| Taliban vows to fight on after Trump says talks are 'dead' Posted: 10 Sep 2019 01:06 AM PDT  The Taliban on Tuesday vowed to continue fighting against US forces in Afghanistan after President Donald Trump said talks with the insurgents were "dead", saying Washington would regret abandoning negotiations. The renewed war of words between the two sides raised the spectre of violence in Afghanistan as Trump and the Taliban pledged to take the fight to each other following the precipitous collapse in talks. "We had two ways to end occupation in Afghanistan, one was jihad and fighting, the other was talks and negotiations," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.
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| 2020 Vision Monday: State by state, Warren is getting closer to the Democratic nomination Posted: 09 Sep 2019 11:04 AM PDT  Elizabeth Warren has steadily ticked up in national surveys since the start of May, more than doubling her polling average, from 8 percent to 18, over that period of time. Everyone else has slipped.
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| View Photos of the Hyundai 45 Concept Posted: 10 Sep 2019 12:00 AM PDT |
| Satellite images show US-pursued Iran tanker still off Syria Posted: 10 Sep 2019 08:33 AM PDT  New satellite photos obtained Tuesday show an Iranian oil tanker pursued by the U.S. remains off the coast of Syria. The images from Planet Labs obtained by The Associated Press have the Adrian Darya-1 still near the port city of Tartus. The Adrian Darya 1, formerly known as the Grace 1, was carrying 2.1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil worth some $130 million.
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| Hurricane Dorian survivor films storm's terrifying wrath in Bahamas as it pounds against his home Posted: 09 Sep 2019 07:00 PM PDT ![Hurricane Dorian survivor films storm's terrifying wrath in Bahamas as it pounds against his home]( "Hurricane Dorian survivor films storm's terrifying wrath in Bahamas as it pounds against his home") The house where John Slack was sheltered on Treasure Cay started to crumble, so he and his friends tried to find safety elsewhere.
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| South Africa’s Malema Presents Himself to Police Over Gun Probe Posted: 10 Sep 2019 04:48 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- South African opposition leader Julius Malema presented himself to the police's special investigative unit over allegations that he illegally fired a weapon.Malema arrived at the offices of the so-called Hawks in the capital, Pretoria, on Tuesday. His party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, said Monday the unit would issue a warning statement to Malema. The 38-year-old was filmed allegedly shooting a rifle into the air during the party's five-year anniversary celebrations in the southern town of East London last year.Malema told reporters the Hawks informed him further investigations are being conducted on the incident after a prosecutor refused to move on the evidence presented before him. Known for his abrasive politics, Malema heads the country's third-biggest opposition party and often portrays himself as a defender of the poor."Someone, somewhere is sitting and making stupid decisions and not applying the law," he said. "What is happening here is that they are using us as a diversion."His appearance before the Hawks came a day after the Daily Maverick, a Johannesburg-based news website, alleged that Malema was a beneficiary of funds embezzled from failed VBS Mutual Bank and used the money to finance his political aspirations and lavish lifestyle, including the purchase of Gucci apparel and other luxury items.EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said he couldn't immediately comment when contacted on Tuesday. The party has previously said there's no proof its officials did anything wrong."The allegations on VBS are a fabrication and unfounded," Malema said. "Louis Vuitton and Gucci, I have worn it before. I don't buy it with VBS money."He said he won't take any action against the Daily Maverick.Read more on EFF and VBS Mutual BankMalema established the EFF in July 2013 after he was expelled from the ruling African National Congress. His party won 11% of the national vote in May 8 elections.(Updates with Malema's comments starting in fourth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Amogelang Mbatha.To contact the reporter on this story: Nkululeko Ncana in Johannesburg at nncana@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Rene Vollgraaff, Pauline BaxFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, and Marissa Mayer reportedly attended an elite private dinner with Jeffrey Epstein just 2 years after he served a prison sentence for soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl (AMZN, GOOGL, TSLA, MSFT) Posted: 10 Sep 2019 07:52 AM PDT  The private dinners, known informally as the "billionaires' dinners," are held by the New York literary agent John Brockman.
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| Couple faces 'theft charges' after $120,000 bank error Posted: 10 Sep 2019 04:30 AM PDT 
The reports say that Robert and Tiffany Williams, from Montoursville, had reportedly had $120,000 deposited into their BB&T account in May after a mistake at the bank. The couple allegedly spent most of the money on items ranging from an SUV to a race car, local media said quoting Pennsylvania State police. After reportedly failing to answer calls from the bank, they are now reportedly facing felony theft charges.
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| Trump launches furious yet confused attack on rival's affair with 'flaming dancer' after promoting QAnon conspiracy theorist Posted: 09 Sep 2019 06:32 AM PDT  Donald Trump has attacked a Republican 2020 rival over an extramarital affair during an early morning Twitter rant in which he also promoted a QAnon conspiracy theorist."When the former Governor of the Great State of South Carolina, @MarkSanford, was reported missing, only to then say he was away hiking on the Appalachian Trail, then was found in Argentina with his Flaming Dancer friend, it sounded like his political career was over," Mr Trump tweeted on Monday.
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| Lebanon Shiites mark Ashura in show of anti-Israel defiance Posted: 10 Sep 2019 06:24 AM PDT  Anti-Israeli chants rang through the streets of a Hezbollah bastion in the Lebanese capital on Tuesday as thousands of black-clad Shiites commemorated the seventh-century killing of Prophet Mohammed's grandson. "We have taught Israel that our people are not weak," the men cried, beating their chests in unison, during an Ashura commemoration marking the killing of Imam Hussein in battle by Caliph Yazid's forces. This year's ceremony comes shortly after a series of confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel, including an exchange of cross-border fire at the start of the month.
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| Gun Sales Jump 15.5 Percent in August as Dems Renew Push for Regulations Posted: 10 Sep 2019 10:48 AM PDT  Background checks for gun sales, concealed-carry permits, and security spiked in August as congressional Democrats renewed their push for expanded gun control in the wake of several mass shootings.The National Instant Criminal Background Check System recorded a 15.5 percent uptick in background checks last month, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.The jump in gun sales appears to have been spurred by a desire to secure self-protection amid an epidemic of mass shootings in the U.S., before Congress potentially approves stricter gun-control measures such as an assault-weapons ban, universal background checks, or limits on ammunition.The NSSF also pointed out that some states saw a particularly steep jump in background checks last month, with Alabama's NSSF-adjusted number jumping over 100 percent from August of last year, and Minnesota's number increasing 68.9 percent.Gun sales also spiked in August of last year, just before the midterm congressional elections, and even more starkly in August 2016, before the last presidential election.House speaker Nancy Pelosi warned Monday that there will be "hell to pay" if the Republican-controlled Senate fails to pass a universal-background-check bill, which would require checks for private gun sales, including purchases made over the Internet and at gun shows. The bill has already passed the House."We are not taking no for an answer. We are not going away," she said."It is totally up to them, and it is on their shoulders. They can't escape that responsibility," Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer added.Renewed enthusiasm for gun-control measures comes after two back-to-back shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio killed 32 and left the nation shaken last month.
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| Volkswagen Showed a Glimpse of the ID Electric SUV That's Coming to the U.S. Posted: 10 Sep 2019 03:55 AM PDT  This compact crossover will go on sale in America starting in 2020 and will eventually be built in the States, too.
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| NRA sues San Francisco over terrorist declaration Posted: 09 Sep 2019 09:00 PM PDT  The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses city officials of violating the gun lobby's free speech rights for political reasons and says the city is seeking to blacklist anyone associated with the NRA. Last week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution calling the NRA a "domestic terrorist organization," contending the group spreads propaganda that seeks to deceive the public about the dangers of gun violence.
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| 10-year-old girl films mom driving drunk, police say Posted: 10 Sep 2019 09:30 AM PDT ![10-year-old girl films mom driving drunk, police say]( "10-year-old girl films mom driving drunk, police say") The girl showed Glendale police officers video in which three children under the age of 15 could be heard yelling at her mother to stop.
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| McConnell Said No to Money for Miners, Yes to Russian-Backed Plant Posted: 10 Sep 2019 01:25 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettySenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last month blocked a measure that would have used Treasury Department funds marked for Appalachian development to help pay for coal miners' health care and pensions in his home state of Kentucky. But just a few months earlier, McConnell successfully steered near-identical Treasury funds for Appalachia to bankroll a Kentucky aluminum plant connected to an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Democrats on Capitol Hill have raised concerns for months about McConnell's connection to the aluminum plant. It's one of several reasons why McConnell's political opponents have tried to stick him with the nickname "Moscow Mitch." But what's gone largely unnoticed as the sobriquet has become a social media trending topic is how McConnell worked to keep money out of coal miners' hands—even as he maneuvered to steer federal funds to the Russian-linked plant.The scrutiny started in January, when McConnell voted to lift sanctions on Rusal, a Russian aluminum company formerly headed by Putin ally Oleg Deripaska, despite several of his Republican colleagues defecting and voting no. Rusal's de-listing caused an uproar among Democrats on Capitol Hill who viewed the deal the Treasury Department put together with Rusal as too lenient. Dems Move to Block Trump From Lifting Sanctions on Russian Oligarch Oleg DeripaskaThen, in April, the focus turned to McConnell. Just weeks after the Treasury Department announced the official de-listing of Rusal, the company announced a $200 million investment in the Braidy Industries aluminum plant in the northeastern part of Kentucky. Democrats raised questions about how much McConnell knew about Rusal's investment plan before he voted for sanctions relief. Rusal is the only outside investor in the plant. In a statement to The Daily Beast, a Braidy Industries spokesperson said the company has never lobbied members of Congress on sanctions issues and began working with law firm Akin Gump in May 2019 for "general government relations representation." The spokesperson also said no employee or director of the company has ever spoken to McConnell about Rusal.But McConnell's connection to the Rusal-Braidy aluminum plant is deeper than previously understood. At the same time Rusal was lobbying the Trump administration to get off the U.S. sanctions list, McConnell was advocating for federal funds to be diverted to help with construction of the Braidy plant in Kentucky. Since 2016 the federal government has given states in Appalachia millions of dollars from the Treasury Department to help clean up and reform abandoned coal mining land, and to assist in economic and community development in those areas. McConnell and other Kentucky lawmakers, including Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY), have advocated that the state continue to receive that federal funding given the impact of coal companies' bankruptcies. Two companies, EastPark Industrial and Ashland Alliance, applied for $7 million from the pot of federal money from the Kentucky state government in November 2017 for general sewer and road repair on 204 acres of land. The application also included infrastructure improvements.In October 2018, McConnell, Rogers, and Kentucky officials announced that EastPark and Ashland would get $4 million. Then, in March 2019, the applicants confirmed that the $4 million would not go to funding general repairs but would instead go prepping for construction on the aluminum plant."Ashland Alliance and EastPark will only be applying the $4 million to the Braidy Site preparation," wrote Ashland Alliance president Tim Gibbs in an email from March 2019 reviewed by The Daily Beast. "The $4 million in AML funds will enable Braidy to complete the $14 million total investment to stabilize the site for high precision manufacturing."It is not clear when talks between Braidy Industries and Rusal began, but two sources with direct knowledge of the $4 million payout said McConnell went to bat for the applicants during the internal review process and was instrumental in helping them secure the federal funding.As site cleanup for the aluminum plant began, McConnell blocked a bill sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) that would have doled out federal money to help fund miners' pensions. Every year the Treasury Department collects fees from coal companies based on how much coal they produce in their plants. Those fees are then doled out to the Department of the Interior in part for the purpose of cleaning up land that houses abandoned mines and for economic development and restoration of coal communities suffering from energy company bankruptcies. Manchin wanted to take the excess money from that fund and use it to secure coal miner pensions and health care plans. McConnell blocked the measure, claiming he wanted a more permanent fix to multiemployer pensions. "There are amendments that benefit Americans and West Virginians that are being blocked by one person: Mitch McConnell," Manchin said in a statement at the time. "He is the sole person that is blocking a vote on my amendment to… secure coal miners' health care and pensions, even though it has bipartisan support and would better the lives of every West Virginian, Kentuckian and American."Making matters even more contentious was the fact that the majority leader helped steer $4 million in very similar federal funding for the Braidy aluminum plant construction. The $4 million came out of a $90 million allocation from the Treasury Department to the Department of the Interior to help three Appalachian states cope with the impact of a declining coal industry. The Department of the Interior did not respond to a request for comment.In a statement, McConnell's office defended his decisions."Leader McConnell has long been and will continue to be a strong supporter of Kentucky coal miners and their families. He has met with numerous Kentucky miners about important issues including the challenges facing their pension plan," a spokesperson said. "Sen. McConnell is concerned about the challenges facing a number of multiemployer pension plans, including UMWA's pension, and he believes it is best addressed through a broader bipartisan and bicameral pension reform effort." But some coal miners in Kentucky are threatening to throw their support behind McConnell's main 2020 opponent, Amy McGrath, if the majority leader fails to pass legislation that would help secure their pensions. Thousands of miners in Kentucky rely on the monthly $600 check to pay the bills and to buy groceries for their families. "We're not ever going to quit until they give us what we've earned. We're not going to quit until we get it," said Dwayne Thompson, a 72-year-old former Peabody Energy coal miner from Kentucky. "I hope Senator McConnell gets that. If he supports us, we will support him."The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), the national mining union, has for years called on McConnell and other lawmakers to pass legislation that would help mitigate the fallout of the increasing number of energy company bankruptcies and the closure of hundreds of mines. In 1974, Congress passed a law that established minimum standards for pension plans in private industry. That same year UMWA negotiated its pension plan with coal mining companies. But with the demise of the coal industry, the fund is running out of money. It's expected to be insolvent by 2022.Behind closed doors, two sources with direct knowledge say, McConnell has privately promised miners a more permanent fix to the pension issue, but even national coal mining leaders are skeptical that the Senate majority leader and his colleagues in Congress will help in the short term."Coal miners understand something—when people tell us 'we're going to pass legislation'… we don't believe it," said Cecil Roberts, president of the UWMA, at a recent speech in Washington. "Anyone who understands how Congress works knows that that's a fight."Several miners who spoke to The Daily Beast said they felt McConnell had blocked the funding for pensions because some of the union members had decided to support his 2014 election opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes. Others, though, were wary of going too far in their condemnation of the majority leader, saying that at the end of the day, McConnell was their best shot at ensuring they could continue providing for their families. (In 2017 McConnell helped push forward a bipartisan spending bill that included a permanent extension of health care benefits to thousands of coal miners.) On Friday two miners featured in an attack add by McGrath said they were not told their images would be used for a political campaign and demanded that McGrath stop airing them."We thank Mr. McConnell for what he did to help on our health care, but now he needs to finish the job and do something about our pensions," said Bob Cox, a 73-year-old former miner who serves as the president of a local UMWA chapter. "It's a day to day concern for a lot of the older people I live with. They're not well and they don't need the extra worry that it brings on. If anything goes wrong, we won't last as long as we thought we would."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.
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| Democratic candidate Andrew Yang 'peeling off' Trump supporters with $1,000 universal income pledge Posted: 09 Sep 2019 08:16 AM PDT  For supporters of Donald Trump now disillusioned with his actions an improbable figure is emerging on the Left. Andrew Yang, a candidate for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2020, has received increasing support from disenfranchised working class voters in key "rust belt" states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. The radical central tenet of Mr Yang's platform is the "Freedom Dividend" which would provide a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American adult, much of it funded by taxing large businesses like Amazon, Google and Facebook. "I'm peeling off Trump supporters," Mr Yang told The Telegraph in an interview ahead of the next Democrat debate. "There were many people who voted for Donald Trump because they believed his solutions, but his solutions were garbage and nonsense. "They're attracted to me because I'm talking about the same problems. I'm running to solve problems that got Trump elected. It means, if I'm the Democrat nominee, we will win, and most Democrats want a nominee who's going to win." Andrew Yang has pledged an annual universal basic income Credit: REUTERS/Gretchen Ertl People who voted for Mr Trump in 2016 have increasingly been turning up at Mr Yang's rallies, replacing their MAGA hats with ones that say "MATH" - which stands for "Make America Think Harder" - "Yang Gang". According to polls Mr Yang, along with Bernie Sanders, is the the only Democrat who more than 10 per cent of Trump supporters say they would consider voting for. Like the president he is not averse to mixing it. Mr Yang recently called Mr Trump "fat" and a "slob" and asked: "What could Donald Trump possibly be better than me at? An eating contest?" His crossover appeal is also shown by his standing in Fox News polls, which have him higher than other surveys. In a recent one he ranked fifth behind only Joe Biden, Mr Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. As the massive Democrat field was cut in half to 10 candidates for the next debate on September 12 Mr Yang qualified with ease. More than 200,000 people have donated to his campaign. The former technology entrepreneur also has the endorsement of Elon Musk. Mr Yang paints an apocalyptic picture of the future - something along the lines of Terminator or The Hunger Games - unless action is taken to alleviate the inevitable rise of robots. He said: "We're going to lose to automation and AI (artificial intelligence) 20 to 40 per cent of American jobs in 10 to 20 years. This is essentially a consensus. Democratic 2020 US presidential candidates pose together before a debate Credit: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo You can see it happening right now. "People who understand technology know my concerns around automation are coming true as we speak. They see it in real time." His answer is the safety net of a universal basic Income for all citizens. To fund it, Mr Yang proposes a 10 per cent value-added tax on business transactions. That would raise about $800 billion of the estimated annual $2 trillion cost, hitting the massive low-tax paying technology companies harder than most. "Companies like Amazon pay very little, or in some cases no, federal income taxes. The technology companies will pay much more into the system," he said. According to some estimates spreading the money around would end up growing the US economy by $2.5 trillion by 2025. Mr Yang rejected the assertion that many people might spend their $1,000 a moth on drink or drugs. He said experiments in Finland and Alaska showed they were much more likely to spend it on groceries. And the amount wasn't enough for people to give up work.
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| Freed in prisoner swap, Ukraine's Sentsov warns: Don't trust Russia Posted: 10 Sep 2019 10:09 AM PDT  Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov on Tuesday warned against trusting Russian President Vladimir Putin, after Moscow freed him from jail in a historic prisoner swap with Kiev this weekend. Dressed casually in a polo shirt and jeans, the 43-year-old seemed calm and composed at his first news conference since flying to Kiev on Saturday along with 34 other Ukrainian prisoners. "As far as Russia's wishes for peace go, a wolf can put on a lamb's clothing, but his teeth don't disappear.
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| Family trapped atop waterfall send SOS message in plastic bottle and someone finds it Posted: 10 Sep 2019 02:04 AM PDT  It was a desperate act of hope by a father fearing he had brought his family into mortal peril.When Curtis Whitson found himself, his partner and his 13-year-old son trapped atop an isolated 40-foot waterfall in California, his only solution for possible escape was a plan he did not dare dream could really work.
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| Woman, 73, charged with killing her 82-year-old neighbor with brick at a home for seniors Posted: 10 Sep 2019 08:49 AM PDT  Chun Yong Oh is charged with first and second degree murder for the death of Hwa Cha Pak, her neighbor at a home for senior citizens in Maryland.
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| North Korea carried out super-large multiple rocket launcher test on Tuesday: KCNA Posted: 10 Sep 2019 02:16 PM PDT  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the testing of a super-large multiple rocket launcher on Tuesday, North Korean state media KCNA said on Wednesday. North Korea fired a new round of short-range projectiles on Tuesday, South Korean officials said, only hours after it signaled a new willingness to resume stalled denuclearization talks with the United States in late September. Kim, who had guided the testing of the same multiple rocket launcher before, said its capabilities have been "finally verified in terms of combat operation," and what remains to be done with the rocket launcher is a "running fire test," KCNA said, without elaborating on what the test would entail.
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| California and Alabama are the only two states that aren't participating in the giant antitrust investigation of Google, and neither is really saying why (GOOGL, FB) Posted: 09 Sep 2019 01:10 PM PDT  Every other US state, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, is taking part in the inquiry.
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| Bolton's rootin', tootin' exit: Today's Toon Posted: 10 Sep 2019 01:34 PM PDT  Want to keep up with USA TODAY's editorial cartoons? Bookmark this page. We'll update it frequently.
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| Did Trump and Bolton Break Over Iran—or the Leaks? Posted: 10 Sep 2019 02:40 PM PDT  Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast / Photo Sergei Gapon/GettyWhen President Donald Trump announced in 2017 that the U.S. would leave the Iran nuclear deal, his administration already had a plan in place. The Trump team didn't want to back away quietly from the accord. Instead, it wanted total economic annihilation of Tehran, the government's military proxies, and its most powerful business sectors in order to compel the Iranians to renegotiate or to convince the people of Iran to rise up against the regime.The White House and State Department pulled in outside experts from prominent hawkish think tanks to help. But the main architect of that policy was John Bolton. For years, Bolton had been steadfast in his strategy of maximum pressure against Tehran. And in April 2018, he found himself in a position to turn that advocacy into a reality after Trump tapped him to serve as his national security adviser. The marriage was not to be. Though the Trump administration has increasingly adopted a hard line on Iran, the president himself gradually drifting away from the hawkish approach that Bolton personified.Things came to a head over the last few weeks, according to two U.S. officials and three individuals involved in national security policy in the Trump administration. In conversations with the former national security adviser and others, Trump said he was considering meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September. One of the main asks by the Iranian regime for such a meeting was that the U.S. agree upfront to ease some sanctions on the country.Why the Trump-Bolton Marriage Was Doomed From the StartFor Bolton, the fact that Trump was even considering the request was the final straw, according to three U.S. officials—because it was evidence that the president had lost trust in his counsel. One U.S. official told Time magazine that as Bolton and Trump talked one last time, the conversation quickly centered around the question: "Why are you meeting with Rouhani?"On Tuesday, Trump announced that he had fired Bolton, citing disagreements "with many of his suggestions." Bolton quickly disputed being fired, telling The Daily Beast—among other outlets—that he had offered his resignation the night before.Whether he was forced out or left willingly merely obscures the fact that his final months on Team Trump were filled with tension, infighting, and increasingly divergent world views. The level of trust between the president and his now former national security adviser had rapidly deteriorated—to the point that President Trump had told several advisers to keep an eye on Bolton for press leaks and backstabbing.Two senior administration officials say that in recent weeks each had directly complained to Trump—including in the Oval Office—about Bolton, and their beliefs that the foreign-policy hawk was a prolific leaker to the media, including when he would lose out on internal squabbles and policy fights. The president, the sources noted, did not explicitly agree with their suspicions, but in both cases asked the venting official to be vigilant and report back to him with anything he needed to know.Trumpworld Gloats as Bolton BoltsOn Tuesday afternoon, Bolton messaged The Daily Beast that allegations that he was a leaker are "flatly incorrect." But the image of him as someone who dished about internal affairs was potent enough that it was offered up by Hill Republicans as a perfectly acceptable rationale for Trump to have given him the axe. "I like John Bolton," said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). "I thought he did a good job, I shared his worldview, however I think the trust was lost—there's a view that the leaking allegation is pretty sensitive to the president."While Bolton may or may not have leaked, he certainly didn't carry water, at least not to the degree that Trump famously demands. Multiple sources confirmed that the national security adviser ducked out of "soft-booked" and scheduled Sunday-show interviews over the summer explicitly because he didn't want to didn't want to defend Trump on several issues.The points of disagreement were not small, either. Two officials told The Daily Beast that Bolton argued aggressively against the president bringing representatives from the Taliban and the Kabul government to Camp David for a formal meeting, telling Trump that the optics of bringing members of the Taliban on U.S. soil so close to 9/11 would be inappropriate. Trump ultimately canceled the meeting. But one other official said Bolton also advised him to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond the 2020 presidential election—something the president has vehemently opposed. Bolton's hawkish advocacy, and unbending nature, had made him enemies in the upper echelons of the administration. He departed with few senior officials willing to pat him on the back on his way out. At a press briefing on Tuesday, neither Secretary of State Mike Pompeo nor Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin showed much sadness."There were many times Ambassador Bolton and I disagreed," Pompeo told reporters. "That's to be sure, but that's true with a lot of people with whom I interact."For several hours on Tuesday, Trump and his senior staff seemed to go out of their way to trash the just-departed Bolton on the record, via tweets and text messages. Bolton was more than happy to return fire in this quintessentially Trumpian flame war. At times, it devolved into an online debate between a president and his former national security adviser over whether this was a case of "you can't fire me, I quit," or the other way around.The mechanics of the dismissal were of less importance to foreign policy hands than the political outcomes that would result from it. Having advocated for years for the U.S. government to get demonstrably more aggressive towards Iran, Bolton's departure almost certainly made a diplomatic overture more likely. "Bolton's departure doesn't make a Trump-Rouhani meeting on the sidelines of UNGA a foregone conclusion. But it makes it somewhat more likely. An absolute precondition for any such encounter on Iran's side is a relaxation of U.S. sanctions," said Robert Malley, a former member of the National Security Council under President Obama. "We know that Trump was open to such a relaxation—and that Bolton was fundamentally opposed. There are still many obstacles to the Trump-Rouhani encounter, and Iran will want a substantial price for what it deems a substantial step. But at least one of those obstacles has just been removed."—With additional reporting by Sam Stein and Sam BrodeyTrump Wanted to Boast About His Own 'Camp David Accords' Before Taliban Deal CollapsedRead 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.
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| Aussie veterans hand over details of Viet Cong dead Posted: 10 Sep 2019 01:58 AM PDT  Australian Vietnam War veterans on Tuesday handed over information to help their former enemies locate the bodies of some of the 200,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers still classed as missing in action. At a ceremony with Vietnamese officials, a small team of Australian veterans shared a database including map references showing where 3,800 Vietnamese are believed to be buried after fights with Australian and New Zealand forces. "Basically it was the right thing to do," said team leader Bob Hall, a Vietnam veteran and researcher at the University of New South Wales who led the project.
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| With school shootings an increasingly common fear, some students and teachers have started writing their own wills Posted: 10 Sep 2019 10:45 AM PDT  Teachrs and students are statistically unlikely to find themselves hunted by a school shooter, but their perceived fear is still very real.
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| Moscow's Elections Show Putin Is Losing the War at Home Posted: 10 Sep 2019 01:25 PM PDT  President Vladimir Putin picked fights abroad to distract the Russian people. He's finally running out of distractions.
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| Video of toddler 'besties' running toward each other, hugging in NYC goes viral Posted: 09 Sep 2019 06:54 PM PDT  Two toddlers in New York City are warming hearts all over Facebook after one dad posted a video of these two "besties."
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| Thai Cabinet minister denies drug conviction report Posted: 10 Sep 2019 05:20 AM PDT  A member of Thailand's Cabinet said Tuesday that an Australian newspaper report that he was imprisoned there for four years on a drug smuggling conviction was concocted by his political enemies, and he has no plans to resign. Deputy Agriculture Minister Thammanat Prompao was responding to a report by the Sydney Morning Herald, based on court records and interviews, that he was arrested in 1993 and convicted of conspiracy to import heroin. Rumors of Thammanat's arrest circulated in July before he was sworn into his post in Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha's government.
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| Kamala Harris apologizes for her response to slur after backlash from disability community Posted: 09 Sep 2019 02:30 PM PDT  After a supporter used an offensive term to talk about the president at her event, Kamala Harris laughed and said "Well said."
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| All the tech moguls who have been linked to Jeffrey Epstein after he became a convicted sex offender (MSFT, TSLA) Posted: 09 Sep 2019 06:31 AM PDT  The Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are among the tech moguls who have been linked to Epstein in the years after his plea deal.
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| Meghan McCain Lashes Trump: You’re OK With Inviting the Taliban but Not Hurricane Refugees Posted: 10 Sep 2019 10:09 AM PDT  The women of The View on Tuesday tore into President Donald Trump for rejecting over a hundred Bahamian survivors of Hurricane Dorian, with conservative co-host Meghan McCain taking the president to task for inviting the Taliban to Camp David but refusing entry into the United States for refugees of a natural disaster.After more than one-hundred evacuees were forced off a ferry heading to Florida because they didn't have visas, acting Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan reassured hurricane survivors that they would be allowed to enter the United States, claiming there was just "some confusion" in the aftermath of the devastating storm that nearly wiped out the islands.Trump, however, saw things differently, claiming America needed to be extra careful with who it allows in from the Bahamas."I don't want to allow people that weren't supposed to be in the Bahamas to come into the United States including some very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers," he said to reporters on Monday."You know, this is a guy who has the Taliban—he's going to have a big meeting with the Taliban," liberal co-host Joy Behar exclaimed. "He loves Kim Jong-Un and Putin, and yet these people who are fleeing a hurricane are suddenly criminals. He's so despicable. He makes my head stand up—my hair. I can't stand him!"McCain, meanwhile, said that "the humanity seems completely removed" from Trump, adding that the "best part of America" is that we're supposed to be the "shining beacon on the hill" and yet the president is now refusing to help people devastated by a natural disaster.This prompted co-host Whoopi Goldberg to openly wonder how anyone can look at this and say that this isn't a racial problem, considering the vast majority of the Bahamian survivors are black."White people are constantly saying you always talk about race," Goldberg added. "Well, this is a race card. The card can't get any bigger than this!"Later on, McCan went back to the comparison between Trump's willingness to host the Taliban at the presidential retreat days before the 9/11 anniversary and his dismissive attitude towards evacuees."The juxtaposition of hypothetically inviting al Qaeda to Camp David at the same time, whatever, terrorists, any terrorist," the conservative host shouted. "I thought it was a joke and then I started screaming to my husband."She continued: "The idea of doing it so close to 9/11 and saying that these people are gang members, it should be infuriating. You're okay with terrorists. You're not okay with refugees from a hurricane!"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.
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| 489 illegal immigrants with detainers released in North Carolina: report Posted: 10 Sep 2019 04:30 AM PDT  A new report claims 489 illegal immigrants with detainers were released across North Carolina over the past 10 months. Judge Andrew Napolitano reacts.
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| Archbishop of Canterbury apologizes for massacre in India Posted: 10 Sep 2019 08:02 AM PDT  The archbishop of Canterbury said Tuesday he regrets a massacre by British colonial forces of hundreds of Indians participating in a peaceful demonstration for independence 100 years ago. Archbishop Justin Welby spoke at a memorial for victims of the attack in northwest India. The massacre took place at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on April 13, 1919, when the British Indian Army opened fire at a crowd demonstrating for independence, killing more than 300 and injuring 1,200.
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| China warns the UK could be committing 'hostile action' if it sends carrier into territory Posted: 09 Sep 2019 12:49 PM PDT  Britain has been warned by China that the deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth to the South China Sea could be viewed as a "hostile action". The MoD plans to send Britain's new aircraft carrier to the Asia Pacific region on her first operational deployment, due in 2021. The government is keen to assert freedom of navigation through international waters and, alongside US and Australian allies, has been forthright in defending such actions against an increasingly belligerent China. The planned deployment will see F-35 stealth jets from the US Marine Corps embarked on the 65,000 ton ship. Speaking in London last week Major General Su Guanghui, China's Defence Attaché to the UK, said: "If the US and UK join hands in a challenge or violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China, that would be hostile action". China reacted angrily last year when HMS Albion, one of the Royal Navy's amphibious assault ships, transited the South China Sea, close to the Paracel Islands, over which China, along with other nations, claim sovereignty. At the time the British government was accused of "provocative actions" in the contested region. The MoD insisted HMS Albion was always in international waters. The Paracels are controlled by China but also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. Q&A; | South China Sea dispute China's claim to the 12-mile limit around the islands - and the similarly uninhabited Spratly islands 200 miles further south - is not internationally recognised. Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to the UK Insisted that China would "never seek hegemony, expansion or a sphere of influence". "The South China Sea is a vast ocean... we have no objection to people sailing around there but do not enter Chinese territorial waters within 12 nautical miles," he said. "If you don't do that, there shouldn't be a problem. The South China Sea is wide enough to have free navigation of shipping." China has been accused in recent years of building artificial islands in the South China Sea to expand its military reach, in violation of international law. However, Mr Liu insisted that whilst "the current international may not be perfect...one cannot scrap it, start all over again or cherry-pick what one wants". He strongly condemned the confrontation with HMS Albion, saying it had created a lot of problems in China-UK relations and suggested the UK had been acting on behalf of a foreign power, believed to be the US. "It was to show muscle," he said. "The UK should not do this dirty job for somebody else." A Government spokesperson said: "The UK has enduring interests in the region and is committed to maintaining regional security. The presence of international navies in the South China Sea is normal and the Royal Navy is no exception to this. "We remain committed to asserting rights of freedom of navigation at sea and in the air as provided for by international law."
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| Malnourished 13-year-old boy weighing 65 pounds escapes from Ohio home; parents charged Posted: 10 Sep 2019 03:18 PM PDT ![Malnourished 13-year-old boy weighing 65 pounds escapes from Ohio home; parents charged]( "Malnourished 13-year-old boy weighing 65 pounds escapes from Ohio home; parents charged") The 13-year-old boy had a very strict vegan diet that basically consisted of almonds, bananas and grapes, Crawford County Prosecutor Matt Crall said.
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| Tulsi Gabbard: The Rest of Democratic Primary Field Has Embraced ‘Open Borders’ Posted: 10 Sep 2019 09:08 AM PDT  Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) derided her fellow Democratic presidential candidates during a recent interview for embracing permissive immigration policies, accusing them of support for "open borders."Asked if she believes "open borders" is a fair descriptor of the positions embraced by her Democratic primary opponents, Gabbard told YouTube host Dave Rubin that it was an accurate label and dismissed the oft-repeated Democratic rejoinder that conservatives use the phrase to tar their political adversaries."I don't support open borders. Without secure borders, we don't really have a country," she said. "And while some of the other Democratic candidates will say 'well, open borders that's a conservative argument and that's not really what's being advocated for' — if you look at the practical implications of some of the things they're advocating for, it is essentially open borders."Long-shot presidential contender Julian Castro, the former secretary of housing and urban development under President Obama, managed to pull the Democratic primary field leftward on immigration during the campaign's first debate, by asking those on stage to commit to decriminalizing illegal border crossings. All ten candidates on stage, with the notable exception of Beto O'Rourke, endorsed Castro's plan, as did eight out of the ten candidates who took the stage the following night.Gabbard — who failed to qualify for the third Democratic primary debate, scheduled for Thursday night — has grown increasingly vocal in her opposition to the Democratic establishment.Appearing on Fox News's Tucker Carlson Tonight last month, Gabbard slammed the Democratic National Committee, charging that there is a lack of transparency in the process that determines who makes the debate stage."I think the bigger problem is that the whole process really lacks transparency," Gabbard said. "People deserve having that transparency because ultimately it's the people who will decide who our Democratic nominee will be."The Army veteran went on to suggest that the lack of transparency furthers the perception that a group of connected political elites effectively chooses the president by winnowing the field absent voter input."Really what they see is a small group of really powerful political elites, the establishment making decisions that serve their interests and maintaining that power while the rest of us are left outside. The American people are left behind," she said.
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| Ukraine president meets tycoon Kolomoisky amid concerns over their business ties Posted: 10 Sep 2019 12:36 PM PDT  Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met business tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky on Tuesday, the president's office said, the first reported meeting since Zelenskiy's inauguration in May between the two men who had long-standing business ties. The president's relationship with Kolomoisky, one of the richest businessman in Ukraine, has been under heavy scrutiny since the start of Zelenskiy's election campaign, amid fears that the tycoon may be wielding influence behind the scenes.
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| Apple just announced the first Apple Watch with an always-on display (AAPL) Posted: 10 Sep 2019 11:03 AM PDT  Apple unveiled its new Apple Watch at its annual event in Cupertino, California. It has an always-on display that keeps the battery life at 18 hours.
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| See Photos of the New 2020 Audi RS7 Sportback Posted: 09 Sep 2019 03:01 PM PDT |
| Chinese State-Run Paper Singles Out Navarro for Trade ‘Lies’ Posted: 09 Sep 2019 07:38 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. The Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper took aim at one of Washington's most prominent China hawks, calling recent comments by Peter Navarro unconstructive "lies" that hinder the progress of trade talks.Navarro, an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, repeated accusations he's previously termed China's "seven deadly sins" during a Sunday interview with Yahoo Finance -- including alleged cyberattacks, forced technology transfers and currency manipulation. He also said China is taking on the "full burden" of U.S. tariffs on its products."All these preposterous comments are not constructive at all, and go against the larger direction of the two sides taking real action to create favorable conditions for the negotiations," Beijing's state-run People's Daily wrote in a commentary Tuesday. Navarro intended to "throw cold water on international markets," it said.Those "irresponsible" comments should stop, and the U.S. should show "sincerity" and "action" to create condition for the negotiations, the paper said.China and the U.S. will hold face-to-face trade negotiations in Washington in the coming weeks, after a deterioration in relations last month left global investors reeling amid increasing evidence the conflict is harming both nations. The U.S. Agriculture Department's undersecretary for trade, Ted McKinney, also used provocative language on Monday, calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a "communist zealot.""It is important for both China and the United States to grasp the opportunity of stabilizing bilateral trade and economic ties," the People's Daily commentary said, adding that the two countries should work together in the direction set by their leaders.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Miao Han in Beijing at mhan22@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey Black at jblack25@bloomberg.net, Sharon Chen, Karen LeighFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Relatives, officials attend mass for Mugabe in Singapore Posted: 10 Sep 2019 04:39 AM PDT  Relatives and government officials attended a mass for Zimbabwe's ex-president Robert Mugabe in Singapore on Tuesday after arriving in the country where he died to collect his body. Mugabe, a guerrilla leader who swept to power after Zimbabwe's independence from Britain and went on to rule for 37 years until he was ousted in 2017, died on Friday, aged 95. Family members and officials arrived in Singapore, where he was treated for several months before dying, early Tuesday on a chartered flight.
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| Mexico trans women fight for justice as murders unpunished Posted: 09 Sep 2019 09:00 PM PDT  Months after Kenya Cuevas' friend was slain in front of her, a funeral wreath with Cuevas' name on it arrived at her doorstep. The implication was clear: Keep making noise about murdered transgender women and you'll be next. Mexico has become the world's second deadliest country after Brazil for transgender people, with 261 transgender women slain in 2013-2018, according to a recent study by the LGBTQ rights group Letra S.
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| Forests in Grand Bahama left unrecognizable after Dorian's wrath Posted: 10 Sep 2019 11:54 AM PDT  Before Hurricane Dorian, Grand Bahama was a vibrant tropical island filled with life, but in the week since the devastating storm, the island no longer resembles its lush former self."From a few hundred feet above, the tropical paradise of Grand Bahama Island looks more like the Desert Southwest," AccuWeather National Reporter Jonathan Petramala said.Closer to the surface, people can see why the island looks so different from above."The trees tell the story of just how violent this storm was," Petramala said. "This kind of damage you'd expect to see in a powerful tornado, but this was a major hurricane that basically sat in one place for nearly 48 hours." This close-up look shows just how devastating Hurricane Dorian was to the trees across Grand Bahama. (AccuWeather Photo/ Jonathan Petramala) Not only have the trees been completely stripped of their foliage, but they all seem to have a strange but uniform marking about 20 feet above the ground."As far as the eye can see, the forest is debarked at the same level where the wind and the rain scoured it away," Petramala explained.These markings were not caused by the wind, but the powerful waves crashing at the height of the storm surge that flooded the forest.The island appears different all the way from space as before and after satellite imagery recently released by NASA shows. Grand Bahama as seen from space. The top image was taken on July 14, 2019, while the bottom image was taken on Sept. 9, 2019. The difference in the island's color is due to the lack of vegetation after intense winds from Hurricane Dorian ripped all of the foliage off of vegetation across the island. (Images/ NASA Worldview) Standing in the eerie, barren forest is a thing out of nightmares, but looking down at the ground reveals a sight even more bazaar than the stripped trees."I've never seen this," Petramala said with astonishment. "A fish just sitting right out here in the forest.""They obviously came in with the surge. But unfortunately, they couldn't make it back out. However, it shows just how much water and wind came through here."This dramatic change in the scenery is astonishing, but it's a second thought for those in communities across the island still reeling from Dorian's catastrophic damage.Sustained winds over 185 mph and wind gusts over 220 mph flatted reinforced, well-built concrete buildings across the island, including the jail, according to Petramala."I never thought it was going to end," Chairman of High Rock Township Eric Beilloue told AccuWeather. "I thought that I heard the front side of [Dorian] was the worst, but the back side was more severe."High Rock Township, east of Freeport, Grand Bahama, is home to a small community comprised of just a few hundred residents."While the damage was catastrophic, miraculously, most of the small community of 200 survived, but officials still don't know the final toll." Petramala said.At least 50 deaths have been reported in the Bahamas, but that number is expected to rise.The debris strewn everywhere is making it difficult to search for those that are still missing. This is the case not only in High Rock Township, but all across the island and the neighboring Aboco Islands, which also took the full brunt of the historic hurricane.Reporting by Jonathan Petramala from the Bahamas.
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