| Elizabeth Warren's campaign is 30% behind in quarterly fundraising 4 days before deadline Posted: 28 Dec 2019 01:57 PM PST  The campaign said it was doing "something different" as it "probably won't" raise as much as last quarter by the December 31 FEC reporting deadline.
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| Municipal police chief arrested over Mexican Mormon massacre Posted: 28 Dec 2019 06:22 AM PST  Mexican authorities have arrested a municipal police chief for his suspected links to the killing of three women and six children of U.S.-Mexican origin in northern Mexico last month, local media and an official said on Friday. Suspected drug cartel hitmen shot dead the nine women and children from families of Mormon origin in Sonora state on Nov. 4, sparking outrage in Mexico and the United States. Several Mexican media outlets reported that law enforcement agents arrested Fidel Alejandro Villegas, police chief of the municipality of Janos, which lies in the neighboring state of Chihuahua, on suspicion of involvement in the crime.
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| Winter weather: Storm to hit nation's middle from north to south, delaying flights Posted: 28 Dec 2019 08:59 AM PST ![Winter weather: Storm to hit nation's middle from north to south, delaying flights]( "Winter weather: Storm to hit nation's middle from north to south, delaying flights") Weather forecasters warn of flight delays across the Midwest, with some white-out conditions. Road travelers should pack a flashlight and food.
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| In China's Crackdown on Muslims, Children Have Not Been Spared Posted: 29 Dec 2019 08:37 AM PST  HOTAN, China -- The first-grader was a good student and beloved by her classmates, but she was inconsolable, and it was no mystery to her teacher why."The most heartbreaking thing is that the girl is often slumped over on the table alone and crying," he wrote on his blog. "When I asked around, I learned that it was because she missed her mother."The mother, he noted, had been sent to a detention camp for Muslim ethnic minorities. The girl's father had passed away, he added. But instead of letting other relatives raise her, authorities put her in a state-run boarding school -- one of hundreds of such facilities that have opened in China's far western Xinjiang region.As many as 1 million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others have been sent to internment camps and prisons in Xinjiang over the past three years, an indiscriminate clampdown aimed at weakening the population's devotion to Islam. Even as these mass detentions have provoked global outrage, though, the Chinese government is pressing ahead with a parallel effort targeting the region's children.Nearly a half-million children have been separated from their families and placed in boarding schools so far, according to a planning document published on a government website, and the ruling Communist Party has set a goal of operating one to two such schools in each of Xinjiang's 800-plus townships by the end of next year.The party has presented the schools as a way to fight poverty, arguing that they make it easier for children to attend classes if their parents live or work in remote areas or are unable to care for them. And it is true that many rural families are eager to send their children to these schools, especially when they are older.But the schools are also designed to assimilate and indoctrinate children at an early age, away from the influence of their families, according to the planning document, published in 2017. Students are often forced to enroll because authorities have detained their parents and other relatives, ordered them to take jobs far from home or judged them unfit guardians.The schools are off-limits to outsiders and tightly guarded, and it is difficult to interview residents in Xinjiang without putting them at risk of arrest. But a troubling picture of these institutions emerges from interviews with Uighur parents living in exile and a review of documents published online, including procurement records, government notices, state media reports and the blogs of teachers in the schools.State media and official documents describe education as a key component of President Xi Jinping's campaign to wipe out extremist violence in Xinjiang, a ruthless and far-reaching effort that also includes mass internment camps and sweeping surveillance measures. The idea is to use the boarding schools as incubators of a new generation of Uighurs who are secular and more loyal to both the party and the nation."The long-term strategy is to conquer, to captivate, to win over the young generation from the beginning," said Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington who has studied Chinese policies that break up Uighur families.To carry out the assimilation campaign, authorities in Xinjiang have recruited tens of thousands of teachers from across China, often Han Chinese, the nation's dominant ethnic group. At the same time, prominent Uighur educators have been imprisoned, and teachers have been warned they will be sent to the camps if they resist.Thrust into a regimented environment and immersed in an unfamiliar culture, children in the boarding schools are only allowed visits with family once every week or two -- a restriction intended to "break the impact of the religious atmosphere on children at home," in the words of the 2017 policy document.The campaign echoes past policies in Canada, the United States and Australia that took indigenous children from their families and placed them in residential schools to forcibly assimilate them."The big difference in China is the scale and how systematic it is," said Darren Byler, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado who studies Uighur culture and society.Public discussion in China of the trauma inflicted on Uighur children by separating them from their families is rare. References on social media are usually quickly censored. Instead, the state-controlled news media focuses on the party's goals in the region, where predominantly Muslim minorities make up more than half the population of 25 million.Visiting a kindergarten near the frontier city of Kashgar this month, Chen Quanguo, the party's top official in Xinjiang, urged teachers to ensure children learn to "love the party, love the motherland and love the people."Science vs. ScriptureAbdurahman Tohti left Xinjiang and immigrated to Turkey in 2013, leaving behind cotton farming to sell used cars in Istanbul. But when his wife and two young children returned to China for a visit a few years ago, they disappeared.He heard that his wife was sent to prison, like many Uighurs who have traveled abroad and returned to China. His parents were detained too. The fate of his children, though, was a mystery.Then in January, he spotted his 4-year-old son in a video on Chinese social media that had apparently been recorded by a teacher. The boy seemed to be at a state-run boarding school and was speaking Chinese, a language his family did not use.Tohti, 30, said he was excited to see the child and relieved he was safe -- but also gripped by desperation."What I fear the most," he said, "is that the Chinese government is teaching him to hate his parents and Uighur culture."Beijing has sought for decades to suppress Uighur resistance to Chinese rule in Xinjiang, in part by using schools in the region to indoctrinate Uighur children. Until recently, though, the government had allowed most classes to be taught in the Uighur language, partly because of a shortage of Chinese-speaking teachers.Then, after a surge of anti-government and anti-Chinese violence, including ethnic riots in 2009 in Urumqi, the regional capital, and deadly attacks by Uighur militants in 2014, Xi ordered the party to take a harder line in Xinjiang, according to internal documents leaked to The New York Times earlier this year.In December 2016, the party announced that the work of the region's education bureau was entering a new phase. Schools were to become an extension of the security drive in Xinjiang, with a new emphasis on the Chinese language, patriotism and loyalty to the party.In the 2017 policy document, posted on the education ministry's website, officials from Xinjiang outlined their new priorities and ranked expansion of the boarding schools at the top.Without specifying Islam by name, the document characterized religion as a pernicious influence on children and said having students live at school would "reduce the shock of going back and forth between learning science in the classroom and listening to scripture at home."By early 2017, the document said, nearly 40% of all middle-school and elementary-school age children in Xinjiang -- or about 497,800 students -- were boarding in schools. At the time, the government was ramping up efforts to open boarding schools and add dorms to schools, and more recent reports suggest the push is continuing.Chinese is also replacing Uighur as the main language of instruction in Xinjiang. Most elementary and middle school students are now taught in Chinese, up from just 38% three years ago. And thousands of new rural preschools have been built to expose minority children to Chinese at an earlier age, state media reported.The government argues that teaching Chinese is critical to improving the economic prospects of minority children, and many Uighurs agree. But Uighur activists said the overall campaign amounts to an effort to erase what remains of their culture.Several Uighurs living abroad said the government had put their children in boarding schools without their consent.Mahmutjan Niyaz, 33, a Uighur businessman who moved to Istanbul in 2016, said his 5-year-old daughter was sent to one after his brother and sister-in-law, the girl's guardians, were confined in an internment camp.Other relatives could have cared for her, but authorities refused to let them. Now, Niyaz said, the school has changed the girl."Before, my daughter was playful and outgoing," he said. "But after she went to the school, she looked very sad in the photos."'Kindness Students'In a dusty village near the ancient Silk Road city of Hotan in southern Xinjiang, nestled among fields of barren walnut trees and simple concrete homes, the elementary school stood out.It was surrounded by a tall brick wall with two layers of barbed wire on top. Cameras were mounted on every corner. And at the entrance, a guard wearing a black helmet and a protective vest stood beside a metal detector.It wasn't always like this. Last year, officials converted the school in Kasipi village into a full-time boarding school.Kang Jide, a Chinese language teacher at the school, described the frenzied process on his public blog on the Chinese social media platform WeChat: In just a few days, all the day students were transferred. Classrooms were rearranged. Bunk beds were set up. Then, 270 new children arrived, leaving the school with 430 boarders, each in the sixth grade or below.Officials called them "kindness students," referring to the party's generosity in making special arrangements for their education.The government said children in Xinjiang's boarding schools are taught better hygiene and etiquette as well as Chinese and science skills that will help them succeed in modern China."My heart suddenly melted after seeing the splendid heartfelt smiles on the faces of these left-behind children," said a retired official visiting a boarding elementary school in Lop County near Hotan, according to a state media report. He added that the party had given them "an environment to be carefree, study happily, and grow healthy and strong."But Kang wrote that being separated from their families took a toll on the children. Some never received visits from relatives, or remained on campus during the holidays, even after most teachers left. And his pupils often begged to use his phone to call their parents."Sometimes, when they hear the voice on the other end of the call, the children will start crying, and they hide in the corner because they don't want me to see," he wrote."It's not just the children," he added. "The parents on the other end also miss their children, of course, so much so that it breaks their hearts and they're trembling."The internment camps, which the government describes as job training centers, have cast a shadow even on students who are not boarders. Before the conversion of the school, Kang posted a photo of a letter that an 8-year-old girl had written to her father, who had been sent to a camp."Daddy, where are you?" the girl wrote in an uneven scrawl. "Daddy, why don't you come back?""I'm sorry, Daddy," she continued. "You must study hard too."Nevertheless, Kang was generally supportive of the schools. On his blog, he described teaching Uighur students as an opportunity to "water the flowers of the motherland.""Kindness students" receive more attention and resources than day students. Boarding schools are required to offer psychological counseling, for example, and in Kasipi, children were given a set of supplies that included textbooks, clothes and a red Young Pioneer scarf.Learning Chinese was the priority, Kang wrote, though students were also immersed in traditional Chinese culture, including classical poetry, and taught songs praising the party.On a recent visit to the school, children in red and blue uniforms could be seen playing in a yard beside buildings marked "cafeteria" and "student dormitory." At the entrance, school officials refused to answer questions.Tighter security has become the norm at schools in Xinjiang. In Hotan alone, more than $1 million has been allocated in the past three years to buy surveillance and security equipment for schools, including helmets, shields and spiked batons, according to procurement records. At the entrance to one elementary school, a facial recognition system had been installed.Kang recently wrote on his blog that he had moved on to a new job teaching in northern Xinjiang. Reached by telephone there, he declined to be interviewed. But before hanging up, he said his students in Kasipi had made rapid progress in learning Chinese."Every day I feel very fulfilled," he said.'Engineers of the Human Soul'To carry out its campaign, the party needed not only new schools but also an army of teachers, an overhaul of the curriculum -- and political discipline. Teachers suspected of dissent were punished, and textbooks were rewritten to weed out material deemed subversive."Teachers are the engineers of the human soul," the education bureau of Urumqi recently wrote in an open letter, deploying a phrase first used by Stalin to describe writers and other cultural workers.The party launched an intensive effort to recruit teachers for Xinjiang from across China. Last year, nearly 90,000 were brought in, chosen partly for their political reliability, officials said at a news conference this year. The influx amounted to about one-fifth of Xinjiang's teachers last year, according to government data.The new recruits, often ethnic Han, and the teachers they joined, mostly Uighurs, were both warned to toe the line. Those who opposed the Chinese-language policy or resisted the new curriculum were labeled "two-faced" and punished.The deputy secretary-general of the oasis town of Turpan, writing earlier this year, described such teachers as "scum of the Chinese people" and accused them of being "bewitched by extremist religious ideology."Teachers were urged to express their loyalty, and the public was urged to keep an eye on them. A sign outside a kindergarten in Hotan invited parents to report teachers who made "irresponsible remarks" or participated in unauthorized religious worship.Officials in Xinjiang also spent two years inspecting and revising hundreds of textbooks and other teaching material, according to the 2017 policy document.Some who helped the party write and edit the old textbooks ended up in prison, including Yalqun Rozi, a prominent scholar and literary critic who helped compile a set of textbooks on Uighur literature that was used for more than a decade.Rozi was charged with attempted subversion and sentenced to 15 years in prison last year, according to his son, Kamalturk Yalqun. Several other members of the committee that compiled the textbooks were arrested too, he said."Instead of welcoming the cultural diversity of Uighurs, China labeled it a malignant tumor," said Yalqun, who lives in Philadelphia.There is evidence that some Uighur children have been sent to boarding schools far from their homes.Kalbinur Tursun, 36, entrusted five of her children to relatives when she left Xinjiang to give birth in Istanbul but has been unable to contact them for several years.Last year, she saw her daughter Ayshe Tursun, then 6, in a video circulating on Chinese social media. It had been posted by a user who appeared to be a teacher at a school in Hotan -- more than 300 miles away from their home in Kashgar."My children are so young; they just need their mother and father," Tursun said, expressing concern about how authorities were raising them. "I fear they will think that I'm the enemy -- that they won't accept me and will hate me."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Iraq beefs up security around air base in country's west Posted: 29 Dec 2019 03:09 AM PST ![Iraq beefs up security around air base in country's west]( "Iraq beefs up security around air base in country's west") AL-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) — An Iraqi general said Sunday that security has been beefed up around the Ain al-Asad air base, a sprawling complex in the western Anbar desert that hosts U.S. forces, following a series of attacks. Maj. Gen. Raad Mahmoud told The Associated Press that investigations were still underway to determine who was behind the unclaimed attacks on bases across Iraq, including one earlier this month in which five rockets landed inside Ain al-Asad. A U.S. defense contractor was killed Friday in a rocket attack at a different Iraqi military compound near Kirkuk where U.S. service members are based.
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| Politicians and celebrities spoke out after the New York machete attack that shook the Jewish community to its core Posted: 29 Dec 2019 01:53 PM PST  Five people were stabbed in a rabbi's home in Monsey, New York during a Hanukkah celebration on Saturday.
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| Iran blasts France for 'interference' over jailed academic Posted: 29 Dec 2019 04:49 AM PST  Tehran accused Paris on Sunday of "interference" in the case of an Iranian-French academic held in the Islamic republic, saying she is considered an Iranian national and faces security charges. France said on Friday it summoned Iran's ambassador to protest the imprisonment of Fariba Adelkhah and another academic, Roland Marchal of France, saying their detention was "intolerable". Their imprisonment has added to distrust between Tehran and Paris at a time when French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to play a leading role in defusing tensions between Iran and its arch-foe the United States. "The statement by France's foreign ministry regarding an Iranian national is an act of interference and we see their request to have no legal basis," Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a statement. "The individual in question (Adelkhah) is an Iranian national and has been arrested over 'acts of espionage'," he said, adding that her lawyer had knowledge about the details of the case which is being investigated. Iran does not recognise dual nationality and has repeatedly rebuffed calls from foreign governments for consular access to those it has detained during legal proceedings. France's President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to play a leading role in defusing tensions between Iran and the US Credit: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP In its statement on Friday, the French foreign ministry reiterated its call for the release of Adelkhah and Marshal. It also reaffirmed France's demand for consular access. In response, Mousavi said Marshal was detained for "conspiring against national security", that he has had "consular access multiple times" and that his lawyer was in touch with the judiciary. A specialist in Shiite Islam and a research director at Sciences Po University in Paris, Adelkhah's arrest for suspected "espionage" was confirmed in July. Her colleague Marchal was arrested while visiting Adelkhah, according to his lawyer. A judge had decided to release the two on bail this month, as they had been entitled to it after six months in detention, their lawyer said. But this was opposed by the prosecution, and as a result the case was referred to Iran's Revolutionary Court to settle the dispute, Iran's semi-official news agency ISNA reported. The Revolutionary Court typically handles high-profile cases in Iran, including those involving espionage. The university and supporters said this week that Adelkhah and another detained academic, British-Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert, had started an indefinite hunger strike just before Christmas. British-Australian national, Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, has gone on indefinite hunger strike in Iranian prison Credit: Nicholas Razzell The French statement said the ministry had made clear to the ambassador "our grave concern over the situation of Mrs Fariba Adelkhah, who has stopped taking food". "Creating hype cannot stop Iran's judiciary from handling the case, especially considering the security charges the two face," Mousavi said. Mousavi had previously dismissed similar calls from France, saying it should remember that "Iran is sovereign and independent" and interference in its affairs is "unacceptable". The latest tensions come after Xiyue Wang, an American scholar who had been serving 10 years on espionage charges, was released by Iran this month in exchange for Massoud Soleimani, an Iranian who had been held in the US for allegedly breaching sanctions. Iran has said it is open to more such prisoner swaps with the United States. Tehran is still holding several other foreign nationals in high profile cases, including British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Mohammad Bagher Namazi. US-Iran tensions have soared since Washington pulled out of a landmark nuclear agreement with Tehran last year and reimposed crippling sanctions.
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| How Did Britain Plan To Stop A Surprise Russian Invasion? Nuke Their Path Posted: 28 Dec 2019 04:00 PM PST  A crazy plan.
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| Churchgoers kill gunman who shot two during Texas service Posted: 29 Dec 2019 02:37 PM PST  Worshippers in the US state of Texas shot dead a gunman who opened fire during a Sunday service, ending an attack that killed one parishioner and wounded another, police said. The latest US shooting at a house of worship took place in the suburban Fort Worth community of White Settlement on Sunday morning when the gunman entered West Freeway Church of Christ, officials said. "A couple of members of the church returned fire, striking the suspect who died at the scene," White Settlement Police Chief J.P. Bevering told reporters.
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| Turkey evacuates wounded after deadly Mogadishu blast Posted: 29 Dec 2019 01:48 AM PST  A Turkish military cargo plane landed in the Somali capital on Sunday to evacuate people badly wounded in a devastating truck bombing that killed at least 90 people including two Turkish nationals. The plane also brought emergency medical staff and supplies, the Turkish embassy said in a tweet, adding these had been taken to a Turkish-run hospital in Mogadishu. Somali Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir Mareye told state media that 10 Somalis who were badly wounded in Saturday's blast would be evacuated to Turkey.
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| "I was taken": 7-year-old torn from dad at U.S. border Posted: 28 Dec 2019 11:28 PM PST  CBS News documentary "The Faces of Family Separation" follows the harrowing journey of four migrant families fleeing violence in Central America, only to be split apart after arriving in the U.S.
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| Police: All 7 killed in Hawaii tour helicopter crash Posted: 27 Dec 2019 10:02 PM PST  Tour helicopter operations in Hawaii have come under increased scrutiny after the deadly crash this week, one of several recent accidents in the state, with a congressman calling the trips unsafe and lacking proper oversight. There were no survivors of a Thursday tour helicopter crash that killed three minors and four adults, officials confirmed Saturday. The helicopter that was set to tour the rugged Na Pali Coast, the picturesque and remote northern shoreline of Kauai that was featured in the film "Jurassic Park," crashed on a mountaintop Thursday.
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| Russia claims to have deployed Avangard hypersonic missiles that 'cannot be intercepted' Posted: 27 Dec 2019 07:26 PM PST  Russia says it has deployed its first hypersonic missiles which President Putin claims are capable of transporting nuclear warheads at 27 times the speed of sound. The location of the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle has not been confirmed but has been widely reported to be the Urals, a mountain range in western Russia. Sergei Shoigu, Russia's defence minister confirmed that the missiles entered service at 10am Moscow time on Friday, describing their deployment as a "landmark event". Vladimir Putin said that the missiles put Russia ahead of the rest of the world. "Not a single country possesses hypersonic weapons, let alone continental-range hypersonic weapons," he said, arguing that the West was "playing catch-up with us". "The Avangard is invulnerable to intercept by any existing and prospective missile defence means of the potential adversary." Vladimir Putin said that the West is now "playing catch-up" Credit: REUTERS Moscow said the Avangard is launched on top of an intercontinental ballistic missile but it can make sharp manoeuvres on the way to its target, making it more difficult to intercept. The Russian government had announced the missiles last year and in March 2018 Mr Putin likened the missile to a "meteorite" and a "fireball" in a state address. The Avangard, which Mr Putin said could penetrate current and future missile defence systems, can carry a nuclear weapon of up to two megatons. The Pentagon responded to the deployment by saying it would "not characterise the Russian claims" about the Avangard's capabilities. The United States has its own hypersonic missile programme, as does China, which in 2014 said it had carried out a test flight. The US has been developing hypersonic weapons in recent years. In August, Mark Esper, the defence secretary, said the Pentagon was some years from deploying its own missiles.
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| Islamic State group says it beheaded Christian prisoners in Nigeria Posted: 28 Dec 2019 10:55 AM PST  The Islamic State group released a video purporting to show its militants beheading 10 Christian men in Nigeria, saying it was part of a campaign to avenge the deaths of its former leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and its spokesman.
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| Chinese man charged with taking photos of US Navy base Posted: 29 Dec 2019 03:24 PM PST  A Chinese man has been arrested by US authorities while he photographed an American Navy base in the Florida Keys.
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| Nazi Germany Could Have Won World War II, Until It Invaded Russia Posted: 29 Dec 2019 06:00 AM PST  Then it was all over.
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| WH releases info on call with Putin after Russia does Posted: 29 Dec 2019 11:22 AM PST  Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a phone call on Sunday, thanked President Trump for passing on information that helped prevent "acts of terrorism" in Russia, the Kremlin said.
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| Scuffles break out in Paris as pensions protesters, 'yellow vests' march Posted: 28 Dec 2019 09:08 AM PST  Protesters marching against the French government's planned pension reform clashed with the police in Paris on Saturday as police fired tear gas to disperse some groups of demonstrators. French trade unions have spearheaded nationwide strikes since early December in an outcry over President Emmanuel Macron's pensions overhaul, disrupting schools, railways and roads, while lending support to regular protests. On Saturday "yellow vests" - an anti-government movement that sprung up a year ago as a backlash against the high cost of living - joined a rally of several thousand people against the pensions shake-up.
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| Slippery salvation: Could seaweed as cow feed help climate? Posted: 29 Dec 2019 07:28 AM PST  Coastal Maine has a lot of seaweed , and a fair number of cows. The researchers — from a marine science lab, an agriculture center and universities in northern New England — are working on a plan to feed seaweed to cows to gauge whether that can help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. The concept of feeding seaweed to cows has gained traction in recent years because of some studies that have shown its potential to cut back on methane.
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| 2020 will likely be a groundbreaking year in space. Here's a calendar of the biggest rocket launches, meteor showers, eclipses, and more. Posted: 28 Dec 2019 05:47 AM PST  If all goes well next year, SpaceX and Boeing will launch their first astronauts for NASA, and Mars will gain three new rovers.
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| Aladdin proposes to Jasmine during curtain call Posted: 28 Dec 2019 03:10 AM PST  A shining, shimmering, splendid ring was placed on Jasmine's finger.
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| Trump Retweets Name of Alleged Whistleblower Posted: 28 Dec 2019 06:38 PM PST  For the first time since the Ukraine scandal erupted, President Trump has retweeted the name of the alleged whistleblower and directly displayed it to his 68 million followers. The late-night retweet just before midnight on Friday went largely unnoticed at first, but was still displayed in the president's Twitter feed as of Saturday evening, by which point it had been retweeted more than 13,000 times. The retweet was of a tweet from a user called "Surfermom77," an account purportedly belonging to a woman named Sophia in California that seems unusually active in churning out pro-Trump posts and memes. The tweet shared by Trump attacked House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and, without any evidence, identified the whistleblower as a man whose name has been circulated by conservative media and far-right figures in recent weeks. The Daily Beast is declining to publish the name and has not independently verified the identity of the whistleblower.Trump's retweet comes just two days after he retweeted a post from an account associated with his re-election campaign that linked to an article including the unsubstantiated name of the whistleblower.As The Daily Beast previously reported, Trump had talked about the name of the alleged whistleblower with friends, media figures, and senior administration officials in recent months, and asked if they thought it was appropriate for him to publicly announce or tweet the name. But administration officials and those within his inner circle—including his own daughter, Ivanka Trump—cautioned him against posting the name of the alleged whistleblower. Ivanka Trump Tells Her Dad: Don't Tweet the Whistleblower's Name!Lawyers representing the whistleblower previously told The Wall Street Journal their client had received multiple death threats, even as the president and his allies continued to vilify the whistleblower. Schiff said last month that part of the reason Democrats did not call the whistleblower to testify as part of the impeachment inquiry was because the president had called the person a "spy" and hinted that his actions were deserving of the "death penalty.""The president said the whistleblower and others should be treated as a traitor and a spy and we ought to use the penalty and that's the death penalty," Schiff said on Meet the Press at the time.After the whistleblower's complaint went public in late September, The New York Times reported that Trump told a small audience at a private event that whoever gave the whistleblower "information" that was used against him was "close to a spy." "You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now."Trump Pushes Out Tweet Naming Alleged WhistleblowerRead 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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| 2019 saw most mass killings on record, US database reveals Posted: 28 Dec 2019 09:00 AM PST  Thirty-three of 41 incidents involved firearms, research shows, even as overall number of homicides fellThis year saw the highest number of mass killings on record, database records show, with 41 incidents claiming 211 lives in 2019 even as the overall US homicide rated dropped.According to the database complied by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University, 33 of the incidents, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator, involved firearms.The 41 mass killings were the most in a single year since the database began tracking such events back in 2006. Other research going back to the 1970s shows no other year with as many mass killings. The second-most was 38 in 2006.Following deadly rampages in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in May; in the Texas cities of Odessa and El Paso, and Dayton, Ohio, in August; and in Jersey City, New Jersey, this month, the brutal yearly tally comes as the debate over gun-control and efforts to reduce access to 4m assault weapons in circulation appear stalled.On Saturday, the 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden renewed his calls for curbs on the military-style weapons, telling supporters in a funding email: "The American people may be running out of tears, but we cannot run out of strength and resolve to get something done."But Biden remains an exception to the leading Democratic candidates in refusing to support some form of federal gun licensing.With some variations in detail, all, including Biden, have called for imposing stricter background checks and a federal ban on assault-style weapons. But only the former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has made gun control central to his policy platform, calling for a national gun licensing system, stricter background checks, as well as federal laws allowing courts to confiscate firearms from people considered dangerous.Those efforts come after a troubled year for the country's most vociferous and powerful gun advocate, the National Rifle Association. Beset by executive infighting, the lobbying group faces a New York state investigation into claims that thousands of dollars were diverted to its board members.In terms of the number of fatalities, the 211 people killed in this year is still eclipsed by the 224 victims in 2017, when the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history took place at a concert in Las Vegas.California, with some of the strictest gun laws in the country, registered eight mass killings, the most in the country. Nearly half of US states experienced a mass killing.According to the database, most mass killings fail to make national news unless they spill into public spaces. The majority involve people who knew each other, family disputes, drug or gang violence or people with beefs that directed their anger at co-workers or relatives.According to the database, the first mass killing of the year occurred 19 days into the new year when a 42-year-old man took an ax and stabbed to death his mother, stepfather, girlfriend and 9-month-old daughter in Clackamas county, Oregon. The attack ended when police shot and killed the assailant.In many cases, what triggered the perpetrator remains a mystery, the database shows. The incident in Oregon was one of 18 mass killings where family members were killed, and one of six that didn't involve a gun. Other weapons included knives, axes and arson. Nine mass shootings occurred in public spaces; others were in homes, workplaces or bars."What makes this even more exceptional is that mass killings are going up at a time when general homicides, overall homicides, are going down," James Densley, a criminologist and professor at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota, told the Associated Press. "This seems to be the age of mass shootings," Densley said, expressing worry over a "contagion effect" spreading mass killings."What fuels contagion is fear," explained James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern. "These are still rare events. Clearly the risk is low but the fear is high."The Associated Press contributed reporting
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| Jim Beam fined after massive bourbon spill killed fish Posted: 28 Dec 2019 12:39 PM PST  Jim Beam has been fined $600,000 (£458,000) after a warehouse fire sent a nearly 23-mile stream of alcohol into the Kentucky and Ohio rivers, killing fish.The distiller agreed to the fine earlier this month following an order from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, the Courier-Journal reports.
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| New WeWork co-chiefs would reportedly each receive an $8.3-million golden parachute if they were fired or choose to leave Posted: 29 Dec 2019 01:45 PM PST  Co-chief executives Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham would cost WeWork almost $17 million if ousted, documents reportedly show.
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| Netanyahu Won Over His Party. Can He Win Over Israel? Posted: 28 Dec 2019 07:01 AM PST  JERUSALEM -- After failing to form a government twice in two tries, then being hit with a bribery charge, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's long rule over Israel appeared set to expire.But in his first real test since his indictment last month in three corruption cases, Netanyahu crushed a lone rival Thursday for the leadership of his conservative Likud party and, like a political phoenix, rose to fight another day."I received a renewed and huge mandate from the Likud yesterday," he said in a victory speech Friday, hours after the final tally was in. "The future is in our hands."With his landslide victory in the Likud party primary election, Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister and a famed political survivor, has reasserted his grip over the party despite his legal troubles, fired up his base and reinvigorated his campaign ahead of the next general election in early March.The election will be the third in a year, an unprecedented situation as a deeply polarized Israel struggles to form a government after inconclusive elections in April and September.The questions many Israelis were asking Friday were whether die-hard Netanyahu fans who came out to vote for him on a wet, blustery day reflect wider support on the Israeli right, whether Netanyahu can maintain his fresh momentum for another two months, and whether anything could jolt a hung electorate out of its political logjam."The primary injected enthusiasm and got the Likud machine working," said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "But can that buzz be maintained over months? I'm not sure."Netanyahu trounced his party rival, Gideon Saar, winning 72.5% of the vote. Still, just under half the 116,000 eligible dues-paying Likud members cast ballots, meaning that about 41,000 Netanyahu adherents -- a tiny fraction of the total Israeli electorate of about 6.4 million voters -- may have locked the country into another round of political paralysis.The previous two elections ended in a draw between Netanyahu's right-wing-religious coalition and the center-left bloc led by Benny Gantz, a centrist former army chief, with neither able to form a majority coalition. Recent polls before the Likud primary showed Netanyahu's support softening after his indictment but not enough to change the unforgiving math that has paralyzed the Israeli government for the past year.Moderate conservatives concerned about upholding the rule of law may find it difficult to vote for Netanyahu, Talshir said, noting that in more educated, well-heeled districts like north Tel Aviv, Saar made a strong showing.The one likely outcome of Netanyahu's new lease on political life is that the March 2 election will again be ugly and divisive, analysts said. It will pit the "Only Bibi" camp of supporters, who lovingly call Netanyahu by his nickname, attack the law enforcement authorities and try to delegitimize any opposition, against the other Israel that cannot accept the idea of a prime minister facing prosecution for serious crimes.Gantz, the leader of the centrist Blue and White party, made it clear Friday that he will once again run as the "not Bibi" candidate."It appears that the defendant Netanyahu, who is leading the state of Israel down a path of corruption, will continue to lead Likud," Gantz said in response to the primary results. "These elections demand that we place a mirror in front of the 'Netanyahu party' and make the choice for unity, dignity and internal reconciliation," he added.But with the same protagonists running again on the same issues, and with recent polls showing a similar deadlock, there is little expectation of a fundamental shake-up by the March election."The people who don't like Netanyahu still won't like him," said Israel Bachar, a strategist for the Blue and White campaign, dismissing any notion that the primary result could have a wider impact. "It won't change the polling data."What the primary did do is remove any doubt about Netanyahu's hold over his party and his ministers, Bachar said, "and that's a good change for him." While Netanyahu focuses on his legal issues, he added, Gantz will focus on values.Netanyahu is accused of trading official favors worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Israeli media moguls for illicit gifts of cigars, Champagne and jewelry, as well as positive news coverage. He has denied any wrongdoing, casting himself as the victim of a witch hunt by a left-wing elite that he says dominates the news media and has pressed the law enforcement authorities to pursue criminal investigations against him.For his loyalists, the primary triumph clears a possible path ahead for Netanyahu. Miki Zohar, Likud's chief whip in Parliament, said on television that the result is basically telling Netanyahu that his Likud voters want him to request parliamentary immunity from prosecution.Netanyahu has a few days left before the deadline for submitting such a request, though it would likely only be voted on if and when a new government is formed after the election. Approval would depend on Netanyahu's being able to muster a majority of 61 in the 120-seat Parliament.That will mean getting out every last Likud and right-wing voter.In Jerusalem's bustling Mahane Yehuda market, an old Likud bastion, some of the vendors reverently display fading portraits of Likud's founder, Menachem Begin, a stickler for the rule of law, in their shops.One of them, Avraham Levy, 69, who voted for Netanyahu in the primary, said it was "not easy to find someone like him in our generation" as he sold fruit Friday.He dismissed the charges against Netanyahu, saying, "It's not bribery in my eyes so long as he didn't take money." Crediting the prime minister with the country's strong economy and security, he said, "You don't exchange a horse for a donkey. We have a good horse.""Of course I'm a Likudnik," exclaimed Shmuel Rosemarine, 30, who was working at his family's dried fruit and nuts store. "Is there anything else? I'm for Bibi, and only Bibi. Nobody can replace him."Yossi Verter, a political columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, cautioned that the love poured on Netanyahu by his party faithful may have no bearing on the March election. He cited the 1999 Likud primary, which Netanyahu won by an even greater margin before going on to a stinging defeat in the general election."The only relevant conclusion today," Verter wrote Friday, "is that what happens in Likud stays in Likud."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Thousands of koalas feared dead in Australia wildfires Posted: 28 Dec 2019 12:53 PM PST  Thousands of koalas are feared to have died in a wildfire-ravaged area north of Sydney, further diminishing Australia's iconic marsupial, while the fire danger increased in the country's east on Saturday as temperatures soared. The mid-northern coast of New South Wales was home to up to 28,000 koalas, but wildfires have significantly reduced their population in recent months. Koalas are native to Australia and are one of the country's most beloved animals, but they've been under threat due to a loss of habitat.
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| Secrets Revealed: America Almost Stockpiled Nuclear Weapons In Iceland Posted: 29 Dec 2019 12:02 AM PST  Why didn't it happen?
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| Suspect in court after five stabbed at New York rabbi's home Posted: 29 Dec 2019 11:57 AM PST  A suspect appeared in a New York court on Sunday charged with five counts of attempted murder over a stabbing spree at a rabbi's suburban house -- the latest in a spate of attacks on Jewish targets. Grafton Thomas, 37, allegedly entered the property in Monsey, Rockland County, during celebrations on Saturday evening for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, knifing several people with a machete before fleeing. The attack was quickly condemned as another incident underscoring growing anti-Semitic violence in the United States.
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| Saudi Arabia sentences Riyadh concert stabber to death: state TV Posted: 29 Dec 2019 03:01 AM PST ![Saudi Arabia sentences Riyadh concert stabber to death: state TV]( "Saudi Arabia sentences Riyadh concert stabber to death: state TV") A Saudi Arabian court on Sunday sentenced to death a man accused of stabbing three performers at a live show in the capital Riyadh in November, state television said. The Nov. 11 attack occurred at King Abdullah Park, one of several venues hosting a months-long entertainment festival as part of government efforts to open up Saudi society and diversify its economy away from oil. Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's civil war in 2015 against the Iran-aligned Houthis.
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| U.S. strikes hit Iraq militia blamed in defense contractor’s death Posted: 29 Dec 2019 12:04 PM PST  The U.S. blames the militia for a rocket barrage Friday.
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| Russia’s Richest Man Gains $8.5 Billion Leading Wealth Rebound Posted: 29 Dec 2019 04:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- It has been a very good year for Russia's richest, despite the threat of heightened sanctions against the country.The 23 titans on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index added $52.9 billion to their fortunes in 2019, the most in four years, and a rebound after a decline the prior year. Metal magnate Vladimir Potanin, 58, led the group with an $8.5 billion gain.Currencies, stocks and bonds rallied in 2019 as the Federal Reserve led global central banks in lowering rates to support flagging growth.But Russia's equity market, despite sanctions, has performed best globally on a total-return basis in dollar terms, while its currency is the second-best worldwide.Potanin, Russia's richest person, derives most of his net worth from MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC, the world's largest producer of refined nickel.Vagit Alekperov added $6.2 billion since the start of the year. The 69-year-old is the chairman of Lukoil PJSC, Russia's largest independent oil producer. He has a $22.3 billion fortune.He's followed by energy moguls Leonid Mikhelson and Gennady Timchenko, who hold Novatek PJSC, Russia's biggest liquefied natural gas producer.The gains have come despite the threat of increased U.S. sanctions. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a long-discussed bill this month on Russia for meddling in the 2016 election. South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham has called the legislation the "sanctions bill from hell." It's unclear if the measure will proceed to a full vote in the Senate.\--With assistance from Jack Witzig.To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Sazonov in Moscow at asazonov@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Louisa May Alcott’s Courageous Career as a Civil War Nurse Posted: 29 Dec 2019 02:13 AM PST  The Christmas release of director Greta Gerwig's new film version of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women presents a fresh opportunity for Alcott's 19th-century classic to be read as a book that speaks to the present feminist moment. But it will be a shame if the renewed interest in Alcott that Gerwig has sparked does not also lead to a long-overdue appreciation of Alcott's heroism in the Civil War.In 1862, two weeks before Christmas, Alcott left her home in Concord, Massachusetts, to serve the Union cause by working in a military hospital in Washington, D.C. In Little Women Alcott made the Civil War the background for her story of the March sisters and their mother, but in 1862 the Civil War became central to Alcott's life.In the Union Hotel Hospital, a former Georgetown tavern in which she worked, Alcott saw death firsthand, and, like the doctors and nurses in the hospital, became vulnerable to the disease and infection the wounded troops brought with them.Men Will Love 'Little Women' Too. I Can't Believe I Have to Say That.Walt Whitman's account in Specimen Days of his work at the modern Union hospital in Washington, D.C., is far better known than Alcott's. When we think of the suffering experienced by the soldiers of the Civil War, the quote most often cited is Whitman's "the real war will never get in the books."Alcott's stories of her Civil War experiences appeared serially in May and June 1863 in the Commonwealth, a Boston anti-slavery newspaper. They are as moving as anything Whitman wrote about the war and were published together in August 1863 under the title Hospital Sketches long before Specimen Days appeared in book form.Alcott began her Civil War nursing service as a novice. On Dec. 16, 1862, the carts she saw drawing up to the hospital to which she had been assigned were not, as she first thought, farmer's market carts carrying produce. They were carts bearing wounded and dying men from the battle of Fredericksburg, where the Union Army endured one of its worst defeats of the war, suffering 13,000 casualties. There was no time for Alcott to absorb the war gradually or get used to the sight of a veteran "with an arm blown off at the shoulder."Alcott soon realized her duties were as much psychological as physical: "Having got the bodies of my boys into something like order, the next task was to minister to their minds," she observed early in Hospital Sketches. The doctors, after doing their best for their patients, had no hesitation in giving Alcott the unwelcome task of telling men who were dying that they would not survive their hospital stay."I could have sat down on the spot and cried heartily, if I had not learned the wisdom of bottling up one's tears for leisure moments," Alcott wrote of an especially painful assignment to deliver the bad news. She did as told. Then she stayed with the soldier to the end.When the soldier died, he was holding Alcott's hand so tightly that she needed help prying open his grip. Even when her hand got back its color, the white marks of the dead soldier's fingers remained. "I could not but be glad that through its touch, the presence of human sympathy, perhaps had lightened that hard hour," Alcott remarked.Over the course of her time in Washington, Alcott became better at learning to deal with the suffering around her, but she never shut her eyes to the wrongs she saw. She was especially sensitive to the racism of the North. "The nurses were willing to be served by the colored people, but seldom thanked them, never praised, and scarcely recognized them in the street," she noted. In her postscript to Hospital Sketches, she observed that the next hospital she hoped to work in would be one for "colored regiments."That next assignment never came. As a result of her hospital work, Alcott contracted pneumonia and typhus. At the end of six weeks at the military hospital that she called Hurly-burly House because of its disorganization, Alcott's father, the famed educator Bronson Alcott, came to Washington to take her home. As her biographer Susan Cheever has written, "She left for the war a vigorous and energetic woman; she returned a true casualty."Alcott suffered from mercury poisoning that came from the doses of calomel medicine the doctors in Washington prescribed for her, and the physician treating her at her home in Concord added to her difficulties, ordering her head shaved on the grounds the shaving would lower her fever. Sick as she was, Alcott thought she had no grounds for complaint given the horrors she had witnessed in Washington. As she wrote in her understated conclusion to Hospital Sketches, "I shall never regret the going, though a sharp tussle with typhoid, ten dollars and a wig are all the visible results of the experiment; for one may live and learn much in a month."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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| NYU doctor Joseph Wiesel claims Apple used his patented heartbeat-monitoring tech without permission in lawsuit Posted: 29 Dec 2019 01:26 PM PST  Cardiologist Joseph Wiesel says Apple used his patented heartbeat-monitoring technology without permission and integrated it into Apple Watches.
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| The US and UK political systems are now controlled by a shrinking minority out of step with the rest of the country Posted: 29 Dec 2019 08:35 AM PST  Opinion: The political systems in both the US and the UK are now dominated by a smaller and smaller political minority holding on to power.
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| Doctor charged in 25 deaths sues hospital for defamation Posted: 28 Dec 2019 04:56 PM PST  An Ohio doctor accused of ordering drug overdoses in the deaths of 25 hospital patients has sued his former employer for defamation, arguing that he did nothing wrong and did not deviate from hospital policy on end-of-life care. Dr. William Husel, who is accused of murder, filed the lawsuit Thursday in Franklin County against the Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System and its parent organization, Trinity Health Corp. "It would not be an exaggeration to state that Dr. Husel has suffered perhaps the most egregious case of defamation in Ohio's recent history," according to the lawsuit.
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| Rather Than Retiring, The Air Force's B-2 Bomber Is Being Upgraded (For Nuclear War) Posted: 29 Dec 2019 04:00 AM PST  The B61-12 adds substantial new levels of precision targeting and consolidates several different kinds of attack options into a single weapon.
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| Vietnam ex-minister gets life sentence in bribery case Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:03 PM PST  A court in Vietnam sentenced a former communications minister to life in prison Saturday for receiving millions of dollars in bribes, as the hardline administration presses its anti-graft drive against once-powerful figures in the communist state. Nguyen Bac Son was charged alongside his then-deputy Truong Minh Tuan with receiving $3.2 million in bribes to approve the 2015 purchase of a TV firm that would have lost state-run telecommunications firm Mobifone $300 million. The two-week trial in Hanoi for the men -- once members of the powerful communist party central committee -- ended Saturday, according to state-run media Tuoi Tre.
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| Put away phones at mealtimes and talk to each other, says pope Posted: 29 Dec 2019 07:07 AM PST  Pope Francis on Sunday urged people to talk to each other at mealtimes instead of using their mobile phones, citing Jesus, Mary and Joseph as an example for families to follow. "I ask myself if you, in your family, know how to communicate or are you like those kids at mealtables where everyone is chatting on their mobile phone ... where there is silence like at a Mass but they don't communicate," the pope said. "We have to get back to communicating in our families," Francis said in his unscripted remarks.
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| Trump retweets post naming alleged whistleblower Posted: 29 Dec 2019 06:38 AM PST  President Trump retweeted, then deleted, a post that included the alleged name of the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint ultimately led to Trump's impeachment by the House.
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| Joe Biden indicates he would testify in Donald Trump impeachment trial if subpoenaed Posted: 29 Dec 2019 07:31 AM PST  Joe Biden, the US presidential hopeful, has indicated he would comply with a subpoena demanding his testimony in Donald Trump's Senate impeachment trial, reversing a previous insistence he would dismiss any such request. Mr Biden, the former US vice president seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 election, tweeted that during four decades in both Congress and the White House he had "always complied with a lawful order". He went a step further while out campaigning in the state of Iowa, telling the audience at a town hall event on Saturday: "I would obey any subpoena that was sent to me". The new position contradicts the stance Mr Biden, the Democratic primary front-runner, had taken just a day before, when he insisted he would reject any demand to give evidence in the impeachment trial. "The reason I wouldn't is because it's all designed to deal with Trump doing what he's done his whole life: trying to take the focus off him," Mr Biden had told the editorial board of The Des Moines Register on Friday. A trial over whether to remove Donald Trump from office is expect to be held by the US Senate in January Credit: Nicholas Kamm / AFP That original position risked a backlash, given it was Mr Trump's refusal to comply with subpoenas - legally binding demands for evidence or documents - issued by Congressional committees which fuelled the impeachment drive. The changing position reflects the difficult Mr Biden faces over impeachment. It was Mr Trump seeking an investigation from Ukraine into Mr Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who once worked for a Ukrainian natural gas company, which triggered the impeachment inquiry. Mr Biden has made clear his frustration at being asked questions about his behaviour, seeing it as an attempt by the White House to harm his candidacy and distract from Mr Trump's actions in office. Joe Biden and his son Hunter at a basketball game in 2010 Credit: AP Photo/Nick Wass Mr Trump, the US president, has been impeached by the House of Representatives, one half of the US Congress. The Senate, the other half, is expected to hold a trial in January over whether to remove him from office. Given the Republicans hold a majority of seats in the Senate they can decide which witnesses are called, if no senators rebel. Some want both Bidens to give evidence. Both Bidens have always denied any wrongdoing in Ukraine. Mr Biden tweeted: "In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office — unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence — cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests. "But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial." He added: "This impeachment is about Trump's conduct, not mine."
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