| Biden tops Trump for town hall television ratings Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:00 AM PDT  Joe Biden bested Donald Trump on Thursday night in a category sure to grab the president's attention: television ratings.
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| Outrage boils over in Kansas City after video captures arrest of pregnant Black woman Posted: 16 Oct 2020 10:37 AM PDT  A Kansas City woman gave birth on Friday, just over two weeks after she was thrown to the ground by police in an altercation at an event commemorating a murder victim.
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| A Kansas man was arrested on suspicion of threatening to kidnap and kill the mayor of Wichita over the city's mask mandate Posted: 17 Oct 2020 08:46 AM PDT  Mayor Brandon Whipple said he believed that the threat against his life from was credible and not just "some guy popping off on social media."
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| One of Kentucky's largest newspapers endorsed Mitch McConnell challenger Amy McGrath Posted: 17 Oct 2020 12:34 PM PDT  "McConnell purports to care about Kentucky and the country, but time and again, he has chosen the GOP instead," Lexington Herald-Leader's editorial board said.
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| 7 Chicago cops suspended for roles in chief's traffic stop Posted: 16 Oct 2020 12:46 PM PDT  Seven Chicago police officers have been suspended for their roles the night then-Superintendent Eddie Johnson was found asleep behind the wheel of his SUV after having several drinks at a bar, according to a report by the city's inspector general released Friday. Superintendent David Brown decided to suspend two probationary officers for one day each, two other officers for seven days, a sergeant for 14 days, a lieutenant for 21 days and a commander for 28 days, according to Inspector General Joseph Ferguson's report. Johnson has denied the allegations made by the former driver, Cynthia Donald.
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| Reports: Japan to release Fukushima's nuclear waste water into sea Posted: 16 Oct 2020 05:40 AM PDT  Japan will release over 1 million metric tons of water contaminated from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster into the sea, media reports said Friday.
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| Thailand blocks Change.org as petition against king gains traction Posted: 16 Oct 2020 03:22 AM PDT  The petition had called for the king to be declared persona non grata in Germany.
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| Pro-Abortion Group Calls for Feinstein’s Ouster from Judiciary Committee after Amy Coney Barrett Hearings Posted: 17 Oct 2020 08:25 AM PDT  One of the nation's top abortion groups is calling for Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) to be ousted from her position as the Judiciary Committee's ranking member after she praised the confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, calling them "one of the best set of hearings that I've participated in."The head of NARAL Pro-Choice America issued a scathing statement on Friday, a day after the last day of hearings on Barrett's nomination concluded."Americans -- whose lives hang in the balance -- deserve leadership that underscores how unprecedented, shameful and wrong this process is," NARAL president Ilyse Hogue said in a statement. "The Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, failed to make this clear and in fact offered an appearance of credibility to the proceedings that is wildly out of step with the American people. As such, we believe the committee needs new leadership."On Thursday, Feinstein thanked Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) for his "fairness" in leading the hearings."Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you," the California senator said. "This has been one of the best set of hearings that I've participated in. And I want to thank you for your fairness and the opportunity of going back and forth. It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions, and even some ideas of perhaps some goo bipartisan legislation we can put together to make this great country even better, so thank you so much for your leadership."Feinstein and Graham shared a hug after Feinstein's remarks and as Thursday's hearing concluded. Feinstein has said she will vote against Barrett's confirmation.During the four days of confirmation hearings, Democrats, including Feinstein, frequently quizzed Barrett about her stance on abortion rights and asked whether she thought Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide, was wrongly decided."I completely understand why you are asking the question, but I cannot pre-commit or say yes, I am going in with some agenda, because I am not," Barrett responded when Feinstein asked her whether she considered Roe wrongly decided.NARAL fought Barrett's nomination vehemently, arguing that her confirmation to the high court would threaten abortion rights and could also jeopardize the Affordable Care Act.
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| Parents of Student Arrested After Teacher Beheaded for Showing Anti-Muslim Cartoon Posted: 16 Oct 2020 10:31 AM PDT  Anti-terrorism prosecutors in France have detained nine people, including a minor, after a geography teacher was decapitated in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses on a street in northern Paris on Friday afternoon, according to Paris police.The attack outside a school in the Parisian suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine occurred after the teacher showed caricatures of the prophet Muhammad published in the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo to his students, a police spokesperson told NBC. The teacher, identified as Samuel Paty, 47, told Muslim students they could leave the classroom ahead of the lesson on freedom of expression and blasphemy, according to the school district. However, several furious parents reportedly demanded Paty's resignation after the lesson.Citing a police source, Agence France-Presse reported that the attacker shouted "Allahu Akbar" or "God is Great" after the decapitation. The attacker, said to be an 18-year-old Chechen who was born in Moscow, was then fatally shot by police in the suburb of Eragy Sur Oise after threatening officers with his knife. A handgun was found near his body, police said.He was reportedly wearing a vest that could have contained explosives, which led police to send in the bomb squad. No information has been released whether the vest was lethal. Extremists have been indoctrinated to believe that suicide bombings and killings of "infidels" will grant them 72 virgins in paradise for their sacrifice. Those arrested included the attacker's family members and parents of one of the victim's Muslim students. The police spokesperson said the suspect had claimed responsibility for the attack and posted a photo of the headless victim on Twitter that was later removed.Terror Investigation Launched After Knife Attack at Charlie Hebdo's Old Offices Injures TwoThe Friday attack is one of several terrorism-related tragedies to hit the French capital over the years. Last month, two people were injured in a knife attack close to the former offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, where Islamist militants killed 12 people in 2015 in revenge for a controversial cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. Officials said the September attack was an act of Islamist terrorism carried out amid a criminal trial for the 2015 attackers.Paty had reportedly been threatened after showing students the very cartoons that Charlie Hebdo was targeted for publishing. The Guardian reported that, after the lesson, the father of a 13-year-old girl who didn't leave the classroom posted a YouTube video claiming Paty had shown a "photo of a naked man" and said it was the Muslim prophet. The father called the teacher a thug.As the situation intensified, the school convened a meeting with Paty, a head teacher and an education department official.After the killing, Charlie Hebdo tweeted, "Intolerance just reached a new threshold and seems to stop at nothing to impose terror in our country.""Tonight, it was the Republic that was attacked with the despicable assassination of one of its servants, a teacher," Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said Friday. "I think tonight of him, of his family. Our unity and steadfastness are the only answers to the monstrosity of Islamist terrorism."The Washington Post reported the country's anti-terror prosecutor immediately opened an investigation into the "murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and "criminal terrorist association."French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday evening went to the crime scene after an emergency meeting with Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin. Darmanin set up a crisis center to deal with the grisly attack. Macron called the beheading "an Islamist terrorist attack" at the scene. "One of our fellow citizens was assassinated today because he was teaching, he was teaching pupils about freedom of expression."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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| Trump's national security adviser pushes back at top general, says troops won't be home by Christmas Posted: 16 Oct 2020 12:55 PM PDT  O'Brien's comments Friday were not the first time he has said the United States would draw down its forces in Afghanistan to 2,500 by January.
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| Almost all of Wisconsin is classified as a COVID 'hot spot' Posted: 16 Oct 2020 12:42 PM PDT  Officials in the state report some hospitals have already reached 90 percent capacity in their intensive care units.
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| Rapper who bragged about getting rich off unemployment benefits in music video arrested for $1.2 million scheme, federal prosecutors say Posted: 17 Oct 2020 12:53 PM PDT  Rapper Nuke Bizzle attempted to "exploit" California's Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program helping those who lost their job during the pandemic.
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| Disney fires back at Elizabeth Warren in row over executive pay Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:50 AM PDT  Company calls senator's open letter challenging reinstatement of executive pay 'misinformed'
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| Illegally raised deer gores woman out walking her dog, Colorado officials say Posted: 16 Oct 2020 05:21 PM PDT  The deer jabbed the woman's abdomen with its antlers, officials said.
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| Utah landlord evicted an 18-year-old woman for disturbing the peace in her apartment after she shared suicidal thoughts with her roommates, reports say Posted: 17 Oct 2020 12:26 PM PDT  The woman was given six days to move out after her landlord said she interfered with her roommates' "quiet enjoyment" of their apartment.
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| Missing Hong Kong protester Alexandra Wong 'was held in mainland China' Posted: 17 Oct 2020 12:21 PM PDT  "Grandma Wong" says she was detained by mainland police and forced to renounce her activism.
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| 'Log off! Log off!' teacher orders students when sexual assault livestreamed during first grader's remote learning class Posted: 17 Oct 2020 01:27 PM PDT  CHICAGO - An 18-year-old man out on bond for a gun case was held without bail after he livestreamed himself during a sexual act with a 7-year-old first grader on break from her Chicago Public Schools remote learning class on Thursday prosecutors said. Catrell A. Walls, of the West Chesterfield neighborhood on the South Side, was arrested Thursday afternoon shortly after 3:30 p.m., after he was ...
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| Trump tweets fake news story from satirical conservative website Posted: 16 Oct 2020 09:07 AM PDT  President Trump on Friday tweeted a fake news story published by the Babylon Bee, a satirical website for Christian conservatives, mocking Twitter for blocking users from sharing an unconfirmed report about Joe Biden's son.
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| Armenia, Azerbaijan announce humanitarian truce Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:06 PM PDT  Armenia and Azerbaijan said Saturday they had agreed a "humanitarian truce" from midnight (2000 GMT) in a new attempt to quell nearly three weeks of fighting over a disputed region.
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| Analysis: Arrest of ex-army chief puts Mexican president's plans under siege Posted: 17 Oct 2020 03:07 AM PDT  The spectacular fall from grace of Mexico's previous armed forces supremo has raised awkward questions about the president's reliance on the military to fight drug gangs and manage an increasing portfolio of vital civilian infrastructure. Thursday's arrest of former Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos in the United States at the Los Angeles airport on drug trafficking charges sent shockwaves through the political establishment and embarrassed a once highly trusted institution. It threatens to sour government relations with the military, which since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador assumed power in December 2018 has been tasked not just with reducing violence, but also managing ports and even building an airport.
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| Turkey reportedly test-fires S-400 air defense system Posted: 16 Oct 2020 07:09 AM PDT  NATO member Turkey has tested its Russian-made S-400 air defense system, Turkish media reported, raising the specter of a new standoff with the United States.
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| A Kentucky postal worker who trashed over 100 absentee ballots was fired and could face federal charges Posted: 17 Oct 2020 12:12 PM PDT  The report comes at a time of heightened anxiety over voting, amplified by President Donald Trump's widely debunked claims of rampant fraud.
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| Pakistan stops bid to smuggle endangered falcons Posted: 17 Oct 2020 07:36 AM PDT  The falcons are on the endangered species list and are said to be worth almost £1m.
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| Ex-Mexico army chief arrested in LA on drugs, money charges Posted: 15 Oct 2020 07:26 PM PDT  Former Mexican defense secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, who led the country's army for six years under ex-President Enrique Peña Nieto, has been arrested on drug trafficking and money laundering charges at Los Angeles International Airport, U.S. and Mexican sources said Thursday. Two people with knowledge of the arrest said Cienfuegos was taken into custody on a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration warrant. One of the people said the warrant was for drug trafficking and money laundering charges.
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| Trump won 81 percent of white evangelicals in 2016. Ralph Reed says he’ll do better this year. Posted: 16 Oct 2020 03:07 PM PDT  "I think polling is at this point, it's a discredited science," Reed said.
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| Farmer who went viral after carving Biden-Harris message into his soybean field says there’s more to the story Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:25 AM PDT  North Dakota voter reveals why he decided to share a message of support for the Democrats after Donald Trump's trade wars cost his farm 'a lot of money'
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| Murdered 2-year-old inspires new Florida law Posted: 16 Oct 2020 05:00 PM PDT  Florida signed Jordan's Law to prevent this happening to another child. A Florida mother may never see the outside of a prison again after she was sentenced today in the murder of her own son, but his legacy will live on in a law inspired by his short life. Charisse Stinson, 23, was sentenced to 50 years in prison after killing her son in 2018, per WFLA News.
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| Romania cleared to buy advanced ship-killing missiles Posted: 16 Oct 2020 01:35 PM PDT  The agreement could be worth about $300 million.
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| A USPS worker suspected of throwing away bags full of mail posted about the QAnon conspiracy theory Posted: 16 Oct 2020 04:06 PM PDT  A Pittsburgh-area mail carrier suspected of discarding garbage bags of undelivered mail appears to be a QAnon conspiracy theorist.
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| Texas billionaire charged in $2B tax fraud scheme Posted: 16 Oct 2020 04:03 AM PDT  Texas billionaire Robert Brockman was charged in a $2 billion tax fraud scheme on Thursday by federal prosecutors.
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| China passes amendments outlawing insulting national flag Posted: 17 Oct 2020 03:52 AM PDT  The Standing Committee of China's congress on Saturday passed amendments to a law that will criminalize the intentional insulting of the national flag and emblem, after anti-government protesters in Hong Kong last year desecrated the Chinese flag. According to the newly amended National Flag and National Emblem Law, which will take effect on Jan. 1, those who intentionally burn, mutilate, paint, deface or trample the flag and emblem in public will be investigated for criminal responsibility. The law also states that that national flag must not be discarded, displayed upside down or used in any manner that impairs the dignity of the flag.
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| San Francisco mayor slams the 'lefty movement' for blocking efforts to address affordable housing crisis Posted: 17 Oct 2020 06:45 AM PDT  San Francisco Mayor London Breed said on the Freakonomics podcast that the city's "lefty" supervisors have stalled her affordable housing plans.
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| Pelosi says she will probably talk to Mnuchin on coronavirus relief Sunday Posted: 16 Oct 2020 02:51 PM PDT  U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday that she would probably talk to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin over the weekend for the latest round of negotiations on coronavirus relief. "As soon as I get it, which I haven't gotten yet, then we will talk about it, probably on Sunday," she added.
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| New Texas rule lets social workers turn away clients who are LGBTQ or have a disability Posted: 17 Oct 2020 11:59 AM PDT  Social workers called the change "incredibly disheartening," while Gov. Greg Abbott's office said it was necessary
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| Lisa Montgomery to be first female federal inmate executed in 67 years Posted: 17 Oct 2020 12:17 PM PDT  * Brandon Bernard also faces execution for separate killing * Attorney general Bill Barr cites 'heinous murders'The US is set to execute a female federal inmate for the first time in 67 years, Donald Trump's justice department has said.Lisa Montgomery, who strangled a Missouri woman in 2004 and stole her unborn baby, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the US penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on 8 December.Montgomery, whose lawyers have long argued she has brain damage from beatings as a child and suffers from psychosis and other mental conditions, will become the first woman executed by the US government since Bonny Brown Heady in December 1953. Heady was convicted of kidnapping and killing the six-year-old heir of an automobile tycoon. With her boyfriend, she was executed in a gas chamber.The attorney general, William Barr, announced the decision to proceed with the execution of Montgomery, 52, in a statement that also detailed a 10 December execution date for Brandon Bernard, 40, who with two accomplices was found guilty of the murder of two church ministers in Texas in 1999.Barr said the crimes were "especially heinous murders". Montgomery, who sliced open the belly of Bobby Jo Stinnett and took her daughter, is the only woman among 55 federal inmates awaiting execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.Under Barr, seven executions of federal prisoners have taken place since July. Before that, only three inmates had been executed since the restoration of the federal death penalty in 1998, the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and another in 2001, the other two years later.In state prisons, 16 women have been executed since a 1976 supreme court decision lifted a moratorium on the death penalty across the US. The most recent was in September 2015, when Kelly Renee Gissendaner received a lethal injection in Georgia for the 1997 murder of her husband.Montgomery's attorney, Kelley Henry, attacked Barr's decision as an "injustice"."In the grip of her mental illness, Lisa committed a terrible crime," Henry, an assistant public defender in Nashville, Tennessee, said in a statement. "Yet she immediately expressed profound remorse and was willing to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence with no possibility of release."Lisa Montgomery has long accepted full responsibility for her crime, and she will never leave prison. But her severe mental illness and the devastating impacts of her childhood trauma make executing her a profound injustice."Now 16, Stinnett's daughter, Victoria Jo, was raised by her father. In 2004, Montgomery's husband said he was unaware the baby his wife brought home was not theirs."I had no idea," Kevin Montgomery said. "I sure hope [the Stinnett family] get as much support from their church and community as I have because we are all going to need it."
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| During Iowa Senate debate, Ernst has difficulty answering a question about soybean prices Posted: 16 Oct 2020 08:16 AM PDT  During the Iowa Senate debate with Democratic candidate Theresa Greenfield on Thursday, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst has trouble answering a question posed to her about soybean prices.
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| These photos show the intense smoke from Colorado's largest wildfire ever Posted: 17 Oct 2020 09:22 AM PDT  The Cameron Peak Fire ignited in mid-August and has grown to more than 270 square miles. These photos show the intensity of the state's largest fire.
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| Trump rally 'VIP' among six Chinese nationals charged with drug money laundering Posted: 16 Oct 2020 04:10 PM PDT  An Instagram page belonging to Tao Liu features several photos of him at a September 2018 Trump rally in Wheeler, W.Va.
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| Boeing is using a 'scorched earth' strategy to keep evidence away from lawyers representing 737 Max crash victims, lawyer says Posted: 17 Oct 2020 03:00 AM PDT  189 people died when a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max plane crashed in October 2018, and 157 more died in the Ethiopan Airlines crash in March 2019.
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| COVID-19 case confirmed in pope's Vatican residence Posted: 17 Oct 2020 04:56 AM PDT  A man living in the same Vatican residence as Pope Francis has tested positive for COVID-19 and gone into isolation, the Vatican said on Saturday. Pope Francis, who had part of one lung removed during an illness when he was a young man in his native Argentina, is tested regularly for COVID-19. The Vatican, a tiny city-state surrounded by Rome, has been only lightly affected by the coronavirus, with about two dozen confirmed cases in total.
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| Azerbaijani drone strikes pick off Karabakh artillery Posted: 17 Oct 2020 09:43 AM PDT  The red mulberry trees meant to conceal them were not enough: Azerbaijani night-time drone strikes destroyed seven artillery guns in a field in Karmir Shuka, in southeast Nagorno Karabakh.
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