| Trump says John Kelly has a 'military and legal obligation' to 'keep his mouth shut' Posted: 13 Feb 2020 09:17 AM PST  The president criticized John Kelly after remarks from his former chief of staff at an event Wednesday night questioned a number of Trump's decisions.
|
| Man declared incompetent in San Francisco pier killing case Posted: 14 Feb 2020 03:45 PM PST  A Mexican man who was acquitted of killing a woman on a San Francisco pier in a case that became a national flashpoint was found incompetent to stand trial Friday on federal gun charges. If neither side disputes the findings, the court will discuss whether the defendant should be treated locally for mental illness or sent to a federal facility outside California. Defense attorney Tony Serra said he would contest the finding.
|
| The DNC was reportedly 'intimately involved' with the creation of the infamous app that botched the Iowa caucuses Posted: 14 Feb 2020 07:36 AM PST  National Democratic party officials had requested access to the app before the caucuses, according to a report by Yahoo News.
|
| Sri Lanka arrests ex-envoy to Russia over MiG deal Posted: 14 Feb 2020 06:43 AM PST  Sri Lanka arrested a former ambassador to Russia after he was extradited from Dubai Friday to face money laundering charges over a controversial MiG aircraft purchase, police said. Udayanga Weeratunga was taken before a magistrate in Colombo who remanded him in custody till Monday pending a further hearing. Police in a statement said Weeratunga, who is also closely related to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's family, was arrested in connection with an investigation into the Sri Lankan military's 2006 purchase of four second-hand MiG-27 aircraft from Ukraine.
|
| Sherpas upset by plan to collect trash – and bodies – on Everest Posted: 13 Feb 2020 08:13 PM PST  Nepal's government plans to have the army clean up 77,000 pounds of waste on Mount Everest, BBC Nepali reports.
|
| Bernie Sanders to online trolls: Stop 'ugly personal attacks' Posted: 13 Feb 2020 04:45 PM PST  Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders on Thursday urged an end to online "bullying or ugly personal attacks" after a powerful hospitality-industry union in Nevada accused his supporters of harassment. The Culinary Workers Union said supporters of Sanders, a front-runner in the Democratic White House race, "viciously" attacked the organization via Twitter, text, voicemail and direct messaging after the union criticized the senator's universal healthcare plan on Tuesday.
|
| Assistant principal accused of raping 16-year-old avoids jail Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:20 AM PST  An assistant principal charged with raping a 16-year-old student in Missouri has avoided jail time by accepting an Alford plea, allowing her to assert innocence while acknowledging the evidence proves her guilt beyond reasonable doubt.Elizabeth Giesler, who served as the assistant principal of Ste. Genievieve Middle school in eastern Missouri prior to the indictment, accepted the Alford plea earlier this week, according to court records.
|
| Former federal prosecutors describe the Roger Stone sentencing reversal as unprecedented Posted: 12 Feb 2020 06:45 PM PST  Legal experts and former federal prosecutors say the Justice Department's reversal of the sentencing recommendation for President Trump's former campaign adviser is an extraordinary development that could have a long-term impact on public perception of federal law enforcement's independence from political interference.
|
| U.S. Navy warship seizes alleged Iranian weapons Posted: 14 Feb 2020 07:51 AM PST  A U.S. Navy warship seized weapons believed to be of Iranian "design and manufacture," including 150 anti-tank guided missiles and three Iranian surface-to-air missiles, the American military said on Thursday.
|
| Step Inside the Artist's Home Posted: 14 Feb 2020 05:00 AM PST |
| Florida 'red flag' gun law used 3,500 times since Parkland Posted: 13 Feb 2020 09:12 PM PST  A 23-year-old man who posted on Facebook, "I don't know why I don't go on a killing spree." A West Palm Beach couple who shot up their home while high on cocaine. All four Florida residents had their guns taken away by judges under a "red flag" law the state passed three weeks after authorities say a mentally disturbed man killed 17 people in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland two years ago Friday. Advocates of Florida's red flag measure say before it existed, it was often difficult to remove firearms from those making threats or suffering severe mental breakdowns.
|
| Gaza balloon attacks re-emerge as threat to Israel Posted: 13 Feb 2020 06:00 PM PST  As the bunch of brightly-coloured balloons floated into Gaza's evening sky, there was a piercing crackle of gunfire. Moments earlier, the balloons had been launched by a group of masked young Palestinian men huddled near the Al-Bureij refugee camp. Explosives tied to balloons and kites first emerged as a weapon in Gaza, ruled by the Islamist group Hamas, during intense protests in 2018, when the devices drifted across the border daily, causing thousands of fires in Israeli farms and communities.
|
| The Democrats Are Missing the Biggest Issue of the 2020 Election Posted: 14 Feb 2020 04:30 AM PST  How the nation's leaders will address the most pressing political reality of our time—namely, the crumbling of the American status quo and, more ominously, the global status quo. America is struggling through a Crisis of the Old Order.
|
| Three Honduran policemen killed in shootout to free jailed MS-13 gang leader Posted: 13 Feb 2020 05:22 PM PST |
| Five inmates escape from Ohio correctional facility Posted: 13 Feb 2020 05:40 PM PST  They broke out of a first-floor window and ran away sometime Monday night or Tuesday, according to a police report.
|
| 'Horrifying': Mass burial held for 2,411 fetal remains found in abortion doctor's home Posted: 13 Feb 2020 11:47 AM PST  Dr. Ulrich Klopfer, who died Sept. 3 at 79, was one of the Midwest's most prolific abortion doctors. He performed the abortions from 2000 to 2002.
|
| Pompeo 'outraged' by United Nations list of firms with settlement ties Posted: 13 Feb 2020 04:32 PM PST  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said he is "outraged" by the U.N.'s publication of a list of companies accused of violating Palestinian human rights by operating in Israel's West Bank settlements.
|
| Top White House official suggests China is not being 'honest' and has 'motives' in the coronavirus fight, as Beijing faces suspicion over how it records infections Posted: 14 Feb 2020 05:22 AM PST  China has altered some of its figures for how many people are infected by the coronavirus, adding to suspicion about how its handling the crisis.
|
| Pope Francis's dream Posted: 14 Feb 2020 03:00 AM PST  With the easy credulity that has become so typical of journalists during his pontificate, many observers, both Catholic and secular, expected Pope Francis's recent apostolic exhortation to relax the ancient discipline of clerical celibacy for some priests of the Roman Rite. This did not happen.An entire column (indeed a document very much longer) might be devoted to the question of why so many people insist upon seeing Francis as some kind of antinomian liberal modernizer. But it seems to me somehow unimportant. Instead, the correct response to Querida Amazonia ("The Beloved Amazon") is joy. Here at last is a return to the great intellectual themes of Laudato si', the 2015 papal encyclical in which the Holy Father first articulated his critique of the neoliberal revolution in economics, the globalized regime of spoliation, exploitation, infertility, and distractedness that make possible the supposed "economic miracle" of consumerism. For Francis all of these things — the climate crisis, wage slavery, the mirage of technological progress, greed — exist along a sinuous continuum of immiseration; the planet is being destroyed because we are destroying one another because we are destroying ourselves.It is no accident that the present document is organized not in chapters but as a series of four "dreams." Many of the footnotes refer either to documents from the recent Amazonian synod held in Rome or to Francis's own previous utterances. I do not think any comparable papal document has contained so many quotations from poets.The pope's emphasis on imaginative literature is not incidental. What he seems to suggest throughout is that there are certain truths that cannot be articulated in prose. If philosophy, according to Hegel, is always an exercise in belatedness, then perhaps it is only through art that we can express the most serious longings of our age. This is why, despite the inevitable presence of jargon, the exhortation itself is full of poetic expressions, including some ("This dream made of water," "a dance of dolphins") which impress themselves effortlessly upon one's memory.Francis's ostensible theme in this reflection is the destruction of the Amazon and her indigenous peoples, both physically and spiritually, at the hands of neoliberal capitalism, leaving the soil exhausted and fruitless and the men and women of the region impoverished and atomized in cities where they live as strangers. But this sense of "bewilderment and uprootedness" extends well beyond the Amazon. It is, in fact, the defining characteristic of modern life. Overcoming these evils in South America and throughout the world will involve something more than international climate summits or NGO-sponsored PowerPoint presentations. It will require nothing less than the destruction of the existing order of things and its replacement with a new humane form of social organization whose first principles are not the acquisition of wealth or the pursuit of fleeting pleasures but love, fraternity, and serenity.It would be interesting to know what, in addition to those sources that appear in the footnotes, has informed the pope's thinking here. It has been known for some time that Francis is devoted to the great anti-modern philosopher Fr. Romano Guardini and that he is a keen Wagnerian. When the pope calls upon readers "to enter into communion with the forest" so that "our voices will easily blend with its own and become a prayer," it is difficult not to imagine the figure of Siegfried (for whom the corrupt order of Valhalla possesses no charms because he has grown up outside it) following the quiet song of the woodbird to the ring. There are echoes here also of the late Heidegger, with his horror of mankind becoming the slave of technology and his insistence upon philosophy and even "thought" giving way to the musings of artists. But I must admit that the book I thought of most when reading his reflections on "integral ecology" was Frank Herbert's Dune, in which the boy hero uses aboriginal "desert power" to overthrow a mechanized galactic empire. It is precisely this sort of synthesis between indigenous capability and political will that Francis seems to be proposing when he says that the solution to the present ecological crisis will "combine ancestral wisdom with contemporary technical knowledge." In any case, it is no surprise that a thinker so wide ranging in his interests should address his reflections not only to the Catholic faithful but to "all persons of goodwill." People of every political tendency, from the more humane voices among the new nationalists in the United States and Europe to leftists attempting to imagine what a world would look like without economic growth as we currently understand it, would profit from engagement with these ideas.How likely is it that Francis's vision will be fulfilled in our lifetimes? I think attempting to answer this question is the wrong response (though it is worth pointing out that in the last century the turn against laissez-faire economics was influenced to a greater extent than is widely acknowledged by papal encyclicals). In fact, I think it would even be a mistake to consider this exhortation a teaching document in any narrowly pedagogical sense. Instead it should be welcomed on the terms in which it is presented: as a dream, one that all persons of good will can dream together.More stories from theweek.com 7 brutally funny cartoons about the Democratic primary fight Bill de Blasio will reportedly endorse Bernie Sanders Bloomberg vs. Trump would be a clash of oligarchs
|
| Foreigners stranded in Wuhan by virus tell of fear and rations Posted: 14 Feb 2020 05:53 AM PST  Hunkered down at the epicentre of China's virus epidemic and cut off from the world, the remaining foreigners in Wuhan are eking out a life in fear. As of Monday, 27 foreigners in China had been infected with the virus -- 22 of whom were in quarantine, officials said. Ruqia Shaikh, a Pakistani postdoctoral researcher stranded at Wuhan's Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said most students at the school were confined to their dormitories, watching TV.
|
| Would Bernie Sanders really wreck the US economy if he became President? Posted: 14 Feb 2020 12:24 PM PST  This week Bernie Sanders, fresh from his victory in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire, was attacked by a vampire squid.Or rather he was attacked by the former boss of that Wall Street banking vampire squid (that's how it was described by Rolling Stone magazine) known as Goldman Sachs.
|
| A Gulag: Confederate Prison at Andersonville Was 'the Deadliest Ground of the Civil War' Posted: 13 Feb 2020 04:10 AM PST  Being a POW for either side wasn't fun.
|
| An employer allegedly conspired with local police to have a black employee arrested before he could file a racial discrimination complaint — but their plot backfired. Posted: 13 Feb 2020 01:08 PM PST  Michael Fesser confided in his boss about racial discrimination at work. Before he could file a complaint, his boss conspired to have him arrested.
|
| Classmates rally, help release woman from immigration detention Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:03 PM PST  Meidy Guzman's release means returning to school, and possibly graduating with her classmates, while also seeking asylum and battling possible deportation.
|
| 'An introvert's dream': Here's what it's like for passengers on board the quarantined coronavirus cruise Posted: 14 Feb 2020 12:32 PM PST  The Diamond Princess cruise ship is currently under a 14-day quarantine, where Cheryl and Paul Molesky have been posting regular vlogs.
|
| Jimmy Hoffa associate who was suspect in disappearance dies Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:35 AM PST  Charles "Chuckie" O'Brien, a longtime associate of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa who became a leading suspect in the labor leader's disappearance and later was portrayed in the Martin Scorsese film, "The Irishman," has died. O'Brien's stepson, Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, said in a blog post that O'Brien died Thursday in Boca Raton, Florida, from what appeared to be a heart attack. O'Brien was a constant companion to Hoffa in the decades when the labor leader developed the Teamsters into one of the largest and most powerful unions in the nation in the from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.
|
| House Republicans say stealing polling data through open blinds is kosher. Democrats say it's creepy. Posted: 14 Feb 2020 03:59 AM PST  The campaign organizations for House Democrats and Republicans — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) — agree on the facts of what happened Wednesday night, Politico reported Friday morning: NRCC staffers walked across the street to the DCCC's headquarters to stake out some Democratic candidates, saw the blinds open on a DCCC polling meeting, and snapped some photos, nabbing pricy and potentially useful proprietary polling data on races Democrats are focusing on in November.Republicans think they hit the jackpot, Democrats found the tactics "totally out of bounds, and downright creepy," Politico reports. "The NRCC and DCCC have disagreed on where to draw the line when it comes to opposition research. The Republican committee, for example, has declined to sign an agreement to not use hacked information in its campaigns."Still, the DCCC didn't exactly take the high road. "When you have no ideas or accomplishments to run on, you creep in the bushes, take pictures through people's windows, and invade their privacy," communications director Cole Leiter told Politico. "The next time the NRCC is looking for tips on running winning campaigns, all they have to do is call us — we'll be more than happy to explain why Kevin McCarthy is the minority leader." If the DCCC doesn't start closing its blinds, a phone call might be superfluous.More stories from theweek.com 7 brutally funny cartoons about the Democratic primary fight Bill de Blasio will reportedly endorse Bernie Sanders Bloomberg vs. Trump would be a clash of oligarchs
|
| The Multibillion Dollar Canal Carving a Rift Through Erdogan's Turkey Posted: 14 Feb 2020 03:07 AM PST  The largest infrastructure project Turkey has ever undertaken is angering environmentalists, opposition politicians and potentially Moscow
|
| Trump tells Barr he can stay – but makes clear the tweets will continue Posted: 13 Feb 2020 03:58 PM PST  Donald Trump was not angered or offended by Attorney General William Barr offering the most scathing rebuke of his presidency from any sitting Cabinet member since he took office, a top aide says."The President wasn't bothered by the comments at all and he (Barr) has the right, just like any American citizen, to publicly offer his opinions," White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.
|
| Mystery: Did Iranian Pilots Encounter a Mach 10 Drone or Some Sort of UFO? Posted: 13 Feb 2020 06:30 PM PST  The truth is out there.
|
| Gang kills four police in operation to free leader Posted: 14 Feb 2020 06:25 AM PST  Armed men killed four police officers and wounded another four as they freed a leader of the notorious MS-13 gang from a court in Honduras, authorities said. Around 20 gang members opened fire Thursday outside a court in El Progreso, around 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa, the security ministry said in a statement released later that day. During the attack, Alexander Mendoza, known by his alias "Porkys," was able to escape.
|
| New York Mayor de Blasio endorses Sanders in 2020 Democratic race Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:50 PM PST  New York Mayor Bill de Blasio endorsed U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic presidential race on Friday, the Sanders campaign said. De Blasio, a liberal who dropped out of the Democratic contest in September, will travel with Sanders on Sunday and Monday to Nevada, which holds its caucuses on Feb. 22, a campaign announcement said. The endorsement comes after Sanders, who was born in New York but represents Vermont in the U.S. Senate, came out of the first nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire as a front-runner among the Democrats vying to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 election.
|
| Chinstrap penguins are starving to death in Antarctica as the temperature hits record highs. Posted: 14 Feb 2020 12:25 PM PST  Here are six photos that show how researchers are studying the crisis among penguins as the planet continues to warm.
|
| More than 1,700 healthcare workers in Wuhan have gotten the coronavirus. A study found that 29% of infections were in medical staff. Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:30 PM PST  Medical workers fighting the new coronavirus, called COVID-19, face resource shortages and a high risk of infection.
|
| Belarus leader says Russia insists on merging the two states Posted: 14 Feb 2020 05:02 AM PST  The president of Belarus said Friday that Russia insisted on merging the two states during last week's talks on further integrating the countries' economies. As negotiations on closer ties stalled, Russia halted oil supplies to Belarus and Lukashenko repeatedly accused the Kremlin of pushing for a merger of the two countries.
|
| Truck spilling cement on roadway causes 'violent crash,' killing 2 Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:46 PM PST  A driver traveling northbound drove over the wet mortar, jumped the median and hit a car going southbound, police said.
|
| The Wacky New Anti-Abortion Tactic Taking Off Across America Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:36 AM PST  When Santa Rosa County's Board of Commissioners met Thursday morning, items on the agenda included improving the drainage on Tibet Drive, upgrading the local boat ramp, and allocating money to buy new scoreboards at Chumuckla Park.Then, at the end of the meeting, came a far more controversial and divisive matter, one that is likely to have an impact beyond the Florida community of 150,000 people.Dozens of local residents, many holding placards and pointing fingers, lined up to speak for and against a proposal to become the first "abortion sanctuary city" in Florida. The wacky—and possibly unconstitutional—concept, which co-opts a label used by liberal cities that protect undocumented immigrants, has taken off in small, deeply conservative towns across Texas in the last six months. Waskom, a Texas town of 2,000 people, was the first city in the U.S. to become a "sanctuary city for the unborn" after its all-male board voted unanimously last July. Eleven more Texas towns, mostly in the state's east, followed suit, although a handful of towns have voted against proposed ordinances.The local ordinances vary in severity. Waskom's outlaws abortion (which it called "murder with malice aforethought"), makes it unlawful to assist someone to get an abortion, and prevents Planned Parenthood and other reproductive services (which it calls "criminal organizations") from operating within city limits. Violating the local health ordinance can incur a fine. Some other towns' ordinances allow family members of an unborn baby to sue the abortion doctor; not all have included provisions for rape and incest. Most are in towns with no abortion services anyway.The movement has been pushed by Mark Lee Dickson, a pastor from Longview, Texas, who first proposed the idea to Waskom's mayor and has since set up a website with printable petitions that people can submit to their local boards."I knew it was a crazy idea," Dickson said. "Once it passed in Waskom, it was, 'Well, what's next?' And it just made sense that if [abortion providers] aren't going to come to Waskom now, they're just going to go somewhere else, so we need to make sure other cities are safe as well."Dickson said he'd been contacted by people in Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Indiana. In Santa Rosa County, which neighbors Pensacola and includes the small cities of Milton and Navarre, the vote on Thursday became so heated that the Board of Commissioners, which was split on whether to adopt the resolution, decided it should go to a county-wide referendum instead.Santa Rosa would become the first place outside Texas to adopt the concept, potentially kicking off a trend for other cities in the U.S..One of the county's commissioners, Lane Lynchard, said he didn't think it was right for a local board to wade into divisive national issues."It has accomplished nothing other than pitting people against one another," he said on Thursday, adding that 80 percent of emails and messages he'd received on the issue were against it. "We can't legislate people's beliefs. I think we need to stick with governing the county."Another commissioner, Dave Piech, was booed by attendees when he said the resolution had morphed into divisive name calling."Actions speak louder than words," someone shouted as Piech insisted he was anti-abortion but thought it was beyond the purview of five male commissioners.Local resident Alison Hartman, a mother of 10, said the board "needed to stand up and be a voice for the rest of the county.""All you old people that stood up and said you're 'pro-choice' and against babies," she said, pointing toward a small crowd of abortion-rights activists. "If it was your grandbabies, it'd be different."In Texas and Florida, where some form of abortion is legal, anti-abortion ordinances are likely to be unconstitutional, more a headline-grabbing move for small-town activists. But they scare women away and confuse them into thinking abortion is not legal in those places, abortion providers say."The idea of a sanctuary from one's constitutional rights is a new twist," The Very Reverend Katherine H. Ragsdale, president of the National Abortion Federation, said, adding that it was a new tactic from an old playbook of demonization and policy manipulation.The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas called the Waskom ordinance a "grandstanding mechanism" and said abortion access was a constitutional right.Sara Latshaw, deputy political director of the ACLU of Florida, said they were "disappointed that Santa Rosa commissioners have decided to prolong this political theater instead of focusing on local matters. Any such resolution or referendum is just a tactic to shame those in need of care."Several towns have voted down proposals due to the risk of potential lawsuits. Dickson likened the ordinances, which are stronger than largely symbolic resolutions, to local bans on cigarette sales or sugary sodas. He said cities that have passed ordinances have been subjected to threats; Waskom had clothes hangers mailed to the town recently."It's caused a lot of hate to come towards some of these cities and it is not something that any of them take lightly," he said.Residents in Santa Rosa will vote on the proposal in November.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
| AOC criticises Michael Bloomberg over ‘unconstitutional, devastating’ stop and frisk past Posted: 13 Feb 2020 02:41 PM PST  Valerie Jarrett and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aren't impressed by presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg's apology over his role in New York's racist "stop-and-frisk" policy.Ms Jarrett, a longtime adviser to former President Barack Obama, said that Mr Bloomberg "needs to do a lot more than just apologise" for the policy during a segment on CBS This Morning on Thursday.
|
| Penned lions still on offer at trophy hunting convention Posted: 13 Feb 2020 12:26 PM PST  An undercover video recorded by animal welfare activists shows vendors at a recent trophy hunting convention promoting trips to shoot captive-bred lions in Africa, despite past public assurances by the event's organizers that so-called canned hunts wouldn't be sold.
|
| Police arrest 2 teenagers in killing of 2 boys in California Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:27 AM PST |
| Israeli mayor orders Palestinian 'surrender' billboards removed Posted: 14 Feb 2020 11:06 AM PST |
| World War II Taught The Air Force Why Flying Tanks Are King Posted: 14 Feb 2020 02:00 AM PST  America's B-25G was the first, but it wouldn't be the last.
|
| While Barr publicly scolds Trump, his DOJ is quietly investigating those in the CIA who probed 2016 Russian interference Posted: 13 Feb 2020 11:34 PM PST  Attorney General William Barr claimed that Trump has "never" asked him "to do anything in a criminal case."
|
| The casino hub of Macau will give residents money to keep its economy going during the coronavirus pandemic Posted: 14 Feb 2020 07:35 AM PST  Macau recently shut down its casinos, the city's primary industry. It has stemmed an outbreak of the coronavirus and hopes to keep the economy afloat.
|
