| Iran moves mock-up U.S. carrier to mouth of Gulf: satellite images Posted: 27 Jul 2020 02:42 AM PDT  Iran has moved a mock-up U.S. aircraft carrier to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, satellite images show, suggesting it will use the look-alike vessel for target practice in war games in a Gulf shipping channel vital to world oil exports. The use of dummy American warships has become an occasional feature of training by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and its naval forces, including in 2015 when Iranian missiles hit a mock-up resembling a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
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| Herman Cain is still hospitalized with COVID-19 over 3 weeks after his diagnosis Posted: 27 Jul 2020 02:42 PM PDT  Herman Cain, a former presidential candidate and an ally of President Donald Trump, has been hospitalized since July 2.
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| Who was Edmund Pettus? Selma bridge got its name from Confederate general, KKK leader Posted: 27 Jul 2020 09:53 AM PDT  It became an iconic site of in the battle for equality, but the Edmund Pettus Bridge is named after a former Confederate general and KKK leader.
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| Florida Man Receives $3.9 Million in COVID-19 Relief Funds, Buys a Lamborghini and Gets Arrested for Fraud Posted: 27 Jul 2020 03:53 PM PDT  The DOJ alleges he fraudulently applied for about $13.5 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans
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| US could ‘virtually eliminate’ coronavirus if ‘we decide to’, top Obama administration health official says Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:32 PM PDT  A top Obama administration health official has said the United States could "virtually eliminate" the coronavirus "any time we decide to" if the country were to take universal steps in controlling the virus.Andy Slavitt, the former acting administrator of the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama, shared a 38-tweet thread about what the country could be doing during the pandemic.
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| Minneapolis residents are forming armed neighborhood watches as shootings triple after George Floyd's death Posted: 27 Jul 2020 05:45 AM PDT  The city council also voted to reduce the police department's budget by more than $1 million late last week.
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| Coronavirus: Can this California prison save itself from Covid-19? Posted: 27 Jul 2020 04:28 PM PDT  San Quentin is battling a devastating coronavirus outbreak that critics say could have been avoided.
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| India's PM to attend temple groundbreaking at disputed site Posted: 26 Jul 2020 02:40 AM PDT  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend a groundbreaking ceremony next week for a Hindu temple on a disputed site in northern India where a 16th century mosque was torn down by Hindu hard-liners in 1992, according to the trust overseeing the temple construction. The ceremony is set for Aug. 5, a date organizers said was astrologically auspicious for Hindus but that also marks a year since the Indian Parliament revoked the semi-autonomous status of its only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir. The symbolism was impossible to miss for both supporters and opponents of Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, whose manifesto had for decades included pledges to strip restive Kashmir's autonomy and to build a temple to the Hindu god Ram where the Mughal-era mosque once stood, a site in the city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state that devotees believe to be Ram's birthplace.
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| Netanyahu warns Hezbollah against playing with fire after frontier incident Posted: 27 Jul 2020 05:59 AM PDT  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces thwarted an attempt by Hezbollah to infiltrate across the Lebanon frontier on Monday, which the Iranian-backed Shi'ite group denied. "Hezbollah should know it is playing with fire," Netanyahu said in a televised address from Israel's defense ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv. Earlier, a Reuters witness in Lebanon counted dozens of Israeli shells hitting the disputed Shebaa Farms area along the frontier.
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| Trump vs. Biden: A breakdown of which candidate is raking in more donors in each of America's 7 richest ZIP codes Posted: 27 Jul 2020 11:26 AM PDT  Business Insider used Bloomberg and New York Times data to see which campaign won the donation dollars of the nation's wealthiest neighborhoods.
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| People in several states mailed unsolicited packets of seeds that may be from China, officials say Posted: 27 Jul 2020 10:05 AM PDT  Agriculture officials in several states are urging people not to plant seeds they have been mailed unsolicited. The packages appear to be from China.
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| 14 in Texas family test positive for coronavirus after small gathering, 1 dies Posted: 27 Jul 2020 11:14 AM PDT  "I just don't think that people are really paying enough attention to the safety protocols and to the things they can do to protect themselves a little better," Tony Green said.
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| Anti-mask US senator who called coronavirus a hoax tests positive for Covid-19 Posted: 27 Jul 2020 07:23 AM PDT  An Arkansas senator who shared an article that described the coronavirus pandemic as a "hoax" has contracted Covid-19.Republican senator Jason Rapert, who unsuccessfully introduced a bill to ban gay marriage in the US in 2017, was hospitalised with coronavirus and pneumonia on 24 July.
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| Hurricane Douglas skirts Hawaii, forecasters remain vigilant Posted: 27 Jul 2020 04:26 AM PDT  Hurricane Douglas gained some strength and began to spin away from many of the Hawaiian Islands late Sunday.
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| How a Chinese agent used LinkedIn to hunt for targets Posted: 26 Jul 2020 11:27 AM PDT  Dickson Yeo, a PhD student-turned-agent, targeted Americans that had access to private information.
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| As Congress fights, analysts warn economy needs help now Posted: 27 Jul 2020 09:00 AM PDT  As Congress and the White House resume their efforts to agree on a new economic aid package, evidence is growing that the U.S. economy is faltering. "We're in a pretty fragile state again," warned Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm. "The economy needs another shot in the arm."
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| Malaysia faces crucial graft test as Najib’s first 1MDB verdict looms Posted: 25 Jul 2020 09:33 PM PDT  Malaysian former prime minister Najib Razak, fighting dozens of charges over a multi-billion-dollar graft scandal at state fund 1MDB, faces his first verdict on Tuesday in a landmark case that tests the country's efforts to stamp out corruption and could have big political implications. Najib was voted out in a historic 2018 election amid public anger over allegations that $4.5 billion was stolen in a globe-spanning scheme from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a fund he co-founded. For Najib, the verdict in the years-long saga, which has seen a spectacular fall from extreme opulence and a dominant position in Malaysian politics, marks a reckoning for the urbane, British-educated politician - potentially decades in jail or a partial vindication.
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| Jake Tapper Grills Coronavirus Testing Czar: Are You ‘Afraid’ of Upsetting Trump? Posted: 26 Jul 2020 09:02 AM PDT  CNN anchor Jake Tapper took Assistant Secretary of Health Adm. Brett Giroir to task over the continuing issues with coronavirus testing, asking the coronavirus testing czar if he is "afraid" of bringing these problems up with President Donald Trump.During a contentious 20-minute interview on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday morning, Tapper repeatedly pressed Giroir on the weeklong delays in coronavirus testing results Americans are experiencing."Are you happy where testing is right now?" Tapper asked, prompting Giroir to say he's "never going to be happy" until they have the pandemic under control.While acknowledging that testing is still not where it should be, the HHS official went on to tout the progress the administration has made over the past few months, adding that half of the tests conducted have turnaround times of less than 24 hours."The delays that most people talk about are at the large commercial labs that perform about half the testing in the country," he said. "Now, the data are, the average turnaround is 4.27 days."The CNN anchor brought up former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney's criticism of the administration's handling of the pandemic, specifically the poor turnaround times on testing. In an op-ed earlier this month, Mulvaney said the long waits for results were "inexcusable" while citing his own family's experience.At the same time, Tapper repeatedly grilled Giroir on the president's promises when it came to testing and getting the virus, which has now killed nearly 150,000 Americans, under control."In March, President Trump said, falsely, anyone who wants a test can get a test," the veteran anchor pressed. "At what point will it be true, sir, that anyone who wants a test will be able to get one with a quick turnaround so as to be effective. When will that be true?"Giroir, meanwhile, claimed that it's "true now" that anyone who "needs a test can get a test," adding that he's "highly confident" that turnaround times will decrease this week based on advances they've made.Tapper also pushed the public health official on the administration's use of the Defense Production Act to ramp up production on masks and ventilators, wondering aloud why the White House wasn't using it more forcefully on testing. This led to the CNN host asking whether this was due to an unwillingness to upset the president."There seems to be this reluctance to push the president to do what he needs to do to get the testing up to speed," Tapper declared. "I know that he's under the misguided impression that more testing is bad and makes him look bad, which as you know is completely false.""And I'm wondering if you and others are just afraid to do this because you don't want to upset him, afraid to ask him to do what he needs to do to invoke the DPA to force the federal labs to get up to speed to where we need to be so that we can isolate the virus, as you know," he added. "Are you afraid to bring this up to President Trump because it will upset him?"Giroir, for his part, denied that this was the case, claiming that tough issues and problems are brought up openly with Trump and the administration."Everyone of the administration understands the importance of testing," he claimed. "Nobody in the task force is afraid to bring up anything to the vice president or the president.""Every time I've met with the president, he's been listening to all the data, he assesses that, he understands it," Giroir continued. "I meet with the vice president almost every single day. No one is trying to stop testing in this country. No one has ever told me to do that. We want more, we want better, we want quicker."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Dr. Birx told Kentucky governor she had 'significant concerns' about the state's coronavirus case rise and recommended he close bars Posted: 27 Jul 2020 11:27 AM PDT  With at least 27,079 confirmed infections, Kentucky is in "the yellow zone" Birx said. Gov. Beshear is expected to announce "additional steps" Monday.
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| Couple wearing swastika face masks insist they aren't Nazis as Walmart bans them Posted: 27 Jul 2020 11:43 AM PDT  A couple in Minnesota wore swastika masks while shopping at a Walmart, but claimed they were not Nazis and that – despite wearing the symbol of the Nazis on their faces – it was their political enemies who were the fascists.According to The Washington Post, the incident was captured on video by Raphaela Mueller, a 24-year-old woman who was born and raised in Germany.
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| Fact check: South Dakota's COVID-19 infection, jobless stats aren't as good as claimed Posted: 27 Jul 2020 07:36 AM PDT  A popular meme notes that South Dakota didn't have any stay-at-home orders (true) and that it has had hardly any COVID-19 (false).
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| John Oliver blames China for your lack of knowledge about Uighur concentration camps Posted: 27 Jul 2020 03:21 AM PDT  John Oliver said Sunday's Last Week Tonight was going to be about eyelashes, and that was mostly just to set up a TikTok video. Its creator "is right," he said: "A lash-curler is a vital tool in anyone's beauty arsenal, and there's an ethnic group in China being systematically surveilled and imprisoned in an attempt to essentially wipe their culture off the map." Oliver started with the basics: "The people in question are the Uighurs. They're mostly a mostly Muslim minority in a region of China called Xinjiang, and the Chinese government has been treating them absolutely terribly.""If this is the first time you're hearing about an estimated million people who've been held in detention camps -- mostly Uighurs but also Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities -- you are not alone," Oliver said. "And it's probably because China has done its level best to keep this story from getting out." That may be harder now, because some of the face masks and other PPE used in America is likely made by forced Uighur labor, making us complicit, he added. "And while there is clearly nothing new about horrific practices being hidden deep in the supply chain of global capitalism, what is happening to the Uighurs is particularly appalling. So tonight let's talk about them: Who they are, what's been happening to them, and why?"Oliver ran though a bit of the historical enmity between Uighurs and Beijing, the 2009 riots, and China's crackdown with President Xi Jinping's 2014 Strike Hard Against Violent Terrorism law -- "think of it as the Patriot Act on steroids" -- and current Minority Report-like pre-emptive arrests and Chinese excuses: They are "simply being proactive" and sending them to helpful "vocational training facilities," among other euphemisms for "cultural erasure.""Whenever pressed on this, the Chinese government has been quick to use whataboutism," Oliver said. "They responded to U.S. criticism by invoking atrocities ranging from he genocide of Native Americans to George Floyd's death." Those "are fair hits, those are fair points right there," he said, "but it's also completely possible for two things to be wrong at the same time." What can you do? Pay attention, he said. Watch below. More stories from theweek.com Trump only pivoted on coronavirus after reportedly being warned of spikes among 'our people' in red states What Tom Cotton's 'necessary evil' comment says about America The GOP cancels the convention of Trump's dreams
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| On Chicago's South Side, some violence-weary residents open to federal investigators Posted: 27 Jul 2020 04:13 AM PDT  Many Chicagoans vehemently oppose President Donald Trump's pledge to send federal officers to the third-largest U.S. city, after seeing camouflaged agents deployed in Portland club and tear-gas anti-racism protesters. "I appreciate it and I like it," said Cedrick Easterling, a former gang member, who was shoveling garbage scattered in the South Side neighborhood of Englewood as part of his work clearing vacant lots. "If you sit at that park, you will hear shots all over Englewood," said Easterling, who was once shot himself, pointing south toward Ogden Park.
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| The White House is building a massive 'anti-climb' wall following protests. These photos show the evolution of White House fencing over the years Posted: 27 Jul 2020 11:10 AM PDT  The "anti-climb" component for a new White House perimeter has been in the works since July 2016, but construction of the wall has ramped up recently.
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| Editorial: Just say 'Yes in God's backyard.' Californians need homes, and houses of worship have land Posted: 27 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Californians need homes and houses of worship have excess land
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| Palestinians: Settler vandals firebomb West Bank mosque Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:52 AM PDT |
| Man arrested in Florida after trying to kidnap child in front of mother Posted: 27 Jul 2020 09:09 AM PDT  A man has been arrested in Florida after he reportedly walked into a hotel room and attempted to kidnap a child in front of their mother.The suspect, 24-year-old Gabriel Martin, was arrested by authorities on Sunday on suspicion of kidnapping, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
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| To defeat COVID, bring America's full power to the international fight: Albright & Hadley Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:00 AM PDT  The stakes are immeasurably high for the global community to get this right. The world needs US resources, conflict resolution and democracy support.
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| First French fighter jets head to India after purchase Posted: 27 Jul 2020 08:39 AM PDT  The deal, estimated to be worth $9.4 billion, has been overshadowed by corruption allegations levelled by the opposition Congress party although Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rejected the claims. The jets built by Dassault Aviation -- and piloted by officers from the Indian Air Force (IAF) -- took off from Merignac in southwest France, the company said in a statement.
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| US government sued after report of detained migrant children at Hampton Inn hotels Posted: 27 Jul 2020 07:25 AM PDT  A report described three Hampton Inn & Suites hotels where a federal contractor has held unaccompanied minors awaiting deportation.
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| What if Trump loses but refuses to leave office? Here's the worst-case scenario Posted: 27 Jul 2020 03:16 AM PDT  The risk of an electoral meltdown is ordinarily rather small, but this November promises a combination of stressors that could lead to epic failure and chaosWhile working on a book about the peaceful succession of power, I came to realize that built into our system of presidential elections is a Chernobyl-like defect: placed under the right conditions of stress, the system is vulnerable to catastrophic breakdown. The risk of such an electoral meltdown ordinarily is rather small, but this November promises – in a manner last seen in 1876 – to present a combination of stressors that could lead to epic failure.The problem begins – but does not end – with Donald Trump, who, in his recent interview with Chris Wallace, once again reminded the nation that losing is not an option. He will reject any election that results in his loss, claiming it to be rigged. Alarming as this may be, Trump alone cannot crash the system. Instead, an unusual constellation of forces – the need to rely heavily on mail-in ballots because of the Covid-19 pandemic; the political divisions in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania; and a hyper-polarized Congress – all work together to turn Trump's defiance into a crisis of historic proportions.> Should Trump lose decisively – not only in the popular vote, but in electoral college, too – his capacity to engage in constitutional brinkmanship will be limitedConsider the following scenario: it's 3 November 2020, election day. By midnight, it's clear that former vice-president Biden enjoys a substantial lead in the national popular vote but the electoral college vote remains tight. With the races in 47 states and the District of Columbia called, Biden leads Trump in the electoral college vote 252 to 240, but neither candidate has secured the 270 votes necessary for victory. All eyes remain on Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and their 46 electoral college votes.In each of these three states, Trump enjoys a slim lead, but the election-day returns do not include a huge number of mail-in ballots. Some states, such as Colorado, have been counting their mail-in votes from the day they arrived, but not Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. These states do not allow elections officials to begin the task of counting the mail-ins until election day itself. It will take days, even weeks, for the key swing states to finish their count. The election hangs in the balance.Only not for Trump. Based on his 3 November leads, Trump has already declared himself re-elected. His reliable megaphones in the rightwing media repeat and amplify his declaration, and urge Biden to concede. Biden says he will do no such thing. Biden knows that the bulk of the mail-in ballots have been cast in heavily populated urban areas, where voters were unwilling to expose themselves to the health risks of in-person voting. And he is keenly aware that urban voters vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, this phenomenon, in which mail-in and provisional ballots typically break Democratic, has been dubbed "blue shift" by election law experts.The count of the mail-in ballots in the three swing states is plagued by delays. Overworked election officials, slowed by the need to maintain social distance, struggle to process the huge volume of votes. Trump's lawyers, aided by the Department of Justice, bring multiple suits insisting that tens of thousands of votes must be tossed out for having failed to arrive by the date specified by statute. All the same, as the count creeps forward, a clear pattern emerges. Trump's lead is shrinking – and then vanishes altogether. By the time the three states complete their canvass of votes nearly a month after the election, the nation faces an astonishing result. Biden now leads in all three. It appears he has been elected our next president.Only Trump tweets bloody murder. All his most dire predictions have come to pass. The mail-in ballots are infected with fraud. The radical Democrats are trying to steal his victory. The election has been rigged, he says.Now things take an ominous turn. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania all share the same political profile: all three states are controlled by Republican legislatures faithful to Trump. And so Republican lawmakers in Lansing, Madison and Harrisburg take up the fight to declare Trump victorious in their state. Citing irregularities and unconscionable delays in the counting of the mail-in ballots, state Republicans award Trump their states' electoral college votes.Yet all three of our crucial swing states also have Democratic governors. Outraged by the actions of Republican lawmakers, the Democratic governors of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania announce that they will recognize Biden as having carried their state. They certify Biden as the winner, and send the certificate cast by his electors on to Congress.It is now 6 January 2021, the day on which the joint session of Congress opens the states' electoral certificates and officially tallies the votes. Normally this is a ceremonial function, but not today. Suddenly Congress is confronted with the astonishing reality that Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have each submitted conflicting electoral certificates – one awarding its electoral college votes to Trump; the other, to Biden. The election hangs in the balance.Seems far-fetched? And yet the nation faced a nearly identical crisis in the notorious Hayes-Tilden election of 1876, when three separate states submitted conflicting electoral certificates. With neither Hayes nor Tilden enjoying an electoral college majority, a divided Congress – a Democratic House and a Republican Senate – fought bitterly over which certificates to recognize. Congress tried to resolve things by handing the problem to a one-off special electoral commission, but partisan rancor plagued the work of that body, too. Inauguration day neared and the nation had no president-elect –or rather, it had two rivals both claiming victory. President Ulysses S Grant weighed declaring martial law.Catastrophe was avoided only by a last second disastrous compromise between the parties: Republicans agreed to remove federal troops from the south, paving the way to Jim Crow, and in return, Samuel Tilden, the Democrats' candidate, agreed to concede. Chastened by that experience, Congress passed a law –the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (ECA) –meant to guide Congress should a state ever again submit more than one electoral certificate. Since its passage, the provisions of the ECA have been triggered only once – that was back in 1969, and the issue was trivial, with no bearing on Nixon's victory.In January 2021, however, the nation finds itself in a true electoral crisis and lawmakers quickly realize that the 1887 law is glaringly deficient, failing to anticipate the most destabilizing contingencies.And so Congress descends into acrimonious debate, with each side charging the other with attempting to steal the election. The chambers vote on which certificates to accept, the outcome foreordained. The Senate, which after the 2020 vote remains in Republican control, rejects the governors' certificate and accepts the legislatures'; the Democratically controlled House votes in precisely the opposite fashion.Stalemate. Both parties appeal to the US supreme court, but the court – in sharp contrast to its intervention in 2000 in Bush v Gore – proves unable to solve the crisis. Experts insist that the court has no role to play in resolving an election dispute once it reaches Congress, a view that finds support in the ECA itself. With lawmakers in both party declaring that they would not abide by an unfavorable holding, the court chooses not to intervene.Congress remains deadlocked, with neither party prepared to concede. As protests roil the country, Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, deploying the military to protect his "victory". The nation finds itself in a full-blown crisis of succession from which there is no clear, peaceful exit.Electoral Armageddon can be avoided. Should Trump lose decisively – not only in the popular vote, but in the electoral college, too –his capacity to engage in constitutional brinkmanship will be limited. This is not to say that he won't claim the election was rigged, only that his claim will probably not trigger a larger constitutional crisis. But should Trump's defeat turn on the count of mail-in ballots in our crucial swing states, prepare for chaos. Our nation could witness dark times. * Lawrence Douglas is the James J Grosfeld professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought, at Amherst College, Massachusetts. He is the author of Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. He is also a contributing opinion writer for the Guardian US
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| Stop partying or we may go back into lockdown, regional chief tells young Catalans Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:00 AM PDT  Young Catalans should stop partying to help halt a surge in new coronavirus cases or local authorities may have to reimpose harsh restrictions, the leader of the northeastern Spanish region said on Monday. Catalonia is at the heart of a rebound in coronavirus cases in Spain that started after a nationwide lockdown was lifted last month. "If we continue with the current pace of social life the only thing we will accomplish is to worsen the situation," Catalonia's regional leader Quim Torra said, after youngsters reverted to the tradition of "botellones," where they meet outside in the evening to drink and party.
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| White House chief of staff says Trump won't extend the weekly unemployment boost because it 'paid people to stay home' Posted: 26 Jul 2020 09:30 AM PDT  The $600 weekly boost to federal unemployment benefits created in March is set to expire without renewal or replacement on July 31.
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| The Chicago Gun Myth Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:12 PM PDT  The tragically incompetent mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, appeared on CNN's State of the Union this weekend to deflect attention from the horror show unfolding in her city by blaming interlopers for its spiking murder rate: "We are being inundated with guns from states that have virtually no gun control, no background checks, no ban on assault weapons -- that is hurting cities like Chicago."Although these accusations have leveled by Chicago politicians for decades now, they are a myth.For one thing, there is no state in the nation with "virtually no gun control" or "no background checks." Every time anyone in the United States purchases a gun from a federal firearms licensee (FFL) -- a gun store, a gun show, it doesn't matter -- the seller runs a background check on the buyer through the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) database. In some cases, the FFL checks to see if the buyer has passed a background check via a state-issued concealed-carry permit. In states that allow individual private sales, it is illegal to knowingly sell to anyone who you believe is obtaining a firearm for criminal purposes.Those who cross state lines to buy guns undergo the same background check, and the sale is processed by an FFL in the buyer's home state. The exact same laws apply to all online sales.The vast majority of Americans obtain their guns in this manner, and they rarely commit crimes. Around 7 percent of criminals in prison bought weapons using their real names. Fewer than 1 percent obtained them at gun shows. As the Heritage Foundation's Amy Swearer points out, there have been around 18 million concealed-carry permit holders over the past 15 years, and they have committed 801 firearm-related homicides over that span, or somewhere around 0.7 percent of all firearm-related murders. Concealed-carry holders not only are more law-abiding than the general population as a group; they are more law-abiding than law enforcement.Studies of those imprisoned on firearms charges show that most often they obtain their weapons by stealing them or buying them in black markets. A smaller percentage get them from family members or friends.On top of all this, federal law requires every FFL license holder to report the purchase of two or more handguns by the same person with a week to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. This is one of the reasons straw purchasers -- people with a clean record who buy for criminals -- spread their operations to other states. This is not unique to Illinois or Chicago. It has nothing to do with strict or lenient laws. It has mostly to do with cities and states failing to prosecute straw purchases.Lightfoot claims that 60 percent of the guns used in Chicago murders are bought from out of state. I assume she is relying on 2017's suspect "gun trace report," which looked at guns confiscated in criminal acts from 2013 and 2016. Even if we trusted the city's data, most guns used in Illinois crimes are bought in-state. If gun laws in Illinois — which earns a grade of "A-" from the pro-gun-control Gifford Law Center, tied for second highest in the country after New Jersey — are more effective than gun laws in Missouri, Wisconsin, or Indiana, why is it that FFL dealers in suburban Cook County are the origin point for a third of the crime guns recovered in Chicago, and home to "seven of the top ten source dealers"? According to the trace study, 11.2 percent of all crime guns recovered in Chicago could be tracked to just two gun shops.The only reason, it seems, criminals take the drive to Indiana is because local gun shops are tapped out. There is a tremendous demand for weapons in Chicago. That's not Mississippi's fault. And Lightfoot's contention only proves that criminals in her city can get their hands on guns rather easily, while most law-abiding citizens have no way to defend themselves.Lightfoot may also be surprised to learn that California borders on states with liberal gun laws, such as Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon. Yet no big city in California has quite the murder and criminality of Chicago. New York borders on states with liberal gun laws, such as Vermont, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. Yet NYC's murder rate is only fraction of Chicago's. Texas gets an "F" from Gifford Law Center, yet Houston and Dallas have murder rates that are half of that in Chicago. The rates in Austin and El Paso are tiny when compared to Chicago.Then, of course, the "assault-weapons bans" that Lightfoot brings up have absolutely no bearing on Chicago's murder rate, even if such prohibitions actually worked. There were 864 murders in the state of Illinois in 2018 (the last year for which the FBI has full stats). Of homicides where the type of weapon is reported by law enforcement, 592 were perpetrated using handguns, 14 with rifles, and four with shotguns. Over 100 murders were committed using knives, other cutting instruments, hands, feet, and other types of weapons. And of the 14 "rifles" used, it's almost surely the case that not all of them were "assault weapons." Among the illegal guns recovered by Chicago law enforcement in 2018, 12,220 were handguns of some kind and 1,769 were rifles and shotguns.In the states in Illinois's neighborhood with no bans on "assault weapons," the number of murders committed with a "rifle" is correspondingly small — ten in Indiana, eight in Tennessee, six in Kentucky, four in Wisconsin, and three in Mississippi.It's also worth pointing out that gun homicides dropped sharply in most cities after the national "assault weapons" expired in 2004, even though the AR-15 would correspondingly become one of the most popular weapons in the country. The AR-15 is an excellent home-defense weapon, but long guns aren't conducive to criminality, despite what we see in movies. Tragically, AR-15s are often favored by psychotic mass shooters, but rarely by the murderers who plague Lightfoot's city.It keeps getting worse. Nearly 400 people have already been murdered in Chicago this year, around 100 more than in the entire year of 2019. On the night of May 29, 25 people were murdered and another 85 wounded by gunfire, more than any day in 60 years. And yet the mayor is appearing on TV to blame Mississippi and Texas. It is far more likely that black-market guns find their way to Chicago because the place has been a poorly run criminal mecca for decades.
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| Police and protesters clash in violent weekend across the US Posted: 26 Jul 2020 09:23 AM PDT  Protests took a violent turn in several U.S. cities over the weekend with demonstrators squaring off against federal agents outside a courthouse in Portland, Oregon, forcing police in Seattle to retreat into a station house and setting fire to vehicles in California and Virginia. A protest against police violence in Austin, Texas, turned deadly when police said a protester was shot and killed by a person who drove through a crowd of marchers. The unrest Saturday and early Sunday stemmed from the weeks of protests over racial injustice and the police treatment of people of color that flared up after the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
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| Teacher unions across the US say they're 'extremely fearful' about in-person classes and demand states take more measures to keep them safe Posted: 27 Jul 2020 07:12 AM PDT  Union leaders want federal and state governments to issue guidelines and funding that could help protect students and staff from COVID-19.
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| Gloves may do more harm than good when it comes to protecting you from COVID-19 Posted: 27 Jul 2020 09:54 AM PDT  People want to debate whether wearing a mask works against COVID-19, but the CDC says it's the gloves you should take off. The CDC and the European CDC have both released guidelines stating that glove use isn't a necessary preventive tactic when it comes to COVID-19. CDC guidelines say gloves "will not necessarily protect you from getting COVID-19 and may still lead to the spread of germs." ...
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| Hurricane Douglas skirts north of Hawaii; Texas cleans up from Hurricane Hanna Posted: 27 Jul 2020 09:11 AM PDT  Hawaii dodged the worst of Hurricane Douglas on Monday, forecasters reported, as the storm swirled by just north of the islands.
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| 2 shot while driving on Highway 41 in Madera County, CHP says Posted: 27 Jul 2020 06:48 AM PDT  The CHP has part of southbound Highway 41 at Highway 145 is closed while officers and Madera County sheriff's deputies investigate.
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| Defiant former Navy Seal speaks out in new Lincoln Project attack ad: 'Trump is not conservative' Posted: 27 Jul 2020 02:46 PM PDT  A "Never Trump" Republican group has released a new attack ad featuring a former Navy Seal saying Donald Trump is weak, not a conservative, and the most easily fixable problem in the country.The Founder of Veterans for Responsible Leadership, Dan Barkhuff, says in the most recent 2020 election campaign video from the Lincoln Project that the president has no respect for the Constitution.
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| Global prospects dim for China's tech champions as great powers clash Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:02 PM PDT  Huawei Technologies' founder Ren Zhengfei's global ambitions are marked in bricks and mortar at a new company campus in southern China, where the buildings are replicas from European cities. Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, the operator of short video app TikTok, has plastered his Beijing headquarters with posters including a cover of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's book "How Google Works", and has long said he will build a global firm that can compete with U.S. tech giants.
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| Transcript: Nancy Pelosi on "Face the Nation" Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:17 AM PDT  The following is a transcript of an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that aired Sunday, July 26, 2020, on "Face the Nation."
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