| Schiff demands answers from Pentagon on monitoring domestic unrest Posted: 08 Jun 2020 02:02 PM PDT  Rep. Adam Schiff wrote the Pentagon Monday expressing concerns that the Defense Department might be involved in "unlawful or unethical activities" in response to recent nationwide protests.
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| Fired Atlanta officers file suit against mayor, police chief Posted: 09 Jun 2020 02:12 AM PDT  Two Atlanta police officers who were fired after video showed them using stun guns on two college students pulled from a car in traffic during a large protest against police brutality are looking to get their jobs back. Bottoms and Shields have said they reviewed body camera footage from the May 30 incident and decided to immediately fire the officers and place three others on desk duty. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard brought criminal charges on June 2 against Gardner, Streeter and four other officers involved in the incident.
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| Small cars are still the most dangerous choice on the market, according to a new ranking of vehicles by fatality rate Posted: 09 Jun 2020 10:42 AM PDT  These 20 models — including cars from Ford, Chevy, Hyundai, and Kia — have the highest rates of driver death, according to a new IIHS study.
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| D.C. Mayor: We Had to ‘Defend Our Borders’ From Trump’s Troops Posted: 09 Jun 2020 07:45 AM PDT  Trump sent in goons from the Bureau of Prisons and National Guardsmen from as far away from Utah to take over her town. Then he attacked her on Twitter.In Episode 15 of The New Abnormal, The Daily Beast's podcast for a world gone off the rails, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson what it was like to be under siege from the president of the United States—and how she tried to resist."We have spent the last week trying to defend our borders, defend our autonomy, and make sure protesters could be in the city peacefully," Bowser says. Then the "siege" of Lafayette Park happened."We don't really know for sure who was in charge, who gave the order, what the chain of command was," she says. What she does know is that she was attacked by the president on Twitter and he lost: "Not to sound like I'm in the kindergarten, but he started it."Molly also talks about the GOP's ability to "seize defeat out of the jaws of defeat" and the two reveal the spin job that Trump hopes will save him from election doom.Are We All Trapped in Tom Cotton's Authoritarian Wet Dream?"He thinks this is going to be the sort of secret sauce, the magic that's going to undo the fact he has plunged this country into epidemiological, cultural, social, and economic chaos," says Rick.Plus, Trump's "just the tip" excuse; "deep state" ninjas; and Rick's secret past as a NASCAR driver.Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.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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| Second Etihad plane from UAE lands in Israel Posted: 09 Jun 2020 05:13 PM PDT  UAE carrier Etihad Airways sent its second flight to Israel in less than a month Tuesday, carrying medical aid to help the Palestinians tackle the coronavirus pandemic, witnesses and officials said. Jordan and Egypt aside, Arab countries have no official diplomatic ties with Israel, but Gulf Arab nations have had ever more publicly warm ties with Israel of late, partly over shared rivalry with Iran. In mid-May, the United Arab Emirates flew its first publicly announced flight to Israel, also an Etihad flight carrying coronavirus aid for the Palestinians.
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| DOJ Claims Flynn Was Involved in Conspiracy to Target Turkish Exile Posted: 08 Jun 2020 07:12 AM PDT  The Justice Department said in a new court filing that it is "unsustainable" to suggest that Michael Flynn "was not a part of any conspiracy" with members of the Turkish government.The filing was drafted as part of the government's case against Bijan Rafiekian, a former business partner of Flynn who was prosecuted by Robert Mueller on charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent. The development marks a departure from the DOJ's decision last month to drop charges against Flynn.Rafiekian's defense recently wrote to Jeff Jensen — the U.S. Attorney that Attorney General Bill Barr appointed to review the Flynn case — to request that Rafiekian's case get a similar review, but the DOJ is pressing ahead with a request to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to move forward with its case."Defendant argues that the district court should have instructed the jury not on law but on a specific fact: that Michael Flynn was not a part of any conspiracy. That argument is unsustainable," the DOJ says in its brief, which was filed on Sunday."Wrongful and wasteful use of scarce taxpayer resources," Flynn's lead attorney Sidney Powell told Politico on the decision to include Flynn in the case against Rafiekian. Flynn's case has yet to be dropped, with the D.C. Circuit hearing oral arguments this week after the judge overseeing Flynn's case refused to comply with the DOJ's request.Rafiekian was found guilty by a jury — only for a judge to later overturn the conviction — after Flynn said in his initial 2017 guilty plea that he had made "materially false statements and omissions" related to Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings for his Flynn Intel Group.Prosecutors used Flynn's admission to say Rafiekian, a former Trump transition team adviser, had secretly worked as a Turkish agent to hide the fact that Flynn signed a contract in 2016 for $530,000 to investigate Fethullah Gulen, an exiled cleric and critic of the Turkish government who lives in the U.S.Flynn wrote an op-ed for The Hill on Election Day 2016 that said Gulen was the "primary bone of contention" between Turkey and the U.S., calling him a "radical Islamist" and a "shady Islamic mullah." Prosecutors also looked into reports that Flynn had been involved in trying to kidnap Gulen to return him to Turkey, but Flynn denied any such plot.Flynn initially agreed to serve as the government's star witness against Rafiekian, but later backed out after dropping his initial defense team, which also had handled FARA filings on behalf of Flynn Intel Group.
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| U.N. expert says some are 'starving' in North Korea Posted: 09 Jun 2020 02:49 AM PDT  A United Nations human rights expert voiced alarm on Tuesday at "widespread food shortages and malnutrition" in North Korea, made worse by a nearly five-month border closure with China and strict quarantine measures against COVID-19. Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, urged the U.N. Security Council to reconsider sanctions imposed on the isolated country over its nuclear and missile programmes, so as to ensure food supplies. The pandemic has brought "drastic economic hardship" to North Korea, Ojea Quintana said, with a 90% fall in trade with China in March and April leading to lost incomes.
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| George Floyd: Minneapolis council pledges to dismantle police department Posted: 08 Jun 2020 04:38 AM PDT  The move comes amid protests against racism and police brutality sparked by George Floyd's death.
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| Virginia police investigating white officer who tasered unarmed black man unprovoked Posted: 08 Jun 2020 07:48 AM PDT  A police department in Virginia is investigating an incident where one of its own officers tasered an unarmed man, then restrained him with a knee on his back while he repeatedly said "I can't breathe".The officer concerned, Tyler Timberlake, was recorded by another officer's body camera. He has been charged with three counts of misdemeanour assault and battery; he and all officers at the scene have been relieved of duty while the incident is investigated.
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| The U.S. Air Force’s Shiny, New Sea Power Presence Posted: 09 Jun 2020 09:28 AM PDT  It will take more than a lone bomber mission from afar—no matter how impressive—to rattle Moscow's complacency.
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| Iran says it will execute man convicted of spying on Soleimani for CIA Posted: 09 Jun 2020 12:40 AM PDT  An Iranian who spied for U.S. and Israeli intelligence on slain Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani has been sentenced to death, Iran said on Tuesday, adding the case was not linked to Soleimani's killing earlier this year. On Jan. 3, a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Soleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force. Washington blamed Soleimani for masterminding attacks by Iran-aligned militias on U.S. forces in the region.
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| A tale of two mothers: How Texas couple claimed their baby from Ukraine despite lockdown Posted: 09 Jun 2020 02:47 AM PDT  One cannot bear children, another needs money for her own family. A look at the joy and heartbreak of surrogate motherhood.
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| Trump floats baseless conspiracy about 75-year-old Buffalo protester pushed to ground by police Posted: 09 Jun 2020 07:51 AM PDT  The president on Tuesday suggested without evidence that a 75-year-old man who was knocked to the ground by police in Buffalo, N.Y., was a member of antifa and that the incident was "a set up."
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| Thiessen: Trump wins the election if it comes down to standing for the police vs. defunding them Posted: 09 Jun 2020 06:18 AM PDT  Joe Biden is going up against his base when he said he is not for defunding the police, Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen says.
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| Australia rejects China's racism warning to students Posted: 09 Jun 2020 06:01 PM PDT  Australian officials and leading universities on Wednesday rejected China's claims students should be "cautious" in choosing to study Down Under because of concerns over racist incidents during the coronavirus pandemic. China's ministry of education warned students on Tuesday there had been "multiple discriminatory incidents against Asians in Australia" during the pandemic, ramping up diplomatic tensions between the two countries. The advisory was the latest in an escalating dispute between Beijing and Canberra that was deepened by Australia's call for an independent inquiry into the origin and handling of the coronavirus in central China last year.
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| North Korea expected to shut down all communications with the South Posted: 08 Jun 2020 05:53 PM PDT  Since 2018, the two countries have conducted two phone calls each day on 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. local time.
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| Minneapolis City Council President Claims Fear of Dismantling Police ‘Comes From A Place of Privilege’ Posted: 08 Jun 2020 07:50 AM PDT  Fears of dismantling local police forces come from a "place of privilege," Minneapolis City Council president Lisa Bender told CNN on Monday."What if in the middle of the night my home is broken into. Who do I call?" CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota asked Bender after the city council president laid out her vision for a post-police city."I hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbors, and I know — and myself, too, and I know that that comes from a place of privilege," Bender responded. "For those of us for whom the system is working, I think we need to step back and imagine what it would feel like to already live in that reality where calling the police may mean more harm instead."> Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender on the intent to defund and dismantle the city's police department: "[We] have looked up ways we can shift the response away from our armed police officers… the groundwork is laid already." https://t.co/h0eSepelHE pic.twitter.com/wBASgjsIbq> > -- CNN (@CNN) June 8, 2020Bender and eight other City Council members, who together form a veto-proof majority on the twelve-seat body, have already signed a pledge to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. Mayor Jacob Frey has backed reform but refused to defund the city's police force entirely.However, Bender appeared to temper a push to defund the MPD immediately, saying it would take "years" before police would not be necessary. She and other Council Members had come out in support of a "police-free future" in 2017."To me, [a police-free future] is a long way away, and it would take an enormous amount of investment in things that we know work to keep people safe," Bender said. "I know the statement was bold, and I stand by that bold statement, but the work ahead of us will be long."Calls to defund and dismantle police departments have grown after the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during his arrest by four Minneapolis police officers. The city saw widespread demonstrations and riots following Floyd's death, with rioters looting and burning down buildings including the headquarters of the city's 3rd precinct, where the four officers were stationed.
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| Defense: Harvard professor charged in China case is 'victim' Posted: 09 Jun 2020 02:51 PM PDT |
| F-35s And Supersonic Missiles: This Is Japan's Strategy To Beat China's Navy Posted: 09 Jun 2020 06:30 AM PDT  Japan is extending the range of its weapons.
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| Researchers discover 'cataclysmic' ancient supereruptions in Yellowstone hot spot track Posted: 08 Jun 2020 05:30 PM PDT |
| Mood darkens in Sweden as high death rate raises tough questions over lack of lockdown Posted: 08 Jun 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Sweden's opposition has attacked the government for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with the stubbornly high death rate fuelling questions over the decision not to impose a lockdown. Jimmie Akesson, the leader of the populist Sweden Democrats, first called for Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden's less restrictive coronavirus strategy, to resign. The attacks continued in heated televised leaders' debate on Sunday night. "The strategy in Sweden was not to try to hold back the infection, but instead to try to limit it at the same time as protecting risk groups," Mr Akesson wrote in a debate article in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper. "By that measure, it has failed miserably. Anders Tegnell should therefore resign. Only them will he show the Swedish people that he takes responsibility for the mistakes FHM [Public Health Agency of Sweden] has made."
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| Coronavirus: Satellite traffic images may suggest virus hit Wuhan earlier Posted: 09 Jun 2020 03:13 AM PDT  A surge in hospital traffic may indicate the virus hit China earlier than reported, a study suggests.
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| Canada border opens to foreign families of Canadians Posted: 08 Jun 2020 12:57 PM PDT  Thousands of foreign nationals will be able to reunite with their families in Canada after the government in Ottawa moved Monday to exempt them from its travel ban. In late May, a deal was reached with the United States to extend the closure of their shared border but still allow a select few, including health care workers, to cross back and forth until at least June 21. "This is an incredibly difficult time to be apart from a spouse or a child or mom and dad," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters.
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| White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany boasted that 8% of Black voters supported Trump in 2016 and falsely claimed Mitt Romney won just 2% of Black voters in 2012 Posted: 09 Jun 2020 09:07 AM PDT  McEnany refused to say whether Trump endorses the statement that "black lives matter" and attacked Romney's support for the anti-racism protests.
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| Minneapolis Manufacturing Company Will Leave City after Plant Burned in Riots Posted: 09 Jun 2020 06:41 AM PDT  A Minneapolis manufacturing company whose plant was set on fire by rioters plans to leave the city, saying that city officials afforded them no assistance in handling the destruction."They don't care about my business," 7-Sigma Inc.'s president and owner, Kris Wyrobek, told The Star Tribune about Minneapolis public officials. "They didn't protect our people. We were all on our own."The 7-Sigma plant in south Minneapolis, which the company has maintained since 1987, shut down several hours early around 7 p.m. instead of 11 p.m. as a precautionary measure on the first night of rioting. The company manufactures several products, including rollers for high-speed printing presses and medical training mannequins.When a fire broke out in an apartment complex under construction that was next door to the manufacturing facility, "the fire engine was just sitting there, but they wouldn't do anything," Wyrobek said. The apartment complex was leveled by the fire, and several stores across the street including a Target store were looted during the first night of riots.Mayor Jacob Frey said the city's fire department was operating at full capacity in response to the riots, which he said required the state's National Guard to quell the violence. Governor Tim Walz, who excoriated the city's weak response, called in the state's National Guard to Minneapolis after the mayor requested it. The Minnesota National Guard said in a statement that "a key objective is to ensure fire departments are able to respond to calls.""This was a Guard-sized crisis and demanded a Guard-sized response," Frey said. "And once we had the full presence of the National Guard — which by the way hasn't been deployed since World War II — there was a significantly different result."The city will lose about 50 jobs when the company skips town, a move that Wyrobek said he had "not in my wildest nightmare" considered before the riots. Now, he is "cautiously optimistic" that he can rebuild his company elsewhere, "but we are certainly not able to do that in Minneapolis."Riots broke out in Minneapolis during the last week of May after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, including after Floyd passed out. Rioters set a police precinct ablaze as well as businesses across the city.Both peaceful protests and riots have occurred in metropolitan areas around the country in response to Floyd's death and have continued through both of the following weekends.
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| Alabama police admit officer punched black shopkeeper who reported robbery after ‘mistaking him for suspect’ Posted: 09 Jun 2020 04:47 AM PDT  An Alabama police department has admitted one of its white officers punched a black shopkeeper after he called 911 to report a robbery because he mistook him for a suspect, according to multiple reports.Both AL.com and the Associated Press reported that Decatur police admitted the mix-up on Monday.
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| Kill the Carrier: The DF-100 Anti-Ship Missile Is Crucial To China's Pacific Plans Posted: 09 Jun 2020 04:00 PM PDT  America's carriers are at risk.
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| RNC on Trump standing by police, Powell endorsing Biden, push to find new convention venue Posted: 09 Jun 2020 04:37 AM PDT  RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel joins 'Fox & Friends' to discuss the news of the day.
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| Argentina's new daily coronavirus cases top 1,000 for first time Posted: 09 Jun 2020 05:31 PM PDT  Argentina confirmed more than 1,000 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday as the rate of new infections continued to rise just days after it extended lockdown measures in the capital Buenos Aires, the country's largest city and epicenter for the virus. Argentina's Health Ministry logged 1,141 new cases in the past 24 hours, as well 24 deaths, pushing its totals to 24,761 cases and 717 deaths since the outbreak began in early March. Argentina's rising rate of infections, though, still remains markedly lower than neighbors Chile, which reported 3,913 cases on Tuesday, and Brazil, with 32,091 new cases.
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| 'Only African American in the Room:' Next Air Force Chief of Staff Speaks Out on Racism in Ranks Posted: 09 Jun 2020 12:28 PM PDT  Brown described his experience as "living in two worlds," with some questioning whether he even belonged in the ranks.
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| More 'fast radio bursts' have been detected from a distant galaxy. This one has a repeating pattern. Posted: 09 Jun 2020 04:08 PM PDT  For only the second time ever, scientists have detected a radio signal from a distant galaxy that repeats at regular intervals.
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| One Year After the Hong Kong Protests Began, Frustrated Hardliners Call for Independence Posted: 09 Jun 2020 02:22 AM PDT  Desperation forces some to call for a break from China
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| New York poised to lift veil on police disciplinary files Posted: 08 Jun 2020 11:41 AM PDT  A decades-old law that kept law enforcement officers' disciplinary records secret in New York appeared to be headed for an overhaul this week as state lawmakers moved to act on a number of police accountability measures prompted by street demonstrations over the death of George Floyd. Formal complaints about excessive force by officers are not public in New York. In recent years, police departments have cited the law in refusing to say even whether officers have been punished.
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| Biden seeks running mate who's "ready to be president on day one" Posted: 09 Jun 2020 04:05 PM PDT  The presumptive Democratic nominee said he wants someone who's comfortable raising any disagreements with him.
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| For Italy's Muslims, lack of burial space deepens grief in pandemic Posted: 08 Jun 2020 09:10 PM PDT  Italy's Muslim community, like others, suffered many deaths as the coronavirus pandemic hit the Mediterranean country hard. Imams and Muslim community leaders are now calling for more Islamic cemeteries, or additional space in the country's existing graveyards, as the faithful increasingly want to be buried in Italy, their home. "We have experienced the pain (of the pandemic), but it has sometimes been deepened when some families could not find a place to bury their dead because there were no Muslim sections in the town cemeteries," Abdullah Tchina, imam of the Milan Sesto mosque, told AFP.
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| Chinese fighters briefly enter Taiwan airspace: Taipei Posted: 08 Jun 2020 10:49 PM PDT  Chinese fighter jets briefly entered Taiwan's airspace on Tuesday, forcing the island to scramble its fighters, the same day Taipei announced plans for its largest annual live-fire military drill. The Taiwanese defence ministry said it broadcast warnings and "took active responses to dispel" multiple Chinese Su-30 fighters to the southwest of the island. The incursion came as the ministry announced that the "Han Kuang" live-fire drill would be held next month, including computer simulations and an exercise to defend against forces landing on the island. China has ramped up fighter flights and warship crossings near Taiwan or through the Taiwan Strait since President Tsai Ing-wen was first elected in 2016, as she has refused to acknowledge that the island is part of "one China". Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary. On February 10, a Chinese military jet briefly crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait separating the two sides in the first major incursion since Tsai's landslide re-election in January. Tsai has lashed out at Beijing for "meaningless and unnecessary" moves. In March last year, two Chinese J-11 fighter jets crossed over the line for the first time in years, prompting Taipei to accuse Beijing of violating a long-held tacit agreement in a "reckless and provocative" move.
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| U.S. decision to withdraw troops from Germany "unacceptable" - Merkel ally Posted: 07 Jun 2020 11:49 PM PDT  Germany's coordinator for transatlantic ties has criticised U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw thousands of troops from Germany. Trump has ordered the U.S. military to remove 9,500 troops from Germany, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. "This is completely unacceptable, especially since nobody in Washington thought about informing its NATO ally Germany in advance," Peter Beyer, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
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| Graham Says FBI ‘Denying’ Requests to Interview Agents Who Talked to Steele’s Subsource Posted: 08 Jun 2020 09:55 AM PDT  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) revealed Sunday that the FBI has denied his requests to interview the two officials who interviewed Christopher Steele's primary subsource."I made a request to interview the case agent and the intel analyst . . . and they're denying me the ability to do that," Graham said in an interview on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures.The two FBI agents, a case agent and an intelligence agent, interviewed Steele's primary subsource three times in 2017. In the course of those interviews, the unidentified person "revealed potentially serious problems with Steele's descriptions of information in his reports," according to Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.Graham explained that he wanted to know "did the case agent and the intel agent refuse to tell the system about exculpatory information? Does the fault lie with two or three people? Or was it a system out of control?"Horowitz's December report on the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation found that the Bureau knew in January 2017 that Steele's allegations relating to the Trump campaign relied in part on disinformation produced by Russian intelligence, according to recently declassified footnotes.One of the agents who took part in the initial interviews with Steele's source is Stephen Somma, a counterintelligence investigator in the FBI's New York field office. Horowitz said in his report that Somma — identified as "Case Agent 1" — was "primarily responsible for some of the most significant errors and omissions" in FISA applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.In April, Graham asked the DOJ for records that "question the accuracy and reliability" of former British spy Christopher Steele's sourcing, before announcing a number of hearings "regarding all things Crossfire Hurricane and the Mueller investigation" that began with the testimony of former acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last week.Rosenstein told Graham that he would not have signed off on the warrant to spy on Page, had he known the issues with the underlying evidence at the time, and blamed the FBI for failing to follow protocols "to ensure that every fact was verified."
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| Europe Keeps Powering Up Hydrogen Trains. Is America Next? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 09:41 AM PDT  The future is coming fast. Better hop aboard.
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| Cambodia says it's willing to probe Thai exile's case Posted: 09 Jun 2020 04:49 AM PDT |
| Minnesota state troopers admit deflating tires during protests Posted: 09 Jun 2020 01:23 PM PDT  Social media videos emerged that appear to show law enforcement officers slashing tires as protesters gathered in Minneapolis.
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| CrossFit CEO Greg Glassman out after joke about George Floyd Posted: 09 Jun 2020 06:36 PM PDT  Greg Glassman acknowledged having caused a "rift" after joking about the dead Minneapolis man.
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| Poland seizes three tonnes of cocaine hidden in barrels of frozen pineapple Posted: 09 Jun 2020 07:18 AM PDT 
Polish authorities have seized more than three tonnes of cocaine hidden in barrels of frozen pineapple pulp and with a street value of around 3 billion zlotys ($760.9 million) in a record haul for the country. The cocaine was discovered in barrels of frozen pineapple pulp in a warehouse in the northern port city of Gdynia, police said in a statement on Tuesday (June 9). The cocaine had been transported by ship to Hamburg from Ecuador before travelling to Gdynia by road, police said, adding they had arrested three men from the northern Polish region of Pomerania, aged from 64 to 71, as a result of their investigation. Latin American drug lords have been sending bumper shipments of cocaine to Europe even as the new coronavirus pandemic disrupts drug supply chains and confines users to their homes, anti-narcotics officials say.
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