| As COVID cases spike in Florida, Trump now says he's 'flexible' on convention format in Jacksonville Posted: 08 Jul 2020 08:46 AM PDT  With coronavirus cases exploding in Florida, the president now says he is "flexible" on plans to hold a large-scale, indoor Republican National Convention next month.
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| An Austin police officer appeared to grope a woman's breast after pulling her over for a traffic violation Posted: 09 Jul 2020 11:44 AM PDT  The Austin Police Department defended the officer's conduct, saying he followed the department's regulations and that no female officer was available.
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| NYPD forced to impose limit on officers filing for retirement amid 400% surge of personnel trying to quit Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:44 PM PDT  The New York Police Department (NYPD) has reportedly limited the number of retirement applications it will allow, after it saw a surge in requests in the last couple of months.The NYPD announced on Wednesday that 179 officers filed for retirement between 29 June and 6 July – a 411 per cent increase on the 35 who retired in the same time period in 2019.
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| 'I feel threatened': Unmasked Florida man's viral Costco outburst cost him his job Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:33 PM PDT  "He absolutely does not represent our values and no longer works at our agency," the CEO of Ted Todd Insurance said Tuesday.
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| Rare gorillas in Nigeria captured on camera with babies Posted: 08 Jul 2020 12:05 AM PDT  Conservationists have captured the first images of a group of rare Cross River gorillas with multiple babies in Nigeria's Mbe mountains, proof that the subspecies once feared to be extinct is reproducing amid protection efforts. Only around 300 Cross River gorillas were known to be alive at one point in the isolated mountainous region in Nigeria and Cameroon, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which captured the camera trap images in May. More color images were recovered last month. John Oates, professor emeritus at the City University of New York and a primatologist who helped establish conservation efforts for the gorillas more than two decades ago, was excited about the new images.
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| Militants kill BJP politician Wasim Bari and his family in Kashmir Posted: 08 Jul 2020 07:58 PM PDT  A Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party politician was killed along with his brother and father in Indian administered Kashmir, officials said on Thursday. Wasim Bari, 38, and his family were attacked by militants at his residence in north Kashmir's Bandipora district on Wednesday night. All three were shot at point-blank range and died on the way to hospital. Authorities have arrested all 11 police personnel who were guarding him for dereliction of duties. Mr Bari's residence is a few meters away from the police station. This is the first attack on BJP workers in Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, when India stripped off the disputed region's autonomy. The killing of Mr Bari, who is survived by his wife and sister, has sent shock waves across political circles in Kashmir. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the attack.
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| Evidence found of epic prehistoric Pacific voyages Posted: 09 Jul 2020 05:03 AM PDT  New evidence has been found for epic prehistoric voyages between the Americas and eastern Polynesia.
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| 'Scared for my life' but needing a salary: Teachers weigh risks of COVID-19 Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:34 AM PDT  For teachers, the question is stark: Is the risk of catching COVID-19 worth continuing in a profession many love and need to fund retirement plans?
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| CDC says guidelines for reopening schools are 'not requirements' after Trump calls them 'impractical' Posted: 08 Jul 2020 11:16 AM PDT  After President Trump on Tuesday lashed out at what he called "impractical" and "expensive" guidelines for reopening schools published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency's director stressed that they are just guidelines, "not requirements."
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| El Salvador murder rate plummets; study says gangs may have informal pact with government Posted: 08 Jul 2020 07:56 AM PDT |
| As One of Russia’s Leading Journalists Is Charged With Treason, a Chill Settles Over the Press Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:09 AM PDT  MOSCOW—When the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested journalist Ivan Safronov on charges of "state treason" this week, many of his friends were quick to remember what happened to his father. Both men covered news about national defense and Russia's space program and were recognized as authorities in their field. The elder Safronov, who also was named Ivan, wrote for the newspaper Kommersant until one day in 2007 he plunged out of a window to his death.The younger Safronov never believed the official conclusion that his father committed suicide. Neither did colleagues at Kommersant. "Defenestration," pushing people out of windows and blaming accidents or suicide, is viewed as a common, if conspicuous, technique allegedly used by Russian security services for extrajudicial executions.The younger Safronov took up the banner of investigative reporting at Kommersant and became one of the country's leading defense correspondents in his own right, but just recently took a job as a senior adviser to Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, Russia's major space agency. Rogozin told the TASS news agency on Tuesday that Safronov "did not have any access to classified information," and that he knew Safronov as an honest and professional man. Nonetheless, Safronov is alleged to have turned over national defense secrets to someone from what was initially reported as an unnamed "NATO country."Even One-Person Protests are Too Much for Vladimir PutinSafronov's lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, who specializes in treason cases, told The Daily Beast the allegations presented to the court "said that Czech intelligence had recruited Safronov in 2012 and that in 2017 he'd received a task from them to collect and pass information on Russian weapons sold to Africa. I believe they mean Egypt. The investigators surely do not admit that they accuse Safronov of his journalistic work." Pavlov said his client looked strong, brave and very much interested in all details of his case. "He asked me what to expect," Pavlov said. "Two of my five clients accused of treason are under house arrest, two are in prison. They all face up to 20 years of prison."Early Tuesday morning investigators searched the home of Safronov's friend, Taisya Bekbulatova, formerly with Kommersant and the independent publication Meduza and now editor-in-chief of Holod (Cold). Bekbulatova was denied access to her attorney during her interrogations, according to the Mediazona news website.By the afternoon, authorities at the Lefortovo court let a few reporters in to take photographs of Safronov, who was locked in the courtroom's cage.In the meantime, journalists were protesting one by one as "single pickets" (observing government regulations and social distancing) outside the historic headquarters of Soviet and Russian secret police, including the FSB, on Lubyanka Square. They held banners that said, "Journalism is not a crime." More than two dozen from five different publications were detained.All of this comes just as Vladimir Putin has engineered constitutional changes allowing him to remain, in effect, president for life. And nearly every day Russia hears of threats, arrests, investigations against independent journalists who might challenge his authority or the actions of his government. On Monday a Russian court found journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva guilty of "justifying terrorism" in one of her articles. The reporter for Radio Free Europe has to pay a large fine. But the state treason charges leveled against Safronov are a much more serious charge and signal greatly increased pressure on the press. Vladimir Solovyev, editor of Russia's only independent TV channel, Rain, told The Daily Beast, "We called our television show today 'They Have Come to Get Us.' We are outraged to see our friend and colleague Safronov being accused of ridiculous things." Solovyev said he would only believe the charges "if I see very precise detailed evidence." But in treason and espionage cases that kind of solid information is rarely made available to the public.Just a few years ago state treason charges were rare in Russia. From 1997 to 2008 there were only two or three cases a year. But eight people were charged with such crimes last year alone, and just a few weeks ago a Russian scientist was accused of passing secrets to China."We hear that FSB is in the process of releasing a law that would ban us from publishing anything about the FSB without an official approval signed by the FSB," says journalist Kirill Kharatyan, formerly with the business paper Vedomosti, where he was Safronov's editor.Footage broadcast of armed men taking Safronov away shocked independent journalists here n Russia. Andrei Soldatov, author of several important books about Russian intelligence operatives and occasional contributor to The Daily Beast, noted that before 2012 Russian journalists could not be charged with treason, since by definition independent reporters had no access to state secrets. "The FSB is making it clear to us that things are different now," Soldatov told us after Safronov's arrest. "I can think of only one reason: to point out to us which important topics are now closed to the public."Just like his father before him, 30-year-old Ivan Safronov covered the life of the Russian military and space industry workers objectively, starting nearly every piece with the words, "As Kommersant has learned." His scoops were well-sourced and drew a lot of attention. He carefully checked every piece of information on every story, whether he reported on a "superjet" catching fire, or a manager at Roscosmos stealing state money, or on the growing Russian military contingent in the Central African Republic. But in April last year Safronov published an explosive story about possible changes in Vladimir Putin's court: the director of Russia's foreign intelligence service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, coming to replace Valentina Matvuyenko as speaker of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russian parliament. The Kremlin denied the story and Safronov had to quit Kommersant, allegedly under pressure from the paper's owner, billionaire Alisher Usmanov. But Kommersant did not kill the story. It can still be found on its website.Safronov continued to report his sharp in-depth stories for Vedomosti until March of this year before finally taking the job at Roscosmos. "I have a feeling that Ivan was under constant pressure from threats," Safronov's former editor Kharatyan told The Daily Beast. "So he thought he would be safer if he got a job at a state agency, that that would protect him. But obviously that did not help."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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| What Ghislaine Maxwell's arrest means for Epstein case Posted: 08 Jul 2020 09:06 PM PDT  Insight from Cameron Lindsay, prison security expert, and criminal defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh.
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| Pelosi rejects White House's $1 trillion price tag for pandemic relief Posted: 09 Jul 2020 09:59 AM PDT  "A trillion dollars is OK, that's an interesting starting point," she says.
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| Europe fears complacency; virus hits 'full speed' in Africa Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:30 AM PDT  Asian and European officials pleaded with their citizens Thursday to respect modest precautions as several countries saw coronavirus outbreaks accelerate or sought to prevent new flare-ups, while the virus showed no signs of slowing its initial advance in Africa and the Americas. Following two nights of anti-lockdown protests in Serbia, authorities banned mass gatherings in the capital of Belgrade amid an uptick in confirmed COVID-19 cases. Officials elsewhere in Europe warned of the risk of new flareups due to lax social distancing, while officials in Tokyo and Hong Kong reviewed nightclubs, restaurants and other public gathering spots as a source of their latest cases.
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| China’s Confucius Institutes Attempt to Rebrand Following Backlash Posted: 08 Jul 2020 09:35 AM PDT  China is attempting to rebrand Confucius Institutes following a worldwide backlash against the centers.Confucius Institutes, which are present on dozens of U.S. college campuses and at other foreign universities, carry the stated purpose of promoting Chinese language and culture. However, U.S. officials have singled out the institutes as propaganda centers that serve as an extension of China's "soft power."The Confucius Institute Headquarters in Beijing has changed its name to the "Ministry of Education Centre for Language Education and Cooperation." Additionally, the organization changed the name of its account on Chinese social-media app WeChat, although it is not clear if Confucius Institutes in other countries will themselves be renamed.The name change is "related to various kinds of pressure, but it is by no means succumbing to them," Sun Yixue, a professor at the International School of Tongji University in Shanghai, told the South China Morning Post. "It is a timely adjustment made by China to adapt to the new situation of world language and cultural exchanges, but this does not mean that all overseas Confucius Institutes should be renamed accordingly."Several American universities have shut their Confucius Institutes in the past several months, after the coronavirus pandemic led to increased public scrutiny of the U.S.-China relationship and Chinese influence on American campuses. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are currently in the midst of an investigation into the institutes."We cannot allow a dangerous Communist regime to buy access to our institutions of higher education, plain and simple," Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said in a statement upon announcing the investigation in May. "We owe it to the American people to hold China accountable and to prevent them from doing further harm to our country."
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| ‘Disappointed and outraged.’ Black Lives Matter murals defaced across US, photos show Posted: 08 Jul 2020 04:07 PM PDT  "This is a reminder that if white folks can't give us a small mural on a side street in Oak Park, they won't be able to give up much," a Chicago organizer said.
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| New York attorney general recommends reducing mayor's power over police Posted: 08 Jul 2020 12:52 PM PDT  New York Attorney General Letitia James recommended that New York City's mayor give up sole control over the city police commissioner's hiring, in a preliminary report released on Wednesday on her investigation into the policing of recent protests. "There should be an entirely new accountability structure for NYPD," James said in her report, which also recommended giving more power to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, a city agency that reviews police misconduct.
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| I did 100 push-ups a day for 100 days in lockdown and was amazed by how my body changed Posted: 09 Jul 2020 02:19 AM PDT  The hardest part of the challenge turned out to be mental instead of physical, senior lifestyle reporter Rachel Hosie found.
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| Army Reviewing 'Confederate Memorial' Featuring Slaves at Arlington National Cemetery Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:44 AM PDT  The presence of a huge memorial to the Confederacy at Arlington National Cemetery is under review.
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| Wisconsin police officer rescues dog from burning house Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:09 PM PDT |
| 'Opioid overdoses are skyrocketing': as Covid-19 sweeps across US an old epidemic returns Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  The pandemic is creating the social conditions – no jobs, isolation, despair – that helped enable the opioid crisis to emerge in the first place. Now it's backIn West Virginia, they are bracing for the second wave.The epidemic that hit the Appalachian state harder than any other in the US finally looked to be in retreat. Now it's advancing again. Not coronavirus but opioid overdoses, with one scourge driving a resurgence of the other.Covid-19 has claimed 93 lives in West Virginia over the past three months. That is only a fraction of those killed by drug overdoses, which caused nearly 1,000 deaths in the state in 2018 alone, mostly from opioids but also methamphetamine (also known as meth).That year was better than the one before as the Appalachian state appeared to turn the tide on an epidemic that has ravaged the region for two decades, destroying lives, tearing apart families and dragging down local economies.Now coronavirus looks to be undoing the advances made against a drug epidemic that has claimed close to 600,000 lives in the US over the past two decades. Worse, it is also laying the ground for a long-term resurgence of addiction by exacerbating many of the conditions, including unemployment, low incomes and isolation, that contributed to the rise of the opioid epidemic and "deaths of despair"."The number of opioid overdoses is skyrocketing and I don't think it will be easily turned back," said Dr Mike Brumage, former director of the West Virginia office of drug control policy."Once the tsunami of Covid-19 finally recedes, we're going to be left with the social conditions that enabled the opioid crisis to emerge in the first place, and those are not going to go away."To Brumage and others, coronavirus has also shown what can happen when the government takes a public health emergency seriously, unlike the opioid epidemic, which was largely ignored even as the death toll climbed into the hundreds of thousands.The American Medical Association said it was "greatly concerned" at reported increases in opioid overdoses in more than 30 states although it will be months before hard data is available.> Clearly, what we have lost with the pandemic is a loss of connection> > Dr Mike BrumagePublic health officials from Kentucky to Florida, Texas and Colorado have recorded surges in opioid deaths as the economic and social anxieties created by the Covid-19 pandemic prove fertile ground for addiction. In addition, Brumage said significant numbers of people have fallen out of treatment programmes as support networks have been yanked away by social distancing orders."I'm a firm adherent to the idea that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection. Clearly, what we have lost with the pandemic is a loss of connection," he said."Many of the people who were using the programme either didn't have broadband or they didn't have cellphone service, especially those who were homeless. They just fell out of the programme," he said.The resurgence was not unforeseen. In March, as Covid-19 escalated, Donald Trump warned about the human toll beyond lives claimed by the virus. "You're going to have tremendous suicides, but you know what you're going to have more than anything else? Drug addiction. You will see drugs being used like nobody has ever used them before. And people are going to be dying all over the place from drug addiction," he said.Brumage and others who spoke to the Guardian were at pains to say they believed the scale of the government's response to Covid-19 is necessary. But they saw the mobilisation of financial resources and political will to cope with the virus in stark contrast to the response of successive administrations to the opioid epidemic.Emily Walden lost her son to an opioid overdose and now heads Fed Up!, a group campaigning to reduce the US's exceptionally high opioid prescribing levels."Congress immediately acted with coronavirus to help those that lost their jobs, to make sure that people were taken care of and it was addressed properly," she said. "Look at the difference with the opioid epidemic, which has largely been ignored by our federal government for 20 years."While the US government has thrown $6tn at coronavirus, the Trump administration dedicated just $6bn to directly dealing with opioid addiction over his first two years in office even though about the same number of people died of drug overdoses in that period as have now been lost to Covid-19.Brumage said federal health institutions have shifted their focus to coronavirus, including freezing a $1bn research project to find less addictive pain treatments.> You can think of Covid-19 as a hurricane whereas the opioid crisis is more like global warming. It's happening, it's slow, it's dangerous> > Dr Mike Brumage"It's robbed the oxygen out of the room and made it the sole focus of what's happening," said Brumage. "There's also a fatigue about the opioid crisis. You can think of Covid-19 as a hurricane whereas the opioid crisis is more like global warming. It's happening, it's slow, it's dangerous, but it's not happening at the same speed and scale as the coronavirus is having right now." Brumage attributes the difference in response in part to attitudes toward drug addiction."The difference between getting Covid and dying of an overdose is stigma around drug use. This has been ingrained across the United States – that people using drugs are somehow seen as morally deficient and so it becomes easier then to other and alienate those people," he said.Walden does not accept that explanation. Like many whose families have been devastated by opioids, she sees a personal and public health catastrophe perpetuated by the financial and political power of the pharmaceutical industry to drive the US's exceptionally high opioid prescribing rates which were a major factor in driving the epidemic."This comes down to lobbyists and money. People say it's stigma and it's not. There is stigma but it's about profits and greed," she said.Dr Raeford Brown, a former chair of the Food and Drug Administration's opioid advisory committee, is a longstanding critic of drug industry influence over opioid medical policy and the government's response to the epidemic. He sees a parallel with coronavirus with US states lifting strong social distancing orders too early under corporate pressure."The United States is not good at doing public health," he said. "It failed the test with opioids and it failed the test with viral pandemics. But coronavirus and pandemics, and the things like the opioid crisis, are much more likely to get us than the Russians or the Chinese are."
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| Two arrested after coughing on Walmart employees, refusing to wear masks, AZ cops say Posted: 09 Jul 2020 08:36 AM PDT  Police said one of the suspects tried to flee the scene.
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| Body of missing Connecticut school teacher who thought he had coronavirus found in waters off Long Island Posted: 08 Jul 2020 09:01 AM PDT  Gil Cunha, a Connecticut school teacher who has been missing since May 7, 2020 from his parents' home in West Haven, was found dead in the water off Long Island near Fire Island, New York. For three weeks prior to his disappearance, Gil had been self-quarantining in his room with COVID-19 symptoms. The West Haven Police Department and the Suffolk County Police Homicide Squad are investigating.
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| César Duarte: Fugitive Mexican ex-governor arrested in Miami Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:56 AM PDT  César Duarte fled Mexico in 2018 after being accused of embezzling millions to fund a lavish lifestyle.
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| Officials Terrified That Trump’s Jacksonville Convention Will Be ‘Another Tulsa’ Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:50 AM PDT  Sam Newby was excited at first when the Republican National Convention decided to head to his city. But the Republican vice president of the Jacksonville City Council, who was hospitalized with COVID-19 back in March, has grown more worried as the late August convention fast approaches. There weren't many cases in the area when the move was first announced, Newby said, but he warned that "now it's really starting to spike." "In a normal situation, I would be glad for the RNC to come here, I would be the first one to be there," Newby said."But with the spike of it, and I know what it can do, that's why I'm concerned about it coming to Jacksonville." Trump's drive for a Jacksonville convention is on a collision course with the rampant spread of the coronavirus in Florida. The public health situation in the state has continued to grow worse in recent weeks, setting up the tense spectacle of the GOP holding its marquee event next month in a state that has become an epicenter of a resurgent COVID-19. "At this point, with the numbers going up, it's going to really be tough," Newby warned in an interview. Only adding to the tension is that Trump likely needs to win Florida if he hopes to get a second term in the White House. And Newby isn't alone in his concerns. "I don't want to see another Tulsa here," said Tommy Hazouri, a Democrat who serves as president of the Jacksonville City Council, referring to the president's June rally. In Duval County, where Jacksonville is located, new cases in the county rose last week according to state health department data. And Leo Alonso, an emergency medicine doctor in Jacksonville, described an alarming scene in the city describing the spread of the coronavirus as dramatic in recent weeks. He's now worried that Duval County is becoming a hot spot. "This is really a bad time to be talking about having a convention here," said Alonso, a member of the Committee to Protect Medicare. As Florida's coronavirus situation continues to concern officials in the state, some prominent Republican party elders have made clear that they won't be heading to see the president's in-person nomination speech. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley won't head to the convention due to the coronavirus, according to The Des Moines Register. And four other GOP senators including Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are also skipping the convention according to The Washington Post. Inside the Wild Race for the Right to Host 'Nightmare' RNCTrump and the GOP decided to move his acceptance speech to Jacksonville after North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declined to promise him a packed arena due to continued concerns over COVID-19 infections in the state. After states like Florida, Tennessee and Georgia moved to try and bring the convention to their states, Jacksonville won out. Having both a GOP governor in Ron DeSantis and a Republican mayor in the city gave the party a buffer from the fraught political tensions that emerged during the pandemic over the size of the convention itself when it was scheduled to be held in North Carolina. But following the state's spike in cases Trump hedged on his push in a recent television interview, according to The Miami Herald, saying "we're very flexible," when it comes how the Jacksonville convention will turn out. Democrats have already moved for a downsized convention for former Vice President Joe Biden's nomination, providing a stark contrast to the uncertainty surrounding what Trump's mega-event will look like late next month. Plans now call for the president's speech to be held late next month at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, according to the party's announcement of the moved event. The city's host committee told reporters this week that "everyone attending the convention within the perimeter will be tested and temperature checked each day," according to CNN. The RNC did not respond to a request for comment this week asking how many people they expect to attend the Jacksonville portion of the convention. But the party did say in a statement that they are "committed to holding a safe convention that fully complies with local health regulations in place at the time." "The event is still almost two months away, and we are planning to offer health precautions including but not limited to temperature checks, available PPE, aggressive sanitizing protocols, and available COVID-19 testing," RNC spokesperson Mike Reed said in the statement. "We have a great working relationship with local leadership in Jacksonville and the state of Florida, and we will continue to coordinate with them in the months ahead." In an interview with The Daily Beast this week, Hazouri, the Jacksonville City Council president, lamented the lack of details he knew about the convention. That feeling was also backed by the council's GOP vice president, who said council members haven't gotten much information. "They're not communicating with us about what they're doing. And I don't think it's particularly something that they're hiding. I think it's more that they don't know themselves what the RNC is doing," Hazouri said. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry emphasized to reporters in a briefing Tuesday that the convention is "many many weeks away." He also pointed to a statewide executive order by Florida's GOP governor that he said means "facilities cannot participate in anything over 50 percent capacity." "We are acting appropriately right now," Curry said. "We'll act appropriately at that time." Later on in that same briefing, the mayor's chief of staff downplayed the city council's involvement in the upcoming convention. The city also put in place last week a "mandatory mask requirement," that applies to both indoor and public locations, according to the announcement. Opposition to the convention has already become clear, with News4Jax reporting earlier this week that a large group of African-American pastors had signed on to a letter calling on the city to "reconsider" holding the RNC. Even though the RNC's marquee event will no longer be held in Charlotte, Mark Brody, North Carolina's national GOP committeeman said he isn't that concerned about heading to Jacksonville next month to see the president's speech. And while the president's June Tulsa rally deeply troubled some officials, Brody said he is still expecting the president's nomination speech to be a major event. He predicted that "we're going to fill the stadium," even though he doubted that people who are seriously at risk would turn out for the event. "This is a historic one-time event," Brody said. "I think people are going to be able to take that chance." 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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| Joe Shapiro's widow says her late husband met Donald Trump in college Posted: 08 Jul 2020 07:40 PM PDT  Raw video: Pam Shriver says her late husband met Trump after he was already enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania.
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| Senior China diplomat urges "positive energy" in ties with United States Posted: 08 Jul 2020 08:53 PM PDT  Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi said on Thursday that China and U.S. relations face the most serious challenges since diplomatic ties were established in 1979 but the two countries can return to the right track. China and the United States should jointly explore ways for peaceful coexistence and release more "positive energy," State Councilor Wang, who is also foreign minister, said in a speech posted on his ministry's website. Washington and Beijing have been at loggerheads over the handling of the coronavirus outbreak, China's actions in the former British colony of Hong Kong, a long-running trade dispute, and frictions over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
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| Top US general slams Confederacy as 'an act of treason' and says the country needs to take 'hard look' at bases honoring its leaders Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:43 PM PDT  The Confederacy "was an act of treason at the time against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the US Constitution," Gen. Mark Milley said.
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| The authors of a study downplaying racism in police killings called their findings 'careless,' and retracted the paper Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:23 PM PDT  Study authors Joseph Cesario and David Johnson said they wished they'd been more careful after people used their research out of context.
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| ‘Legally armed Good Samaritan’ saves woman from being strangled, Tennessee cops say Posted: 08 Jul 2020 12:41 PM PDT  The incident unfolded outside a Bojangles restaurant Tuesday.
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| Canada 'lost track' of 35,000 foreigners slated for removal: audit Posted: 08 Jul 2020 10:29 AM PDT  Canada's Border Services Agency "lost track" of two thirds of some 50,000 foreigners who had been hit with expulsion orders, an audit presented to parliament on Wednesday found. The agency, which is responsible for enforcing removal orders, were unable to locate 34,700 foreigners, mainly asylum seekers slated for deportation because their requests had been rejected, the report by the Office of the Auditor General said. "Most orders had been enforceable for years, including criminal cases and failed asylum claimants," the report said.
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| Mexico border towns try to stop Americans crossing amid Covid-19 fears Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:00 AM PDT  Townspeople block road to beach resort popular with US tourists as cases surge in states including Arizona As he campaigned for the presidency, Donald Trump promised to build a "big beautiful wall" along the US-Mexico border, claiming it would keep migrants out of the country and stop everything from drugs to disease.But with Covid-19 cases surging on both sides of the frontier, towns in northern Mexico are pleading to restrict cross-border movement – this time to stop tourists and travellers bringing in coronavirus from the US.Over the weekend, townspeople in Sonoyta on the Arizona border used their own vehicles to block the road leading to Puerto Peñasco, a beach town on the Sea of Cortés popular with US tourists – and they plan to repeat the process this week."We invite US tourists not to visit Mexico," Sonoyta's mayor, José Ramos Arzate, said in a statement. "We agreed on this to safeguard the health of our community in the face of an accelerated rate of Covid-19 contagion in the neighboring state of Arizona."Coronavirus cases have mushroomed in several US border states, including Arizona and Texas, which both botched attempts at reopening. Despite the data showing a runaway growth in case figures in the US, Trump has reportedly sought to blame Mexico for the crisis and erroneously claimed Tijuana was "heavily infected with covid".Trump welcomes his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at the White House on Wednesday in a meeting meant to celebrate the newly implemented USMCA, but will inevitably include talks on the pandemic.Like Trump, López Obrador has shrugged off advice on mask-wearing and downplayed the coronavirus, even as his country struggles to deal with the outbreak.And like the US, Mexico has not rolled out a widespread testing program, prompting widespread speculation that the scale of the pandemic has been dramatically underreported. Amlo took his first coronavirus test only this week, amid preparations for his US visit.But Mexican states near the border are increasingly coming to see US tourists and the constant cross-border traffic as a hindrance to containment efforts, and have asked the Mexican federal government to impose restrictions."It's so important to implement the necessary measures to protect the health of Sonorans. And one of them at this time has to be reducing the border crossings from the United States to Mexico," Sonora's health secretary, Enrique Clausen, said earlier this month.Over the Fourth of July weekend, Sonora set up checkpoints to screen people entering from the US, turning back tourists and others whose trips were deemed not be "essential travel". An exception was made for the border crossing closest to Puerto Peñasco, which prompted residents along the route to block the road near the border, Arizona media reported.Other states have also set up health control stations. A "sanitary filter" in Mexicali caused delays of more than eight hours in 40C (104F) heat across the border in Calexico, California. Officials seized more than 2,000 cans of beer in the process, according to local media, as parts of Mexico have imposed dry laws during the pandemic.The US ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, has urged people to stay put, saying in a US Independence Day message: "In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have crossed the land border every day and 90% of them are US citizens or green-card holders. If this traffic doesn't slow, there will be an increase, not a decrease, in travel restrictions."Landau previously urged Mexican officials to speed the opening of maquiladoras in the border region, saying continental supply chains could not be stopped indefinitely. The US government has also sent migrants back to Mexico, including people with Covid-19.The US-Mexico border is to remain closed to all but "essential trade and travel" until 21 July.
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| Arrests and police raids follow Russia's vote to let Putin rule for life Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:10 AM PDT  An opposition governor was detained and several activists had their homes raided by the police on Thursday as Russia's latest crackdown on dissent gathers momentum. The flurry of arrests and criminal inquiries follow last week's vote in which nearly 78 percent endorsed constitutional amendments allowing Vladimir Putin to stay as president at least until 2036 when he turns 83. Sergei Furgal, the governor of the Khabarovsk region in Russia's Far East who beat a Kremlin candidate at the 2018 election, was arrested by camouflaged agents of Russia's top investigative body on Thursday morning and put on a plane to Moscow. The popular governor whose landslide win at the polls embarrassed the pro-Kremlin party, is accused of organising two contract killings as well as an attempted murder 15 years ago, according to the Investigative Committee, Russia's main federal investigating authority. Mr Furgal has not been charged with any crime. An unnamed source claiming to be linked to Mr Furgal says he has denied the allegations. Mr Furgal had been in Russian parliament for more than a decade before he won the Khabarovsk election in 2018, which has raised questions about the timing of the charges brought against him.
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| Maxine Waters Foe Omar Navarro Gets Out of Jail And Attempts to Destroy Fellow Republican Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:55 AM PDT  Pro-Trump internet personality Omar Navarro emerged from a six-month stint in jail on a stalking charge last month, and immediately registered to run for Congress. Navarro, a perennial challenger to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), has registered to run for her seat again in 2022—assuming, perhaps logically, that Waters will once again prevail in her re-election request this November. But Navarro, who had nearly $50,000 in his campaign bank account as of March 31 even while he served his jail term, is not going to wait for those results before getting involved. He told The Daily Beast that he's going to send out mailers this election cycle denouncing Joe Collins, the Republican nominee currently running against Waters."Hey, I don't agree with him," Navarro told The Daily Beast. "I believe Maxine Waters is better than him."Asked for comment on Navarro's sour-grapes scheme to ruin Collins's already slim chances of winning this fall, Collins responded by accusing Navarro of having "daddy issues" without elaborating. "Omar Navarro is a joke," Collins told The Daily Beast. "He has the mentality of a four year old child throwing a temper tantrum and the testicular fortitude of a mouse." A Perennial Congressional Candidate Beloved by Trump World Was Just Arrested on Stalking ChargesThe scrapping between Collins and Navarro for the chance to lose to Waters highlights the odd incentives facing Republican challengers taking on famous incumbents in heavily Democratic districts. Running against Waters as a Republican would be a poor choice for anyone who actually wants to win. Indeed, Navarro has tried twice already, losing by more than 50 percentage points in 2016 and 2018. But for a GOPer interested in raising millions off of Waters's notoriety as a devoted Trump foe, and increasing his profile in the pro-Trump mediasphere, it works out great. Navarro raked in donations from low-dollar contributors and saw his stature on the online Trump right explode thanks to his quixotic earlier campaigns. Even the candidates themselves acknowledge the money that's at stake for whoever wins the right to face off against Waters. "The main reason Navarro is upset is because he's used to living off of his campaign donations and now he's facing the realization that, after being beaten by a real candidate with a shot at winning, he has to find a real job," Collins said in his email. For Navarro, that time in the bright lights of online Trumpy fame came to a halt when he was arrested in December in San Francisco after stalking ex-girlfriend and fellow Republican personality DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, who herself was running a doomed campaign against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Navarro eventually pleaded guilty to a stalking charge, and was sentenced to six months in San Francisco's jail, where he claims to have lost 30 pounds. Even while imprisoned in San Francisco, Navarro kept up his political profile. And he stayed on the ballot, losing the March Republican primary to Collins by a mere 250 votes—a 0.3 percent difference in the vote total. Undeterred by that loss, Navarro has tried to recast himself since being released from jail as the latest victim of deep-state prosecutors. While other Trump supporters who faced criminal charges were involved in international intrigue, however, Navarro has been faced with claiming that he was arrested on a local stalking charge because of some secret government scheme. "Full disclosure with you guys: in the past six months, yes, I have been in a county jail," Navarro told his more than 250,000 Twitter followers after being released from jail. Despite overwhelming evidence that Navarro violated Tesoriero's restraining order against him, including the fact that Navarro bashed Tesoriero to The Daily Beast in apparent violation of the order, Navarro claims that he only pleaded guilty because he would have become a "political prisoner" if he hadn't."I wouldn't have been judged by a jury of my peers, I would've been judged by a bunch of liberals, and they would have kept me locked up in there as a political prisoner," Navarro said in his Twitter video. "And that's not OK." While it might seem strange for the recently imprisoned Navarro to be confident he can win the 2022 primary to challenge Waters, he is aided by the fact that Collins has a bizarre history of his own.A Navy veteran, Collins has continuously switched parties since 2016, cycling between being a Democrat, a Republican, a member of the Green Party, and a member of the "Millennial Political Party." Collins has also filed a lawsuit over child support payments that is riddled with language echoing the nonsense legal language used by members of the far-right sovereign citizen movement. At one point in his lawsuit, in an apparent attempt to deploy a fringe legal theory, Collins claimed that his bodily fluids were worth $15 million—a bizarre detail Navarro has seized on in his campaign to bring down his rival. "You're the guy that's gonna take down Maxine Waters?" Navarro said in a video taunting Collins that he released in late June. "I'm sorry, but you're not gonna do that. And by the way, your bodily fluids are not worth $15 million." 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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| Undeterred by coronavirus, China takes influence campaign online to win Taiwan hearts Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:20 PM PDT  As the coronavirus pandemic all but halts travel across the Taiwan Strait, China is taking its campaign pushing for "reunification" with Taiwan to the virtual world of live broadcasts, online conferences and video-making competitions. The intensifying efforts to win hearts and minds in democratic Taiwan come amid widespread support on the island for anti-government protests in Hong Kong and opposition to a new Chinese-imposed security law for the city. Taiwan is China's most sensitive territorial issue, with Beijing claiming the self-ruled island as its own, to be brought under its control by force if needed.
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| Female US Army soldier makes history by becoming the first woman to become a Green Beret Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:00 AM PDT  The female soldier has become the first to don the Green Beret worn by the Army's elite Special Forces.
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| Wisconsin Supreme Court OKs GOP-authored lame-duck laws Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:06 AM PDT  The conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday upheld Republican-authored lame-duck laws that stripped power from the incoming Democratic attorney general just before he took office in 2019. The 5-2 ruling marks the second time that the court has upheld the lame-duck laws passed in December 2018, just weeks before Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul, both Democrats, took office. The actions in Wisconsin mirrored Republican moves after losing control of the governors' offices in Michigan in November 2018 and in North Carolina in 2016.
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| California officer under investigation for allegedly sharing 'vulgar image' of George Floyd; NAACP San Diego calls for his firing Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:03 PM PDT  A San Diego officer is under investigation for allegedly sharing an "altered photograph" of a "naked black male porn star" kneeling on George Floyd.
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| The United States does not want Cuba and Venezuela to buy on Amazon Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  A minor nuisance that comes with U.S. sanctions is having to say goodbye to buying on Amazon.
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| Trump flag angered man so he dumped trash on resident’s lawn for months, NJ cops say Posted: 09 Jul 2020 08:54 AM PDT  "Some people are very passionate about their opinions."
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| UC Berkeley students planning fake course to help foreign classmates dodge new ICE rules Posted: 08 Jul 2020 07:19 AM PDT  Students at the University of California Berkeley are planning to create a fake course to help international students stay in the U.S. if classes go online in the fall; William La Jeunesse reports.
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| Why Iranians, rattled by suicides, point a finger at leaders Posted: 08 Jul 2020 11:11 AM PDT |
| Severe bread shortages loom for Syria as fresh U.S. sanctions grip Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:13 AM PDT  Syria could face severe bread shortages for the first time since the start of the war, another challenge for President Bashar al-Assad as he grapples with an economic meltdown and fresh U.S. sanctions, a U.N. official, activists and farmers said. Any major disruptions to Syria's bread subsidy system could undermine the government and threaten a population highly dependent on wheat as rampant inflation drives up food prices. "There is already some evidence of people cutting out meals," said Mike Robson, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's Syria representative.
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| Merkel is under pressure to cut Germany's ties with China as the Hong Kong crisis triggers a European backlash against Beijing Posted: 08 Jul 2020 05:31 AM PDT  Amid international outrage against China's crackdown in Hong Kong, German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted on the need for 'dialogue' with Beijing.
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