| Bolton's book gets OK from judge, but he may have to turn over his profits, national security lawyer predicts Posted: 20 Jun 2020 07:57 AM PDT  Former national security adviser John Bolton will likely be forced to give all earnings from his controversial new book to the U.S. Treasury, if government lawyers succeed in convincing a federal judge that Bolton violated government rules by moving forward with publication without final sign-off by officials vetting the memoir for classified information, according to a top national security lawyer.
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| Temperature hits 100 F degrees in Arctic Russian town Posted: 21 Jun 2020 06:01 AM PDT  A Siberian town with the world's widest temperature range has recorded a new high amid a heat wave that is contributing to severe forest fires. The temperature in Verkhoyansk hit 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 F) on Saturday, according to Pogoda i Klimat, a website that compiles Russian meteorological data. The town is located above the Arctic Circle in the Sakha Republic, about 4,660 kilometers (2,900 miles) northeast of Moscow.
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| Tallahassee police say suspect confessed to kidnapping and killing student, 19, and volunteer, 75 Posted: 21 Jun 2020 11:04 AM PDT  Aaron Glee Jr. said he imprisoned one of the victims, Oluwatoyin Salau, for days in his home and sexually assaulted her, according to court documents.
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| China claims disputed valley where Chinese, Indian troops engaged in a deadly brawl Posted: 20 Jun 2020 01:51 AM PDT  The confrontation in the Galwan Valley, part of the disputed region along the Himalayan frontier, was the deadliest in 45 years.
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| Leader of London BLM protests demands meeting with Johnson Posted: 20 Jun 2020 07:05 AM PDT  A leader of Black Lives Matter protests in London demanded a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday and called on him to replace a political adviser chosen to lead a new commission on racial inequality. "I have been here every day, I am the person that leads 20,000 people every protest," Imarn Ayton, a 29-year-old actress, told Reuters as BLM demonstrators gathered in Hyde Park before their latest march.
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| Infections ahead of Trump rally, virus numbers rise in Latin America Posted: 20 Jun 2020 02:56 PM PDT  Six Trump saffers tested positive for coronavirus as crowds ignored health warnings and gathered to hear the US president speak Saturday at his first rally since March, while cases and deaths rose in several Latin American countries. The figures were particularly alarming in Chile, where the death toll nearly doubled to more than 7,000 under a revised tallying method, and passed 20,000 in Mexico. Europe meanwhile chalked up more than 2.5 million cases.
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| Seattle shooting: One person shot dead inside autonomous protest zone Posted: 20 Jun 2020 10:19 AM PDT  Seattle police have launched a murder investigation after one person was shot dead and another critically injured inside the city's self-declared autonomous protest zone.The shooting occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning, Seattle police said in a statement. They added that a 19-year-old man died from his injuries and another male remains in hospital with life-threatening injuries.
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| Letters to the Editor: Immigrant children living in fear is a disgrace. So is Congress' failure to help Posted: 21 Jun 2020 03:00 AM PDT  That Congress has been unable to help the children of immigrants brought here illegally shows its glaring inability to solve major problems.
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| 6 staffers setting up for Trump rally test positive for the coronavirus Posted: 20 Jun 2020 02:58 PM PDT  President Trump's campaign says six staff members helping set up for his Saturday night rally in Tulsa, Okla., have tested positive for coronavirus.
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| Tulsa arena hosts thousands for Trump rally amid virus fears Posted: 20 Jun 2020 09:09 AM PDT  Thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump showed up in an indoor arena Saturday night for a rally that some fear could help fuel nascent spikes of coronavirus cases in some places, concerns that were amplified after six staffers helping to set up the event tested positive for the virus. State and city health department officials were already bracing for a possible surge in COVID-19 cases from large outdoor demonstrations against police brutality held across the country. Now the Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shaped up to be the first indoor event of such a massive scale since the coronavirus pandemic took hold and many states issued stay-at-home orders.
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| Fact Check: Joe Biden wants to eliminate new fracking permits, not all fracking Posted: 20 Jun 2020 01:17 PM PDT  A claim that former Vice President Joe Biden wants to ban fracking is not entirely true. He has publicly stated that he's opposed to a fracking ban.
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| Beijing to set up new security office in Hong Kong Posted: 20 Jun 2020 09:33 AM PDT  China's new law for the territory will also override any conflicting local law, state media says.
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| North Korea threatens to pour 'leaflets of punishment' over South Korea Posted: 20 Jun 2020 04:35 AM PDT  "The South Korean authorities will face a really horrible time," North Korean state media said.
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| Protesters douse French health ministry with red paint Posted: 20 Jun 2020 02:08 AM PDT |
| Rich Americans like me should use our money and influence to end systemic racism Posted: 20 Jun 2020 03:00 AM PDT  If wealthy Americans cared as much about equity for people of color as they did about tax cuts, this would be fixed. And it's in our interest to care.
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| While Confederate statues come down, other symbols targeted Posted: 21 Jun 2020 11:20 AM PDT  Spectators in North Carolina's capital cheered Sunday morning as work crews finished the job started by protesters Friday night and removed a Confederate statue from the top of a 75-foot (232 meter) monument. Across the country, an initially peaceful protest in Portland, Oregon, against racial injustice turned violent early Sunday: Baton-wielding police used flash-bang grenades to disperse demonstrators throwing bottles, cans and rocks at sheriff's deputies near downtown's Justice Center. News outlets reported that work crews acting on the order of Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper removed the statue Sunday morning and began taking down the obelisk on which it stood.
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| Navy Won't Reinstate Crozier, Holds 1-Star's Promotion Over Poor Decision-Making Posted: 21 Jun 2020 03:24 PM PDT  The Navy won't reinstate the captain who was fired after warning of a serious health crisis on his ship.
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| Barr Tries To Sack U.S. Attorney Probing Trump’s Pals. But Geoffrey Berman Says He’s Not Leaving. Posted: 19 Jun 2020 07:11 PM PDT  Attorney General William Barr announced late Friday evening that he had nominated a Trump appointee to replace the Manhattan U.S. Attorney who had investigated and convicted some of President Donald Trump's closest associates. It was a shocking announcement even to the prosecutor he intended to replace, Geoffrey Berman."I learned in a press release from the Attorney General tonight that I was 'stepping down' as United States Attorney," Berman said in a statement. "I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position, to which I was appointed by the Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate."That came about an hour after Barr's surprise announcement at 10 p.m. on Friday that Jay Clayton, appointed by Trump as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2017, would be nominated as Berman's replacement as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.Trump Thought He'd Picked His Perfect U.S. Attorney in Geoffrey Berman. He Was Very Wrong.The move stunned officials and trial attorneys inside Main Justice, as the Department's Washington, D.C. headquarters is known. Two individuals in the Department's Civil Division confirmed to The Daily Beast that Berman had been offered and declined the chance to run the division, where assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt had abruptly announced his departure this week, but declined. Barr reportedly then asked for Berman's resignation and, when Berman didn't offer it, the attorney general simply announced it.One other official said the news of Berman's apparent ouster came as a shock, as did the decision to nominate Clayton, who has no prosecutorial experience.On Saturday afternoon, Barr attempted to end the drama—but appeared to add to the confusion. "Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning," Barr wrote to Berman, "I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so." Trump, however, declined to confirm that. Speaking to reporters on Saturday afternoon, he said he was "not involved" in the decision to fire or retain Berman. The White House refused to answer any questions on the subject. For nearly half of his time in office, Trump has groused about SDNY personnel and the need for a house-cleaning, including sometimes by specifically calling out Berman by name. A source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Daily Beast that they were present at a dinner with the president last year when Trump briefly discussed Berman, calling him "corrupt."However, securities law professor J.W. Verret, who briefly advised the Trump pre-transition team in 2016, called Clayton a "stand up guy" who would probably decline to take the job after Berman's statement. "I suspect he was sandbagged by the administration," he tweeted. "He will take his hat right out of the ring after this."Hours before, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) called on Clayton to withdraw his name from consideration and, separately, Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsay Graham said that he would follow the blue slip tradition that would give New York's Senators, Schumer and fellow Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, an effective veto over Clayton or any other nominee Trump might name to replace Berman. Berman was initially named interim SDNY U.S. Attorney by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018. After the 120 days allowed for that appointment ran out, without Trump sending Berman's nomination to the Senate for their advice and consent, a panel of federal district court judges wrote a court order, still in effect, naming Berman to the role—in a term that expires only when the Senate has given its consent to the president's nominee. Berman's statement Friday night pointedly notes this, suggesting that Barr and Trump may not have the authority to remove him given the separation of powers issues doing so would raise.Just before midnight on Friday, House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler, one of the architects of Trump's impeachment case, wrote that "America is right to expect the worst of Bill Barr, who has repeatedly interfered in criminal investigations on Trump's behalf. We have a hearing on this topic on Wednesday. We welcome Mr. Berman's testimony and will invite him to testify."A Democratic aide said late Saturday morning that there had been no further update from Nadler. Barr, the aide said, has not given any indication that he's willing to testify though he had previously said he would pre-pandemic. Two other aides said that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told Nadler not to subpoena Barr to testify. Berman was appointed in 2018 after his predecessor, Preet Bharara, an Obama appointee, was fired by Trump after refusing to step down. Bharara's No. 2, Joon Kim, then served as the acting U.S. Attorney—the usual protocol to maintain continuity in ongoing cases. Trump to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara: You're FiredNotably, Barr said Friday that he would be moving New Jersey's U.S. Attorney to New York to replace Berman in an acting role and run the office often nicknamed the "Sovereign District" for its independence and sweeping authority given how much of the nation's financial life flows through Manhattan. Barr then reversed himself on Saturday, saying the "Deputy United States Attorney" would fill the role in the interim. "This is highly irregular," former Justice Department Inspector General Michael Bromwich noted on Twitter. "Why the rush to get Geoff Berman out the door and cause disarray in three different offices at once?" Former White House counsel and Watergate whistleblower John Dean said the move "reeks of putting the fix in" to protect Trump, Giuliani and the wider Trump orbit.Berman was appointed more than a year after Bharara had been fired. Under Berman, the SDNY carried out numerous investigations and prosecutions that impinged on Trumpworld—including the indictment of the president's personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, though Berman recused himself from that case.Bharara took umbrage on Friday to Barr's attempt to boot Berman, asking: "Why does a president get rid of his own hand-picked US Attorney in SDNY on a Friday night, less than 5 months before the election?"While Berman was initially viewed with some suspicion as a Trump donor and former partner of Rudy Giuliani's at the firm of Greenberg Traurig, he won over many skeptics inside and outside the office after he took the job and began pursuing presidential allies. "Geoff has exceeded everybody's expectations," Hadassa Waxman, a Democrat who worked under Bharara, told the Associated Press last year. "From Day One, he went in there and said, 'This is going to be the Southern District. There's not going to be any change. I'm going to lead the office with the same integrity, commitment to fairness.'"SDNY filed charges against financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein before his jailhouse death, and fired shots across the bow at the United Kingdom's Prince Andrew for his alleged involvement with the accused sex trafficker.In February 2019, Berman's prosecutors subpoenaed the Trump inaugural committee, seeking information on everything from vendors to donors—including a contributor named Imaad Zuberi, who was eventually charged with obstructing the SDNY probe.In its investigation of hush money paid by Trump's campaign to cover up the president's extramarital affairs with Stormy Daniels and other women, the SDNY secured a conviction of Cohen on charges of tax evasion, making false statements to a federally insured bank, and campaign finance violations. He was sentenced to three years in prison but later released as a result of preventative measures against the new coronavirus. The case against Cohen produced a non-prosecution agreement against American Media, Inc., parent company of the National Enquirer, which made the payments on behalf of Cohen to suppress the stories, a practice known as "catch and kill." Berman later looked into Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos' claim that AMI tried to blackmail Bezos about his extramarital affair. Other Trump World associates found themselves in the sights of Berman's office. SDNY brought charges against Natalya Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who shopped dirt on Hillary Clinton to the Trump campaign, in a tangentially related case. Berman also indicted Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who were accused of pumping foreign money into efforts to support Trump—a probe that also led prosecutors to scrutinize Giuliani's finances.Former National Security Adviser John Bolton claims in his forthcoming book, The Room Where It Happened, that Trump told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that the SDNY investigation into Turkish bank Halkbank would disappear once all the "Obama people" were "replaced by his people."In October, the SDNY charged Halkbank with six counts including fraud and money-laundering for an alleged multibillion-dollar scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. That case emerged out of the office's successful prosecution for sanctions-busting of Reza Zarrab, a dual citizen of Turkey and Iran with close ties to Erdoğan. Zarrab hired Giuliani, himself a former U.S. Attorney for the SDNY, and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, both political allies of Trump, for his legal team. The pair didn't contribute to his legal defense, but instead met secretly in Istanbul with Erdoğan to try and work out what another of Zarrab's lawyers later described in court as an extra-judicial "diplomatic solution" involving a prisoner exchange between the two countries.That deal never came through, and Zarrab—who was charged on the watch of Bharara and convicted when Kim led the SDNY—eventually cooperated with the office in its successful case against Halkbank's Mehmet Hakan Atilla, which in turn led to the case against the bank the SDNY is pursuing now under Berman's watch."Berman's statement implies that there was a connection between the attempt to push him out and the 'delay or interruption' of SDNY investigations. Congress needs to subpoena Berman to testify and get to the bottom of this," former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti told The Daily Beast.—Tracy Connor contributed to this report.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's next for Louisville police officer Brett Hankison after Breonna Taylor's death? Posted: 21 Jun 2020 10:49 AM PDT  Louisville's interim police chief took a first step toward firing officer Brett Hankison on Friday, but that doesn't mean it's guaranteed to happen.
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| Britons in Dubai sell possessions and return home as coronavirus ends expat dream Posted: 20 Jun 2020 05:24 AM PDT  Dubai's expat community groups are full of bargains; everything from cars to gym subscriptions. The fire sales are a result of expats left jobless by the UAE's coronavirus lock-down. Among them, thousands of British expats are trying to scrape back the pennies before they are forced to leave a place many call home. The coronavirus lockdown has upended the lives of thousands of expats, turning their dream of a life abroad into a nightmare of uncertainty. Thousands have been made redundant, with strict visa regulations forcing them to return to the UK, with little time to catch their breath. It's almost 11 years since Selina Dixon traded her claustrophobic commute from Surrey into Central London for her expat dreams of Dubai. "I was spending four hours a day on the train," she tells The Telegraph. The fashion marketer left behind the early morning drizzle and commuter grind, for a new life in the UAE. One which promised year-round sun, tax-free salaries, and the opportunity of adventure. "It's not about the glitz and glamour, whoever has been fortunate enough to live here know there is much more behind the façade," she says. An estimated 240,000 Britons call the UAE home, working as everything from air hostesses to teachers. Dixon was made redundant a few weeks ago, now she is living off her meagre savings. In weeks her visa will expire, and she wont be able to renew it unless she finds a new job. "Every day you wake up, you're looking on LinkedIn. Speaking to contacts and your network, but then you have to be mindful there are so many people going through this." With thousands of people flying in and out of the UAE every day in normal times, the country was always vulnerable to Covid-19. A stringent lockdown saw swathes of the economy shut. Though some 40,000 cases of the virus have been registered, Dubai is slowly beginning to open up, yet the economic recovery will likely take many years. Ninety per cent of the UAE's population are expats, and a study out this month by Oxford Economics, a quantitative analysis firm, estimates that the country of nine million could lose up to 900,000 jobs, and some 10 per cent of its population – British expats are likely to be among the worst affected. At least part of the difficulty lies in the UAE's Kafala – or sponsorship - system. A visa scheme wherein residency is tied to your job. Companies may sponsor a foreigner for residency as long as they employ them, but the moment someone becomes unemployed, a count-down begins on the expiry of their visa. As Dixon says, "Dubai is a place that without a visa - it's difficult." Though the government has announced some visa waivers, those who have lost their jobs since March 1st have thirty days to find a new job, or their visas become invalid, and they will be hit with daily fines. It means that those like Dixon may be forced to return to the UK for the first time in years. "It was not a choice that I was ready to make, but one that I may have to make." "I've been away [from the UK] for ten years, I'm going to have to start from scratch. Whilst I have the experience, it's the network in the UK I'll struggle with."
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| Map: Track coronavirus deaths around the world Posted: 21 Jun 2020 08:39 AM PDT  Get the latest data on the human cost of this virus. Updated daily.
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| Coronavirus: Zimbabwe health minister in court on corruption charges Posted: 20 Jun 2020 07:57 AM PDT  The charges against health minister Obadiah Moyo relate to alleged procurement irregularities.
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| Pence wouldn't say "black lives matter" in interview on Juneteenth Posted: 20 Jun 2020 07:13 AM PDT  The vice president said "all lives matter in a very real sense" when asked to say "black lives matter."
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| NC governor orders removal of Confederate statues in Raleigh Posted: 20 Jun 2020 09:35 AM PDT  Crews on Saturday removed two Confederate statues outside the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh on order of the governor, the morning after protesters toppled two nearby statues. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who has long advocated removing the statues, said in a news release that removing the statues was a public-safety imperative. "If the legislature had repealed their 2015 law that puts up legal roadblocks to removal we could have avoided the dangerous incidents of last night," Cooper said.
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| Trumpworld Fears Its ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Is Coming True Posted: 20 Jun 2020 01:55 AM PDT  As Donald Trump returns to the campaign trail this Saturday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, some of his top political advisers are growing increasingly concerned that the president won't be able to dig himself out of the hole he's made for himself.Over the past two weeks, several of the president's campaign lieutenants as well as individuals in his administration have reacted with mounting alarm as multiple polls have shown Trump dipping into the 30s against former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. In weeks past, various aides in the White House and on the Trump re-election effort had privately expressed cold comfort in the fact that with everything going on—a bungled response to a deadly pandemic, a massively crippled U.S. economy, protests across the nation, and a number of Trump's own former top officials coming out against him—it was practically a miracle that the president's poll numbers hadn't sunk even lower.Early this month, one senior White House official told The Daily Beast that their "nightmare scenario" would be for the president to slip beneath 40 percent support in a sustained string of public and private surveys—thus signaling that a previously unshakable base was starting to grow a bit disillusioned. Trump's consistent—though perhaps unenviable—standing in the low 40s had for years remained an illustration of his enduring base and iron Republican support. "Until then, I'm not a doomsayer," this official said, referring to the nerve-racking 30s in national, and some state, polling.In the time since that comment, multiple polls have shown Trump sliding into the 30s. Asked this week about the change, the same White House official simply responded, "This is not where any of us wanted to be at this point [in the election], but there is still time… to make up the difference."Trump Aides Know His Polls Are Terrible—And Tell Him OtherwiseSome advisers lay the blame for recent poll numbers squarely at the weeks-long news coverage of the mass protests against institutional racism and police brutality following the killing of George Floyd, and how Trump has responded to it. "When race is in the news cycle and dominating the conversation, President Trump's numbers always go down," said a source close to the White House. "That's just a fact."The source added that they hoped coverage of former National Security Adviser John Bolton's tell-all book about Trump would actually lead to a poll bump for the president, if for no other reason than it would mean less talk of racism, COVID, and social unrest.But Trump has had a knack for getting in the way of even the most well-crafted media plans, to say nothing of the ones his advisers hope play out. Even the announcement of the Tulsa rally was fraught with hiccups and missteps. His team had previously scheduled it for Friday, which meant it would have fallen on Juneteenth in a city that was the site of one of the country's most savage massacres of Black people. Following a backlash, the president announced the date switch to Saturday. He subsequently claimed that he had made Juneteenth—which has long commemorated the end of slavery in the United States—"very famous" because "nobody had ever heard of it." His White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, defended those remarks on Friday by noting a spike in Google searches.Stephen Colbert Slams Trump's 'Stupid' Juneteenth ClaimTrump has also attempted to portray the economic damage caused by the pandemic as fleeting. But Republican operatives have expressed concern that his talk of a rocket ship recovery may effectively portray him as out of touch to voters who still feel left behind. And even his own team is uncertain about whether it's an effective campaign play. Two of the four aforementioned officials told The Daily Beast that they were unnerved by the fact that they'd seen no polling evidence, in internal data or in multiple different public polls, that the news of higher retail sales and the addition of 2.5 million jobs in May had given the president the bump they had wanted and expected."If the next [unemployment] reports get better and better, hopefully you'll see a change then and noticeable impact," one of these officials said, adding that right now far too many people are out of work and "hurting."Hoping to give himself an additional boost on the economic front, Trump has continuously expressed a desire for additional, big-ticket federal stimulus—which some Republican officials believe would improve his chances. Top Democrats on the Hill, however, say they have not yet had any formal discussions with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin about such a package (House Democrats have passed one of their own) and there is wide antipathy among aides about working with the White House unless it provides more insight into how it is spending the hundreds of billions of dollars that was already appropriated."It is a top priority," a senior House Democratic aide said of getting answers on where the Treasury Department's funds have gone. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, have put off talk of another bill entirely. And even among Trump's cadre of advisers, there is not much appetite for another stimulus bill."The economic damage done by the coronavirus is a lot less than what was predicted months ago… It's awful, but it's much better in states like California, Texas, and Florida than what experts thought it would be," said Art Laffer, the notoriously conservative economist who informally advises Trump. "People are even hedging their bets on if there's going to be a second wave of the virus… The stock market is telling us this ain't going to be a big deal. It's nothing compared to Y2K or 2008… Those were really big downs in the market, and this is nothing compared to that. It started off really big, with a big drop… but then it came right back. That's not the way it went in 2008 and 2009."Absent a major economic measure or turnaround, Trump's options for reversing his polling slide are slimmer. In an interview with Politico that was published on Friday, the president did express a degree of worry about his chances against Biden. But he couched his concern in baseless theories about the potential for rampant voter fraud in mail-in ballots. "My biggest risk is that we don't win lawsuits [regarding mail-in voting]," the president said. "We have many lawsuits going all over. And if we don't win those lawsuits, I think—I think it puts the election at risk."Increasingly, Trump seems content to try and re-run the playbook he used in 2016 in hopes that it works again. Elsewhere in that Politico interview, he warned other Republican candidates—including those running to help preserve the party's Senate majority—not to tiptoe away from him, no matter what his poll numbers look like. And in recent days his team has made another aggressive effort to troll Biden (much as they did Hillary Clinton) as physically and mentally unwell. The president has brought back top aides from his last presidential run and is turning to one of his most prominent surrogates from that race to help, as well. On Thursday, Politico reported that the Trump campaign had enlisted former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani—who as Trump's personal lawyer launched a dirt-digging expedition into the Bidens that led directly to the president's impeachment—to "spearhead a campaign to press for more debates this fall, starting earlier than usual and to have a say in choosing the moderators," so that Trump can have more opportunities to publicly humiliate Biden, someone who the president seems convinced will crack under a one-on-one grilling.Asked on Thursday if he now has an official title on Trump 2020, Giuliani told The Daily Beast, "No sir I am just helping out."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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| Fact check: Cruise ships are registered abroad but they didn't seek a US bailout Posted: 20 Jun 2020 12:35 PM PDT  The claim that cruise ship companies register in foreign countries to avoid US taxes is true. But it's not true that they asked for COVID-19 bailout.
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| North Korea prepares to send anti-South leaflets across the border Posted: 19 Jun 2020 06:32 PM PDT  North Korea is gearing up to send propaganda leaflets over its southern border, denouncing North Korean defectors and South Korea, its state media said on Saturday, the latest retaliation for leaflets from the South as bilateral tensions rise. Enraged North Korean people across the country "are actively pushing forward with the preparations for launching a large-scale distribution of leaflets", which are piled as high as a mountain, said state news agency KCNA. "Every action should be met with proper reaction and only when one experiences it oneself, one can feel how offending it is," KCNA said. North Korea has blamed North Korean defectors for launching leaflets across the border and threatened military action. On Tuesday, Pyongyang blew up an inter-Korean liaison office to show its displeasure against the defectors and South Korea for not stopping them launching leaflets. A North Korean defector-led group said on Friday it had scrapped a plan to send hundreds of plastic bottles stuffed with rice, medicine and face masks to North Korea by throwing them into the sea near the border on Sunday.
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| I'm not involved' -Trump on the firing of top Manhattan prosecutor Posted: 20 Jun 2020 04:19 PM PDT 
"Attorney General William Barr is working on that, that's his department, not my department," Trump said. Manhattan's top federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman agreed to resign from his post on Saturday, after Attorney General William Barr said he would allow Berman's deputy to take over the job until a permanent replacement can be installed.
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| Germany's coronavirus reproduction rate jumps, indicating rising contagion Posted: 21 Jun 2020 10:22 AM PDT  Germany's coronavirus reproduction rate jumped to 2.88 on Sunday, up from 1.79 a day earlier, health authorities said, a rate showing infections are rising above the level needed to contain the disease over the longer term. To keep the pandemic under control, Germany needs the reproduction rate to drop below one. The rate of 2.88, published by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for public health, means that out of 100 people who contract the virus, a further 288 people will get infected.
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| Mike Pence said 'all lives matter' when asked by a news reporter if he'd be willing to say 'Black Lives Matter' Posted: 20 Jun 2020 07:13 AM PDT  Mike Pence also said that the Trump administration will provide new resources to police departments rather than defund them.
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| How Israel Became a World Leader in ‘Special Mission’ Intelligence Aircraft Posted: 20 Jun 2020 08:30 AM PDT  And why it matters.
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| Chile reports more than 7,000 virus deaths under new counting method Posted: 20 Jun 2020 10:54 AM PDT  Santiago (AFP) - Chile nearly doubled its coronavirus death toll Saturday to more than 7,000 under a new tallying method that includes probable fatalities from COVID-19.
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| Angela Underwood Jacobs: We want to be able to live freely and safely Posted: 21 Jun 2020 07:14 AM PDT  Angela Underwood Jacobs, the sister of a federal protective officer who was killed during a protest for George Floyd that turned violent, joins 'Fox and Friends Weekend.'
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| Trump distances himself from Geoffrey Berman firing after AG Barr says president was behind decision Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:45 AM PDT  But now Trump is distancing himself from the firing of Geoffrey Berman after Attorney General Barr said the president was behind the decision.
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| Asia Today: South Korea sees most new cases in 3 weeks Posted: 19 Jun 2020 07:15 PM PDT  South Korea reported 67 new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday, the largest daily jump in about three weeks amid an upward trend in new infections. Health authorities said 31 of the new cases came from overseas while the rest were locally infected. It was the largest daily increase since 79 cases were reported on May 28.
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| No-lockdown Sweden is compelling parents to send their children to school. Some fear their kids could ultimately be taken away if they refuse. Posted: 21 Jun 2020 02:29 AM PDT  Parents say schools or local government have said they may contact social services if the children continue to stay home from school.
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| Mainland China reports 26 new COVID-19 cases including 22 in Beijing Posted: 20 Jun 2020 07:38 PM PDT  Of the new infections, 22 were in Beijing, the National Health Commission said in a statement, the same as a day earlier. The resurgence has been linked to a wholesale food center in the southwest of Beijing. Mainland China reported six new asymptomatic cases, those who are infected with the coronavirus but show no symptoms, down from seven a day earlier.
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| Amid protests, Chicago's streets turned violent. 'Defund the police' critics say it's a warning. Posted: 20 Jun 2020 08:25 AM PDT  Critics see Chicago as emblematic of chaos that could follow decreases in police funding. Experts say the relationship between policing and gun violence is nuanced.
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| George Soros conspiracy theories surge as protests sweep US Posted: 21 Jun 2020 05:34 AM PDT  George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist who has long been a target of conspiracy theories, is now being falsely accused of orchestrating and funding the protests over police killings of Black people that have roiled the United States. Amplified by a growing number of people on the far right, including some Republican leaders, online posts about Soros have skyrocketed in recent weeks. The Hungarian-American, who is Jewish, has also been the subject of anti-Semitic attacks and conspiracy theories for decades.
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| Meet the X-32: The Plane That Could Have Replaced the F-35 Posted: 20 Jun 2020 03:00 PM PDT  One for the history books.
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| Coronavirus: Is the pandemic getting worse in the US? Posted: 20 Jun 2020 03:16 AM PDT  Some states are seeing a spike in cases, but the White House says not to worry. So what's going on?
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| Mike Pence refuses to say ‘black lives matter’, insisting ‘all lives matter’ Posted: 20 Jun 2020 06:11 AM PDT  Mike Pence has repeatedly declined to say "black lives matter" during an interview on US television.The American vice-president described the death of George Floyd – an unarmed black man who died while being arrested in Minneapolis – as a "tragedy" and said police reform would follow.
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| 'I have not resigned': Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman fires back at Barr, who says he's leaving Posted: 19 Jun 2020 09:35 PM PDT  "I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate. Until then, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption," Berman said.
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| 'Feels very unfair': Families say cruise lines are using a 'technicality' to refuse refunds Posted: 21 Jun 2020 01:39 PM PDT  One cruiser reported canceling less than an hour before refund eligibility, but Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and others aren't budging on refunds.
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| Apple is about to unveil a bunch of new features coming to the iPhone, Apple Watch, and other major products — here's what to expect Posted: 20 Jun 2020 06:00 AM PDT  Apple is expected to announce new iPhone and Apple Watch features as well as a new iMac at its WWDC conference.
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