| Trump snubs former EPA chief Pruitt in Tulsa visit Posted: 19 Jun 2020 07:58 AM PDT  When President Trump comes to Tulsa on Saturday for his first campaign event since the coronavirus shutdown, one person won't be there: Tulsa's own Scott Pruitt.
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| Bill to remove Confederate statues from Capitol stalled by Missouri's Blunt Posted: 19 Jun 2020 09:59 AM PDT  The legislation proposed by Sen. Cory Booker would have removed 11 statues honoring men who voluntarily served in the Confederacy from the National Statuary Hall Collection.
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| 'At a loss about what they're supposed to do': Police take on their own kind of protest Posted: 19 Jun 2020 10:17 AM PDT  As the national movement for police reform and racial justice grows, more police push back, saying the public has painted them with too broad a brush.
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| McEnany won't wear mask at Tulsa Trump rally Posted: 19 Jun 2020 12:05 PM PDT  The Centers for Disease Control recommends that Americans wear masks in public.
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| China claims valley where Indian, Chinese soldiers brawled Posted: 19 Jun 2020 10:57 PM PDT  China said the Galwan Valley high up in the Himalayan border region where Chinese and Indian troops engaged in a deadly brawl this week falls entirely within China, boldly renewing claims on the disputed area as the Asian giants continued using military and diplomatic channels to try to reduce tensions on Saturday. The confrontation in the Galwan Valley, part of the disputed Ladakh region along the Himalayan frontier, was the deadliest between the two countries in 45 years. India blames China for instigating the fight by developing infrastructure in the valley, which it said was a breach of the agreement of what area remained in dispute.
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| North Korea prepares to send anti-South leaflets across the border Posted: 19 Jun 2020 06:32 PM PDT  North Korea is gearing up to send propaganda leaflets over its southern border, denouncing North Korean defectors and South Korea, its state media said on Saturday, the latest retaliation for leaflets from the South as bilateral tensions rise. Enraged North Korean people across the country "are actively pushing forward with the preparations for launching a large-scale distribution of leaflets", which are piled as high as a mountain, said state news agency KCNA. "Every action should be met with proper reaction and only when one experiences it oneself, one can feel how offending it is," KCNA said. North Korea has blamed North Korean defectors for launching leaflets across the border and threatened military action. On Tuesday, Pyongyang blew up an inter-Korean liaison office to show its displeasure against the defectors and South Korea for not stopping them launching leaflets. A North Korean defector-led group said on Friday it had scrapped a plan to send hundreds of plastic bottles stuffed with rice, medicine and face masks to North Korea by throwing them into the sea near the border on Sunday.
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| Media lauds Biden's 'fiery' message to Trump Posted: 19 Jun 2020 08:03 PM PDT  Raymond Arroyo breaks down Joe Biden's confusing campaign messaging during Friday Follies on 'The Ingraham Angle.'
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| Pompeo: John Bolton Is a ‘Traitor Who Damaged America’ Posted: 18 Jun 2020 06:24 PM PDT  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday evening hit back at former National Security Adviser John Bolton's depictions of the Trump administration's inner workings in his new memoir with a scathing statement."I've not read the book, but from the excerpts I've seen published, John Bolton is spreading a number of lies, fully-spun half-truths, and outright falsehoods," Pompeo said. "It is both sad and dangerous that John Bolton's final public role is that of a traitor who damaged America by violating his sacred trust with its people."Pompeo joins President Trump and other White House officials in portraying Bolton as a liar ahead of the June 23 publication of his book, The Room Where It Happened. The book contains a series of damning allegations about the Trump administration, including that the president sought China's help in securing victory in the 2020 election and routinely offered favors to dictators. The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit to stop the book's distribution. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin echoed Pompeo in a statement released Thursday: "John Bolton has put self-promotion ahead of the truth and of the interests of his country."Trump went even further in a series of Twitter tirades, calling Bolton a a "wacko" and a "liar" who is just trying to make him "look bad." Bolton, known for taking detailed notes during his tenure as national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, has faced criticism for writing a book about incompetence within the Trump administration but refusing to testify before the House during impeachment proceedings. News of his book first broke in January 2020, but prepublication review by the federal government, meant to redact classified information, delayed its release for months. Lawyers for the White House have said Bolton failed to complete the process, an allegation Bolton's attorneys and his publisher denied.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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| Air Force Probing Use of RC-26 Spy Plane in US Cities Posted: 19 Jun 2020 12:14 PM PDT  The investigation was prompted by lawmakers' concern over use of military equipment during protests across the country.
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| Muhammad Ali's son said his dad wouldn't have supported Black Lives Matter movement or protests over George Floyd's death Posted: 20 Jun 2020 10:44 AM PDT  "It's not just black lives matter, white lives matter, Chinese lives matter, all lives matter, everybody's life matters," Ali Jr. said.
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| U.S. protests inspire calls to "defund the police" in the U.K. Posted: 19 Jun 2020 09:48 AM PDT  "It's really powerful that this discourse has entered the mainstream conversation here in the U.K., and it's inherently connected to the conversations that are happening across America," activist says.
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| Navy upholds firing of carrier captain in virus outbreak Posted: 19 Jun 2020 09:36 PM PDT  The two senior commanders on a coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier didn't "do enough, soon enough," to stem the outbreak, the top U.S. Navy officer said Friday, a stunning reversal that upheld the firing of the ship's captain who had pleaded for faster action to protect the crew. Capt. Brett E. Crozier and Rear Adm. Stuart Baker, commander of the carrier strike group, made serious errors in judgment as they tried to work through an outbreak that sidelined the USS Theodore Roosevelt in Guam for 10 weeks, said Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations. The Crozier decision was a surprise since Gilday had recommended that the captain be restored to his command less than two months ago after an initial inquiry.
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| 'Hurt and angry', India leader warns China over border clash Posted: 19 Jun 2020 11:37 AM PDT  India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Friday that his country was "hurt and angry" after a border clash with China that left 20 troops dead, and warned that the army has been given free reign to respond to any new violence. India and China have blamed each other for the high altitude clash on their contested Himalaya frontier on Monday which also left Chinese casualties after brutal fights with nail studded batons, rocks and rods covered in barbed wire. Modi called a rare meeting with opposition party leaders to discuss the simmering crisis hours after China released 10 Indian troops, including two majors, it had seized in the battle in the Galwan valley of Ladakh region.
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| Meet All the Weapons Kim Jong-Un Wishes He Could Get His Hands On Posted: 19 Jun 2020 12:09 PM PDT  Thankfully sanctions will make it harder for him.
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| Mexican anti-discrimination agency chief resigns after censure by president Posted: 19 Jun 2020 10:20 AM PDT  The head of the Mexican government's anti-discrimination agency quit after criticism by President Andres Lopez Manuel Obrador, who on Friday said he would likely appoint an indigenous person in her place. Lopez Obrador chastised National Council for Preventing Discrimination chief Monica Maccise because it organized a "classism and racism in Mexico" event on Wednesday and invited a comedian the president and his wife consider racist. "I think that this event should not have been convened and those who do not share the transformation policy that is being carried out (by the government), in complete freedom can decide not to work for this government," Lopez Obrador said in his morning press conference on Friday.
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| WH press secretary says she'll attend Trump's Tulsa rally, but won't wear a mask Posted: 19 Jun 2020 12:06 PM PDT  Health experts warn that Trump's rally, which will pack nearly 20,000 attendees into Tulsa's Bank of Oklahoma Center, represents a perfect storm for the transmission of COVID-19.
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| U.S. "not going to allow Russia and China to continue" increasing nuclear stockpiles, top negotiator says Posted: 19 Jun 2020 12:14 PM PDT  The U.S. is set to sit down with Russia and possibly China on Monday to discuss limiting all three countries' nuclear stockpiles. CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk spoke to Ambassador Robert Wood, the U.S. top arms control negotiator, about his growing concerns over Russia and China's nuclear arsenals.
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| North Carolina protesters tear down Confederate statue and hang it by the neck from a post Posted: 19 Jun 2020 07:54 PM PDT  Protesters in North Carolina's capital pulled down parts of a Confederate monument Friday on night and hanged one of the toppled statues from a light post. Demonstrators used a strap to pull down two statues of Confederate soldiers that were part of a larger obelisk near the state capitol in downtown Raleigh, news outlets reported. Police officers earlier in the evening had foiled the protesters' previous attempt to use ropes to topple the statues. But after the officers cleared the area, protesters mounted the obelisk and were able to take down the statues. They then dragged the statues down a street and used a rope to hang one of the figures by its neck from a light post. The other statue was dragged to the Wake County courthouse, according to the News & Observer.
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| Amid protests, Chicago's streets turned violent. 'Defund the police' critics say it's a warning. Posted: 20 Jun 2020 08:25 AM PDT  Critics see Chicago as emblematic of chaos that could follow decreases in police funding. Experts say the relationship between policing and gun violence is nuanced.
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| Man shouts 'All Lives Matter' at Brooklyn barista in one man 'protest' over poster Posted: 19 Jun 2020 10:25 AM PDT  A man was caught on camera staging a one man All Lives Matter "protest" outside a coffee shop on Friday over a Black Lives Matter sign displayed in their window.Abraham "Avrumy" Knofler was filmed by a bystander outside Burly Coffee in the Bed-Stuy neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York City, on Thursday where he can be heard telling a barista that he was offended by the sign and chanting "All Lives Matter".
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| The Navy Is Blaming the Captain It Fired for Accurate COVID-19 Warning Posted: 19 Jun 2020 01:48 PM PDT  Navy Capt. Brett Crozier has been vindicated after warning of a dire coronavirus outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt—just not by the Navy, which on Friday announced that it will not reverse Crozier's firing for the infraction of trying to save his sailors' lives. Instead, the Navy leadership implied that Crozier was responsible for the outbreak that he loudly warned he needed urgent help from the Navy to redress."If Capt. Crozier was still in command today, I would be relieving him," the chief of naval operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, said on Friday. Less than two months ago, Gilday recommended reinstating Crozier. A final report into Crozier's firing, released Friday, accused the Roosevelt commander and his team of being "biased by groupthink, emotion and a loss of perspective as to the real risk at hand"—as well as an insufficient appreciation of how the fleet commander was working tirelessly to aid evacuation from the ship, something Crozier had challenged. The report, written by Gilday's second in command, Adm. Robert Burke, levied the extraordinary claim that Crozier's team "took little to no action within their own span of control to improve the crew's safety."The Navy fired Crozier after his Mar. 30 plea to the Navy to evacuate the aircraft carrier's crew for treatment became public. Crozier had implicitly challenged the Pentagon's approach to the pandemic, which had been to continue as much military activity as possible, under the rationale of maintaining readiness. "Sailors do not need to die," Crozier warned in a letter reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. Acting Navy Secretary Resigns After Calling Capt. Crozier 'Stupid'It was a debacle for the Navy. An initial outbreak afflicting around 100 sailors among the 4,000-strong crew ultimately swelled to 1,273 —including Crozier himself. Yet the acting Navy secretary, Thomas Modly, blamed Crozier for being "too naive or too stupid" to believe his letter wouldn't become public, even flying to Guam to admonish the cashiered captain to a disgusted crew. Within days, Modly quit in disgrace amid public outrage over his comments. One sailor aboard the Roosevelt, Aviation Ordnanceman Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr., died from COVID-19.An internal Navy investigation, completed in late April, recommended Crozier's reinstatement. Yet when Defense Secretary Mark Esper was briefed on it, Esper opted to wait until "receiv[ing] a written copy" before "meet[ing] again with Navy leadership to discuss next steps," Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Rath Hoffman said on Apr. 24. On Friday afternoon, following a broader investigation, Gilday and Modly's successor, Navy Secretary Kenneth J. Braithwaite, implied variously that Crozier was derelict in his own responsibilities to aid the crew—and even painted him as lethargic in his response. Citing a subsequent investigation, Gilday said that Crozier "should have been more decisive" when the afflicted Roosevelt pulled into Guam, particularly in evacuating sailors into spaces the Navy scrambled to secure ashore. Crozier had been alarmed at the insufficient distance between the beds and pressed for individual hotel rooms for the 4,000-strong crew. The report found that Crozier considered the temporary berthing on Guam "worse than the ship." Gilday said that Crozier was seemingly unaware that negotiations with the Guam authorities for the rooms were underway at the time of his letter. Yet Gilday also conceded that when Crozier's superior at the Navy's Pacific Fleet, Adm. John Aquilino, asked the captain what else he needed, Crozier's response was "to move faster on the hotels." Gilday, who insisted "those wheels were well in motion," said Crozier had not prioritized "safety over comfort," resulting in what he called an "almost paralysis" from Crozier – in short, the same infractions Crozier had levied at the Navy. "I was not impressed with the slow egress off the ship, the lack of a plan to do so, the Seventh Fleet commander's demand for a plan that he didn't receive until the day Crozier got relieved," Gilday said. That commander, Rear Adm. Stuart Baker, will not be promoted until a further investigation occurs. Asked how to reconcile the Navy's investigation with the urgency of Crozier's March 30 letter, Gilday said he didn't "have a good answer." Yet he dodged answering whether the new investigation included an interview with Crozier. Footnotes in the report reference a "statement" Crozier gave to the inquiry on May 15. But Gilday said that Crozier was not being punished for his email, the reason Modly had fired him. The Navy chief also said Crozier had done "a bunch of things right." In addition to Crozier and Baker, Gilday said the commander of the carrier's air wing and the Roosevelt's medical offer would receive administrative reprisal. The report even seems to chide the crew for its famous send-off to the fired Crozier: the sailors were "amassing and then cheering and chanting his name with only a small number wearing masks and with no social distancing." For all the Navy's investigations and re-investigations, Gilday also conceded that the Navy still does not know how the novel coronavirus made it to the ship. He said it's "likely" to have happened during an earlier port visit to Vietnam, though Gilday defended the port visit and said none of the officers responsible for that decision—all of whom, unlike Crozier, are admirals—would face reprimand. In a statement, Hoffman said that Esper "believes the investigation to have been thorough and fair and supports the Navy's decisions based on their findings. We are proud of the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt and am glad that they are back at sea in the western Pacific projecting American power."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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| John Bolton: Judge rejects Trump bid to ban ex-adviser's book Posted: 20 Jun 2020 10:19 AM PDT  A US judge denies the Trump administration's bid to halt publication of John Bolton's memoir.
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| Pompeo says way U.S. treats Hong Kong depends on how China does Posted: 19 Jun 2020 09:47 AM PDT  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday the United States would in future treat Hong Kong as a Chinese city rather than an autonomous one to the extent that China treats the territory as a Chinese city. Pompeo told the online Copenhagen Democracy Summit that elections due in Hong Kong in September would "tell us everything that we need to know about the Chinese Communist Party's intentions with respect to freedom in Hong Kong."
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| Mexican president says he ordered last year's release of 'El Chapo's' son Posted: 19 Jun 2020 05:24 PM PDT  The bungled operation was seen as indisputable evidence that criminal gangs hold the upper hand in Culiacán and across broad swaths of Mexico.
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| Nebraska governor: Counties requiring masks ineligible for relief money Posted: 19 Jun 2020 09:36 AM PDT  A spokesman for the governor said that if counties "want CARES Act money, they have to be fully open"
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| Police die enforcing Latin America's strictest lockdown as Peru's futile strategy unravels Posted: 19 Jun 2020 01:10 AM PDT  When Peru introduced one of Latin America's strictest lockdowns, national police brigadier David Rodriguez was sent to the streets of Lima to enforce the new guidelines. Just one month later the 55 year-old was struggling to breathe in the police clinic, pleading desperately on social media to be moved to an intensive care unit and for more oxygen. He died shortly after. "They're the ones sent out to protect others from the virus and they end up infected themselves," his daughter Krystell Rodriguez told The Telegraph. According to the country's interior minister, nearly 10,000 police officers have contracted Covid-19 on duty in the country and 170 have died. The numbers not only present a grim picture of Peru's futile fight against Covid-19, but also the tragedy at the heart of the surging crisis in Latin America, the global epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.
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| Citing 'problems' receiving a ballot, Trump campaign manager acknowledges he didn't vote in '16 Posted: 19 Jun 2020 11:05 PM PDT  Parscale, then a Texas resident, oversaw Trump's digital operation in 2016 and became the campaign manager in 2018.
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| Maryland police chief latest to face reckoning amid protests Posted: 19 Jun 2020 01:06 PM PDT  A Maryland police chief resigned this week within hours of a court filing that portrayed his department, one of the state's largest, as an agency poisoned by a racist culture. A complaint cited by the filing said a Prince George's County police sergeant had a personalized license plate with an acronym for a vulgarity directed at President Barack Obama. A lieutenant derided Black Lives Matter protesters in comments quoted in a New York Times article.
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| EU extends Russian sanctions over Ukraine: Merkel Posted: 19 Jun 2020 06:34 AM PDT  The European Union has agreed to extend punishing sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine by six months, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday. The measures over Russia's role in the conflict were first imposed after Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in 2014 and have been renewed every six months ever since. Germany and France have repeatedly sought to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.
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| Matt Gaetz Appears Alongside His Newly Revealed ‘Son’ on Tucker Carlson’s Show Posted: 18 Jun 2020 07:16 PM PDT  Hours after announcing that he has a 19-year-old Cuban "son," Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) appeared alongside the teen, Nestor Galban, on Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight to prove to a Democratic colleague with whom he's been feuding that he has a "non-white" child.Gaetz's revelation about Galban came on the heels of his extremely heated altercation with Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) during a congressional hearing on police reform, which flew off the rails when Gaetz exploded at Richmond for suggesting he didn't know what it's like to fear for a Black son."For all those wondering, this is my son Nestor. We share no blood but he is my life. He came from Cuba (legally, of course) six years ago and lives with me in Florida," Gaetz tweeted on Thursday morning. "I am so proud of him and raising him has been the best, most rewarding thing I've done in my life."The pro-Trump congressman also wrote that Nestor had just turned 19 and arrived when he was 12, adding that he was "triggered" by Richmond's remarks because he knows what it's like to "raise non-white kids." Gaetz's sudden announcement that he had a grown son, meanwhile, raised quite a few questions, especially considering he had never publicly disclosed this before Thursday.At the same time he appeared on Carlson's show, People published a report providing details on Gaetz's relationship to Galban. Gaetz admitted to People that he "did not formally adopt" Galban, stating that Galban moved in with him when he was 12 because Gaetz—then a state legislator—was dating Galban's older sister. "He is a part of my family story," Gaetz told People, adding that Nestor "is my son in every conceivable way, and I can't imagine loving him any more if he was my own flesh and blood." He declined to tell the magazine what Nestor's relationship was with his biological family at this time.Carlson, meanwhile, introduced the pro-Trump congressman on his program by asking him how he feels about Richmond telling him "you are not allowed to participate in the conversation because of your skin color."Saying his Democratic colleague's remarks were "offensive" because Richmond didn't know anything about his experience, Gaetz went on to say that "Nestor is the light of my life" and that he "couldn't imagine loving him anymore if he was my own flesh and blood.""I've raised him for the last six years, and he is the most remarkable young man," he added. "I am proud of him, and I am honestly embarrassed of the United States Congress that we have resorted to criticizing each other based on our race and the race of our children and I wish that we could be more productive going forward."After Gaetz said Galban had been raised to "treat everyone equally," Carlson wondered aloud if Galban had also learned those lessons in school, prompting Gaetz to reveal that Nestor was already mic'd up and ready to appear on-screen."What do you make of Cedric Richmond's attacks? Did you see all of this?" Carlson asked Galban."I did not see it because I was sleeping from my workout the night before," Nestor replied, adding that he woke up to the tweets on the altercation and Gaetz calling him about it."I think it's unfair to tell someone that they don't understand because they don't have—because of their racial color," he added. "While he is fighting for equality but if you tell someone to not get involved—he doesn't understand because of the color—you are being a hypocrite there."The Fox host applauded Galban's answer before snarkily noting that this is now something "you would be censured for," something Gaetz agreed with."I cannot believe that it's acceptable in the United States Congress for someone to tell someone else that they are fighting for their children more than they are. You have a son," Gaetz said. "How would you feel if someone said to you that they were fighting for your own family more than you were? That's why I got very upset."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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| Rayshard Brooks' Final Hour Was a Jarring Panorama of Policing Posted: 19 Jun 2020 05:13 AM PDT  ATLANTA -- From beginning to end, the encounter between Rayshard Brooks and two Atlanta police officers lasted 41 minutes and 17 seconds. For the first 40 minutes, it looked like a textbook example of policing.The officers treated Brooks, 27, with respect. They were cordial as they asked about his night and how much he had had to drink. They calmly guided him through a series of sobriety tests.Then things went dangerously awry, and Brooks became yet another African American man to die at the hands of police.The encounter -- veering from calm to fatal and captured on video from multiple angles -- has become the subject of intense scrutiny. There is vigorous debate over a host of decisions, big and small, that the two officers made last Friday night in a Wendy's parking lot, where Brooks had fallen asleep in the driver's seat in the drive-thru lane."It's at the point where the officer places his hands on him that things go south in a fraction of a second," said Kalfani Ture, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Quinnipiac University who said he had viewed the video footage more than three dozen times. "So you have to pay attention to the minutiae of details -- you have to try to understand decision-making, but you also have to pick out best practices."Understanding what went wrong, he said, is a crucial step in helping police do their jobs better and ease tensions with communities of color.As the officers moved to arrest Brooks, whose Breathalyzer test registered a .108, above the legal limit to drive in Georgia, he bolted from their grasp, hit an officer, grabbed the other's Taser, fired it and took off running.Officer Garrett Rolfe discharged his own Taser and reached for his 9-millimeter Glock handgun as Brooks turned and discharged the stolen Taser again. Rolfe fired, striking Brooks twice in the back.Brooks was 18 feet and 3 inches away when the first shot was fired. Prosecutors said that as Brooks lay dying, Rolfe kicked his bleeding body, and the other officer, Devin Brosnan, stood on his shoulder. Neither offered medical assistance for more than two minutes, prosecutors said.On Wednesday, the Fulton County district attorney, Paul L. Howard Jr., charged Rolfe, who had been fired from the Atlanta Police Department, with 11 criminal counts, including murder and aggravated assault. Brosnan, who is on administrative duty, was charged with three counts, including aggravated assault and violations of oath.The decision to file charges came five days after the fatal encounter, which has led to the resignation of the city's police chief and the mayor's announcement of a series of measures to overhaul how and when police officers use force. The shooting came amid nationwide protests over police brutality and systemic racism that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.President Donald Trump weighed in briefly this week, telling Sean Hannity of Fox News that people should not resist police officers. He also said he hoped Rolfe "gets a fair shake because police have not been treated fairly in our country."Some observers have said the shooting death of Brooks could have been avoided if the two officers, who are white, had declined to arrest him. According to the footage from Brosnan's body camera, Brooks maintained that he had not had more than two drinks that night.But he also made a suggestion: "I can just go home."It seemed like a simple request. "Why didn't they just let him go home?" Brooks' father, Larry Barbine, asked in an interview with The Toledo Blade.Ture, a former law enforcement officer, said he likely would have written a citation but not taken Brooks to jail, particularly given the presence of the coronavirus in many detention facilities."I'd have said, 'Mr. Brooks, I'll offer you a ride wherever you want to go, however, I'm going to take your vehicle keys,' " Ture said. "If I was so concerned I might even tow the vehicle. But I might not even take Mr. Brooks to jail."But other experts said that for decades, police have been told that society wants law enforcement to take a zero-tolerance approach to drunken driving, the No. 1 cause of death on U.S. roadways."Like with so many other social problems, we put officers at the forefront of dealing with DUI," said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who teaches law at the University of South Carolina. "So it should be no surprise that officers arrest someone for DUI. That's what we've been telling them to do for a long time."Vince Champion, southeast regional director for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the Atlanta police union, said there were limits to an officer's discretion.Champion said he once let an inebriated driver walk home a short distance and the man was struck and killed. His supervisor, who had approved the move, was demoted, he said. Such episodes can lead to lawsuits."We've had to go away from trying to be nice," he said.After Brooks went through a field sobriety test and the Breathalyzer test -- both of which came after he was unable to identify which county he was in and gave a seemingly implausible explanation about how he had arrived at the Wendy's -- Rolfe decided to arrest him."All right, I think you've had too much to drink," he said, moving to cuff Brooks, according to the video footage. "Put your hands behind your back for me."In his news conference announcing the criminal charges against the officers, Howard said they had violated the Police Department's policy because Brooks "was never informed he was under arrest for driving under the influence."Verbally notifying people that they are about to be arrested accomplishes multiple goals, experts say. It is a way to show respect and courtesy, which increases public confidence in police. And it is also tactical -- it helps slow the interaction down to eliminate surprises.When people are not told what to expect -- particularly intoxicated people -- they can react in ways that an officer might misinterpret as resisting, when in fact the person is simply startled."In many situations, officers should tell someone what is happening because you don't want the person to react in surprise and the officers to take that surprise as resistance," Stoughton said.When Brooks lurched away from the two officers as they moved to cuff him, they hung on, and the three fell into a heap on the pavement, fighting and struggling.Video footage shows Brooks seizing a Taser from Brosnan and striking Rolfe. In a statement this week, the lawyers representing Brosnan said Brooks used the Taser on their client around this point.After a few moments, Brooks broke free of the officers. As Brooks ran away, Rolfe fired a Taser at him, a violation of department rules that prohibit firing at a fleeing suspect, prosecutors said.Seconds later, mid-stride, Brooks turned and fired the Taser at Rolfe, who was close on his heels.Three gunshots can be heard, and Brooks falls.Howard said that Rolfe, before opening fire, must have known that the Taser that Brooks had taken had already been fired twice -- and that this model of Taser was only capable of two shots.Several policing experts agreed that Rolfe should have known that Brooks was not a deadly threat, but for other reasons.Brooks was running, and it seemed like escaping the situation was his only goal, some experts said. And although Georgia officers are taught that Tasers are a deadly threat because they can disable officers long enough for their guns to be seized, that threat is diminished when a second officer is present as backup.Use of force should be proportional to the threat, the experts said.But whether the officer should have known how many times the Taser had been fired -- or could have reacted quickly enough to that knowledge -- was a separate question."That's a high expectation in the middle of a fight, that an officer is going to know every single fact that we get to see after the fact with an analysis of the video," said Roberto Villaseñor, a former police chief in Tucson, Arizona, and a member of former President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing."There's a lot of things that occur in a dramatic, volatile situation that you might not be aware of," he continued. "You have adrenaline pumping; you've got fear working; you've got the fight-or-flight syndrome going on -- you've got a lot of things that are affecting your perceptions."Noah H. Pines, a lawyer for Rolfe, said in a statement this week that the shooting was justified and that the responsibility was squarely at Brooks' feet."When Mr. Brooks chose to attack two officers, to disarm one of them," Pines said in the statement, "he took their lives, and his own, into his hands. He took the risk that their justified response might be a deadly one."But on CNN on Monday, Stacey Abrams, Georgia's former Democratic candidate for governor, called it "murder.""At no point did he present a danger that warranted his death," she said of Brooks. "And that's what we're talking about. A murder because a man made a mistake, not a mistake that would have cost the police officer his life but a mistake that was caused out of some form of dehumanization of Rayshard Brooks."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Leader of London BLM protests demands meeting with Johnson Posted: 20 Jun 2020 07:05 AM PDT  A leader of Black Lives Matter protests in London demanded a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday and called on him to replace a political adviser chosen to lead a new commission on racial inequality. "I have been here every day, I am the person that leads 20,000 people every protest," Imarn Ayton, a 29-year-old actress, told Reuters as BLM demonstrators gathered in Hyde Park before their latest march.
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| Pelosi orders removal of portraits of Confederate predecessors Posted: 19 Jun 2020 09:00 AM PDT  The House will remove the portraits from the Capitol on Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S.
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| The U.S. Army's New Marksman Rifle Is One Tough Gun. Here's Why. Posted: 19 Jun 2020 05:30 AM PDT  This month soldiers from the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division became the first combat soldiers to receive the new M110A1 Squad Designated Marksman Rifle (SDMR). The semi-automatic 7.62x51mm weapon was fielded to soldiers in the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
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| Trump distances himself from Geoffrey Berman firing after AG Barr says president was behind decision Posted: 20 Jun 2020 04:31 PM PDT  But now Trump is distancing himself from the firing of Geoffrey Berman after Attorney General Barr said the president was behind the decision.
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| Man arrested in shooting of eight people outside San Antonio bar Posted: 19 Jun 2020 10:31 PM PDT  All of the victims are expected to survive. The shooting happened after a group was denied entry to a bar because they were inebriated.
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| Hungry neighbors cook together as virus roils Latin America Posted: 19 Jun 2020 06:04 AM PDT  An hour later, Arango, 43, is using a shovel to stir 30 gallons of sweet oatmeal in a stainless-steel pot over a fire of wood scraps alongside a cinder-block community center in the hills overlooking Peru's capital. Often operating with help from the Catholic Church and private charities, soup kitchens and community pots have become a symbol of the conundrum facing a region where most of the working population labors outside the formal economy. Economic shutdowns have forced poor Peruvians, Argentines and tens of millions of others to fall back on community-based efforts unseen in large numbers since crises like Peru's 1990s civil war or Argentina's financial crash two decades ago.
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| Britons in Dubai sell possessions and return home as coronavirus ends expat dream Posted: 20 Jun 2020 05:24 AM PDT  Dubai's expat community groups are full of bargains; everything from cars to gym subscriptions. The fire sales are a result of expats left jobless by the UAE's coronavirus lock-down. Among them, thousands of British expats are trying to scrape back the pennies before they are forced to leave a place many call home. The coronavirus lockdown has upended the lives of thousands of expats, turning their dream of a life abroad into a nightmare of uncertainty. Thousands have been made redundant, with strict visa regulations forcing them to return to the UK, with little time to catch their breath. It's almost 11 years since Selina Dixon traded her claustrophobic commute from Surrey into Central London for her expat dreams of Dubai. "I was spending four hours a day on the train," she tells The Telegraph. The fashion marketer left behind the early morning drizzle and commuter grind, for a new life in the UAE. One which promised year-round sun, tax-free salaries, and the opportunity of adventure. "It's not about the glitz and glamour, whoever has been fortunate enough to live here know there is much more behind the façade," she says. An estimated 240,000 Britons call the UAE home, working as everything from air hostesses to teachers. Dixon was made redundant a few weeks ago, now she is living off her meagre savings. In weeks her visa will expire, and she wont be able to renew it unless she finds a new job. "Every day you wake up, you're looking on LinkedIn. Speaking to contacts and your network, but then you have to be mindful there are so many people going through this." With thousands of people flying in and out of the UAE every day in normal times, the country was always vulnerable to Covid-19. A stringent lockdown saw swathes of the economy shut. Though some 40,000 cases of the virus have been registered, Dubai is slowly beginning to open up, yet the economic recovery will likely take many years. Ninety per cent of the UAE's population are expats, and a study out this month by Oxford Economics, a quantitative analysis firm, estimates that the country of nine million could lose up to 900,000 jobs, and some 10 per cent of its population – British expats are likely to be among the worst affected. At least part of the difficulty lies in the UAE's Kafala – or sponsorship - system. A visa scheme wherein residency is tied to your job. Companies may sponsor a foreigner for residency as long as they employ them, but the moment someone becomes unemployed, a count-down begins on the expiry of their visa. As Dixon says, "Dubai is a place that without a visa - it's difficult." Though the government has announced some visa waivers, those who have lost their jobs since March 1st have thirty days to find a new job, or their visas become invalid, and they will be hit with daily fines. It means that those like Dixon may be forced to return to the UK for the first time in years. "It was not a choice that I was ready to make, but one that I may have to make." "I've been away [from the UK] for ten years, I'm going to have to start from scratch. Whilst I have the experience, it's the network in the UK I'll struggle with."
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| Pompeo warns Europeans against 'rogue actor' China Posted: 19 Jun 2020 09:18 AM PDT  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday warned Europeans they are abandoning democracy if they embrace China, in a scathing denunciation of Beijing two days after he held talks on trans-Pacific friction. Pompeo was speaking publicly for the first time since meeting for nearly nine hours Wednesday in Hawaii with a top Chinese official, Yang Jiechi, on the soaring tensions between the United States and China.
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| Coordinated blasts kill four in Pakistan, including soldiers Posted: 19 Jun 2020 05:18 AM PDT  Three consecutive explosions claimed by a little-known separatist group killed four people including two soldiers in Pakistan's southern province of Sindh on Friday, officials said. Shadowy secessionist organization the Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, which wants the province to break from the Pakistani federation, said it carried out the attacks. One of the blasts was in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and the capital of Sindh, where a civilian died and eight others including a paramilitary soldier were injured.
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| Denver man accused of killing neighbor after argument involving racial slurs Posted: 19 Jun 2020 06:48 AM PDT  A Denver man is in jail after allegedly shooting his neighbor in the chest during an argument about where he parked his car.
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| North Korean defectors sometimes struggle to adjust to new life Posted: 20 Jun 2020 10:53 AM PDT  More than 30,000 defectors have escaped through China, some paying thousands of dollars to brokers.
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| Amy Klobuchar drops out of Biden VP contention Posted: 18 Jun 2020 09:44 PM PDT  The Minnesota senator said Joe Biden should choose a woman of colour as his electoral running mate.
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| Elderly Black Lives Matter protester injured by police and trolled by Trump in hiding after death threats Posted: 19 Jun 2020 08:21 AM PDT  Martin Gugino, the protester shoved to the ground by Buffalo police officers during the George Floyd protests, is recuperating in a secret location due to threats he's received.Mr Gugino's attorney said on Thursday that his client had received "concerning and threatening messages and one letter" since he was assaulted by police officers in Buffalo.
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