| ‘I don’t owe Russia money,’ Trump says, while refusing to detail any foreign debts Posted: 15 Oct 2020 08:03 PM PDT  President Trump declined to release definitive information on his financial situation when asked at Thursday's town hall in Miami about leaked tax returns that appear to show he owes hundreds of millions of dollars.
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| 'Fire! Fire! Fire!': A ship captain faces prosecution after a slaughter at sea Posted: 15 Oct 2020 02:04 PM PDT  The chilling case of the Ping Shin 101, which is still unfolding, shows the challenge of prosecuting crimes on the high seas.
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| After living in a converted school bus for a year, a retiree is now $10,000 in debt and selling her schoolie — here's the one cost she didn't see coming Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:31 AM PDT  Keri Gallioux said she had to sell her car, take out a loan, and max out her credit cards. It then took a toll on her emotional health.
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| Dwyane Wade was walking down a California beach during a wedding proposal... Posted: 15 Oct 2020 02:26 PM PDT  Proposing marriage can take months of planning or in the moment.
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| Ex-Mexican defense secretary arrested in U.S. on Drug Enforcement Administration warrant Posted: 15 Oct 2020 10:34 PM PDT  Former Mexican Defense Secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos was arrested Thursday in Los Angeles on a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration warrant, a spokeswoman for the agency told Reuters. U.S. and Mexican officials told The Associated Press Cienfuegos was detained at Los Angeles International Airport on drug trafficking and money laundering charges. Cienfuegos, 72, served for six years under former President Enrique Peña Nieto, leading the armed forces through December 2018. This high-profile arrest is "going to have a powerful impact in Mexico," military affairs analyst Raul Benitez told Reuters.Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard tweeted that U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau notified him of the arrest and Cienfuegos will be offered "the consular assistance to which he is entitled."Last year, Genaro Garcia Luna, security minister under ex-President Felipe Calderon, was arrested in Texas on suspicion of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from a drug cartel.More stories from theweek.com Why this libertarian is voting for Biden The town halls weren't a debate — but Trump still won Is America ready for a boring president?
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| Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was hospitalized for COVID-19, said he was 'wrong' not to wear a mask at the White House Posted: 15 Oct 2020 04:25 PM PDT  Christie encouraged others to "follow CDC guidelines in public no matter where you are and wear a mask to protect yourself and others."
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| Cameron Peak Fire becomes largest wildfire in Colorado history, growing more than 20,000 acres in a day Posted: 14 Oct 2020 07:38 PM PDT  The Cameron Peak Fire on Wednesday surpassed another 2020 blaze, the Pine Gulch Fire, as the largest wildfire by acreage in Colorado history.
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| South African white farmers and rival black protesters face off outside court hearing over farm murder case Posted: 16 Oct 2020 05:04 AM PDT  White South African farmers and rival Black protesters hurled abuse and threats at each other on Friday ahead of a court hearing in a murder case that has exposed still simmering racial tensions 26 years after the end of apartheid. The killing of Brendan Horner, a white man whose body was found tied to a pole at his farm in Free State province, sparked riots at the start of this month, and prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to make a statement urging South Africans to "resist attempts... to mobilise communities along racial lines". The farmers, who accuse the government of failing to protect them from violent crime, arrived in pick-up trucks ahead of the court hearing in the central town of Senekal for Horner's two suspected killers. The farmers mostly wore khaki shirts and shorts, a few wore military outfits, and at least one was armed. A group on motorbikes sporting long beards drove through Senekal, a trading town surrounded by dry, hilly countryside, some waving flags with crosses on. "We are getting tired now of all the farm murders," said Geoffrey Marais, 30, a livestock trader from Delmas, where a woman was strangled to death two weeks ago. "Enough is enough. They (the government) must start to prioritise these crimes."
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| What Dr. Fauci says when asked about Trump's crowded rallies Posted: 15 Oct 2020 07:01 AM PDT  The nation's top infectious disease expert remains concerned that large-scale gatherings like President Trump's campaign rallies will lead to more coronavirus outbreaks.
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| Teacher Beheaded on Public Street Had Shown Anti-Muslim Cartoon to Students: Police Posted: 16 Oct 2020 10:31 AM PDT  Anti-terrorism prosecutors in France are investigating the death of a teacher who was decapitated on a street in northern Paris on Friday afternoon, according to local media reports and authorities. The attack near a school in the Parisian suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine occurred after the teacher apparently showed caricatures of the prophet Muhammad to his students, a police spokesperson told NBC.Citing a police source, Agence France-Presse reported that the attacker shouted "Allahu Akbar" after the decapitation. According to a police union official, onlookers saw the suspect slicing the victim's throat.The suspect, who has not been identified, reportedly threatened officers with a knife when he was confronted soon after in the nearby suburb of Eragy Sur Oise. He was fatally shot by police. "Shots were fired and the suspect was killed," a police spokesperson told NBC News, stating that a handgun was also found near the suspect. A bomb squad was brought in because the suspect appeared to be wearing a vest. The police spokesperson said the suspect had claimed responsibility for the attack and posted a photo of the victim on Twitter that was later removed.Terror Investigation Launched After Knife Attack at Charlie Hebdo's Old Offices Injures TwoThe Friday attack is one of several terrorism-related tragedies to hit the French capital over the years. Last month, two people were injured in a knife attack close to the former offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, where Islamist militants killed 12 people in 2015 in revenge for a controversial cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. Officials said the September attack was an act of Islamist terrorism carried out amid a trial for the 2015 attackers.On Friday, the police spokesperson told NBC that the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine teacher had been threatened by a parent after showing caricatures from Charlie Hebdo as part of a discussion on freedom of expression and blasphemy."Tonight, it was the Republic that was attacked with the despicable assassination of one of its servants, a professor," Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said Friday. "I think tonight of him, of his family. Our unity and steadfastness are the only answers to the monstrosity of Islamist terrorism."The Washington Post reported the country's anti-terror prosecutor immediately opened an investigation into the "murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and "criminal terrorist association."French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday evening went to the crime scene after an emergency meeting with Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin. Darmanin set up a crisis center to deal with the grisly attack. 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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| The South Dakota attorney general who hit a man with his car told a 911 dispatcher 'it could be' a deer, call recording shows Posted: 16 Oct 2020 09:55 AM PDT  South Dakota released the audio of a 911 call and a toxicology report as part of an investigation into the state attorney general's fatal car crash.
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| Senate Republicans Look to Subpoena Twitter, Facebook CEOs to Testify after Censorship of Hunter Biden Story Posted: 15 Oct 2020 09:18 AM PDT  Republican leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday called on the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter to testify before the committee and said they were prepared to issue subpoenas to compel testimony regarding their decisions to censor negative stories about Democrats.Senators Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) announced that the Committee would vote on a subpoena on Tuesday for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify on Friday, October 23, according to Fox News."This is election interference and we're 19 days out from an election," Cruz said. "It has no precedent in the history of democracy. The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to know what the hell is going on."Hawley called on the committee to also subpoena Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.The Committee's concern comes after news that both social media platforms had worked to suppress a New York Post report based on emails which suggest the younger Biden may have made an introduction between his father, then- Vice President Joe Biden, and a Ukranian adviser to Burisma Holdings in 2015. The authenticity of the emails has not been confirmed.
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| This Keys man wanted to make conch salad. He’s off to jail Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:32 AM PDT  This man's conch salad plans went awry.
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| Europe's COVID-19 outbreak is cascading out of control, and nations are slamming vast regions into lockdown again Posted: 16 Oct 2020 03:42 AM PDT  The UK, France, and Belgium are reporting case numbers that dwarf those from the spring. Paris and London have been put under new restrictions.
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| Major Democratic group pulls out of Colorado Senate race Posted: 16 Oct 2020 10:59 AM PDT  A major Democratic group on Friday pulled its last remaining ads from Colorado's closely watched U.S. Senate race, a sign that the party thinks its nominee has the crucial race in the bag. Senate Majority PAC said it will cancel $1.2 million in television ads and spend the money elsewhere as Democrats press a newly expanded Senate map, which Republicans on the run in GOP strongholds such as Alaska and South Carolina. Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, 68, is challenging Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, 46, in Colorado, a state that has trended sharply to the left since President Donald Trump's 2016 election.
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| Japan to release Fukushima's contaminated water into sea: reports Posted: 15 Oct 2020 04:54 PM PDT  Nearly a decade after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan's government has decided to release over one million tonnes of contaminated water into the sea, media reports said on Friday, with a formal announcement expected to be made later this month. The decision is expected to rankle neighbouring countries like South Korea, which has already stepped up radiation tests of food from Japan, and further devastate the fishing industry in Fukushima that has battled against such a move for years. The disposal of contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has been a longstanding problem for Japan as it proceeds with an decades-long decommissioning project.
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| Supreme Court orders 2nd look at Scott Peterson's conviction for killing his pregnant wife and unborn son Posted: 15 Oct 2020 06:36 AM PDT  The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered a second look at Scott Peterson's conviction for killing his pregnant wife and unborn son, less than two months after it overturned his death penalty.
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| 2020 election polls: 20 million early votes cast and Biden takes early lead in Florida Posted: 16 Oct 2020 04:31 PM PDT  Follow the latest updates
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| 'No one raised a finger' to stop R. Kelly jail beating, singer's lawyers say Posted: 16 Oct 2020 10:05 AM PDT  CHICAGO - A convicted gang member accused of beating singer R. Kelly in his jail cell was allowed to roam "a great distance" at the federal jail in downtown Chicago and no one "lifted a finger" to ward off the attack, Kelly's lawyers alleged in a court filing Friday. Kelly's attorneys want to question Jeremiah Shane Farmer under oath about the August attack as part of their ongoing efforts to ...
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| Harris suspends in-person events after campaign associates test positive for COVID-19 Posted: 15 Oct 2020 09:05 AM PDT  Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris will suspend in-person events until Monday after two people associated with Joe Biden's campaign tested positive for coronavirus.
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| Kurdish-led authorities free hundreds of Islamic State militants jailed in northern Syria Posted: 16 Oct 2020 03:57 AM PDT  Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria have freed hundreds of imprisoned Islamic State militants, saying they have "no blood on their hands" and have repented joining the terrorist group. A first batch of 631 Syrian IS prisoners was released on Thursday, while 253 had their sentences halved, according to Syrian Democratic Council co-chair Amina Omar. The released were Syrian nationals accused of low-level membership in IS who were not thought to have been commanders or involved in attacks. "This includes those convicted of terror charges whose hands are not stained with the blood of Syrians," Ms Omar said at a press conference in the northeast city of Qamishli. Following the territorial defeat of IS last March, the western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces were left holding some 19,000 ISIS-affiliated men and boys in detention in some two dozen detention facilities spread across northeast Syria.
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| How Masked COVID-19 Protesters at the University of Miami Got Outed by Their College Posted: 15 Oct 2020 02:08 PM PDT  As the University of Miami campus filled up again for an uncertain new school year last month, a group of students, faculty, and on-campus workers acted out a grim warning.On Sept. 4, demonstrators lay on the ground as if dead, some of them holding tombstones, while a Birkenstock-clad person in a grim reaper costume patrolled the scene.The protesters were targeting what they said were unsafe working conditions for staff and faculty amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (Students have the option of learning remotely.) But they soon experienced a second scare: Despite all participants wearing masks, the university had managed to identify them and summon them to scolding by the Dean of Students.The students feared the school used facial recognition technology on them. But the school told The Daily Beast it didn't need to. Instead, using its high-powered camera system and in-house police force, the university was able to identify masked protesters with their faces and their university emails.In an email to participants in the Sept. 4 protest, first obtained by the school's student publication The Miami Hurricane, administrators invited students to a Zoom meeting to discuss their action. The school's Dean of Students told attendees that, although they were not facing disciplinary measures, they had broken school rules against holding a demonstration on university space without permission.Graduate student Mars Fernandez said the email, which arrived weeks after the protest, came as a shock.'I'm Not Scared': She Faces Life in Prison After Allegedly Buying Red Protest Paint "I felt scared. I felt really, really nervous," she told The Daily Beast. "We thought we had participated in a successful demonstration, that we had uplifted community concerns more publicly than maybe our previous letters and petitions and statements throughout the spring, summer, and early fall. We were really hopeful that maybe we could do more public demonstrations. This hit us two weeks after. So when I got the email two weeks after, my heart sank. I was like, 'No, we're not out of the woods with this.'"Students who received the email told the Miami New-Times that they suspected the school had used facial recognition software on them. Fernandez, who took careful notes throughout the meeting with Dean of Students, Ryan Holmes, recalled Holmes saying that he did not know the specific techniques used to identify protesters, but that he mentioned casually that it might have involved software.Specifically, Holmes told students in the meeting that university police had provided him with a list of their names a week or two after the protest. He also said he believed their names had been identified using a software that could use surveillance cameras to help students locate lost laptops, or, in another example, to identify a man who appeared to be chasing a woman on campus. Holmes said the software had been used to trace the man and the woman, who turned out to be friends playing tag. The young man in that encounter was scared when the university contacted him about the tag game, Holmes said, according to Fernandez.The University of Miami says it does not use facial recognition software, period."The University of Miami does not utilize facial recognition technology," a university spokesperson told The Daily Beast.But the University of Miami Police Department Chief David Rivero told The Daily Beast the school didn't need facial recognition technology to name the students—because the University of Miami has sweeping cameras and a fleet of law enforcement available to identify the students on film."We were able to take the footage that was way up high of the people that were at that protest and we gave it to the detectives and they set out using their investigative techniques to identify some of the students that were there," Rivero said. He said that the students' masks ultimately did not stop them from being identified."How could facial recognition work if they're wearing masks?" he added. "It should tell you that we're using other techniques. Just basic investigative techniques."Fernandez also speculated that footage had been used to identify the masked students by following them when they walked back to dorm rooms or cars. "That feels just as creepy," she said.Although Rivero said the UMPD does not maintain the database of student and faculty photos that would be necessary for a facial recognition program, the school has nonetheless used facial recognition in the past, outsourcing the task to a state agency.The digital rights organization Fight for the Future noted an article in the student publication Distraction Magazine earlier this month, in which Rivero described using facial recognition technology to identify a thief on campus. Rivero told The Daily Beast that in cases like that, the university uses its cameras to take pictures of a suspect and then sends the pictures to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which uses its facial recognition software to find a match in a database of people with prior arrests.But the Distraction article also highlighted other instances in which the university's high-powered cameras had been turned against students, including a recent instance in which a freshman was caught allegedly breaking into washing machines.A resume for Rivero on the UM website describes him as overseeing "the new university-wide camera system (CCTV). The system now includes 1,338 cameras, recording 24 hours a day, and featuring video analytics which is the use of sophisticated algorithms applied to a video stream to detect predefined situations and parameters such as motion detection, facial recognition, object detection, and much more."Rivero told The Daily Beast the university had tested facial recognition in the past, working with multiple companies, but had ultimately not implemented it because "none of it works." Facial recognition technology has been shown to result in false matches, especially when identifying people of color. Sometimes those false positives can have disastrous results, like in the case of a Detroit man who was wrongly arrested based on an incorrect match.Although none of the student demonstrators are facing punishment for the protest, the realization that the university could identify them even while masked was chilling, Ferndandez said."I think it makes a lot of us feel anxious that we're being constantly watched," she said. "It doesn't feel natural. Who wants to be watched by people they don't know, scrutinizing our behavior to see whether we're following rules or not?"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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| Secret audio recordings detail how white supremacists seek recruits from military, police Posted: 15 Oct 2020 01:56 PM PDT  Southern Poverty Law Center published audio recordings revealing how a neo-Nazi group aims to recruit from military and police to train for race war.
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| U.S. gun sales soar amid pandemic, social unrest, election fears Posted: 15 Oct 2020 04:03 AM PDT  Like legions of other first-time buyers who are contributing to record sales for the U.S. gun industry this year, Garland's decision to take up arms is driven in part by disturbing news about the coronavirus pandemic, social unrest over police killings of Black people and a potentially contested election that many fear could spark violence. Surges in U.S. firearm sales have in recent decades been predictably driven by events sparking fears of impending gun-control legislation, such as the election of a Democratic president or a spate of mass shootings, federal gun background check data show. Industry experts and academics who study gun ownership say such surges came largely among the gun-industry's core base of white, male and politically conservative customers who often already owned one or multiple guns.
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| Chefs share 5 of the best and 5 of the worst pasta dishes to order Posted: 16 Oct 2020 02:20 PM PDT  According to the pros, you should always order fresh ravioli and gnocchi from restaurants but you should skip the lasagna and spaghetti and meatballs.
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| For grateful NBC, Savannah Guthrie changes the subject Posted: 16 Oct 2020 12:22 PM PDT  Savannah Guthrie did more than just display her journalistic chops at NBC News' town hall with President Donald Trump. NBC was reeling heading into Thursday's event, under widespread criticism for scheduling it at the same time as ABC's town hall with Democratic opponent Joe Biden. NBC was accused of rewarding Trump for rejecting the debate commission's plan to do the second debate virtually.
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| Watchdog group accuses Amy Coney Barrett of “unconscionable cruelty” in teen rape case Posted: 16 Oct 2020 03:23 PM PDT  Barrett decided to overturn a $6.7M jury award to a teen allegedly raped in a jail run by ex-Sheriff David Clarke
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| Broward jail leaders fired after another mentally ill inmate gives birth in her cell, BSO says Posted: 15 Oct 2020 06:37 PM PDT  The Broward County Sheriff's office fired two top administrators after a woman who went into labor in her jail cell was not given medical care despite screams of pain.
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| Plaschke: Dodgers' October nightmare is once again creeping up on them Posted: 15 Oct 2020 10:23 PM PDT  The Dodgers are barreling toward another disappointing playoff exit following their 10-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves in Game 4 of the NLCS.
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| A COVID-19 outbreak struck a UK ballistic-missile sub after sailors broke isolation rules at a US Navy base Posted: 15 Oct 2020 08:07 AM PDT  More than 30 crew members of HMS Vigilant, one of four subs maintaining the UK's nuclear deterrence force, have tested positive for the virus.
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| Farmer who went viral after carving Biden-Harris message into his soybean field says there’s more to the story Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:25 AM PDT  North Dakota voter reveals why he decided to share a message of support for the Democrats after Donald Trump's trade wars cost his farm 'a lot of money'
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| Air Force Settles $25 Million Lawsuit for F-16 Strafing Run That Killed Contractor Posted: 16 Oct 2020 04:37 PM PDT |
| 7 Chicago cops suspended for roles in chief's traffic stop Posted: 16 Oct 2020 12:46 PM PDT  Seven Chicago police officers have been suspended for their roles the night then-Superintendent Eddie Johnson was found asleep behind the wheel of his SUV after having several drinks at a bar, according to a report by the city's inspector general released Friday. Superintendent David Brown decided to suspend two probationary officers for one day each, two other officers for seven days, a sergeant for 14 days, a lieutenant for 21 days and a commander for 28 days, according to Inspector General Joseph Ferguson's report. Johnson has denied the allegations made by the former driver, Cynthia Donald.
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| People are placing prank calls that lure cops to people's homes. One victim's family is still trying to hold police accountable nearly 3 years after his death. Posted: 15 Oct 2020 05:09 AM PDT  Andrew Finch died in December 2017, after being shot by a Wichita, Kansas, police officer during a swatting call.
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| Inspired by Trump, Hasidic Backlash Grows Over Virus Rules Posted: 15 Oct 2020 12:00 PM PDT  NEW YORK -- A group of mostly young men began descending on the Brooklyn home of a Hasidic journalist just before midnight Sunday.The men, who were fellow ultra-Orthodox Jews, were shouting that the journalist, Jacob Kornbluh, was a snitch, an informer who had betrayed his own by publishing reports on how devoutly religious Jews in the city had been ignoring coronavirus guidelines.The group got all the way to Kornbluh's doorstep, where a line of police officers kept them at bay.The tense scene spoke to what many Orthodox leaders said they had been seeing for weeks: a growing, raucous faction of young men in the community, tired of pandemic guidelines and resentful of secular authorities, who are taking their cues from the broader right-wing movement in society, including from President Donald Trump.For months, misinformation and rumors about the virus, some inspired by Trump, have spread widely in forums like WhatsApp that are popular with ultra-Orthodox New Yorkers, according to numerous interviews with Hasidic leaders and community members.Now a new shutdown in Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, ordered last week by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, appears to have inflamed sentiments further. Cuomo closed nonessential business and schools and limited attendance to 10 people at a time in houses of worship in the hardest-hit areas, including synagogues.Cuomo was spurred by spiking caseloads in the Orthodox community and concerns that health rules were not being followed. But some Orthodox voices have responded by arguing that their community's religious life was being targeted by the government.The Orthodox Jewish community in the New York region includes Hasidic and other ultra-Orthodox groups. There are as many as 500,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews in the New York region, and they have long tended toward conservative politics. In 2016, Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn voted overwhelmingly for Trump.But the pandemic may have also emboldened more extreme elements, complicating efforts to curb the virus and frightening normally outspoken Hasidic activists and writers."There is a mistrust in media, a mistrust in government, and people don't check the facts," Kornbluh said in an interview. "In the years since Trump came onto the scene, people are more engaged in politics and follow Trump and his conspiracy theories."After the virus devastated Hasidic neighborhoods in the early days of the pandemic, many residents began to believe that safety precautions were unnecessary because they had developed herd immunity, according to community leaders.That attitude, which health officials say has no basis in fact, has been a primary reason for a recent surge of cases in Brooklyn and Queens that has raised the citywide positivity rate to levels not seen in months.On the first night after the governor announced the restrictions, a group of mostly young men in the predominantly Orthodox neighborhood of Borough Park took to the streets in protest.They were led by a local radio host and viral video personality, Heshy Tischler, a Trump follower and a candidate for City Council who was once convicted of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison.Tischler identifies as Orthodox but is not part of a Hasidic sect. Still, he has gained popularity during the pandemic, in part because he has gone after critics of the Hasidic community.The ultra-Orthodox communities in New York are an insular world that distrusts outsiders and disdains members who speak up in public about sensitive issues, like education or public health.Since March, Kornbluh, a reporter for Jewish Insider who has lived in Borough Park for 18 years, has been posting on Twitter about the disregard for coronavirus safety measures in these communities.On the second night of protests -- where some waved pro-Trump banners -- the crowd spotted Kornbluh, who was covering the events, and pointed him out to Tischler.Tischler, unmasked, approached Kornbluh and began calling him a traitor. Soon Kornbluh was surrounded by men and teenagers who shoved him against a wall; punched, kicked and struck him with objects; and then chased him for two blocks. Videos of the attack quickly appeared on social media.Kornbluh said many in the group told him that he deserved to die and called him "Nazi" and "Hitler.""They were saying I am not part of this community and I should leave," Kornbluh said.Tischler was arrested Sunday in connection with the attack. After he was taken into custody, a group of men showed up at Kornbluh's home.Tischler was arraigned Monday on charges including inciting a riot and was released without bail. He returned home, where a boisterous crowd of young Hasidic supporters awaited him.Standing on his porch, he plugged his candidacy for City Council and declared that he did not condone violence."We're going to continue our fight," he said. "We're going to beat that Mayor de Blasio! We're going to knock Cuomo out!"The turmoil is also revealing a fault line through ultra-Orthodox New York over the question of how much the government -- and the pandemic -- should be allowed to intrude on religious life. In March and April, rabbis vigorously debated about whether synagogues should close in compliance with COVID-era restrictions or whether communal prayer must continue, according to Yochonon Donn, a Hasidic journalist.But in recent months, as the pandemic has ground on and a new outbreak has brought renewed restrictions, the question of how to respond is playing out in the street and online, forums where the influence of rabbis is limited but where Tischler's theatrical videos have been shared widely.While local leaders and elected officials have denounced the violence at last week's protests, relatively few have condemned Tischler.Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox umbrella group, said Tischler was a fringe figure who had "made an idiot of himself.""I don't think anybody really knew him or had heard of him until he decided to turn himself into the wonderful spokesman he thinks he is," Zwiebel said. "This guy is supposed to be a community leader? Please. It is an embarrassment."Tischler first gained popularity in June when he used bolt cutters to unlock city playgrounds -- at least 14, in his telling -- that had been closed by authorities as part of COVID-19 restrictions. The move was celebrated by Orthodox parents, many of whom had been crowded in small apartments with many children.In an interview in Crown Heights last week, Tischler said he believed the newly imposed restrictions were singling out Orthodox Jews because "the Jews don't fight back, the Jews take things lying down.""We will not be sheep anymore," he said.He called Trump one of the "greatest presidents we've ever had" and said he thought that Cuomo was exaggerating the threat of the coronavirus because the governor planned "to create martial law."As he spoke, a small circle of young men gathered on the sidewalk to listen. One of them, Mendy Freidman, 23, shrugged when asked if he supported Tischler but said that he understood his appeal."Nobody else is willing to do what he does," he said. "Nobody else is willing to go to jail."But Tischler's public stunts often contain a hint of menace. Last month, when city health officials held a news conference in Brooklyn to discuss the virus uptick, he disrupted the event while not wearing a mask, shouting at top health officials that the virus uptick was fake, and called them "Jew haters" and "garbage."And his messages have carried racist undertones. Some of the city health workers sent to conduct outreach in Orthodox neighborhoods have been people of color. In one video, Tischler shows himself calling them outsiders who are "ready to come after us.""I'm sure most of them are from just the projects, picked off the street with not even proper training," he said.The criminal charges against Tischler stem from his actions during the protests, which lasted for two nights last week and resulted in attacks on at least three men. Two of them, a photographer and a Hasidic man accused of disloyalty to the community, were attacked Tuesday.After those episodes, Kornbluh sent Tischler a late-night WhatsApp message, which was shared with The New York Times, calling the violence that Tischler was stoking a "chillul Hashem" -- a desecration of God's name.The next morning, Tischler filmed a video of himself in a graveyard threatening Kornbluh, which soon spread in popular Hasidic WhatsApp groups.That night he confronted Kornbluh at the protest, setting off the mob attack that resulted in Tischler's arrest Sunday, prosecutors say.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Kim Jong Un's new 'monster' ICBM could pack a punch, but only if it survives long enough for North Korea to use it Posted: 15 Oct 2020 11:04 AM PDT  "If even one of these things gets through, that is a really spectacularly bad day for the United States," one expert told Insider.
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| How many US presidents have lost out on a second term? Posted: 16 Oct 2020 02:56 PM PDT  Only ten presidents have failed to win re-election
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| US colleges see ‘staggering’ drop in freshman enrollment amid COVID-19, report says Posted: 15 Oct 2020 04:19 PM PDT  Undergraduate enrollment is down 4% nationwide.
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| Rubble, glass and blood stains: aftermath of Karabakh hospital bombing Posted: 16 Oct 2020 08:00 AM PDT  Shattered window panes, doors ripped off their hinges and a caved-in roof is all that remains of one building in the military hospital complex in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region after recent shelling.
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| Biden email episode illustrates risk to Trump from Giuliani Posted: 16 Oct 2020 12:24 PM PDT  A New York tabloid's puzzling account about how it acquired emails purportedly from Joe Biden's son has raised some red flags. One of the biggest involves the source of the emails: Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani has traveled abroad looking for dirt on the Bidens, developing relationships with shadowy figures, including a Ukrainian lawmaker who U.S. officials have described as a Russian agent and part of a broader Russian effort to denigrate the Democratic presidential nominee.
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| Teacher beheaded in Paris suburb after showing cartoons of Prophet Mohammed to class Posted: 16 Oct 2020 09:42 AM PDT  A history teacher who showed his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class was beheaded near his school in a Paris suburb on Friday by a suspected Islamist terrorist who shouted "Allahu Akbar", police said. Alerted by local residents, police confronted and shot dead a man armed with a kitchen knife and an air gun who refused to drop his weapons and surrender, and threatened them. Minutes later, officers found the body of the male teacher. A bomb disposal unit was called in to check whether the presumed assailant was wearing a suicide vest or belt. Witnesses told police they heard the assailant shouting "Allahu Akbar" ['God is the greatest' in Arabic], police sources said. The teacher had received death threats after giving a class on freedom of expression, during which he showed pupils the controversial cartoons, a police source said. The presumed killer was reported to be an 18-year-old Chechen, the sources said.
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| Texas billionaire charged in $2B tax fraud scheme Posted: 16 Oct 2020 04:03 AM PDT  Texas billionaire Robert Brockman was charged in a $2 billion tax fraud scheme on Thursday by federal prosecutors.
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