| Swimsuit controversy: Alaskan swimmer who was disqualified for 'curvier' figure gets win reinstated Posted: 11 Sep 2019 01:05 PM PDT  The high school swimmer who was disqualified over a controversial "uniform violation" has had her victory reinstated.
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| AOC: 'I want to see every Republican go on the record and knowingly vote against impeachment' Posted: 10 Sep 2019 11:35 AM PDT  With Congress returning to work after the August recess, some House Democrats are renewing their call to begin impeachment proceedings — even if just to get Republicans on the record voting in support of President Trump.
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| Is Israel's Iron Dome Missile Defense Really That Impressive? Posted: 11 Sep 2019 08:00 AM PDT  Let's find out.
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| Gorsuch welcomed to Supreme Court with a personal, history-filled gift from Ruth Bader Ginsburg Posted: 10 Sep 2019 08:01 PM PDT  "'You may recognize some of this. I hope I've improved it a little bit since you've last seen it,'" Gorsuch said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in a note attached to a gift that was decades in the making.
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| Pope says he's 'not afraid of a split' in Catholic church as he accuses critics of stabbing him in the back Posted: 11 Sep 2019 12:23 AM PDT  Pope Francis said he does not fear a schism within the Roman Catholic Church, as criticism grows among conservatives of his liberal views on migrants, the protection of the environment and giving communion to divorcees. Speaking on board the papal plane on his return from a trip to Madagascar, Mauritius and Mozambique, the Pope said he had been unfairly labelled "a Communist" by his critics, with the most vocal being conservative Catholics in the United States. In his strongest remarks yet on the risk of a schism, he said there had been many doctrinal splits during the 2,000-year history of the Church, although he prayed there would not be another. "I am not afraid of schisms. I pray that there will be none, because what is at stake is people's spiritual health," he told journalists on board the plane. The Pope's impassioned defence of migrants and refugees, his opposition to Donald Trump's wall on the US-Mexico border, his sympathy towards homosexuals and his openness to remarried divorcees being allowed to take communion have earned him the ire of conservatives, particularly in the US. Pope Francis answered questions from journalists while travelling back from a trip to Africa Credit: ALESSANDRA TARANTINO/ AFP He said he was open to discussing differences of opinion with his critics, some of whom have accused him of heresy and have called for his resignation. "Let there be dialogue, let there be correction if there is an error, but the schismatic path is not Christian," he said. His critics were putting ideology over Catholic doctrine and deserved sympathy, not hostility. "We need to be gentle with those who are tempted by these attacks, they are going through a tough time, we must accompany them gently," he said. The Catholic Church last suffered a schism in 1988, when Marcel Lefebvre, an ultra-traditionalist French archbishop, ordained bishops without papal permission and started his own movement. Francis insisted that many of his views were similar to those of Pope John Paul II, who is regarded as an icon by conservatives, in part for his role in standing up to the USSR and bringing about the fall of Communism. "The social things that I say are the same things that John Paul II said, the same things. I copy him. But they say: 'the Pope is a communist.'" Pope Francis arrives for his weekly general audience, at the Vatican on Sept. 11 Credit: AP He said he was happy for critics to address him openly, but condemned those who launched attacks in an underhand way. "At least those who say something have the advantage of honesty in saying so. And I like that," he said. "I don't like criticism when it's under the table, when they smile at you and then then they try to stab you in the back." Echoing remarks that he has made throughout his papacy, he condemned populism and xenophobia, likening populist politicians to Adolf Hitler. "Sometimes, in some places, I hear speeches being given that sound similar to those made by Hitler in 1934. It's as if they want to return to the past in Europe." Xenophobia is "a human disease, like measles," he said. Pope Francis smiles as he arrives for his weekly general audience at St. Peter's square Credit: AFP In an apparent reference to President Trump's plans for a wall along the US border with Mexico, and European countries' efforts to keep out refugees and migrants with razor wire fences, he said: "Xenophobia is a disease that enters a country, enters a continent, and we build walls. But walls leave only those who built them. Yes, they leave out many people, but those who remain inside the walls will be left alone. Xenophobia rides the waves of political populism." Francis criticised Mr Trump's proposals for a border wall three years ago, saying that anyone who wants to build walls rather than bridges is "not Christian". The remark incensed the then Republican candidate, who said it was "disgraceful" that the pontiff should question his faith. To the discomfort of some conservative Catholics, Francis has repeatedly warned that the excesses of capitalism are leaving millions of people behind, fueling social tensions and harming the planet.
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| North Korea carried out super-large multiple rocket launcher test on Tuesday: KCNA Posted: 10 Sep 2019 02:16 PM PDT  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the testing of a super-large multiple rocket launcher on Tuesday, North Korean state media KCNA said on Wednesday. North Korea fired a new round of short-range projectiles on Tuesday, South Korean officials said, only hours after it signaled a new willingness to resume stalled denuclearization talks with the United States in late September. Kim, who had guided the testing of the same multiple rocket launcher before, said its capabilities have been "finally verified in terms of combat operation," and what remains to be done with the rocket launcher is a "running fire test," KCNA said, without elaborating on what the test would entail.
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| 10 of the Toughest Math Problems Ever Solved Posted: 11 Sep 2019 02:59 PM PDT |
| Kristin Cavallari called out for 'super insensitive' 9/11 post, fires social media staffer Posted: 11 Sep 2019 11:44 AM PDT  'Very Cavallari' star Kristin Cavallari is parting ways with her social media manager after a debacle on September 11.
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| US jets smashed an island ISIS was using 'like a hotel' and troops found rockets and bombs stashed in caves Posted: 11 Sep 2019 12:34 PM PDT  At least 25 ISIS fighters are dead after a successful US air strike that dropped 80,000 pounds of ordnance, an Iraqi CTS spokesperson told Insider.
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| US sees Russia behind murder of Georgian in Germany: report Posted: 11 Sep 2019 08:13 AM PDT  The United States sees Moscow behind the murder in Germany last month of a Georgian man who had fought against Russian forces in Chechnya, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. "The United States believes that Russia is responsible for this assassination," one of several unnamed US officials told the newspaper, without saying which Russian group or agency undertook the killing. German police arrested a 49-year-old suspect from Russia's Chechnya republic, where Moscow waged two bloody wars that lasted until 2009.
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| Church leaders held homeless people captive, forced them to go begging and stole their benefits, court documents say Posted: 11 Sep 2019 02:55 AM PDT  Christian ministry leaders allegedly forced a group of homeless people to beg, kept them in locked group homes and threatened to take away their children if they left, prosecutors said.Victor Gonzalez and eleven other leaders of Imperial Valley Ministries (IVM) were charged on Tuesday with subjecting dozens of homeless people to forced labour.
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| Iran says tanker oil sold at sea, buyer sets destination Posted: 11 Sep 2019 04:35 AM PDT  Iran's envoy to London said on Wednesday the oil cargo of tanker Adrian Darya 1 was sold at sea to a private company, denying Tehran had broken assurances it had given over the vessel, but he insisted EU's Syria sanctions did not apply to Tehran. "At (the) meeting with the British Foreign Secretary, it was emphasized that British authorities' action against the tanker carrying Iranian oil was in violation of international law," ambassador Hamid Baeidinejad said on Twitter after being summoned in London.
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| China detains Taiwanese man who reportedly shared troop photos at Hong Kong border Posted: 11 Sep 2019 05:01 AM PDT  China has arrested a Taiwanese man on state security charges after he crossed from Hong Kong into the mainland and reportedly shared pictures of troops, renewing fears about arbitrary detention amid the ongoing political unrest in the financial hub. Lee Meng-chu, a volunteer activity organiser in the small Taiwanese fishing community of Fangliao, went missing on August 20 when he entered Shenzhen, a border city which links Hong Kong to Southeast China. Mr Lee, who studied in the US and is also known by the name Morrison, allegedly shared information about the ongoing Hong Kong protests on social media and sent Chen Ya-lin, the Fangliao mayor, a photo of Chinese troops massing equipment on the city's border. The Shenzhen police had previously told Mr Lee's worried family that they had no record of him arriving in the city, despite local friends reporting that they had dinner together before he disappeared. Last month the Taiwanese government also made official enquiries about his whereabouts but received no reply from China. On Wednesday, Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, confirmed that he was being investigated after he "allegedly engaged in illegal activities that endanger state security." Mr Ma did not elaborate further. Lee Meng-chu was detained after crossing from Hong Kong into mainland China in August Credit: Pingtung County Fangliao Township Office Mr Lee's detention comes amid reports of Chinese citizens being arrested or harassed in relation to the protests, and of the Chinese authorities checking the phones of passengers travelling to the mainland from Hong Kong. Last month Simon Cheng, an official at the UK's Hong Kong consulate was held in Shenzhen for 15 days before being released without charge. His supporters believe he was investigated for signs of supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in an attempt to suppress free speech. The Taiwanese government, which has tense relations with China, said it was "deeply concerned" about Mr Lee's detention and urged the "relevant agencies" to negotiate "in full force" over the issue. Friends of Mr Lee expressed their fears about his well-being and the growing risk of enforced disappearances and China's opaque justice system on his Facebook page. His case has been compared to Taiwanese rights activist Lee Ming-che, who disappeared for weeks in southern China in 2017 before resurfacing to be sentenced to five years in prison for "the subversion of state power."
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| BREAKING: U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan Attacked on 9/11 Anniversary Posted: 11 Sep 2019 04:24 AM PDT  On America's darkest day...
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| In last words, Khashoggi asked killers not to suffocate him Posted: 10 Sep 2019 11:01 AM PDT  In his final words, slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi urged his killers not to cover his mouth because he suffered from asthma and could suffocate, according to Turkey's Sabah newspaper. Sabah newspaper, which is close to Turkey's government, published new details of a recording of Khashoggi's conversation with members of a Saudi hit squad sent to kill him. The paper says the recording of Khashoggi's grisly Oct. 2, 2018 killing and reported dismemberment at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul was obtained by Turkey's intelligence agency.
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| Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, and Marissa Mayer reportedly attended an elite private dinner with Jeffrey Epstein just 2 years after he served a prison sentence for soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl (AMZN, GOOGL, TSLA, MSFT) Posted: 10 Sep 2019 07:52 AM PDT  The private dinners, known informally as the "billionaires' dinners," are held by the New York literary agent John Brockman.
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| Russia investigated disappearance of suspected US spy as possible murder Posted: 10 Sep 2019 02:16 PM PDT  Oleg Smolenkov hadn't been seen after he went on holiday in 2017, but Russian authorities concluded he had fled abroadThe Kremlin in Moscow in 2018. Photograph: Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty ImagesThe CIA Russian spy drama currently gripping Washington has taken a new turn as Russian media reported that a suspected US mole inside the Kremlin was a member of Vladimir Putin's administration who disappeared in 2017 and was initially thought to have been murdered.Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed the man, Oleg Smolenkov, had worked for the Kremlin but played down his importance, insisting he was a low-level employee who had been fired two years ago.The Russian news site Daily Storm reported in September 2017 that Smolenkov, who had once worked in the Russian embassy in Washington, had not been seen since he went on holiday with his wife and three children to Montenegro in June of that year. The Russian authorities first investigated the disappearance as a possible murder but then became convinced that Smolenkov was still alive and living abroad.On Monday night, the New York Times and Washington Post confirmed a CNN report that a US agent inside the Kremlin had been spirited out to the US after concerns about his safety, but they did not name the spy.The US reports said that the agent had worked for US intelligence for more than a decade and reached a senior level with access to Putin himself. According to CNN, he had even provided pictures of documents on Putin's desk.But there were different versions of the motivation for the emergency "exfiltration". One source told CNN that the decision was driven partly by Donald Trump's divulging classified information to Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, in an Oval Office meeting on 10 May 2017, a month before the exfiltration.Trump had fired the FBI director, James Comey, the previous day at a time when the bureau was the midst of an investigation into Russian interference in the 2106 presidential election. The New York Times and Washington Post, however, quoted sources as saying that the agent was persuaded to leave Russia amid increased scrutiny by Kremlin officials after US intelligence agencies revealed what they knew about Russian election interference, and in particular, Putin's role in it.Peskov dismissed the US reporting as "pulp fiction".The Kremlin spokesman said he could not confirm that Smolenkov was the longtime American agent referred into in the US reports. Speaking on Tuesday, Peskov said Smolenkov had no "contacts" with Putin, and was removed from his government post in 2016 or 2017."Smolenkov worked for the presidential executive office but he was discharged in line with an internal directive several years ago," Peskov said in Moscow. "I do not know whether he was an agent or not. The only thing I can tell you there was such an employee in the administration. He was dismissed."Peskov also downplayed the accounts of an extraordinary operation in 2017 to exfiltrate the US asset from Moscow. "All this discussion by American media about who was urgently evacuated, who was saved from whom and so on are in the genre of pulp fiction," said Peskov. "So let's leave it up to them."Peskov refused to be drawn on Smolenkov's current whereabouts. "We are not engaged in tracing people. I can only say in this case that there really was such an employee of the administration, and that he was fired several years ago," he said.Smolenkov is reported to have worked at the US embassy in Washington under the ambassador Yuri Ushakov. He then followed the ambassador back to Moscow in 2008, when Ushakov was appointed Putin's foreign policy adviser. Putin served as prime minister from 2008 until 2012, when he returned to the Kremlin for a third presidential term.Kommersant, a Russian business daily, cited former colleagues as saying that, contrary to Peskov's denials, Smolenkov did have direct access to Putin. "This is serious," an unnamed official said. Another said that it was unlikely Smolenkov had sight of secret material of value to the US intelligence services.According to the New York Times, the CIA first tried in late 2016 to extract the source from Moscow. The informant at first refused, citing family concerns – prompting doubts about his trustworthiness, and unhappiness inside CIA headquarters. The source finally agreed to flee months later, as the story of Russia's clandestine support for Trump dominated the headline, the paper said.Smolenkov vanished on 14 June 2017, from his family home in Kargopolskaya Street, in a northern suburb of Moscow, Russian media reported. He flew with his wife Antonina, a civil servant, and their children – girls aged two and seven, and a 13-year-old son – to Montenegro. The family did not return and switched off their social media accounts.With Smolenkov nowhere to be found, in September 2017 Russian authorities opened a criminal investigation into his suspected murder. Russia's FSB spy agency eventually dropped the case after concluding that the missing government official was still alive, the Daily Storm reported.The source appears to have settled in the US, in a comfortable house on the outskirts of Washington. In June 2018 the Washington Post's real estate section listed the purchase of a six-bedroom home in Stafford, Virginia, by Antonina Smolenkov and one Oleg "Smokenkov". The property cost $925,000. The difference in spellings appears to be a mistake.CNN reported that the difficult decision to remove the US's Moscow mole was made after President Trump divulged top secret information in May 2017 to Sergei Lavrov, Russia's veteran foreign minister. The White House has rubbished such claims. On Tuesday, Mike Pompeo – the US secretary of state and former CIA head – said: "Suffice it to say that the reporting there is factually wrong," without specifying exactly what he was disputing.The source's removal would have dealt a significant blow to the US's ability to understand top-level Kremlin decision making. The Russian government – largely made up of former KGB officers, now in their mid-60s – is paranoid about western spies.Former diplomats say the chaotic nature of Russia in the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin made it a fertile time for recruiting Russian assets. One of those hired by MI6 during this period was Sergei Skripal, who the British say was targeted for murder by two Russian assasins.
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| Nuclear power is too costly and too risky Posted: 11 Sep 2019 03:07 PM PDT  Renewable technologies are already cost competitive with fossil fuels, unlike nuclear power, writes Todd Larsen of Green America.
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| Ugandan leader calls for eye-for-an-eye-style sentences after nephew murdered Posted: 10 Sep 2019 10:51 PM PDT  Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has said he wants courts to hand out eye-for-an-eye-style sentences for all murder convicts, to help stem soaring violent crime that claimed the life of his nephew last week. Ugandans complain that most crimes go unsolved because police are corrupt and not interested in investigating cases involving ordinary citizens, although security officials deny this. "We need to work on the courts," Museveni said in a statement posted on his official social media accounts late on Tuesday.
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| Donald Trump vows to 'hit Taliban harder than ever' on 9/11 anniversary Posted: 11 Sep 2019 12:52 PM PDT  Donald Trump vowed to hit the Taliban "harder than ever" as the United States marked the 18th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that led to its longest war in Afghanistan. The US president also blamed the Taliban for the abrupt cancellation of planned peace talks at Camp David, which followed the death of a US soldier in a suicide car bombing in Kabul last week. Speaking at the Pentagon, where he was marking the anniversary, Mr Trump said: "We had peace talks scheduled a few days ago. I called them off when I learned they had killed a great American soldier from Puerto Rico and 11 other innocent people. "They thought they would use this attack to show strength, but actually what they showed is unrelenting weakness. The last four days. We have hit our enemy harder than they have ever been hit before, and that will continue." The US president added: "If, for any reason, they come back to our country, we will go wherever they are, and use power, the likes of which the United States has never used before." Mr Trump said he was "not talking about nuclear power" but the Taliban "will never have seen anything like what will happen to them." Taliban control in Afghanistan He added: "No enemy on Earth can match the overwhelming strength, skill and might of the American armed forces." Later, speaking at the White House, Mr Trump repeated his assertion that talks with the Taliban were "dead". He said: "What they did was horrible, they killed an American soldier. I said that's the end of them, get them out, and we're hitting them very hard. That was my decision. We are hitting the Taliban harder than they've ever been hit." For nearly a year Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy, has been negotiating with the Taliban on issues including a US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Taliban guarantees to keep the country from again being used as a launch pad for global terror attacks. There were fears Mr Trump's cancellation of the negotiations could bring more carnage in Afghanistan. Mr Trump has said he wants to withdraw around 5,000 of the 14,000 US military personnel still in the country. In New York relatives of victims, survivors, police officers, firefighters and city leaders marked the anniversary of the terrorist attacks with a ceremony at Ground Zero, where planes hijacked by al-Qaeda crashed into the World Trade Center. Relatives read out the long list of those who were killed, and held placards with images of their loved ones.
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| View Photos of the Hyundai 45 Concept Posted: 10 Sep 2019 12:00 AM PDT |
| How the U.S. Army 'Replicates' Enemy Drones to Destroy Them Posted: 11 Sep 2019 02:52 AM PDT  Commercially available attack drones now proliferating at alarming rates around the world.
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| Florida 'fortune teller' ordered to repay $1.6 million to woman she convinced was cursed Posted: 11 Sep 2019 08:00 AM PDT ![Florida 'fortune teller' ordered to repay $1.6 million to woman she convinced was cursed]( "Florida 'fortune teller' ordered to repay $1.6 million to woman she convinced was cursed") The woman was also sentenced to more than three years in federal prison after she convinced a Texas woman of the curse, authorities say.
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| Sex assault claims rock Ardern's New Zealand government Posted: 10 Sep 2019 07:40 PM PDT  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern apologised Wednesday for her party's handling of an alleged sexual assault, as a top ally was forced to resign. In the most serious scandal Ardern has faced since she took office in late 2017, the centre-left leader admitted "mistakes were made" after a Labour Party volunteer accused a senior party staffer of assault last year. "Raising an allegation of sexual assault is an incredibly difficult thing to do -- for additional distress to be caused through the way these allegations are handled is incredibly distressing," Ardern said in a statement.
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| China holding Taiwanese man said to have photographed police Posted: 11 Sep 2019 03:27 AM PDT  China confirmed Wednesday that it was detaining a Taiwanese man who reportedly sent back photos of Chinese paramilitary police massing equipment near the Hong Kong border last month. Lee Meng-chu is under investigation on suspicion of engaging in criminal activity harmful to national security, said Ma Xiaoguang, the spokesman for Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office. Lee went missing on Aug. 20 after he sent photos of the paramilitary police to the mayor of Fangliao, a small fishing community in southern Taiwan.
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| For the first time, a timeline reveals what happened in the minutes and hours after the asteroid crash that killed the dinosaurs Posted: 11 Sep 2019 02:18 PM PDT  The dinosaurs' extinction was spurred by an asteroid that struck Earth. By studying the crater, scientists now know what happened after the impact.
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| Winner-take-all presidential elections: Unconstitutional and unfair to voters in 48 states Posted: 10 Sep 2019 12:15 AM PDT  This system hurts Republicans and Democrats alike, and it doesn't need a constitutional amendment to fix. Courts should prod states to make changes.
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| Serbs Ignore EU Warning Over Plan to Join Russian-Led Trade Bloc Posted: 11 Sep 2019 12:09 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. Serbia's plan to join a Russian-led economic union is drawing ire from the European Union, which the Balkan nation says it wants to be part of.The EU's executive commission has made clear that Serbia will have to cancel any bilateral trade agreements with other countries if and when it joins the EU, and leaders said they'd rather see Belgrade aligning its policies more with the bloc's. Serbian officials have ignored the criticism and will sign a deal to join the Eurasian Economic Union on Oct. 25. The Russian-led bloc also includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.The plan is "not a hindrance to European integration," Serbian Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said by email last week. The European Commission's warning isn't going to "affect Serbia's decision to enter into this agreement in Moscow," he said.The EU has no say over which groups Serbia joins while it's not a member, but some of its representatives indicated they would like to see greater commitment to membership, especially after an EU progress report earlier this year showed that Serbia was only partially aligning its foreign and security policies with the EU's.Serb leaders have said that EU membership is a priority, a goal they hope to achieve around the middle of next decade. At the same time, Serbia has historic and religious ties with Russia, which is helping it prevent the further recognition of Kosovo in international bodies. Additionally, Russia has donated fighter jets and tanks to Serbia and Serb leaders, including President Aleksandar Vucic, are frequent visitors to Moscow.'European Orientation'"You can't be marching in several directions at the same time," Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, who spent years working in the Balkans, said last month in Helsinki. "If you're serious about your European orientation then obviously you make political decisions that bring you closer to it. This is not one of them."The Eurasian Economic Union, established by Russian President Vladimir Putin to create a rival to the EU's open market and help rebuild Moscow's sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union, has four other members aside from Russia.Economists in Belgrade have also questioned the benefit of the trade membership for Serbia, whose main export markets are in western Europe, not in the east."Russia accounts for only one quarter of what we export to Germany and Italy," said Ivan Nikolic, an economist and member of central bank's advisory council. "We are accessing a new market but the question is what we can offer. We are exporting food products, and fruit and vegetables, but we are not price competitive."(Updates to add details on trading bloc in second paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Gordana Filipovic in Belgrade at gfilipovic@bloomberg.net;Misha Savic in Belgrade at msavic2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrea Dudik at adudik@bloomberg.net, Michael WinfreyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump Flirts With $15 Billion Bailout for Iran, Sources Say Posted: 11 Sep 2019 03:48 PM PDT  NICHOLAS KAMMPresident Donald Trump has left the impression with foreign officials, members of his administration, and others involved in Iranian negotiations that he is actively considering a French plan to extend a $15 billion credit line to the Iranians if Tehran comes back into compliance with the Obama-era nuclear deal.Trump has in recent weeks shown openness to entertaining President Emmanuel Macron's plan, according to four sources with knowledge of Trump's conversations with the French leader. Two of those sources said that State Department officials, including Secretary Mike Pompeo, are also open to weighing the French proposal, which would effectively ease the economic sanctions regime that the Trump administration has applied on Tehran for more than a year.The deal put forth by France would compensate Iran for oil sales disrupted by American sanctions. A large portion of Iran's economy relies on cash from oil sales. Most of that money is frozen in bank accounts across the globe. The $15 billion credit line would be guaranteed by Iranian oil. In exchange for the cash, Iran would have to come back into compliance with the nuclear accord it signed with the world's major powers in 2015. Tehran would also have to agree not to threaten the security of the Persian Gulf or to impede maritime navigation in the area. Lastly, Tehran would have to commit to regional Middle East talks in the future. While Trump has been skeptical of helping Iran without preconditions, In public, the president has in public at least hinted at an openness to considering Macron's pitch for placating the Iranian government—a move intended to help bring the Iranians to the negotiating table and to rescue the nuclear agreement that Trump and his former national security adviser John Bolton worked so hard to torpedo.At the G7 meeting in Biarritz, France last month, Trump told reporters that Iran might need a "short-term letter of credit or loan" that could "get them over a very rough patch."Why Trump Wants the Ayatollah's CashIranian Prime Minister Javad Zarif made a surprise appearance at that meeting. To Robert Malley, who worked on Iran policy during the Obama administration, that visit indicated that "Trump must have signaled openness to Macron's idea, otherwise Zarif would not have flown to Biarritz at the last minute." "Clearly, Trump responded to Macron in a way that gave the French president a reason to invite Zarif and Zarif a reason to come," he said.The French proposal would require the Trump administration to issue waivers on Iranian sanctions. That would be a major departure from the Trump administration's so-called "maximum pressure" campaign to exact financial punishments on the regime in Tehran. Ironically, during his time in office, President Barack Obama followed a not-dissimilar approach to bring the Iranians to the negotiating table, throttling Iran's economy with sanctions before pledging relief for talks. The negotiations resulted in the Iran nuke deal that President Trump called "rotten"—and pulled the U.S. out of during his first term.Trump's flirtations with—if not outright enthusiasm toward—chummily sitting down with foreign dictators and America's geopolitical foes are largely driven by his desire for historic photo ops and to be seen as the dealmaker-in-chief. It's a desire so strong that it can motivate him to upturn years worth of his own administration's policymaking and messaging.And while President Trump has not agreed to anything yet, he did signal a willingness to cooperate on such a proposal at various times throughout the last month, including while at the G7 meeting in Biarritz, France, according to four sources with knowledge of the president's conversations about the deal.Several sources told The Daily Beast that foreign officials are expecting Trump to either agree to cooperate on the French deal or to offer to ease some sanctions on Tehran. Meanwhile, President Trump is also considering meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September. "I do believe they'd like to make a deal. If they do, that's great. And if they don't, that's great too," Trump told reporters Wednesday. "But they have tremendous financial difficulty, and the sanctions are getting tougher and tougher." When asked if he would ease sanctions against Iran in order to get a meeting with Iran Trump simply said: "We'll see what happens. I think Iran has a tremendous, tremendous potential."Spokespeople for the State Department, White House, and Treasury did not provide comment for this story. A spokesperson for the National Security Council simply referred The Daily Beast to Trump's Wednesday comments on Iran. Bolton didn't comment on Wednesday, either.Trump's willingness to discuss the credit line with the French, the Iranians and also Japanese President Shinzo Abe frustrated Bolton who had for months had urged Trump against softening his hard line against the regime in Tehran. Bolton, who vociferously opposed the Macron proposal, departed the Trump administration on explicitly and mutually bad terms on Tuesday. On his way out of door, Trump and senior administration officials went out of their way to keep publicly insisting he was fired, as Bolton kept messaging various news outlets that Trump couldn't fire him because he quit. The former national security adviser and lifelong hawk had ruffled so many feathers and made so many enemies in the building that his senior colleagues had repeatedly tried to snitch him out to Trump for allegedly leaking to the media. On Tuesday afternoon, Bolton messaged The Daily Beast to say that allegations about him being a leaker were "flatly incorrect."At a press briefing held shortly after Bolton's exit on Tuesday, neither Secretary of State Mike Pompeo nor Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin showed much sympathy for Bolton's falling star in Trumpworld. "There were many times Ambassador Bolton and I disagreed," Pompeo told reporters. "That's to be sure, but that's true with a lot of people with whom I interact."According to those who know Pompeo well, the secretary's public statement was a glaring understatement.Trump Approved Iran Strikes Knowing Body Count Would Be High"By the end he viewed [Bolton] as an arsonist hell bent on setting fire to anyone's agenda that didn't align with his own—including the president's," said a source close to Pompeo who's discussed Bolton with the secretary in recent weeks. Pompeo "believes him to be among the most self-centered people he's ever worked with. A talented guy, no doubt, but not someone who was willing to subordinate his ego to the president's foreign-policy agenda." Whether or not the president follows through with supporting Macron is unclear, as Trump is known to consider or temporarily back high-profile domestic or foreign policy initiatives, only to quickly backtrack or about-face. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| A white couple is suing their fertility clinic after giving birth to an Asian daughter Posted: 11 Sep 2019 07:54 AM PDT  The unnamed couple say they paid the Institute for Reproductive Health at Saint Barnabas in Livingston, New Jersey $500,00 to get pregnant.
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| Russia's Su-57 Stealth Fighter Might Get 'Shot Down' By This (Not an F-35) Posted: 11 Sep 2019 05:53 AM PDT  But a Russian Su-35.
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| A couple accidentally got $120,000 from the bank. Then they were arrested for spending it Posted: 10 Sep 2019 04:29 AM PDT  The couple from Montoursville, Pennsylvania, allegedly purchased a car, paid their bills and handed the money out to friends, police said.
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| Joshua Wong: Hong Kong's pro-democracy poster child Posted: 11 Sep 2019 01:26 AM PDT  Joshua Wong, the Hong Kong activist soon to visit the United States, was the unlikely hero of the Umbrella Movement that inspired hundreds of thousands to take over Hong Kong's streets for two months in 2014 calling for free elections. Five years later, the 22-year-old is one of the most prominent faces in the city's leaderless pro-democracy movement, often seen on rallies, locked up by police and individually called out by the Chinese government. Scrawny, with gaunt features and a studious frown, Wong has now taken his fight around the globe, recently meeting with politicians in Taiwan, holding talks in Berlin with the German foreign minister, and has speaking engagements scheduled in the United States.
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| Surveillance Video Raises Questions about Washington Police`s Version of Deadly Officer-Involved Shooting Posted: 11 Sep 2019 12:16 PM PDT  Surveillance video of a deadly police shooting in Washington is raising questions about the official statement from the city's police department.
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| Court won't block death penalty trials despite moratorium Posted: 11 Sep 2019 03:28 PM PDT  The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block death penalty cases from proceeding during Gov. Gavin Newsom's moratorium on executions. The justices rejected defense attorneys' arguments that jurors can't realistically gauge the seriousness of imposing a death sentence if they think it's never actually going to be carried out. Newsom halted executions in March for as long as he remains governor, but the death penalty remains on the books and courts have been proceeding on the assumption that executions may one day resume.
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| View Photos of Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Testing Posted: 11 Sep 2019 01:37 PM PDT |
| On anniversary of 9/11, al-Qaida leader pushes for attacks on the U.S., slams ex-jihadis Posted: 11 Sep 2019 02:17 PM PDT  On the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, al-Qaida's leader called on Muslims to carry out similar attacks on Western targets.
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| Trump decries 'Fake Poll' showing his approval rate in the 30s Posted: 10 Sep 2019 11:50 AM PDT  The president bashed an ABC News/Washington Post poll that showed his approval rating falling by 6 points as fears of a recession grow.
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| Duterte Will Ignore South China Sea Ruling for China Oil Deal Posted: 11 Sep 2019 01:21 AM PDT ![Duterte Will Ignore South China Sea Ruling for China Oil Deal]( "Duterte Will Ignore South China Sea Ruling for China Oil Deal") (Bloomberg) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he will ignore an international court ruling affirming his country's territorial claims in the South China Sea in order to advance oil exploration plans with Beijing.Duterte said in a media briefing late Tuesday that Chinese President Xi Jinping had promised a 60-40 revenue sharing scheme favoring the Philippines in oil exploration. The Philippine leader added that Beijing had urged him to set aside a 2016 arbitration nullifying China's claims in the disputed sea. "That is the promise of Xi Jinping," Duterte said.Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin on Wednesday clarified Duterte's remarks, tweeting that "China has never made setting aside the arbitral award a prerequisite to anything."The U.S. State Department has accused China of blocking Southeast Asian nations from accessing an estimated $2.5 trillion in unexploited hydrocarbon resources. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged Asian countries to stand up for their sovereign rights during a trip to Hanoi.After a bilateral meeting late last month, Xi and Duterte agreed to advance oil talks by forming negotiating panels, but came short of a concrete deal.To contact the reporter on this story: Andreo Calonzo in Manila at acalonzo1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Cecilia Yap at cyap19@bloomberg.net, ;Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Chris Kay, Karen LeighFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Why the B-1 Become May Become a Hypersonic Missile Carrier Posted: 11 Sep 2019 12:51 AM PDT  And you thought this old bomber was done.
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| Florida teen tried to hire someone to kill parents with money stolen from them, police say Posted: 11 Sep 2019 12:21 PM PDT ![Florida teen tried to hire someone to kill parents with money stolen from them, police say]( "Florida teen tried to hire someone to kill parents with money stolen from them, police say") A 17-year-old from Florida stole $1,400 from her parents to buy drugs and hire someone to kill them, according to an arrest affidavit.
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| Russia scraps robot Fedor after space odyssey Posted: 11 Sep 2019 06:52 AM PDT  It's mission over for a robot called Fedor that Russia blasted to the International Space Station, the developers said Wednesday, admitting he could not replace astronauts on space walks. There's nothing more for him to do there, he's completed his mission," Yevgeny Dudorov, executive director of robot developers Androidnaya Tekhnika, told RIA Novosti news agency. The silvery anthropomorphic robot cannot fulfill its assigned task to replace human astronauts on long and risky space walks, Dudorov said.
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| 'At that moment I really lost everything': 12-year-old from Bahamas separated from family by US immigration while seeking shelter Posted: 11 Sep 2019 03:17 PM PDT  A 12-year-old Bahamian girl was separated from her family by American immigration officials after she fled to the US from the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Dorian in her homeland.Kaytora Paul was taken away from her godmother after she landed in West Palm Beach, in south Florida.
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