| Wisconsin mother, two daughters found dead after Amber Alert issued; boyfriend arrested Posted: 16 Feb 2020 04:30 PM PST  A mother and two daughters were found dead after an Amber Alert was issued Saturday.
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| Judge sets Tuesday phone hearing in Roger Stone case Posted: 16 Feb 2020 12:57 PM PST  The court session would be the first since prosecutors abruptly quit last week
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| American woman from cruise ship tests positive again for coronavirus in Malaysia Posted: 16 Feb 2020 12:40 AM PST |
| USS Arizona crew member, Pearl Harbor survivor dies age 97 Posted: 16 Feb 2020 02:36 PM PST |
| Germany wants another crack at a EU mission in the Strait of Hormuz Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:25 AM PST  Berlin last summer rejected a request to join a U.S.-led naval protection mission for fear of getting tangled up in shooting war between the United States and Iran.
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| Man who left puppy to drown in cage sentenced to 1 year for animal cruelty Posted: 16 Feb 2020 07:57 AM PST  The 36-year-old New Jersey man left the puppy in a cage along the rising tide of Sandy Hook Bay after a fight with his ex-girlfriend.
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| ‘Photographer’ Drugged New Mom, Planned to Steal Baby, Cops Say Posted: 15 Feb 2020 01:20 PM PST  It began with an offer on Facebook group for the mothers of newborns: An aspiring photographer wanted to take pictures of babies for free to build her portfolio.To the mother of a 5-week-old infant, it sounded like a great deal. But after three sessions with the photographer, her teenage daughter in tow, things allegedly took a terrifying turn.The new mom ate a cupcake offered by the pair and soon began to feel wobbly, numb and drowsy. She feared she had been drugged, told the visitors to leave, and called 911.Police in Washington state suspect she was correct—and they say she's lucky the Feb. 5 encounter in Spanaway didn't turn out much worse. Investigators said they have collected evidence that the 38-year-old "photographer," Juliette Parker, had a plan to steal a baby and raise it as her own.On Friday afternoon, detectives from the Pierce County Sheriff's Department arrested Parker, who has also gone by the names Juliette Noel and Juliette Gains, and her 16-year-old daughter. Parker was charged with attempted kidnapping and second-degree assault.A release from the sheriff's office said there were red flags that something strange was afoot during Parker's earlier visit to the home. "The suspect was observed taking cell phone selfies with the victim's baby and was seen wiping her fingerprints off items she touched inside the victim's home," they said.The sheriff's office said they have identified "additional victims" but provided no details.Parker's ex-husband, Daniel Gaines, who is locked in a custody battle with her, said that he finds it hard to believe his daughter was in on the alleged plot."I question what my daughter knew," he told The Daily Beast.Last year, Parker ran for mayor of Colorado Springs, Colorado, according to KOAA. At the time, she had only been a resident of the city for two years."I love Colorado Springs, and I want to live here the rest of my life," Parker said then, according to The Gazette. "I would like my kids to be able to live here and grow up here. I would like to have my grandkids be able to grow up here and live here and have their kids here."Parker, who ran on a platform of affordable housing and ending homelessness, lost by a landslide.The Gazette reported last year that Parker had been charged in federal court with trespassing in 2014; she explained that she wandered onto military property during a hike and picked up some old rifle bullets—one of which exploded at home, injuring her.Court records say she and a companion were scavenging for metal and took the shells home to melt them for scrap, the Tacoma News Tribune reported. While disassembling one, it blew up, blasting a 2-foot-wide hole in the floor and causing injuries to both.Additional reporting by Barbie Latza NadeauRead 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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| Inside the Family's Manhattan Apartment Posted: 16 Feb 2020 05:00 AM PST |
| William Barr: how the attorney general became Trump's enabler-in-chief Posted: 14 Feb 2020 11:00 PM PST  Barr's brazen intervention in the case of the president's crony Roger Stone is the latest grave disappointment to those who thought he might rein in his boss's excessesLawyers who have filled political appointee positions in the Trump administration have been pursued by doubts about their qualifications or caliber.In 2018, a justice department staffer was made acting attorney general, the department's top job.Last week, the president installed a young friend of his aide Stephen Miller atop a pyramid of 2,500 lawyers as general counsel in the Department of Homeland Security.But there is one Trump appointee whose preparedness has never been questioned. William Barr, 69 and a veteran of 40 years in Washington, was confirmed one year ago as attorney general, a position with broad influence over the administration of justice and broad sway over public faith placed in it."Barr is particularly effective," said Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and veteran of the George W Bush administration, "because he's one of the very few exceptions among Trump appointees – someone who is both qualified to do the job and has sufficient experience to know how to do it well."Sadly, he has decided to be an enabler."At the end of a historically turbulent week for the justice department with unknown implications for the country, that combination in Barr – power plus a knack for wielding it – has provoked intense alarm in Washington and far beyond.The fear is that Barr's competence has flipped from virtue to vice owing to a quality that he appears to lack or have lost: judgment in the face of an untethered president.> Trump's actions reflect his belief that he really has, as he said, an absolute right to intervene anywhere> > Paul RosenzweigBarr was once seen as a potential check on Trump's overt desire to take command of the justice department, deploying its investigators and prosecutors at his whim and his will. But this week, critics warn, the attorney general has been revealed as an eager accomplice in eroding norms meant to insulate the criminal justice system from political interference, threatening the bedrock principle of equality before the law."We fought a revolution against kingly prerogative," said Rosenzweig. "At its most extreme, Trump's actions post-impeachment in the last week reflect his belief that he really has, as he said, an absolute right to intervene anywhere in the executive branch. And there's a word for that."People with absolute rights are kings."Trump has never been coy about his intentions. On Friday morning, he fed the sense of alarm when he insisted that he has "the legal right" to intervene in criminal cases.But the developments of the past week have changed the public understanding of just how aligned Barr is with the president, and just how extensive his cooperation has been.Those developments included Barr's intervention in a case involving Trump's friend Roger Stone, prompting the withdrawal of four career prosecutors; the resignation from government of a prominent former US attorney previously sidelined by Barr; and the issuance of a rare public warning by a federal judge about the independence of the courts."Bill Barr has turned the job of attorney general and the political appointee layer at the top of the justice department on its head," said Neil Kinkopf, a Georgia State law professor who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel under Bill Clinton."In past administrations of both political parties, the function of the political appointees at the justice department has been to insulate the rest of the department from political pressure. And Bill Barr instead has become the conduit for that political pressure." 'Shrewd, careful and full of it'Barr has not been untouched by the turbulence of the last week. Reported threats of additional resignations drove him on Thursday to grant a TV interview in which he complained that Trump's tweets "make it impossible for me to do my job" and vowed: "I'm not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody."A Trump spokesperson said the president's feelings were not hurt. Barr was said to have warned the White House of what he was going to say.The interview was met with outrage and eye-rolls among critics who saw a wide divergence between what Barr said and everything else he has been doing."I think Bill Barr is shrewd, deliberate, smart, calculating, careful, and full of it," tweeted the former US attorney Preet Bharara.The real Barr, critics say, has a 12-month track record as a spearhead for Trump's attack on justice, beginning with public lies about the report of special counsel Robert Mueller and running through his intervention in the case of Roger Stone.In a prominent early incident among many in which Barr's loyalty to the president seemed to critics to exceed his loyalty to the nation, Barr called a press conference last April and offered a misleading preview of Mueller's report. He omitted the report's detailed description of potential obstruction of justice by Trump and falsely claimed the White House had cooperated fully.In May, Barr assigned a US attorney to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation, an obsession of Trump's. In July, Barr traveled to London to ask intelligence officials there for help with the investigation. He made a similar trip to Italy in September.Recently, Barr announced the creation of an "intake process" for information gathered by Rudy Giuliani about investigations tied to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. On Friday, the New York Times reported that Barr had assigned outside prosecutors to review the prosecution of the former national security adviser Michael Flynn and other defendants tied personally to Trump.In August, Barr declined to recuse himself from a justice department review of a whistleblower complaint charging Trump with soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election, despite his being named in the report. The review found no wrongdoing by the president, who survived impeachment over the matter.> This kind of direct, presidential interference in specific ongoing criminal prosecutions is extraordinary> > Neil KinkopfBut no previous action by Barr provoked such a crisis as his intervention this week in the Stone case.In that episode, Barr directed the US attorney's office in the District of Columbia, which handles many prominent cases with a nexus to the federal government, to revisit its recommendation of seven to nine years in prison for Stone, who was convicted of obstruction of justice and witness tampering among other felonies.It was unclear whether Barr issued his direction before or after a Trump tweet blasting the case as "a horrible and very unfair situation" and a "miscarriage of justice". In any event, the US attorney, a hand-picked Barr ally, entered a new recommendation for a lighter sentence and the four career prosecutors who signed the original recommendation withdrew from the case in apparent protest."I do think it is something of a break-the-glass moment because of how overt it is," said Harry Sandick, a former assistant US attorney in the southern district of New York who helped draft a letter published by the New York City bar association on Wednesday calling for an "immediate investigation".Kinkopf said: "This is a really significant break. This kind of direct, presidential interference in specific ongoing criminal prosecutions is extraordinary. Even for this president and this attorney general."Barr's intervention in the Stone case came after he orchestrated a replacement of the head of the prosecutor's office in Washington, Jessie Liu, under murky circumstances. Liu had been tapped for a Treasury post and was replaced in the US attorney's office by Timothy Shea, a Barr loyalist. Then, this week, Trump withdrew Liu's nomination – and she resigned from government."One wonders whether other tweets could lead to people being charged, to people seeking harsher sentences," said Sandick. "We watch with concern over the possibility that the US attorney in Washington DC was replaced because of her unwillingness perhaps to charge [former FBI official] Andrew McCabe, or James Comey, or others."A further Trump attack this week on the judge in the Paul Manafort and Stone cases, as well as the DC prosecutors, prompted a rare rebuke on Thursday from the chief US judge in the District of Columbia, Beryl A Howell."The judges of this court base their sentencing decisions on careful consideration of the actual record in the case before them; the applicable sentencing guidelines and statutory factors; the submissions of the parties, the Probation Office and victims; and their own judgment and experience," Howell said."Public criticism or pressure is not a factor." 'Immense suffering, wreckage and misery'Barr grew up in New York City, graduated from George Washington University law school, served in the Reagan administration and was attorney general under George HW Bush, establishing a record as a hardliner on gang violence and immigration and advocating for pardons in the Iran-Contra affair.He is a devout Catholic, describing in a speech in October at the University of Notre Dame how the American experiment depends on the advance of "Judeo-Christian moral standards" and attacking "militant secularists" whose "campaign to destroy the traditional moral order has brought with it immense suffering, wreckage and misery".Barr's long career in public life led some justice department veterans to welcome his nomination as attorney general in late 2018, given concerns about who else Trump might pick.> There was some hope that he would be an attorney general in the traditional model … he has been a grave disappointment> > Paul Rosenzweig"Initially there was some hope that he would be an attorney general in the traditional model," said Rosenzweig. "And I confess that myself, I thought that would be the case and I thought it would be a pretty traditional appointment."And he has been a grave disappointment."But there were also warnings about Barr, particularly attached to a memo he submitted to the department arguing that Mueller's investigation of Trump for alleged obstruction of justice was "fatally misconceived".Kinkopf was among those who warned that Barr's view of executive power was dangerously expansive, telling the Guardian it "comes very close to putting the president above the law".But there was room to believe at the time that Barr's theories would remain theories, Kinkopf says now."Even among people who have advocated that theory of presidential power," he said, "there are very longstanding norms in the justice department and the White House about respecting the independence of the justice department."Barr has not vindicated his supporters, Kinkopf said."His theory is that the constitution allows for this, but good-faith service in the office of president and the office of attorney general maintains the credibility and the apolitical nature of law enforcement. That had long been the norm regardless of one's view of presidential power."Barr has completely obliterated that."
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| Democratic rivals tell billionaire Bloomberg: Let's debate Posted: 16 Feb 2020 08:26 AM PST  U.S. Democratic presidential candidates said on Sunday billionaire Michael Bloomberg should face the same rigorous scrutiny as his rivals and they would welcome the chance to square off with him in a 2020 presidential debate. Bloomberg, a media mogul and former New York City mayor, has vastly outspent other Democratic candidates in campaign advertisements. Former Vice President Joe Biden said he would challenge Bloomberg over his mayoral record, specifically his support for a policing strategy known as "stop and frisk" that was criticized for ensnaring disproportionate numbers of blacks and Latinos.
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| After homophobic jibes, Buttigieg says US has 'moved on' Posted: 16 Feb 2020 09:14 AM PST  The gay presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg insisted his sexuality would not damage his electoral prospects Sunday, saying the United States had "moved on" as a country, after homophobic jibes by allies of Donald Trump. The 38-year-old Democrat, who married his partner Chasten Glezman two years ago, said he would not take lectures from supporters of a man who has faced accusations ranging from rape to sleeping with a porn star.
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| Costa Rican police find six tonnes of cocaine in biggest ever haul Posted: 16 Feb 2020 07:15 AM PST  Police in Costa Rica have found almost 6 tonnes of cocaine in a shipping container, leading to the country's biggest ever drug seizure.The drugs, which weighed 5,800kg, were discovered on Friday evening in Limón in a container of flowers due to be sent to Rotterdam, Holland, according to the Costan Rican national newspaper La Nación.
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| 'Housing is not the end': Former homeless struggle to adapt Posted: 16 Feb 2020 02:00 AM PST  "There needs to be continued support," one woman said.
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| Assistant principal accused of raping student avoids jail Posted: 15 Feb 2020 07:28 AM PST  An assistant principal charged with raping a 16-year-old student in Missouri has avoided jail time by accepting an Alford plea, which allows her to assert innocence while acknowledging the evidence proves her guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
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| Remember When Iran Took Out Saddam Hussein's Navy In One Day—With American-Made Jets? Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:00 PM PST  One of the most intense air battles since World War II.
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| An invasion of propaganda: Experts warn that white supremacist messages are seeping into mainstream Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:06 AM PST  White supremacy propaganda is on the rise, and experts say mainstreaming of that ideology contributes to acts of domestic terrorism.
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| Man gets 1 year in case of dog left in cage with tide rising Posted: 15 Feb 2020 09:18 AM PST |
| Coronavirus panic could be the endangered pangolin's new threat Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:30 PM PST  Bill Zeigler, a top researcher at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, shared his concerns.
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| Trump blames border wall falling over on 'big winds' Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:41 AM PST  President Trump has blamed reports about a section of his border wall falling over on the "Fake News," claiming in a tweet the part of the wall fell due to "big winds" and had since been fixed "forever."
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| Why Joe Biden needs ‘a political miracle’ to stay in the race to face Trump Posted: 15 Feb 2020 11:00 PM PST  Barack Obama's vice-president is floundering in the Democratic primary, losing key support as vital votes loomLarry Sabato is an analyst, author and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. His students are currently embedded in various presidential campaigns. Two were working for Joe Biden in Iowa. Before caucus day, they texted Sabato to say they expected to lose badly.Sabato asked why. The answer: "No energy at all."And so it proved. Biden, who was Barack Obama's righthand man for eight years and long the Democrats' national frontrunner to take on Donald Trump, trailed in fourth. A week later, he fled New Hampshire before the votes were even counted, to escape the public humiliation of finishing fifth.Now, in the words of one commentator, Biden "needs a miracle" to stay in the race. A man whose candidacy a year ago seemed to be predicated on his appeal to the white working class is depending on African American voters to rescue him from the oft-quoted maxim that all political lives end in failure. What went wrong?"I've watched Joe Biden since he was first elected [to the Senate] in 1972," Sabato said. "He was full of energy and joking around and had a big personality but I don't think anyone has associated the word 'vision' with Joe Biden. Democrats are looking for a vision; Biden's vision is to go back to Obama's policies. I understand it, but it doesn't get you standing up and cheering."The 77-year-old's debate performances have failed to inspire and his rallies have drawn small crowds. His rally in Des Moines on the eve of the Iowa caucuses was in a more compact venue than Pete Buttigieg's across the city and, while delivering a heartfelt critique of Trump, offered fewer policy specifics and generated less electricity.Sabato added: "People are charged up and incensed about Trump. But if you're standing there talking and they go to sleep, it doesn't suggest you're the best one to beat Trump. People keep saying he's lost a step or two but this is the same Joe Biden I remember from the 1970s. He's a meanderer. Some speakers get you fired up but Joe's not that."> In Iowa I saw one of the most inferior ground games in politics. I have never seen anything so inept> > Moe VelaThere is a distinct whiff of déja vu. Biden's first run for president fell apart in 1987 when he quoted British politician Neil Kinnock but forgot to credit him, prompting charges of plagiarism. His second attempt went off the rails in 2007 when he described Obama as "the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy". (His third-place finish in his home state, Delaware, remains his best performance in a primary.)The 2020 effort was meant to be different story with Biden, who served with distinction as Obama's vice-president, cast as the antidote to Trump and restorer of normalcy. But he was poleaxed by Senator Kamala Harris of California in the first Democratic debate in June, when she challenged his past views on desegregated school busing.He fared little better in a debate in September when, asked about what responsibility Americans have to repair the legacy of slavery, he gave a rambling answer that included "make sure you have the record player on at night, make sure that kids hear words, a kid coming from a very poor school, a very poor background, will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time we get there."Debates came and went. Trump's attacks on Biden's son, Hunter, over his business dealings in Ukraine generated media scrutiny, both fair and unfair, that in some minds may have planted seeds of doubt. In Iowa it was clear the Obama magic, which swept the caucuses in 2008, had not rubbed off on his running mate. The blame seemed to lie with both an underwhelming candidate and a poorly organised campaign.Moe Vela, who was director of administration and senior adviser to Biden at the White House, said: "In Iowa I saw one of the most inferior ground games in politics. I have never seen anything so inept. He's not being served properly by his campaign."Vela, now an LGBTQ and Latino activist and board director at TransparentBusiness, added: "He had been the front runner for so long that I think the campaign staff became complacent. You got a sense they were so busy talking about electability and pitting him against Trump they forgot they have to deal with these 15 people first. You could see this rude awakening in Iowa as the night was slipping away."In New Hampshire, where Biden called a student a "lying dog faced pony soldier", he fared even worse. A comeback win in Nevada looks unlikely, setting up a potential last stand in South Carolina, the first contest in a state with a significant African American population – a constituency where he has consistently polled strongly. (Biden has been at pains to point out that 99% of the African American population have not yet had a say.)But even this advantage appears to have been eroded by Senator Bernie Sanders and billionaire Tom Steyer. Then comes Super Tuesday, where another billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, has spent nearly $350m on ads focused on the 16 states and territories that vote, eating into Biden's support among moderates and African Americans. Several black members of Congress and city mayors have endorsed Bloomberg despite the discriminatory "stop-and-frisk" policy he supported as mayor of New York.Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), said: "Biden has lost half the black support that he had. It's bled off and is now largely with Mike Bloomberg. Some of it has gone to Bernie Sanders, a little bit maybe to Elizabeth Warren, none of it to Pete Buttigieg. So he's sitting there holding 22, 23% of the black vote now. Mike Bloomberg is behind them at what, 21?"Clearly whatever the decision-making process was that led them to run the first leg of this race the way they have has cost him dearly. They have to make up a lot of ground in a very short period of time. When you swing into Super Tuesday, you've got to have bankroll." 'If you're saying you're a winner, you'd better win'Is there still time to turn it around? Yes, but it will be an uphill struggle. Since 1972, no candidate from either party has finished below second in both Iowa and New Hampshire and won the nomination.Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist who was an adviser to the Al Gore and John Kerry presidential campaigns, said: "For him to recover from this would be a political miracle unlike anything we've seen in modern presidential politics. I don't think it's impossible but it's unlikely and would fly in the face of all our knowledge of political history."Biden's main pitch had been that in this moment of national emergency, he was the steady hand best placed to prevent Trump winning a second term. To centrists, he would be less of a gamble than progressives Sanders or Warren. But after the heavy losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, he is caught in his own electability trap.Shrum, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, said: "The centrepiece of the campaign was, 'I'm going to beat Trump like a drum'. The public said, 'If you're saying you're a winner, you'd better win'.""Al Gore had this line: elections are not a reward for past performance. I think they are always about the future, not just the past. In Democratic primaries, you've got to have a future offer to people, no matter how dissatisfied they are with the Republican incumbent. Joe Biden has a lot of policies on his website but that's not what comes over on the debate stage."> There's still to recover but if he's not willing to restructure his campaign, I don't think he can bounce back> > Coby OwensIn a small but telling measure of a campaign in a downward spiral, Biden's press team did not respond to multiple phone and email requests from the Guardian seeking comment. The Trump, Bloomberg and other campaigns are generally far more responsive.Shrum added: "I suspect they have many pressures and I have nothing but sympathy for the candidate and the people around him. It's hard to start at the top of the mountain and end up in the valley."Biden's struggles have dismayed supporters in his home state, where he remains immensely popular. Coby Owens, a local civil rights activist whose family has known Biden for years, and who is still trying to decide between Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, said: "There are a lot of people who are shocked and concerned about it and want to know what's going on."They have been hearing the message that he's the most electable so they thought he was going to cruise through the first two states, which are predominantly white. There's still a lot of room left for him to recover but if he's not willing to restructure his campaign, I don't think he can bounce back." 'Telltale signs'Biden has frequently referenced his partnership with Obama but America's first black president has remained notably silent.Obama reportedly discouraged Biden from running in 2016 because he believed Hillary Clinton had a better chance of winning. This time, rumour has it that he nudged Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, to make a late bid because again he was dubious about Biden's viability (Patrick dropped out after a poor showing in New Hampshire).Steele, the ex-RNC chairman and former lieutenant-governor of Maryland, commented: "The telltale signs were there: the lack of interest that Barack had in the Biden campaign, the fact that the word on the street was that Deval Patrick was in the race was because Obama encouraged him to get in the race. Why would you do that with your vice-president already in the game?"While cautious about writing Biden off just yet, Steele added: "For me, just watching the Biden campaign, I get the sense that he's kind of walked through it. I think he's going through the paces of it. I'm not convinced at this stage that he really wants it any more. I don't think you take the front runner status that he's held for over a year, anchored by 50% of the black vote in a party where that is a very important and huge demographic edge, and just leave it on the table."I've never seen a candidate do that the way it's been done. Maybe there's a little bit of hubris and you assume that you've got the weight to throw around to win this thing. But then again, at the same time, I think at a certain point the gas is out of the tank and you just sleepwalk your way through it."
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| France warns of bloody Brexit talks battle Posted: 15 Feb 2020 04:25 PM PST  France on Sunday warned Britain to expect a bitter, bloody battle in Brexit trade talks with the EU, saying the two sides would "rip each other apart". Negotiations for a deal on future EU-UK relations are not due to start until next month, but London and Brussels have already clashed over rules for British financial firms' access to the EU after Brexit. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian said it would be tough to achieve Britain's aim of agreeing a free trade deal by the end of the year, with the two sides far apart on a range of issues.
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| Nine homeless drug users shot dead in Afghan capital: police Posted: 16 Feb 2020 01:51 AM PST |
| Chinese president says he took early action against COVID-19 Posted: 15 Feb 2020 08:36 PM PST  The disclosure came after Chinese leadership was criticized for slow and muted reaction to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
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| Hitler's Submarines Almost Launched A Missile Attack On America Posted: 16 Feb 2020 04:00 AM PST  In March, the Allies intercepted a message from German Admiral Godt dispatching seven Type IX long-range submarines to "attack targets in American coastal zone" as part of an attack group awesomely codenamed Seewolf.
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| Mark Zuckerberg admits Facebook was ‘slow to understand’ election interference Posted: 15 Feb 2020 12:04 PM PST  Facebook is taking down more than a million fake accounts a day to counter a massive upsurge in malicious material in the web, Mark Zuckerberg told an international security forum, and disclosed that more than 50 information operations aimed at elections have been uncovered since the 2016 US presidential race.There are continuing investigations into claims that Donald Trump was the Muscovian candidate at the election and a Kremlin campaign, including a disinformation drive, helped put him in the White House.
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| Israeli army: Hamas hackers tried to 'seduce' soldiers Posted: 16 Feb 2020 02:05 AM PST  The Israeli military on Sunday said it has thwarted an attempt by the Hamas militant group to hack soldiers' phones by posing as young, attractive women on social media, striking up friendships and persuading them into downloading malware. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters that the phones of dozens of soldiers had been infected in recent months, although he said the army detected the scam early on and prevented any major secrets from reaching the Islamic militant group. Conricus said this was the third attempt by Hamas to target male soldiers through fake social media accounts, most recently in July 2018.
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| The coronavirus could cripple China's economy for longer than Wall Street wants to believe Posted: 16 Feb 2020 05:28 AM PST  China's economy can't snap back from the coronavirus as fast as it did after SARS because it's growing more slowly and the banking system is a mess.
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| Winter storm barreling toward the UK is possibly the strongest ever for North Atlantic Posted: 15 Feb 2020 12:51 PM PST  The storm likely to hit Ireland, the U.K., France and northern Germany with winds gusts up to 85 mph.
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| Border Patrol Will Deploy Elite Tactical Agents to Sanctuary Cities Posted: 15 Feb 2020 07:19 AM PST  The Trump administration is deploying law enforcement tactical units from the southern border as part of a supercharged arrest operation in sanctuary cities across the country, an escalation in the president's battle against localities that refuse to participate in immigration enforcement.The specially trained officers are being sent to cities including Chicago and New York to boost the enforcement power of local Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, according to two officials who are familiar with the secret operation. Additional agents are expected to be sent to San Francisco; Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Boston, New Orleans, Detroit and Newark, New Jersey.The move reflects President Donald Trump's persistence in cracking down on sanctuary cities, localities that have refused to cooperate in handing over immigrants targeted for deportation to federal authorities. It comes soon after the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security announced a series of measures that will affect both American citizens and immigrants living in those places.Lawrence Payne, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, confirmed the agency was deploying 100 officers to work with ICE, which conducts arrests in the interior of the country, "in order to enhance the integrity of the immigration system, protect public safety, and strengthen our national security."The deployment of the teams will run from February through May, according to an email sent to CBP personnel, which was read to The New York Times by one official familiar with the planning.Among the agents being deployed to sanctuary cities are members of the elite tactical unit known as BORTAC, which acts essentially as the SWAT team of the Border Patrol. With additional gear such as stun grenades and enhanced Special Forces-type training, including sniper certification, the officers typically conduct high-risk operations targeting individuals who are known to be violent, many of them with extensive criminal records.The unit's work often takes place in the most rugged and swelteringly hot areas of the border. It can involve breaking into stash houses maintained by smuggling operations that are known to be filled with drugs and weapons.In sanctuary cities, the BORTAC agents will be asked to support interior officers in run-of-the-mill immigration arrests, the officials said. Their presence could spark new fear in immigrant communities that have been on high alert under the stepped-up deportation and detention policies adopted after Trump took office.In a statement, ICE's acting director, Matthew Albence, said the deployment comes in response to policies adopted by sanctuary cities, which have made it harder for immigration agents to do their jobs."As we have noted for years, in jurisdictions where we are not allowed to assume custody of aliens from jails, our officers are forced to make at-large arrests of criminal aliens who have been released into communities," he said. "When sanctuary cities release these criminals back to the street, it increases the occurrence of preventable crimes, and more importantly, preventable victims."But Gil Kerlikowske, the former commissioner of CBP, which oversees tactical units along the border, said sending the officers to conduct immigration enforcement within cities, where they are not trained to work, could escalate situations that are already volatile. He called the move a "significant mistake.""If you were a police chief and you were going to make an apprehension for a relatively minor offense, you don't send the SWAT team. And BORTAC is the SWAT team," said Kerlikowske, who is a former chief of police in Seattle. "They're trained for much more hazardous missions than this."It was a gun-wielding BORTAC agent who, in April 2000, seized Elian Gonzalez -- a Cuban boy who was embroiled in an international asylum controversy -- from his uncle's arms after agents had forced their way into the home where the boy was staying.The Border Patrol squads will be charged with backing up ICE agents during deportation operations and standing by as a show of force, the officials said.ICE agents typically seek out people with criminal convictions or multiple immigration violations as their primary targets for deportation, but family members and friends are often swept up in the enforcement net in what are known as "collateral" arrests, and many such people could now be caught up in any enhanced operations.ICE leadership requested the help in sanctuary jurisdictions because agents there often struggle to track down unauthorized immigrants without the help of the police and other state and local agencies.Law enforcement officers in areas that refuse to cooperate with ICE and the Border Patrol -- which include both liberal and conservative parts of the country -- often argue that doing so pushes people without legal status further into the shadows, ultimately making cities less safe because that segment of the population becomes less likely to report crimes or cooperate with investigations.The goal of the new joint operation, one of the officials said, was to increase arrests in the sanctuary jurisdictions by at least 35%.The operation reflects an increasingly hawkish approach to immigration enforcement, following the firings and resignations of leaders who have been viewed in the White House as unwilling to take the harsh steps Trump and his advisers view as necessary to slow illegal immigration.Other recent attempts at aggressive enforcement by ICE have faltered, such as a series of raids targeting more than 2,000 migrant families that were planned during the summer of 2019. Trump's advance warnings on Twitter led many of those who were targeted to refuse to open their front doors, and ultimately, only 35 of those who had been targeted were arrested in the operation's first several weeks.Even with the added show of force from BORTAC, agents will be limited in their abilities compared to the police or sheriff's deputies. Unlike operations on the border, where BORTAC agents may engage in armed confrontations with drug-smuggling suspects using armored vehicles, immigration agents in cities are enforcing civil infractions rather than criminal ones. They are not allowed to forcibly enter properties in order to make arrests, and the presence of BORTAC agents, while helpful in boosting the number of agents on the ground, may prove most useful for the visual message it sends.The agents will not be busting down doors or engaging in shootouts, said one official with direct knowledge of the operation, who like the other official would not be identified because he was not authorized to discuss it.Some CBP agents are permitted certain enforcement powers, including setting up immigration checkpoints, within 100 miles of a land or coastal port.Naureen Shah, senior advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, questioned whether the teams would use that authority in the targeted cities, most of which are within that 100-mile zone."This is about further militarizing our streets," Shah said. "It could actually have deadly effects. We could see CBP officers who aren't trained for interior enforcement using aggressive force."Many ICE agents say their jobs have become increasingly difficult, three years into Trump's presidency, because of robust campaigns by immigrant advocacy organizations seeking to safeguard unauthorized immigrants by educating them on the legal limitations that ICE officers face. As a result, in many communities where immigrants reside, people now turn immediately to their phones when ICE agents are spotted to alert neighbors that they should stay inside.Trump campaigned on a promise to crack down on sanctuary cities. Within a few months of taking office, the Justice Department moved to withhold certain federal funds from the jurisdictions. Last week, the department filed suit against state and local governments in California, New Jersey and Washington state over sanctuary policies there. Also this month, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would ban New Yorkers from enrolling in programs that allow travelers to speed through customs checkpoints in airports and at the border as a result of the state's decision to offer driver's licenses to immigrants living in the country illegally and bar Homeland Security agencies from accessing the state's motor vehicle database.The president again highlighted the issue in his State of the Union address, arguing that sanctuary cities "release dangerous criminal aliens to prey upon the public."In January, a New York City Council member wrote an open letter for his fellow councilors expressing concern about increasing ICE activity in the region, including collateral arrests. Last week, an acquaintance of a man in New York who was being arrested by ICE was shot in an incident that the agency later blamed on sanctuary policies.The aggressive immigration enforcement tactics being implemented around the country are not limited to any one agency. In a widely circulated video recorded in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday night, Border Patrol agents are shown subduing and using a Taser to apprehend a man in a Burger King restaurant.The video shows the man pleading repeatedly with the agents while shouting that he had done nothing wrong. A female bystander asks the agents to leave the restaurant, as she cries while witnessing the episode. While the man was writhing in pain on the floor after being stunned repeatedly, another woman in the video approached the agents and asked, "Why are you still hitting him?"A Border Patrol spokesman said in a statement that the apprehended man was a "suspected alien smuggler," without offering any evidence to support that assertion. The spokesman did not respond to a request for the man's name and nationality."The man refused to cooperate with the verbal instructions and attempted to avoid being handcuffed, and a struggle ensued," the Border Patrol spokesman said.In the same statement, the spokesman said that a "citizen" had notified law enforcement of a suspicious vehicle parked on his property. The Border Patrol said the man apprehended by the agents on Tuesday was the driver of the vehicle and that "record checks indicated that the man was in the country illegally and had a positive criminal history."An ICE spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the latest effort in sanctuary cities, citing the agency's policy against sharing information about enforcement operations before they have taken place. However, the spokesman added that the agency had "made it abundantly clear for years that, in jurisdictions where we are not allowed to assume custody of aliens from jails, our officers would be redirected to make at-large arrests."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Lebanese national carrier to only accept US dollars Posted: 16 Feb 2020 05:11 AM PST  Crisis-hit Lebanon's national carrier will only accept payments in US dollars from Monday, according to state media. Lebanon is in the throes of an economic meltdown and a biting liquidity crunch that has seen the local currency depreciate on the parallel market and banks impose stringent controls on withdrawals and transfers abroad. "From Monday, Middle East (Airlines) and other airline companies operating in Lebanon will only accept payments in US dollars," the official National News Agency (NNA) reported on Sunday.
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| Harvey Weinstein faces moment of truth as jury weighs case on Tuesday Posted: 15 Feb 2020 11:00 PM PST  The MeToo movement received barely a mention at the movie mogul's rape trial but is likely to bear heavily on deliberationsThe jury at Harvey Weinstein's rape trial in New York will begin deliberations on Tuesday, with the world's media and the expectations of the MeToo movement bearing heavily upon them.The five women and seven men who form the jury hold in their hands the fate of the disgraced movie mogul. If they find him guilty of two of the five counts against him, of "predatory sexual assault", he could be sentenced to life in prison.Since the trial began last month, the jurors have constantly been reminded of intense media interest in the case.Prosecutors and Weinstein's lawyers have frequently directed jurors' vision to the overflowing press benches in courtroom No 99 at the New York supreme court, and alluded to the sound of keyboards rattling as one way of highlighting the high-profile nature of the case.The process of reaching a verdict will not be easy or brief. The first trial of Bill Cosby, the comedian whose prosecution is often compared to that of Weinstein, ended in a mistrial when the jury failed to agree after six gruelling days of deliberations.Cosby was found guilty at a second trial and sentenced in 2018 to three to 10 years in prison.There are two main accusers in the Weinstein case.Miriam Haley was working as a production assistant in 2006 when she alleges Weinstein lured her to his SoHo apartment in New York and forced oral sex on her.A woman who the Guardian is not identifying, as she has not indicated that she wishes to be publicly named, alleges she was raped in a New York hotel in 2013.Weinstein, 67, has also been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 100 women. He denies all allegations of non-consensual sex.In the New York trial, four women who accuse the producer of rape and sexual assault – Sopranos actor Annabella Sciorra, Dawn Dunning, Tarale Wulff and Lauren Young – were called by the prosecution to give supporting evidence.In closing arguments, Weinstein's lead defence lawyer, Donna Rotunno, and lead prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon presented the jury with starkly contrasting summaries of the case.Though MeToo, the social reckoning galvanised by the accusations of sexual abuse levelled against the Pulp Fiction producer since 2017, has rarely been mentioned in court, it has clearly influenced the lawyers' diametrically opposing interpretations of the case in hand.Rotunno has portrayed the six women as money-grabbing, manipulative individuals who exploited Weinstein in order to advance their careers. According to that view, they were prepared to do anything – including consensual sex – in order to get on.On Friday, Illuzzi-Orbon gave a very different analysis. Weinstein, she said, treated women who he tricked into entering his lair like "ants he could step on without consequences". * In the US, Rainn offers support at 800-656-4673 or by chat at Rainn.org. In the UK, the rape crisis national freephone helpline is at 0808-802-9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800-737-7328) or1800respect.org.au. Other international helplines can be found at Ibiblio.org.
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| DNC announces debate qualification threshold for South Carolina Posted: 15 Feb 2020 02:19 PM PST  Candidates will need to win one delegate in the first three states or poll above 10 percent to make the South Carolina debate state.
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| The Real Coronavirus Problem: The Racism It Creates Is Real Posted: 15 Feb 2020 05:22 PM PST  And it must be confronted.
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| California to apologize for internment of Japanese Americans Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:28 AM PST  Les Ouchida was born an American just outside California's capital city, but his citizenship mattered little after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war. Based solely on their Japanese ancestry, the 5-year-old and his family were taken from their home in 1942 and imprisoned far away in Arkansas. On Thursday, California's Legislature is expected to approve a resolution offering an apology to Ouchida and other internment victims for the state's role in aiding the U.S. government's policy and condemning actions that helped fan anti-Japanese discrimination.
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| Taking migraine seriously Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:12 PM PST  About one in seven people lives with what's ranked as the second-most debilitating disease on the planet, but experts say research into its causes and treatments is dramatically underfunded.
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| A top Chinese official has slammed other countries for the 'overreaction' and 'unnecessary panic' towards the coronavirus Posted: 15 Feb 2020 11:21 AM PST  Wang claimed in an interview with Reuters that China has been "very open and transparent" in the way it has relayed information.
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| US embassy in Baghdad attacked with rockets Posted: 16 Feb 2020 10:29 AM PST  Rockets have dropped near the US embassy in Iraq and a military base hosting American troops, according to officials.There have been no causalities reported following the strikes, which fell amid heightened tensions in the Middle East.
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| Israel says Hamas used 'attractive' women in thwarted cyberattack Posted: 16 Feb 2020 03:46 AM PST  Israel's military said on Sunday it had thwarted an attempted malware attack by Hamas that sought to gain access to soldiers' mobile phones by using seductive pictures of young women. The phones of a few dozen soldiers were affected, but the military "does not assess that there has been a substantial breach of information", said Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an army spokesman. Conricus said this was the third attempted malware attack by Hamas in less than four years, but that the latest effort indicated the Islamist group, which controls the Gaza Strip, had improved their capacity to wage cyber-warfare.
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| Ex-priest convicted in Texas beauty queen's murder dies while serving life Posted: 14 Feb 2020 07:57 PM PST  John Feit was convicted in 2016 of a murder that happened over 50 years ago.
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| This creamy Tuscan chicken dinner is the cure for the Sunday blues Posted: 16 Feb 2020 05:40 AM PST  Feel a little droopy? This colorful and creamy chicken and pasta dish is the perfect pick-me-up.
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| Mating snakes prompt closure of part of Florida park Posted: 16 Feb 2020 08:34 AM PST  A Florida city has shut down a section of a lake on Thursday after receiving reports of swarming snakes. The Lakeland Parks & Recreation department posted on its Facebook page that a group of nonvenomous water snakes congregated to mate near a traffic roundabout.
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| Hong Kong protesters rally against planned virus quarantine centers Posted: 16 Feb 2020 02:13 AM PST  Hundreds of demonstrators rallied for a second day in Hong Kong on Sunday to protest against plans to turn some buildings into coronavirus quarantine centers, reviving anti-government protests in the Chinese-ruled city. The virus has opened a new front for protesters after months of demonstrations over the perceived erosion of freedoms had largely fizzled out over the past month, as people stayed at home amid fears of a community outbreak of the virus. About 100 people braved rain in the New Territories district of Fo Tan, where authorities plan to use a newly built residential development that was subsidized by the government as a quarantine center.
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| Police: 1 dead, 4 wounded in Connecticut club shooting Posted: 16 Feb 2020 01:31 AM PST  Gunfire erupted at a Connecticut nightclub early Sunday morning, killing a man and wounding four other people, police said. A 28-year-old man died in the shooting at the Majestic Lounge in Hartford's South End, police Lt. Paul Cicero said. Two other males and two females were wounded, with two of them in surgery Sunday morning and two in stable condition, he said.
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| Two British Airways executives step down following the airline's first strike in decades Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:56 AM PST  The departures also arrive as the airline's parent firm, International Consolidated Airlines Group, transitions to a new CEO.
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| William Barr must quit over Trump-Stone scandal – former justice officials Posted: 16 Feb 2020 12:24 PM PST  * More than 1,000 public servants decry presidential interference * Aide Conway claims justice system rigged against Trump * Robert Reich: assaulting justice, Trump has out-Nixoned NixonMore than 1,000 former US justice department officials, including some of the top government lawyers in the country, have called on attorney general William Barr to resign in the wake of the Roger Stone scandal.Some 1,143 alumni of the Department of Justice posted to Medium on Sunday a group letter that tore into Barr for "doing the president's personal bidding" in imposing on prosecutors the recommendation of a reduced sentence for Stone, a longtime friend of Donald Trump who was convicted of lying to and obstructing Congress and threatening a witness in the Russia investigation.Barr, the officials said, had damaged the reputation of the department for "integrity and the rule of law".The searing letter is the latest twist in a rapidly spiraling constitutional crisis that began earlier this week when Barr imposed his new sentencing memo, slashing a seven- to nine-year proposed prison term suggested by career prosecutors. In the fallout, the four prosecutors who had handled the case resigned in disgust.The letter carries weight because its signatories are exclusively drawn from past DoJ public servants. Among them are several former US attorneys appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and section chiefs of key elements of the justice department including its antiterrorism unit.They write that it is unheard of for top leaders of the justice department to overrule line prosecutors in order to give preferential treatment to close associates of the president. They say that amounts to political interference that is "anathema to the department's core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law".Barr's action amounted to an existential threat to the republic, the former officials say: "Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies."Barr tried to squash the perception he had been leaned on by Trump by calling on the president to stop tweeting about criminal prosecutions. He told ABC News such unrestrained comments were "making it impossible for me to do my job".But speculation continued to swirl that Barr had kowtowed to the president. Demoralisation spread rapidly through the DoJ, intensifying when it emerged that Barr has ordered outside prosecutors to re-examine criminal cases against Trump associates including former national security adviser Michael Flynn.> The president thinks Andy McCabe should have been punished because he lied and lied several times to the investigators> > Kellyanne ConwayDespite palpable distress among both serving and former officials, and multiple warnings that Trump and Barr are threatening the very rule of law, the White House has continued to inflame the situation. Trump counsellor Kellyanne Conway on Sunday claimed the president was a victim of a "two-tier criminal justice system" that was actively undermining him and his associates.Conway used Fox News Sunday to pour fuel on the fire. The truth, she claimed, was that far from making a dangerous intervention in criminal cases involving his friends and perceived enemies, Trump himself is the victim of the politicisation of the justice system."If you're President Trump or people associated with him there's prosecutions that have gone one way," Conway said, alluding to the original sentence recommended for Stone which she contrasted with the decision announced by the justice department on Friday to drop charges against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.Directly contradicting her own claim that Trump, despite his "vast powers", was not engaging in political interference in criminal cases, Conway proceeded to interfere in a criminal case. She called McCabe a "serial liar and leaker" and went on: "The president thinks that Andy McCabe should have been punished because he lied and lied several times to the investigators."McCabe, a deputy to fired FBI director James Comey and a key figure in the Russia investigation, was fired by Trump in March 2018, two days shy of retirement.The furore over Trump ignoring protocols that have kept a distance between the White House and federal prosecutors since Watergate began when the president slammed the proposed sentence for Stone as "horrible and very unfair". Hours later, Barr announced that he was imposing a reduced recommended sentence.Trump then made the constitutionally dubious claim that as president he has the "legal right" to stick his finger into any criminal case.On Saturday he duly re-entered the fray over McCabe, claiming falsely that DoJ inspector general Michael Horowitz recommended the former FBI man's firing. Horowitz referred criticisms of McCabe to prosecutors but did not recommend dismissal.On Sunday Marc Short, chief of staff to vice-president Mike Pence, made further contentious comments on CNN's State of the Union. Like Conway, he claimed without evidence that criminal justice was skewed against the president."The scales of justice aren't balanced any more," he said, "when someone like Roger Stone gets a prosecution that suggests a nine-year jail sentence and candidly someone like Andy McCabe who also lied to federal investigators gets a lucrative contract here at CNN. People say, 'How is this fair?' and that's the source of the president's frustration."The row has also become a major talking point among Democrats vying to take on Trump in November. Former vice-president Joe Biden told NBC's Meet the Press: "No one, no one, including Richard Nixon, has weaponised the Department of Justice" as much as Trump.The crisis is personal for Biden, given the efforts to coerce Ukraine into investigating him and his son Hunter which led to Trump's impeachment. Last week it was revealed that Barr has set up a channel to review information gathered in Ukraine by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani relating to the Bidens."To have a thug like Rudy Giuliani reporting to the attorney general – I mean this is, this is almost like a really bad sitcom," Biden said."Any self-respecting Republican or Democratic top-flight lawyer would have just resigned by now, in my view. It's just the things that are being done are so beyond the pale."
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