| With Acosta in crosshairs, Trump unleashes tweet barrage at everything else he can think of Posted: 11 Jul 2019 07:00 AM PDT  The president published a multi-tweet rant on a host of unrelated subjects that seemed intended to shift attention away from the controversy surrounded his embattled labor secretary.
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| Vincent Lambert: French quadriplegic at heart of life-support debate Posted: 11 Jul 2019 12:54 AM PDT  Vincent Lambert, the man at the centre of a years-long life-support battle that played out right up until his death on Thursday, was the silent witness to the wrenching public feud between his parents and wife. Lambert was a rebellious teenager who had settled down and was due to become a father when was in a devastating car crash in 2008 that left him in a vegetative state. In the end, his wife Rachel and the medical team at Reims University Hospital prevailed, with doctors taking him off life support on July 2 after France's top court ruled that doctors could remove his feeding tubes.
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| What the A-10 Warthog Would Do in a Second Korean War Posted: 11 Jul 2019 12:00 AM PDT  North Korea has a very large army that may number 3.5 million men and women, although the quality of the forces is open to question and skepticism.The much-maligned A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack airplane could prove to be a savior if fighting breaks out with North Korea. However, the US Air Force wants to get rid of the plane, and is not asking for funds to fix the wings on some 100 A-10s, which therefore may end up in the scrap yard.In any conflict with North Korea, a US-South Korean-Coalition's objective will be to knock out North Korea's nuclear facilities and missiles. This will surely involve strategic bombers and maybe even stealth aircraft. But one immediate consequence will be that North Korea will attack South Korea, probably aiming first at neutralizing US and Korean forces by destroying bases, airfields, depots and equipment.This first appeared in January 2018.North Korea has a very large army that may number 3.5 million men and women, although the quality of the forces is open to question and skepticism. The country also has a considerable armored capability. There are 4,200 tanks, 2,200 armored personnel carriers, 8,600 artillery pieces and 4,800 multiple rocket launchers. While most of these are of old designs, if North Korea is able to move them in position, cross the DMZ and mount an attack on the south, its army could quickly defeat the south.Recommended: How North Korea Could Start a WarRecommended: This Is What Happens if America Nuked North Korea
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| Woman who claimed to be Uber driver charged with smuggling immigrants in New Mexico Posted: 11 Jul 2019 04:00 PM PDT  The driver, Evelyn Limas, has been charged with one felony count of smuggling undocumented immigrants.
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| Another Woman Has Come Forward Alleging Jeffrey Epstein Sexually Assaulted Her When She Was 15 Years Old Posted: 10 Jul 2019 11:26 AM PDT  "I was terrified and I was telling him to stop, 'please stop.'"
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| 'Criminal act' caused Crete death of likely American victim Posted: 10 Jul 2019 10:08 AM PDT  Antonis Papadomanolakis told The Associated Press Wednesday that final confirmation was still needed to confirm the identity of the body found Monday outside the port city of Chania, but he added it was highly likely it was Suzanne Eaton, a 59-year-old molecular biologist, who was reported missing last week. "The only thing we can say is that the (death) resulted from a criminal act," the coroner said. Eaton, who worked at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany, had been attending a conference in Crete.
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| Boycott the Oven With These Summer Slow Cooker Recipes Posted: 10 Jul 2019 10:28 AM PDT |
| Hundreds of blindfolded goats airdropped into mountain range Posted: 10 Jul 2019 03:17 AM PDT  For the second straight summer, mountain goats are flying in Olympic National Park.Officials this week began rounding up the sure-footed but non-native mammals from remote parts of the park, where humans introduced them in the 1920s, to relocate them to the Cascade Mountains, where they do belong.Animal capture specialists called "gunners" and "muggers" sedate the animals with darts or capture them in nets, blindfold them, pad their horns and fly them — on slings dangling from a helicopter — to a staging area. There, they're looked over by veterinarians and outfitted with tracking collars before being trucked to the Cascades and once again flown by helicopter, this time into their new alpine habitats.The relocations began last year, following a years-long stretch of planning and public comment, with 115 of the roughly 725 mountain goats in the Olympics being moved to the Cascades.Officials captured 17 Monday and Tuesday at the start of a two-week goat relocation period, including a kid about 6 weeks old, which got a ride on a mugger's lap inside the helicopter instead of hanging beneath it.The Olympics have few natural salt licks. That makes it more likely goats there will be attracted to the sweat, urine and food of hikers, potentially endangering the hikers. One goat fatally gored a hiker in 2010.A coalition of state and federal agencies and American Indian tribes is behind the effort, which involves closing parts of the park, including the Seven Lakes Basin and Klahhane Ridge. A second two-week closure period is planned for August."Mountain goat relocation will allow these animals to reoccupy historical range areas in the Cascades," Jesse Plumage, a U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist, said in a news release.The capture of the goats was contracted out to Leading Edge Aviation, a company that specialises in animal capture and relocation.The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife plans to release the goats at six sites in the Cascades. They include the Chikamin area in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, Preacher Mountain in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Hardscrabble Ridge and mountain peaks south of Darrington.Rich Harris, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist leading the agency's work to move the goats, told The Seattle Times this month that of those relocated last year, about 65 to 70 survived the winter. Half of the 10 relocated kids survived, he said.Agencies contributed to this report
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| Warren's new U.S. immigration policy would end border crossing as a crime Posted: 11 Jul 2019 09:03 AM PDT  Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren on Thursday announced a broad immigration policy that would decriminalize undocumented border crossing and end the use of privately run detention centers if she is elected president. Warren's 22-point policy also called for creating a pathway to citizenship for current undocumented immigrants and raising the cap on refugees who can seek asylum. "We need expanded legal immigration that will grow our economy, reunite families and meet our labor market demands," Warren wrote in a post on Medium.com announcing the plan.
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| UK Labour under pressure over anti-Semitism after BBC doc Posted: 11 Jul 2019 03:25 AM PDT  Britain's Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn came under renewed pressure over anti-Semitism on Thursday after a string of former officials spoke out about the party's failure to tackle discrimination in a BBC documentary. Former officials, including the main opposition's former general secretary Iain McNicol, broke non-disclosure agreements to allege that members of Corbyn's inner circle had interfered with investigations into anti-Semitism in the left-wing party. Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson, who has been critical of Corbyn, said the revelations were "harrowing".
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| Some of Putin’s Top Cops Are Mobsters. Even KGB Vets Are Ashamed. Posted: 10 Jul 2019 01:35 AM PDT  Michael Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin/ReutersMOSCOW—Crime scandals involving Russia's most powerful law enforcement agency have rocked this capital, exposing some phenomenal corruption at the heart of President Vladimir Putin's power structure. Ranking officers of the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, are allegedly involved, as are members of some of its most elite units. In April, authorities arrested three officials from the FSB's Department K, which deals with economic crimes and financial counterintelligence. Kirill Cherkalin, the former head of the unit, and Andrey Vasilyev and Dmitry Frolov, his associates, were jailed on suspicion they took huge bribes from banks and other commerce they were supposed to supervise. A video purported to show the equivalent of $185.5 million being hauled out of Cherkalin's residence. The initial charge against him involved a single bribe worth $850,000.The Liberation of Ivan Golunov Felt Like a Burst of Freedom in Russia, but Not for LongOne might think those arrests made by the internal affairs division of the FSB would make other criminals in the security force lie low. But no. Others were allegedly robbing banks. Last week RBC, one of Russia's most respected newspapers, reported the arrests of four FSB agents from the Alfa and Vympel special forces units, and two more from Department K. The number has since grown to 15 suspects, according to press reports. But the FSB has confirmed only two arrests.While supposedly conducting legitimate searches, or shepherding shipments of currency, the accused are supposed to have removed the heavy ballistic plates from their bullet-proof vests and stuffed them with money instead, but such details have not been confirmed officially.There must be massive turmoil in the depths of the gloomy FSB headquarters, the nerve center of Russia's police power located just across Lubyanka Square from the buildings of the Kremlin's administrative offices. All of Russia's leading newspapers reported that Instead of providing security, FSB agents robbed the Metallurg Bank, reportedly controlled by a former officer in Military Intelligence (the GRU) named Yury Karasev. If true, that's an interesting wrinkle since the FSB and GRU are rival secret services.Moscovskij Komsomolets, a newspaper with a circulation approaching one million copies, says in its Friday report: "Generals of the special services were shocked to hear about the arrests of FSB agents accused of a bank robbery on Ivan Babushkin Street and of stealing 140 million rubles ($2.2 million.)" Veteran agents of the Soviet KGB, the predecessor of the FSB, said they were disgusted by the scandal."This is the first time in the entire history of the Russian secret police when we see the triumph of greed that surpasses greed—so many officers of elite departments committing crimes," retired Maj. Gen. Aleksei Kandaurov told The Daily Beast. "The FSB is not a security service any longer, it has changed its status completely: it is now a service that enforces Putin's rule, and in exchange abuses its authority for purposes of enrichment."Gen. Kandaurov remembers the last days of the KGB, which had an infamous heritage dating back to the Cheka at the time of the revolution, and the NKVD under Joseph Stalin. As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 there was popular rage against the Communist regime's symbols and its obsession with secrecy, but the officers of the KGB—among them one Vladimir Putin—saw themselves as defenders of a regime and indeed an empire that they had served all their lives. They worked on fixed salaries.On the night of August, 22, 1991, Kandaurov watched from the window of his office as thousands of protesters demanded the removal of the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the Bolshevik leader Vladmir Lenin appointed to be the director of the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage (Cheka). Dzerzhinsky is seen as the symbol of the Bolseviks' political repressions and mass killings. "We represent in ourselves organized terror—this must be said very clearly," Dzerzhinsky proclaimed during the period known as the Red Terror that began in 1918.The modern state security agency, FSB, has been reviving the memory of Dzerzhinsky just as Putin has burnished the reputation of Joseph Stalin. Today many officials hang portraits of the secret police founder on their walls. In 2017 the agency celebrated the 100th anniversary of Cheka-NKVD-KGB-FSB, as a proud successor. But veterans see the current organization as an inglorious pretender to the fame of the older ones."FSB agents should stop hiding behind the KGB reputation, behind Dzerzhinsky. If he were alive, he would have executed most of these corrupt officers as his ideological enemies," Kandaurov told The Daily Beast. When the KGB Wanted You Dead, This Is How They Killed YouRussia has glorified "Alfa" and "Vympel" as legendary, heroic special operators who saw service in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s and many other more secretive theaters. At the Balashikha Cemetery near Moscow there are sad rows of tombstones where each is marked with an "A" or "V" for the soldiers of these units who gave their lives rescuing hostages during the Beslan school siege in September 2004. In the past few years Russian special operators have died anonymously in secret operations in Ukraine."Today's thugs in the special forces put shame on all the past heroes," a retired KGB officer and corruption fighter, Gennady Gudkov, told The Daily Beast. "The FSB violates its authority for 'operative activities,' which was given to them to stop transactions for terrorism or drug deals. Now a group of elite FSB and special forces units used their authority to rob a bank; but the bank informed Moscow police investigators and the organized criminal group was arrested."A channel on the Telegram messaging service covering the latest news about Russian gangsters, oligarchs and bureaucrats, said on Monday that authorities fired the head of Moscow's FSB Directorate, Alexey Dorofeyev.Last month police tried to stop an investigation by a Medusa Project reporter, Ivan Golunov, into Dorofeyev's links to a corrupt funeral business. After spending months researching figures and beneficiaries of the funeral industry, Golunov discovered some links connecting shadowy figures and senior FSB officers. But somebody decided to stop the reporter from publishing: police planted drugs on Golunov and kept him behind bars for five days, while thousands of people joined protests in support of the journalist.Russian veterans of secret services gossip about three "towers" of FSB power: the richest one is allegedly supported by the almighty Putin's ally, Igor Sechin, the head of the vast Rosneft energy company; the second one also enjoys enormous financial resources and is backed by another of Putin's long-time friends, Sergey Chemizov, the head of the Russian arms export agency; the third, the weakest financially, nonetheless has the best network of secret agents and is backed by the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin. Some see a connection between these rivalries and the revelations about high-level criminality."It feels like everything is falling down," a major general of the FSB reserve, Alexander Mikhailov, told reporters last week. "I want to tell you that all the old employees are shocked by what is happening. During my entire service in the Moscow KGB, and I worked there for 20 years, there were only three criminal cases.""None of the people from the old guard understands where that number of criminals in the system came from," said Mikhailov. "It is also disturbing that today we are confronted with the widest range of units that are involved in criminal activity. We repair it in one spot and it breaks down in another one."There are no checks and balances at FSB management, Gudkov pointed out. "The Soviet KGB was massively repressive, you can blame that service for anything, but not for corruption. The worst we could hear about was a colleague sleeping with somebody's wife or some secret agent bringing a pair of sneakers for a colleague from abroad—that was already a big enough scandal to write a report," Gudkov remembered. "Even in our worst nightmare we could not imagine officers stealing millions of dollars, robbing banks. What will we hear next? The Russian Federal Security Service robbing the Kremlin's treasury or the Central Bank's reserves?" 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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| This Is Iran's Sad Attempt at Reverse-Engineering an Old F-5F Fighter Posted: 10 Jul 2019 07:00 PM PDT  Rouhani called on the Iranian military to strengthen their readiness in the face of enemy threats in a speech during Tuesday's defense show. Iran says its new Kowsar fighter jet has flown. President Hassan Rouhani was on scene to see the jet – which is a carbon copy of the American F-5F – undergoing flight trials.Test flights of the Kowsar, took place on Aug. 21, 2018 on the eve of the National Day of the Defense Industry, according to semi-official Mehr News Agency. It was unclear whether the jet's first public display flight has yet taken place.The Kowsar can be used for "short aerial support missions" and is equipped with systems that "promote precision targeting," according to state media.Rouhani called on the Iranian military to strengthen their readiness in the face of enemy threats in a speech during Tuesday's defense show."When we say we are ready for defense, it means that we seek the establishment of sustainable peace," Rouhani said.
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| A Missouri suspect was hiding from police. A loud fart gave him away Posted: 10 Jul 2019 08:24 AM PDT ![A Missouri suspect was hiding from police. A loud fart gave him away]( "A Missouri suspect was hiding from police. A loud fart gave him away") Law enforcement officers in Missouri managed to find a suspect they were looking for after he farted and gave away his position.
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| The Jeep Gladiator Has No Competition Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:00 AM PDT  It's a four-door convertible. It's a pickup truck. It'll tow a boat. Now let me tell you which one to get.
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| Pelosi reportedly scolds progressives in closed-door meeting, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fires back Posted: 11 Jul 2019 05:29 AM PDT  The House speaker reportedly tells Democrat lawmakers to come to her with complaints instead of tweeting about them.
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| Amazon, seeking more skilled workers, will do the training Posted: 11 Jul 2019 11:21 AM PDT  Amazon, needing a more tech-savvy workforce, is offering to pay to retrain its employees and help them switch to more technical jobs at Amazon or elsewhere. The online shopping giant said Thursday that it plans to spend $700 million by 2025 to retrain 100,000 workers, or a third of its U.S. workforce. The initiative could help Amazon find and keep more workers With a strong economy and unemployment near a 50-year low, workers have more options, giving employers a tougher time finding help.
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| The Burr vs. Hamilton duel happened 215 years ago today Posted: 11 Jul 2019 03:00 AM PDT  Today marks the anniversary of the deadly duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. What caused the sitting vice president to duel a Founding Father on the cliffs overlooking New York City?
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| How one freshman congresswoman plans to save the Affordable Care Act Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:00 AM PDT  Nobody in Washington seems to like the Affordable Care Act. Republicans want to repeal it, claiming it gives too much power to the federal government. Democrats argue that it doesn't go far enough: Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to replace the ACA with Medicare for All, which would get rid of private insurance entirely.
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| French supermarket managers ousted over safari hunting snaps Posted: 10 Jul 2019 08:39 AM PDT  It was meant to be a trophy picture, showing their success on safari, but the photo of a French couple posing beside a lion they had shot ended up costing them their jobs. Managers of a supermarket in L'Arbresle, a small town in eastern France, the pair had in 2015 taken part in a so-called captive hunt that involves shooting at animals kept inside an enclosed area. Such a set-up virtually guarantees a kill for private trophy hunters.
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| NASA shake-up in new race to the moon Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:52 PM PDT  As NASA scrambles to meet U.S. President Donald Trump's mandate to return humans to the moon by 2024, two longtime heads of NASA's human exploration wing were demoted Wednesday in a slew of administrative shakeups, officials said in an internal memo. The biggest change to rock the agency is the demotion of Bill Gerstenmaier, who was leading the efforts to return humans to the lunar surface. The agency's chief Jim Bridenstine announced the changes in an internal memo to employees, signaling the latest leadership changes.
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| Super Weapon? The Air Force Wants a (New) Nuclear Armed Cruise Missile Posted: 10 Jul 2019 04:02 AM PDT  Should major global powers be immersed in a high-stakes, dangerous escalation of tension, raising the possibility of a nuclear confrontation, could the existence of a long-range nuclear-armed cruise missile provide that unique additional variable necessary to keep the peace?Such is the Air Force thinking when it comes to the current developmental trajectory for its emerging Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO) -- a new, aircraft-launched nuclear cruise missile engineered to prevent nuclear conflict by holding enemy targets at risk potentially inaccessible to other methods of attack.The LRSO 'will allow the Air Force to 'counter adversaries' ever-improving integrated air defense with a lethal, tailorable, standoff nuclear strike capability," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, told an audience at a recent Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Nuclear Deterrence event, according to transcripts.The LRSO will be operational by 2030, Goldfein said.The weapon will provide commanders with a wider range of options, as a bomber-launched nuclear cruise missile brings the prospect of deterring nuclear attack without needing to have a stealth bomber actually penetrate the airspace. Naturally, this lowers risk and also increases the deterrence posture by virtue of letting a potential adversary know there are a wide range of methods through which a response might be possible. Interestingly, the existence of nuclear weapons, according to Goldfein and other U.S. Air Force senior leaders, - is entirely based upon the notion of deterrence -- bringing the prospect of massive destructive power to achieve the opposite effect - stopping nuclear war before it happens.
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| Dad drowns after saving daughter from riptide in Florida Posted: 10 Jul 2019 05:04 PM PDT  Thomas Zakrewski helped rescue his 8-year-old daughter but then was swept away in the outgoing riptide, authorities in Florida say.
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| More News Coming Friday on Ford and Volkswagen's Truck and EV Tieup Posted: 11 Jul 2019 01:41 PM PDT  Ford and VW formalize an alliance to build pickups and vans and will reportedly share VW's MEB platform.
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| Mexican President Warns Others May Leave Government After Urzua Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:15 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, under pressure after the resignation of his finance minister, warned other officials may quit his government as part of the deep policy changes he is leading."In a democratic government there are always differences and disagreements," Lopez Obrador said Wednesday at his daily press conference. "You have to get used to the changes and there could even be other resignations."The Mexican peso dropped as much as 0.8%, leading emerging markets currency losses for a second straight session. It fell 0.4% to 19.2344 per dollar at 9:01 a.m. in New York.AMLO, as the Mexican leader is known, said the resignation of Carlos Urzua on Tuesday stems from disagreements over the country's national development plan. Urzua also disagreed about the management of Mexico's state-owned banks, the president said, adding that the former finance minister had clashed with his Chief of Staff Alfonso Romo and with the head of Mexico's tax collection agency."This is a government of free men and women. Suddenly someone can say 'I don't agree with the government's path'," AMLO said, adding that no other resignation has been presented to him so far. "What I want to make clear is that the way of doing politics won't change at all."To contact the reporters on this story: Carlos Manuel Rodriguez in Mexico City at carlosmr@bloomberg.net;Cyntia Barrera Diaz in Mexico City at cbarrerad@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Walter BrandimarteFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| AP Explains: How do immigration authorities make arrests? Posted: 11 Jul 2019 04:12 PM PDT  After postponing an immigration-enforcement operation late last month, the Trump administration plans to go ahead with the raids as soon as this weekend. The sweep is expected to be similar to others that authorities have done regularly since 2003 and often netted hundreds of arrests. This one is different because President Donald Trump tweeted in June that it would be the start of an effort to deport millions of people who are in the country illegally.
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| Britain 'recommends heightened security' for ships in Straits of Hormuz after Iran tries to block oil tanker Posted: 11 Jul 2019 07:18 AM PDT  The British government raised its security warning for shipping in Iranian waters to its highest level as the Royal Navy was forced to fend off the attempted obstruction of a British oil tanker by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. British flagged ships were notified at the beginning of this week that Iranian waters were considered a level three, or "critical" security environment, the Telegraph understands. The security alert, which amounts to advice to avoid Iranian waters where possible and would have been accompanied by advice on specific precautions to take, came after Iran threatened "reciprocal" action for the recent seizure of an Iranian tanker by the Royal Navy near Gibraltar. That action appeared to come on Wednesday, when the British Heritage, owned by BP Shipping and registered to the Isle of Man, was approached by three Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boats as it sailed through Persian Gulf towards the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians ordered the vessel to stop in nearby Iranian territorial waters, according to the Ministry of Defence, but withdrew after HMS Montrose, a Royal Navy frigate which had been escorting the tanker, aimed its guns on the Iranians and warned them to move away. A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: "Contrary to international law, three Iranian vessels attempted to impede the passage of a commercial vessel, British Heritage, through the Strait of Hormuz. "HMS Montrose was forced to position herself between the Iranian vessels and British Heritage and issue verbal warnings to the Iranian vessels, which then turned away." The tanker is believed to have been in waters disputed by Iran and the United Arab Emirates when the incident took place A US aircraft flying overhead filmed the incident, but the footage had not been released by late Thursday evening. Read more The incident is the most serious involving a British ship since the current crisis in the Gulf began and will raise fears that Britain could get dragged into a brewing military confrontation between the United States and Iran in the Gulf. Iran warned last week that it might seize a British oil tanker after Royal Marines boarded and detained the Grace 1, a super tanker carrying two million tons of Iranian oil, as it passed through Gibralatan waters last Thursday. British and Gibraltan authorities say they suspect the ship of running oil to Syria, in breach of EU sanctions, and have denied the move was targeted at Iran. Police in Gibraltar said on Thursday that they have arrested and interviewed under caution the Grace 1's captain and chief officer on suspicion of breaching EU sanctions on Syria, in a move likely to further inflame tensions. Neither man has yet been charged. Iran's revolutionary guard denied attempting to seize the British Heritage, but a senior commander also warned that Britain would "strongly regret" detaining the Grace 1 . "If the enemy had made the smallest assessment they wouldn't have done this act," said Rear-Admiral Ali Fadavi on Thursday. "Our reciprocal action will be announced." Iran earlier described the seizure of Grace 1 as an act of "piracy" and accused Britain of bowing to US pressure to hinder its attempts to export oil under the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. Gulf of Oman Mohsen Rezaei, a general in the Revolutionary Guard Corps and an advisor to Iran's supreme leader, on Friday warned Iran might go after a British tanker. And President Hassan Rouhani called the seizure of the vessel "mean and wrong" during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. He warned London: "You are an initiator of insecurity and you will understand its repercussions," without elaborating. Oil companies have warned that continued disruption around the Strait of Hormuz, which handles up to a third of the world's seaborne oil exports, could have a dramatic impact on petrol prices. There are usually between 15 and 30 British flagged ships operating in the vicinity of the strait at any given day, more than the Royal Navy can realistically provide escorts for. Besides HMS Montrose, a type 23 frigate, the Royal Navy has four minesweepers and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Cardigan Bay in the region. Britain is also a member of a 33-nation Combined Maritime Force with a mandate to protect shipping in the Western Indian Ocean from piracy and terrorism. The United States has said it wants a new international force to guarantee freedom of navigation in the Persian gulf, although it has yet to lay out those plans in detail. Last month Donald Trump called of military strikes against the Islamic Republic after it shot down a US surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz. Tensions in the Persian Gulf have risen dramatically since Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and imposed a series of punishing sanctions on the Islamic Republic, including measures designed to prevent it exporting oil. Britain, France, and Germany have defended the deal, including Iran's right to export oil, but Iran has complained the European powers have done too little to help it continue to trade. It began to violate the deal's restrictions on uranium enrichment in protest last week. A spokesman for BP, which operates the British Heritage tanker, said: "Our top priority is the safety and security of our crews and vessels. While we are not commenting on these events, we thank the Royal Navy for their support."
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| Afghan warrior Massoud's image becomes national icon Posted: 09 Jul 2019 07:11 PM PDT  In Kabul, it is hard to miss the late Ahmad Shah Massoud. More than 17 years since his assassination, the legendary fighter who battled the Soviets and the Taliban has become something of an Afghan icon. The feats of the "Lion of Panjshir", named for his home valley north of Kabul, has earned him a devoted following in war-weary Afghanistan.
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| Mackenzie Lueck case: Gruesome details revealed in slaying of Utah college student Posted: 11 Jul 2019 08:36 AM PDT  The charred body of slain University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck was discovered bound in a shallow grave, prosecutors said Wednesday as formal charges were filed against her suspected killer.
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| An Indiana Catholic school fired a gay teacher for same-sex marriage. Now, a settlement Posted: 10 Jul 2019 10:13 AM PDT ![An Indiana Catholic school fired a gay teacher for same-sex marriage. Now, a settlement]( "An Indiana Catholic school fired a gay teacher for same-sex marriage. Now, a settlement") Indianapolis Cathedral High School was under pressure from its local archdiocese to ensure that all teachers are living according to church teachings.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Posted: 10 Jul 2019 05:00 PM PDT |
| Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful Kamala Harris unveils plan to tackle rape kit backlog Posted: 11 Jul 2019 11:59 AM PDT  U.S. Senator Kamala Harris on Thursday pledged the nation's backlog of rape kits needing review would be processed by the end of her first four-year term if elected president. Harris estimated she would invest $1 billion to eliminate the backlog, which she said would cover an estimated 225,000 kits that remain untested. Rape kits are collected when a victim reports an assault and DNA or other physical evidence is collected.
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| Spanish-language reporter released from immigration custody Posted: 11 Jul 2019 02:26 PM PDT  A Spanish-language reporter who has been facing deportation since his arrest 15 months ago while covering an immigration protest in Tennessee was released Thursday from custody as his case proceeds. Manuel Duran was released from an Alabama detention center on a $2,000 bail set by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Gracie Willis said. "I feel like I'm reborn," Duran said in a statement released by the center.
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| Meet India's BrahMos II: The World's Fastest Supersonic Cruise Missile? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 12:47 AM PDT  With the BrahMos II venture put on indefinite hold, the Indian military is forging ahead with new, long-range and deep-dive versions of their BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.Earlier this week, BrahMos CEO Sudhir Kumar Mishra announced that vertical deep-dive and 500 kilometer-range BrahMos variants are ready to enter India's missile arsenal: "India has successfully test-fired a vertical deep dive version of BrahMos, the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile, that can now change the dynamics of conventional warfare...the upgraded version of the missile with enhanced range of up to 500 km is also ready." Both of these new variants will feature the Mach 2.8 speed of the original BrahMos missile, roughly three times the speed of sound.As the name implies, vertical deep-capability allows the missile to be fired at a "near-vertical" trajectory of 90 degree, climbing fourteen 14 kilometers before making making a steep dive toward its target. Mishra asserts that this will make BrahMos more effective on mountainous terrain and against bunkers as well as large surface vessels, suggesting that these improvements are aimed at bolstering Indian missile strike capability vis-à-vis China amid ongoing tensions over the Tibet region.
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| Woman implanted with embryos from two separate couples in IVF mix-up Posted: 10 Jul 2019 01:32 PM PDT  Reproductive attorney Melissa Brisman breaks down the details of an IVF mix-up case after a woman gave birth to twins from two separate couples.
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| Sudan general says coup attempt foiled Posted: 11 Jul 2019 02:36 PM PDT  Sudan's ruling military council has foiled a coup attempt, a top general announced on state television Thursday, saying that 12 officers and four soldiers had been arrested. The announcement came as the ruling military and civilian protesters agreed last week to end a political impasse after the army in April ousted longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir on the back of a popular uprising. "Officers and soldiers from the army and National Intelligence and Security Service, some of them retired, were trying to carry out a coup," General Jamal Omar of the ruling military council said in a statement broadcast live on state television.
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| Democratic unity threatened as clash between Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez drags on Posted: 11 Jul 2019 09:28 AM PDT  Democrats worry about long-term implications of the feud between the speaker and the freshman firebrand.
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| 85+ Low-Carb Dishes That Will Make Your Diet A Breeze Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:58 PM PDT |
| Teenage rape victim in El Salvador handed 30-year prison sentence over stillbirth to face retrial for murder Posted: 11 Jul 2019 05:34 AM PDT  A teenage rape victim in El Salvador who was convicted for murdering her child and imprisoned for nearly three years after a stillbirth will now face a retrial next week.Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez was given a 30-year jail sentence in 2017 for aggravated murder by a female judge who ruled the teenager had induced an abortion.El Salvador has one of the harshest abortion bans in the world – it is even illegal in cases of rape and incest, when the woman's life is in danger or if the foetus is deformed.Ms Hernandez, now 21 and from a poor rural community, said she was raped and did not realise she was pregnant until she went into labour in a bathroom and gave birth to a stillborn baby.The Citizen Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion (CDFA) said there was no proof that she tried to kill her baby and that she suffered a pregnancy-related complication.Miscarriages and stillbirths in El Salvador are often treated as suspected abortions, which have been considered murder under Salvadoran law since 1997. Abortion is a crime under any circumstance in the Central American country.The CDFA estimate around 20 women are in prison for abortion crimes in the socially conservative and Catholic majority nation when they suffered miscarriages, stillbirths or pregnancy complications – with some serving sentences of up to 40 years. The local rights organisation are campaigning for these jailed women to be freed.Ms Hernandez's sentence was annulled in February in an appeal before El Salvador's top court – signalling a victory for the CDFA.Ms Hernandez emerged from prison back then to chants of "Evelyn, you are not alone!" – having been allowed to live at home until the fresh trial. On Wednesday, her lawyers announced she would face a retrial next Monday. "We're convinced that Evelyn is innocent," Ana Martinez, one of Hernandez's lawyers at the CDFA, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "We hope that on Monday the rule of law and justice wins in this country."Ms Hernandez gave birth in the latrine of her home in a small rural community in April 2016. She lost consciousness after losing large amounts of blood.During her original trial, she said she had been repeatedly raped – with her lawyers saying she was too scared to report the rapes.Despite being in the third trimester, Ms Hernandez said she had confused the symptoms of pregnancy with stomach ache as she had experienced intermittent bleeding which she presumed to be her menstrual period. "I did not want to kill my son," she told the court.Mariana Ardila, managing attorney at advocacy group Women's Link Worldwide, said: "This new trial is an opportunity for Evelyn to find justice at last, and for El Salvador to stop criminalizing women who have medical complications during pregnancy."Women and girls all over the world deserve better health services, not jail. Judges must set aside their prejudices about women and adequately assess the context in which they live instead of condemning them for being poor and lacking access to health services during their pregnancies". Pro-choice activists say her retrial is key litmus test for El Salvador's new president's position on abortion. Nayib Bukele, who took office in June, has said he believes abortion should only be permitted if the mother's life is at risk."This case would be the first case that would be tried after the new president is in power," Paula Avila-Guillen, director for Latin America initiatives at the Women's Equality Center, a US-based reproductive rights advocacy group, said. "It will also send a message about what is the political mood."Although six other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have absolute bans on abortion, El Salvador stands out for its high number of convictions.The United Nations urged El Salvador in 2017 to issue a moratorium on applying its abortion law and to review all cases where women have been jailed for abortion-related crimes.However, attempts to pass a bill that would ease El Salvador's abortion ban have failed."One of the factors is a very religious and strong evangelical society," Avila-Guillen, a human rights lawyer supporting CDFA cases, said."There's no presumption of innocence. The moment that the word abortion gets thrown in a case, from that moment on women are guilty in the eyes of everyone."Amnesty International has argued El Salvador is "one of the most dangerous countries to be a woman". Women who are convicted of abortion in El Salvador are predominantly from poorer communities and have limited resources to fork out for a lawyer to defend them in court.
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| Heavy rains flood New Orleans streets in taste of storm ahead Posted: 10 Jul 2019 12:16 PM PDT  The weather system churning in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to intensify this week into the second named tropical storm of the year, and ultimately the first Atlantic hurricane of 2019 as it heads closer to land, forecasters said. New Orleans officials warned that a hurricane could bring a coastal storm surge into the mouth of the Mississippi River capable of raising the river's height to 20 feet (6 meters) above sea level, high enough to overflow some sections of the levee system protecting the city. The storm is most likely to make landfall west of New Orleans on Saturday, National Weather Service senior hurricane specialist Jack Beven said.
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| Police: Remains found in Kentucky confirmed as missing woman Posted: 11 Jul 2019 02:08 PM PDT  The remains of a Kentucky woman who disappeared six months ago were found buried near a house, Kentucky State Police said Thursday. Trooper Robert Purdy confirmed the remains found Wednesday night were those of Savannah Spurlock, 23, who was last seen in January leaving a Lexington bar with several men. Police did not directly tie Sparks' arrest to Spurlock, but news outlets reported the property had been searched previously in connection with her disappearance.
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| Whoops: India's Navy Left Nearly Sunk Its Own $3 Billion Nuclear Submarine Posted: 09 Jul 2019 09:00 PM PDT  Call it a lesson learned for the Indian navy, which managed to put the country's first nuclear-missile submarine, the $2.9 billion INS Arihant, out of commission in the most boneheaded way possible.The modern submarine is not a simple machine. A loss of propulsion, unexpected flooding, or trouble with reactors or weapons can doom a sub crew to a watery grave.Also, it's a good idea to, like, close the hatches before you dive.(This article originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter. This article first appeared in 2018.)Call it a lesson learned for the Indian navy, which managed to put the country's first nuclear-missile submarine, the $2.9 billion INS Arihant, out of commission in the most boneheaded way possible.The Hindu reported yesterday that the Arihant has been out of commission since suffering "major damage" some 10 months ago, due to what a navy source characterized as a "human error" — to wit: allowing water to flood to sub's propulsion compartment after failing to secure one of the vessel's external hatches.
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| Viking bones and DNA will decay quickly as Greenland thaws Posted: 11 Jul 2019 06:00 AM PDT  Viking settlers abandoned Greenland some 600 years ago. But the frozen ground has preserved centuries of the seafarers' hardy existence on the western shores of the remote landmass, including bones and DNA. The Vikings, though, didn't first step foot on Greenland. The Saqqaq people arrived there first, around 3,800 years before the Vikings, as did other nomadic peoples. Yet now, all of their culturally invaluable organic remains are under threat from amplified Arctic warming -- the fastest changing region on Earth. Archaeologists, geochemists, and climate scientists traveled to Greenland and collected soil samples from seven archaeological areas to determine how vulnerable the sites are to warming. Their research, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, found these organic archaeological remains (also known as organic carbon) will accelerate their decay as they become exposed to increasingly warmer climes and hungry microorganisms."If temperatures go up, degradation rates will increase," said Jørgen Hollesen, lead author of the research and a senior researcher at the National Museum of Denmark.> "Arctic Amplification" ---> temperatures in the Arctic are warming more than twice as fast as the global mean temperature > > For more info: https://t.co/eJxuGk9tXr pic.twitter.com/rAtcO47Euq> > -- Zack Labe (@ZLabe) June 29, 2019Global temperatures are certainly expected to go up. Eighteen of the 19 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and Greenland specifically is now melting at rates Arctic scientists have called "off the charts." What's more, dwindling Arctic sea ice this year is on pace to either break or nearly break its record for lowest extent. On the shores of Greenland inhabited by the Vikings, warmer summers allow the ground to thaw and exposes the soil to oxygen, allowing microbes to thrive and consume previously preserved remains. "The higher the temperature, the higher the rate of consumption," Hollesen said succinctly."They'll decay very rapidly," agreed Christopher Rodning, an archaeologist at Tulane University who had no involvement in the research. There are some 6,000 archaeological sites around Greenland, and they are invaluable relics of the Viking past, and of peoples before and after them. "The archaeological sites have a lot to teach us about those [historical] episodes," said Rodning. Especially if these sites have preserved organic remains, like food stored in a freezer."As an archaeologist I can say it's really exciting when we do find an object made out of wood, or animal bone," Rodning said. These materials can reveal the contents of ancient diets, the diseases people carried, and rare genetic material. "They have huge potential to help understand the lives of these people," he said.Brattahlid, a Viking colony.Image: Werner Forman Archive / ShutterstockHollesen and his team are keenly aware of this reality, so they're now working to gauge which sites around Greenland are most vulnerable to warming, in order that the remains be preserved or excavated before they're gone. It's like archaeological triage.If temperatures keep trending as they are today, a scenario climate scientists call "business as usual," up to 70 percent of the organic carbon inside the coastal remains could decay over the next 80 years (by 2100). Even if humanity begins ambitiously slashing its carbon emissions by mid-century, some 30 percent of these organic remains could degrade by then, according to the research. And farther inland, where many Viking settlers were buried, over 35 percent of organic material could be lost by 2050. SEE ALSO: Choose your future Greenland, EarthlingsAfter collecting soil from different Greenland sites, Hollesen and his team exposed the soil to different temperatures in a laboratory, and measured the oxygen consumption by microbes, because the microbes need oxygen to survive. Then, his team projected how much degradation these microbes would achieve at different climate scenarios -- climate scenarios that are based specifically on how much heat-trapping carbon humans emit into the atmosphere this century.Centuries ago, the Vikings came and went from Greenland, while other peoples, the Inuit, didn't leave. Answers about why some cultures continued to adapt to the harsh Arctic, while others left, are likely stored in the warming, decaying, Greenland soil."As archaeologists, these are questions we still need to be asking," said Rodning. WATCH: Ever wonder how the universe might end?
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| Media watchdog slams Pakistan curbs on TV broadcasters Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:22 AM PDT  A global media watchdog has slammed Pakistani authorities over the removal of three television channels from the country's airwaves, saying the move was "indicative of disturbing dictatorial tendencies" as pressure mounts on journalists in the South Asian nation. The statement from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) comes days after AbbTakk TV, 24 News, and Capital TV all had their broadcasts cut, after screening a press conference with opposition leader Maryam Nawaz. Pakistani authorities say the channels were unavailable due to "technical issues", but RSF described the outage as an act of "brazen censorship".
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| U.S. officials push for sanctions on China over oil purchases from Iran Posted: 11 Jul 2019 11:08 AM PDT  Such a move would complicate trade talks between the two countries and further strain the relationship.
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| US-made missiles found at base used by Libyan rebels to attack Tripoli are ours, France admits Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:31 AM PDT  France on Wednesday admitted that it is the owner of American-made anti-tank missiles found at a rebel military base in Libya, raising awkward questions about European involvement in the civil war. France's Army Ministry said the four Javelin missiles discovered at a base used by General Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army were intended for "self-protection of a French military unit deployed to carry out intelligence and counter-terrorism operations." "Damaged and unusable, the armaments were being temporarily stocked at a depot ahead of their destruction," it said in a statement on Wednesday. It said the weapons, found in the mountains south of Tripoli by forces loyal to the UN-backed government, were never intended for sale or transfer to any party to Libya's conflict. The statement did not explain how many French soldiers are in the country or why they were operating in close proximity to Gheryan, the LNA's main headquarters for its controversial assault on Tripoli. The discovery of javelin missiles at Gheryan was first reported by the New York Times. Chinese-made shells with United Arab Emirates markings were also discovered. The missiles were discovered on a rebel base in Gharyan when UN-recognised government forces recaptured the city Credit: Anadolu Agency At least 1,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced since Gen Haftar launched his assault on Tripoli in a bid to overthrow the UN-backed government of national accord in April. France, like all permanent members of the UN Security Council, officially recognises the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). But Fayez Al-Sarraj, the prime minister of the GNA, has publicly protested French support for Gen Haftar since the battle began. Some observers have also accused Paris of providing the general with diplomatic cover by watering down European Union statements about his attack on Tripoli. Jalel Harouchi, a Libya analyst at the Clingedael Institute, said the discovery made it "impossible for Paris to credibly deny its deep preference" for Gen Haftar's faction in the civil war. "For several years now, it has sought to prop up Marshal Haftar, help him defeat his opponents and take power in Libya," he said. Territorial control in Libya "In any event, other foreign states, such as the UAE, violate the Libya arms embargo much more egregiously than France does." Gen Haftar, who heads a rival administration in the east of the country, has sought to portray himself as a potential secular strongman able to deal robustly with the threat of Islamist extremism in Libya. He is believed to enjoy backing from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, and has also visited both Paris and Moscow to seek support. He has courted the United States, which provided him with asylum after he fell out with Muammar Gadaffi in the 1980s. Last week the United States blocked a British-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution that would have condemned an LNA airstrike on a migrant holding centre that killed at least 40 people. The FGM 148 Javelin is a US-manufactured shoulder-launched missile designed to destroy modern tanks by striking them from above, where their armour is thinnest. They cost about £135,000 a piece.
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| Ilhan Omar calls Tucker Carlson 'racist fool' after he says she proves 'immigration has become dangerous' Posted: 11 Jul 2019 10:11 AM PDT  "After everything America has done for Omar, and her family, she hates this country more than ever," Tucker Carlson said on his show Tuesday night.
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