| High school cheerleader cleared of murdering her baby to maintain ‘perfect life’ Posted: 13 Sep 2019 12:49 AM PDT  A woman who gave birth as a teenager and buried her newborn child in a garden has been acquitted of murder.Brooke Skylar Richardson was found not guilty on charges of aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment by a jury on Thursday.
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| Federal prosecutors recommend that Andrew McCabe, former FBI second-in-command, face criminal charge Posted: 12 Sep 2019 01:09 PM PDT  Federal prosecutors recommended that the former FBI deputy director be charged. He faced scrutiny over a 2016 leak about Hillary Clinton.
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| Tomi Lahren: We Need Guns to ‘Defend Ourselves’ From Immigrants Posted: 13 Sep 2019 11:31 AM PDT  Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren declared on Friday that Americans need guns in order to potentially fight off unlimited immigrants coming into the United States, adding that citizens need the ability to "defend ourselves" because "we don't know" who is coming into the country.Appearing on Fox Business Network's Varney and Co., the conservative firebrand reacted to Democrats' calls for stricter gun control in the wake of several mass shootings. Specifically, she took issue with Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O'Rourke's call for mandatory buybacks of assault-style weapons like the AR-15 and AK-47."I would also remind those that might not have a use for a gun or don't feel they have a use for a gun, many Americans do," Lahren told Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney. "Many Americans don't live in the suburbs, who are far away from where police can respond, and so that's why that self-defense is so important."And then she brought the threat of "open borders" immigration into the mix."And all the things the Democrats want to put in place—my goodness, if they want to open our borders, you better be sure the people in Texas, the people in South Dakota, the people in the middle of this country, we are going to be armed and ready," she exclaimed. "Because we have to have a means to defend ourselves from—who knows who's coming in? That's the thing, we don't know, and we have to be able to protect ourselves."The right-wing provocateur's insistence that guns are needed to stave off migrants heading into the U.S. comes barely a month after the El Paso mass shooting that left 22 dead. The suspected shooter admitted that he was targeting "Mexicans" and apparently posted a racist manifesto in which he decried the "Hispanic invasion" of America.This also isn't the first time that Lahren has fear-mongered over supposed "open borders" immigration. Earlier this year, she devoted a monologue to warning Fox viewers that an extremely high border wall was needed because immigrants are "shifty and adaptable."After her remarks faced intense backlash that included Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro personally calling her out, Lahren took to Twitter to "apologize" for how her comments "came out.""Not what I meant & I apologize for the way it came out. I simply mean without a secure border we don't know who is coming into our nation & those who wish to do us harm will exploit it," she wrote Friday afternoon. "I'm NOT advocating for violence against any person, regardless of race or immigration status."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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| Will Venezuela Become a Russian Missile Base? Posted: 13 Sep 2019 06:23 AM PDT  And how would Trump respond to that?
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| Dominican Republic Announces New Safety Measures After Deaths of 11 American Tourists Posted: 12 Sep 2019 09:38 PM PDT  'American tourists should feel safe and secure,' an official said
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| Zimbabwe's Mugabe to be buried in 30 days, at new mausoleum Posted: 13 Sep 2019 01:23 PM PDT  The burial of Zimbabwe's founding president, President Robert Mugabe , will be delayed for at least a month until a special mausoleum can be built at a prominent spot at the national Heroes' Acre monument, the latest turn in a dramatic tussle between his family and the country's current leader, a once-trusted deputy who helped oust Mugabe from power. The decision to build a new resting place for the ex-leader, who died at age 95 in Singapore last week, came after consultations with influential traditional chiefs, Mugabe's nephew, Leo Mugabe, told reporters. The announcement followed days of controversy over where he should be laid to rest, with Mugabe's widow, Grace, insisting on a private burial rather than the state funeral and burial in a simple plot alongside other national heroes planned by the government.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Cadillac CT4 Posted: 12 Sep 2019 10:00 AM PDT |
| 2020 presidential debates: Joe Biden baffles with answer to question about slavery reparations Posted: 13 Sep 2019 07:18 AM PDT  Former Vice President Joe Biden was asked about slavery reparations during Thursday's 2020 presidential debate, and his answer left some viewers confused.
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| People are already getting arrested at Area 51, and of course they're YouTubers Posted: 13 Sep 2019 12:39 PM PDT  With only a week to go until the widely memed Area 51 raid, two hopefuls were already arrested for trying to storm the Air Force base. Unsurprisingly, they're both vloggers.Eager to "see them aliens" -- as the original Facebook event put it -- Dutch YouTubers Ties Granzier, 20, and Govert Sweep, 21, ignored the "Do Not Enter" signs and entered anyway. According to a video posted by the Nye County Sheriff's Office, the two were caught when the deputies responded to a report of "foreign national trespassers" at Area 51, which is a National Security Site. Granzier and Sweep's car was parked at a gate approximately three miles into the property."Both individuals told deputies that they speak, write, and read English," the statement continued. "They said that they saw the 'No Trespassing' signs at the Mercury highway entrance to the Nevada National Security Site, but they wanted to look at the facility. Granzier advised deputies that he is a YouTuber."Their car was packed with a laptop, cameras, and a drone. After Granzier and Sweep consented to a search, deputies found footage of Area 51. Both YouTubers were arrested and booked into the Nye County jail and were charged with trespassing. If caught trespassing on a military base, violators can receive a $500 fine, a prison sentence up to six months, or both. SEE ALSO: Storm Area 51 creator calls AlienStock 'a possible humanitarian disaster'. But it's still going ahead.In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Granzier wrote: "It has always been a dream to be here, now to crazy recordings of crazy adventures and ... area 51 ..."He appears to have removed any mention of Area 51 from the caption, but his supports are flooding his comments with FreeTie. > View this post on Instagram> > the grand mother of canyon en de hoover dam toch wel altijd al een droom om hier te zijn nu door naar gekke opnames van gekke avontuurtjs> > A post shared by TIES (@ties) on Sep 10, 2019 at 9:12am PDTAlthough more than two million Facebook users responded to the event, the U.S. government warned against actually attempting to storm the military base on Sept. 20. "The U.S. Air Force is aware of the Facebook post," an Air Force spokesperson told Insider. "Any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training areas is dangerous." Ahead of the estimated thousands of eager alien enthusiasts flooding the area, the Nevada Department of Transportation removed the iconic "Extraterrestrial Highway" sign, according to a Fox 5 report on Thursday.Instead of risking the prison sentence or worse, consider going to the corresponding music festival, Alienstock. The Facebook event's original creator backed out and called it a "potential humanitarian disaster," but the festival is still reported to proceed as planned.The moral of this story: Don't storm Area 51, even if you're a YouTuber.
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| AG Barr has received draft report on FISA abuse allegations Posted: 13 Sep 2019 02:04 PM PDT  DOJ Inspector General Horowitz sent draft report to attorney general to review; Catherine Herridge reports.
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| Yang unveils plan to give $1,000 a month from campaign to 10 families — which may violate election laws Posted: 12 Sep 2019 05:26 PM PDT  A Federal Election Commission rule prohibits the use of campaign money for "personal use."
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| Beto O'Rourke says Texas lawmaker made 'death threat' against him after AR-15 comment at Democratic debate Posted: 13 Sep 2019 10:39 AM PDT  Beto O'Rourke's call for the buyback of military-style assault weapons was met with what O'Rourke called a "death threat" from one Texas lawmaker.
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| Israel's F-35s Are the Uncontested Kings of the Middle East's Skies Posted: 13 Sep 2019 01:00 PM PDT  Israel's enemies can't even see them coming.
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| In era of legal pot, can police search cars based on odor? Posted: 13 Sep 2019 08:37 AM PDT  Sniff and search is no longer the default for police in some of the 33 states that have legalized marijuana. Traditionally, an officer could use the merest whiff of weed to justify a warrantless vehicle search, and whatever turned up — pot, other kinds of illegal drugs, something else the motorist wasn't allowed to have — could be used as evidence in court. The result is that, in some states, a police officer who sniffs out pot isn't necessarily allowed to go through someone's automobile — because the odor by itself is no longer considered evidence of a crime.
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| Venezuela investigates Guaido over photo with suspected Colombian criminals Posted: 13 Sep 2019 12:29 PM PDT  Venezuela's state prosecutor's office said on Friday it would open an investigation into Juan Guaido after the interior minister presented photos on state television showing the opposition leader in the company of two suspected members of a Colombian drug-trafficking group. Guaido on Friday said the two men had asked to take a photo with him when he secretly crossed into Colombia from Venezuela in February via an informal border route after a Venezuelan court had barred him from leaving the country. "We didn't ask for their criminal record to take a photo," he told reporters in Caracas.
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| Cubans fear return to 90s austerity amid cuts Posted: 12 Sep 2019 02:23 PM PDT  Havana awoke Thursday to long lines at gas stations and public transportation stops after President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned fellow Cubans to expect fuel shortages and blackouts that he blamed on US sanctions. Terrified!" said Katia Morfa, 36, as she took her seven-year-old daughter to school. It's inevitable that we think of the dark and very sad days of the Special Period," Morfa told AFP.
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| US couple 'abandon 11-year-old daughter' and move to Canada Posted: 13 Sep 2019 11:22 AM PDT  Indiana prosecutors have charged a couple with abandoning their adopted daughter in 2013 and moving to Canada, renting an apartment in Lafayette for the then-11-year-old girl but otherwise leaving her to fend for herself.Prosecutors in Tippecanoe County, where Lafayette is located, have filed neglect charges against 45-year-old Kristine Elizabeth Barnett and 43-year-old Michael Barnett.
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| After Trump fires Bolton, Rand Paul and Liz Cheney go to war over it Posted: 12 Sep 2019 12:34 PM PDT  In the wake of the national security adviser's firing, two Republicans trade barbs over the president's foreign policy.
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| Joe Biden accidentally refers to Bernie Sanders as 'president' Posted: 12 Sep 2019 05:54 PM PDT  "The president thinks – my friend from Vermont thinks that the employer is going to give you back if you negotiate," said Biden, correcting himself.
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| Google Earth helps find body of Florida man who has been missing since 1997 Posted: 13 Sep 2019 02:29 AM PDT  Google Earth and a drone helped some Floridians crack a 22-year-old cold case, but there are still some unanswered questions.
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| Study finds the universe might be 2 billion years younger Posted: 12 Sep 2019 12:11 PM PDT  The universe is looking younger every day, it seems. New calculations suggest the universe could be a couple billion years younger than scientists now estimate, and even younger than suggested by two other calculations published this year that trimmed hundreds of millions of years from the age of the cosmos. The huge swings in scientists' estimates — even this new calculation could be off by billions of years — reflect different approaches to the tricky problem of figuring the universe's real age.
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| US-trained bomb-sniffing dogs sent to Jordan are living in horrible conditions and dying from improper care Posted: 13 Sep 2019 11:38 AM PDT  More than 10 have died in recent years from potentially preventable health issues. Others were found to be living in "disturbing" conditions.
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| Event cancellations mount in protest-wracked Hong Kong Posted: 13 Sep 2019 01:48 AM PDT  One of Hong Kong's most prestigious sporting tournaments on Friday became the latest victim of the huge protests convulsing the city as a growing roster of events and entertainment acts pull out of the financial hub. Organisers of the WTA Hong Kong Open women's tennis tournament said they were postponing next month's competition because of the "present situation" after months of sometimes violent pro-democracy protests. "After extensive discussions with our key stakeholders, we conclude that a smooth running of the tournament can be better assured at a later time," the Hong Kong Tennis Association said in a statement.
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| Here's why Lori Loughlin is facing up to 40 years in prison in the college-admissions scandal while Felicity Huffman, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 14 days Posted: 13 Sep 2019 02:53 PM PDT  Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were both indicted in March as part of the college-admissions scandal.
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| Vietnam Fights China Moves to Hinder Offshore Energy Exploration Posted: 12 Sep 2019 10:45 PM PDT ![Vietnam Fights China Moves to Hinder Offshore Energy Exploration]( "Vietnam Fights China Moves to Hinder Offshore Energy Exploration") (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam is pushing back harder against China's efforts to isolate it diplomatically on a territorial dispute in an energy-rich part of the South China Sea.The foreign ministry in Hanoi on Thursday called on China to immediately order a state-owned survey vessel along with several Coast Guard escorts to leave Vietnamese-claimed waters in its exclusive economic zone, which stretches 200 nautical miles from its coast. It also said a multi-billion dollar oil and gas project being carried out by state-owned Vietnam Oil & Gas Group and Exxon Mobil Corp. in block 118 of the waters would continue unimpeded."Any activities that hamper Vietnam's oil and gas exploration in Vietnamese water are violations of international laws," Le Thi Thu Hang, a spokeswoman for Vietnam's foreign ministry, told reporters during a briefing on Thursday.The Chinese-owned Haiyang Dizhi 8 has intermittently zigzagged across a Vietnam-demarcated block of water to study the seabed in an active drilling block operated by Russia's state-owned Rosneft Oil PJSC since early July. China claims most of the South China Sea with a map of a nine-dash line stretching far from the mainland, and has sought to negotiate one-on-one deals with countries in the region on sharing energy and fish resources.The latest Vietnamese statements came after China scored diplomatic wins with other South China Sea claimants. On Monday, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed with his Malaysian counterpart Saifuddin Abdullah on the establishment of a bilateral consultation mechanism to "properly handle" disputes in the South China Sea.China also appears to be making progress on a joint exploration deal with the Philippines, with President Rodrigo Duterte saying earlier this week he would ignore an international court ruling affirming his country's territorial claims in order to advance energy cooperation with Beijing. Duterte said the deal would entail a 60-40 revenue-sharing scheme favoring the Philippines."We're seeing a full court press with China to push its nine-dash line, press foreign oil companies and pressure countries into joint development deals," said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia who has written about Southeast Asia security issues for more than two decades..To contact the reporters on this story: Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen in Hanoi at uyen1@bloomberg.net;Peter Martin in Beijing at pmartin138@bloomberg.net;Philip J. Heijmans in Singapore at pheijmans1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| U.S. appeals court says Trump cannot dodge foreign corruption lawsuit Posted: 13 Sep 2019 06:36 AM PDT  A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday revived a lawsuit alleging President Donald Trump violated the U.S. Constitution by profiting from foreign and domestic officials who patronized his hotels and restaurants, moving a watchdog group closer to obtaining financial records from his real estate company. In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel of the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a lower court ruling that had thrown out the case because the people who sued could not prove they were harmed by Trump's actions and his role as president. Friday's ruling dealt with preliminary questions relating to whether the case should be heard, without directly addressing whether Trump violated the law.
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| These Are the Signs That Iran's Regime Is Close to Crumbling Posted: 12 Sep 2019 10:15 PM PDT  But what happens next?
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| Here’s Why Bernie and Warren Will Team Up to Crush Biden Posted: 12 Sep 2019 01:42 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyIn tonight's Democratic debate, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are in the same lane, buoyed by progressive activists wanting to make the "big structural change" Warren touts, and by the grassroots revolution Sanders promises. But don't expect them to collide. Famously, the two have a so-called non-aggression pact, which is bad news for Joe Biden. He's the one who will take Warren's punches, not Sanders. No one expects fireworks between Warren and Sanders even though Warren has gained ground in recent polls at Sanders' expense, and the Houston debate stage presents an opportunity for her to differentiate herself as a self-proclaimed capitalist and not a Sanders-style democratic socialist. If she can do it purely on policy grounds, that wouldn't violate the agreement she has with Sanders, her senior by several years, and in many ways her mentor. "Both of them are going after a similar voting pool, and at some point some form of differentiation has to happen," pollster Jefrey Pollock told The Daily Beast. "Maybe it gets fought out on the policy level. Voters want to see a contrast, but I don't expect fire and brimstone in this debate." Pollock advised Kirsten Gillibrand until she left the race last month, so he understands firsthand the challenges a candidate faces in drawing the necessary contrast. On the debate stage, he cautions that Sanders is "much more unpredictable. He can pop off. [Warren] is far more likely to fight on a policy and academic level, and not rhetorically. That doesn't mean she's not willing to throw a punch."But that punch will likely land on Biden and not on Sanders. Background interviews with Democrats friendly to both the Warren and Sanders camps see the candidates going the distance in the primaries with one important caveat. Should Sanders fall behind Warren, there's no assurance that he would leave the race. "He's headstrong, he's not going to say goodbye early," says one Democrat. "You cannot rule out this could go to the convention." Democratic Party rules award delegates proportionately to candidates who get at least 15 percent of the vote—meaning there could be a pileup at the end of the primaries, with no one candidate able to claim the nomination outright. In that scenario, Warren would want Sanders' delegates, and as long as she plays nice, it's more likely Sanders would move over to Warren. "She's playing very good politics now," says this Democrat. Sanders is a loner, without many friends in the clubby U.S. Senate, where he's been a member since 2007. Warren, elected in 2012, worked hard to fit in and reached out to a lot of senators, including Sanders. "Senators from New England have to work on bills together," says a Democrat who helped elect Warren. "They hit it off. They didn't sign some democratic socialist pledge card." Sanders routinely called her "my favorite senator." New York magazine reported that he was ready to defer to her in 2016—that if she ran for president, he would have stood aside. Warren stepped back, and the fraught relationship between Sanders and Hillary Clinton helped to create the phenomenon of the Bernie Bros or Berniecrats, who refused to support Clinton and voted third party or stayed home. Another Democrat who is advising multiple campaigns on policy makes the case that Warren is better off with Sanders in the race: "He provides a kind of heat shield. Without Bernie, Warren becomes the crazy socialist." Furthermore, says this Democrat, "If I were advising Warren on politics, I would say, 'Do not go after Bernie, you don't have to do that. You don't have to convert the Bernie Bros. The only thing that will get them is if he endorses you. You want to stay on Bernie's good side. You don't want to goad him into being the angry old man spoiler.'" For the Sanders camp, the greatest imperative is to stay in the race, much like he did in 2016. "The longer he stays in, he can hold everybody's feet to the fire," says one of the party regulars in touch with both campaigns. There's no percentage at this point for Warren in trying to draw a distinction with Sanders unless it happens organically with a debate question that allows Warren to explain, for example, that she is working for change within the system while Sanders wants revolution—a distinction that Warren may better be able to pull off than Clinton, who radiated annoyance at Sanders spoiling her party. "It's Bernie as Larry David, and Senator Warren as someone trying to persuade you," says Pollock. Both camps seem content for now with voters making up their mind between two candidates, who are as different in their personas and approach as they are bound together by their policy views. Two for the price of one is a risky strategy, but it just might work. 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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| 'When I listened tonight, I felt like it was like eating leftovers': Marianne Williamson on debates Posted: 12 Sep 2019 08:58 PM PDT  "When I listened tonight, I felt like it was like eating leftovers," she told a group at a Beverly Hills, Calif. party.
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| Lebanese-American to be prosecuted for working for Israel Posted: 13 Sep 2019 07:45 AM PDT  A Lebanese-American man was referred Friday to prosecutors after confessing he'd worked for Israel during its occupation of Lebanon for nearly two decades, a Lebanese security agency said. Amer Fakhoury was detained after returning to his native Lebanon from the United States earlier this month.
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| Judge who gave lenient sentence to sex attacker Brock Turner fired from job coaching tennis to schoolgirls Posted: 13 Sep 2019 01:33 AM PDT  A former US judge who sentenced a sex attacker to just six months in prison has been fired from his new job as a school tennis coach following an outcry from pupils and parents.Aaron Persky, who was ousted as a judge last year over his lenient sentencing of Stanford University student Brock Turner, had been hired over the summer to coach girls at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California.
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| Charles Payne calls out 'irony' of 2020 Dems' racism claims Posted: 13 Sep 2019 04:39 AM PDT  Fox Business host Charles Payne said Friday there is "irony" in the way 2020 Democratic presidential candidates talk about systemic racism in America, as many of them also call President Trump a racist.
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| The Words Missing from a New York Times Essay about Religious Liberty Posted: 12 Sep 2019 11:40 AM PDT  The headline is jolting. "Religious Crusaders at the Supreme Court's Gates." Thus starts Linda Greenhouse's analysis of the actual and potential religion cases before the Court during its October term. Her thesis is that the Court's relative restraint in its religion cases the previous term represented the justices' merely "biding their time." This term the gloves may come off. Now the Court may well "go further and adopt new rules for lowering the barrier between church and state across the board."She focuses on an Institute for Justice case that the Court has accepted for review, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. It involves a Montana supreme-court-ordered termination of a state tax-credit scholarship program that "helped needy children attend the private school of their families' choice," including religious and nonreligious schools. The precise issue before the Court, in dry legalese, is this: whether the Montana court's decision "violates the religion clauses or the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution to invalidate a generally available and religiously neutral student-aid program simply because the program affords students the choice of attending religious schools."Greenhouse is incredulous. If SCOTUS rules against Montana, then, according to her, "the logical consequence is that a state that once had a program offering financial support to religious and nonreligious schools alike . . . and that subsequently shut down the program entirely can be deemed to have violated a principle of religious neutrality.""Can that possibly be the law?" she asks. But her summary isn't exactly right. She pays short shrift to the key fact of the case. The Montana court's ruling was based on the state's Blaine amendment, an artifact of odious 19th-century anti-Catholic bigotry. In fact, the words "Blaine amendment" appear nowhere in her piece.A brief history lesson is in order. As Mike McShane explained in an instructive Forbes piece last year, in the latter part of the 19th century, America's public schools were often "nominally Protestant." They would frequently start their days with prayer, the students would read from the King James Version of the Bible, and they'd sometimes even sing hymns.So when Senator James Blaine proposed amending the United States Constitution to state that "no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations," he was not attempting to stamp out public-school religiosity. He was attempting to deny aid to Catholic parochial schools.Blaine's federal amendment failed, but his language found its way into 37 state constitutions. As McShane notes, the anti-Catholicism of the amendments is betrayed by the words "sect" or "sectarian." In the language of the time, Protestant instruction was "nonsectarian." Catholic instruction was "sectarian."Let's look at the relevant language of the Montana constitution. The section at issue is entitled "Aid prohibited to sectarian schools" and prohibits the use of public funds "for any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination."Mr. Blaine, meet your amendment.So let's go back to the question posed by Linda Greenhouse. "Could that possibly be the law" that states are prohibited from ending "a program offering financial support to religious and nonreligious schools alike"? Yes, it can possibly be the law. Indeed, it should be the law — when the state ends support because it's enforcing a legal provision that in purpose and effect engages in blatant religious discrimination.The twin constitutional pillars of religious liberty in the United States — the free-exercise clause and the establishment clause — don't just protect liberty by disestablishing religion (by preventing the formation of a state church). They protect liberty by preventing punitive anti-religious policies. They prevent the state from targeting religion for disfavored treatment.Targeting religion for disfavored treatment is exactly what Blaine amendments do. They were aimed squarely at Catholics. Yet as so often happens with attacks on liberty that are allegedly narrowly targeted, the government expanded its scope. Now the law aimed at Catholics affects all people of faith. When it comes to participation in public programs — programs they bought and paid for with their own dollars — Montana's religious citizens and religious institutions are entitled to equal treatment under the law.
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| Philippines arrests 270 Chinese citizens in fraud raid Posted: 13 Sep 2019 01:08 AM PDT  Philippine police have arrested more than 270 Chinese nationals in a raid on a gang wanted over a vast investment fraud that cost victims in China millions of dollars, authorities said Friday. Agents swooped on an office building in the capital Manila on Wednesday to take four suspects into custody in connection with the 100 million yuan ($14 million) scam, but stumbled upon many more. "The operation then yielded the incidental arrest of 273 other Chinese nationals who were caught in the act of conducting illegal online operations," immigration authorities said, without elaborating.
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| Tax Cut 2.0 Looks Different to Trump Than to GOP Lawmakers Posted: 13 Sep 2019 12:32 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- One of President Donald Trump's favorite political promises is a second tax cut. But lawmakers in Congress -- who would need to develop and pass another reduction -- are more focused on making their first tax cut permanent.Trump on Thursday promised House Republicans another middle-class tax cut that he said would be "very substantial" and "very, very inspirational," without giving details. Republican leaders say they support the idea, but they haven't detailed what a plan would look like. Trump has said his proposal will be released next year, in time to be a campaign issue ahead of the 2020 election."We will gather together the best ideas from the Hill and the administration and the outside groups to provide a significant new round of middle-class tax relief," White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters Friday. "This is not a recession measure at all. The economy is very strong."Congressional tax writers, led by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and the House Ways and Means panel's top Republican, Kevin Brady, are focused on a different Tax Cut 2.0: Preserving the individual rate reductions from their 2017 law that are set to expire in 2025."The first and most important step is we can make the cuts for families and small business permanent," Brady told reporters Friday at a House GOP policy retreat in Baltimore. He was referring to the lower rates for individuals and pass-through companies that were made temporary in the GOP's signature tax law to avoid running afoul of budget rules.Because of the projected $1 trillion-plus deficit impact of the GOP's tax code overhaul, only the corporate rate cuts and some of the structural changes were made permanent. Even before the temporary individual tax cuts run out, some breaks for companies purchasing new equipment will expire in 2022, and those for the beer and wine industry will expire at the end of this year.Congress -- with a Republican-led Senate and a Democratic-led House -- would have to pass another law to extend those cuts.Campaign PromiseBrady led an effort to make all the temporary tax cuts permanent last year when the Republicans still had the House majority. However, his Republican colleagues in the Senate, who only had a slim majority, didn't bring up the matter on fears it wouldn't get the 60 votes required to pass.That inaction suggests that more piecemeal extensions of provisions that expire at different times are more likely, rather than preserving the whole law with one vote. Lawmakers, regardless of which party controls Congress, have often voted to extend tax breaks just before they're scheduled to disappear.Trump made a similar promise to cut middle-class taxes before last year's midterm election as House Republicans struggled to counter Democratic talking points that the 2017 overhaul mostly benefited the wealthy. The president's proposal caught Republicans off guard, and nothing ever advanced as Brady tried to cast it as part of a unified GOP plan to extend the 2017 cuts.For now, an additional tax cut would be nearly impossible as Republicans and Democrats remain diametrically opposed, said Adam Michel, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. With the 2020 election likely to deliver a still-divided government, further tax cuts are unlikely unless the economy takes a serious turn for the worse, he said."But if we actually entered a recession, the conversation would be very different," Michel said.(Updates with Kudlow comments in the third paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Davison in Washington at ldavison4@bloomberg.net;Erik Wasson in Baltimore at ewasson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Peru ex-president denied bail in U.S., wife dragged from court after outburst Posted: 12 Sep 2019 01:51 PM PDT  A former Peruvian first lady was dragged out of a courtroom in San Francisco on Thursday as she cursed a judge's decision to keep her husband, ex-president Alejandro Toledo, in jail pending extradition proceedings. Toledo, 73, is wanted in Peru to stand trial over accusations that he took a $20 million bribe from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht during his 2001-2006 term. Toledo denies wrongdoing.
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| One of the photographers behind the iconic Tiananmen Square image has died. He once said he wrapped the film up and stashed it in the toilet to hide it from Chinese security. Posted: 12 Sep 2019 11:35 PM PDT  Cole was one of four photographers who captured the iconic 1989 standoff which became a defining image of the bloody Tiananmen Square massacre.
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| Father of Colorado State student in blackface says his daughter is 'not a racist' Posted: 13 Sep 2019 12:41 PM PDT  Les Kaplan said his daughter, Leana, has been fired from her job, received death threats since an Instagram post of her wearing blackface went viral.
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| Biden Lies: "We Didn't Lock People Up in Cages." Posted: 13 Sep 2019 04:13 AM PDT  But he did.
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| Ancient Handholding Skeletons Are Men but Italy Won’t Say Gay Posted: 13 Sep 2019 05:45 AM PDT  Archeo ModenaROME—In 2009, the straight world swooned when archaeologists discovered two ancient skeletons from between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D. holding hands in a grave in Modena, Italy. They were dubbed the "Lovers of Modena" and have become synonymous with heterosexual romance, their image now often used in Italy to symbolize undying love.When they were discovered, archeologists said the bones were in such a state of decay that the usual genetic-based methods used in confirming the biological sex of ancient remains was of no use. Still, one of the figures was slightly smaller than the other, so it was assumed they were male and female. The individuals did not die in situ—their hands were placed holding each other's by whoever buried them, most likely to represent a relationship between the two people. Eleven people were buried in the cemetery where they were found, all initially thought to be soldiers and victims of an ancient war, based on wounds consistent with battles. The consensus among anthropologists was that the presumed female hand-holder was the lover of one of the warriors.This week, scientists with the University of Bologna announced the "Lovers of Modena" were actually both biologically male, thanks to a revolutionary process they used to examine tooth enamel. A certain peptide that is present only in males was present in all 16 teeth extracted from both skeletons. The scientists also found that only one of the 11 individuals buried in the cemetery was female, and she wasn't holding anyone's hand. Then, suddenly, the hand-holders weren't lovers at all: Italian archaeologists insisted that surely they were brothers or cousins who died in battle. Archaeologist Federico Lugli, who led the Bologna study, conceded that while it was impossible to know if the two men were lovers, he highly doubted it. "In late-ancient times it is unlikely that homosexual love could be recognized so clearly by the people who prepared the burial," he told The Daily Beast by email. "Given that the two individuals have similar ages, they could be relatives, probably siblings or cousins."Homosexuality was well documented in Roman times. Emperor Nero married women to bear children, but he had sex with men for pleasure. He publicly married two men, Pythagoras and, years later, Sporo, who was castrated and made to wear a woman's gown during the ceremony, according to historical accounts by Pliny the Elder, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio, whose writings account for much of what we know about ancient Rome. The ancient Roman Empire legal tome Lex Scantinia sets out a series of regulations for men having sex with other men, including that freeborn Romans—that is to say those who were not slaves or war prisoners—could not take a passive role when having sex with a man. But by no means did it make same sex relationships illegal and it was quite common for noble Romans to have male lovers in addition to wives who fulfilled the traditional role of childbearing. In the case of the skeletons of the Lovers of Modena, it seems historians are not willing to concede that two individuals who were once thought to be romantically linked when they were presumed to be male and female are likely not now that their biological sex is the same. "The burial of two men hand in hand was certainly not a common practice in the late-ancient era," Lugli says. "We believe that this choice symbolizes a particular relationship between the two individuals, but we do not know the nature of it."There are plenty of examples of ancient figures buried in all manner of embrace—most of which have been positively identified through genetic sampling as male and female, but not all. The embracing skeletons found in Petrykiv village in western Ukraine are thought to be from a woman who committed suicide to be buried with her man, but the analysis was made based on jewelry and size. In 2015, a couple of 6,000-year-old spooning skeletons were found in Greece, though no one has any idea yet why they were in such a position. Their bones were identified as biologically male and female. Usually, when couples are found buried together, the first question is why they died at the same time and if one was sacrificed to be buried with the other. Now, thanks to the new dental enamel science, archaeologists can go back to other ancient lovers to find out more about who they were. "At present there are no other burials of this type," Lugli says of the two male hand-holders. "In the past several graves were found with pairs of individuals laid hand in hand, but in all cases it was a man and a woman. The link between the two individuals of the Modena burial, instead, remains a mystery." Or perhaps the evidence is right in front of them. 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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| China and the U.S Are Fighting a Major Battle Over Killer Robots and the Future of AI Posted: 13 Sep 2019 06:45 AM PDT  At the U.N., China called killer robots a "humanitarian concern." But experts fear the military power is developing autonomous weapons.
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| These Are the Next Wave of Ultra-Luxury Electric Cars Entering the Market—and They Don't Disappoint Posted: 13 Sep 2019 12:14 PM PDT |
| Pakistan's Khan calls Modi 'cowardly', vows to raise Kashmir at UN Posted: 13 Sep 2019 07:50 AM PDT  Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan branded his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi "cowardly" on Friday and promised to raise New Delhi's decision to strip Indian Kashmir of its autonomy at next week's UN General Assembly session. Khan, speaking to a crowd of around three thousand supporters at a rally in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, warned that Modi's move on August 5 would have repercussions beyond the disputed Himalayan territory. "When you give a message to 200 million Indian Muslims that India is only for Hindus, you will push them to violence," he warned.
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| Hong Kong Protesters Wave the American Flag, but Is It Too Late? Posted: 12 Sep 2019 08:48 AM PDT  To state the obvious, everyone paying attention here in the States loves the Hong Kongers. Truly. I think we see our best selves in them. And the Hong Kongers waving American flags still see something in us, something that they want to be.In fact, that's what's bothering me. But we'll get to that in a minute.Have you heard Hong Kong's new anthem? Perhaps it is a national anthem in the making. Don't tell some of your more squeamish conservatives, but Hong Kongers — innovative though they are — are sticking to the old standbys when trying to rouse fellow feeling; the anthem includes prominent mentions of "blood" and "soil." Martyrs for freedom tend to make it into anthems. Due process not so much, though that is what they are fighting for.Last year 54 percent of foreign direct investment into China came through Hong Kong. Why? Because Hong Kong provides security and comfort. British and American firms have been doing business there longer than they have on the Mainland. English speakers are concentrated in Hong Kong. And the financial system there runs on principles similar to those in the U.K. and U.S.A., at least providing a level of comfort.Working with Hong Kong made the Chimerican economic model work so well; it's a testing ground. China has gotten used to collaborating with a territory that in law and commercial spirit was closer to the Anglosphere. I suppose, though, that as mainland China gets stronger, its relationship with Hong Kong was bound to be less "working with" Hong Kongers and more working them.We have a lot in common with Hong Kong. I recently learned that for the past decades, Hong Kong and the United States have been the two largest markets for Swiss luxury watches. That makes a lot of sense, when you consider that Hong Kong is where Mainlanders come to shop for luxury goods. Calvin Coolidge said that the business of America is business. And it's true as well for Hong Kong, which, like New York City, is a polity for high finance and the white-gloved shopkeepers who serve them.Actually, Coolidge would have been more correct if he were talking about modern-day Hong Kong. Half the seats on the Legislative Council, which helps run Hong Kong, along with the executive, are indirectly elected by "functional constituencies," these formalized special-interest groups, most of them coming directly out of the most important business sectors in Hong Kong: finance, logistics, tourism. Business interests can be coolly indifferent about liberty. Well-ordered liberty and a limited-government power is a great environment. But an unlimited government that loves business and is willing to subsidize it like crazy is sometimes more attractive to business. Resistance to that kind of government might mean giant protests that disrupt the shops, slow down tourism, and get reported in Switzerland as a giant threat to the sales of greater luxury items. Business interests like predictability. In recent years, the functional constituencies have been voting in a pattern that increasingly conflicts with and overrides those legislators directly elected by the people of Hong Kong. The direct election of all members of the Legislative Council by the people has been the most important issue in Hong Kong since about 2002.And I'm starting to worry. I see Hong Kongers out in the streets, protesting for their liberties against an impassive, grinding, inscrutable party regime in Beijing, a regime that is willing to openly put a million people into re-education camps. And yet that regime has kept most of the global corporate world rooting for it to get relief in a trade war with a free country, the United States, in which those global corporations make most of their money. I look at the American flags aloft in Hong Kong and I think about our best and brightest foreign-policy minds. They also want relief for China, and they seem to think the real threat to the liberal world order is in places like Hungary. They make resigned noises about Beijing. It's all so sad for the Hong Kongers, they imply. They give rather little thought to the possibility that determined and concentrated resistance — the desire to be ungovernable — actually makes a people ungovernable. These experts move back to their alarmist noises about Budapest, a national capital whose supposed "strongman" leader is so limited in geopolitical power, he pretty regularly has to convince his legislature to rewrite labor laws at the behest of a single German car manufacturer, and then watch the German press criticize him for imposing slavery on Hungarians.When Lord Acton said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," he was referring not only to those who wield absolute power, but to the intellectuals and historians whose judgment is corrupted by the sway of power. Is something like that already happening? It's ironic to recall that Acton was writing about the influence of the papacy. But in the 2010s, it is people in the papal court who praise Xi Jinping thought for providing China with a "positive national conscience."I'm worried that Hong Kongers have been deluding themselves the last 22 years. Or at least, not thinking too hard about the potential downsides of facilitating China's rise, while they do business and hope for the best. And to state the obvious, I'm worried everyone here in the United States has done the same. The Hong Kongers see something in us. And I see something of us in them. I see Hong Kongers wave American flags and I think it is a sign: We're next.
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| Another storm is threatening to hit the Bahamas and Florida with tropical storm-force winds and heavy rain Posted: 13 Sep 2019 03:04 PM PDT  A tropical cyclone is headed for the Bahamas and Florida, tracing a similar pattern that Hurricane Dorian just took.
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