their smokescreens. It demanded that they put their name to a vote permitting doctors to turn a blind eye to dying babies. It compelled them to defend Ralph Northam's indefensible comments.This — and not because it would impede women's "reproductive rights" — is why Democrats were so afraid of Ben Sasse's bill. They knew that nothing in the text restricts access to abortion. But they knew, too, that it would expose them.To support the bill would betray a logical and philosophical inconsistency — Democrats would affirm the dignity and rights of a newborn infant, even as they dehumanize that same life, at the same stage of development, inside its mother's womb. To oppose the bill would reveal the ghastly, consistent principle of the abortion-rights movement — that a child's rights depend not on her size or location, but on whether she is wanted by her mother.The Democrats chose consistency, and consistency means infanticide.
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| Cardinal Pell: Dramatic fall from grace for Vatican treasurer Posted: 26 Feb 2019 03:10 AM PST  Pell is the most senior Roman Catholic official to be convicted of sexual offences, bringing a rolling abuse scandal that has dogged the church worldwide for three decades to the heart of both the Vatican and Australian civic life. Pell spent most of his first three decades as a priest in Ballarat, an old gold mining town in the state of Victoria, about 120 km (75 miles) from Melbourne. State and federal inquiries would later find it to be one of the Catholic dioceses worst-affected by cases of abuse, though none of the complaints against Pell stem from his time there.
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| All-New 2020 Toyota Corolla First-Drive Review Posted: 26 Feb 2019 04:00 AM PST  All-New 2020 Toyota Corolla Adds Sizzle, Still Sensible The redesigned 2020 Toyota Corolla sedan joins the Corolla hatchback (which we've already tested), and it is offered for the first time as...
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| Nuclear Nightmare: Are India and Pakistan on the Brink of War? Posted: 26 Feb 2019 12:12 PM PST  As the world is focused on the summit in Hanoi trouble is brewing between two other nuclear states.
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| Here's Why Kim Jong Un May Have Opted for an Arduous Train Journey to Reach Vietnam Posted: 26 Feb 2019 01:42 AM PST  Kim Jong Un opted not to fly to Vietnam for his second summit with President Trump
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| Wells Fargo Sees ‘Possible’ Legal Losses Rising by $500 Million Posted: 27 Feb 2019 02:35 PM PST  The higher estimate for "reasonably possible" legal losses -- essentially a worst-case scenario -- shows risks grew as the bank and authorities examined abuses in recent months and discussed potential penalties. The change stems from "a variety of matters," including probes of its sales to retail customers, Wells Fargo wrote Wednesday in an annual regulatory report.
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| Rubio warns Venezuela regime in jab at critics over tweets Posted: 26 Feb 2019 07:14 PM PST  MIAMI (AP) — U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a fierce critic of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, warned Tuesday that tyrants often believe they're invulnerable — his first, indirect reference to his own cryptic tweeted images over the weekend showing dictators during their brutal downfalls.
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| India builds bunkers to protect families along Pakistan border Posted: 27 Feb 2019 06:52 AM PST  On Tuesday evening, Pakistan used heavy caliber weapons to shell 12 to 15 places along the Indian side of the de facto border known as the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the disputed Kashmir region, a spokesman for the Indian defense forces said. The Indian army retaliated with its own shelling of the Pakistani side, he said. There have been frequent exchanges of fire along the actual and de facto borders in recent months, but Tuesday's firing marked a major escalation after India carried out an air strike on what it said was a training camp run by an Islamist militant group in Pakistan.
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| Why the Robert Kraft Bust Matters Posted: 26 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  Robert Kraft's name will now long be associated with one of the most despicable scourges of modern life, and rightly so.The New England Patriots owner is charged with soliciting prostitution at a Florida massage parlor busted as part of a sex-trafficking ring. Kraft denies it, although the police in Jupiter, Florida, say they have video evidence.The charges against him, and two other high-flying men from the financial world, represent an important front in the fight against sex trafficking. Authorities should be doing everything they can to crack down on the supply of trafficked women — via the networks that often import them to the U.S. and force them into prostitution — but also exacting a price from the men who constitute the demand.As Donna Hughes of the University of Rhode Island has written in support of a perpetrator-focused approach to sex trafficking: "The men who purchase the sex acts remain nameless, faceless, and uncharacterized. They are not stigmatized the way that 'prostitutes' are. Yet, the men, the buyers of commercial sex acts, are the ultimate consumers of trafficked women and children. They use them for entertainment and sexual gratification, and often perpetrate acts of violence against them."To their credit, authorities undertook a monthslong investigation of the Orchids of Asia spa, where strangely the only customers were male, and dozens of similar operations. They placed cameras inside and charged hundreds of men. (The agency that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives want to abolish, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, assisted on the case.)The Orchids of Asia spa was in an unremarkable strip mall in a tony area of Florida, neighbors with other businesses including an Outback Steakhouse and a surf shop. Beneath the veneer of normality there existed a sink of degradation.The women were lured from China with promises of legitimate work and then trapped in a life of sexual slavery. They were working to pay off debts incurred traveling to the United States. Some of them had their passports confiscated. There was no choice and no escape from a nightmarish existence that makes a mockery of the glamorous image of prostitution in much of the popular culture and belies the term "sex worker."Sex with up to a thousand men a year. No change of clothes. Sleep on massage tables. Food from hot plates at the back of the parlor. Moved around from one parlor to the next as pawns of the traffickers.And this is a major business. According to the anti-trafficking group Polaris, the country's 9,000 illicit massage parlors make $2.5 billion a year.They are such a lucrative industry only because the Robert Krafts of the world are patrons. He is a billionaire, famous and the owner of one of the most successful franchises in sports. He presumably has access to women, indeed dates an actress and dancer nearly 40 years younger than he is. He doesn't have to go to a strip-mall massage parlor for sex.Except that it's impossible to find women who are so thoroughly disposable as those compelled to perform sex acts at the likes of the Orchids of Asia spa. The commercial transaction lent a veneer of consent to a sexual exchange where only one party was exercising volition — the men who showed up, paid $100 or $200 and then went on their way.They are the appropriate target of law enforcement. In Illinois, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has been a national leader in making it a priority to go after the buyers of sex, while offering help to prostitutes.It will, of course, never be possible to end demand for trafficked women. But as with domestic violence, the law can be used as a tool of social disapproval to change how the culture regards prostitution, achieving clarity on who are the victims and the victimizers. Everyone who availed themselves of the Orchids of Asia spa, not just the monsters profiting from it, is the latter.© 2019 by King Features Syndicate
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| Steven Avery attorney: 'We won!'; court to hear new evidence in 'Making a Murderer' case Posted: 27 Feb 2019 11:34 AM PST  Kathleen Zellner, attorney for "Making A Murderer" subject Steven Avery, tweeted "We won!" after the Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision.
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| Pakistan claims it shot down two Indian jets Posted: 27 Feb 2019 04:53 AM PST  Pakistan carried out air strikes and shot down two Indian jets on Wednesday, Pakistani officials said, a day after Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistan for the first time since a war in 1971, prompting leading powers to urge both sides to show restraint. Michelle Hennessy reports.
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| Photos of the 2021 Mercedes-AMG GLE53 Posted: 27 Feb 2019 09:10 AM PST |
| China expresses 'deep concern' over India-Pakistan conflict Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:53 PM PST  A senior Chinese diplomat expressed "deep concern" over the escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan on Wednesday, after the two countries said they shot down each other's fighter jets. State Councillor Wang Yi, the Chinese government's top diplomat made the comments in a telephone conversation with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, China's foreign ministry said in a statement on its website on Thursday. Qureshi telephoned Wang to inform him of the latest developments in the conflict and to express hope that China would continue to play a "constructive role" in easing tensions, the statement said.
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| La Tragicommedia è Finita Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST  Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a play in which two men sit around and wait for someone who never shows up, has been claimed by just about everyone: Freudians, Christians, existentialists.Who's right? I haven't a clue.But I have lived, all of us have lived, through a similar tragicomedy (a word Beckett added to the subtitle for the English version of his play). We've been waiting for Mueller. And waiting.For some, the waiting is the hardest part. But by historic standards, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been working at a blistering pace. Kenneth Starr's investigation into the Whitewater scandal wasn't fully closed down until 2001. It started in 1994. The average running time for special investigations is 904 days. Tuesday marked the 650th day since Mueller was appointed.Most independent counsels take a year to file their first criminal charges, if they file any at all. Mueller hit that milestone a little more than five months in, and he has racked up more than 30 other indictments or guilty pleas since then.And yet, for the "get Trump media" (as Alan Dershowitz and others call it), it's never enough. Whenever news breaks in the probe, or when news doesn't break, for that matter, the response tends to be the same: "Remember, we don't know what Mueller knows." Watch CNN or MSNBC for a few minutes and someone will say this — gleefully when the news is already bad for Trump, reassuringly when the news is disappointingly good for Trump."Always keeping in mind that Mueller knows so much more than he has shown," former CBS newsman Dan Rather told CNN's Don Lemon. "If you think [Michael Cohen's guilty plea and Paul Manafort's conviction] was a shock to our democratic system, just stay tuned. Because the other things Mueller is working on, and sooner or later we'll find out what they are, is going to make yesterday pale by comparison."Well, what if it doesn't? One of the reasons we keep hearing that "Mueller knows more" is that he has delivered less. For all of the drama and the embarrassments, Mueller has yet to file a single charge on the core allegation that justified the launch of the probe in the first place — the allegation that Donald Trump "colluded" with Russia.Sure, the gaudy remoras that attached themselves to Trump's hide have had a rough time of it. Manafort, who made a career of colluding with horrible regimes, may never have another meal not thwacked from a large spoon onto a prison tray. Roger Stone may join Cohen in the Stoney Lonesome as well. And obviously, Trump has made things worse for himself by seeming like he's got a lot to hide.But it looks more and more likely that Mueller's dance of a thousand veils will end with . . . more veils. The Mueller obsessives want him to be a deus ex machina who delivers irrefutable grounds for impeachment and I-told-you-sos. But that Mueller may never arrive. He may never even say a word about it in public at all.That's in part because the Russia piece of his portfolio is under the rubric of a counterintelligence investigation, not a criminal one. This means he's under no obligation to file any public report at all. He could submit a report to the newly confirmed attorney general, Bill Barr, but Barr can reveal whatever he wants to the public, assuming the president says it's OK. Or he can reveal nothing at all.But waiting for Mueller to prove himself a savior may not pan out, for the simpler reason that he can't find what doesn't exist. To say that Trump was morally capable of colluding with Russia is not the same thing as saying that he did.If you listen very closely to former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, there was never hard evidence of Trump's colluding beyond the president's weird statements and behavior in response to the Russia probe. The problem is that you don't need an international conspiracy to explain why Trump says and does weird things — unless you've already decided he's guilty.That's why this tragicomedy will not come to an end with the end of the Mueller probe. The audience, on both sides, had already decided what it was about when they entered the theater.Copyright © 2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
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| Elon Musk could face contempt charge over latest controversial tweet Posted: 26 Feb 2019 01:02 AM PST  Tesla boss Elon Musk could be held in contempt if a tweet is found to have violated a settlement deal agreed last year. US stock market regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked a court in New York to hold the chief executive in contempt for violating a $40m (£30m) settlement he reached five months ago. Now the US financial regulator is alleging that Mr Musk broke the terms of that agreement with a tweet on 19 February which showed an aerial photo of thousands of new Tesla vehicles and said the company would make about 500,000 cars in 2019.
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| Tensions escalate as Indian airstrike hits inside Pakistan Posted: 26 Feb 2019 08:12 PM PST  BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) — Tensions escalated sharply on the Asian subcontinent Tuesday with nuclear-armed neighbors Pakistan and India trading accusations and warnings after a pre-dawn airstrike by India that New Delhi said targeted a terrorist training camp.
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| 'Unspeakable tragedy': Mom, teen daughter charged with killing five family members in Philadelphia suburb Posted: 27 Feb 2019 07:07 AM PST  A Pennsylvania woman, charged with her teenage daughter in the deaths of five relatives – including three children – was arraigned Tuesday.
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| Pioneer Woman slow cookers on sale at Walmart — get two for less than $20 Posted: 27 Feb 2019 08:57 AM PST  No potluck is complete without dips. Almost everyone can get behind a good buffalo chicken dip or queso, and small slow cookers are arguably the best vehicle for these types of side dishes.Transport your dips in style with a set of two Pioneer Woman 1.5-quart slow cookers by Hamilton Beach, on sale for $19.99 at Walmart. Image: the pioneer woman Image: the pioneer womanThese 1.5-quart cookers are ideal for dips, sides, desserts, appetizers, fondue, and small servings. No need to lug around a large slow cooker when a smaller one will do the trick. Plus, these Pioneer Woman models have super cute floral designs. Three different heat settings allow you to cook food and maintain temperature before serving. The removable stoneware crock and glass lid are both dishwasher safe, so cleanup is easy.Get this set of two 1.5-quart Pioneer Woman slow cookers from Hamilton Beach for $19.99 at Walmart -- quite the steal. Image: The pioneer woman The Pioneer Woman set of two 1.5-quart slow cookers -- $19.99 at Walmart See Details
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| This man won't go into a nursing home. He'll spend his 'golden age' at the Holiday Inn Posted: 26 Feb 2019 09:13 AM PST  Instead of dreading the day he has to move into a nursing home, one Texas man plans to live his "golden age" with thrifty style.
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| U.S. disrupted Russian trolls on day of November election: report Posted: 26 Feb 2019 12:35 PM PST  The U.S. military disrupted the internet access of a Russian troll farm accused of trying to influence American voters on Nov. 6, 2018, the day of the congressional elections, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The U.S. Cyber Command strike targeted the Internet Research Agency in the Russian port city of St. Petersburg, the Post reported, citing unidentified U.S. officials. The group is a Kremlin-backed outfit whose employees had posed as Americans and spread disinformation online in an attempt to also influence the 2016 election, according to U.S. officials.
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| Kevin McCarthy: Trump ‘Has the Authority’ to Fund Border Wall through National Emergency Posted: 26 Feb 2019 08:57 AM PST  House minority leader Kevin McCarthy asserted Tuesday that President Trump is acting within his executive authority in declaring a national emergency to fund his long-promised border wall and said the Republican minority in the House would support him."The president has the authority to do it and we will uphold him," McCarthy told The Daily Caller when asked about the national emergency Trump declared earlier this month in order to unilaterally secure funding for a wall on the southern border.McCarthy's comments come as the Democrat-controlled House is preparing to vote on a resolution that would end the national emergency."The president's act is lawless," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said when announcing the resolution on Friday. "It does violence to our Constitution and therefore to our democracy. His declaration strikes at the heart of our Founders' concept of America, which demands separation of powers."The resolution is expected to pass both the House and the Senate with the support of Republican representative Justin Amash of Michigan and Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. A number of other Republican lawmakers, including Senators Ben Sasse of Nebraska, John Cornyn of Texas, and Marco Rubio of Florida, have cautioned Trump against the national-emergency declaration, but will not support the resolution. Other prominent Republicans, such as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have offered a full-throated endorsement of the declaration.Trump, who arrived in Vietnam Tuesday for a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, previously vowed to veto any congressional attempt to end the national emergency. Should he veto the resolution, it will go back to Congress, where Democrats must secure veto-proof two-thirds majorities in the Senate and the House.Numerous legal challenges to the national-emergency declaration have also already been filed and the matter will likely end up before the Supreme Court, as Trump predicted when he announced the declaration in the White House Rose Garden.
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| Southwest gets FAA OK for flights to Hawaii from California Posted: 27 Feb 2019 02:45 PM PST  DALLAS (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday it has granted Southwest Airlines approval to begin flights between California and Hawaii, capping the airline's effort to extend its reach 2,400 miles (3,800 kilometers) across the Pacific.
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| ECB’s Rimsevics Is Back at Work and Headed to Frankfurt Posted: 27 Feb 2019 08:42 AM PST  "I will not restrict him, I will let him travel" to Frankfurt, Viorika Jirgena, the prosecutor in charge of his case, said in an interview. The central banker's case hasn't been sent to Latvian court yet, since he is still submitting evidence in the pre-trial stage. The Latvian central bank board won't grant Rimsevics access to documents involving the case or information about commercial banks that are connected to it, with all legal inquires going through his deputy Zoja Razmusa, spokesman Janis Silakalns said in an email.
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| May gives lawmakers chance to delay Brexit Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:30 AM PST  Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday offered lawmakers the chance to vote in two weeks for a potentially disorderly no-deal Brexit or to delay Britain's exit from the European Union if her attempt to ratify a divorce agreement fails. Edward Baran reports.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Polestar 2 EV Posted: 27 Feb 2019 03:58 AM PST |
| Search continues for body of victim, black box in Amazon Prime Air cargo plane crash Posted: 26 Feb 2019 09:19 AM PST  Investigators in Texas continued to search for the body of an Amazon cargo plane crash victim and clues to what caused the accident outside Houston.
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| Apple self-driving car layoffs give hints to division's direction Posted: 27 Feb 2019 04:42 PM PST  The tech firm said in a filing with state regulators that it planned to lay off people from seven different Santa Clara facilities near its Cupertino, California headquarters, as of April 16. A company spokesman confirmed that the reduction was from the self-driving car program. Among those laid off were at least two dozen software engineers, including a machine learning engineer, and 40 hardware engineers, according to a letter sent by Apple to California employment regulators earlier this month.
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| Lawsuit accuses Trump of kissing campaign worker without her consent Posted: 25 Feb 2019 07:12 PM PST  Alva Johnson said in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Florida's Middle District, that the alleged incident was "part of a pattern of predatory and harassing behavior towards women" by Trump. "This accusation is absurd on its face," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement. "This never happened and is directly contradicted by multiple highly credible eye witness accounts." Trump has denied charges by a number of women who said he groped and kissed them over a period of years without permission.
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| Trump and Kim Jong Un might officially end the Korean War. Here's why that could matter. Posted: 27 Feb 2019 11:19 AM PST  After 66 years, a peace declaration at the Vietnam summit could lead to negotiations and more normal relations between the two Koreas and America.
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| US Denied Tens of Thousands More Visas in 2018 Because of Travel Ban Posted: 26 Feb 2019 03:26 PM PST  Tens of thousands more visas were denied in 2018 than previously because of President Trump's travel ban on certain countries, according to data released Tuesday.According to Reuters, the State Department said it rejected over 37,000 visa applications last year because of the travel ban restrictions, many times more than the 1,000 blocked in 2017, before the ban kicked in completely.The ban mostly affects the Muslim-majority countries Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Visas issued to those countries are down 80 percent since 2016. About 14,600 visas were granted to applicants from those five countries from October, 2017 to September, 2018, down from the 72,000 approved the year before.The ban also restricted visas for those from Venezuela and North Korea.Last year, the government rejected 15,384 applications for immigrant (permanent resident) visas because of the ban, as well as 21,645 short-term visit applications.After Trump announced the ban in January, 2017, citing terrorism concerns from the countries listed in the order, it faced challenges in several federal courts over whether the ban was illegally discriminatory against Muslims. The administration tweaked the order, and the Supreme Court approved the implementation of most of it in December, 2017. The Court upheld the current version of the ban last summer.The U.S. denies close to 4 million visa applications every year for a laundry list of reasons, including criminal activity and not qualifying for the particular visa sought.
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| Can CBD Help Your Child? Posted: 26 Feb 2019 10:33 AM PST  When a child is sick and conventional medicine isn't helping, parents understandably often turn to alternative treatments. Recently, that includes cannabidiol, aka CBD, which is a cannabis compou...
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