| Woman sexually assaulted outside bar ‘while bouncers watched,’ lawyer says Posted: 30 Nov 2019 07:00 AM PST  A woman is suing a bar claiming bouncers stood by and watched as she was sexually assaulted in an alley.Video footage shows a man dressed in black opening the back door of the El Hefe bar and restaurant, in Chicago, followed by another man who appears to be holding the woman by the neck as he leads her out into the alleyway.
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| Kamala Harris' campaign manager is under fire, receives blame for decline Posted: 30 Nov 2019 09:23 AM PST ![Kamala Harris' campaign manager is under fire, receives blame for decline]( "Kamala Harris' campaign manager is under fire, receives blame for decline") Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) isn't bouncing back after a precipitous decline in the Democratic presidential race -- and fingers are starting to point at her campaign manager.Juan Rodriguez has drawn the ire of both camapaign staffers and outside observers, The New York Times reports. "This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly," state operations director Kelly Mehlenbacher wrote in a resignation letter obtained by the Times.Mehlenbacher clarified she still supported Harris as a candidate, but did not have confidence in the campaign's leadership. She specifically cited the campaign's decision to move people from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland, and then "lay them off with no notice" and "without thoughtful consideration of the personal consequences to them."Harris and other senior staff members were reportedly blindsided and angered by the extent of the layoffs, and some aides reportedly found out about them from junior aides and the press rather than Rodriguez himself.One of Harris' congressional supporters, Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), said she told the senator she needs to make a change. "The weakness is at the top, and it's clearly Juan," she said. "He needs to take responsibility -- that's where the buck stops."More stories from theweek.com God's gift to America? 5 scathingly funny cartoons about the Trump-ified GOP Democrats are running into Trump's economic buzzsaw
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| Protesters Return in Peaceful Post-Poll Rally: Hong Kong Update Posted: 30 Nov 2019 11:15 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong protesters returned to the city center in a peaceful rally after the city's pro-democracy forces won by a landslide in local district council elections in a rebuke of the government and its backers in Beijing.President Donald Trump signed legislation this week expressing U.S. support for Hong Kong protesters, prompting China to threaten retaliation as the two sides get close to signing a phase one trade deal. Police on Friday said a nearly two-week siege of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, a violent standoff between activists and officers that transfixed the city, had come to an end.While last week's vote unfolded peacefully, there are concerns in the financial hub that leader Carrie Lam's failure to make any concessions to demonstrators in its wake could fuel more anger. After a Thanksgiving rally in the city center on Thursday, weekend rallies include one planned on Sunday to show gratitude to the U.S. for introducing the Hong Kong legislation.Here's the latest (all times local):China arrests 2 foreign nationals for protest links (Saturday 6 p.m.)China arrested two overseas nationals for their alleged involvement in the Hong Kong protest movement, state newspaper Southern Daily reported, citing information from the national security agency. Taiwan citizen Lee Meng-chu and Lee Henley Hu Xiang of Belize were arrested by the national security authorities in the southern Guangdong province, the local paper said.The Taiwanese was suspected of spying and leaking Chinese state secrets, while the other person was accused of funding criminal activities that endanger national security, the paper said. Prosecutors have approved the arrests in both cases and are going through legal procedures, it said.Protesters return (Saturday 2 pm.)Hundreds of secondary-school students and elderly people rallied in a park in the city center in support of Hong Kong's ongoing protests and against police use of tear gas. A number of people addressed the crowd before a band played on a makeshift stage in front of background poster that said: The elderly and the young hold hands and we walk together with you.No police were evident in or around the gathering in Chater Garden, Central, which was scheduled to end at 5 p.m.1,377 arrested in relation to PolyU (4:54 p.m.)Hong Kong police have arrested 1,377 people who left the then-besieged PolyU campus or were in the vicinity, the force's Chief Superintendent Kwok Ka-chuen said at a daily briefing. More than 300 people under age 18 had their information taken down when they left the campus, he said, adding that he was "pleased" the episode at the school was coming to an end and that he hoped it could be a "turning point" for the city's unrest, as it was resolved peacefullyPolice have now made 5,890 protest-related arrests since rallies began on June 9, he said.Hong Kong insurance sales to China slip (3:32 p.m.)Insurance sales in the financial hub to mainland customers declined in the third quarter as the protests halted visits to the city. Their purchases of insurance and related investment policies declined 18% to HK$9.7 billion ($1.2 billion) from a year earlier, according to figures from Hong Kong's Insurance Authority. That year-on-year drop was the biggest since the start of last year, weighing on insurance giants such as Prudential Plc and AIA Group Ltd.Hong Kong is a hot market to buy insurance for mainland customers since it offers a wider array of investment products and access to foreign currencies. Since rules stipulate that customers need to finalize contracts in person, sales have been pummeled as many prospective Chinese customers have avoided the former British colony.PolyU siege ends (Friday 12:51 p.m.)Police said they lifted their blockade on PolyU after officers cleared the campus. Chow Yat-ming, the city's assistant police commissioner, said he believed PolyU could be handed back to university management after dangerous items that remained on campus were removed.Firemen and a police safety team did a final sweep of the campus in the morning after searching every level of each building to handle hazardous items and collect evidence the day before. The police said they seized items including 3,989 petrol bombs, 1,339 explosive items and 601 bottles of corrosive liquids.\--With assistance from Zheping Huang.To contact the reporters on this story: Karen Leigh in Hong Kong at kleigh4@bloomberg.net;Natalie Lung in Hong Kong at flung6@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Stanley JamesFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Italy’s ‘Miss Hitler’ Among 19 Investigated for Starting New Nazi Party in Italy Posted: 29 Nov 2019 08:03 AM PST  ROME–The tattoo of a Nazi eagle above a swastika that spans the back of Francesca Rizzi leaves no doubt about her political ideology. The 36-year-old winner of an online beauty pageant in which she was crowned "Miss Hitler" was one of 19 people across Italy put under formal investigation this week for illegally forming a Nazi political party. Her co-collaborators include a 50-year-old female civil servant named Antonella Pavin from Padua who dubbed herself "Hitler's Sergeant Major," and a former mobster from the Calabria 'Ndrangheta mafia who was allegedly in charge of militant training.Italy's anti-mafia and anti-terrorism forces spent two years investigating the group, which has ties to a number of other far-right clusters across Europe, including the U.K.'s Combat 18 and similar hate groups in Portugal, Spain and Greece.Armed special forces carried out the sting operation dubbed "Black Shadows" in 16 cities from Palermo to Milan Thursday morning after someone alerted "Miss Hitler" that police were monitoring the group. Fearful she and others involved might destroy or hide evidence, they swooped in. What they found was more than troubling. In 16 of the homes searched, they found similar caches of weapons including grenades and semi-automatic rifles and explosives. They also found Nazi and fascist memorabilia adorned with swastikas and the faces of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, alongside militant training texts designed to teach new members how to target Jewish people and gays. Their party motto, "Invisible, Silent and Lethal," was scrawled on the material. Prosecutors who led the investigation from Caltanissetta, Sicily, said Thursday that the suspects were creating "an openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic, anti-Semitic group called the Italian National Socialist Workers' Party." Pavin posted a notice with the group's logo on her Facebook page in July 2018, saying the group would start "military training" in August. Neo-Nazis' Air-to-Air Missile: An Explosive New Clue to Salvini's Intrigues With the RussiansForming a Fascist or Nazi party is against the law in Italy under post-World War II legislation passed in 1952, when Italy was recovering from the destruction caused by Mussolini's decision to follow Hitler's ideology. More than 7,500 Italian Jews died during the Holocaust. But the resurgence of such hate groups has become increasingly troubling in recent months. In November, 89-year-old Holocaust survivor and senator for life Liliana Segre, was put under armed police protection after receiving more than 200 anti-Semitic messages and death threats a day. Her name reportedly appeared in some of the hate messages found at the homes in Thursday's raids. Last week, new street signs that had just been erected in Rome to honor persecuted Italian Jews were desecrated. Mussolini's Last Laugh: How Fascist Architecture Still Dominates RomeLast summer, police found a cache of weapons including a French-made air-to-air missile in the hands of two Nazi sympathizers in the northern town of Turin. It is not clear if they were part of this particular group. In November, Segre called for a parliamentary committee to combat hate, which passed even though Italy's far-right former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's Northern League party abstained from the vote. The arrests this week have uncovered an intricate network of hate across the country, with group members communicating on a closed group called "Militia" on the Russian social networking service VK. Among the messages were calls for the "mass castration and extinction" of Jews and gays. Police say they anticipate more arrests. 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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| This Is America's Role in Saudi Arabia's Power Struggle Posted: 29 Nov 2019 12:00 PM PST  Did you know that Saudi-Iranian oil rivalry was shaped by American power?
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| We Aid the Growth of Chinese Tyranny to Our Eternal Shame Posted: 29 Nov 2019 03:30 AM PST  We can't say we didn't know.Reports of the repression of Muslims living in northwestern China have been leaking out for years in drips and drabs. Satellite photos picked up the construction of massive prison facilities in the Xinjiang province. The BBC was even invited into one of the "thought transformation camps," from which inmates are released a few hours a week, to see the program of patriotic re-education. Inmates were frank with the Beeb's reporters that religious activity — including prayer — was banned inside the building.Now, in the last week, a more complete picture of Beijing's repression campaign has emerged. Leaked memos have revealed some of the details of China's modernized and tech-supported religious persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang. These are the first Venona cables of our generation. They make certain what sharp observers must have guessed: China uses cutting-edge technology to identify, classify, and detain Muslims for re-education in the old-school argot of totalitarian Communism. President Xi Jinping has instructed the party members and public officials involved in this repression to show "absolutely no mercy" and make ample use of the "organs of dictatorship" to accomplish their mission.The leaked memos include lines that will be cited as exculpatory in the future — they show Xi counseling against proposals to "eradicate" Islam entirely. But the larger picture painted by the documents is one of state apparatus mobilized in the service of repression, aiming to make up for lost time in which Uighurs and Kazaks were allowed to worship, practice, and believe as they pleased. "The weapons of the people's democratic dictatorship must be wielded without any hesitation or wavering," Xi is quoted as saying.Distressingly, Xi could occasionally sound like some of the West's "New Atheists" when talking about his fellow citizens. "People who are captured by religious extremism — male or female, old or young — have their consciences destroyed," he says. They "lose their humanity and murder without blinking an eye."There really isn't any mistaking the strategy here: The ethnic balance of southern Xinjiang is to be transformed through the state-aided resettlement of Han Chinese in the region. While there are token concessions to the idea of allowing Uighurs to retain their religion, the use of Turkic languages has been discouraged. China is attempting to deprive Uighurs of their ethnolinguistic identity, the very rudiments of their nationality. These efforts have unsurprisingly inspired intermittent riots and violence in recent years, which have in turn been used to justify the expansion of the re-education camps.The most chilling aspect of this repression is the use of information technology. An incredible, Orwellian surveillance system is used to monitor the movements of Xinjiang's people. The cameras are placed prominently throughout cities such as Kashgar and surrounding towns to remind people that they are being watched. Algorithms are deployed to facilitate the classification and selection of Uighurs for the camps.It's a tyranny that we have helped to enable. China's prosperity and technological progress, generated in no small part by its ability to trade in such high volume with the United States, have empowered its government to do this. Our desire to keep trading with China obliges the president of the United States to remain silent about this barbarity.In short, the leaked documents make clear that the West desperately needs to recover its ability to privilege political and moral aims over the immediate exigencies of the market, which can tolerate even this kind of repression and in fact may operate more smoothly alongside it. The power of China's tyranny grows in parallel with our fatalism about it, and our determination to be consoled by its economic upside. But enough is enough.
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| Unhappy Thanksgiving: Explosions at Texas chemical plant keep more than 50,000 out of their homes Posted: 29 Nov 2019 01:12 PM PST  More than 50,000 people in southeast Texas remain under evacuation orders on Thanksgiving after two powerful explosions at a chemical plant.
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| 2 victims are dead and a suspect was killed by police in a London terror incident. Here's how the attack unfolded. Posted: 29 Nov 2019 06:33 PM PST  Police said they were called to London Bridge just before 2 p.m. local time on Friday afternoon for reports of a stabbing.
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| Hundreds march in Sudan capital seeking justice for martyrs Posted: 30 Nov 2019 05:56 AM PST  Hundreds of protesters marched Saturday through downtown Khartoum to demand justice for those killed in demonstrations against Sudan's now ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir. More than 250 people were killed and hundreds injured in the months-long protests that erupted in December 2018, according to umbrella protest movement Forces of Freedom and Change. Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years, was deposed by the army in a palace coup on April 11 after the demonstrations triggered by an acute economic crisis.
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| U.S. Rebukes Zambia for Jailing Two Men for Homosexuality Posted: 30 Nov 2019 04:27 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. ambassador to Zambia said a high court ruling sentencing two men to 15 years in prison for homosexuality was horrifying.Ambassador Daniel Foote urged the government to reconsider laws that punish minority groups."I was personally horrified to read yesterday about the sentencing of two men, who had a consensual relationship, which hurt absolutely no one, to 15 years imprisonment," he said in an emailed statement Friday. "Decisions like this oppressive sentencing do untold damage to Zambia's international reputation by demonstrating that human rights in Zambia" are "not a universal guarantee."The constitution stipulates that the southern African nation is Christian, and laws dating back to Britain's colonial rule of the country that ended in 1964 forbid gay sex."This is the will of the Zambian people, we have to be with the people by abiding by the law," Chanda Kasolo, permanent secretary in the ministry of information, said by phone. "We respect the opinion of the American ambassador. We have to do things the way the people want."The sentencing of the men was particularly disturbing given that "government officials can steal millions of public dollars without prosecution," Foote said. He didn't give detail on which officials allegedly steal funds."Zambia takes great exception to the remarks," both on the court ruling and about government officials, Foreign Affairs Minister Joseph Malanji said in a video distributed on social-media websites. The minister will present a formal démarche to Washington by Monday, he said.Zambia is ranked 105 out of 180 countries tracked by Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2018.(Updates with comment from foreign affairs ministry in final paragraph.)\--With assistance from Vernon Wessels.To contact the reporters on this story: Taonga Clifford Mitimingi in Lusaka at tmitimingi@bloomberg.net;Matthew Hill in Maputo at mhill58@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net, Gordon Bell, Helen RobertsonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Ilhan Omar's Republican opponent was banned from Twitter after suggesting the congresswoman should be tried for treason and hanged Posted: 29 Nov 2019 09:00 AM PST  The Republican campaign promoted a wild conspiracy theory that Omar had illegally shared sensitive government information with Qatar and Iran.
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| Behind in polls, Taiwan president contender tells supporters to lie to pollsters Posted: 29 Nov 2019 12:32 AM PST  The main opposition contender for Taiwan's Jan. 11 presidential election said on Friday people should lie to pollsters to trick the ruling party into thinking they were going to win. Han Kuo-yu, standing on the presidential ticket for the Kuomintang party which favors close ties with China, is running a double-digit deficit in opinion polls behind President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Han told reporters late on Thursday there were "many really strange polls" and even "fake polls" and people should refuse to answer calls from pollsters.
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| Nuclear Nightmare? Russia’s Avangard Hypersonic Missile Is About to Go Operational. Posted: 29 Nov 2019 10:00 PM PST  Russia's Avangard hypersonic boost-glide missile is about to operational.
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| Thanksgiving storms dump snow on much of the US – and it isn't over yet Posted: 29 Nov 2019 08:23 AM PST  A new storm, already pummeling California, could disrupt Thanksgiving travelers in the northeast and mid-Atlantic states heading home on Sunday.
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| Trump's antics leaving Republicans 'disgusted and exhausted', says former GOP congressman Posted: 29 Nov 2019 12:14 PM PST  A former Republican congressman said he would "probably vote to impeach" Donald Trump if he were still serving in the US House of Representatives while suggesting the president's scandals are "infuriating" current GOP House members.Charlie Dent, a frequent critic of Mr Trump who resigned from Congress last year, said he has heard from several of his former Republican colleagues who are "absolutely disgusted and exhausted by the president's behaviour".
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| The Best Video Game the Year You Were Born Posted: 30 Nov 2019 02:00 PM PST |
| Romania's 1989 generation relive pain at ex-president's trial Posted: 29 Nov 2019 07:21 AM PST  On the morning of December 22, 1989, Bogdan Stan drank his usual cup of coffee and went to join the wave of protests against Romania's communist regime. Almost 30 years later, his mother Elena Bancila was one of around 600 victims and relatives who gathered Friday in Bucharest for the opening stage of former president Ion Iliescu's crimes against humanity trial -- the most prominent leader to face charges over those events. Bancila, now 75, believes Iliescu, who took control of the government on December 22, is responsible for the death of her son.
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| North Korea may deploy ‘super-large’ rocket launcher soon Posted: 29 Nov 2019 08:01 AM PST  North Korea said Friday the latest test-firing of its "super-large" multiple rocket launcher was a final review of the weapon's combat application, a suggestion that the country is preparing to deploy the new weapons system soon.
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| Suit claims Boy Scouts overlooked leader’s alleged abuse Posted: 30 Nov 2019 01:19 PM PST ![Suit claims Boy Scouts overlooked leader's alleged abuse]( "Suit claims Boy Scouts overlooked leader's alleged abuse") The Boy Scouts of America is facing another lawsuit in a wave of litigation over decades-old allegations of sexual abuse. The men claim they were sexually abused on scouting trips in Arkansas in 1979 and 1980, when they were between 9 and 11, by a leader who the Boy Scouts had deemed "ineligible" to volunteer with boys following accusation of sexually abuse in Georgia two years earlier. The suit claims the Boy Scouts did not report the leader to police in either state.
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| The China Challenge Continues to Mount Posted: 29 Nov 2019 01:00 PM PST  This is why the West must ensure the maintenance of peace, security of borders, and world trade.
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| Trump impeachment: What to expect as hearings begin next week Posted: 29 Nov 2019 12:03 PM PST  The next phase of Donald Trump's impeachment hearings begins next week, when members of Congress will discuss whether the president's alleged abuses of power constitute "high crimes and misdemeanours".The phrase, as outlined in the US Constitution, has primed the debate between Democrats leading the investigation and the Republicans who argue that despite several witness testimonies corroborating Mr Trump's pressure on Ukraine to investigate his political rivals in exchange for receiving military aid, none of it resembles either a high crime or a misdemeanour.
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| Millions are bracing for the impact of dangerous weather Posted: 29 Nov 2019 11:43 PM PST  The National Weather Service warns travel could become "impossible" in some places
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| Europe becomes cocaine exporter as countries overflow with drug Posted: 30 Nov 2019 06:31 AM PST  European countries have become so saturated with cocaine that the region has now become a hub for exporting the drug to markets such as Australia, Turkey and Russia, according to new data. Record levels of production of the drug in South America and new smuggling routes opening up into the continent means that Europe is now a transit area for the export of cocaine. The phenomenon is outlined in a new Europol analysis of the drug market, and comes after Spain seized a submarine carrying cocaine from Colombia in a European first this week. New trafficking routes are also being developed through war-torn west African states. Les Fiander, one of the authors of the 2019 Drugs Market Report, said there were a number of reasons why South American production has soared in recent years. "Organised crime groups have been able to expand their production, because authorities in source countries are not able to use anymore pesticides to fight it." Spanish officials seized the submarine earlier this week Credit: LALO R. VILLAR/AFP He added that the ongoing peace process in Colombia is another factor, as the vacuum left by the Farc has been rapidly filled by coca farmers looking to make quick money. According to the report, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain remain main entry points and distribution hubs for cocaine in the EU. Smuggling operations are becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect. The European Union's law enforcement agency's 2019 Drugs Market Report, shows that the value of the drugs trade in Europe is roughly €30 billion. Cannabis, accounting for 39% of the total market, is the most consumed illicit drug followed by cocaine at 31%. It is estimated that four million European citizens used cocaine this year. Last week's submarine was carrying three tonnes of cocaine valued at €100 million when it was detained off the north-west coast of Spain. The submarine had travelled from South America and it is believed the cocaine was destined for the British market. West and North Africa appears to be emerging as a more significant transit point for both air and maritime shipments of cocaine destined for the European and possibly other markets. The report found that heroin production, mainly in Afghanistan, is also on the rise and consequently there is likely to be a much greater availability of the drug in Europe over the coming years. The use of heroin and other opioids still accounts for the largest share of drug-related harms. The retail value of the heroin market in 2017 was estimated to be at least €7.4 billion. The report also highlighted how the illicit drug industry in Europe is increasingly contaminating river water, drinking water and wastewater. The adverse effects of leaking acidic chemicals are now more widespread and no longer an issue limited to local governments, the report found. Compounding the problem is the array of chemical substances that can be used to produce synthetic drugs, meaning that the amount abandoned and dumped often varies greatly.
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| Indonesian gymnast dropped after told 'she's no longer a virgin' Posted: 29 Nov 2019 03:13 AM PST ![Indonesian gymnast dropped after told 'she's no longer a virgin']( "Indonesian gymnast dropped after told 'she's no longer a virgin'") An Indonesian female gymnast training for a major sport event has been sent home on grounds she was no longer a virgin, her family said on Friday, a claim rejected by officials who insisted it was over disciplinary issues. "The coach said my daughter always goes out late with her male friends and their interrogation showed she was no longer a virgin," her mother Ayu Kurniawati told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Indonesia's East Java province. Indonesia's sports ministry denied the claim on Friday, saying the dismissal was due to performance and disciplinary issues.
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| World-famous free solo climber Brad Gobright falls 1,000 feet to his death Posted: 29 Nov 2019 05:45 AM PST  World-famous free solo climber Brad Gobright has died after falling 1,000 feet during a climb in Mexico.
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| This Made Hitler Mad: Why Allied Commandos Stormed Nazi-Occupied Norway to Destroy Fish Oil Factories Posted: 28 Nov 2019 11:30 PM PST  The raid at Vågsøy was planned with an unusual target in mind: fish oil factories. The Nazis were interested less in the dietary benefits of the omega-3 fatty acids, so much as the oil's ability to be distilled into glycerin to produce the nitroglycerine used in most high-explosive bombs and shells. And the Wehrmacht was running through a lot of bombs and shells in its war against the numerically superior Red Army.
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| Vietnam receives last of 39 remains of trafficking victims Posted: 29 Nov 2019 07:10 PM PST  The last remains of the 39 Vietnamese who died while being smuggled in a truck to England last month were repatriated to their home country on Saturday. Photos by the official Vietnam News Agency showed the arrival at the Hanoi airport of 16 bodies and seven urns, which had been flown from London. The 31 men and eight women are believed to have paid human traffickers for their clandestine transit into England.
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| Brother of convicted terrorist faces deportation despite US citizenship Posted: 29 Nov 2019 11:30 PM PST  Brother of man who detonated a pipe bomb in a New York subway and four relatives are fighting efforts to strip their residency status 'You can play everything by the book and they'll still get you,' said Sherin Ullah. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesA New Yorker who gained US citizenship as a child is suddenly facing deportation, along with several green card-holding members of his family, after apparent targeting by the Trump administration in what the family believes is a clear case of anti-Muslim bias.None of the individuals have a criminal record, and say the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) only raised questions about the validity of their immigration status after another relative was arrested following a terrorist incident in the city. The government's actions have alarmed advocates and led to them accusing officials of meting out unfair "collective punishment".Ahsan Ullah, 32, an electrician from Brooklyn, was placed in immigration detention in Kearny, New Jersey, on 22 October. He spent about four weeks separated from his American wife and three children before being released on bond last Tuesday pending the outcome of his case.Four of his relatives, who all hold green cards, are also fighting government efforts to strip them of their US residency status. Since Trump came into office, the number of such denaturalization and citizenship revocation cases filed by DHS has surged.Sherin and Ahsan Ullah. Photograph: Courtesy family"Citizenship is permanently conditional for many people who were not born here," said Fahd Ahmed, executive director of the advocacy group Desis Rising Up and Moving (Drum), which has been providing support to the Ullah family."At a time when we are seeing a white nationalist current in government and society that wants to depopulate communities of color from this country, these cases are an indication of how their tactics and attacks are evolving."Ahsan was born in Bangladesh and adopted by his uncle at a young age, the family said.After the uncle won a US visa through the diversity lottery program, Ahsan was granted a green card. He migrated to the US at eight years old and became a citizen several years later.Meanwhile, his uncle successfully petitioned to bring his sister, Ahsan's biological mother and four siblings to the country as permanent residents in 2011.The family assumed their future in the US was secure. They focused on going to school, building careers and starting families. Ahsan became an electrician, got married and had three children.But everything changed in December 2017, when one of Ahsan's brothers, Akayed, was arrested for detonating a homemade pipe bomb in a crowded New York City subway station. He was the only person injured, in what was seen as a botched attack.Family members both in the US and Bangladesh were questioned and none was found to have assisted the 27-year-old or to be supportive of terrorist organizations. Akayed was convicted of several terrorism offenses in 2018 and will be sentenced in February.Sherin, Ahsan's wife, 30, said that the day Akayed was arrested the rest of the family was utterly shocked to learn what he had done."For at least three, four months we were in disbelief," she said. "We didn't think [Akayed] was capable of this."From the moment of Akayed's arrest, other family members say that despite being cleared by law enforcement, they began to see consequences.Ahsan recounted receiving a letter from the bank notifying him that his personal and business banking accounts would be closed, and that the FBI put his business license on hold.Wary clients cancelled their contracts, he said. His mother and siblings would see New York police department squad cars parked regularly near their building and other places they frequented, including their mosque, which they had never remembered seeing before.Then, in April 2019, Ahsan received a letter out of the blue from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the DHS, stating that the agency planned to cancel his US citizenship on the grounds it was not lawfully obtained.In a panic, his mother and siblings applied for citizenship but soon received news that not only had their application d been denied but that the DHS intended to revoke their green cards. On 6 November, Ullah's mother and one of his sisters were detained for two days."After all this time, we [had] mentally and physically bonded with this country, and love this country so much," said Ayfa, Ahsan's 22-year-old sister, the day she was released from detention. "How can you disown a person just like that?"The family is now trying to fight the agency's orders.In paperwork issued to the family, which was reviewed by the Guardian, the DHS claims that Ahsan, his mother and siblings have no legal or biological relationship to the uncle whose original success in the green card lottery facilitated the others' settling in the US. Lawyers for the family said they are gathering the paperwork to prove their relationships.The family and their advocates said the treatment amounts to collective punishment. "This is retribution for sharing the same DNA" as someone accused of terrorism, Ahsan said in a phone call from the Hudson county correctional facility in New Jersey, just before his release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention."I've been here [in the US] since I was a kid – my school is here, my college is here, my family is here, my business is here, my friends are here, my career is here," he said . "This is where my everything is."DHS declined to comment on the family's case.fundraiserWhat's happening to the Ullah family is not an isolated case. A report by the Open Society Justice Initiative in September found that the Trump administration has filed three times more civil denaturalization cases, about 30 a year – stripping Americans of their citizenship – than the average annual number pursued under the eight preceding presidents.Nearly half of all persons targeted for denaturalization in 2017 and 2018 came from "special interest" countries, a label used to identify nations with presumed links to terrorism, including Bangladesh, the report said, which amounted to a policy of "collective suspicion".Manar Waheed, senior legislative and advocacy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the data indicates that "the same communities that this administration has targeted over and over again" are being singled out.Ahsan said that while he was in detention, he missed the moment when his seven-month-old son said "Baba" for the first time."I'm just surprised by all this," Ahsan said, speaking from the detention facility before he was released on bond. "I pay my taxes, I've never done anything wrong, I try to be a model citizen, and I'm here [in detention]."The administration has threatened to deport the family members unless they can prove their relationships are what they have long claimed and had not been challenged by the authorities before.The family is hoping they can reverse the Trump administration action by submitting challenges to the USCIS appeals office, contesting their deportation orders in immigration court and, if necessary, filing civil motions in federal court.But they are dismayed by the turn of events, and very nervous.Sherin said: "You can play everything by the book and they'll still get you."
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| Starbucks worker loses job after police chief said officer was served cups labeled 'PIG' Posted: 30 Nov 2019 01:01 PM PST ![Starbucks worker loses job after police chief said officer was served cups labeled 'PIG']( "Starbucks worker loses job after police chief said officer was served cups labeled 'PIG'") A social media post claimed a worker served an on-duty Kiefer, Oklahoma officer cups labeled "PIG" instead of the officer's name
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| Airlines are joining in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday with major flight sales — here's how you can save Posted: 29 Nov 2019 01:52 PM PST  Delta, American Airlines, Southwest, Emirates, and more have posted Black Friday and Cyber Monday flight deals. We expect more sales, too.
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| Who is 'Elizabeth Warren' the politician, and what has she done with the nonpartisan wonk? Posted: 30 Nov 2019 02:00 AM PST  Her own books show how Elizabeth Warren moved away from careful analysis to rhetoric, biography and boilerplate once she became a politician.
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| Exclusive: U.S. weighs new regulations to further restrict Huawei suppliers - sources Posted: 29 Nov 2019 08:49 AM PST  The U.S. government may expand its power to stop more foreign shipments of products with U.S. technology to China's Huawei, amid frustration the company's blacklisting has failed to cut off supplies to the world's largest telecoms equipment maker, two sources said. The U.S. Commerce Department in May placed Huawei Technologies on a trade blacklist, citing national security concerns. Putting Huawei on the entity list, as it is known, allowed the U.S. government to restrict sales of U.S.-made goods to the company, and some more limited items made abroad that contain U.S. technology.
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| Million-gallon raw sewage leak shuts down miles of California coastline Posted: 30 Nov 2019 09:10 AM PST  A broken pipe leaked more than a million gallons of raw sewage into the sea off the California coast, shutting down miles of Orange County beaches as authorities scrambled to fix it.The spill was first reported on Wednesday afternoon, and the source of the leak was later tracked down to a valve on a 24-inch city sewage main near the Aliso and Woods Canyon Wilderness Park.
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| 2 Men Stockpiled Guns and Far-Right Propaganda in New Jersey. Are They Alone? Posted: 29 Nov 2019 12:06 PM PST  NEWTON, N.J. -- New Jersey investigators were looking into a routine complaint from a woman who said her ex-boyfriend was harassing her when they uncovered something far more dire: The 25-year-old man had stockpiled weapons and far-right propaganda and had talked about shooting up a hospital.Two months later, New Jersey State Police responding to a crash in the same county discovered illegal assault weapons in the back seat of a van. Later, they found 17 more firearms, a grenade launcher and neo-Nazi paraphernalia in the driver's home.The arrests of the two men rocked law enforcement officials in Sussex County, raising fears that far-right extremism had crept into this sleepy, rural area in New Jersey.It is impossible to know if the two arrests so close together are a fluke or signal of a growing white supremacist movement in the county, law enforcement officials said. The two men appear to have no connection to each other.Sussex has lately been seeing ugly signs of increasing racism and anti-Semitism. Vandals have scrawled swastikas in schools, and in a highly publicized incident last fall, supporters of a Jewish congressman found their Sussex County home vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti.Bias-related crimes rose from four in 2016, when President Donald Trump was elected, to seven in 2018, prosecutors said. Although the numbers are small, officials say the general upward trend is troubling in a county of only 141,000 people and reflects similar increases across the state."One hundred percent certainty, the numbers of reports have increased," said New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. "I can't say that belief system is isolated to Sussex. We've seen it in all parts of the state."At the same time, there has been a rise in right-wing extremism across the country. White supremacists and other far-right extremists have killed more people than any other category of domestic extremist in the past 18 years. In August, for example, a white supremacist targeting Mexicans killed 22 in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.Only recently have federal law enforcement officials come to grips with that threat, and local prosecutors like those in Sussex County have often found themselves doing investigations they are ill-equipped to undertake.Law enforcement officials said neither of the men arrested in Suffolk County had contact with other white supremacists in the area. Instead, they appear to have been independently radicalized.Gregory Mueller, an assistant prosecutor in Newton, New Jersey, said it is highly likely there are others with a similar ideology in Sussex County, but he is not sure how to find them. His investigators lack the expertise to ferret them out.Until recently, for instance, Mueller and his team were not familiar with an image found on one suspect's social media profiles: Pepe the Frog, a widely recognized, racist meme used by the far right.For now, the county has just one computer forensics expert, Detective Marty Lewis, who spends nights and weekends trawling far-right internet forums for clues."City departments get so many resources from the feds to track these groups," Mueller said. "We have Marty down in the basement."Sussex as a case studyTucked along New Jersey's western border, Sussex County is rural and mostly white, although over the past five years there has been a small but steady increase in the number of immigrants living there. Trump easily carried the county in 2016.For roughly a century, the county was a conservative stronghold, the anchor of New Jersey's reliably Republican 5th Congressional District. But redistricting in 2010 added towns from the heavily Democratic eastern part of the state, and in 2016, the district elected a moderate Democrat, Josh Gottheimer, to Congress.He is the first Democrat to hold the seat since 1933. Not long after he was elected, his office was spray-painted with swastikas. The incident was part of a troubling rise in anti-Semitic, racist and far-right graffiti, county officials said.The phenomenon tracked with what was happening across the country after the 2016 election in counties with similar demographics.In the first two quarters of 2019, there was a 40% increase in anti-Semitic incidents compared with the same period in 2016, according to statistics provided by the Anti-Defamation League."I think the national rhetoric is not helping," said Jared Maples, the director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security. "That discourse leads to people feeling disenfranchised and on the fringe and again, empowered, maybe, to make their voices heard about the hate that they kind of espouse and believe in."Gottheimer has been repeatedly targeted with graffiti -- during the midterm election a supporter's lawn sign was covered in Nazi symbols -- but the most frequent targets have been the district's schools: Swastikas have been found at schools in Glen Rock, Ridgewood, Emerson and the Pascack Valley.Gottheimer noted that other hate groups like the Oath Keepers and the Ku Klux Klan were gaining a foothold in his district. "The concern is those acts of hate are the embers and then they begin to get radicalized," he said.'They're there. We just don't know who they are.'Law enforcement officials said that Michael Zaremski, the 25-year-old arrested after his ex-girlfriend complained of harassment, appears to be a prime example of the self-radicalized threat they fear may cause damage in the future."They're there," said Lewis, the computer forensics expert. "We just don't know who they are."Zaremski was an emergency medical technician who frequented white supremacist forums online and had a trove of neo-Nazi literature. He was caught only because he sent a photo of his ex-girlfriend wearing parts of a Nazi uniform to her employer, officials said.The police later discovered that he had made videos set in New Jersey that mimicked, shot-by-shot, the first minutes of the live-streamed massacre of Muslims by a right-wing terrorist in Christchurch, New Zealand. He had also stockpiled automatic weapons, each with the same markings on the gun magazines as those of the Christchurch shooter, according to sources familiar with the investigation.Indeed, Zaremski was so obsessed with the mass shooting in New Zealand that he made his former girlfriend watch the video of the shooting repeatedly, investigators said. He also affixed a "Right Wing Death Squad" patch to his EMT jacket.Law enforcement officials discovered material on his computer that suggested he was curious about committing a mass shooting at a hospital.The way Zaremski became radicalized has become the new normal, law enforcement officials and experts on hate groups said. More and more alienated young people are adopting extreme ideologies in online forums and chat rooms, rather than joining traditional groups like the Ku Klux Klan."The online world is just as important to us as looking at real world activities," said Heidi Beirich, the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project, which tracks hate groups. "There's essentially no distinction. And rooting people out from an online perspective is a very difficult thing for law enforcement, because you don't have a group to infiltrate."An intelligence gapUnlike Zaremski, Joseph Rubino, the 57-year-old man arrested after he crashed his van on a country road, appeared to have been on the radar of federal law enforcement for some time before he was taken into custody in August, one law enforcement official said.A lapsed member of a motorcycle gang, Rubino was believed to be selling homemade semi-automatic guns and handing out far-right propaganda at gun shows in the region, officials said.Still, Rubino was never arrested by federal agents.Instead, he was picked up by the state police, who arrived at the scene of the crash in August and spotted banned firearms in the back seat of the wrecked van, according to court documents. A subsequent search of Rubino's home turned up a grenade launcher, 17 semi-automatic weapons and racist and anti-Semitic materials.Rubino was charged in federal court with possessing illegal weapons. Had he not wrecked his car, Mueller said, Rubino might still be frequenting gun shows."If you look at how we were able to arrest Zaremski and Rubino, they were both by happenstance," said Mueller. "It's not like we had this massive yearlong investigation and these were the two that we found."A wider problemSussex County's quandary is a symptom of a bigger issue, years in the making: The FBI no longer has a deep reservoir of intelligence on far-right threats, current and former law enforcement officials say.For years, there was a de facto policy within the Justice Department to defer prosecutions of far-right groups to state and local authorities, as the FBI shifted resources toward Islamic terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks, said Michael German, a former FBI officer who worked undercover inside white supremacist groups in the 1990s and early 2000s.It was not until recently, as the threat from right-wing extremism flourished and the threat from Islamic extremism waned, that the flaws in that strategy became clear. Deferring those cases to local authorities meant there was no longer a national repository of data and information on far-right groups, German said."It means the federal government loses all that intelligence," he said. "If there was a crime in Des Moines, Iowa, and a crime in Springfield, Illinois, and a crime in Minnesota, they might never know that those crimes are actually connected."Zaremski was engaging regularly with other far-right ideologues, Mueller said, but none of them appeared to be within Sussex County's jurisdiction, or even the state's. Pursuing such cases would require help from federal law enforcement."They do assist," Mueller said of the FBI and other agencies. "But it typically will take us reaching out to them on a case or person."Grewal, the state attorney general, has revised bias and hate crime standards and is encouraging prosecutors to report any suspicious activity. Since that directive, the reports have increased by 300% across the state."In the wake of Parkland, we saw that there were gaps in reporting," he said, referring to the school shooting near Miami that left 17 dead.But local law enforcement is still behind in infiltrating right-wing groups, Grewal said. It is essential, he said, to "empower people who might come into contact with these individuals" to report them. It was a tip from a girlfriend, he noted, that led to Zaremski's arrest."I definitely feel for these prosecutors," German said. "The lack of attention the FBI has put on this has created a deeper intelligence deficit where even the FBI doesn't understand these groups anymore."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Aurora the Columbus Zoo polar bear gives birth to cub on Thanksgiving Day Posted: 29 Nov 2019 05:43 PM PST  The cub is the fourth for Aurora at the Columbus Zoo. Her first cub, Nora, now lives at Utah's Hogle Zoo.
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| Indian Bishop goes on trial for raping nun Posted: 30 Nov 2019 01:15 AM PST  A Roman Catholic bishop went on trial in southern India on Saturday accused of repeatedly raping a nun. Franco Mulakkal arrived in court in Kottayam, Kerala state, with a group of supporters after attending morning prayers. While the Catholic church has been rocked by sexual assault and abuse cases in many countries, Mulakkal is the first Indian clergy to go on trial.
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