| Trump says Biden is 'against God' Posted: 06 Aug 2020 01:26 PM PDT  President Trump attacked former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday by accusing him of being "against God."
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| Most of the coronavirus tests the U.S. does are worthless. But there's a solution that could actually work — and stop the spread. Posted: 06 Aug 2020 08:48 AM PDT  Although President Trump is correct that the U.S. has conducted more tests than any other country, it's not testing enough, given the scale of its outbreak. But there might be a simple solution: new tests that prioritize speed over sensitivity.
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| The Russian owner who abandoned the ship full of ammonium nitrate that caused the Beirut explosion has been questioned by police in Cyprus, reports say Posted: 07 Aug 2020 03:47 AM PDT  Igor Grechushkin was questioned by Cyprus police on Thursday over the MV Rhosus, the ship that carried ammonium nitrate to Beirut, local reports say.
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| US sanctions Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam Posted: 07 Aug 2020 07:43 AM PDT  The United States on Friday slapped sanctions on Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam and 10 other senior figures, in a major new step against China's clampdown in the semi-autonomous city. In the most significant US action since China imposed a tough security law, Ms Lam and the other leaders of the Asian financial hub will have any assets in the United States blocked. The move also criminalises any US financial transactions with them. "The United States stands with the people of Hong Kong and we will use our tools and authorities to target those undermining their autonomy," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States was acting because Beijing had violated its promise of autonomy that it made to Hong Kong before Britain handed back the territory in 1997. "Today's actions send a clear message that the Hong Kong authorities' actions are unacceptable and in contravention of the PRC's commitments under 'one country, two systems' and the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a UN-registered treaty," Mr Pompeo said. The Treasury Department said that Lam, as chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, "is directly responsible for implementing Beijing's policies of suppression of freedom and democratic processes." Other sanctioned officials include Chris Tang, commissioner of the Hong Kong Police Force, and Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office, Beijing's office in the city.
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| ICE detained hundreds of Mississippi chicken plant workers. Now managers are charged Posted: 06 Aug 2020 01:59 PM PDT  The indictments mark the first criminal action prosecutors have taken against company managers after ICE took close to 700 workers into custody last year during a massive raid on food processing plants.
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| California hotel brawl near Disneyland involves about 100 people, police say Posted: 06 Aug 2020 09:24 AM PDT  A brawl at a hotel near Disneyland on Wednesday involved as many as 100 people and two people were hospitalized, police said.
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| Could a World War II Shipwreck Cause the Next Beirut-Like Explosion? Posted: 07 Aug 2020 07:36 AM PDT  The SS Richard Montgomery is basically a bomb waiting to go off.
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| Manchin counters Obama on eliminating filibuster: 'I will do everything I can to prevent it' Posted: 06 Aug 2020 03:48 PM PDT  Former President Barack Obama has called on the Senate to do away with the filibuster, but that won't happen if West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has anything to say about it.
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| The National Rifle Association faces its worst nightmare: accountability Posted: 07 Aug 2020 06:20 AM PDT  The NRA is facing lawsuits and investigations for possible financial misconduct while losing the influence it once had on American leadership.
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| Trump claims Biden will 'hurt God. He's against God.' Posted: 06 Aug 2020 12:27 PM PDT  At a speech to supporters in Cleveland on Thursday, President Trump said former Vice President Joe Biden is "against God."
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| Marijuana sent him to prison for decades. Now he has COVID-19 and is seeking release. Posted: 06 Aug 2020 09:33 AM PDT  Michael Thompson, 69, is serving a 40- to 60-year sentence for charges that stem from a marijuana sale in 1994. His advocates say his punishment was excessive.
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| CNN’s Poppy Harlow Confronts Larry Kudlow With All the Times He’s Been Wrong About the Coronavirus Posted: 07 Aug 2020 08:49 AM PDT  White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow doesn't have the best track record when it comes to predictions. And CNN anchor Poppy Harlow was more than ready with the receipts when he came on her show to talk about the coronavirus fallout Friday morning. Harlow began her interview by asking Kudlow if he and President Donald Trump are "worried" about the slowdown in the recovery. "I don't know that there's a slowdown. These job numbers will go up and down," Kudlow replied. When Harlow noted that only 1.8 million jobs were added in July compared to 4.8 million in June, he said, "That is true, and it's going to be uneven as it always is." Kudlow continued to push the administration's argument that a $600 weekly federal unemployment benefit has been a "disincentive" for Americans to go back to work. And when Harlow asked for evidence, he pointed to a University of Chicago study that supposedly supports that claim. "But, Larry, the University of Chicago survey, it doesn't conclude what you're arguing," Harlow said. "I know you don't want to incentivize people to go to work when it's a dangerous situation for them to go because the virus is not under control," she added, noting that she talked to the author of that study who said "it's a mistake to draw the conclusion as you have been and the White House has been that right now it's a disincentive to go back to work." All Kudlow could say in response was, "We can argue one academic versus another, I think history shows this is probably not sustainable in the long term." > Asked to explain why he's been wrong about the coronavirus at every turn -- he said the virus was "contained" in February, for instance -- Kudlow takes umbrage with Poppy Harlow for "nitpicking" pic.twitter.com/bNvNP8Qj4r> > -- Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 7, 2020But the most contentious moment of the interview came later when Harlow confronted Kudlow for his rhetoric over the past several months about the pandemic itself. "I'm wondering why you have consistently downplayed the severity of the pandemic," she said. "Back on February 25th you said 'it's pretty close to airtight.' February 28th, 'It's not going to sink the American economy,' March 6th, 'Let's not overreact, America should stay at work.' And just on June 12th, 'There is no emergency, there is no second wave,' but since June 12th, 45,978 Americans have died from COVID."Kudlow attempted to defend his consistent downplaying of the virus' severity but after a few moments he just resorted to attacking his interviewer. "I kind of resent your little nitpicking here because I don't know what that has to do with today's job numbers," he said."I'm not nitpicking, Larry," Harlow replied. "I think people listen to you and the president when you say things about the pandemic." Ultimately, he may have been chastened enough to acknowledge his own fallibility when it comes to predicting the future. "I think, again, the health guidelines that we have put out are in fact working, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, maybe prayerfully, that we've seen the worst of this extension so we'll see what happens." "We all are, Larry," Harlow said. CNN's Brianna Keilar Comes at Trump Campaign's Mercedes Schlapp for Falsely Smearing Her Military HusbandRead 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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| #DontCallMeMurzyn: Black Women in Poland Are Powering the Campaign Against a Racial Slur Posted: 07 Aug 2020 09:25 AM PDT  "Each time I hear this word, I feel like someone was clawing at my heart."
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| As legal battle over school reopening proceeds, DeSantis stresses importance of sports Posted: 06 Aug 2020 10:33 AM PDT  Flanked by coaches, athletes and politicians, Gov. Ron DeSantis Thursday used sports to emphasize his support of school reopenings.
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| Decades after they last saw each other, homecoming king and queen reunited by chance on a dating app Posted: 07 Aug 2020 03:00 AM PDT  They were married on the 50-yard-line at Montclair State University's football stadium — where they were crowned homecoming royalty in 1992.
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| Kasich and Sanders to join forces for a night of unity at Democratic convention Posted: 07 Aug 2020 01:30 AM PDT  The roster for the event is taking shape, with a few notable additions — and omissions.
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| A Sampling of Work From Mexico City’s Top Talents Posted: 07 Aug 2020 05:00 AM PDT |
| Biden rows back from interview where he said Latinos are 'incredibly diverse' unlike African Americans Posted: 07 Aug 2020 05:15 AM PDT  Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, made the remarks on Thursday, drawing widespread criticism.
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| Oklahoma won't require masks in schools, so a teacher who's a 72-year-old cancer survivor is offering students extra credit to wear them Posted: 07 Aug 2020 08:42 AM PDT  Oklahoma's board of education voted against requiring masks in schools, putting teachers and students at risk.
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| Christiane Lemieux and Anthropologie Team Up for the Launch of Her Newest Collection Posted: 07 Aug 2020 11:06 AM PDT |
| Help Lebanon: Remove Hezbollah’s Stranglehold — and Its Dangerous Missile Stockpiles Posted: 06 Aug 2020 08:25 AM PDT  Beirut has been ravaged by a massive explosion, likely caused by careless handling of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse at its port. As the city is still picking through the debris and thousands search for loved ones, countries such as Turkey, Iran, Qatar, France, and Israel are rushing to provide support. Yet looming over Beirut even now is the presence of the terrorist group Hezbollah with its network of 150,000 missiles, many stored in civilian areas throughout the country.While Hezbollah has not been blamed for the August 4 warehouse fire that led to the massive explosion, it is alleged to have imported and stored similar stockpiles of dangerous munitions and chemicals, such as ammonium nitrate, used in explosives. Hezbollah also helped create the corrupt and negligent political system whose lack of accountability enabled the careless storage of these deadly chemicals for years. For instance, a new report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies asserts that Hezbollah siphons off billions from around the world into a kind of black market. Money is laundered through Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah to function as a kind of parallel state, one with its own terror army, missiles, companies, financial services, and social servicesThe recent explosion in Lebanon must invite increased scrutiny of the role Hezbollah has played in eroding state institutions and enabling the kind of shoddy negligence that led to this disaster. To shield itself, Hezbollah will scramble to respond, likely either casting blame or portraying itself as riding to the rescue. It has done this before. After launching an attack on Israel in 2006, Hezbollah used the war's devastation to entrench and enrich itself. It did the same with the Syrian civil war in 2011, using the war next door as an excuse to send fighters to Syria and essentially conduct Lebanon's foreign policy in place of the government.The results of Hezbollah's machinations are clear: constant tensions with Israel, and the lurching of once lush and prosperous Beirut from one failure to the next, from brownouts to lack of basic services for citizens. Lebanon is in the midst of a financial crisis and requires some $93 billion for a bailout. Hezbollah has suggested Lebanon turn to China for help, as part of its goal to replace U.S. influence in Lebanon with China, Iran, and other U.S. adversaries. It may try to leverage the devastation to deepen its tentacles over the country using its network of social services and volunteers.What can be done to address Lebanon's mounting problems, now compounded by this tragic explosion, while reducing Hezbollah's corrosive influence? First, Hezbollah needs to be isolated from the financial system and from the flow of weapons coming from Iran. In recent years, Hezbollah sought to acquire precision-guided munitions and to establish factories for them in Lebanon. It has also threatened Israeli infrastructure. In a 2016 speech, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah even threatened to target ammonium-nitrate storage in Israel to cause the kind of explosion that just levelled Beirut. This leaves no doubt that the terrorist group knows exactly the level of devastation it wanted to cause in Israel and the threat it still poses. The Alma Research Center in Israel recently revealed that Hezbollah has 28 rocket-launch sites around Beirut. The recent explosion makes it clear that Hezbollah's use of civilian areas for weapons storage must be stopped in Lebanon.Yet many countries looking to provide support for Lebanon will likely do so without seeking to disentangle Hezbollah. Russia, Iran, and China may be amenable to working with Nasrallah while Turkey, Qatar, and France could turn a blind eye to the group's role. Saudi Arabia, once a major backer of Lebanon and broker of the 1989 accords that ended the country's civil war, opposes Hezbollah's role. As do other Gulf states, such as the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. can help Lebanon, monitor reconstruction, and advise on implementing financial and port-inspection standards, sidelining Hezbollah in the process.In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, aid will be concentrated on finding missing people and avoiding an economic collapse or a health crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Once this period has passed, it is essential that the dust not merely settle with Hezbollah more entrenched and powerful, its system of illicit weapons and warehouses full of munitions still dotting the civilian landscape. If Hezbollah does capitalize on this disaster, it will only accelerate Lebanon's economic collapse, and hold the country hostage in a future war with Israel.
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| Texas cancer researcher murdered on jog Posted: 06 Aug 2020 06:26 AM PDT  A cancer researcher and mother of two is murdered on her daily jog; Sarmistha Sen was found dead near a creek in Plano, Texas.
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| India landslide: Dozens feared dead after flooding in Kerala Posted: 07 Aug 2020 07:55 AM PDT  Up to 20 houses are buried under debris in the state of Kerala, with rescue efforts under way.
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| Trump’s Last Gasp Could Be a Supreme Court Justice in January Posted: 06 Aug 2020 02:05 AM PDT  Close your eyes and picture Jan. 3, 2021: The Capitol is teeming with 35 newly sworn-in Senators, four of whom have given the Democrats a 51-50 majority with the vice president-elect's tie-breaking vote; Republican Senate rule has ended and, with their enlarged House majority, Democrats now control both branches of government for the first time in twelve years.President-elect Biden and his team are busy crafting an ambitious legislative program, dealing with transition tasks of agency appointments and anticipated judicial nominations and planning the upcoming inauguration. Democrats are happy. Exciting opportunity is in the air. But within a few days, the Democrats' party crashes to a halt with the news that a Supreme Court opening has suddenly materialized, and the opening comes from the progressive wing of the court. The immediate assumption is that the 51-50 Democratic majority will ensure that a new nominee will reflect the judicial profile of her predecessor. Not so fast: Between Jan. 3 and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, outgoing Vice President Mike Pence will still cast tie-breaking votes. And worse, Donald Trump is the undisputed president until noon on the 20th, able to nominate SCOTUS and other judicial nominees, all lifetime appointments.Here's a Preview of America's 2020 Nightmare if Trump LosesTrump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have quietly assembled a short list of conservative SCOTUS nominees, hoping for a vacancy to arise. Should the opening develop days before the November election, or during the transition period between the election and the Inauguration, Trump and McConnell would be ready to shove through their nominee within days. McConnell's 2016 rebuke of Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the court—"Let the people decide!"—has been retooled to "We're still in power!"As late as Jan. 3, Trump—rejected by American voters—and McConnell, stripped of his abusive leadership powers, would likely be prepared to ram through a SCOTUS nomination that would shift the court's ideological balance to the far right for a generation to come.Should that opening occur before Jan. 3, McConnell would certainly use Senate rules and practices to schedule an up-or-down confirmation vote with his 53-47 Republican majority. And even after the new 50-50 Senate is sworn in on Jan. 3, McConnell could potentially use Vice President Pence to break any Democratic effort to organize and prevent a Republican SCOTUS confirmation.A Far-Fetched Scenario?As long as the Senate has existed, tradition and bipartisan collegiality have smoothed the transfer of power from one party to the other after an election. Leaders of both parties hashed out committee apportionment, budgets, and so on, during the November-December transition period. The opening day schedule, introduction of priority legislation, and speeches has long been regulated by tradition. After the 2000 election and its resulting 50-50 split, outgoing Democratic leader Tom Daschle and incoming leader Trent Lott worked to ease partisan differences and hand the leadership reins to Republicans. But next Jan. 3 may be wildly different. If the November election results in a 50-50 split in the Senate—an entirely likely scenario, with four Democratic pickups and a loss in Alabama—emotions may be raw and even vindictive. The past four years of bitter division and personal hostilities have created a toxic Senate environment. This scenario has happened before, though with no dire results. After the 2000 election, with a split Senate, Al Gore provided the tie-breaking vote that gave Democrats the majority for the 17 days before George W. Bush's Inauguration.Potholes in the Trump/McConnell PathSenate rules experts doubt that McConnell could attempt to force through a SCOTUS nominee in 17 days or less, citing a number of Senate procedural roadblocks, such as the requirement that a nomination must "lay over" for one week, and that the nomination must be voted out of the Judiciary Committee before Senate floor consideration. "The majority may be deterred from doing what they want by the institution's inherited rules of procedure," notes James Wallner, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and former executive director of the Senate Steering Committee. "A last-minute effort to confirm a Supreme Court nominee would be extraordinary."However, any Senate rule can be overridden by a simple Senate majority vote, a procedure that McConnell has aggressively invoked for the Kavanaugh and Gorsuch nominations. And until noon on Jan. 20, Mike Pence can, as president of the Senate, break any tie vote, and give Republicans a continued majority status to conduct committee business. Senate precedence has given vice presidents a wide berth to exercise that vote.The potential for a last-minute conservative SCOTUS appointment by a defeated Trump and defanged McConnell is real and frightening. Perhaps one or two Republican Senators would resist such a frantic power grab. Yet despite a handful of senators who have exhibited a willingness to rise above party and challenge Trump, 50 surviving Republicans may be willing to shove through another conservative justice, or a handful of lower court nominees at the last minute. Certainly an embittered, angry, loser Trump would love nothing more than to use his last days in the White House to deal Democrats a vicious blow.The only sure prevention of this nightmare rests in a Democratic wave election on Nov. 3 that ejects not only Trump and Pence from the White House, but at least five Republican incumbents as well.And for good measure, the surprise defeat of the Trump Senate enablers who have gotten us in this mess to start with.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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| Canada 'knows the root cause': China hints at Huawei retaliation as it sentences two Canadians to death Posted: 07 Aug 2020 12:16 PM PDT  A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Canada "knows the root cause" behind recent death sentences for Canadians facing drug charges, the latest escalation in conflict between both countries following the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin reportedly said the judicial system in China "handles cases independently" while discussing the recent death sentences for two Canadian nationals charged in separate cases with transporting and manufacturing drugs in China.
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| Letters to the Editor: Heads up, Joe Biden — Kamala Harris has always been campaigning for her next job Posted: 06 Aug 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Kamala Harris is the junior senator from California, so what has she done for our state?
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| GOP appeals after Judge dismisses lawsuit over House's proxy voting system established due to COVID-19 Posted: 07 Aug 2020 03:19 PM PDT  A federal judge tossed out a GOP-led lawsuit aiming to halt an unprecedented proxy voting system established by the House due to the COVID pandemic.
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| Former Saudi official accuses Mohammad bin Salman of 'sending hit squad' to kill him Posted: 06 Aug 2020 02:24 PM PDT  A former senior Saudi intelligence official has claimed that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman sent a hit squad to Canada in an attempt to kill him. In a 107-page complaint, filed in a Washington DC court, Saad Aljabri claimed the assassins were intercepted by Canadian authorities. The incident was alleged to have happened less than two weeks after Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident, was killed in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul. Mr Aljabri, who was living in self-imposed exile in Toronto, was said to have clashed with the crown prince over issues including the decision to go to war in Yemen, and was dismissed from his cabinet role in 2015. He is suing the crown prince and 24 others for an unset amount of damages In his complaint Mr Aljabri claimed the crown prince "dispatched a hit squad" to Canada in October 2018. The complaint said: "(A) team of Saudi nationals travelled across the Atlantic Ocean from Saudi Arabia ... with the intention of killing Dr Saad."
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| Students say they were suspended and others threatened with 'consequences' for posting photos of their school's packed hallways Posted: 06 Aug 2020 11:22 AM PDT  North Paulding High School has cracked down social media sharing after images of a crowded hallway and few masks at the school went viral.
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| Germany will test all arrivals from 'risky' countries like the US as daily new cases top 1,000 for the first time in 3 months Posted: 07 Aug 2020 03:45 AM PDT  Germany will test arrivals from most countries outside of the EU in a bid to avoid another escalation in Covid-19 infections.
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| Georgia DA who charged officers faces tough primary runoff Posted: 07 Aug 2020 05:30 AM PDT  Against the backdrop of protests over racial injustice and police brutality and with allegations of misconduct emboldening challengers, the top prosecutor in Georgia's most populous country is fighting to keep his job. After two decades of running unopposed, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard placed second in the June Democratic primary and faces a tough runoff election Tuesday. The extended primary contest has unfolded as Atlanta rocked with protests sparked by the killing of an African American, George Floyd, by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
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| Trump ‘is so much anti-life,’ Kentucky Catholic bishop says in abortion discussion Posted: 07 Aug 2020 08:53 AM PDT  "He is only concerned about himself," the church leader said.
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| Putin’s Got Big Problems in Russia’s Provinces Posted: 07 Aug 2020 01:37 AM PDT  MOSCOW—The city of Khabarovsk, a sprawling, industrial metropolis about 5,000 miles east of the capital—the Bolsheviks turned it into a hub for serving Siberian prison camps, in the middle of nowhere by design—is about as far from the seat of Russian power as geographically possible. But it's suddenly at the center of Russian politics these days. For the past three weeks, thousands of people have come out daily in Khabarovsk to protest the country's top-down rule, what President Vladimir Putin once called his "vertical of power. "Wake up, cities, our Motherland is in trouble," protesters chanted in the rain one Friday evening. Banners that read, "Putin, you lost my trust!" and "Down with the Tsar!" floated above people's heads.Despite the Kremlin's best efforts to hide them, problems have been bubbling up in Russia's provinces, transforming local issues into the most dynamic arena for dissent, protest, and opposition in the country's political system and fueling Russia's version of post-lockdown unrest. The arrest of Khabarovsk's popular regional governor sparked the anti-Putin uprising that has drawn up to 60,000 people into the streets in this usually sleepy backwater. The arrested governor was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, which had for years been loyal to Putin. Yet even the party's leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, told The Daily Beast that the provincial protests could spread, as people are fed up with the lies and media manipulation in the Putin system. "This is a genuine, wonderful, peaceful protest, but federal television channels do not cover them, and that offends people," he said.Millions of Russians are still watching the Far East rallies online. People are outraged by unemployment, corruption, pollution, and failing government. "For as long as we have a one-party system, you will have the Khabarovsk protests," Zhirinovsky recently declared from the tribune of the State Duma. "I have suggested to them a long time ago to have at least two parties, but they want to have the majority," Zhirinovsky told The Daily Beast about Putin's United Russia party. Putin continues the tradition of single-party system that began under Lenin, Zhirinovsky said.Two thousand miles away from Khabarovsk sits another provincial city, Norilsk, with its giant factory that is the source of a fifth of the world's nickel and half of the precious metal palladium. Norilsk is the world's northernmost city and also Russia's most polluted; visitors stepping off a plane are greeted by air that leaves an unforgettable metallic taste in the mouth. But even by Norilsk's own abysmal standards, this summer was a horrific one for the environment: Its factory, Norilsk Nickel, spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of red-hued diesel fuel into what locals now call "rivers of blood." The rain smells of chemicals. The diesel fuel spill was caused by the collapse of a rust-covered storage tank at a heat and power plant on May 29. Local bureaucrats and the factory kept quiet about the disaster for two days as the red, oily rivers spread pollutants through the fragile tundra environment in what Greenpeace would later call the "biggest environmental catastrophe in the history of Russia's Arctic." Authorities initially tried to hide the disaster, in the same way state television channels have attempted to ignore the protests in Khabarovsk. Russians only learned of the spill from social media. Six weeks later, with still no word of any official reprimand for the spill, the factory dumped another round of toxic waste—this time, intentionally—right onto the tundra.Two reporters from the independent paper Novaya Gazeta, Yelena Kostyuchenko and Yuri Kozyrev, had traveled to Norilsk after the spill to see the pollution with their own eyes. The reporters discovered a stream with orange bubbles and a lake covered in white foam, surrounded by dead trees. But it had nothing to do with the diesel spill. "Two large pipes were pumping and dumping white toxic waste with a sharp chemical smell onto the tundra when we arrived," Kostyuchenko told The Daily Beast. Novaya Gazeta's report raised the alarm with local prosecutors and police, so the factory sent a bulldozer to quickly dismantle the pipes. Then, the bulldozer accidentally crushed a police car while backing up. Environmentalists witnessed a wild scene: A huge number of Norilsk Nickel's security services were demolishing their factory's pipes in front of police and officials from the emergency ministry and Russia's natural resources regulatory agency, Rospotrebnadzor.Meanwhile, some Russian politicians started to call for the Kremlin to take control of the factory—owned by the country's richest oligarch, Vladimir Potanin—and nationalize it. Potanin, a former member of the Communist Party, obtained the Norilsk factory on the cheap during the privatization of the 1990s. Since then, he's seemed untouchable. After all, according to Kremlin-watcher Mikhail Zygar, the billionaire has always paid up for problems at the factory in the only currency that counts: loyalty to the Russian president. "People like Potanin are happy to pay for all [Putin's] projects, for anything he ever wants," said Zygar, author of All the Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin. Soviet and post-Soviet bureaucrats have a long history of attempting to hide the truth about disasters from the public, no matter how deadly—most famously after the 1986 nuclear accident in Chernobyl. Last year, an experimental missile exploded in the Arctic, releasing radioactivity into the air, and the official reaction was silence. So, too, in the first days after the fuel spill. Officials were even reluctant to break the bad news to Putin himself. "One has to earn the right to report bad news to Vladimir Vladimirovich," said Sergei Markov, a political analyst close to the Kremlin. "It must have taken a few days before the decision-makers on various steps of power figured out who would be the one to break the news."On the fifth day after the fuel spill, four people lined up shoulder to shoulder to report the truth about the accident to Putin in an online meeting: the oligarch Potanin; Svetlana Radionova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor; Yevgeny Zinichev, the minister of emergency situations; and Viktor Uss, the Krasnoyarsk regional governor.Zinichev told the president that "the event itself, the emergency situation, was localized on June 1. We have installed booms, so there is no development." Radionova, in contrast, talked about "unprecedented" pollution. "We registered an increase by dozens of thousands of times," after the diesel fuel spilled into the rivers, she told Putin.Potanin was the last to speak. He promised to dip into his wealth and pay for the damage. The accident would cost "not a ruble from the state budget." Putin wanted to know how much, exactly, the company was going to pay. The billionaire paused.Putin pressed Potanin on how much money he was willing to pay to compensate for the damage. "Billions and billions" of rubles, or tens of millions of dollars, the oligarch finally told the president. "And how much does one reserve tank cost that you are going to replace now? If you replaced it on time, there would not have been such damage and such cost to the environment," the president replied.According to Forbes Real Time, which gauges wealth, in the weeks after the accident Potanin's net worth dropped by more than $3.6 billion, but he is currently worth $23 billion, which still allows him the title of Russia's richest man. The World Wide Fund for Nature has addressed an open letter to Potanin, calling him personally to "take the full responsibility" for polluting the Arctic. But money for the clean-up aside, Potanin is unlikely to face real repercussions for the spill. Earlier this summer Putin's inspector, Radionova, flew to Norilsk to calculate fines for the factory—but, according to Transparency International, she flew there on Potanin's own Bombardier Challenger private jet, instead of taking a regular flight. Radionova has also been accused of corruption by the foundation of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which revealed documents for luxurious real estate in Moscow and Nice that suggest Radionova is the owner. "Such wealth cannot be explained. It is so outrageous," Navalny said in his report on YouTube, viewed by more than 3 million people. Meanwhile, experts warn that Russia is ill-equipped to prevent another environmental disaster. After the diesel spill, a member of the board of directors at Norilsk Nickel, Yevgeny Shvarts, admitted on a television talk show that the storage tank that had collapsed was the newest piece of equipment at his company. "This is terrifying: One of Russia's richest companies considers a tank made in 1985 their newest piece of equipment. That means things are much worse than we thought," the show's host, Vladimir Slivyak, told to The Daily Beast. He expressed concern that many other Russian factories are also storing diesel fuel in even older tanks: "Such accidents might take place any time." 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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| Biden: Latino community is diverse, ‘unlike the African American community’ Posted: 06 Aug 2020 12:11 PM PDT  President Donald Trump quickly attacked Biden over the remark.
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| Letters to the Editor: Jackie Lacey's husband has a right to protect his home. Why charge him with assault? Posted: 07 Aug 2020 03:00 AM PDT  David Lacey didn't hurt anyone when Black Lives Matter demonstrators showed up at his home shortly after 5 a.m. one morning.
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| Mauritius facing catastrophe as oil starts leaking from a shipwreck near pristine coral reefs Posted: 07 Aug 2020 08:56 AM PDT  The island nation of Mauritius is facing an environmental crisis after a huge container ship ran aground and started to leak oil into an area home to some of the finest coral reefs in the world. Efforts to pump oil out of the ship have failed, and now there are fears that the carrier could start to break up, leading to an even greater leak and causing catastrophic damage on the island's pristine coastline. "We are in an environmental crisis situation," said the environment minister, Kavy Ramano, The carrier MV Wakashio, which belongs to a Japanese company and flew a Panamanian-flagged, was en route from China to Brazil when it ran aground near Pointe d'Esny on the island's southeastern coast on 25 July. The vessel's crew have been evacuated safely and the container was not carrying a cargo load when wrecked. However, the 1,000ft vessel was carrying 90 tonnes of lubricant oil, 200 tonnes of diesel and 3,800 tonnes of bunker fuel, according to local media outlets. Now the oil is spreading out of the ship rapidly, according to Sunil Dowarkasing, Greengate Consulting, a Mauritian environmental consultancy, who was on the beach in sight of wreck. "It's really very bad because now despite all the measures, the oil has already reached the shores of Mauritius and polluted the shorelines. You can see fish dying. The situation is out of control," Mr Dowarkasing told The Telegraph. Mr Dowarkasing said that the wreck was near four major wildlife and maritime sanctuaries, which contained flora and fauna unique to the island. He added that there was a 100-year-old 'brain' coral nearby in the Blue Bay Marine Park. "Thousands of species around the pristine lagoons of Blue Bay, Pointe d'Esny and Mahebourg are at risk of drowning in a sea of pollution, with dire consequences for Mauritius' economy, food security and health," Happy Khambule from Greenpeace Africa told The Telegraph in a statement. Mauritius, which lies some 600 miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, is a major tourist hotspot and tax haven for international corporations and African oligarchs. The country of 1.2m depends on its seas for food and for tourism, boasting some of the finest coral reefs in the world. The Mauritian government has asked the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion for assistance. "This is the first time that we are faced with a catastrophe of this kind and we are insufficiently equipped to handle this problem," said fishing minister, Sudheer Maudhoo.
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| A Florida man has been arrested over claims he spat on a child's face and told him: 'You now have coronavirus' Posted: 07 Aug 2020 03:51 AM PDT  Jason Copenhaver confronted the boy after the child refused to remove his face mask in a restaurant, the Treasure Island Police Department said.
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| Within 11 days of schools opening, dozens of students and teachers have gotten COVID-19: 'I truly wish we'd kept our children home' Posted: 06 Aug 2020 12:10 PM PDT  Schools began reopening several weeks ago. Dozens of students and staff have already tested positive for COVID-19.
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| India seizes 740 tonnes of chemical that caused Lebanon blast Posted: 07 Aug 2020 01:03 AM PDT |
| Rudy Giuliani wildly claims Black Lives Matter are a 'domestic terror group' who 'hate white men in particular' Posted: 06 Aug 2020 07:18 AM PDT  President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has claimed Black Lives Matter is a "domestic terrorist group," despite the group never being tied to a single terrorism event in a global database of almost 200,000."These are killers, and these are people who hate white people. They're people who hate white men in particular. And they want to do away with a mother-father family," Mr Giuliani said on Fox and Friends on Thursday, although ample evidence debunks that claim.
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| 40K Katy ISD students chose to stay home and learn virtually Posted: 07 Aug 2020 05:29 PM PDT  Has your family made the decision on the school year? Many parents, teachers and staff say they are conflicted.
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| Man fights with bear after it enters home with 10 kids inside, Alaska officials say Posted: 06 Aug 2020 07:22 PM PDT  He went toe-to-toe with the 300-pound predator, and it didn't go very well
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| Partisan divide among Americans who believe 'it is safe now' to reopen persists as COVID-19 cases rise, survey finds Posted: 07 Aug 2020 11:54 AM PDT  Republicans and Democrats remain divided on when business and activities should reopen.
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| Utah protesters face charges with potential life sentence Posted: 06 Aug 2020 01:36 PM PDT  Some Black Lives Matter protesters in Salt Lake City could face up to life in prison if they're convicted of splashing red paint and smashing windows during a protest, a potential punishment that stands out among demonstrators arrested around the country and one that critics say doesn't fit the alleged crime. Prosecutors said Wednesday that's justified because the protesters worked together to cause thousands of dollars in damage, but watchdogs called the use of the 1990s-era law troubling, especially in the context of criminal justice reform and minority communities. "This is so far beyond just the enforcement of the law, it feels retaliatory," said Madalena McNeil, who is facing a potential life sentence over felony criminal mischief and riot charges.
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