| Louisville police chief under fire for email saying BLM members should be washing her car Posted: 25 Sep 2020 09:47 AM PDT  Police chief called protesters 'woke' in bitter email to staff last month, causing anger
|
| Democrats, not Republicans, are hypocrites on filling SCOTUS seat Posted: 25 Sep 2020 01:00 AM PDT  Democrats accuse Republicans of being hypocrites in the issue of the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, but it is Democrats are are full of hypocrisy.
|
| Buffalo police no longer have to display their names on badges in a policy change designed to protect officers Posted: 25 Sep 2020 09:23 AM PDT  The Buffalo mayor said that some officers were targeted and threats were made against their families. Now badges will display only a number.
|
| Trump unveils his America First Healthcare Plan Posted: 24 Sep 2020 03:08 PM PDT  In a speech delivered in North Carolina on Thursday, President Trump outlined his "vision" for affordable, high-quality health care called the America First Healthcare Plan.
|
| A BMW hit a Tesla and left, Miami Beach cops say. But that’s not why a man was arrested Posted: 24 Sep 2020 05:00 AM PDT  A hit-and-run in Miami Beach early Thursday ended with a BMW crashed in front of one of the city's most well-known buildings and the arrest of a passenger who, police say, carried a loaded rifle.
|
| Feds air FBI agent’s gripes about Flynn probe Posted: 25 Sep 2020 04:30 AM PDT  The official public release of such candid assessments from inside a federal investigative team is extraordinarily rare.
|
| Kremlin says EU move not to recognise Lukashenko amounts to meddling in Belarus Posted: 25 Sep 2020 04:09 AM PDT  Russia said on Friday that the European Union's decision not to recognise Alexander Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus contradicted international law and amounted to indirect meddling in the country. Lukashenko, in power since 1994, was inaugurated on Wednesday in a secretive ceremony after weeks of huge protests. Russia is a close ally of Belarus and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that the move not to recognise him would complicate the EU's dialogue with Belarus, but not affect Belarusian ties with Moscow.
|
| Former congressman Ron Paul hospitalized, says he's OK Posted: 25 Sep 2020 12:41 PM PDT  Former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul posted a picture of himself in a hospital Friday but said he was OK after video circulated online of him struggling to speak during an interview. The 85-year-old former Texas congressman, who ran for president three times, posted a picture on Facebook showing him smiling in a hospital gown and giving a thumbs-up. The post came after a video took off on social media showing Paul having trouble speaking during an appearance on his livestreamed show "Ron Paul Liberty Report."
|
| Drivers Keep Running Over Protesters—and Getting Away With It Posted: 25 Sep 2020 01:14 AM PDT  When a blue Jeep sped down an Aurora, Colorado, roadway in July, narrowly missing protesters, some witnesses swore the driver had put their lives at risk."I saw him look straight at the crowd and hit the gas," Rebecca Wolff, a protester who spoke to police about the incident, told the Denver Post. Another protester broke a leg jumping off the raised highway to avoid the driver.But in an hour-long press conference on Wednesday, District Attorney George Brauchler announced that he would not press charges against the driver unless presented with more evidence against him. Also Wednesday, in neighboring Denver, a different man drove a car into a crowd that was protesting Kentucky prosecutors declining to charge any officers for fatally shooting Black 26-year-old EMT Breonna Taylor in March.As of Thursday evening, no charges had been filed in the Denver incident, either.Since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May, Americans have spent months in the streets protesting racism and police brutality. Those same streets have also become the site of a disturbing pattern of vehicle attacks, with drivers speeding toward and sometimes striking protesters. Complicating matters are calls by lawmakers to impose harsh penalties on those who block traffic—and even to grant immunity to drivers who hit protesters under certain circumstances.As The Daily Beast recently reported, such calls have been percolating in legislative chambers for years, their language sometimes curiously similar, like a right-wing fever dream playing on repeat. But drivers don't always need those immunity laws. A pattern of dropped or languishing cases across the country has already seen drivers duck charges for speeding at—and sometimes ramming into—protesters.Meanwhile, the attacks keep coming.Ari Weil, a PhD student studying terrorism at the University of Chicago, has been monitoring car attacks since racial justice protests swept the country in late May. Between those first days of protests and Sept. 5, he'd recorded 104 incidents of people driving into protesters: 96 of them civilians and eight of them law enforcement. Of those civilian drivers, 39 had been charged, Weil found.In other words, well under half of people who drove vehicles at protesters this year had been charged, he estimated.Not all of those cases are necessarily malicious, Weil stressed. Five of the 96 civilian cases appear to have stemmed from someone taking a wrong turn, or encountering a protest by accident. In 48 of those cases, Weil found, the driver's intent was not immediately apparent.But he estimated 43 of them to be overtly malicious acts based on the driver either having known extremist associations, yelling slurs at protesters, or deliberately swerving or turning to run people down.Other monitors of car attacks have offered slightly different figures. A protest-tracker by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a conflict-mapping non-profit, has logged 69 malicious ramming attacks from May 28 to Sept. 15. More recent incidents not captured in the Weil or ACLED dataset included collisions following Wednesday's announcement of no charges over Breonna Taylor's death. In addition to the Denver incident, a driver in Buffalo, New York, was filmed hitting protesters. Both cases were under investigation as of Thursday.The discrepancies in such tallies reflect the difficulty of determining whether a vehicle attack was attempted murder, an honest mistake, or something in-between. When Brauchler declined to press charges against the Aurora Jeep driver on Wednesday, he said the driver was trying to get away from protesters. He noted, correctly, that a protester has been charged with attempted murder for firing a gun at the Jeep, although, again, the details vary according to individual accounts. The protester fired the gun after the Jeep driver started moving through the crowd, accelerating toward a "wall of moms," two of those women told CBS4, accusing the driver of nearly killing them.It's the kind of murky situation that has plagued the George Floyd protests—by many accounts the largest American mass-mobilization in history.Car attacks "in prior years have been a lot more cut-and-dry," Weil said, noting the past use of car attacks by jihadists and the far right—most notoriously the murder of Heather Heyer at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. During the more recent protests, however, "there are many more opportunities for motorist-protester interactions, some of which are motivated by racism and some of which are not," he added.The threat of vehicular homicide often has protesters looking over their shoulders, according to Maggie Ellinger-Locke, a lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild, which monitors protests."This is a really dangerous trend that appears to be on the rise, where we're seeing far-right actors using vehicles as weapons, driving into protesters," she said, noting that, although anecdotal, car attacks do appear to be on the rise. "Protesters are aware of this. Legal support organizations like the National Lawyers Guild are aware of this, and they're very alarmed by it."Some car attacks have resulted in arrests. A driver who plowed through a Bloomington, Indiana, protest, striking at least two people, was arrested two days after the incident and charged with criminal recklessness and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in serious bodily injury. A self-proclaimed Ku Klux Klan member was convicted last month for an attack on Black Lives Matter protesters outside Richmond, Virginia. A Seattle man accused of driving onto a closed section of highway and striking two protesters (one fatally) has been arrested and pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide and reckless driving. A Long Island man accused of hospitalizing two protesters with his car was arrested in July, as was an alleged Iowa City car attacker who, during his arrest, told police that protesters needed an "attitude adjustment."But several high-profile cases have passed without charges. In Tampa, Florida, on June 21, the driver of a pickup truck was filmed cursing at protesters before driving over a median and onto the wrong side of the road to hit Jae Passmore, a prominent local activist. The driver has not been charged, although according to Passmore's attorney Ben Crump, police know the driver's identity.When Passmore held an event six days later, a second car ran into the group and drove away with an injured protester on the car's hood, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Police stopped the driver, but did not arrest them. Instead, the protester was with four counts, including felony criminal mischief.A spokesperson for the State's Attorney Office in the 13th Judicial Circuit on Thursday said the pickup incident was still under investigation. They added that the charges against the protester in the second incident were being dropped—but also that driver who struck them was off the hook."There is no evidence that either person intended to cause harm, and therefore charges are not appropriate," the spokesperson for prosecutors said in a statement. "Both people made decisions that escalated the situation, and basic courtesy by either person could have minimized or avoided this conflict."A slew of these incidents remain in a bizarre state of investigative limbo. When a car full of pro-police demonstrators drove through a crowd of Black Lives Matter activists in Manhattan's Times Square earlier this month, the news site Gothamist was quick to name the car's likely driver, who has posted the vehicle on pro-police pages. (A passenger also spoke to the media under her own name.) Several witnesses have gone to police about the incident. Nearly a month later, the incident remains under investigation, a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney told The Daily Beast."Oftentimes there's been a big delay by prosecutors deciding whether to charge people," Weil said.Prosecuting car attacks might become even more difficult under proposed legislation that would criminalize protesters blocking traffic or offer immunity to people who hit those protesters with cars. The most recent of those proposals, announced Monday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, would remove liability for people who strike or kill protesters with cars if the driver is "fleeing for safety from a mob." It's a claim made by many such drivers, including the neo-Nazi who killed Heyer in Charlottesville.Those proposals haven't passed yet, and have been rejected in states like Kentucky and North Carolina. But Ellinger-Locke said even the suggestion of such laws—and the legitimacy they offer attackers—can heighten the risk of further harm."I think they suggest to people engaging in that kind of dangerous, harmful, potentially murderous conduct, that it's something law enforcement supports," she said. "I think people are seeing the introduction of these bills and feeling emboldened to take action because of them. Not only does that chill the speech of demonstrators seeking to advance their message, but I think sends a clear message that that sort of conduct is okay."Would-be attackers are sometimes aware of such proposals, Weil said, pointing to a Discord messaging group that planned 2017's deadly Charlottesville rally. Some users, including the killer, James Fields Jr., spoke gleefully of the possibility of hitting anti-racist protesters, with another user writing, "I know NC law is on the books that driving over protesters blocking roadways isn't an offense." (The law was not, in fact, on the books, although that didn't prevent Fields' deadly attack.)Weil warned that language about hitting protesters is an active part of the far-right's meme vocabulary.It's also spread to conservative talk radio hosts.When a Denver woman was filmed in May driving through a crowd of protesters and making a U-turn, allegedly with the intent to hit another, the host of a morning show on Denver's 710 KNUS radio station reportedly said on air that the driver "ran your monkey rear-end down… You've got that coming."The apparent target of his comments, the man whom the driver allegedly made a U-turn to hit, was Black. On July 20, the driver was charged—nearly two months after the incident.Brauchler, the district attorney who on Wednesday declined to charge the driver of the Jeep in Aurora, hosts a different show on the same station.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.
|
| Temp worker tossed Pennsylvania ballots Trump complained about, official says Posted: 25 Sep 2020 02:47 PM PDT  The Justice Department announced an inquiry into the discarded ballots on Thursday, which was promoted by the White House and the president's re-election campaign.
|
| US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria Posted: 25 Sep 2020 07:52 AM PDT  'Ninja bomb', which uses 100lb of dense material and six attached blades, has been deployed in targeted assassinations The US military is making increasing use in Syria of a gruesome and secretive non-explosive drone missile that deploys flying blades to kill its targets.Described as less likely to kill non-combatants, the so-called ninja bomb – whose development was first disclosed last year – has been used a number of times in the last year to kill militants in Syria, including those linked to aal-Qaida, most recently earlier this month.Officially designated as the Hellfire AGM-114R9X – usually shortened to R9X and sometimes know as the "Flying Ginsu" – the weapon has been increasingly deployed in targeted assassinations by the US Joint Special Operations Command.The missile, believed to have been first used in 2017 to kill al-Qaida's then No 2 leader, Abu Khayr al Masri, in Idlib province, first came to wider attention when its existence was disclosed by an article in the Wall Street Journal last year.The weapon uses a combination of the force of 100lb of dense material flying at high speed and six attached blades which deploy before impact to crush and slice its victims.Video that emerged in June this year, posted by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, appeared to show the remains of one of the missiles used in a strike on a vehicle, also in Syria's Idlib that killed a Jordanian and Yemen, both reportedly members of Hurras al-Din, a group affiliated with aal-Qaida.The weapon is believed to have been developed during the administration of Barack Obama at a time when the US policy of targeted drone assassinations attracted considerable criticism for the number of civilian casualties caused by the strikes.Since its deployment it has been used sparingly, apparently most often in Syria.According to the New York Times the most recent use of the missile was on 14 September, when it was reportedly used to kill Sayyaf al-Tunsi, a Tunisian.Observers have speculated that the increasing use of the weapon in Syria – which increasingly has targeted leadership members of al-Qaida's affiliates – has been driven by the complexities of operations in Syria where the US is required to work around a large Russian engagement.The bladed, non-explosive version of the Hellfire missile is the latest iteration of a weapon that has undergone several variations since it was used to weaponize previously unarmed Predator drones in around 2000.The first Hellfires were designed as tank busters with a powerful shaped charge, used in Afghanistan for which they were regarded as not entirely suitable.A later version was developed that carried a heavier explosive warhead , but which led in turn to issues with civilian casualties, leading to the development of the R9X.Up until May last year, it is believed that the weapon had been used no more than half a dozen times. But since then it appears to have been used increasingly more often.The new missile appears designed for use in circumstances where a more conventional explosive missile might not be considered for fears of killing non-combatants.While conceding that the weapon appeared to be less dangerous to civilians, Iain Overton of Action on Armed Violence warned against the impression that it was a "more humanitarian weapon"."This weapon, whilst only used only a handful of times, does appear to have less wide-area effects than other air-dropped explosive weapons."However, the vast majority of the US explosive arsenal does, all too often, cause terrible collateral damage. Given Trump's administration also authorised the use of the largest non-nuclear explosion in the history of the world in Afghanistan, it's important to be wary of the PR optics that the US military is now using 'humanitarian' weapons."Overton also underlined issues with a targeted assassination campaign – using any weapons – that had little oversight."This new weapon, framed as an alternative to larger bombs, might be sold as almost ethical, but if it side-steps due judicial process, and is as susceptible to wrong targeting as other strikes, it is no more than an assassin's blade wielded by a state rarely held to account for its actions."
|
| Meet Magawa, the 'hero rat' awarded a bravery medal for detecting dozens of landmines Posted: 25 Sep 2020 07:27 AM PDT  Magawa, an African Giant Pouched Rat, was awarded a gold medal from the PDSA for his working detecting landmines in Cambodia.
|
| Ted Cruz blocks resolution honoring Ginsburg after Tucker Carlson pushes conspiracy theory about her Posted: 24 Sep 2020 09:54 AM PDT  "I think Justice Ginsburg would easily see through the legal sophistry," Chuck Schumer says of Cruz's objection
|
| 'Enough is enough': China attacks US at Security Council Posted: 24 Sep 2020 09:56 AM PDT  China on Thursday lashed out at the United States at a high-level UN meeting over its criticism on the coronavirus, with its envoy declaring, "Enough is enough!"
|
| Anwar Ibrahim: A long-held dream to lead Malaysia Posted: 24 Sep 2020 11:58 PM PDT  After a decades-long quest to become premier, Mr Anwar may finally rise to the top job.
|
| Louisville protesters faced off with an extremist militia on the 2nd day of unrest following no charges for the police involved in Breonna Taylor's killing Posted: 25 Sep 2020 10:40 AM PDT  Protesters in support of Black Lives Matter were met with counter-protesters including an armed extremist anti-government group.
|
| Girls say they were restrained, sexually abused and deprived of food at religious boarding school Posted: 25 Sep 2020 09:51 AM PDT  More than a dozen people reported abuse at a religious boarding school in rural Missouri before the owners' daughter launched a campaign that got action.
|
| FBI Docs: Primary Sub-Source for Steele Was Suspected Russian Agent and ‘Threat to National Security’ Posted: 24 Sep 2020 05:27 PM PDT  The "primary sub-source" for the Steele dossier was suspected of being a possible Russian agent and a "threat to national security," according to newly declassified FBI documents.Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) announced the revelations on Thursday after the Justice Department declassified a footnote of the DOJ Inspector General Report on FISA abuse by the FBI. That report focused on efforts by FBI agents to obtain FISA warrants to surveil Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page, and concluded that two applications to renew such warrants were not valid because of "material misstatements and omission" of evidence.FBI agents on the Crossfire Hurricane probe, who investigated alleged contacts between the Trump-campaign and Russian intelligence, were aware that the Primary Sub-Source was a suspected Russian spy by December 2016. However, the FBI did not share this information with the FISA court in their applications for warrants against Page.According to footnote 334 of the Inspector General Report, the "Primary Sub-Source was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011 that assessed his/her documented contacts with suspected Russian intelligence officers."At the request of Attorney General William Barr, the FBI made available a declassified summary of that counterintelligence investigation."[T]he FBI commenced this investigation based on information by the FBI indicating that the Primary Sub-Source may be a threat to national security," the summary states. The Primary Sub-Source was an employee at a "prominent U.S. think tank," and "in December 2016, the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation identified the employee as Christopher Steele's Primary Sub-Source."The documents are the latest disclosures in an ongoing investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Senator Graham, into the FBI's probe of the Trump-campaign. In a statement, Graham characterized the newest documents as "the most stunning and damning revelation the committee has uncovered.""It's stunning to be told that the single individual who provided information to Christopher Steele for the Russian dossier used by the FBI on four occasions to obtain a warrant on Carter Page, an American citizen, was a suspected Russian agent years before the preparation of the dossier," Graham said. "The committee will press on and get to the bottom of what happened, and we will try to work together to make sure this never happens again."
|
| Hotel Rwanda 'hero' admits forming armed group behind deadly attacks Posted: 25 Sep 2020 02:28 AM PDT  Paul Rusesabagina, the polarising hero of the "Hotel Rwanda" film, admitted to a Kigali court on Friday that he had formed an armed group but denied any role in their crimes. Mr. Rusesabagina is famed for his depiction in the movie in which he is shown to have saved hundreds of lives during the 1994 genocide, which left some 800,000 dead. After years in exile, where he has become a fierce government critic, he appeared under arrest in Rwanda last month, after apparently being lured into a private jet under false pretences. In recent years Mr Rusesabagina co-founded the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), an opposition party based abroad. While he has previously expressed support for the National Liberation Front (FLN), which has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Nyungwe, near the border with Burundi, his exact role has been unclear. "We formed the FLN (National Liberation Front) as an armed wing, not as a terrorist group as the prosecution keeps saying. I do not deny that the FLN committed crimes but my role was diplomacy," he said. "The agreement we signed to form MRCD as a political platform included the formation of an armed wing called FLN. But my work was under the political platform and I was in charge of diplomacy." This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
|
| Trump met with chants of 'Vote him out' while paying respects to Ruth Bader Ginsburg Posted: 24 Sep 2020 08:35 AM PDT  As President Trump and first lady Melania Trump paid their respects to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court on Thursday, they were met by spectators who chanted "Vote him out."
|
| Coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx reportedly says she is 'distressed' at direction of White House COVID-19 task force Posted: 24 Sep 2020 11:39 PM PDT  Birx told people close to her that she felt her role was diminished after Dr. Scott Atlas joined the task force, CNN reported.
|
| She said she was raising money for murder victims. Instead she went shopping, cops say Posted: 25 Sep 2020 12:30 PM PDT  "It's not Christmas yet, but the Grinch has come to town."
|
| Who Invited the Far-Right Oath Keepers to Downtown Louisville? Posted: 24 Sep 2020 02:00 PM PDT  LOUISVILLE—On Wednesday night, at least 20 members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, were observed guarding storefronts in downtown Louisville amid sometimes violent unrest over the lack of charges in the police killing of Breonna Taylor. The businesses included Bader's Food Mart—which is also a Shell gas station—Stewart's Pawn Shop, and Hampton Inn Downtown Louisville, all at or near the intersection of Jefferson and South 1st Street. All of the businesses, besides the hotel, appeared to be closed at the time.The heavily armed men—many bearing rifles, night-vision goggles, and wearing camouflage—were seen on the roof of Stewart's Pawn Shop, the perimeter of the Shell station, and in the Hampton Inn parking lot. When asked why they were present, one militia member, who gave his name only as Angry Spongebob, said the owner of the Shell had received threats against the business."She was told that people wanted to burn it down to the ground," he told The Daily Beast. "We know her and so we came out to help protect it, because if it goes up, then it takes a significant portion of this block with it."He didn't clarify who "she" referred to, but records filed with the Kentucky Secretary of State's office list Paula T. Bader as the president, secretary, and treasurer of Bader's Food Mart, and she has been identified as the owner in local media reports. In a telephone conversation Thursday, a purported leader of the Oath Keepers on the ground in Louisville, who gave his name as Mike Whipp, said they had been invited by Bader to keep tabs on her business, as well as the pawn shop.According to Whipp, "[Bader] told us she was targeted by activists."The Far Right Gives Jake Gardner the Kyle Rittenhouse Hero TreatmentBader could not immediately be reached for comment, but the food mart does have a history of violence—and of drawing activist ire.In July, an employee was reportedly shot during an armed robbery attempt. And early this month, an employee reportedly shot a customer after a verbal altercation, according to local police. The individual was fired and later charged with assault.On Sept. 4, a day after the employee allegedly shot a customer, activists with megaphones entered the store, leading Bader to close the place for several days."He was wrong," she told local outlet WDRB of her fired employee. But she also seemed to take umbrage at the prospect of being targeted by local activists."They were waiting on customers," she said. "The next thing they know, the store is full of people with the megaphones."That day, an account listed under Bader's name posted on Facebook, "This is the damage, looting and peaceful protesting that occurred at my store. Bader's Food Mart last night. Do you notice the small children. SMH."When asked Thursday about the presence of a far-right militia group, a man who identified himself as the manager of Stewart's Pawn Shop and gave only the first name Jeremy told The Daily Beast, "I just work during the day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and have no idea if our owners made a deal with those guys."When asked about the Shell station, he added, "I do know if it burns, it will harm a lot of people in the city." Shell corporate did n0t immediately respond to a request for comment.Reached for comment Thursday, Stuart Stein, who is listed in state records as an incorporator of the pawn shop, confirmed he was an owner, but told The Daily Beast, "No comment, talk to someone at the store." Attempts to reach other individuals listed on incorporation paperwork were unsuccessful.For her part, Mindy Wilson, general manager of Hampton Inn Downtown, told The Daily Beast of the militia, "We don't know anything about them, so you can stop calling." Hilton Corporate did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Oath Keepers are a virulently anti-government group founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, a former Ron Paul aide. They have been a fixture at protests and political hot spots in recent years, from Ferguson to Trump rallies, and have been banned from Twitter after peddling conspiracy theories expressing thirst for Civil War.Followers have also been implicated in a slew of violent crimes in recent years, from bomb scares to threats against the government to rape, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.Members of the Oath Keepers group in Louisville claimed they were made up of patriots, Kentuckians, Louisville residents, former and retired members of the military, firefighters, and law enforcement who were merely trying to protect their community. The member who identified himself as Angry Spongebob expressed condolences to the family of Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was fatally shot during a botched attempt to serve a warrant on her home.Spongebob said burning the city down was misguided and unfair to the public. There was no evidence of this taking place, despite sporadic small fires in garbage cans on Wednesday."Go to Frankfort, go to City Hall, don't take out frustrations on private business owners," Spongebob told The Daily Beast, blaming the lawlessness on elected officials like Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who declined to charge any cop for killing Taylor.As they often have at protests in recent weeks, the militiamen seemed to operate without harassment from local law enforcement, at least in the hours The Daily Beast observed them after the 9 p.m. curfew on Wednesday. Louisville Metro Police and the Kentucky National Guard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Meanwhile, police said they made 123 arrests, mostly for unlawful assembly and curfew violations, on Wednesday. At least three journalists were reported to be among them. At least two officers were also shot during the chaos.Whipp, the Oath Keeper spokesperson, suggested there was no reason for his group to catch flak for being out past curfew. This despite increased scrutiny of the seemingly cozy ties between armed vigilantes and police after 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse—who allegedly shot and killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August—walked by cops unbothered shortly afterward. On the streets that night, Rittenhouse had attached himself to what amounted to an armed gang of militiamen."We generally don't have trouble from the police," Whipp told The Daily Beast. "Police did perceive one of our members as a threat, but we calmed them down, and stated our purpose."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
| Virginia governor and wife test positive for Covid Posted: 25 Sep 2020 09:47 AM PDT  Trump will hold a rally with 4,000 people in the state today, defying Northam's executive order on large gatherings.
|
| FBI chief says U.S. 'Antifa' demonstrators are targets of multiple probes Posted: 24 Sep 2020 12:08 PM PDT  At a hearing of the Republican-led Senate Homeland Security committee, Christopher Wray said that the Bureau had seen "organized tactical activity at both the local and regional level." Wray added that the bureau is conducting multiple investigations "into some anarchist violent extremists, some of whom operate through these nodes." Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is an amorphous movement "who believe in active, aggressive opposition to far right-wing movements," according https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/who-are-antifa to the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks extremists.
|
| India's Biggest Slum Successfully Contained COVID-19. But Can Its Residents Survive the Economic Collapse? Posted: 25 Sep 2020 08:05 AM PDT  Jayanti Keshav Parmar, a tailor who lives in Dharavi, a bustling informal settlement of nearly 1 million low-income residents packed into a one-square-mile area in Mumbai, has been stuck at home since March 25 when the Indian government declared a stringent lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19. Out of work for over five months, he has not been able to pay the $80 monthly rent on his compact home in Dharavi since March. Dharavi, often called Asia's largest slum, is a hyper-dense network of brick homes and small-scale enterprises that sprawl in the shadow of shiny new skyscrapers in the heart of India's financial capital.
|
| Trump to buck local officials with ‘gargantuan’ rally they say poses ‘severe public health threat’ Posted: 25 Sep 2020 06:16 AM PDT  President plans to pack 4,000 people into Newport News airport hangar but officials cannot stop it
|
| Rising from pandemic, the business success stories of tomorrow? Posted: 25 Sep 2020 01:51 PM PDT  After a plunge in March, the number of business applications by firms that are likely to hire employees is 12% ahead of last year's pace.
|
| The partner of a protester who was shot and killed in Kenosha is suing Facebook alleging it enabled paramilitary violence against protesters Posted: 23 Sep 2020 11:43 PM PDT  The federal lawsuit says the social media company was negligent when it failed to take down an event page urging armed vigilantes to attend protests.
|
| Africa's week in pictures: 18 - 24 September 2020 Posted: 24 Sep 2020 04:05 PM PDT  A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.
|
| Man who allegedly told Korean-American entrepreneur to 'go back to Wuhan' fired from job Posted: 24 Sep 2020 02:03 PM PDT |
| CNN’s Brianna Keilar Fires Back at Tucker Carlson and Kayleigh McEnany Posted: 25 Sep 2020 01:20 PM PDT  CNN's Brianna Keilar spent more than 10 minutes of her broadcast on Friday dismantling the smears she has received from both Fox News and the Trump White House this week."Yesterday, White House Press Secretary implied that I am responsible for two police officers being shot in Louisville," the anchor began. "She is lying to Americans again, and I'll address that in a moment. But first, I'm not the Brianna that the White House should be focused on right now. Breonna Taylor is."After recapping for viewers the devastating details of that police shooting, which left the 26-year-old EMT from Kentucky dead without any of the three officers being held responsible, Keilar said, "The White House wants us talking about racism and the justice system because they use it as a springboard to scare Americans about looting, aided by Fox News running episodes of violence on an incessant loop, that their hearts and minds won't be able to look past the fear to see injustice."> "I'm not the Brianna that the White House should be focused on right now. Breonna Taylor is." > @brikeilarCNN responds to Press Sec. Kayleigh McEnany's remarks about her. pic.twitter.com/dR40GxR4u7> > — CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) September 25, 2020This brought her back to the lies that McEnany told about her from the White House press room on Thursday. The press secretary attacked Keilar for calling into question the Kentucky attorney general's assertion that "mob justice is not justice." But as the CNN anchor explained, she was highlighting in her comments his "purposeful use of that Trump talking point" equating Joe Biden supporters with the so-called "mob" of protesters."That's an appalling statement from Brianna Keilar at CNN," McEnany said. "Hours later, after this comment was made on CNN, two police officers were shot. This is not justice."Kayleigh McEnany Grilled on Trump's Sudden Embrace of Mail-In VotingKeilar proceeded to connect the dots between Tucker Carlson, who she said first took her words "out of context" on his Fox News show earlier in the week, and McEnany who brought them into her official White House press conference."Tucker Carlson, whose own company argues that his show is so full of it that viewers shouldn't be expected to believe what he tells them," Keilar said, referring to the recent defamation lawsuit that Fox News won by arguing that "given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrives with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statements he makes.""Any reasonable viewer," she repeated. "But not Kayleigh McEnany. The press secretary left no doubt that Fox News primetime shows are just a propaganda arm for this administration."Tucker Carlson Argues That Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Had It ComingResponding directly to McEnany's claims, Keilar said, "At no time did I suggest that violence is justice, and I can't believe I even have to explain that. But the alternative is letting someone like Kayleigh McEnany misquote and manipulate what you say. McEnany, who repeatedly lies to the American people."After playing a series of clips in which the press secretary delivered obvious lies about President Donald Trump and the coronavirus to reporters and the public, Keilar cut to video footage of the president "repeatedly encouraging violence" against journalists and others."That is not real leadership," she said. "Real leadership is calm. Real leadership is steady in moments of crisis. It is not hysterical. It is not exploitive. It is not dishonest."CNN's Brianna Keilar Comes at Trump Campaign's Mercedes Schlapp for Falsely Smearing Her Military HusbandRead 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.
|
| 'Smoke with freedom': Mexicans get high in marijuana garden outside Senate Posted: 24 Sep 2020 09:27 PM PDT  A cannabis 'garden' sprouting next to Mexico's Senate building has become a smoker's paradise, with Mexican stoners lighting up joints without fear of arrest. The cannabis seeds sowed in a plaza by Mexico's Senate by pro-marijuana activists in February have mushroomed into strikingly large plants, and become symbolic of a drive to legalize marijuana in a nation riven by drugs-related violence. "Being able to smoke here (in the garden) in freedom is very important to me," said Marco Flores, a barista sitting on a bench overlooking the Congress building.
|
| Exclusive: GOP Sen. Thom Tillis embraced QAnon conspiracy about COVID-19 death count in town hall Posted: 24 Sep 2020 10:54 AM PDT  "When the final accounting is done," the actual death COVID-19 count will be lower, Tillis claims
|
| Trump unveils his ‘America First’ health care plan Posted: 25 Sep 2020 04:06 AM PDT  Insight from National Taxpayers Union Senior Fellow Mattie Duppler.
|
| Presidential debate: This is what Biden needs to do to win the debate, according to experts Posted: 25 Sep 2020 06:46 AM PDT  Debate experts say if Joe Biden wants to win, his message must be more than 'I'm not Trump'
|
| Kodak Black wants out of his hellacious Kentucky prison, stat, new lawsuit says Posted: 24 Sep 2020 08:10 AM PDT  Being behind bars is certainly no fun, but for Kodak Black it's hell, a new suit claims.
|
| Alaska Airlines is launching new West Coast routes, joining the list of US airlines switching focus to leisure travelers – here's the full list Posted: 24 Sep 2020 10:33 AM PDT  Alaska Airlines is continuing its West Coast expansion with a focus on leisure routes as business travel shows few signs of meaningful recovery.
|
| U.S.-Trained Forces Are Raping Women in Cameroon—and Rebels Are Beheading Them Posted: 24 Sep 2020 03:01 AM PDT  IKOM, Nigeria—Lucy was contemplating closing early for the day when soldiers—believed to be from the Cameroon government's notorious Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR)—stormed her shop in the northwestern Cameroon town of Bamenda at the end of August, dragged her outside, asked her to take off the shirt she was wearing, and forced her to sit on the bare ground for hours."When I asked them what I had done wrong, one of them gave me a terrible slap and began to kick me all over my body," Lucy, who sells foodstuffs close to a market in Bamenda, told The Daily Beast via telephone. "I thought the soldiers were going to kill me."On the same day Lucy was brutalized by government forces in Bamenda, about 80 other women—mostly traders at the local food market—were detained at a police station for three days, many of them beaten and wounded by soldiers who were searching for English-speaking separatists following the killing of a police officer days before."The soldiers entered the food market unannounced and began to forcefully remove everybody to the mobile police station," said Lucy, who wanted to be identified by just her first name. "They looted and destroyed shops and ordered every woman to sit on the ground. The weather was so hot and some women collapsed as a result of the heat."Slaughtered Because They Spoke EnglishScores of women have been assaulted and abused by both Cameroonian government forces and English-speaking separatists in the northwest and southwest Anglophone parts of Cameroon since violence erupted in the two regions, along the long Nigerian border, more than three years ago.Reports of sexual violence against women have grown in recent months, mostly perpetrated by BIR soldiers who've received lots of financial support from the United States in recent years. Last year, Human Rights Watch documented how two BIR soldiers raped a 22-year-old mother in the northwest and how a 23-year-old woman and a 17-year-old girl in the same home were raped in front of two children by three BIR soldiers who accused them of hiding separatists. Women have also been assaulted while fleeing from their communities."Soldiers stopped us as we were heading to the [Nigerian] border and forced us to take off our clothes," a 17-year-girl, who fled the Cameroonian town of Akwaya with her 25-year-old sister to the Ogoja refugee settlement in Nigeria, told The Daily Beast. "They began to touch our private parts and were about to rape us when they heard gunshots, which made them leave us and run away."In recent years, the Cameroonian military—including the BIR—has relied heavily on the U.S. for funding. Since 2014, America has given more than $220 million to Cameroon in security assistance—including $700,000 spent so far this year on assisting the country's military and police.Created in 2001 by the Cameroonian government to tackle armed bandits on its northern border with Chad and Nigeria and its eastern border with the Central African Republic, the BIR soon began to stray from its original mission—allegedly committing a number of human-rights atrocities including extrajudicial killing of civilians suspected to work for Boko Haram militants in northern Cameroon.The elite army unit, which is better trained and equipped than the regular Cameroonian army, is overseen by retired Israeli officers who report directly to President Paul Biya. These officers were recently accused of living extravagantly. One of them was reported to have bought properties worth about $32 million in New York and Los Angeles, and spent his holidays in luxury resorts in the Bahamas, costing $20,000 per night.But the rapid reaction force isn't the only group that has targeted women and girls in western Cameroon. Armed separatists have assaulted and murdered women amid intensifying violence and growing calls for secession of the northwest and southwest regions.In an astonishing video widely shared on social media last month, three suspected separatist fighters in the southwestern town of Muyuka were seen beating and dragging a woman whom the government later identified as Confort Tumassang, a 35-year-old mother of four. Her hands were tied behind her back and Tumassang, who was accused of collaborating with the military, could be heard in the clip begging for mercy. She was then beheaded and her body abandoned in the street. The incident, which occurred on Aug. 11, came during the same period that reports of sexual assault perpetrated by separatists on women in Anglophone communities began to grow."My 17-year-old cousin was raped by two rebels on her way to the market." Helen, a 25-year-old hairdresser in Muyuka, told The Daily Beast via telephone. "They beat her up and threatened to kill her before eventually raping her."The U.S.-Backed Military Slaughters Women and Children in CameroonRape has become one of the most common forms of violence against women in the conflict in the western Cameroon. A study last year by the Rural Women Center for Education and Development, a Cameroonian non-profit group, revealed that at least 300 school-age girls from the northwest region became pregnant after being raped by suspected separatist fighters or government soldiers, and that many victims terminated their pregnancies with unsafe or crude abortions. Following the revelation, Cameroon government officials noted that the actual number could be much higher, as many girls involved in the practice do so in hiding."It is obviously clear that rape has become a weapon of war in the conflict in western Cameroon," Eno Edet, a human rights lawyer and advocate in Cross River State—which is hosting the vast majority of Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria—told The Daily Beast. "There are dozens of Cameroonian girls in refugee settlements here in Cross River with stories of sexual assault perpetrated by separatists or government forces back in their country."Cameroon's western regions descended into conflict in 2016 when the government repressed peaceful protests by English speakers against perceived marginalization. It turned into a full war when separatists declared western Cameroon an independent nation in October 2017. Over 3,000 civilian deaths have been recorded, along with dozens of soldiers killed by separatists. More than 700,000 Anglophone Cameroonians have been displaced during the crisis, and at least 52,000 people are currently taking refuge in Nigeria.As The Daily Beast previously reported, Anglophones make up about 20 percent of Cameroon's population of 26 million. In February 1961, the United Nations organized a referendum in which English-speaking Cameroonians, then under British rule, voted to rejoin Francophone Cameroon. Both merged on Oct. 1, 1961, and inherited a constitution which recognized the country as a federation of two states with "the same status." But not long after the reunification, things began to change. Then-President Ahmadou Ahidjo, a Francophone, replaced the two federal states with six regions. He appointed federal inspectors of each region and gave them more power than locally elected politicians. Ahidjo followed up by discarding the currency used by the Anglophones. He refused to recognize Cameroon's membership of the Commonwealth, and he abolished federalism altogether through a national referendum.Incumbent President Paul Biya, also a Francophone, succeeded Ahidjo in November 1982 and began to introduce policies similar to that of his predecessor. In 1983, he split the Anglophone region into the Northwest and Southwest provinces. A year later he changed the country's official name to the Republic of Cameroon, as it was known as when it was a Francophone territory, and removed the second star from the flag that had stood as a representation of the Anglophone region.Many prominent figures in Cameroon's western region from time to time condemned the policies of the Biya administration as they affect the western region, but when the government went ahead to appoint French-speaking magistrates in Anglophone courts, many believed he had gone too far.Unfortunately, the conflict that followed has crippled social amenities and left much of the Anglophone region in ruins. But it is the frequent targeting of women and girls by major players in the war that leaves many in English-speaking communities worried."We are living in fear because women are becoming victims of rape every day," said Helen, the hairdresser in Muyuka. "The other day, it was my cousin [who was raped]. Tomorrow, it could be another innocent woman. No woman is safe here."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.
|
| Ethiopia tells U.N. 'no intention' of using dam to harm Egypt, Sudan Posted: 25 Sep 2020 01:48 PM PDT  Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told the United Nations on Friday that his country has "no intention" of harming Sudan and Egypt with a giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile that has caused a bitter water dispute between the three countries. Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan failed to strike a deal on the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam before Ethiopia began filling the reservoir behind the dam in July.
|
| Chinese fishing flotilla nears Peruvian waters, prompting US-Beijing spat Posted: 25 Sep 2020 07:57 AM PDT  * Huge armada moves from Galápagos Islands towards Peru * China rejects US embassy insinuation of overfishingA huge fishing armada of Chinese vessels has moved south from the Galápagos Islands towards Peru's territorial waters, dragging the South American country into a diplomatic Twitter row between Washington and Beijing.Earlier this week, the US embassy in Lima tweeted a warning in Spanish that "more than 300 Chinese-flagged vessels with a record of changing boat names and deactivating GPS trackers" were heading towards Peru."Overfishing can cause huge ecological and economic damage. Peru cannot afford such a loss," it said.China's embassy retorted with its own tweet, insisting that its deep-water fishing fleet respected international law and "strictly obeyed Peruvian laws and limited itself to operating in the high seas"."We hope the Peruvian public won't be fooled by false information," it said.The online spat was the latest sign of growing tensions over the presence of giant flotilla, which was first detected off the Galápagos archipelago in July, stirring outrage in Ecuador and raising global concern about the practices of the world's largest deep-water fishing fleet.Stuck in the middle of a geopolitical row between its two biggest economic partners and allies, Peru's foreign ministry expressed "unease" at the US embassy tweet's "inconvenient inaccuracy" because the Chinese fleet was "demonstrably" outside the country's territorial waters.In a Twitter thread, the ministry urged the two countries to resolve their differences through dialogue, but also added that Peru would "defend its sovereignty and natural resources, and equally firmly prevent, discourage and eradicate illegal fishing".A Peruvian navy patrol boat is policing the limits of the country's territorial waters, which are 200 nautical miles from the coast, the defence ministry said in a statement. Earlier this week, a reconnaissance flight found Chinese vessels had not breached the limits, it added.During just one month, the vast fleet logged an astonishing 73,000 hours of fishing, pulling up thousands of tonnes of squid and fish as hundreds of boats scoured the sea on the southern limit of the Galápagos Islands' territorial waters, according to data analysis by the marine conservation group Oceana.
|
