| Police arrested food-truck workers at gunpoint and jailed them for 48 hours to try to keep them from Kenosha protests, attorneys say Posted: 01 Sep 2020 02:49 PM PDT  Six of the workers arrested were held for nearly 48 hours. A lawyer said it was a blatant attempt to keep them from protests of a police shooting.
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| "I don't recall": Pence tells Fox News he can't remember if he was on standby for Trump Posted: 01 Sep 2020 11:21 PM PDT  Mike Pence gives a halting and evasive answer when pressed about reports on Trump's mysterious visit to Walter Reed
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| Portland's police chief called out elected officials for not stopping violence in the city, after rioters threw burning debris at the mayor's apartment building Posted: 02 Sep 2020 04:33 AM PDT  Protests have been held nightly in the city since the police-involved killing of Black man George Floyd in Minnesota at the end of May.
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| New US sanctions on international tribunal prosecutor, aide Posted: 02 Sep 2020 07:52 AM PDT  The Trump administration on Wednesday imposed sanctions on the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and one of her top aides for continuing to investigate war crimes allegations against Americans. The sanctions were immediately denounced by the court, the United Nations and human rights advocates. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the moves as part of the administration's pushback against the tribunal, based in The Hague, for investigations into the United States and its allies.
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| US Army pursues new mid-range missile, as tactical missile upgrade hits delay Posted: 02 Sep 2020 11:56 AM PDT  A recent strategic fires study is prompting the Army to go after a near-term, mid-range missile prototyping effort. But meanwhile, its cross-domain capability upgrade for the Army Tactical Missile System is delayed due to technical problems.
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| University of California must stop considering ACT, SAT in admissions, judge rules Posted: 01 Sep 2020 10:28 PM PDT  The board of regents had already voted to suspend the standardized testing requirement, but in the first phase, it remained optional at some campuses.
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| Bindi Irwin reflects on the moment she discovered she was pregnant Posted: 02 Sep 2020 08:59 AM PDT  "Discovering that I was going to become a mother will forever be a moment where time stood still," the daughter of the late Steve Irwin wrote.
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| Who were the Khmer Rouge? Posted: 02 Sep 2020 04:42 AM PDT  The Khmer Rouge's interrogator-in-chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his alias Duch, died Wednesday in Cambodia's capital at the age of 77.
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| Moon booster rocket fired up in critical test Posted: 02 Sep 2020 02:30 PM PDT  Engineers in Utah fire up a booster rocket that will help send astronauts back to the Moon.
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| Biden suggests having a live fact-checker during presidential debates Posted: 02 Sep 2020 11:28 AM PDT  While making remarks on Wednesday in Wilmington, Del., former Vice President Joe Biden suggested he would like a crawl during the televised presidential debates that fact-checks him and President Trump.
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| Special Report: Pentagon's latest salvo against China's growing might - Cold War bombers Posted: 01 Sep 2020 03:58 AM PDT  On July 21, two U.S Air Force B-1B bombers took off from Guam and headed west over the Pacific Ocean to the hotly contested South China Sea. The sleek jets made a low-level pass over the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its escorting fleet, which was exercising nearby in the Philippines Sea, according to images released by the U.S. military. The operation was part of the Trump administration's intensifying challenge to China's ruling Communist Party and its sweeping territorial claims over one of the world's most important strategic waterways.
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| 2 pythons weighing 100 pounds collapse ceiling in Australia Posted: 01 Sep 2020 07:05 AM PDT  An Australian returned home and was surprised to discover that his kitchen ceiling had collapsed under the weight of two large pythons apparently fighting over a mate. David Tait entered his home in Laceys Creek in Queensland state on Monday and found a large chunk of his ceiling lying on his kitchen table. "I knew we hadn't had rain, so I looked around to find what had caused it," Tait told Nine Network television on Tuesday.
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| Miami-Dade Public Schools' remote learning platform endures days of cyberattacks Posted: 02 Sep 2020 02:39 PM PDT  Some of the cyberattacks are local, while others have come from outside the United States.
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| Homeless ‘ninth-grader’ given school laptop is really 21 years old, Georgia cops say Posted: 01 Sep 2020 01:23 PM PDT  Abay Holmes, 21, is accused of impersonating a high school student.
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| Spurned by allies, Saudi rethinks chequebook diplomacy Posted: 01 Sep 2020 07:53 PM PDT  From Pakistan to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia is scaling back its famed chequebook diplomacy, a longstanding policy of splashing petro-dollars in exchange for influence, which observers say has yielded few tangible gains.
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| Republican Sen. Joni Ernst promoted a far-right conspiracy theory that falsely claims coronavirus cases are inflated by healthcare providers Posted: 02 Sep 2020 01:54 PM PDT  Sen. Joni Ernst questioned whether the confirmed number of COVID-19 cases in the US are being overcounted.
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| US soldiers jailed for Venezuela coup attempt seek pardon Posted: 02 Sep 2020 05:08 AM PDT  Two US special forces soldiers jailed in Venezuela for trying to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro are seeking an official pardon for early release, The Telegraph has learned. Former US Green Berets Luke Denman and Airan Berry were given 20 years each for their role in a botched operation to kidnap Mr Maduro and bring him to the US for trial. The court hearing against them earlier this month took place behind closed doors with no lawyers present. However, the families of the two men were already in talks with Mr Maduro's officials with a view to pleading for clemency. In July they asked Bill Richardson, a former Democrat senator and diplomatic trouble-shooter for President Clinton, to make a private visit to Caracas to lobby on their behalf. He runs his own non-profit organisation, the Richardson Centre, which works to secure the release of US citizens detained around the world.
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| 5 things to know about Japan's World War II surrender Posted: 01 Sep 2020 08:11 PM PDT  Wednesday is the anniversary of the formal Sept. 2, 1945, surrender of Japan to the United States, when documents were signed officially ending years of bloody fighting in a ceremony aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. A: An abbreviation for Victory over Japan Day, marked by the United States and its allies in the war and by the Asian victims of Japan who won their liberation from years of atrocities and oppression. Others, including the United States, mark the day on Sept. 2, while the Philippines, China and Russia observe Sept. 3.
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| China’s Horrifying War on Uighur Women Posted: 02 Sep 2020 03:30 AM PDT  China's abuse of Uighur Muslims is finally getting some much-needed global attention, with reports of millions herded into political-reeducation camps that recall history's worst atrocities. Now, a groundbreaking new report by Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, reveals that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been systematically targeting Uighur women in a draconian birth-control campaign.Chinese officials have been ruthless in their pursuit of limiting new Uighur births. Uighur women are subjected to forced pregnancy checks, medication that stops their menstruation, forced abortions, and surgical sterilizations.The Chinese government has a long history of perpetrating such horrors on its own citizens. The "one-child policy" was infamously enforced, before eventually being loosened at the end of 2015 to allow couples to legally conceive two children. But even as the CCP regime was easing reproductive restrictions on Han Chinese, it was drastically increasing systematic control of Uighur women in Xinjiang, a province in Western China. Since 2017, the CCP has systematically detained over 1.8 million Uighur Muslims in "political reeducation" camps, and used them for forced labor.Zenz's research reveals that birth-control violations are punishable by extrajudicial internment in "training" camps, and evidence from the leaked "Karakax List" document states that such violations were the most common reason for internment. According to Zenz's report, "in 2014, 2.5 percent of newly placed IUDs [intrauterine birth-control devices] in China were fitted in Xinjiang. In 2018, that share rose to 80 percent, far above Xinjiang's 1.8 percent share of China's population. Between 2015 and 2018, Xinjiang placed 7.8 times more new IUDs per capita than the national average."A Uighur woman reported that in 2018, she was offered "free" surgical sterilization and threatened with internment if she refused. According to her Uighur doctor, her fallopian tubes were cut in the resulting tubal-ligation procedure, making her sterilization irreversible — a common experience for Xinjiang's minorities.China's goal, it seems, is to eradicate future generations of Uighurs by maliciously and ruthlessly controlling Uighur reproduction. This, in itself, is nothing new. The Chinese Communist Party has waged a long and dreadful war against women, more specifically against baby girls. Through the coercion of the one- and two-child policies, it created a gender imbalance as stark as 120 boys for every 100 girls. Families in China often had to seek the approval of local family-planning officials just to have a child, even if they hadn't already reached the one-child cutoff. To meet quotas and restrict population growth, women were subject to forced abortions, and men and women to forced sterilizations.Where the CCP applied the one- and two-child policies relatively equally, however, the Uighurs are being targeted for their membership in a particular religious and ethnic group, making their mistreatment even more pernicious.On July 2, after Zenz's report was released, members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, noting as much, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arguing that the U.S. may have grounds to publicly and formally declare an atrocity to be occurring. They claim that forced sterilization and forced abortion constitute attempts by the CCP to limit, and maybe even eventually exterminate, the Uighur population.Limiting births on the basis of membership in a particular group may be enough to prove the CCP's intent to commit genocide against the Uighurs — a legal standard that must be met in order for Pompeo to take such a step. Furthermore, officials responsible for human-rights violations against Uighurs may be subject to targeted sanctions like the ones now being applied to senior CCP official Chen Quanguo. As the architect of the surveillance state that made it possible for over 1 million Uighurs to be held in reeducation camps, as well as for similar rights violations in Tibet, Chen is finally facing repercussions for his actions. He and three other CCP officials were sanctioned just last month. Other officials responsible for the injustices uncovered by Zenz may be similarly vulnerable to sanctions.Secretary Pompeo should establish a new position within the Department of State to coordinate the U.S.'s diplomatic, political, and legal response to the gross violations of universally recognized human rights in Xinjiang. This person would play a similar role to that of the Special Coordinator for Tibet and would ensure that the U.S. government is responding as effectively as possible to the crisis in Xinjiang.China's draconian and systematic abuse of Uighur women must be stopped, and the global community should boldly call on the Chinese Communist Party to end its persecution of Uighurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in China altogether. Any holistic strategy to meet the challenges the CCP's actions increasingly pose to the world has to be built on a strong moral foundation, and speaking up strongly and clearly for the Uighurs is the right place to start.Olivia Enos is a senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. Chelsea Patterson Sobolik is the policy director for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
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| 73-year-old woman uses American flag to defend family from intruder, Utah cops say Posted: 02 Sep 2020 07:27 AM PDT  "I whooped his a-- and I'll whoop it again."
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| Iran hails support for nuclear deal against US Posted: 02 Sep 2020 02:14 AM PDT  Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday hailed the show of unity by parties to a 2015 nuclear deal, after they defeated US efforts to restore international sanctions.
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| Black jogger mistaken for suspect in Texas has all charges dismissed after arrest Posted: 01 Sep 2020 02:22 PM PDT  The district attorney dropped the case against insurance adjuster Mathias Ometu after last week's confrontation with San Antonio police.
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| Israeli flight attendant says "shalom" to UAE, bye to airline Posted: 02 Sep 2020 01:03 AM PDT |
| Convicted gang member and rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine says he would vote for Trump in his first interview since being released from prison Posted: 02 Sep 2020 11:01 AM PDT  Tekashi 6ix9ine whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, was released from federal custody in August, and is now opening up about his experience.
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| Black holes: Cosmic signal rattles Earth after 7 billion years Posted: 02 Sep 2020 06:48 AM PDT  Gravitational waves arrive from a black hole collision that occurred half-way across the Universe.
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| Protests erupt in Inner Mongolia over China's plans for teaching in Mandarin Posted: 01 Sep 2020 06:18 AM PDT  Mass protests have erupted across northern China as tens of thousands of ethnic Mongolian students and their parents rally against government plans to phase out teaching in their language. The rare display of dissent in the Inner Mongolian cities of Tongliao, Ordos and the regional capital, Hohhot, began last week in opposition to a move by Beijing to gradually shift the language of instruction in schools from Mongolian to Mandarin Chinese in three key subjects. According to Radio Free Asia, pupils have boycotted classes and kneeling students at one school chanted: "Our language is Mongolian, and our homeland is Mongolia forever! Our mother tongue is Mongolian, and we will die for our mother tongue!" Riot police have reportedly been dispatched to other schools across the region, with accounts of the authorities locking down campuses and pupils bursting through police cordons to join their demonstrating parents at the gates. In one of the more disturbing RFA reports, a student is said to have died after jumping from the roof of his high school after seeing his mother detained.
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| Indian special forces member killed in China border showdown Posted: 01 Sep 2020 12:45 PM PDT  A Tibetan-origin soldier with India's special forces was killed in the latest border showdown with Chinese troops on their contested Himalayan border, a Tibetan representative said Tuesday.
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| Thailand’s king reconciles with ousted wife Posted: 02 Sep 2020 05:51 AM PDT  Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn has reconciled with his royal consort, whom he stripped of her titles last year.
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| Criminal charges loom in California boat fire that killed 34 Posted: 01 Sep 2020 01:48 PM PDT  Nine days after the scuba boat Conception went down in flames with 34 people trapped below deck in one of the deadliest disasters in California maritime history, a federal grand jury began looking into whether a crime had been committed. Now, a year after the Sept. 2 tragedy, investigations into the cause of the pre-dawn blaze and whether someone is to blame are still ongoing, though court documents say criminal charges are imminent. The captain of the boat, who could face an unusual federal manslaughter charge, was briefed in July on the evidence prosecutors have against him.
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| Broiling heat wave expected in California Posted: 01 Sep 2020 10:42 PM PDT  California's last heat wave, less than three weeks ago, coincided with two of the state's three largest fires.
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| U.S. Republicans criticize Pelosi over hair appointment Posted: 02 Sep 2020 02:58 PM PDT  U.S. Republicans criticized House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday for going to a hair salon in San Francisco in an apparent violation of the city's coronavirus pandemic regulations, but the Democratic leader said she had been told by the salon the appointment was allowed. Pelosi briefly addressed the issue to reporters in San Francisco, saying, "I take responsibility for falling for a set-up." Under strict rules to combat the coronavirus pandemic, hair salons in San Francisco were still prohibited from admitting customers on Monday, when Pelosi had her appointment, although salons elsewhere in the state and across much of the country were already open.
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| Boston University won't notify professors if a student in their class tested positive for the coronavirus, and faculty and students are not happy about it Posted: 01 Sep 2020 10:56 PM PDT  A Boston University professor accused the administration of taking an "individualized" approach to a "community health problem in too many ways."
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| A "Corn Moon" rises tonight — and it only happens every 3 years Posted: 01 Sep 2020 12:18 PM PDT  Don't miss tonight's full moon, which has a special twist this year.
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| The Trump administration's mission to wall off the Chinese internet has officially killed a US-Hong Kong undersea cable project from Facebook and Google Posted: 01 Sep 2020 05:00 AM PDT  A DOJ committee formally recommended in July that the Hong Kong part of the network be iced on national security grounds.
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| It Doesn’t Matter Who Is Pushing for Masks, This GOP Governor’s Answer Is No Posted: 02 Sep 2020 01:13 AM PDT  Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt hasn't been willing to order masks statewide in his conservative stronghold no matter who's come calling. He hasn't been willing to take further steps requiring face coverings as a public health measure even as local mayors have hoped to see more action from the governor. When the head of a House subcommittee charged with monitoring COVID response scolded him for his approach, he didn't budge. Even after some Republican governors relented and ordered facial coverings as the coronavirus ravaged their states, Stitt hasn't moved. Not even reports from the White House Coronavirus Task Force that have recommended in recent weeks that the state implement a mask requirement has changed his mind. "I'm not going to mandate something statewide," Stitt said during a press conference Tuesday, saying the decision should be left to the local level. "Every community is different." That lack of follow-through from the governor has disappointed some elected officials in the state as they try to contain the coronavirus through a patchwork of local mask requirements. As of Monday, 17 cities and towns had mask ordinances according to the Oklahoma State Medical Association. "It really is much less effective than if the governor would take action,"said John Browne, the Democratic mayor of McAlester, Oklahoma. "Because I can have a mask requirement in my town and the town next door not have it. So you're not getting the benefit that you would get if everyone were following the same rules." The push for a statewide mask order has continued as documents from the White House Coronavirus Task Force have shown the state's coronavirus situation at an alarming level. In the most recent report published online and dated Aug. 23, the task force said the state had the "12th highest rate in the nation," for new cases out of 100,00 population as well as the "8th highest rate in the nation," when it came to positive COVID-19 tests. "With the continued geographic expansion of COVID-19 spread, a mask mandate needs to be implemented statewide (in counties with greater than 20 cases) to decrease community transmission," the report says. "Bars must be closed and indoor dining must be restricted in yellow and red zone counties and metro areas." In earlier reports dating back to Aug. 2 the task force had also recommended statewide mask action, saying bluntly in the Aug. 16 report "mask mandate needs to be implemented statewide to decrease community transmission." Those reports, which the state began posting online late last month, were only made public by the state after Stitt caved to outcry from officials, according to The Oklahoman. "We're a very red state and you have the Trump administration and the White House task force that are recommending that we have a mask mandate, so I don't understand it politically," said Dr. Dale Bratzler, the chief COVID officer for the University of Oklahoma who supports a statewide mask order. "I don't think there's any good political reason not to have a mandate. I just don't get it." An email seeking comment for this story from Stitt's office was not returned this week. Oklahoma was also highlighted as a place of concern by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on Monday. In a scathing statement paired with the weeks of state by state reports from the White House Coronavirus Task Force, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, the head of the select subcommittee, said "the President and his enablers kept these alarming reports private while publicly downplaying the threat to millions of Americans." The committee's press release went on to note that from June 23 on Oklahoma was among 14 states in a dangerous "red zone," category that avoided ordering masks across their respective states. "When people are giving you guidance and you're not following it, what kind of message are you sending to your residents?" said Breea Clark, a Democrat serving as the mayor of Norman where a mask requirement is in place, told The Daily Beast. "You know, I'm asking people to wear masks, but if the governor can't follow guidance from the White House, why would my residents follow guidance from their mayor?" Stitt's approach has been problematic at times throughout the pandemic. In mid-March, the governor was called out for posting a photo with his family at a busy restaurant even as the coronavirus was in the early stages of causing problems in the United States. By late April and early May, he was at the forefront of Republican governors rushing to begin reopening from the pandemic. And in June, despite well-founded fears about the president holding an indoor rally, he enthusiastically embraced President Donald Trump campaigning in his state. By July, the governor announced he had tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the first governor in the nation to publicly announce a positive test. On Tuesday, Stitt donned a mask while he wasn't speaking at the press conference, and urged people to "wash your hands, watch your distance and wear a mask." Some in Oklahoma, like Bixby mayor Brian Guthrie didn't take issue with Stitt's lack of action on a statewide mask order, with the Republican saying "I can stand behind him on his decision," because of how the virus is impacting parts of the state differently. And the mayor of Midwest City, where an indoor mask order is in place locally, said he could see both sides of the situation facing the governor. "I just don't know to be honest with you, I just don't know," Republican Matt Dukes said when asked if he wanted to see a statewide mask order. "I'm not trying to dodge the question, I just don't really know how much more effective it would be than doing it at a local jurisdictional level." Mask mandates, though initially resisted by Republican governors, have become more widely accepted throughout the summer. States led by conservative governors like Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi eventually conceded to statewide mask orders as the virus situations in their states grew more concerning. But even after the president publicly came around on wearing a mask in public, that messaging has become more difficult for GOP officials following the largely maskless crowd that Trump invited to the lawn of the White House for his GOP nomination speech last week. As a part of their investigation into the guidance Oklahoma received from the Trump administration, Clyburn wrote to Stitt on July 29 that the governor "appears to be following the contradictory public messaging coming from the Administration." In subsequent letters to Clyburn, Stitt defended his approach emphasizing in one "we believe strongly in providing local municipalities with data that enable them to make the right decisions for their residents." But that deference to localities is leading to clear concern for some cities who have taken the extra step of a mask requirement, even as many others haven't. "The communities that are trying to be safe and protect its citizens is having an extra difficult time doing that because of the lack of participation of other cities and towns," Anadarko mayor Kyle Eastwood said. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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| Elvis Presley landmark Graceland in Tennessee hit with 'Defund the Police' graffiti Posted: 02 Sep 2020 05:14 AM PDT  Graceland, the Elvis Presley estate and signature landmark, was hit overnight with "Defund the Police" and "BLM" (Black Lives Matter) graffiti.
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| Miami says it didn’t know he lived there before demolishing his home. Is the city lying? Posted: 02 Sep 2020 11:53 AM PDT  After the city of Miami demolished Liberty City resident Michael Hamilton's home last week, he slept in his yard for two days.
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| Reopened, but left behind: Nail salon workers face hardships of virus and racism Posted: 01 Sep 2020 09:36 AM PDT  Prolonged salon closures, low wages and anti-Asian racism stress a labor force that's nearly 80 percent foreign-born, three-quarters of which is from Vietnam.
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| No bounce in support for Trump as Americans see pandemic, not crime, as top issue: Reuters/Ipsos poll Posted: 02 Sep 2020 03:08 AM PDT  President Donald Trump's attempt to make civil unrest a central theme of his re-election campaign has yet to boost his political standing, as most Americans do not see crime as a major problem confronting the nation and a majority remain sympathetic to anti-racism protests, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. The Aug. 31-Sept. 1 national opinion poll showed that 40% of registered voters support Trump, a Republican, compared with 47% who said they will vote for his Democratic opponent Joe Biden. Biden's lead is largely unchanged over the past three weeks during which both parties held conventions to nominate their candidates Trump and Biden for the presidency.
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| US Special Operations Command gets first brand-new Chinook variant Posted: 01 Sep 2020 11:55 AM PDT  Boeing has delivered the first MH-47G Chinook to U.S. Special Operations Command on time.
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