| Flights cancelled after Hong Kong protesters target airport Posted: 31 Aug 2019 05:02 PM PDT  More than a dozen flights were cancelled Sunday as thousands of pro-democracy activists blocked routes to Hong Kong's airport, a day after protesters and police fought pitched battles in some of the worst violence seen in the city since unrest began three months ago. At least 16 flights were cancelled, the airport's website said, with the departure hall packed with a backlog of passengers who had struggled to make it to the terminals. Earlier, operators of the Airport Express train suspended services after the station was besieged, while black-clad protesters -- hiding from CCTV cameras under umbrellas -- built barricades at the bus terminus and attempted to stop traffic on the main road leading to the facility.
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| We Need to Talk about Joe Biden Posted: 01 Sep 2019 03:30 AM PDT  There are two possible explanations of Joe Biden's inability to tell the truth about things: One is that his mind is failing him, the other is that his honor is. In neither case is Biden fit to hold the office of president of the United States of America, and Democrats would discredit themselves and endanger the nation to nominate him.Yes, yes, go ahead — "But, Trump!" etc. — and continue when you've completed the ritual of equivocation, and don't think too hard about how far and in what direction that line of moral self-justification has carried the Republican party.Joe Biden is a plagiarist and a liar, among other things. In the most recent example, detailed by the Washington Post, Biden made up a story in which he as vice president displayed personal courage and heroism in traveling to a dangerous war zone in order to recognize the service of an American soldier who had distinguished himself in a particularly dramatic way. It was a moving story. "This is the God's truth," he concluded. "My word as a Biden."But his word as a Biden isn't worth squat, as the Post showed, reporting that "Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony." Which is a nice way of saying: Biden lied about an act of military heroism in order to aggrandize his own role in the story.Like Hillary Rodham Clinton under fictitious sniper fire, Biden highlighted his own supposed courage in the face of physical danger: "We can lose a vice president. We can't lose many more of these kids."If Biden here is lying with malice aforethought, then he ought to be considered morally disqualified for the office. If he is senescent, then he obviously is unable to perform the duties associated with the presidency, and asking him to do so would be indecent, dangerous, and unpatriotic.The evidence points more toward moral disability than mental disability, inasmuch as Biden has a long career of lying about precisely this sort of thing.The most dramatic instance of that is Biden's continued insistence on lying about the circumstances surrounding the horrifying deaths of his wife and daughter in a terrible car accident. It is not the case, as Biden has said on many occasions, that they were killed by a drunk driver, an irresponsible trucker who "drank his lunch," as Biden put it. That is a pure fabrication, and a slander on the man who was behind the wheel of that truck and who was haunted by the episode until the end of his days. Imagine yourself in the position of that man's family, whose natural sympathy for Biden's loss must be complicated by outrage at his persistent lying about the relevant events.Why would Biden lie about the death of his wife and daughter? Why would he lie about the already-heroic efforts of American soldiers? In both cases, to make the story more dramatic, to give himself a bigger and more impressive narrative arc. That he would subordinate other people — real people, living and dead — to his own political ambition in such a callous and demeaning way counsels strongly against entrusting him with any more political power than that which he already has wielded.Biden lies about matters great and small. He lies about his trip to Afghanistan. He lies about the death of his wife and daughter. He is wildly dishonest about his role in the Iraq War and the 1994 crime bill, landmark moments in his legislative career that later became political liabilities. And whatever the state of his brain today, he was not senile back in 1987, when he plagiarized the words of Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock for his own speeches. Like his lies, his plagiarism is part of a lifelong habit: As recently as this year, he was filling out his policy papers with uncredited — stolen — material from advocacy groups.The United States has become an empire of lies. We are governed by liars chosen on the basis of lies, and the worst partisans have begun openly to admire the lies, so long as they are skillfully constructed and delivered. The lowest among us enjoy being lied to and celebrate it. Entire political careers are based on lies — and policy initiatives, too.But if not the serial liar Joe Biden, then whom will the Democrats choose? Elizabeth Warren, who has misrepresented her supposed Native American ancestry? Kamala Harris, who has lied about murder in order to serve her own political ends? Robert Francis O'Rourke, who cannot tell the truth for five minutes about basic and fundamental questions of public policy?The Democrats are ready to go into November with nothing better to say for themselves than, "Our liar is better than their liar!" It is doubtful they will even be morally conflicted about that. But the nation will be worse off for it, inasmuch as democratic assumptions built on a foundation of lies must necessarily be unstable.Joe Biden has exhausted whatever presumption of goodwill or benefit of the doubt we might have extended to him for the past 46 years. He has had his chance to show that he is a man capable of honor, integrity, and honesty — and he has failed that test at every turn. If there ever was a time for him, that time has passed. The last thing this country needs is another pathological liar in its highest office. He is unfit for the presidency in every way, and Democrats owe the country better than to nominate him in the pursuit of their own selfish partisan interests.
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| Pope Francis trapped in Vatican lift for 25 minutes Posted: 01 Sep 2019 08:44 AM PDT  It has long been claimed by supporters of the Catholic faith that God moves in mysterious ways. But so, apparently, does Pope Francis's personal lift in the Vatican - which broke down on Sunday, trapping the world's most powerful clergyman inside for 25 minutes. The 82-year-old pontiff had to be freed by Vatican firefighters after an electrical fault brought his tiny private lift to a halt inside the ornate Apostolic Palace. He arrived about 10 minutes late for his regular Sunday audience after the rescue team was called to repair the lift and to free him. "I have to apologise for being late, but there was an accident," the pope said with a smile. "I was trapped inside an elevator for 25 minutes." "Thank God the firefighters arrived, I want to thank them so much." The firefighters were quickly summoned from their station inside the Vatican walls just a few hundred yards from where the pontiff was trapped. Once freed, the relieved pontiff asked the pilgrims gathered in the square to give the fire brigade a round of applause. The small private lift is known as the "little elevator of Pope Sixtus" because it links the courtyard named after the 16th century pope to the lavishly decorated papal apartment which Francis has shunned since his election in 2013. Pope Francis shaking hands with France's Cardinal Philippe Barbarin Credit: AFP He lives at the Santa Marta residence inside the Vatican walls but continues the tradition of blessing the crowds from the palace window every Sunday. In a separate statement on Sunday, Francis called for urgent action to stop the planet's environmental destruction and warned the Amazon was "gravely threatened" in a reference to the fires that have recently ravaged the region. He challenged governments to take "drastic measures" to combat global warming and reduce the use of fossil fuels, saying the world was experiencing a climate emergency. He blamed "sin, selfishness and a greedy desire to possess and exploit" for the damaging effects of climate change in a message to mark the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. It is not the first time the Catholic Church's first Latin American pope has lashed out about the damage caused by the Amazon fires. Last week he called for united action to extinguish the fires saying "that lung of forests is vital for our planet". The pope said the upcoming UN Climate Action Summit was of particular importance. "There, governments will have the responsibility of showing the political will to take drastic measures to achieve as quickly as possible zero net greenhouse gas emissions and to limit the average increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius with respect to pre-industrial levels, in accordance with the Paris Agreement goals." Francis has made environmental protection one of the hallmarks of his papacy and openly clashed with climate change skeptics like American President Donald Trump, who took the US out of the Paris climate accord. "We have caused a climate emergency that gravely threatens nature and life itself, including our own," said Francis, the leader of the world's 1.3 billon Roman Catholics.
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| Texas shooter who killed 7 in Odessa identified Posted: 01 Sep 2019 04:58 PM PDT  Police refused to release the gunman's identity in the shooting in Odessa and Midland, Texas, so as not to give him additional notoriety.
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| Hurricane Dorian: ‘Huge damage' in Bahamas as storm becomes joint strongest ever with 220mph gusts Posted: 01 Sep 2019 12:59 PM PDT  Hurricane Dorian has caused major damage in the Bahamas – destroying homes and ripping roofs from buildings – as it made landfall as the joint-strongest ever Atlantic storm. There were no immediate reports of deaths.Residents in places such as the Abaco Islands and Marsh Harbour took shelter in schools and churches when Dorian made landfall as a category 5 storm with gusts of up to 220mph and a sustained speed of 185mph. When it struck land twice on Sunday afternoon – first in the Abaco Islands at then close to Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island – it equalled a record set by a Labour Day storm from 1935. That storm, which occurred before hurricanes were given names, ultimately left major damage in its wake in the Florida Keys.
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| Trial date set for men charged with 9/11 attacks Posted: 31 Aug 2019 08:53 AM PDT  Dr. James Mitchell personally interrogated the men charged with plotting the 9/11 attacks. He says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would kill almost 3,000 people all over again if given the chance.
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| Will It Grill? Posted: 31 Aug 2019 06:00 AM PDT |
| Watch a man brazenly light a cigarette at gunpoint during an armed robbery Posted: 31 Aug 2019 01:19 PM PDT  If you think you're cool under pressure, you've got absolutely nothing on a St. Louis man who -- in a scene that could have easily been part of a Tarantino movie -- calmly and brazenly lit a cigarette while the bar he was in was being robbed.Not only that, our fearless hero refused to let the robber snatch his smartphone away. All the while, the robber was carrying around an assault weapon that was later revealed to be a Hi-Point Carbine. If that sounds familiar, the Hi-Point Carbine was one of the weapons used during the 1999 Columbine school shooting.The robbery itself was captured on video and shows all the other bar patrons smartly take immediate cover. Our cigarette toting hero, meanwhile, doesn't seem to show the tiniest ounce of concern or fear.What's more, he doesn't even flinch when the robber went around the bar and briefly pointed his weapon in his direction. Indeed, in a bad-ass demonstration of resolve, it was at this moment that he lit a cigarette, with seemingly no regard for his own well-being or St. Louis' indoor smoking laws. Even when another bar patron has a gun shoved into his back, the anonymous smoker remains incredibly calm while continuing to smoke."He just was very adamant about it like, 'I'm not playing your game," bartender Dustin Krueger told KMOV4 News.The video was shared to Facebook by the bar owner and can be viewed below.https://www.facebook.com/jkimack/videos/10213714436204738/As to how it all played out, the robber managed to escape with a handful of wallets, some cash, and a few cell phones. His total haul was said to be a few hundred dollars. Notably, and thankfully, no one in the bar was injured during the ordeal. A witness to the robber relays that the perpetrator appeared to be on some type of drug.
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| Hong Kong protesters clash with police in airport and shut down roads as calls grow for British protection Posted: 01 Sep 2019 08:43 AM PDT  Pro-democracy protesters obstructed access to the Hong Kong airport on Sunday after police arrested dozens the night before and deployed water cannon and tear gas in response to activists lobbing petrol bombs and bricks. Activists snarled road and rail links, erecting barriers and flooding stations en route to the airport, while shouting: "Stand with Hong Kong, fight for freedom!" Others drove slowly on purposes to hinder traffic. Some built barricades outside the airport, dispersing in a flash when riot police charged and aggressively pinned people down to make arrests. The plan was to re-create mass chaos last seen in mid-August when a five-day occupation of the airport – one of the world's busiest transport hubs – led to hundreds of flight cancellations. Scenes briefly turned violent when protesters assaulted two men from mainland China and clashed with riot police. "The Hong Kong airport is extremely important to the city in terms of the economy, and tourism," said Toby Pun, 23. "I hope this will force the government to respond." Hong Kong - How the protests spread Although some flights were cancelled, most still took off as scheduled on Sunday, the planes roaring above protesters' heads. Sunday's actions came just one day after some of the city's most intense clashes this summer. Activists marched in the rain through several neighbourhoods before chucking Molotov cocktails and projectiles at government offices and police headquarters. Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannon laced with blue dye to help identify, and possibly arrest, protesters later. By nightfall, officers shot two live rounds into the sky as warnings while protesters lit a strip of stadium seats on fire, setting ablaze a main road and sending black smoke billowing around brightly lit skyscrapers. Protests first kicked off early June against an extradition proposal that would have sent people to face trial in mainland China, where Communist Party influence contributes to a 99.9 per cent conviction rate. Demands have since expanded to include greater political accountability and wider democratic freedoms, plunging Hong Kong into its worst political crisis in decades. After largely being reactive and at times blindsided by protesters' flash mob tactics, police in recent days seem to be getting better at anticipating and thwarting them. Hundreds of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists attempted to block transport routes to the city's airport Credit: LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP/Getty Images Police stood on guard at the airport Sunday morning, placing heavy water barriers around entrances and only allowing passengers through. Later in the day, several teams were spotted at ferry piers and train stations in efforts to catch retreating protesters. The nearly 1,000 arrests made are starting to weigh on protesters, with many encouraging each other to flee quickly when police arrive to prevent being cuffed themselves. Closures of the city's subway stations have also impeded protesters' mobility to arrive at rallies and to flee the scene. By early afternoon Sunday, the city's subway operator shut the airport express line and a number of bus links were down, forcing demonstrators, passengers, flight attendants, and journalists to walk more than three miles to the airport from the closest subway station that remained open. A visitor from Taiwan rushing to return home said the disruption didn't bother him. "Protesting is the right of citizens," said Mr Liu, 35, declining to give a full name. "If the flight is delayed, then we will stay at the airport and support the protesters," said Peter, a Hong Konger who left early and walked nearly an hour to get to the airport. A policeman beats a protester in the men's toilet inside Hong Kong International Airport Credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images Despite escalating violence and disruption to daily life in Hong Kong, known for being an efficient global business centre, the youth-driven political movement has until now continued to draw wide public support. "I've attended most protests since June," said a woman who gave her name as Miu, 58. "Those teenagers – they have been really kind. One day when police threw lots of tear gas, a really young protester, only 20, took off her gas mask and gave it to me." But that may not remain the case with increasing disruptions to regular life and school due to star this week, which could keep activists – many of whom are students – off the streets. To prevent that, a citywide strike has been called as well as a boycott on the first few days of university and secondary school classes. Calls are also growing for the UK to pressure Beijing to uphold the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which kicked in when Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule and guaranteed the Communist system would not be practiced in the territory for at least 50 years. Firefighters extinguish a fire at a road block during a protest in Hong Kong Credit: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg In the central business district, hundreds also gathered Sunday outside the British Consulate, waving the Union Jack flag and holding signs that read "SOS," calling on the UK to recognise that freedoms were disappearing. "The UK government is not standing up or doing enough, and just lets the Chinese government speak," said Shirley Lo, 22, "I feel like they left us behind here and didn't take enough action for us." Some also chanted, "Make Hong Kong British again!" and "We love British, we are British, equal rights for BNO!" demanding the right to live and work in the UK for holders of the British National Overseas passport. Introduced in the last decade of colonial rule, the BNO passport, with its burgundy cover and coat of arms, looks like a regular British passport but doesn't provide holders with the right of abode, long a point of contention. "If people from the EU leave the UK because of Brexit, we can fill in the labour market," said Rex Wong, 42, whose entire family of four holds BNO passports. "Hong Kong people are hard-working, intelligent… We can help make the UK better." Many at the rally, however, avoided questions from the Telegraph about why they looked to the UK for support, even though life under British rule was harsh for some Hong Kong people. But it was clear that they remembered the colonial era with a more positive lens than that of current Chinese rule. Hong Kong has long had a complicated relationship with the UK, though many have long attributed a robust capitalist system and strong rule of law to the British. MP Tom Tugendhat, and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, has called on the UK to treat BNO holders as UK citizens. "It would right a wrong we should never have implemented, and give people living there options," he wrote in a comment piece for the Telegraph last month. Additional reporting by Michael Zhang
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| Opposition supporters defy ban, march on Moscow Posted: 31 Aug 2019 07:21 AM PDT  Chanting "This is our city", Russian opposition supporters marched in central Moscow Saturday in defiance of a protest ban, just a week before controversial elections in the capital. Under the watchful eye of police, hundreds participated in the so-called "March against political repressions", shouting out demands including: "Freedom to political prisoners!". Moscow police said turnout was about 750, while Russian media gave a figure of several thousand people.
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| Destination remains obscure for Iran oil tanker sought by US Posted: 30 Aug 2019 10:23 PM PDT  An Iranian oil tanker pursued by the U.S. on Friday again listed its destination as Turkey but the Turkish foreign minister added to the confusion by saying the vessel is headed to Lebanon — statements that were promptly denied in Beirut as America's top diplomat alleged it still would head to Syria. The flurry of contradictory statements further muddies the waters for the Adrian Darya 1, formerly known as the Grace 1, and obscures where its 2.1 million barrels of oil will ultimately go.
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| 9 Arizona State students from China detained at LA airport, denied admission to U.S. Posted: 31 Aug 2019 07:50 AM PDT  The students were "denied admission to the U.S. to continue their studies" and were sent back to China, ASU said.
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| Man who served 36 years in jail for stealing $50 from bakery to be finally freed Posted: 31 Aug 2019 08:54 AM PDT  An Alabama man who served 36 years in prison for stealing $50.75 (£41 today) from a bakery will finally be released.Alvin Kennard was given a life sentence without parole in 1983 after being convicted of first degree robbery.
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| Dorian to hit Bahamas as 'devastating' hurricane, then menace Georgia and Carolinas Posted: 31 Aug 2019 06:50 AM PDT  Hurricane Dorian punched northwest on Saturday to threaten Georgia and the Carolinas, possibly sparing Florida a direct hit, as the Bahamas braced for catastrophic waves and wind from the muscular category 4 storm. Florida towns told residents to remain vigilant despite forecasts they might dodge a Dorian landfall, as a tropical storm watch was issued for the state's south Atlantic coast. Communities in northeast Florida, Georgia and South Carolina raised alert levels, with residents filling sandbags as authorities tested infrastructure and hurricane drills.
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| One dead, eight injured in French knife rampage Posted: 31 Aug 2019 01:31 PM PDT  A police source said the alleged perpetrator was an Afghan asylum-seeker, unknown previously to both the police and the intelligence services. An eye-witness in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon, described the attack as frenzied. Of the eight people wounded in the attack, three were in a critical condition, said the prosecutor's office.
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| Statue honors Dane credited as Nanjing Massacre lifesaver Posted: 31 Aug 2019 08:20 AM PDT ![Statue honors Dane credited as Nanjing Massacre lifesaver]( "Statue honors Dane credited as Nanjing Massacre lifesaver") A statue of a Danish citizen who is credited with saving thousands of people in China during the Japanese invasion that led to the Nanjing Massacre was unveiled by Denmark's queen on Saturday. Queen Margrethe II revealed the three-meter (10-foot) bronze statue of Bernhard Arp Sindberg at a park in Aarhus, the city where he was born in 1911. Designed by Chinese and Danish artists, the statue was a gift from the city of Nanjing, which was the capital at the time of the massacre in December 1937 and January 1938.
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| Travelers Left Stranded After Airport Protest: Hong Kong Update Posted: 01 Sep 2019 04:15 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Travelers were left stranded at Hong Kong's international airport after protesters disrupted transport to and from the facility, blocked roads and vandalized train stations.Queues of people sat on their suitcases in the airport terminal building and others walked down the highway pushing luggage, with no buses or taxis to be seen. Riot police dispersed the crowds of protesters, some of whom had earlier damaged offices and equipment at train stations on the airport route.The demonstration followed a night of violence in the city after tens of thousands joined an unauthorized march, which led to running battles with police who fired warning gunshots, tear gas and water cannons. The protests began in June over a bill allowing extraditions to mainland China before morphing into a wider push against Beijing's grip on the city.Embattled leader Carrie Lam last week called for talks with the opposition while refusing to rule out invoking a sweeping colonial-era law that allows for easier arrests, deportations, censorship and property seizures. The unrest in the Asian financial hub threatens to distract from China's celebrations of the Oct. 1 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule.Key Developments:MTR Corp. said it suspended airport express train service in both directions, and on the Tung Chung and Disneyland Resort lines.Riot police start clearing protesters at the airport who tried to paralyze transport to the facility.Service was suspended at various key metro stations after clashes between protesters and police spread to the public transport system.The Chinese central government earlier this summer dismissed a proposal by Chief Executive Lam to withdraw the controversial extradition bill, and ordered her not to yield to protesters' demands, Reuters reported.Here's the latest (all times local):Police arrests (6.18 p.m.)Police arrested 63 people -- 54 men and nine women -- in train stations in Kowloon on Saturday night, Acting Senior Superintendent of Kowloon West Tsui Suk Yee said at a press conference. The youngest person held was 13 years old, she said. Petrol bombs, laser pens and helmets were confiscated and those arrested face charges including possession of weapons and unlawful assembly, according to the police. Two trains were damaged by demonstrators, she said.Tung Chung line suspended (6.05 p.m.)MTR, operator of Hong Kong's rail service, suspended train services on its Tung Chung and Disneyland Resort lines. Police said protesters damaged turnstiles, CCTV cameras and broke windows in the customer service station at the Tung Chung train station. The demonstrators blocked roads in the area and set fire to barricades, according to a police statement.Airport train service suspended (4.45 p.m.)MTR suspended its airport express train service in both directions, saying someone was trespassing on a track near the Airport Station.Riot police move in (3 p.m.)antiELAB protesters outside Hong Kong's Legislative Council officesHongKongProtests 香港 More @business: https://t.co/MmE4GkqhtD pic.twitter.com/9ZnKPDCTUA— Bloomberg TicToc (@tictoc) August 31, 2019 Riot police moved to disperse crowds of protesters around the airport building and in the public transport areas. Demonstrators built barricades of rubbish skips in roads into and out of the facility, and prevented buses from leaving the terminus.Crowds of people walked along the highway toward the airport after buses and train service to the facility was canceled.Airport protests (1 p.m.)Protesters vandalized turnstiles at train stations to the airport and spray-painted graffiti as crowds gathered to try to disrupt transport to the facility, where people had massed outside. MTR suspended service of express trains to the airport.Two Gunshots (Sunday 3 a.m.)Two shots were fired minutes apart shortly after 9 p.m. Hong Kong time after police found themselves surrounded by demonstrators, Yolanda Yu, a police senior superintendent, said at a briefing early Sunday morning. The officers were in serious danger, she said, adding that the shots followed repeated warnings to the demonstrators.Clashes in metro (10:45 p.m.)Riot police rushed into multiple subway stations, making a number of arrests and ordering reporters to clear out. Clashes in the transport system were reported at several stations and the metro service was suspended at key stops disrupting two of the system's main lines. MTR, the system operator, said on its website that it was forced to suspend some service due to "disturbances" and "damage to facilities."Clashes continue into the night (8.30 p.m.)Police baton-charged protesters and drove them off the streets with water canons as clashes continued into the night. The retreating protesters seemed to disperse only to reappear in a nearby suburb. In some clashes police were outnumbered and were forced back, with protesters hurling firebombs and other objects. Police did manage to arrest some people and loaded them into vans.Barricade bonfire (7.20 p.m.)Protesters used police barricades, and stands and fencing from a nearby park to build a huge blaze in the middle of a road in Wan Chai in the city center. Plumes of smoke filled the air as fire engines battled for access to the blaze.Police said protesters also attacked government buildings with petrol bombs."Violent protesters continue to throw corrosives and petrol bombs on Central Government Complex, Legislative Council Complex and Police Headquarters," police said in a statement. "Such acts pose a serious threat to everyone at the scene and breach public peace."Blue dye fired (6 p.m.)Police sprayed what appeared to be dye at protesters outside the Legislative Council offices, leaving the streets washed in blue. A water cannon was deployed earlier to drive away the demonstrators.Tear gas fired, helicopter hovers (4 p.m.)Police fired tear gas at demonstrators outside the Legislative Council offices in Admiralty after people lobbed eggs and surrounded the building, which was barricaded. Earlier, protesters urged one another to cover their heads with umbrellas to avoid being identified as a Government Flying Service helicopter hovered over the marchers.Rex Lau, a 31-year-old lecturer, said he and others were risking everything by marching to maintain their rights as Hong Kong citizens."Some of the people are scared of the emergency law and the arrests, and people think they might get fired for speaking out," he said, wearing a mask and holding a black umbrella as he walked down a closed-off road in a chanting crowd of thousands."But today, I thought if I stayed at home and didn't come out that we would lose our rights," he said. "If we keep silent, the government may think everything's OK and that we have no comment about the extradition bill, about 'one country, two systems,' and about our elections."Marchers defy ban (2.30 p.m.)Tens of thousands of protesters marched peacefully through the streets of business and shopping districts on Hong Kong island despite a police ban. The procession wound its way through the Central neighborhood and headed to the western part of the island where the China Liaison Office is located."If the government wants to stabilize society, they should give some positive response to demands made by the protesters -- like Ms. Carrie Lam should resign and set up independent commission to look into the issues. And I think that would be very helpful," Yeung said.China Rejected Lam's Concession: Reuters (2:23 p.m.)The Chinese central government earlier this summer dismissed a proposal by Chief Executive Lam to withdraw the controversial extradition bill, Reuters reported on Friday. Beijing ordered Lam not to yield to any of the protesters' other demands at that time, the report said, citing three unidentified people with direct knowledge of the matter.\--With assistance from Natalie Lung, Annie Lee, Justin Chin and Fion Li.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Karen Leigh in Hong Kong at kleigh4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, ;Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, Stanley JamesFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Iranian oil tanker pursued by US off the coast of Syria Posted: 01 Sep 2019 08:17 AM PDT  An Iranian oil tanker pursued by the U.S. across the Mediterranean Sea slowed to a near-stop Sunday off the coast of Syria, where America's top diplomat alleges it will be unloaded despite denials from Tehran. The ongoing saga of the Adrian Darya 1, formerly known as the Grace 1, comes as tensions remain high between the U.S. and Iran over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers. Tehran is set to send a deputy foreign minister and a team of economists to Paris on Monday for talks over ways to salvage the accord after a call between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and French President Emmanuel Macron.
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| Seth Ator Identified as Odessa Gunman Posted: 01 Sep 2019 02:43 PM PDT  Texas Department of Public SafetyODESSA, Texas—The gunman who killed seven people and injured roughly 20 others during a 20-mile trail of carnage across West Texas was identified by law enforcement on Sunday as 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator. Odessa Police refused to publicly identify Ator during a press conference on Sunday, stating that they were not going to give the gunman any notoriety for "what he did." Police Chief Michael Gerke said the gunman's name would be officially provided, just not in a public forum. The department instead chose to simply release his name and age, and confirm that he was an Odessa resident, in an update on the police department's Facebook page later in the afternoon.Authorities were working to determine a motive for the Saturday shooting that took place in broad daylight and resulted in more than a dozen crime scenes across a stretch from Odessa to Midland. It claimed the lives of a high-school student and a U.S. Postal Service employee, among others.Odessa officials said Ator used an assault rifle-type weapon, but said how the gun was obtained is still under investigation. Police said that there is "no definite motive known," and the FBI said that a preliminary investigation determined that the shooting is not connected to domestic or international terrorism. The FBI said during the press conference that they were executing a federal search warrant at a home linked to the gunman. Agents were later seen searching Ator's house, located about 20 minutes west of Odessa. The home, set half a mile back from the main road, more closely resembles a shack, with what appears to be a makeshift tower placed on top. The area is surrounded by oil wells that easily outnumber the nearby trailers. Justin Hamel/For The Daily BeastAtor's name was reported earlier in the day by several news outlets and initially confirmed to The Daily Beast by two law enforcement officials who shared the name on the condition of anonymity.Ator, who has a previous criminal record for trespassing and resisting arrest, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety records obtained by The Daily Beast, was killed in a shoot-out with police.Ator was pulled over by Odessa police shortly after 3 p.m. Saturday when he opened fire through the back window of his vehicle, before going on a shooting spree that spanned from Odessa to Midland—at one point, he hijacked a U.S. Postal Service van—and ended with him being killed during a gun battle with police in a movie theater parking lot. Odessa Victims Include Cops, a Baby, a High Schooler and a Postal CarrierHis victims ranged in age from 15 to 57 years old.This most recent shooting marks the third mass shooting in Texas in the past year, including the shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed 22 people less than a month ago. "I have been to too many of these events," Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) said at the press conference."Words alone are inadequate. Words must be met with action," Abbott said. "We must broaden our efforts to address (Odessa) and we must do so quickly. We need solutions that will keep guns out of the hands of criminals like the killer in Odessa while also ensuring that we safeguard rights."Reporters pressed the governor for answers on what is being done to address the state's repeated mass shootings, especially in light of a series of new firearm laws loosening gun restrictions in Texas that were enacted mere hours after the Odessa rampage. In response, Abbott said: "Some of these laws were enacted for the purpose of making our community safer," making reference to a new law that will allows more school marshals to be armed.Reporters then asked Abbott if there are plans to ban assault rifles, like the one used by Ator in Odessa. In response, Abbott said it's the "kind of thing legislators are already talking about," and added that assault rifles weren't used in all of the state's mass shootings. "We're gonna look at every issue. There's no issue that we will not look at," he said.A reporter then pressed the governor further on the assault rifle ban, noting that law enforcement officers are better equipped to go up against someone with a handgun than an assault rifle. To which Abbott replied: "And the people we also talk to are law enforcement officers."'We Got One in a Ditch': Inside the Odessa Shooting RampageMichael Daly contributed to this story.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Student loans: Betsy DeVos rule change means college students must fight for loan forgiveness Posted: 30 Aug 2019 05:51 PM PDT  DeVos thought it was too easy under Obama for students to get loan forgiveness if a college closed or if their degree didn't prepare them for a job.
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| Hurricane Dorian: South Carolina orders entire coast evacuated after storm tears through Bahamas Posted: 31 Aug 2019 08:06 PM PDT  Hurricane Dorian has caused major damage in the Bahamas – destroying homes and ripping roofs from buildings – as it made landfall as the joint strongest ever Atlantic storm.While there were no immediate reports of deaths, residents of places such as the Abaco Islands and Marsh Harbour, were sheltering in schools and churches, as the long-threatening Dorian made landfall as a category 5 storm with gusts of up to 220mph and a sustained speed of 185mph.
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| Miniature horse gets aisle seat on flight from Chicago to Omaha Posted: 31 Aug 2019 12:35 AM PDT  A miniature horse had an aisle seat on an American Airlines flight from Chicago to Omaha.
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| Trucker pleads guilty to California crash that killed 13 Posted: 31 Aug 2019 11:40 AM PDT  A trucker who fell asleep behind the wheel was sentenced to four years in state prison after he pleaded guilty to causing a tour bus crash on a Southern California freeway that killed 13 people in 2016, officials said. Bruce Guilford of Covington, Georgia, faced 42 charges of reckless driving and vehicular manslaughter. John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, said Guildford pleaded guilty to all counts Friday.
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| Kashmiri militant calls for Pakistan military intervention in disputed region Posted: 01 Sep 2019 11:32 AM PDT ![Kashmiri militant calls for Pakistan military intervention in disputed region]( "Kashmiri militant calls for Pakistan military intervention in disputed region") A Kashmiri militant commander said on Sunday that Pakistan should send troops to protect the people of India-controlled Kashmir if the United Nations does not send peacekeepers, after New Delhi revoked its autonomy last month. "It's binding upon the armed forces of Pakistan, the first Islamic nuclear power, to enter India-occupied Kashmir to militarily help the people of the territory," Syed Salahuddin, who heads an alliance of over a dozen groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, said. Khan has so far focused on a global diplomatic campaign condemning India's actions.
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| Rio-Paris crash relatives finger Airbus in new report Posted: 01 Sep 2019 01:53 PM PDT  Relatives of victims of the 2009 Rio-Paris air crash have provided evidence they say supports their claim that Airbus knew of problems with an onboard instrument five years earlier, it emerged Sunday. The news comes a decade into a legal wrangle and weeks after French prosecutors recommended that only Air France face trial over allegations that it had known about the instrument problem on its Airbus A330 plane. On the night of the crash it is alleged the tubes frosted over and caused the speed sensors to freeze up, according to a probe undertaken in November 2004 for Thales, the tubes' manufacturer.
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| US blacklists Iran oil tanker in Mediterranean Posted: 30 Aug 2019 06:42 PM PDT  The United States on Friday blacklisted the Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya following repeated warnings over its valuable oil cargo. The US Department of Treasury on Friday said the vessel is "blocked property" under an anti-terrorist order, and "anyone providing support to the Adrian Darya 1 risks being sanctioned". Lebanon had earlier dismissed Turkish claims that it would receive the ship, which has a cargo of 2.1 million barrels worth around $140 million.
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| Government: Let's end agreement for migrant kid detention Posted: 30 Aug 2019 09:42 PM PDT  The U.S. government on Friday took another major step to end a settlement agreement governing the length of time and conditions in which it can detain immigrant children. Government attorneys have filed a notice requesting that a federal judge dissolve what's widely known as the Flores settlement agreement. First signed in 1997, the agreement limits how long children can be in detention to generally 20 days while also spelling out conditions.
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| British police urged to assist New York investigators with Epstein case Posted: 31 Aug 2019 09:36 AM PDT  British police should assist the New York investigators with their inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking network, a source close to one of his victims has said. New York authorities have repeatedly said that they will continue investigating whether he had co-conspirators, and will not let the case die with the disgraced financier. Epstein, 66, died on August 10 from what a coroner ruled was suicide, while awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail. New York prosecutors are now turning their attention to any co-conspirators – among them Ghislaine Maxwell, the British heiress, and Sarah Kellen, another Epstein employee. Two sources close to the investigation told The New York Times on Friday they were looking into the activities of Haley Robson, now 33, who told police in a 2009 deposition how she was paid to bring young girls to Epstein in Florida. Haley Robson, now 33, said in a 2009 deposition that she had been paid to recruit girls for Epstein Asked if the British police should assist the New York prosecutors, the source replied: "They should". Epstein owned homes in New York, Paris and New Mexico, and spent much of his time on the island he owned in the Caribbean. But his globe-trotting extended to the United Kingdom, where in June 2000 he was among 600 guests at Windsor Castle to celebrate four Royal birthdays, with "the dance of the decades". In December 2000 he joined Prince Andrew and Miss Maxwell at the Queen's Sandringham estate, and in early 2001 he was in London for a night out with Prince Andrew, Miss Maxwell and Virginia Roberts-Giuffre. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, photographed at Sandringham in December 2000 Mrs Roberts-Giuffre claims that she was forced to have sex with the prince after their night out. He has vehemently denied her claims. All the allegations against the Duke were struck from the court record in 2015 after being described as "immaterial and impertinent" by a judge. Now British police are being asked whether they intend to assist the New York prosecutors with their case. New York police refused to comment on their ongoing investigation. Last week detectives at the Metropolitan Police revealed they have "revisited" the decision not to investigate Epstein's London links, but said their choice "remains entirely appropriate". The Met has previously received an allegation of non-recent trafficking for sexual exploitation but had closed the matter after deciding that the case would not progress to a full investigation. Despite possible information sharing between US and French authorities, the force confirmed on August 26 that it stands by its original decision and will not investigate his links to alleged crimes committed in the UK capital. "We acknowledge the considerable interest and concern around this case and have revisited that decision making and believe it remains entirely appropriate," a spokesman for the force said. "Therefore no further action is being taken. The Met will always take seriously any allegation concerning sexual exploitation."
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| How Trump Can Win the Trade War Posted: 31 Aug 2019 06:00 PM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- If the trade war's objective is to even the playing field for American firms, President Donald Trump isn't going about it the right way. China's easy access to U.S. dollars over the past decade has fueled asset bubbles, driven an overseas debt binge and laid the groundwork for its low-cost, export-driven economy. Only cutting off the supply of cheap money will reverse this.So while Trump is pressuring Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to cut interest rates – questioning the central bank chief's patriotism and calling him "a bigger enemy than Xi Jinping" – the way to wring equitable behavior out of China is for the Fed to hold the line.Fundamentally, money will go where it can find yield. And however much capital the world has to spare, China has shown an appetite to absorb it. During the most expansive years of quantitative easing in the U.S., foreign money seeking yield went into China labeled as "trade" and "investment."From 2009 to 2014, China may have taken in as much as $2 trillion in hot money spewing from the Federal Reserve's low interest-rate policy. My company looked at just one measure – the over-invoicing of exports via Hong Kong – in just one year, 2013, and found $390 billion of such flows into China.Since Beijing's capital controls, at the time, aimed to shut out foreigners eager to bet on a steadily strengthening yuan, speculators looked for bypasses: For example, some trading companies in China would inflate the value of their exports, enabling more money to enter the country as "export receipts." Exaggerated foreign direct investment was also a popular channel for incoming speculative money, as was debt.China's economic story begins and ends with liquidity; with so many dead assets that have to be refinanced every year, the country requires an ever-growing supply of capital. Much more than cheap labor, this cheap capital is what has created bargain-basement export goods. It also fosters anti-competitive behavior. Domestic companies can operate at a much lower cost than their U.S. counterparts, and they are rewarded in capital markets, despite growing evidence of intellectual-property theft.Consider what a decade of near-zero interest-rate policy has done for China:IPOs: Chinese companies listed in the U.S. now have a value of about $890 billion. Not even the high-profile delistings and fraud charges against China MediaExpress Holdings Inc. and Sino-Forest Corp. could drain the hype for the IPOs of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., JD.com Inc. and Vipshop Holdings Ltd. Bonds: Investors hungry for yield have lapped up bonds issued by China's riskiest companies. That's enabled firms such as junk-rated China Evergrande Group, one of the country's most indebted developers, to continue tapping U.S. markets. Chinese firms have raised more than 90% of the high-yield Asian dollar debt issued this year. Mainland developers have about $110 billion in offshore junk-rated debt outstanding. Dumping: A steady flow of dollars into China fueled an investment splurge that supported the manufacturing of ultra-cheap exports, from DVD players and TV sets to solar panels. China's history of leniency toward borrowers – its first onshore default was in 2014 – meant firms were able to sell their goods at cut-rate prices without worrying about how they'd pay back their loans.All this means that the best way to curb Chinese excess is to limit the availability of the dollar. Trump's demand that Powell cut rates by one percentage point is counterproductive to what appears, anyway, to be the goal of the trade war. There are other, more targeted measures that the U.S. can pursue in tandem. These include: Halting new Chinese IPOs in the U.S. American regulators have already ramped up scrutiny over such listings, which have tumbled to $2.8 billion so far this year compared with $29.1 billion in 2014. The U.S. needs to close the door to all share sales until China agrees to enable investigation and prosecution of fraud by listed companies. Requiring that American auditors and stock regulators have access to the audit papers of Chinese companies that are part of U.S.-listed entities, under penalty of delisting. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a Washington-based non-profit that scrutinizes audits, also should be permitted to review its members in China, a goal the Securities and Exchange Commission highlighted in recent commentary. Taxing incoming Chinese (and other foreign) investment. U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin and Josh Hawley in late July submitted a bill that would allow the Fed to impose a flexible tax on capital inflows. This measure would make it less attractive to park money in U.S. assets, thereby shrinking the capital account imbalance, and by extension, the trade deficit.Depending on whether Trump gets his rate cut, China's slowdown will be fast or slow. By enabling new stimulus, cheap dollars would give the Chinese more rope to hang themselves with. Holding the line will mean Chinese austerity and unemployment. In that case, there would be no way out of economic recession other than an ambitious program of economic reform.To contact the author of this story: Anne Stevenson-Yang at anne@jcapitalresearch.comTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Rachel Rosenthal at rrosenthal21@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Anne Stevenson-Yang is co-founder and research director of J Capital Research Ltd., a provider of investment advisory services.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Chinese national carrying bulletproof vest denied entry to US possessed ‘significant cache of firearms’ Posted: 01 Sep 2019 05:58 AM PDT  A Chinese national who was denied entry to the United States after officials discovered ballistic armour in his luggage possessed a "significant weapons cache" at his US residence, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Friday.A photo of the weaponry sent to The Independent by CBP showed at least five guns, several high-capacity magazines and attachments used to make semiautomatic weapons fire faster, commonly known as "bump-stock" devices.
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| Inside The Metropolitan Community Church, Which Has Been Telling LGBTQ People God Loves Them For 50 Years Posted: 01 Sep 2019 02:33 AM PDT  GettyThe 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots was the rightful heart of this summer's World Pride celebrations. But a lesser-known 50th anniversary predating Stonewall, a golden jubilee year for a gay group that went all but unmentioned at World Pride, had arguably as great a foundational impact on national and global queer politics: the October 6, 1968 founding of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC, for short) in Los Angeles by an activist minister named Troy Perry. March With Joy, Anger, and Power: Why Stonewall 50 and World Pride Is So Important to LGBTQ PeopleOn that day, responding to an ad in a somewhat ragtag newsletter for West Coast homosexuals called The Advocate—which would go on to become the influential magazine it is today—a dozen people gathered in Reverend Troy Perry's living room to observe the defrocked minister, a man expelled from his Florida church for homosexual tendencies, preach a gay-affirming sermon and administer communion. "It was a Mass and a mess," Perry recalled, later on. "Everybody was scared to death," Perry continued, recalling the terror that police would raid the service as an unlawful gathering and arrest the parishioners as sex criminals. Although that first service would be spared, police intimidation of MCC congregations became customary as their church spread its wings. "We always got bomb threats," Perry recalled in a recent sermon. "The police would come in with the dogs, and they'd say, 'Get out!'" In October 1973, the Indianapolis Police Department raided an MCC prayer meeting and conducted a mass arrest of parishioners for "frequenting a dive." Being gay and Christian, for many in the late 1960s and early 1970s, seemed an abominable, and at times unlawful, contradiction. Presently, although the mass of organized religion is anti-LGBTQ, a majority of queer Americans are not in fact anti-religion. A 2014 Religious Landscape Study by Pew surveyed 35,000 LGB respondents: 59 percent said they were religiously affiliated, and about 50 percent identified as Christian. A 2016 PRRI study put the numbers at 54 percent religious and 44 percent Christian, but the data is striking. Flip a coin in a random gay setting, and you're just as likely to find a believer than not. Such a paradox can seem unbearable for both queer atheists, who wish their community would reject the "traditional values" of mainstream religions, and for right-wing Christians seeking to purge sexual and gender minorities from their ranks and then discredit their reputations. As a standout example, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg's faith affirmations and respectability politics, especially in relation to his same-sex marriage, has met with animus from Evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham, who stated that being a gay Christian was "something to be repentant of, not to be flaunted," and from gay New Republic writer Dale Peck, who called Buttigieg "a gay parody of heteronormative bourgeois domesticity." As The Daily Beast's Tim Teeman revealed, conservative commentator Erick Erickson has been inordinately focused both on Buttigieg's gay sex life, and his criticism of evangelicals who supported President Trump.* * *Perry's Metropolitan Community Church grew exponentially in its first year, expanding to more than 200 members and moving into a Hollywood theater. As noted in my book Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation, Perry's pastoral work proved revolutionary in that he appended formal spirituality to a nascent social movement—Gay Liberation—that previously lacked a religious center. Although gay-friendly churches had existed in the U.S. since at least 1946, with the founding of the Eucharistic Catholic Church in Atlanta, the MCC represented the first gay religious network that merged a spiritual function with a platform for social action. For example, in April 1969, Perry led his church in protest of State Steamship Lines when the company fired an employee for publicly declaring his homosexuality. Perry founded his church, it should be noted, in an era when homosexuality remained criminalized in every state except Illinois and vastly unpopular to most citizens, about seventy percent of whom deemed homosexuality to be "anti-American" or "always wrong" when polled. No employment or housing protections existed to protect sexual minorities, and those arrested for "crimes against nature" could face immediate termination and then prosecution for felony charges with mandatory prison sentences. By early 1970, with reverberations of Stonewall inspiring a wellspring of national activism, the MCC fellowship boasted eight congregations across seven American cities. Its surge, in fact, mimicked the spread of affinity cells for political organizations such as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and, later, the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). Addressing his flock in the first MCC newsletter that April, Perry asked of Christendom, "What of the homosexual? Did you weep when one of us was beaten to death by the Police in Los Angeles?... Does it upset you that there are riots in New York?" Not all gay groups, however, welcomed the notion of a gay-friendly Jesus. Gay activist and publisher Charley Shively, who infamously burned a Bible at the 1977 Boston Pride events, wrote, "Christianity is the enemy," and an editorial writer argued, when the MCC expanded into Toronto, that "Christian belief and gay liberation are contradictory." The "June 28th cell" of the Gay Liberation Front remained outspokenly anti-religious even though, ironically, they met on Sunday nights in the Manhattan basement of Church of the Holy Apostles. Notwithstanding the rancor from within and without the movement, in June of 1970, Perry co-founded a Los Angeles parade to advance the Stonewall legacy. Called Christopher Street West, in honor of what happened on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village that previous June, it was the first "Pride parade," with street closures and a city-sanctioned route, in American history.An estimated 2,000 people, according to Perry, drove their floats and walked their pets down Hollywood Boulevard. That same weekend, several thousand homosexuals marched to Central Park to celebrate "Christopher Street Liberation Day"; one activist attested to The New York Times that gays have "gained a new pride." Gay groups in Chicago and San Francisco, where MCC missions had taken hold, also held public demonstrations. It was a moment of union for a nascent movement, in which the religious and irreligious took part. Contentiously, especially for gay liberationists opposed to both matrimony and monogamy, Troy Perry performed what Time magazine described as the first public same-sex marriage ceremony—called a "holy union"—in the United States mere months after the first MCC service. By 1969, an MCC holy union would become the basis of our nation's first lawsuit seeking legal recognition of a same-sex marriage, and in 1971 Life magazine devoted an article to homosexual religion that declared, "Perry is willing to 'marry' homosexual couples, though the marriages are not recognized as legal by existing laws in any state." By 1972, the MCC had blossomed to 24 congregations and missions, including one in London, and Troy Perry, with his trademark sideburns and pink clerical collar, had become a regular media presence—perhaps the most recognizable gay face in the world. Such attention, of course, provoked backlash. 1973 would be a year of fire for the MCC faithful. "We were sorely tried by the torch," Perry observed in his annual State of the Church report. First in late January, an "intentional fire of suspicious origin" destroyed the MCC Mother Church in Los Angeles. In March, the MCC of Nashville went up in flames, again with arson suspected. (MCC churches are still targets; as the Durango Herald reported, earlier in August the Albuquerque, New Mexico, MCC was vandalized, leading to hundreds of dollars in repairs.)Then on June 24, 1973, fire eviscerated the Up Stairs Lounge, a second-story gay bar in New Orleans with close ties to the local MCC congregation. This intentionally set blaze claimed the lives of 32 patrons, including one third of the MCC of New Orleans membership. It was the deadliest fire on record in New Orleans history and the largest mass killing of homosexuals in U.S. history—a record that would stand for 43 years. Devastatingly, the blaze also gutted the ranks of local MCC leadership, including a deacon named Mitch Mitchell and a pastor named Bill Larson, whose charred body was left on display in a street-facing window for at least four hours. Larson had been New Orleans' only "out" gay public figure at the time of the inferno, in a city where gay leaders still used nicknames or pseudonyms to avoid legal and professional blowback for their private lifestyles. Some local gays took the treatment of Larson's charred corpse to be a warning from authorities: Stay hidden. Troy Perry, leading Los Angeles Pride celebrations on Santa Monica State Beach, was alerted to the crisis in New Orleans within minutes by a national telephone network. Perry sensed what he later described as a "vacuum of gay leadership that needed to be filled." Perry rallied a bicoastal delegation of MCC ministers and Gay Liberation leaders, including Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) affiliate Morty Manford and Gay Community Services Center of Los Angeles president Morris Kight. They flew to New Orleans the following morning to manage the emergency. These efforts would represent Gay Liberation's first nationally coordinated response to a catastrophe. The New Orleans Emergency Task Force, as Morris Kight dubbed their delegation, also organized Gay Liberation's first national fundraising drive to help the Up Stairs Lounge victims.Administered by The Advocate, this fund raised some $17,000 (or about $100,000, in modern spending capacity) to help pay for funerals and surgeries. Manford toured the country spreading word of the arson to gay communities in Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.Additionally, the task force coordinated with the American Red Cross to spearhead what was then most successful blood drive in the history of the movement (prior to AIDS, blood drives were a common response to queer crises); gay communities donated enough blood to the "New Orleans Catastrophe" account to provide a "blood bank credit" for several years. Stunned by the lack of cross-gender solidarity between gays and lesbians following the Up Stairs Lounge catastrophe (for example, no Daughters of Bilitis groups sent checks to the memorial fund), Troy Perry sensed a lingering division between the sexes. "There is sexism among gay males and lesbians just as there is sexism in the non-gay population," Perry later wrote in his autobiography Don't Be Afraid Anymore. "Gay male sexism, an omnipresent issue from the earliest days of the GLF, increasingly became the cause of bitter accusation," agreed historian Martin Duberman.Seizing upon the lessons and failures of the New Orleans Emergency Task Force, Perry enacted foundational changes to his MCC fellowship that September. "Women clergy were not only a rarity in the general population, they were nonexistent in our denomination," Perry continued. Church bylaws were rewritten for gender-inclusive language, and Reverend Freda Smith, who in 1972 became first female minister in MCC history, was elected to serve on the MCC Board of Elders—the first woman in that church body. Many historians take the presence of lesbian speakers like Audre Lorde alongside gay speakers like Troy Perry at 1979's National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights to be a natural expression of the gay movement, forgetting that gay and lesbian communities were isolated a decade earlier. The two groups only united through concerted acts of outreach like Troy Perry's reforms within the MCC or Lambda Legal's protracted search for lesbian lawyers willing to associate with a gay organization that same year. Yet, as historian Jim Downs writes, "The accounts of gay writers, historians, and scholars have emphasized the sweaty political struggles in the streets in the 1970s, rather than the radical push by gay people of faith." How is it that a cofounder of the first Pride parade, a ringleader of Gay Liberation's first emergency task force, a speaker at the first LGBT+ March on Washington and the officiant of the first public same-sex marriage ceremonies in the U.S. is largely unknown to LGBT+ Americans?Furthermore, a radical Christian fellowship that played a leading role in establishing what many now call "Pride" through marriage ceremonies, public protests and human rights rallies—which resulted in at least 26 documented instances of arson or fire-bombing between 1973 and 1997 affecting nearly one in ten MCC congregations—has gone under-credited."Finally, the GLBT community is waking up and realizing how we important we are to the history of this movement," Perry insisted in a recent sermon. "We were pregnant with Stonewall!" Today, the extent to which the MCC and its legacy remains under-appreciated, even to aficionados of LGBT+ culture, speaks to the degree to which an institution that once stood in the vanguard of early Gay Liberation has been sidelined and left out of history books. "Many of the early chroniclers of gay liberation came from the political left and considered religion patriarchal, hierarchical, and the root of gay oppression," argued historian Jim Downs in Stand By Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation. "GLF and GAA were the 'liberation struggle,'" countered historian Martin Duberman in Has the Gay Movement Failed?, drawing an exclusionary line that places contemporaneous religious groups outside the fold."If GLF or GAA did harbor a few members attracted to a religious faith," Duberman continued, "they would probably have known better than to announce the fact." The anti-religion bias persisted for decades. An MCC of New Orleans minister named Dexter Brecht criticized The Advocate in 1994 for what he called "Christophobia" in their lack of coverage of the MCC's 25th anniversary. "Get with the true spirit of Pride and celebrate who we are," Brecht beseeched.* * *At WorldPride 2019 in New York City, an estimated 150,000 people marched a parade route that streamed past the site of the historic Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street—genuflecting at what is now regarded as an indisputable turning point in modern history. By contrast, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches observed its 50th year of ministry this July not with the fanfare of WorldPride/Stonewall 50 but with a private conclave of about 900 ministers and supporters in Orlando. (Although the MCC 50th anniversary formally took place in October 2018, global celebrations were delayed until the church body met in General Conference, which occurs every two to three years.) Today, the MCC boasts 172 affiliated churches and 46 emerging ministries across 33 countries. More than half of MCC clergy are women, and about one quarter of MCC congregations reside outside the United States.Returning to his home state of Florida, a state from which he once fled after being expelled by his local ministry for his homosexual "sins," Troy Perry gave an opening address that recognized his two brothers in the audience. "When God speaks through you for 50 years," Perry preached, "in front of television cameras, in magazine articles, in books, everywhere for 50 years, I have not changed my testimony." From July 1 through 5, mere miles from the site of the Pulse nightclub shooting, the MCC faithful met to elect new leadership and conduct the 27th General Conference of the world's largest queer-founded, queer-led Christian denomination. "The difference between the MCC and any other church is, firstly, it was built by us for us," intoned MCC Reverend Elder Cecilia Eggleston, who became elevated in Orlando to the role of Moderator, or chief minister of the global congregation—a role defined and held by Troy Perry until he retired in 2005. Eggleston represents the second female Moderator in MCC history and the first Moderator to hail from outside the United States, reflecting the church's expanding mission. Presently, the largest MCC congregation in the world is the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, which from 2001 to 2003 was a litigant in the court battle that ultimately brought about same-sex marriage in Canada.Similarly, throughout the 2000s, Troy Perry sued the State of California to recognize his own same-sex marriage and, temporarily, won that recognition in May 2008, only to have his victory struck down by the infamous Proposition 8 ballot initiative. The MCC had, in fact, tied itself so closely to the issue of same-sex marriage, since the first holy union in 1968, that when same-sex marriage became recognized federally in 2015 by the U.S. Supreme Court, some within the ranks wondered if their church had served its purpose. "There are some folk who say the MCC has done its work well and faithfully, and maybe it's time for us to go gently into the background," reflected Eggleston. "That's just not going to happen," she continued. "You've got this gigantic pushback from all sorts of churches wanting to crush any possibility of someone in the queer community being seen as someone with a spiritual life, someone who possibly could be of interest to God." In 2019, for example, the United Methodist Church, the third largest Christian denomination in the world, voted to prohibit the ordination of LGBT+ clergy and the officiation of same-sex marriages. Similarly, the Evangelical Covenant Church expelled the First Covenant Church of Minneapolis from their denomination for supporting the LGBT+ community, and a Catholic high school in Indianapolis was forced to fire a gay teacher to remain in its local archdiocese. Globally, Eggleston notes with irony, "religious liberty" movements are on the rise to re-legitimize discrimination through the imposition of certain kinds of religion over others, ignoring the contrary gospel of churches like the MCC or the beliefs of the irreligious. She feels that these initiatives can only be defeated from within and without Christianity, through coordinated opposition. "Some aren't old enough to remember," she says, "but when the Berlin Wall came down, it was torn down from both sides." Eggleston states that her church intends to fight ongoing persecution and expand into regions of greatest need, where queer people are most imperilled. She cites a sisterhood of transgender women who recently joined the Good Hope MCC after years of living beneath a bridge in Cape Town, South Africa, as an exemplar of the new MCC ministry. "What do we want to be doing in the next 50 years?" she repeatedly asks her flock. Inundated with future plans, MCC leaders still found time at their 27th General Conference for a bus ride to the site of the Pulse nightclub shooting nearby on S. Orange Avenue. There, they bowed their heads and wept. "Our people are still being killed," Eggleston insists. "And they're being killed because of who they are and how God made them… If someone is being told they are a mistake in God's eyes, then we matter." Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Diplomat says U.S. does not want military intervention in Venezuela: report Posted: 01 Sep 2019 04:14 PM PDT  The United States is not seeking a military intervention as a solution to the economic and political crisis in Venezuela, the U.S. envoy to the troubled South American nation said in an interview published by a Venezuelan online news site on Sunday. Washington this year disavowed Maduro, whose 2018 re-election was widely dismissed as a farce, and recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president. The United States on Wednesday opened a representative office called the Venezuela Affairs Unit (VAU), based in Colombia, to provide U.S. diplomatic representation to Guaido's interim government and to continue pressuring for a transition.
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| Calls to end inhumane border conditions aren’t enough. Ice must be abolished Posted: 01 Sep 2019 11:30 AM PDT  What is there to salvage in an agency that exists solely to hunt, catalogue and detain the most vulnerable among us? Ice's violence is as systematic as it is cruel'Abolitionist movements have always been discredited as impossible until they are realized.' Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesThis summer, a coalition of award-winning authors came together with a plea to Congress: they called for an end to the inhumane conditions in detention centers, where women are forced to drink out of toilets and children go without food, water or medical care.The writers, immigrants and refugees themselves, know just what is at stake: "Many of us came to the US as children and shudder to think how this country would treat us now," they write. They urge Congress to mitigate the worst abuses of our immigration system, from unsafe conditions – in detention or third countries – to endless backlogs and convoluted legal processes.The plea is commendable. But where are we as a society if we cannot dream bigger? What does it mean that some of our most beloved writers – who have laboriously envisioned new and radical worlds – didn't imagine a future that respects the right to human movement?The writer and political theorist Mark Fisher spoke to the stagnation of our political imagination through what he called capitalist realism. The concept, he wrote, is "the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it". Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the encroachment of neoliberalism was read as a natural, inevitable progression – "the end of history", the political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote. Mark Fisher reminds us that this sense of inevitability is no accident, that there is nothing natural about it. Though other systems might be in many ways preferable to capitalism, a lack of coherent alternatives in the public imagination leaves us resigned to a future where we fight each time more desperately for ever-smaller crumbs.Although Fisher tragically took his own life two years ago, his assessment reminds us that there exist futures far more radical and utopian within our reach, should we strive for them.> It's far more radical to tolerate borders – to accept this violence as normal – than it is to call for their abolitionWhat does a "fair trial" look like on stolen land? Who has the authority to serve as arbiter of life and death? Faced with a system that fetishizes cruelty, our demands are too modest. It's far more radical to tolerate borders – to accept this violence as normal – than it is to call for their abolition.Consider Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which has been embroiled in scandals for its treatment of detainees for months on end. Although the agency has been in existence for under two decades, it has been mythologized such that it seems impossible to live without it.Still, some are bravely calling for just that. While at first glance it may seem an impossible demand, Fisher's alternative invites us to ask: what is there to salvage in an agency that exists solely to hunt, catalogue and detain the most vulnerable among us? Scandal after scandal has shown that the rot goes far beyond a few bad apples – Ice violence is as systematic as it is cruel. A child of the war on terror, there is no Ice without a tacit agreement that immigrants present an existential threat to our wellbeing. Calls to abolish Ice challenge us to know better.The US spends more than $7bn a year on an agency so universally reviled that even its own agents want to be distanced. What could an alternative vision of justice look like? Republicans have never shied from making policy demands, however harmful and outlandish. Democrats have a singular opportunity to put forth a bold plan for immigration premised on human dignity and the freedom of movement. Abolitionist movements have always been discredited as impossible until they are realized. It is by refusing to concede to a rightwing vision of possibility that unimaginable prospects become reality. * Natascha Elena Uhlmann is the author of Abolish Ice (Or Books)
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| One dead, nine wounded in French knife attack Posted: 31 Aug 2019 01:14 PM PDT  A 19-year-old man was killed and another nine wounded, three seriously, on Saturday in a knife attack near the French city of Lyon, a regional official and emergency services said. Two men, one armed with a knife and the other with a skewer, carried out the attack in Villeurbanne, a Lyon suburb, in southeastern France, the official said, without giving further details on the motive for the stabbing.
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| China tells Philippines it won't recognize ruling on sea row Posted: 30 Aug 2019 06:41 PM PDT  Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Philippine counterpart that Beijing will not recognize an international arbitration ruling that has invalidated most of China's claims to virtually the entire South China Sea, the Philippine leader's spokesman said. The row over the disputed waters — a major global shipping route thought to be rich in oil and gas reserves — has for years marred China's relationship with the Philippines and other neighboring countries with rival territorial claims. Beijing has transformed a string of disputed reefs into missile-protected island bases.
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| National Weather Service appears to correct Trump on Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama Posted: 01 Sep 2019 11:12 AM PDT ![National Weather Service appears to correct Trump on Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama]( "National Weather Service appears to correct Trump on Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama") "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian.," wrote the NWS. "We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama."
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| Five Parisian schools delay reopening due to lead from Notre-Dame fire Posted: 01 Sep 2019 06:37 AM PDT  The Paris education authority has ordered five private schools which were to have re-opened on Monday after the summer holiday to remain closed until toxic lead from the Notre-Dame fire is removed. All schools in areas near the cathedral were deep-cleaned during the holidays after unsafe levels of lead were detected exceeding 70 micrograms per square metre. Health inspectors have given state schools the green light to reopen but say the five private schools, run by the Roman Catholic church, still require more thorough decontamination. More than 400 tonnes of lead from Notre-Dame's roofing and spire melted and were dispersed as air-borne dust during the fire in April. Lead is particularly toxic to young children. The city authorities were in charge of removing lead from state schools and nurseries. Church officials responsible for the private schools were not immediately available to comment on whether the order to delay the start of term was justified. One of the five schools concerned has been criticised for failing to test for lead or carry out decontamination until a court order was issued. Environmental groups have also accused the Paris authorities of playing down the risk. But Emmanuel Grégoire, a deputy mayor, said that the authorities had in fact done more than required by law. "There was no obligation, but we still decided to invest €200,000 (more than £180,000) to replace flooring [in state schools]," he said. Workers wearing chemical protection suits and goggles decontaminated school buildings, playgrounds and nurseries during the holidays. In the cathedral itself, work on shoring up the structure was suspended for three weeks this summer while stricter safety procedures were put in place at the demand of labour inspectors concerned about the health risks to workers who were removing lead. Environmental groups have been campaigning for a special decontamination unit to be set up a local hospital and for systematic testing of residents and workers in central areas near Notre-Dame.
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| Beto O’Rourke says AK-47 and AR-15 owners will ‘have to sell them to the government’ if he becomes president Posted: 01 Sep 2019 05:58 AM PDT  Beto O'Rourke said he would implement a sweeping government buy-back policy for two types of assault rifles, including one commonly used in mass shootings across the US, if he were elected president in 2020.The Texas Democrat responded to questions on the campaign trail Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia, about concerns the government would take assault weapons away from gun owners.
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| Reporter calls White House ‘unprofessional’ in cutting off his access Posted: 01 Sep 2019 01:22 PM PDT  Suspended journalist Brian Karem accuses the Trump administration of mistreating the press.
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| Germany asks for forgiveness as Poland marks 80th anniversary of war Posted: 31 Aug 2019 04:01 PM PDT  Germany's president asked for forgiveness for his country on Sunday for the suffering of the Polish people during World War Two as Poland marked 80 years since the Nazi German invasion that unleashed the deadliest conflict in human history. The ceremonies began at 4:30 a.m. in the small town of Wielun, site of one of the first bombings of the war on Sept. 1, 1939, with speeches by Polish President Andrzej Duda and his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Few places saw death and destruction on the scale of Poland.
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| 3 officers injured in California melee; 2 suspects arrested Posted: 31 Aug 2019 06:22 PM PDT ![3 officers injured in California melee; 2 suspects arrested]( "3 officers injured in California melee; 2 suspects arrested") Three San Jose police officers were injured in a melee downtown as a large crowd approached them as they issued citations for drinking alcohol. KPIX-TV reports Saturday that the large crowd "aggressively interfered" with the officers shortly before 2 a.m. One suspect was arrested after he was seeing running while holding a gun. The San Jose Police Officers Association denounced the violence and called for national legislation to increase penalties on people who target law enforcement officers.
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| Man arrested at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey after weapons found in car Posted: 01 Sep 2019 05:47 AM PDT  Police arrested a man at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey after they say an arsenal of weapons was found in his car.
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| Nine killed in Philippine air-ambulance crash Posted: 01 Sep 2019 11:28 AM PDT  Nine people were killed when an air-ambulance plane crashed at a resort area near the Philippine capital on Sunday, sparking a fierce blaze and sending terrified locals fleeing, authorities said. Dramatic video on social media showed emergency vehicles rushing toward a building engulfed in roaring flames in Calamba City as authorities urged crowds to move away for their own safety. After dousing the blaze, rescuers found nine bodies in the smoking ruins -- believed to be those aboard the King Air 350 light aircraft.
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| China's Loyal Wingman Drone Flies Alongside Manned Fighters Posted: 31 Aug 2019 12:00 PM PDT  It's another endorsement for the robotic flying buddy concept.
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