| Impeachment reveals rifts as GOP argues over how to defend Trump Posted: 26 Oct 2019 07:33 AM PDT  Public support for impeachment of President Trump is rising — and so is anxiety among Republicans who worry that the White House has not done enough to coordinate an aggressive response.
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| Number of bodies found near Mexican resort town rises to 42 Posted: 27 Oct 2019 11:30 AM PDT ![Number of bodies found near Mexican resort town rises to 42]( "Number of bodies found near Mexican resort town rises to 42") Searching Mothers of Sonora uncovered a mass grave with the remains of 13 people inside, located near the popular beach resort town of Puerto Peñasco.
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| Driver charged as more Vietnamese feared among 39 UK truck victims Posted: 26 Oct 2019 10:54 AM PDT  British police investigating the deaths of 39 people in a refrigerated truck charged the driver on Saturday with manslaughter and people trafficking, as families in Vietnam expressed fear their loved ones were among the dead. The 25-year-old from Northern Ireland was "charged with 39 counts of manslaughter, conspiracy to traffic people, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and money laundering", Essex police said. Three more people are in custody in Britain over the investigation, the country's largest murder probe since the 2005 London suicide bombings.
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| South Korea Is Still Having Big Problems With Corruption Posted: 27 Oct 2019 09:00 AM PDT  A bad day for the Moon administration.
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| The Latest: Hospital, jail evacuate over California fire Posted: 26 Oct 2019 09:20 PM PDT  Evacuations have hit a hospital and jail as authorities fight a Northern California wildfire that is spurring blackouts and forcing people out of neighborhoods. The Sonoma sheriff's office says inmates at the North County Detention Facility in Santa Rosa was cleared Saturday and inmates were taken to be housed in Alameda County. A Sutter Health statement says Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital started evacuating roughly 101 patients Saturday night to bring them to other facilities.
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| Hong Kong Protests Flare for 21st Weekend Amid Global Unrest Posted: 27 Oct 2019 04:36 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong pro-democracy activists demonstrated for the 21st straight weekend as unrest inspired by the movement spread around the globe, from South America to Europe to the Middle East.Police fired tear gas on Sunday at protesters in Tsim Sha Tsui who blocked roads and disrupted traffic. That followed a night of clashes in the New Territories district of Yuen Long and a peaceful rally that drew thousands in Central. Some protesters set fire to shops in Jordan and hurled petrol bombs at a police station in Sham Shui Po, an area in Kowloon, while others threw smoke grenades at train exits.The Monday morning commute was normal, with nearly all train lines running as scheduled. Rail operator MTR Corp. announced that all subway lines would shut down at 11 p.m., except for the Airport Express.The rallies have become increasingly violent over the course of October, with two protesters shot and a police officer slashed. Efforts by Hong Kong's authorities to quell the protests have largely failed, from banning marches and withdrawing the proposed extradition bill, to using an emergency law to outlaw face masks and pledging to make housing more affordable.The protests have been cited as inspiration for demonstrators around the world who've flooded the streets of major cities this month over economic inequality, regional grievances and alleged corruption.Spanish authorities are facing down separatist riots in Catalonia. In Chile, opposition to a 4-cent subway-fare hike has snowballed into the worst unrest there in decades, with at least 18 people killed so far. And in Lebanon, nationwide protests for more than a week, including hundreds of thousands demonstrating in Beirut, have pressured the country's leader to shake up his cabinet. There have also been protests in Iraq.Last week, reports surfaced that China's leaders were mulling a plan to replace Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam by early next year in a bid to calm public anger.Data due in Hong Kong this week will likely signal a technical recession is under way after a contraction in the second quarter. The benchmark Hang Seng Index tumbled 8.6% last quarter, the biggest loss among major global gauges tracked by Bloomberg.(Adds details on commute in third paragraph.)\--With assistance from Denise Wee.To contact the reporter on this story: Iain Marlow in Hong Kong at imarlow1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Gregory Turk, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Could Trump Serve a Second Term if Ousted? It's Up to the Senate Posted: 27 Oct 2019 09:12 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- With chances rapidly increasing that President Donald Trump will be impeached by the House and tried in the Senate, an intriguing question has reared its head: Could he be ousted only to try to return to the White House in 2020 in a Trumpian bid for redemption and revenge?Like so much of the coming impeachment showdown, that decision rests entirely with the Senate. The Constitution famously grants senators the sole power to convict and remove a president -- something that has never been done. What is seldom discussed is a more obscure clause of the Constitution that allows the Senate discretion to take a second, even more punitive step, to disqualify the person it convicts from holding "any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States."Imposing that penalty would effectively bar the president from reclaiming his old job. In an added twist, tacking on the extra punishment requires only a majority vote in the Senate, not the two-thirds -- or 67 senators -- required to convict.For now, the idea of disqualifying Trump is the remotest of hypotheticals, since it would first require the Senate to vote to impeach and remove him. That seems far-fetched, given how little appetite Republicans in the chamber have shown so far for deserting him, despite the flood of damaging revelations that have come forth in the impeachment inquiry. But if nearly two dozen Republicans did vote to impeach him, it would take only a simple majority to banish him from the presidency for life.The little-known constitutional quirk -- which has been applied unevenly in the cases of federal judges removed from office -- is only one example of what can happen in the freewheeling process of a presidential impeachment, an exceedingly rare and constantly evolving proceeding that is replete with untested precedents.The likelihood of an impeachment trial has senators and aides reading up on the process, with a lot to digest. Uncertainty is rife. Could the Senate censure Trump as an alternative to ousting him, a proposal that was defeated on procedural grounds during the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton? Is a motion to dismiss the articles of impeachment in order -- and if so, when?Then there are much larger questions. Could new revelations about Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to smear his political rivals shake Republicans from strongly backing him? How would Congress impose its will on the president, and would he comply? Would the courts intervene, and what would they have to say?Some constitutional scholars wonder whether the disqualification clause even applies to a president, but the consensus is that it was written precisely for that purpose when the authors of the Constitution gathered in Philadelphia in 1787."If we know anything about what the framers were particularly thinking of when they were drafting the impeachment clauses, it was that they had the president clearly in mind," said Frank Bowman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Missouri and author of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump."Now 73, Trump might not even be interested in running again if he were ousted by a Senate dominated by members of his own party. But for a president who is always spoiling for a fight, it might be sweet payback to be reelected by voters after Democratic and Republican lawmakers banded together to give him the boot.At least one constitutional expert said that given the nature of the allegations against Trump -- that he abused his power to enlist foreign help in next year's election -- disqualifying him would be an illogical penalty."If the impeachment is based on the Ukraine phone call and activity around that, and the idea is that he is improperly using his office to get dirt on his opponent, the remedy to that is to remove him from office," said Edward Foley, an election law authority and constitutional law professor at The Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. "If the fear is the incumbent can't fight a fair fight, then disable the candidate's ability to not wage a fair fight."Of the eight federal judges who have been removed from the bench for crimes or misconduct, just three were disqualified from future office. The most notable person who was not barred was Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla. Hastings, a former federal district judge, was tossed out by the Senate in 1989 on bribery accusations despite being acquitted in a criminal trial, only to be elected in 1992 to the House, where he still serves. (Some scholars argue that an ousted federal officer could not be barred from running for Congress in any event.)The case of Hastings was a cautionary tale for congressional officials handling the impeachment in 2010 of Judge G. Thomas Porteous of Louisiana on bribery and perjury charges. They made sure to not only convict and remove the judge but to disqualify him as well.Yet disqualification remained something of an afterthought, and the Senate nearly missed its chance to do so. After the vote to convict Porteous, which automatically carries the penalty of removal from office, senators raced for the exits amid confusion over whether a second vote was needed on the future ban. It turned out one was, and senators were called back to cast a hasty vote of disqualification, which passed 94-2.That overwhelming margin was not needed. The Senate has concluded, based on its own precedents, that disqualification can be done with a simple majority. The Constitution explicitly requires a two-thirds vote for conviction but does not specify the margin needed for disqualification, so parliamentarians have ruled that the default for Senate votes is sufficient.Some scholars believe that such a potentially significant penalty should require a more definitive vote, arguing that a two-thirds supermajority should be the standard for both punishments."It should be invoked through the same kind of vote," said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina and author of "Impeachment: What Everyone Needs to Know.""It is not clear why one should be easier than the other," he added.The lower threshold has driven some speculation that even if the Senate did not convict Trump, it might still be able to disqualify him from future office on a simple majority vote. But that notion is generally dismissed as unconstitutional, since the ban on future office has to flow out of conviction on articles of impeachment."It is a sentencing provision," Bowman said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Man Opens Fire in Georgia Walmart Dies After Turning Gun on Himself: Police Posted: 26 Oct 2019 10:56 AM PDT  No one besides the shooter was injured
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| U.S. lawmakers will press Boeing CEO for answers on 737 MAX crashes Posted: 27 Oct 2019 02:41 PM PDT ![U.S. lawmakers will press Boeing CEO for answers on 737 MAX crashes]( "U.S. lawmakers will press Boeing CEO for answers on 737 MAX crashes") The head of a U.S. Senate panel reviewing two catastrophic Boeing 737 MAX crashes told Reuters ahead of hearings this week that the plane would not return to U.S. skies until "99.9% of the American public" and policymakers are convinced it is safe. Boeing Co Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg will testify for two days before Congress starting on Tuesday, which is the anniversary of the Lion Air 737 MAX crash in Indonesia, the first of two crashes within five months that killed a total of 346 people. "Clearly the accidents didn't have to happen and I don't think there was sufficient attention to how different pilots would react to signals in the cockpit," Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee that will hold the first hearing, said in an interview on Friday.
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| Flight attendant alleges pilots watched a livestream of the plane's bathroom Posted: 27 Oct 2019 08:41 AM PDT  A flight attendant is suing Southwest Airlines after she reported a disturbing discovery she made in a plane's cockpit. A lawsuit filed by Renee Steinaker alleges that she was working on a flight between Pittsburgh and Phoenix when she entered the cockpit and noticed an iPad mounted on the plane's windshield, displaying what appeared to be live footage of the plane's bathroom.
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| This Is How America Can Stop China From Dominating the South China Sea Posted: 27 Oct 2019 05:00 AM PDT  America can't do it alone.
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| Vietnam takes forensic samples to help in truck deaths case Posted: 27 Oct 2019 07:47 AM PDT  Police in central Vietnam said Sunday that they have taken forensic samples from residents who believe their family members may be among the 39 victims found dead last week in the back of a truck in England. Police in Nghe An province took samples including hair and nails from the family members to try to help identify the victims, the VNExpress news website reported. Up to 24 Vietnamese families had reported their missing family members to local authorities as of Sunday afternoon, the website said.
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| 180,000 evacuated as wildfire and electricity blackout hits California wine country Posted: 27 Oct 2019 04:07 PM PDT  A total of 180,000 people have been ordered to evacuate from a huge swath of northern California's wine country as the state was hit by a destructive wildfire and the biggest electricity black out in its history. The Kinkade fire covered an area of 40 square miles and predictions of high gusts, known as the "diablo winds," fueled fears it could spread further. Some 77 buildings, including 31 homes, had already burned to the ground, and the fire was only 10 per cent contained. The blaze encroached on wineries in Sonoma County, a region full of internationally renowned vintners. Thousands of firefighters were battling the fire and a state of emergency has been declared. Dominic Foppoli,mayor of the town of Windsor, said: "This is a life-threatening situation and a danger to our entire town." Pacific Gas & Electric, the energy company, decided to shut down power as a precaution to 2.35 million people. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California gov, called the black out "infuriating and unacceptable." He said: "We are going to do our best to get through these high wind events and get these lights back on, and do everything in our power to make sure PG&E; is never in a position where they're doing this to us again." The Democrat governor has blamed the bankrupt utility for lackluster investment in its infrastructure. A winery on fire in Healdsburg, California Credit: AFP According to the US National Weather Service the area was facing an "historic wind event" which could lead to "erratic fire behaviour" and send embers for miles. Warnings were issued that the gusts could knock down power lines and spark more devastating wildfires. A total of the 24 lives lost when a wildfire swept through the region two years ago. Sheriff Mark Essick, in Sonoma County, pleaded with residents in the evacuation zone to leave immediately. He said: "I'm seeing people reporting that they're going to stay and fight this fire. You cannot fight this. Please evacuate." Prisoners and hospital patients were among those evacuating. Jon Robinson, 52, a resident, said: "Before this, we planned on staying. But I'll tell you what, it's just too nerve-racking." Scott Paris, a cafe owner, said the electricity shutdown would lose him tens of thousands of dollars in business. He said: "We're scrambling to get enough generators. If this is the new normal, it's going to drive up a lot of costs. It drives up stress." Florida was sending 100 electric workers to help PG&E; restore power to areas with outages caused by the wildfires. What sparked the current fire is unknown, but PG&E; said a 230,000-volt transmission line malfunctioned minutes before the blaze erupted, amid bode-dry conditions, on Wednesday. Flames engulf a building in Sonoma County Credit: Bloomberg Its chief executive Andrew Vesey said: "Any spark, from any source, can lead to catastrophic results." Last year, 85 people died in the fire that destroyed the California town of Paradise, the deadliest US blaze in a century. Officials concluded that a PG&E; transmission line sparked that fire. The Kinkade fire was burning along steep hillsides in rugged terrain north of San Francisco. A separate fire, the Tick Fire, has been raging in suburban Los Angeles. Nearly all the 50,000 residents ordered to evacuate were allowed back home after winds began to ease. Marcos Briano, 71, a resident who found destroyed homes on his street, said: "I'm thankful that nothing happened to my house, but I feel bad for my neighbours."
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| Convicted Russian agent Maria Butina released from prison and deported Posted: 25 Oct 2019 06:19 PM PDT  Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina released from prison and left Miami on a flight to Moscow Friday night.
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| Who Is Bill Barr? Posted: 27 Oct 2019 09:06 AM PDT  William Barr had returned to private life after his first stint as attorney general when he sat down to write an article for The Catholic Lawyer. It was 1995, and Barr saw an urgent threat to religion generally and to Catholicism, his faith, specifically. The danger came from the rise of "moral relativism," in Barr's view. "There are no objective standards of right and wrong," he wrote. "Everyone writes their own rule book."And so, at first, it seemed surprising that Barr, now 69, would return after 26 years to the job of attorney general, to serve President Donald Trump, the moral relativist in chief, who writes and rewrites the rule book at whim.But a close reading of Barr's speeches and writings shows that, for decades, he has taken a maximalist, Trumpian view of presidential power that critics have called the "imperial executive." He was a match, all along, for a president under siege. "He alone is the executive branch," Barr wrote of whoever occupies the Oval Office, in a memo to the Justice Department in 2018, before he returned.Now, with news reports that his review into the origins of the Russian investigation that so enraged Trump has turned into a full-blown criminal investigation, Barr is arousing fears that he is using the enormous power of the Justice Department to help the president politically, subverting the independence of the nation's top law enforcement agency in the process.Why is he giving the benefit of his reputation, earned over many years in Washington, to this president? His Catholic Lawyer article suggests an answer to that question. The threat of moral relativism he saw then came when "secularists used law as a weapon." Barr cited rules that compel landlords to rent to unmarried couples or require universities to treat "homosexual activist groups like any other student group." He reprised the theme in a speech at Notre Dame this month.In 1995 and now, Barr has voiced the fears and aspirations of the conservative legal movement. By helping Trump, he's protecting a president who has succeeded in confirming more than 150 judges to create a newly conservative judiciary. The federal bench now seems more prepared to lower barriers between church and state and reduce access to abortion -- a procedure that Barr, in his 1995 article, included on a list of societal ills that also included drug addiction, venereal diseases and psychiatric disorders.In his unruffled and lawyerly way, Barr emerged as the president's most effective protector in the spring, when he limited damage from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election by shaping the public narrative of the Mueller report before he released any of it.In his pursuit of investigating the investigators, he even traveled to Britain and Italy to meet with intelligence officials there to persuade them to help it along. Now it is possible that the Justice Department could bring charges against its own officials and agents for decisions they made to investigate Trump campaign advisers in the fraught months around the 2016 election, when the Russian government was mounting what the Mueller report called "a sweeping and systematic" effort to interfere.This criminal investigation seems ominous in the context of Barr's other moves.His Justice Department recently declined to investigate a whistleblower's complaint that the president was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election" and advised the acting director of national intelligence not to send the complaint to Congress. Last week, dozens of government inspectors general warned in a letter to the Justice Department that its position "could seriously undermine the critical role whistleblowers play in coming forward to report waste, fraud, abuse and misconduct across the federal government."So while Rudy Giuliani is freelancing U.S. diplomacy as the president's personal lawyer, often leaving bedlam in his wake, and Mick Mulvaney flails as acting chief of staff, Barr has used the Justice Department, with precision, on the president's behalf. The New York City Bar Association complained a few days ago that Barr "appears to view his primary obligation as loyalty to the president individually rather than to the nation."William Barr (Billy, when he was young) grew up in an apartment on Riverside Drive in Manhattan with a framed Barry Goldwater presidential campaign poster in the foyer, according to Vanity Fair. His mother, who was of Irish descent, taught at Columbia University. His father, a Jew who converted to Catholicism, taught at Columbia, too, and then became the headmaster of the elite Dalton School, leaving after 10 years amid criticism over his authoritarian approach to student discipline.Barr went to high school at the equally elite Horace Mann and then to college at Columbia, where he majored in government and then got a master's degree in government and Chinese studies. He went to work for the CIA in Washington in 1973 and attended George Washington University Law School at night.He joined the Reagan White House in 1982, where he sought to curb regulation. After George H.W. Bush was elected president in 1988, he became director of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, which provides legal advice to the president and all executive agencies.It didn't take long for Barr to express his views on executive power. He warned in one of his early opinions, in July 1989, of congressional "encroachments" on presidential authority. "Only by consistently and forcefully resisting such congressional incursions can executive branch prerogatives be preserved," he wrote. Some of his Republican colleagues remember being taken aback."Bill's view on the separation of powers was not overlapping authority keeping all branches in check, but keeping the other branches neutralized, leaving a robust executive power to rule. George III would have loved it," said Douglas Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine who preceded Barr as head of the Office of Legal Counsel.Barr also argued that the president had the "inherent authority" to order the FBI to abduct people abroad, in violation of an international treaty principally written by the United States. This view reversed the position that the Office of Legal Counsel had taken nine years earlier. When Congress asked to see Barr's opinion, he refused, even as the government defended the abduction of a man in Mexico accused of participating in the killing of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent. The charges against the man were dismissed. It took four years for Barr's opinion to come to light."You have a secret opinion that violated the internal rules of the Justice Department" and "diminished America's reputation as a country that operates by the rule of law," said Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale law professor who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel under the Reagan administration and advised the State Department. "At the time, we thought that was as bad as it was going to get."After becoming deputy attorney general in 1990, Barr continued to push the limits on questions of presidential power. He told the first President Bush that he didn't need congressional approval to invade Iraq. Bush asked for it anyway.Barr, who took over the Justice Department in the fall of 1991, also urged Bush to pardon all six of the Reagan administration officials who faced criminal charges in an arms-for-hostages deal at the heart of the Iran-Contra scandal. The president took his advice.When Bush lost his bid for reelection, Barr went back into private practice before taking jobs as the general counsel first for GTE and then Verizon. He served on the boards of several religious groups, including the Catholic Information Center, a self-described "intellectual hub," affiliated with the ultraconservative order Opus Dei.Those groups include other conservative Washington insiders, such as Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society. Leo has also served on the board of the Catholic Information Center, and he came out strongly in favor of Trump's nomination of Barr for attorney general.In a sense, both Barr and Leo have found parallel ways to use the Trump administration as a vehicle for their causes. Leo has enormous influence from outside the government on the selection of judicial nominees. From the inside, Barr plays a role in federal judicial appointments and has supported a Justice Department task force set up to look for cases of religious discrimination.When Barr undercut the Mueller report, he lost some supporters. While delaying its release, he presented the conclusions as far less damning for Trump than Mueller found them to be. (For example, Barr said that the special counsel did not find sufficient evidence of a crime when in fact Mueller had not exonerated Trump of wrongdoing.)"Not in my memory has a sitting attorney general more diminished the credibility of his department on any subject," wrote Benjamin Wittes, the editor-in-chief of Lawfare.Despite criticism, Barr has continued to champion the presidency -- and this president. But on Friday, a federal judge in Washington ruled against the Justice Department's effort to block Congress from getting grand jury evidence obtained in the Mueller investigation. The department has also asked a federal judge to block a subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney for eight years of Trump's personal and corporate tax returns."From my perspective," Barr told Jan Crawford of CBS News in May, "the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything at him and, you know, really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and our institutions is occurring."In other words, amazingly, it wasn't Trump, or Barr, who was violating the norms of American governance. It was their critics.Since Watergate, a crucial norm of Justice Department independence has prevented presidents from ordering or meddling in investigations for partisan reasons.In 2001, Barr praised the first President Bush for leaving the Justice Department alone. Bush's White House "appreciated the independence of Justice," Barr said. "We didn't lose sight of the fact that there's a difference between being a government lawyer and representing an individual in his personal capacity in a criminal case."Now, Barr seems hard-pressed to maintain a semblance of those boundaries. The criminal investigation of the origins of the Russia investigation that he ordered is official government business. It's headed by an experienced prosecutor, John Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, and it's supposed to be on the up and up.But when Barr told Congress in April that he thought "spying" on the Trump campaign by U.S. intelligence agencies occurred -- the FBI director, Christopher Wray, told Congress that "spying" was "not the term I would use" -- he echoed Trump's conspiracy theory of being a victim of the "deep state." And in the last month, Barr has found his review mixed up with the machinations of Giuliani, who was directed by Trump to investigate the 2016 election and the Biden family in Ukraine.Trump made the overlap explicit when he lumped Giuliani and Barr together in his July phone call with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call," Trump told Zelenskiy, according to notes released by the White House. Barr was reportedly "surprised and angry" by the president's reference, and a Justice Department representative has denied he had any contacts with Zelenskiy.Then, Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, brought up Barr's review of the Russia investigation at his news conference on Oct. 17 in defense of Trump's request to Zelenskiy for "a favor" and information. ("So you're saying the president of the United States, the chief law enforcement person, cannot ask somebody to cooperate with an ongoing public investigation into wrongdoing?" he asked.)The White House's use of the Justice Department as a shield in the Ukraine scandal risks leaving Barr's review "hopelessly compromised," tweeted Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, an alumnus of the Office of Legal Counsel who has defended Barr.And in blockbuster testimony before Congress last Tuesday, the topU.S. diplomat in Ukraine, William Taylor, said that he and Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, who was conveying Trump's orders concerning Ukraine, discussed the possibility that Ukraine's prosecutor would make a public statement about "investigations, potentially in coordination with Attorney General Barr's probe." Either people in the president's circle are using Barr as a pawn, or he's in deeper than he has said.Either way, maybe the lesson is the same one that applies throughout the administration: The fallout from the president's maneuvering taints the people around him. The longer Barr stays in office, the more that Trump will look for the attorney general to do for him.When Mueller closed up shop, he left several cases pending with the Justice Department, including charges against the Trump operative Roger Stone, which could end with disclosures at trial that damage the president (Stone has pleaded not guilty). What if Trump would rather make cases like these go away, with pardons or other inducements? Will Barr go along?During the Bush administration, in a more moderate time, Barr worked for a buttoned-down president who called for a "kinder" nation and "gentler" world. Now he has a boss who calls the impeachment process "a lynching," Republican critics "human scum" and the news media "the enemy of the American people."As the buttons fly off, Barr seems unperturbed. He's the perfect attorney general for Trump. Not so much, it seems, for the country.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| World ‘Awash’ in Oil as U.S. Sees Its Shale Boom Barreling Ahead Posted: 26 Oct 2019 11:34 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Global markets are "awash" in crude thanks to the surge in U.S. oil output, and the boom looks set to continue, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in a Bloomberg TV interview.U.S. shale production has turned the world "on its head," and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is "off a bit" in a report last week saying that the bonanza is fading, Perry said on Sunday in Dubai.Oil and natural gas from American shale fields have made the U.S. one of the world's largest producers and enabled it to become a net energy exporter. Perry will travel in the coming week to Saudi Arabia to discuss possible sales of U.S. liquefied natural gas and Saudi efforts to develop a nuclear power program. Perry held talks in the United Arab Emirates and visited the country's largest solar-power facility at a site near the U.A.E.'s commercial hub of Dubai.The U.S. sent 11 LNG shipments to the U.A.E. over the past three years and is seeking to sell more of the fuel there and to Saudi Arabia, Perry said.The world needs to be prepared for attacks disrupting the global economy, and the U.S., Saudi Arabia and other allies are discussing the safety of oil supply routes, he said. Aerial strikes against Saudi oil facilities on Sept. 14 temporarily knocked out half of the kingdom's output, and the U.S. is currently doing enough to help Saudi Arabia defend against such attacks in the future, Perry said.Washington won't hold a grudge forever against Saudi Arabia over the murder last October of government critic and U.S. columnist Jamal Khashoggi, though there's not a "massive amount of forgiveness" in Congress for his killing in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Perry said.The energy secretary said he asked U.S. President Donald Trump to call Ukraine to try to sell U.S. LNG there. The approach to Ukraine is important for energy sales and to break that country's over-reliance on Russian gas, he said.The U.S. is "making progress" with its Middle East foreign policy, while efforts to impeach Trump won't be an issue in the U.S. presidential election next year and will go away in six months, Perry said.\--With assistance from Giovanni Prati.To contact the reporters on this story: Anthony DiPaola in Dubai at adipaola@bloomberg.net;Manus Cranny in London at mcranny@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Nayla Razzouk at nrazzouk2@bloomberg.net, Bruce StanleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Far-right AfD deals setback to Merkel's CDU in German state vote Posted: 27 Oct 2019 10:19 AM PDT  The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) beat Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives into third place in Sunday's regional election in the eastern state of Thuringia, in which the incumbent far-left Linke came first, an exit poll showed. The result follows the AfD's successes in the eastern states of Saxony and Brandenburg, where it surged into second place in Sept. 1 elections, and marks a setback from Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).
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| Does Russia's Anti-Drone Pantsir S1 System Even Work? Posted: 26 Oct 2019 06:00 PM PDT  Let's take a look.
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| Vietnamese village prays, awaits news on loved ones' fate Posted: 27 Oct 2019 12:13 AM PDT  The rural village of Do Thanh in central Vietnam has relied on its sons and daughters working abroad to send money back home. The mother and a sister of Bui Thi Nhung cried as they set up an altar with incense and a photo of the missing 19-year-old. The family heard from a friend living in the U.K. that "Nhung is one of the victims," said a relative who was visiting the woman's despaired mother.
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| Being the frontrunner takes its toll: Joe Biden is more disliked than Bernie Sanders Posted: 27 Oct 2019 05:50 AM PDT  While 27% of Democratic voters dislike former Vice President Joe Biden, 21% dislike Sen. Bernie Sanders, and about 15% dislike Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
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| Hitman outsourced a murder to hitman, who hired hitman, who hired hitman, who hired hitman Posted: 27 Oct 2019 09:17 AM PDT  Six men — including five hitmen — have been charged in Chinese court last Thursday, after all attempted to subcontract the killing to another hitman.
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| Four-star US army general compares Trump to Mussolini after ‘watershed moment’ for America Posted: 26 Oct 2019 06:06 AM PDT  A decorated retired US Army general has compared Donald Trump to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and said the president's actions over the past week are a watershed moment for America.Mr Trump ordered his administration to cancel subscriptions to The New York Times and The Washington Post at the start of the week, a move that Barry McCaffrey called 'deadly serious'.
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| 'Beautiful' moments as Mexican migrants meet families on US border Posted: 27 Oct 2019 01:11 AM PDT  Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) (AFP) - Hundreds of Mexican migrants to the United States have reunited with their families for a few fleeting moments as part of the "hugs not walls" meetup on the US-Mexico border. People shed tears on a bridge linking Mexico's Ciudad Juarez with El Paso in the United States, flinging their arms around relatives they hadn't seen for years and walking slowly along together. The bridge was made neutral territory for four hours during the event, held for the seventh time, to allow undocumented migrants to the US to see their Mexican families.
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| Thousands ordered to flee California wine country blaze Posted: 26 Oct 2019 12:13 PM PDT  California firefighters raced against time on Saturday as they cut defensive lines against a wildfire in Sonoma County's famed wine country and authorities ordered 50,000 people to evacuate, ahead of winds that are forecast to pick up at night and spread the flames. The expanded evacuation orders came as the utility Pacific Gas and Electric Corp prepared to shut off power to about 940,000 customers in 36 of the state's counties to guard against the risk that an electric mishap could spark a blaze. The move to cut power to so many people quickly drew a rebuke from California Governor Gavin Newsom, who called it "unacceptable" in a video message on Twitter.
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| Germany Budget Surplus to Reach Billions in 2019: Handelsblatt Posted: 27 Oct 2019 05:34 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Explore what's moving the global economy in the new season of the Stephanomics podcast. Subscribe via Pocket Cast or iTunes.Germany will have a budget surplus this year amounting to billions of euros, Handelsblatt reported, citing government sources.Greater-than-expected tax revenue will result in the figure reaching the "high-single digits," the paper said.Germany's finance ministry is preparing a tax revenue estimate for next week, and calculations show the number has increased by 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) compared to the last assessment in May, Handelsblatt reported.The government also has to pay about 5 billion euros less than planned to serve its current debt. On top, "many billions" earmarked for investments for states and municipalities will not be called, the newspaper wrote, while some of the surplus will be reserved to help refugees.With countries from China to the U.K. announcing fiscal stimulus plans, Germany is facing pressure to loosen the purse strings. So far, Germany hasn't committed to such a program, instead discussing measures including higher investments, subsidies for electric cars or corporate tax write-offs.To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Weiss in Frankfurt at rweiss5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Schaefer at dschaefer36@bloomberg.net, Sara Marley, Jon MenonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| After India's Aircraft Carrier Fire Left 1 Sailor Dead, China Had Words Posted: 27 Oct 2019 06:00 AM PDT  Beijing didn't mince words.
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| Woman, 78, gets 22 years for attempted murder of lawyer Posted: 26 Oct 2019 11:56 AM PDT ![Woman, 78, gets 22 years for attempted murder of lawyer]( "Woman, 78, gets 22 years for attempted murder of lawyer") Patricia Currie of Mandeville was 75 when she raised a loaded shotgun toward Keith Couture in 2016. A St. Tammany Parish jury convicted Currie in August of attempted second-degree murder, which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years. Prosecutors asked for the 50-year maximum at Thursday's sentencing by Judge Alan Zaunbrecher, District Attorney Warren Montgomery said in a news release Friday.
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| Pete Buttigieg responded to homophobic comments made by a local Tennessee official, advocating for an 'approach with compassion' Posted: 26 Oct 2019 08:05 AM PDT  "He's right that there is a gay man running for president, he doesn't seem to be right about much else," Buttigieg said.
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| Another black eye for Boeing Posted: 26 Oct 2019 03:15 AM PDT ![Another black eye for Boeing]( "Another black eye for Boeing") The smartest insight and analysis, from all perspectives, rounded up from around the web:Boeing's 737 Max jet now faces even more trouble, said David Gelles and Natalie Kitroeff at The New York Times. Last week, Boeing gave the Federal Aviation Administration a transcript of messages from 2016 that reveal that the jet's automated systems had raised alarms more than two years before two fatal crashes. In the messages, Mark Forkner, one of Boeing's top pilots, complained of "egregious" erratic behavior in flight simulator tests of a troubled automated system known as MCAS. In earlier discussions, Forkner had left the FAA -- which agreed to let Boeing drop any mention of MCAS from the pilots' manual -- with the impression the system was rarely used, and he had not told the agency that it was in the midst of an overhaul. "I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly)," Forkner wrote in another message. The newly disclosed records "strike at Boeing's defense that it had done nothing wrong" and that regulators were to blame for the crashes.The new information gives ammunition to lawmakers who were already "ratcheting up scrutiny of Boeing's leaders," said Andrew Tangel and Andy Pasztor at The Wall Street Journal. Boeing's engineers often played dual roles "designing certain systems on behalf of the plane maker and then certifying the same systems as safe" on behalf of the FAA. Investigators recently uncovered a three-year-old survey "showing roughly 1 in 3 employees who responded felt 'potential undue pressure' from managers regarding safety-related approvals."Families of the crash victims aren't just seeking damages -- they want regulators to order a complete re-certification of the Max, said Jim Zarroli on NPR's Morning Edition. "Such a move would be an enormous financial challenge for Boeing," which was counting on getting the Max back in the air by the end of this year. But "the possibility the 737 Max could be flying again soon has stirred" victims' families into collective action, including a call for a "soup-to-nuts examination of its design" by regulators. While that's unlikely to happen, the FAA's response after this latest news was "not encouraging," said Chris Isidore at CNN. Any further delay in the approval process "will be more than another black eye" for Boeing. It could shut the assembly lines for the 737 Max, until recently Boeing's best-selling plane. The company already has a backlog of more than 400 planes that have been built but can't be delivered until the plane is ready to fly again.Boeing continues to dig itself into a deeper hole, said Brooke Sutherland at Bloomberg. Forkner's messages are bad; worse, the FAA, like the rest of us, is "only now finding out" about them, even though Boeing knew for months. Yes, the company did recently unveil an "organizational overhaul" intended to improve safety and transparency, and it stripped CEO Dennis Muilenburg of his chairman's title. But "for all of Boeing's talk about recommitting itself to safety, the company appears reluctant to fully come clean."
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| Storms to unleash snow, cold across the Midwest this week Posted: 27 Oct 2019 10:39 AM PDT  The storm system bringing heavy snow to parts of the Rocky Mountains this weekend will be the first of a pair of storms to travel across the Plains and Midwest.
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| Ousted Republicans plot rematches with Trump back on the ballot Posted: 27 Oct 2019 04:16 AM PDT  Former Rep. Claudia Tenney got swept out of Congress in 2018 on an anti-Trump wave. And with Trump back on the ballot in 2020, Tenney and her supporters see a chance to make her comeback. "I think it's going to be a good year," Tenney said in an interview.
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| Ex-CIA spy flees from Italy to U.S. fearing for her safety: paper Posted: 27 Oct 2019 06:04 AM PDT  A former U.S. spy, pardoned by Italy in connection with the CIA kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in Milan, has fled from Italy to the United States fearing for her safety, Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera on Sunday quoted her as saying. Sabrina de Sousa is one of 26 people convicted by Italy in absentia over the 2003 abduction of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, but the only one to spend any time in prison for the operation, in which she denies involvement. De Sousa was still due to carry out community service in Italy until next year after the Italian president commuted her four-year prison sentence but she decided to flee the country after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA Director Gina Haspel visited Rome in October, Il Corriere said.
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| 'Potentially historic': dangerous winds expected as fires burn across California Posted: 26 Oct 2019 03:23 PM PDT  Fresh evacuations in Sonoma county as Kincade fire spreads and wave of power blackouts begin across the state A firefighter works to extinguish the Tick fire in a factory near Santa Clarita, California, 24 October 2019. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/EPACalifornians braced for power cuts and a "potentially historic" wind event on Saturday as a growing wildfire prompted fresh evacuations for 50,000 people in the northern Bay Area.The tumultuous Kincade fire spread to 25,455 acres in the wine-growing region of Sonoma county, with meteorologists warning of severe, windy conditions beginning Saturday night that could see gusts of up to 80mph. The entire communities of Windsor and Healdsburg, where one of the original evacuation shelters was set up, were ordered to evacuate.The Sonoma county sheriff's office said it is expected to be the biggest evacuation in the county in more than 25 years, with warnings to be prepared to leave reaching the coast. Traffic snarled roadways leading out of the communities of Windsor and Healdsburg as residents scrambled to close up their homes, find last-minute accommodations and transport their livestock to safety."Once we get that red-flag warning starting at 8pm and we get those high winds, we're going to see some erratic fire behavior," said the Cal Fire captain Stephen Volmer, a fire behavior analyst with the agency. "There is the potential for a lot of this fire-weakened timber to be falling down across power lines, across roads. There is also the potential for those long-ranged spotting issues that we have to ignite new fires."The National Weather Service described the conditions as "the strongest since the 2017 wine country fires and potentially a historic event given the strength and duration of the winds". The Tubbs fire of that year killed 22 people.The Kincade fire broke out late on Wednesday night and has so far destroyed nearly 50 structures. There have been no fatalities but a firefighter and two civilians were injured when they were overwhelmed by fire as they tried to evacuate from approaching flames, authorities said.Meanwhile, millions across the state will have their power cut again as California's largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), said it would shut off electricity for the third time in as many weeks. PG&E said the power cuts would be implemented in stages through Saturday afternoon and evening for about 940,000 homes and businesses in 36 counties for 48 hours or longer throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, wine country and Sierra foothills. An estimated 2.35 million people are due to be affected, thousands more than previously predicted.Two previous power shutdowns were done amid concern that gusty winds could disrupt or knock down power lines and spark devastating wildfires.The Kincade fire burned near Geyserville, California on 24 October. Photograph: Peter Dasilva/EPAAnother blaze that forced evacuations of 50,000 residents in suburbs north of Los Angeles grew to 4,615 acres overnight. The Tick fire, which started on Thursday, has destroyed nine homes and businesses while threatening 10,000 more, according to firefighters. While some evacuees were allowed back into their homes as of Friday night, certain mandatory evacuation orders still remained.As of Saturday afternoon the Tick fire was 25% contained, while the Kincade fire was 10% contained.California's governor, Gavin Newsom, has declared a local emergency to assist with battling the blazes, and thousands of firefighters have been deployed to both locations. PG&E has a history of sparking wildfires throughout the state, including two of the deadliest disasters in recent California history.Firefighters battling the Kincade fire discovered what appeared to be a broken jumper by a PG&E transmission tower that had lost power. Though PG&E had shut off power to the area as part of planned shutoff, the transmission lines remained energized, the utility said. The cause of the Kincade fire is still under investigation.The power shutoff in Geyserville created a dangerous challenge when it came time to evacuate residents as the blaze crept nearer. Typically during evacuations, local authorities deploy reverse 911 calls to alert individual residents. With the power out, evacuees reported being awakened in the early hours by frantic knocks on their front doors.Gavin Newsom has been highly critical of the investor-owned public utility and the shutoffs, calling the impact "unacceptable"."We gotta hold them accountable and we are going to do our best to get through these high wind events, and work Saturday, Sunday into Monday to get these lights back on and do everything in our power to make sure PG&E is never in a position where they are doing this to us again," he said in a statement on Saturday.In San Diego county, where other small wildfires are burning, helicopters were forced to make the evacuation orders over loudspeaker because the power was shut off. San Diego runs its own utility and is conducting its own planned shutoffs during high-fire weather conditions.Californians in the vicinity of the fires faced a weekend of smokey haze and bad air quality. Sonoma county, where the Kincade fire rages, advised residents to cancel plans and stay indoors.In the Bay Area, with residents still leery after the heavy smoke event from last year's Camp fire, officials warned residents to close windows and use masks. Local high school sporting events were canceled, while the University of California, Berkeley announced it was canceling all Saturday afternoon classes, as well as other indoor events and activities scheduled through Sunday.Though nine wildfires are currently burning throughout the state, none have reached the level of death and destruction witnessed in the past few years. Nevertheless fears remain, especially among those who lived through the devastation of the previous fires. The Kincade fire was raging near the path of the 2015 Valley fire, which killed four people and burned through more than 76,000 acres.The shadow of the Camp fire in Paradise, the deadliest in the state's history which left 86 dead, wasn't far off either. The senator and 2020 candidate Kamala Harris evoked the disaster in a tweet on Saturday.> As devastating fires spread across California, an important lesson from the survivors in Paradise: we are strong and we will rebuild. Proud of this community for its continued resilience. https://t.co/10dqbEBEHw> > — Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) October 26, 2019The harsh fire weather conditions have spread beyond the state, kicking up flames in parts of Baja California, just across the border from San Diego in Mexico.Mexican authorities say three people have died, with several fires forcing 1,645 people to evacuate their homes and burning more than 35,000 acres."This is the strongest Santa Ana wind related-fires ever struck Baja California in its history, due to the number of cities and houses affected and the number of people that have perished," Antonio Rosquillas, the director of Baja California Civil Protection, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. The Santa Ana winds are extremely strong, dry winds affecting southern California and northern Baja California.Susie Cagle and agencies contributed reporting
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| After This War, India Became A Powerhouse and Pakistan Was Ruined Posted: 26 Oct 2019 05:14 PM PDT  The 1971 India-Pakistan War's legacy lives on.
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| Venezuelans buy gas with cigarettes to battle inflation Posted: 25 Oct 2019 06:33 PM PDT  Motorists in socialist Venezuela have long enjoyed the world's cheapest gasoline, with fuel so heavily subsidized that a full tank these days costs a tiny fraction of a U.S. penny. Bartering at the pump has taken off as hyperinflation makes Venezuela's paper currency, the bolivar, hard to find and renders some denominations all but worthless, so that nobody will accept them. Without cash in their wallets, drivers often hand gas station attendants a bag of rice, cooking oil or whatever is within reach.
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| US boosts force in oil-rich east Syria, crosses regime checkpoints Posted: 26 Oct 2019 12:15 PM PDT  Washington has started to send reinforcements to oil-rich eastern Syria, a US defence official said Saturday, as a military convoy flying American flags crossed into the war-torn country from Iraq. The official told AFP that Washington has begun reinforcing positions in Deir Ezzor province with extra military assets in coordination with Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
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| 'Swing Set Susan' charged with impersonating a police officer after threatening to arrest Hispanic teens Posted: 27 Oct 2019 05:47 PM PDT !['Swing Set Susan' charged with impersonating a police officer after threatening to arrest Hispanic teens]( "'Swing Set Susan' charged with impersonating a police officer after threatening to arrest Hispanic teens") Video of a white woman threatening to arrest a group of Hispanic teens at a park in Texas has been viewed more than 5 million times.
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| Mind your language: Archbishop of Canterbury's Brexit warning for Boris Posted: 26 Oct 2019 07:21 PM PDT  The Archbishop of Canterbury has taken Prime Minister Boris Johnson to task for his use of "inflammatory" language through the Brexit debate. Justin Welby told The Sunday Times there was a risk of pouring "petrol" on the country's divisions on the issue of Britain's departure from the European Union. The archbishop said Mr Johnson had come to symbolise a climate in which Britain had become consumed by "an abusive and binary approach to political decisions", and where those with opposing views treated each other as "total" enemies. In an era in which social media had made it "extraordinarily dangerous to use careless comments", and in which hate speech was on the rise, Mr Welby called for political leaders to take more care with their language. He said his criticisms were not confined to Mr Johnson and his Government, but made it clear he considered the prime minister partly to blame for the fact society had become "quite broken". The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby during an address at Westminster Abbey. Credit: Paul Grover/Paul Grover "I think we have become addicted to an abusive and binary approach to political decisions: 'It's either this or you're my total enemy'," Mr Welby told the paper. "There have been inflammatory words used on all sides, in parliament and outside - 'traitor', 'fascist', all kinds of really bad things have been said at the highest level in politics." Mr Welby said he was "shocked" by Mr Johnson's recent dismissal of concerns extreme language could encourage death threats against politicians as "humbug". And he added political leaders could no longer behave the same way as Mr Johnson's hero, Winston Churchill. "Churchill was well known for his somewhat inflammatory putdowns in parliament," the archbishop said. "But this is happening at a time when we have social media, which amplifies things. "In a time of deep uncertainty, a much smaller amount of petrol is a much more dangerous thing than it was in a time when people were secure. "There is a great danger to doing it when we're already in a very polarised and volatile situation." Mr Welby said action was needed to heal divisions "at almost every level of society, including the political level of society", adding: "I don't only blame government. I think we are quite broken."
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| Steal The Show In This 1994 Ford F-150 SVT Lightning Posted: 27 Oct 2019 04:00 AM PDT  An attractive muscle truck created for performance.From 1993 through 1995, Ford created a potent version of its top-selling F-150 pickup truck to compete against other performance-oriented GM vehicles such as the GMC Syclone and Chevy 454 SS. That's when the SVT (Special Vehicle Team) developed the performance-oriented SVT Lightning with impressive power but still retained the ruggedness and capability of Ford's F-Series. Classic Car Liquidators is happy to offer the chance to take home this incredible 1994 Ford F-150 SVT Lightning with just 20,863 miles on the clock.While there is no denying that the sporty pickup has an attractive exterior, the main selling point was tucked under the hood. Powered by a slightly modified fuel-injected 351cui V8 engine, the muscular Lightning generated 240-horsepower and 340 ft/lb of torque straight out of the gate. The truck handles smooth and sits low thanks to modifications made to a basic F-150 chassis. The sporty pickup sprints from 0 to 60 in 7.6 seconds and can reach a top speed of 110 miles per hour.Under the truck is a Ford 8.8-inch solid rear that houses 4.10 gears. Stopping power comes from the combination of ABS drum and disc brakes. The Lightning was given a custom tubular intake manifold, and it came with true dual exhaust mated to stainless steel tubular exhaust headers. The '94 Ford Lightning was only offered as a standard 2-door cab with a short-bed, and it was only produced with a 4-speed automatic transmission with overdrive. Even more, the truck was only available in three colors: red, black, and white. The Lightning was easy to identify with badges and accents placed from the exterior to the engine bay. Only 11,563 first-gen SVT Lightnings were produced total over its 3-year span, and only 1,460 of those were slathered in white for the 1994 model year. Who knows how many of that number actually still exist today.If you want to haul more than just the mail, contact Classic Car Liquidator today. The truck is listed at $19,999, but feel free to make an offer here. Read More... * Pack A Potent Punch In This 2015 Ford Mustang GT Hennessey * Pro-Touring 1965 Ford Mustang GT Up For Grabs
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| ‘This is going to do lasting damage’: Impeachment leaves Ukraine policy in chaos Posted: 27 Oct 2019 03:35 AM PDT  The donor who gave $1 million for his inauguration, then helped run a backdoor channel from Ukraine to the Oval Office, has seen his credibility damaged. The secretary of state who let it all unfold is flirting with a Senate run and angrily brushing off questions about what he knew, and when. U.S. policy toward Ukraine is in shambles, lawmakers and foreign policy experts say, as House Democrats barrel along with an impeachment probe that began with an anonymous whistleblower's complaint and has ballooned into the most serious threat so far to Donald Trump's presidency.
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| Lebanon puts temporary ban on taking large sums of dollar cash out of country - NNA Posted: 27 Oct 2019 01:19 PM PDT ![Lebanon puts temporary ban on taking large sums of dollar cash out of country - NNA]( "Lebanon puts temporary ban on taking large sums of dollar cash out of country - NNA") A Lebanese state prosecutor on Sunday banned traders and money exchangers from taking significant amounts of physical dollar currency out of the country at air and land borders, state news agency NNA said. The order, which it said was issued by Public Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat, imposed the ban until the central bank determines a new mechanism for regulating such transfers, NNA reported. People had previously been able to take large sums of dollar cash out of Lebanon with a permit from customs authorities.
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| Inside the ‘Potentially Historic’ Wind Event Bearing Down on California Posted: 26 Oct 2019 01:27 PM PDT  JOSH EDELSONMiles above the Grand Basin, configurations of cool, high-pressure air have pushed dangerous gusts towards the California coast, triggering red flag weather warnings, mass power shutoffs, several wildfires, and thousands of evacuations from San Francisco to San Diego. This state is used to wind—the most infamous have names: Diablo in the north, Santa Ana in the south. But the National Weather Service in San Francisco has already hailed the force and duration of this weekend's event, predicted to last until Monday, as "potentially historic." "It's important to understand just how severe this weekend's event is going to be," said Dr. Craig Smith, a fire scientist at Jupiter Intelligence and former employee of embattled utility company, PG&E.; "It's certainly going to be the strongest offshore wind event of the season...The models we're seeing now [are] already showing that this event is going to be about as strong as the Oct. 8, 2017 event that led to the northern California firestorm."The weekend gales come on the heels of two other major wind events. Earlier this week, utility companies Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and SoCal Edison initiated a series of power shut offs across California for a strong gust beginning Wednesday night into Thursday, impacting roughly 218,000 people. Two weeks before that, PG&E; staged its largest and most controversial outage this fire season, cutting power to nearly 740,000 customers in 35 counties. The latest winds outdo those in scale—the intense speeds are not confined to high ridges, like the sparsely populated areas of the North Bay and the Sierra Foothills, but will mix down to the urban centers, where vastly more people live. Thursday, PG&E;, which services some 16 million people in California, announced it might shut off nearly its entire northern grid this weekend. As of Saturday morning, some 940,000 residents lost power from PG&E; alone. The outages have become a source a profound ambivalence in California, with some calling de-energization a necessary precaution against wildfire, as others—facing food spoilage, accessibility issues, and even evacuation—see it as a safety measure designed primarily for the utilities themselves. "I basically stay clear of any political or corporate bs but this pg&e; outage crap is pretty ridiculous considering both of the main power lines that go to our house are not only going thru a tree but are also completely flush with the trees bark and rubbing, [sic]" an apparent PG&E; customer named Meagan JoAnn wrote on Facebook, alongside pictures of the lines. "I would love to know who has 'checked our lines for safety before turning the power back on?!' They have been like this for years. Recently they came and butchered the crap out of the tree but the lines are still rubbing. Here goes another outage potentially followed by another this weekend. Good thing I love my home cause I'm not a fan of this state and it's public utilities companies!"The state-wide skepticism stems from a bankruptcy filing earlier this year by PG&E;, after investigators found the utility liable for the series of fires that devastated California in 2017. The finding put PG&E; at the center of several class action and negligence lawsuits over the disasters, including the notorious Camp fire, which leveled the town of Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying 19,000 structures—the most damaging fire in California history. Their bankruptcy filing, the largest of its kind, left residents fuzzy on whether the utilities acted out of concern for public safety or private greed. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken a strong stance against the utilities, openly criticizing the shutoffs and infrastructure failures that rendered them necessary. Thursday, Newsom wrote an open letter to the leadership of all three utilities, claiming the outages "undermined efforts to coordinate with first responders to protect public safety during these events." This week, he launched a program to mitigate the effects of power shutoffs, appropriating $75 million to fund local and state government investments in back-up generators, fuel storage and other emergency measures in public facilities."It's more than just climate change. It's about the failure of capitalism to address climate change," Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a press conference Thursday morning. "It's about decades of mismanagement. It's a story about greed."As wildfires erupt across California, fingers are already pointing to PG&E.; On Wednesday night, a blaze started in the small, northern city of Geyserville, so-called for a nexus of hot springs, steam vents, and fumaroles tucked below its nearby mountains. The fire tore across Sonoma County, scorching more than 25,000 acres of forest and vineyards, forcing evacuations for 50,000 people. The next morning, PG&E; filed a report with the California Public Utilities Commission admitting a transmission tower had malfunctioned the night before. Despite shutting off power to the area that afternoon, a few towers remained active. The company noticed the failure near Kincaid Road at 9:20 p.m. The fire–since dubbed the "Kincaid Fire"–started at 9:27. The utilities have maintained that all outages are a necessary safety measure. "For us, power safety shutoffs––it's a last resort," said Robert Iezza, Communications Manager at SDG&E.; "We take into account a variety of factors: fire conditions, weather conditions, wildfire activity, availability of resources and reports from emergency responders." "No single factor drives a Public Safety Power Shutoff, as each situation is unique," a PG&E; spokesperson told The Daily Beast in an email. "PG&E; carefully reviews a combination of many criteria when determining if power should be turned off for safety." But they have had widespread impact on essential workforces, like farmers. Elaine Trevino, president of the Almond Alliance, based in Modesto, told West Farm Press that at least five almond hullers were held up by the outages, without generators or any working machines. In a state nearly synonymous with almond milk, the outage bodes poorly: "For almonds," Trevino said, "the backup is going to cause a delay in harvests."Most essential services, like hospitals or fire stations are equipped with emergency measures for blackouts like these. Jan Emerson-Shey of the California Hospital Association said she didn't expect any disruption to care. "We are well prepared," she said, "and when we had the last outages a few weeks ago, there were no serious consequences. Some people delayed elective procedures, but generally speaking, all the hospitals came through that outage just fine."Scott McLean, a spokesperson for CalFIRE, the state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, called the outages inconvenient, but affirmed that there would be no break in service. "We're as inconvenienced as everybody," he said. "It is what it is." Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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