| Polls show Americans have come to support Trump's impeachment much faster than Nixon's or Clinton’s Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:54 AM PDT  President Trump hasn't just crossed the 50 percent threshold on impeachment, peaking at 50.3 percent earlier this week. He's gotten there faster than Richard Nixon — and, for that matter, Bill Clinton, who never got there at all.
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| Family waiting for "the end of time" discovered in farm basement Posted: 18 Oct 2019 05:30 AM PDT  The children reportedly had no idea that there were other people in the world
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| Fox’s Judge Napolitano: G7 at Trump Doral Is as ‘Profound a Violation’ as ‘One Could Create’ Posted: 17 Oct 2019 01:51 PM PDT  Immediately after acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney announced Thursday that President Donald Trump's Doral golf club will host next year's G7 summit, Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano declared such a move represents a clear emoluments clause violation.During Thursday's broadcast of Fox Business Network's Cavuto: Coast to Coast, eponymous host Neil Cavuto noted that the announcement of the G7 location "is effectively saying the president has given himself this contract."Pointing out that previous summits in the United States took place at Camp David and Sea Island, Cavuto said the White House is arguing that holding the event at the president's property is not a violation of the emoluments clause. "I believe the judge has a different notion of that," Cavuto added, turning to Napolitano."It's not my notion," the judge replied. "It's the Constitution's notion. The Constitution does not address profits, it addresses any present, as in a gift, any emolument as in cash of any kind whatever. I'm quoting the emoluments clause, from any king, prince or foreign state."Explaining that this wouldn't be an issue if this were a meeting of U.S. government officials, Napolitano once again stated that the emoluments clause is to prevent the president from receiving gifts or cash from foreign entities. "He has bought himself an enormous headache now with the choice of this," he continued. "This is about as direct and profound a violation of the emoluments clause as one could create."Cavuto, meanwhile, went on to say that there will also be a "spillover effect," asserting that the Doral resort will become a greater attraction in the future because it hosted the international summit.Napolitano, who in recent months has assessed that the president has engaged in numerous unethical and criminal activities, observed that this is "exactly what the emoluments clause was written to prohibit."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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| Chicago's mayor says top cop drinking before incident in car Posted: 18 Oct 2019 04:06 PM PDT  Chicago's mayor said Friday that the city's top police officer told her he'd had "a couple of drinks with dinner" before he fell asleep at a stop sign while driving home, an incident that the chief contends was related to a change in his blood pressure medication. Superintendent Eddie Johnson didn't mention having anything to drink when he spoke to reporters Thursday night, and the department spokesman said officers who responded a 911 call reporting a man asleep in a car at a stop sign didn't observe any signs of impairment. Mayor Lori Lightfoot told the Chicago Sun-Times on Friday that she agreed with Eddie Johnson's decision to request an internal affairs investigation of the Thursday incident to assure the public he's not trying to hide anything about his actions.
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| New ICE Program Exposes Hundreds of Fraudulent ‘Family Units’ Trying to Cross The Border Posted: 18 Oct 2019 05:41 AM PDT  U.S. immigration authorities have discovered hundreds of instances at the border of "family unit fraud," or unrelated individuals posing as families, over the last six months thanks to a new investigative initiative.Authorities exposed 238 fraudulent families presenting 329 false documents, according to the results of an investigation run by Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit in El Paso, Texas, the results of which were announced Thursday.More than 350 of those individuals are facing federal prosecution for crimes including human smuggling, making false statements, conspiracy, and illegal re-entry after removal. Authorities have referred 19 children to U.S. Health and Human Services as a result of this investigation. Another 50 migrants fraudulently claimed to be unaccompanied minors."Some of the most disturbing cases identified involve transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and individuals who are increasingly exploiting innocent children to further their criminal activity," ICE said in a statement.In some cases, criminal organizations made deals with the children's biological parents to transfer children as young as 4 months old to the U.S. and pose as a family unit either for human smuggling purposes or to fraudulently obtain immigration benefits, ICE said."These are examples of the dark side of this humanitarian crisis that our Border Patrol and HSI agents are working tirelessly to identify," said El Paso Sector Interim Chief Gloria Chavez. "We will pursue the highest of judicial consequences for those who commit fraud and exploit innocent children."The Trump administration has attempted to end the "catch and release" policy for migrant family units, which provides migrant families an expedited release into the U.S. as their asylum cases are being processed.Then–acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin McAleenan said last month that the vast majority of migrant families who enter the country illegally will no longer be eligible for "catch and release" due to the implementation of stricter policies. One such policy, the Migrant Protection Protocols, requires that migrants wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are being adjudicated.
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| UPDATE 2-Global watchdog keeps Pakistan on terrorism financing "grey list" Posted: 18 Oct 2019 04:07 AM PDT ![UPDATE 2-Global watchdog keeps Pakistan on terrorism financing "grey list"]( "UPDATE 2-Global watchdog keeps Pakistan on terrorism financing \"grey list\"") A global finance watchdog kept Pakistan off its terrorism financing blacklist on Friday but warned Islamabad it only had until February to improve or face international action. The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, which tackles money laundering, said it was concerned that Pakistan had failed to complete the action plan first by a January deadline, then a May deadline and now October. "The FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2020," it said in a statement.
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| A diplomat warned Joe Biden staffer about Hunter's Ukraine work in 2015. Then he was 'turned away' Posted: 18 Oct 2019 08:33 AM PDT  A US diplomat overseeing the previous administration's Ukraine policy reportedly told House investigators he was "turned away" by a staffer to then-Vice President Joe Biden after sharing concerns about his son's work in the country.George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, said that he approached an aide to Mr Biden in early 2015 with concerns about Hunter Biden's position on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, according to the Washington Post.
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| House GOP Leader Praises Mark Zuckerberg for Political Ads Policy Posted: 18 Oct 2019 09:26 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's decision not to ban political ads that Democrats say are inaccurate drew praise from the top Republican in the House of Representatives Friday.Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, said he appreciated Zuckerberg's comments on Thursday that policing political speech would be undemocratic."The idea of banning speech you might not like is nonsense, but sadly the mindset is creeping into places like college campuses and our presidential campaign platforms," McCarthy told reporters. "Yesterday was a heartwarming reminder that free expression is the best business model in the world."In recent weeks, the presidential campaigns of Democrats Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren have called on Facebook to remove ads from President Donald Trump's campaign that include claims with no evidence. Facebook has declined to do so, raising the larger question of whether such ads on social media should be regulated."I don't think most people want to live in a world where you can only post things that tech companies judge to be 100% true," Zuckerberg said Thursday at Georgetown University in Washington. "People should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying.""In a democracy, I believe people should decide what's credible, not tech companies," Zuckerberg said.\--With assistance from Emily Wilkins.To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton, Laurie AsséoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Volvo launches very first fully electric vehicle: the XC40 Recharge Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:13 AM PDT  Volvo has officially launched its very first EV line and its very first EV: The XC40 small SUV is the first member of the Recharge family. To add to the firsts surrounding this launch, the XC40 small SUV is also the first of the brand equipped with an Android-powered infotainment system -- it's better late than never. This premiere has been coupled with an announcement by the company about their plans to launch a fully electric car every year "with the rest hybrids." Recharge will be the name encapsulating all the brand's electrified vehicles.
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| Romney speculates Turkey called Trump's bluff: 'Are we so weak and inept?' Posted: 17 Oct 2019 03:20 PM PDT  The Utah senator delivers an impassioned speech on the Senate floor that accuses the president of betraying American values.
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| Rep. Nunes tries to use Steele dossier to defend Trump during closed-door hearing Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:18 PM PDT  During a closed-door impeachment meeting on Capitol Hill, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) brought up a topic that surprised some attendees: the Steele dossier. The context, according to three sources familiar with the episode, was his effort to explain why President Trump might be "upset" about Ukraine.
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| Hundreds of police officers have been labeled liars. Some still help send people to prison. Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:26 PM PDT  Across the USA, prosecutors aren't tracking officer misconduct, skirting Supreme Court "Brady" rules and sometimes leading to wrongful convictions.
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| Moms Demand Action founder says advocacy group is not anti-gun Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:08 PM PDT  Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts spoke with CBS News' Major Garrett for this week's episode of "The Takeout"
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| Kashmir apple trade picks up again under shadow of militant attacks Posted: 18 Oct 2019 05:58 AM PDT ![Kashmir apple trade picks up again under shadow of militant attacks]( "Kashmir apple trade picks up again under shadow of militant attacks") More than 10,000 trucks laden with apples left Indian-ruled Kashmir this week in a sign that the territory is returning to normal, according to officials and government data, after India imposed a clampdown on the region in August. Involving some 3.5 million people, apples are the core of Indian Kashmir's economy, which went into a tailspin after phone and internet links were suspended and hundreds of people detained to prevent anti-India protests from erupting in the streets. Thousands of trucks were lined up on the main highway connecting Kashmir, a Muslim-majority territory claimed in whole by India and Pakistan and ruled in part by both, to the rest of India on Thursday, signaling a recovery in the trade half-way through the harvest.
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| Asylum-seeking Mexicans are more prominent at US border Posted: 18 Oct 2019 05:46 PM PDT ![Asylum-seeking Mexicans are more prominent at US border]( "Asylum-seeking Mexicans are more prominent at US border") Lizbeth Garcia tended to her 3-year-old son outside a tent pitched on a sidewalk, their temporary home while they wait for their number to be called to claim asylum in the United States. The 33-year-old fled Mexico's western state of Michoacan a few weeks ago with her husband and five children — ages 3 to 12 — when her husband, a truck driver, couldn't pay fees that criminal gangs demanded for each trailer load. "I'd like to say it's unusual, but it's very common," Garcia said Thursday in Juarez, where asylum seekers gather to wait their turn to seek protection at a U.S. border crossing in El Paso, Texas.
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| Clever-Approved Travel Gear That Looks Good and Works Even Better Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:34 PM PDT |
| Macron Says U.K. Shouldn’t Get New Delay If Johnson Loses Vote Posted: 18 Oct 2019 07:59 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- French President Emmanuel Macron heaped pressure on the British Parliament to back Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, saying the U.K.'s departure from the European Union shouldn't be delayed a moment longer.With Parliament due to vote on the revised agreement on Saturday, Macron's remarks echoed the message Johnson himself has been sending to reticent MPs: it's now or never. "I don't think a new extension should be granted," Macron told reporters after a summit of EU leaders in Brussels, where the deal had been rubber stamped. "The Oct. 31 deadline must be met."Macron's stance increases the risk that the U.K. will crash out of the EU without a deal on Oct. 31. But the reality is more nuanced, according to EU diplomats who doubt the bloc will ever throw the U.K. off a cliff without a safety net. The pound dipped on the comments, and then recovered.Selling the DealAfter sealing a revised deal with the EU on Thursday, Johnson is spending Friday frantically talking to politicians from his own and other parties as he tries to rustle up a majority. The prime minister needs to add 61 votes to the tally his predecessor Theresa May managed when her version of the Brexit deal was defeated for a third and final time in March.The new agreement differs from May's agreement because only Northern Ireland rather than the whole U.K. will continue to apply the EU's customs rules. That's upset the province's Democratic Unionist Party whose MPs say they won't back Johnson's deal on Saturday.If Johnson loses the vote, he's obliged by law to request from the EU another extension by the end of the day. But any postponement must be approved unanimously by the EU's 27 leaders so Macron would have a veto.EU officials were expecting such an intervention by Macron, who made similar noises before approving a Brexit delay in April, but they said that it's very unlikely that he or any other leader would prevent another one, particularly if the U.K. was headed for a general election. While the bloc is just as keen to get Britain's departure over the line as Johnson, it considers a no-deal exit in two weeks a far worse prospect than another postponement.Envoys from the 27 remaining countries and the European Commission are due to meet on Sunday to discuss next steps should Johnson's deal fall.The French have consistently taken a hard line in Brexit negotiations and Macron argues that the tight deadline he insisted on the last time the process was extended helped force Johnson into concessions. Several EU governments privately now regret delaying Brexit from April until October, acknowledging that it took the pressure of the U.K. to pass a deal."I was alone and I don't think I was wrong," Macron said, referring to the decision six months ago.Other leaders were more circumspect on the issue, with Leo Varadkar, the prime minister of Ireland, which stands to be affected most by a no-deal Brexit, saying a delay isn't guaranteed and Luxembourg premier Xavier Bettel insisting the ball was now in the U.K. Parliament's court."We have done our job," he said. "There's a plan A, but there's no plan B."(Updates with context throughout.)\--With assistance from Stephanie Bodoni.To contact the reporters on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net;Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Gordon Sondland, a central figure in the Ukraine scandal, threw Trump and Giuliani under the bus in his opening statement to Congress Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:00 AM PDT  Sondland's role in Ukraine policy has puzzled US officials because as the ambassador to the EU, he shouldn't have been involved in the first place.
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| One year on, migrant caravan leaves unexpected legacy Posted: 18 Oct 2019 06:25 PM PDT  A year ago, thousands of Central American men, women and children chasing the American dream arrived in Mexico in a massive caravan that has left a lasting legacy -- just not the one people generally thought it would. Fleeing chronic poverty and brutal gang violence at home, they banded together in hopes of finding safety in numbers against the dangers of the journey, including criminal gangs that regularly extort, kidnap and kill migrants. The images made an impact around the world: carrying their meager belongings on their backs, many migrants pressed small children to their chests or held them by the hand.
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| Atatiana Jefferson's death highlights a long history of police violence in Fort Worth, and the community says it's time for a 'reckoning' Posted: 18 Oct 2019 08:07 AM PDT  Atatiana Jefferson was shot and killed by Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean. Her death was the sixth fatal police shooting in the city since June.
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| Contractor claims video shows structural flaws prior to Hard Rock Hotel collapse Posted: 16 Oct 2019 07:57 PM PDT  A contractor posted a video arguing it showed structural problems inside the Hard Rock Hotel construction site two days before its deadly collapse.
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| View 2020 Chevrolet Corvette vs. Porsche 718 Cayman Cargo Comparison Photos Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:26 AM PDT |
| Clinton email probe finds no deliberate mishandling of classified information Posted: 18 Oct 2019 05:09 PM PDT  A U.S. State Department investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state has found no evidence of deliberate mishandling of classified information by department employees. The investigation, the results of which were released on Friday by Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley's office, centered on whether Clinton, who served as the top U.S. diplomat from 2009 to 2013, jeopardized classified information by using a private email server rather than a government one.
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| Wisconsin school guard fired for repeating racial slur Posted: 17 Oct 2019 02:55 PM PDT ![Wisconsin school guard fired for repeating racial slur]( "Wisconsin school guard fired for repeating racial slur") A black security guard at a Wisconsin high school who was fired after he says he repeated a racial slur while telling a student who had called him that word not to use it has filed a grievance seeking his job back. The Madison School District has a policy forbidding employees from saying racial slurs. West High Principal Karen Boran sent an email to families on Wednesday asaying that racial slurs are not acceptable in schools, regardless of context or circumstance, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
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| Meet the Nanchang Q-5: China's Nuclear Bomber Posted: 18 Oct 2019 07:36 AM PDT  Beijing's got deterrence.
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| Trump's 'meltdown' apparently started when Pelosi told him 'all roads with you lead to Putin' Posted: 16 Oct 2019 10:37 PM PDT ![Trump's 'meltdown' apparently started when Pelosi told him 'all roads with you lead to Putin']( "Trump's 'meltdown' apparently started when Pelosi told him 'all roads with you lead to Putin'") Congressional leaders met with President Trump at the White House to discuss the mess in Syria on Wednesday, and it didn't go well. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Trump had a "meltdown" and she was praying for his health. Using his patented I'm-rubber-you're-glue strategy, Trump responded that Pelosi had an "unhinged meltdown" -- posting a photo that didn't appear to have the intended effect -- and tweeted "Pray for her."The 20-minute meeting started with Trump saying he didn't want to be there, The New York Times reports, citing several Democratic officials and noting that "the White House did not dispute their accounts." Trump brought up a bizarre letter he sent to Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, claiming his "nasty" missive shows he didn't green-light Turkey's invasion of Syria. Pelosi noted that the House had just overwhelmingly condemned Trump's decision to withdraw the handful of U.S. troops that had been keeping Turkey at bay.Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) started to read Trump a quote from his former defense secretary, James Mattis, at which point Trump called Mattis "the world's most overrated general" because "he wasn't tough enough" and "I captured ISIS" faster than he'd said was possible. Pelosi said Russia has long sought a "foothold in the Middle East" and he had just given Russian President Vladimir Putin such an opening, adding: "All roads with you lead to Putin." That's when the already-tense meeting "reached a fever pitch," the Times reports.The Associated Press recounts the next few exchanges:Trump: "I hate ISIS more than you do."Pelosi: "You don't know that."Schumer: "Is your plan to rely on the Syrians and the Turks?"Trump: "Our plan is to keep the American people safe."Pelosi: "That's not a plan. That's a goal."After Trump called Pelosi either a "third-rate" or "third-grade" politician, House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said "this is not useful," and the Democrats walked out. Trump said: "Goodbye, we'll see you at the polls." White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said of the meeting: "The president was measured, factual, and decisive, while Speaker Pelosi's decision to walk out was baffling, but not surprising."
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| Return of Argentine Peronism throws shadow over Falklands Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:15 AM PDT  Argentina is going to the polls on October 27 with a Peronist politician backed by former president Cristina Kirchner expected to win an outright majority, something that has got Falkland Islanders worried. The Falklands have been in British hands since 1833 but Argentina has waged a diplomatic battle -- that spilled into economic and then actual warfare -- since the 1960s to try to gain control of the archipelago. Argentine troops invaded the windswept islands for 74 days in 1982, before Britain swiftly defeated them.
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| Atatiana Jefferson's neighbor thought he asked police to do a wellness check, but the police didn’t investigate it that way Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:01 AM PDT  Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was killed in her home on Saturday by Aaron Dean, a Fort Worth police officer who has resigned and been charged with murder.
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| Plane collides with pickup truck while landing, pilot killed Posted: 18 Oct 2019 04:07 PM PDT  Witnesses reported the airplane was at an altitude of just 5 feet as it crossed a county road near the airstrip and struck a pickup truck.
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| What attacked a 13-foot great white shark pulled from the ocean? One that is even bigger. Posted: 18 Oct 2019 10:07 AM PDT  Ocean researchers have pulled a 13-foot-long great white shark from the seas that had bite marks from an even bigger predator.
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| Turkish-Mexican national arrested in Cambodia amid alleged Gulen links Posted: 18 Oct 2019 01:38 AM PDT ![Turkish-Mexican national arrested in Cambodia amid alleged Gulen links]( "Turkish-Mexican national arrested in Cambodia amid alleged Gulen links") Cambodian police have arrested the Turkish-Mexican former director of a school run by the movement of U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara blames for a failed 2016 coup, his wife said on Friday. Osman Karaca, former director of Zaman International School, was arrested by eight policemen while he was at a bank on Oct. 14 in the capital Phnom Penh, said his wife Grace Karaca, who fears he will be deported to Turkey. "That's the last we have heard of him," Karaca told Reuters on Friday from Mexico, where she is living with her son.
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| Controlled blasts to bring down cranes at collapse site Posted: 17 Oct 2019 02:36 PM PDT  Two giant, badly damaged construction cranes towering over a partially collapsed hotel project are to be demolished Friday with a series of controlled explosions in hopes of dropping them straight down without damaging nearby businesses and historic buildings around the site at the edge of the French Quarter. Fire Chief Tim McConnell said work was beginning Thursday in hopes of bringing the multi-ton structures down ahead of approaching tropical weather. Forecasters said a tropical storm could form in the Gulf of Mexico and affect the area by Friday night.
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| Mayor Pete Buttigieg Drops Fundraiser Tied to Laquan McDonald Coverup Posted: 18 Oct 2019 09:10 AM PDT  REUTERSMayor Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign announced Friday that the co-host of a controversial campaign fundraiser was dropping out amid sharp public criticism over the role he played in delaying the release of a video of an infamous 2014 shooting death of a black teenage boy.The would-be co-host, Steve Patton, is a former Chicago city attorney who pushed to withhold video depicting the death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald until after a contentious mayoral runoff election, more than a year after a judge had ordered the video to be released. Patton already donated $5,600 to Buttigieg in June—a donation that the South Bend mayor's campaign said it would be returning. "Transparency and justice for Laquan McDonald is more important than a campaign contribution," Chris Meagher, the Buttigieg campaign's national press secretary, told The Daily Beast. "We are returning the money he contributed to the campaign and the money he has collected. He is no longer a co-host for the event and will not be attending."Patton's role in the Friday fundraiser, first reported by the Associated Press, prompted sharp criticism of Buttigieg, including from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the city's most prominent civil rights leader, who called on the Democratic nominee to "adjust his schedule."Buttigieg's campaign had initially declined to comment on the story, directing the Associated Press to his "Douglass Plan" to end systemic racism.Buttigieg, who is struggling in the polls among black voters, has had difficulty trying to reconcile his sweeping proposals for deconstructing structural racism with his record as the mayor, where he fired the city's first black police chief and has conceded that he has failed in diversifying the city's law enforcement. South Bend's police department is 90 percent white while the city itself is 27 percent black.In June, Buttigieg left the campaign trail following the shooting death of a black man, Eric Logan, by a white police officer. At a town hall discussing the shooting, Buttigieg was heckled by angry South Bend residents who demanded that he focus on the city's problems with racism in its police force rather than his run for the White House."I just want you to know that we're not running from this," Buttigieg said at the time. "Of course I'm upset. A man died in this city at the hands of one of the people in charge of protecting the city."Other president campaigns were quick to jump on Patton's participation in the fundraiser as evidence of misplaced priorities. Rob Flaherty, digital director for Buttigieg rival Beto O'Rourke, tweeted that it was "good to see that despite The Pete Pivot, he's remaining consistent on some things."According to Federal Election Commission filings, Patton donated $2,700 to O'Rourke's 2018 campaign for the U.S. Senate.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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| U.S. Air Force F-35s Are Knocking on Russia’s Back Door Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:30 PM PDT  The U.S. Air Force has stood up a fighter squadron to operate F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters in Alaska. It might not be long before F-35s join Alaska-based F-22s in intercepting Russian bombers and other warplanes that frequently probe American defenses.
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| Mystery traders 'made $1.8bn from stock bet' placed hours before Trump tweeted talks with China were ‘back on track’ Posted: 18 Oct 2019 01:16 PM PDT  */Unknown actors may have made billions from the turmoil Donald Trump has created in the markets through erratic tweets, shoot-from-the-hip foreign policy, and the trade war with China, according to a new report.
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| U.N. Investigates Possible Chemical Weapons Use by Turkish Forces in Syria Posted: 18 Oct 2019 06:33 AM PDT  United Nations chemical-weapons inspectors announced that they are investigating whether Turkish forces used chemical weapons in their invasion of Syria, the Guardian reported Friday.The Kurds have accused Turkey of using white phosphorous during their recent incursion into northeastern Syria. The Kurdish Red Crescent claims that six patients, including civilians and military members, have been hospitalized in the city of Hasakah due to burns from "unknown weapons."The organization could not confirm chemical-weapons usage, saying it was "working together with our international partners to investigate this subject." However, a British chemical-weapons expert who examined a photo of one of the victims said the burns on the victim were likely from a chemical weapon."The most likely culprit is white phosphorus," said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commander of Britain's chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear regiment. "It is a horrific weapon, and has been used repeatedly during the Syrian civil war; unfortunately its use has become increasingly normalized."White phosphorous can be used legally as a smokescreen or as an incendiary at night to illuminate the battlefield, and is held by militaries worldwide. The use of white phosphorous as a weapon, however, is illegal under international law because it causes severe burns upon contact with skin.While some Kurdish officials alleged that Turkey used "unconventional weapons" in Syria, Turkey denies this."It is a fact known by everyone that there are no chemical weapons in the inventory of the Turkish armed forces," said Turkish defense minister Hulusi Akar.Turkey invaded northeast Syria on October 9 to clear a "safe zone" in which to resettle 3.6 million Syrian refugees residing in Turkey, as well as to combat Kurdish groups in the region it considers terrorist organizations. Some of these Kurdish groups were instrumental in the U.S.-led fight against ISIS in Syria.Syrian president Bashar Assad has repeatedly used chemical weapons against Syrian citizens in that country's civil war.
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| Cathay woes pile up as passenger figures dip again in September Posted: 17 Oct 2019 11:44 PM PDT  Cathay Pacific cut its economic outlook on Friday following a second successive drop in monthly passenger traffic after the airline faced a backlash from Beijing over Hong Kong's heated pro-democracy protests. The marquee brand has had a torrid few months, coming under fire from Chinese state media and authorities because some of its 27,000 employees took part in -- or were sympathetic to -- the anti-government demonstrations. Overall passenger traffic fell 7.1 percent in September, the airline said, with inbound traffic into its Hong Kong hub plunging 38 percent for the second month running.
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| Long-extinct Tasmanian tigers spotted at least eight times, officials say Posted: 18 Oct 2019 10:23 AM PDT  Between 2016 to 2019, the report notes seven sightings of the Tasmanian tiger. It "had black stripes on the back side of the body."
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| Longest non-stop flight to take off from New York to Sydney Posted: 18 Oct 2019 02:28 AM PDT  A plane and its passengers are set to test the mental and physical limits of long-haul aviation when Qantas operates the first direct flight by a commercial airline from New York to Sydney this weekend. In the first of three "ultra long-haul" test flights planned by Australia's national flag carrier this year, researchers will monitor the effects on passengers of the 19-hour non-stop journey. Up to 40 passengers and crew -- most of them Qantas employees -- will be on board the Boeing 787-9 when it departs New York on Friday.
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| Amazon fish wears nature's 'bullet-proof vest' to thwart piranhas Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:08 AM PDT  One of the world's largest freshwater fish is protected by the natural equivalent of a "bullet-proof vest," helping it thrive in the dangerous waters of the Amazon River basin with flexible armor-like scales able to withstand ferocious piranha attacks. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego and University of California, Berkeley on Wednesday described the unique structure and impressive properties of the dermal armor of the fish, called Arapaima gigas.
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| Activists angry police who shoot can wait to face questions Posted: 18 Oct 2019 07:23 AM PDT  After a police officer fatally shoots someone, it can take days or even weeks before the public or his supervisors hear the officer's version of what happened. In many states, that so-called cooling off period is carved out in state law or in a police department's contract. Law enforcement officials and experts say officers need to be able to collect their thoughts, so they don't provide details that are tainted by the trauma of the shooting.
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| Netanyahu's Latest Call for Unity Government Is Quickly Rejected Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:37 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Benjamin Netanyahu's main rival turned down the Israeli prime minister's renewed call to set aside political differences and join a national unity governmentNetanyahu has until late next week to form a ruling coalition or risk the country's president handing the mandate to former military chief Benny Gantz. Short of a majority in parliament, the premier's efforts to coax Gantz's Blue and White bloc, the largest in the legislature, into a power-sharing agreement have so far failed."All of Israel's citizens look around and see how the Middle East is changing for the worse in front of our eyes," Netanyahu said Thursday in a tweet. "Those who need to know, know that the security challenges are growing, and they are not waiting for us."The prime minister didn't specify the threats facing Israel. But his statement follows the decision by President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria as he seeks to end America's presence in long-running Middle Eastern conflicts.The U-turn has boosted Israel's main regional foe, Iran, which is a key supporter of the government in Damascus, and stoked speculation in Israel over the future reliability of the country's superpower patron.Gantz quickly rejected Netanyahu's offer."I received a proposal today that one must refuse,'' Gantz said in a tweet. "We will wait for the President's mandate and begin serious negotiations for the establishment of a liberal unity government that will lead to change and restore hope to the citizens of Israel."\--With assistance from Ivan Levingston.To contact the reporter on this story: Yaacov Benmeleh in Tel Aviv at ybenmeleh@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Paul AbelskyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Parents of Dead Teen Compare Trump Cronies to ‘Henchmen’ at Meeting Britain Denies Asking For Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:07 AM PDT  Carlo Allegri/ReutersThe grieving family of 19-year-old Harry Dunn have spoken out about their ill-fated meeting with Donald Trump at the White House in a new interview. Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn told CNN on Thursday morning that the president "doesn't understand" how the accident that killed their son has "broken" their family. Dunn was killed when 42-year-old American Anne Sacoolas, who is married to an intelligence officer who was working at a spy base in Croughton, England, hit his motorcycle head-on while driving down the wrong side of the road on Aug. 27. Sacoolas initially cooperated with authorities, but then left the country under diplomatic-immunity protections in early September before authorities could formally investigate her or charge her with a crime. Dunn's parents had only hoped to convince Trump to send Sacoolas back to the U.K. for justice, not to meet her in person. Radd Seiger, the family spokesman, who appeared on CNN with the family, added that during the visit, new National Security Adviser Robert C. O'Brien "snarled" at him and jeered that Sacoolas "would never return" to the U.K. "I used to look up to that institution," Seiger told CNN. "But it's a bunch of henchmen trying to make him look good."During the White House meeting, Trump surprised Dunn's parents with the announcement that Sacoolas, who they had made clear they would only meet on U.K. soil if she returned to assist the investigation, was behind a door waiting. Grieving Parents 'Ambushed' by Trump, Who Had Teen's Killer Waiting at White HouseIn an email to The Daily Beast on Thursday, Seiger shot down White House denials that photographers were present for the supposed meetup. "We do not know who the photographer(s) were or which organization they were from," the family spokesman said. "But they were there and had cameras and were clearly poised to grab that "poster picture shot" in the event that the president's callous plan had come off."Seiger continued: "Further, if President Trump really had Harry's best interests at heart and really only wanted to comfort them he would have a) given advance notice of his intention to convene such a meeting with Mrs Sacoolas b) sought consent from us instead of springing it on us c) arranged for it to take place in a neutral and controlled environment with mediators and therapists around and out of the glare of the media spotlight [and] d) called off his attack dog Robert O'Brien who snapped, snarled and intimated his way through the meeting within feet of grieving people."On Wednesday, Trump said he arranged the meeting at the request of U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been very vocal about Sacoolas returning to England. Johnson had earlier insisted Sacoolas return and promised he would take the matter up personally with the president.But on Thursday, Downing Street denied it had asked for such a meeting between Sacoolas and Dunn's parents to take place and had not been informed or involved in the planning. "The P.M. and the president spoke last Wednesday and the P.M. asked the president to do all he could to resolve the issue," a spokeswoman for the prime minister's office told The Guardian. "During the conversation, the president raised a possibility of a meeting with Anne Sacoolas at the White House, but at that stage we weren't aware of any plans for the family to go [to the U.S.], so it wasn't discussed further."The Sacoolas family, who have assembled a team of lawyers versed in international diplomacy and extradition, are expected to return to the U.K. this weekend. 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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| See This Plane? It Was Suppose to Turn Aircraft Carriers into Scrap Metal Posted: 18 Oct 2019 01:23 AM PDT  As in make them obsolete--but the carrier remains. Here is what happened.
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| Income Inequality Has Soared While Taxes Have Become Dramatically Less Progressive . . . or Not Posted: 18 Oct 2019 11:00 AM PDT  The truth gets its boots on pretty quickly in the Internet age. On October 6, the New York Times ran a piece broadcasting the striking claims made by the economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in the new book The Triumph of Injustice. Just a couple of weeks later, it's clear that these claims are built atop a foundation of often questionable and sometimes indefensible assumptions.Per Saez and Zucman, while the rich have been pulling in more and more of the nation's income — grabbing about a fifth of it now, double what they got a few decades back — they're paying lower and lower tax rates. Indeed, in 2018, the richest 400 Americans paid the lowest overall tax rate (including state, local, and federal taxes) of any income group. While the very richest Americans in 1950 paid two-thirds of their income in taxes, in 2018 it was down below a quarter; even the full top 0.1 percent barely pay more than the bottom 90 percent these days. It's not that much of an exaggeration to say we have a flat tax system, not a progressive one.The debunkings came from everywhere: a Twitter thread by Journal of Public Economics editor Wojtek Kopczuk, an article by the economic historian Phil Magness, an academic response from the economist David Splinter, a report from the Republican side of the Senate's Joint Economic Committee (JEC), a traditional book review in Le Grand Continent, and more.Let's take the two claims, rising inequality and rich people paying low tax rates, in turn. Both of these problems are probably overstated, in the latter case quite dramatically, in Saez and Zucman's numbers. And I say "probably" only because no one writing about these trends should pretend that even the best estimates are much more than guesswork, and necessarily so, because the data here are spotty and there are legitimate disagreements over what should even count as income and tax payments.The alleged rise of income inequality was recently the focus of some congressional hearings about the government's plan to start reporting more data on the topic, as well as an extensive but readable summary of the academic literature from the JEC Republicans. You might think this would be an easy question to answer, whether the rich are pulling away from the rest of us, because the IRS can tell you how much income people report to the government. But — I hope you're sitting down — not all income is reported to the government. And that's only the first big obstacle to measuring inequality accurately.We know from the "national accounts," the data we use to monitor overall economic activity, approximately how much money goes unreported overall. But to account for the missing money while measuring inequality, we need to know how much unreported income goes specifically to the rich versus the poor, and that is hard to do. Splinter, for example, argues that Saez and Zucman use a method that gives too much of this income to the rich; Splinter's own approach relies on data from IRS audits and gives more of it to folks down the income scale.If your eyes are glazing over, I have bad news: As the JEC report details, this is only the first of many technical decisions researchers must make that affect the results. Should we worry about income inequality before or after taxes are taken out? Should we include governmental transfers as income? Should we analyze married couples together or separately, bearing in mind the decline of marriage in recent decades, especially among the poor? How to handle corporate profits that are retained rather than given out to shareholders? How to handle stocks that have grown in value but have not been sold?The JEC report provides a remarkable buffet of options to anyone wanting to find a study to cite in favor of a preferred narrative, with the general pattern being that Saez and Zucman's work is on the high end. By all accounts, pre-tax income has become more concentrated at the top, though this trend is more dramatic in some estimates than others. But the share of post-tax income going to the top 1 percent may have risen only from 7.2 to 8.5 percent from 1979 to 2015.If it's hard to tell how much money people make, it's even harder to calculate their total tax rates, which requires you to know not only their income but also their payments to several levels of government. Once again the IRS is very helpful when it comes to what's reported to the federal government, but then you also have to estimate how much money people across the income spectrum spend on state income taxes, sales and property taxes, etc. It's no easy task.And here too, beyond problems with the basic data, there are arguments over what to include. A big one — a way that The Triumph of Injustice departs even from its authors' own previous work — has to do with the tax on corporate profits. Since corporations are just legal entities, they don't really pay these taxes; people do. And there's a lot of debate over how much of this tax burden falls on corporate shareholders, as opposed to other folks, including workers and customers, who tend to be less wealthy and might benefit if the government didn't take this money. Faced with this conundrum, the right-leaning Tax Foundation will point to studies showing "that labor bears between 50 and 100 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax," while the left-leaning Tax Policy Center assigns 60 percent of the burden to shareholders, 20 percent to capital in general (because the corporate tax has spillover effects for other forms of capital), and 20 percent to labor.Saez and Zucman's approach? To assume the entire corporate tax falls on shareholders, and to make this clear only after their number-crunching has been reported as fact in the national media. As the economist Tyler Cowen put it in a scathing post, "no Western fiscal authority I have heard of thinks of tax incidence in these terms." And as this animation from Kopczuk shows, this new assumption largely explains a big change in the trend for rich people's taxes even relative to Saez and Zucman's own approach in a recent paper with Thomas Piketty:> So why is sky falling in the S-Z book? Recall this animation. There are just two changes of relevance here. One is corporate tax incidence. This is what turns very mild decline in progressivity into rapid drop. The other somewhat important one is treatment of capital gains pic.twitter.com/vOQchHMGAY> > -- Wojtek Kopczuk (@wwwojtekk) October 15, 2019There are other points too at which anyone making a chart like this needs to make decisions about what to include as taxes, and for whom. For instance, what are we to make of "refundable" income-tax credits that are paid even to people with no income-tax liability to offset? Should we treat those as offsetting the other taxes that people pay, which after all is one of their purposes? Or should we just classify them as outright transfers, not part of the tax system at all? Unsurprisingly, Saez and Zucman do not include them, because they would boost income and thereby reduce taxes as a percentage of income for the poor.As with inequality, we can point to other sources of data on tax progressivity to show that Saez and Zucman are an outlier. Splinter's response illustrates this, and so does this from Jason Furman, who headed the Obama administration's Council of Economic Advisers:> The standard data shows that the tax system is overall progressive. This chart combines CBO estimates for federal taxes with ITEP estimates for state & local taxes. Federal income taxes highly progressive, when you add in payroll/state/local/etc. is still progressive but less so. pic.twitter.com/WTOgm58Fyo> > -- Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) October 7, 2019At every step of the way, Saez and Zucman made decisions that skewed the income distribution toward the top and the tax burden away from it. You can have a reasonable debate about the best way to analyze these data and what they say about our tax policies. But it does no one any favors to treat these estimates as established fact, the way the New York Times did.
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| A day without teachers: 32,000+ educators in Chicago went on strike. Here's what happened Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:29 PM PDT  Chicago Public Schools teachers went on strike Thursday morning, seeking smaller class sizes, more support staff and a pay raise.
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