| Trump's 'Civil War' threat is 'beyond repugnant,' says GOP Rep. Kinzinger Posted: 30 Sep 2019 06:57 AM PDT  Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., an Air Force veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, criticized the president for quoting an evangelical pastor who warned that a "Civil War like fracture" would occur if Trump is removed from office.
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| '2020 Vision' Monday: Kate McKinnon is running again on 'SNL' — this time as Elizabeth Warren. How the new season's cast could shape the primary Posted: 30 Sep 2019 12:26 PM PDT  "Saturday Night Live" returned this weekend for its 45th season, renewing a tradition of lampooning presidents (and would-be presidents) that stretches back to the show's earliest days.
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| Former 'Top Gear' host told Greta Thunberg to 'be a good girl' and 'shut up' Posted: 01 Oct 2019 01:05 PM PDT  The former "Top Gear" presenter Jeremy Clarkson criticize climate activist Greta Thunberg in an op-ed article, following the 16-year-old's address at the United Nations Climate Action Summit.
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| A student at Karen Pence's school alleged students cut her dreadlocks. She just took it back. Posted: 30 Sep 2019 11:46 AM PDT ![A student at Karen Pence's school alleged students cut her dreadlocks. She just took it back.]( "A student at Karen Pence's school alleged students cut her dreadlocks. She just took it back.") The Virginia private school student who claimed three classmates pinned her down and forcibly cut off her dreadlocks has now retracted the story.Reports emerged last week about an allegation from 12-year-old Amari Allen, who is black, that three white sixth-grade boys pinned her down during recess at Immanuel Christian School and cut her dreadlocks while saying "my hair was nappy and I was ugly and I shouldn't have been born," as she told The Washington Post. The story quickly went viral online in part because second lady Karen Pence teaches art part time at the school.But the Post now reports Allen has told the school that this incident, which was being investigated by the Fairfax County Police Department, did not happen, with her family apologizing in a statement. "To the administrators and families of Immanuel Christian School, we are sorry for the damage this incident has done to trust within the school family and the undue scorn it has brought to the school," Allen's grandparents said in a statement. "To the broader community, who rallied in such passionate support for our daughter, we apologize for betraying your trust."The principal of the school, Stephen Danish, confirmed that Allen now says the allegations are false, saying, "We recognize that we now enter what will be a long season of healing."
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| Controversial study on red and processed meat is a 'disservice to the public,' experts say Posted: 01 Oct 2019 10:08 AM PDT  A controversial study has leading experts up in arms after it hinted that eating less red and unprocessed meat does not improve one's health.
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| Arizona boy dead after man attempted exorcism to get 'demon' out of him, officials say Posted: 01 Oct 2019 01:00 PM PDT ![Arizona boy dead after man attempted exorcism to get 'demon' out of him, officials say]( "Arizona boy dead after man attempted exorcism to get 'demon' out of him, officials say") Pablo Martinez told police and the FBI that within the last week, he had noticed that "his son … had a demon inside of him."
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| The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels claim to have killed 500 Saudi-led coalition troops and captured thousands more in major victory Posted: 30 Sep 2019 08:45 AM PDT  If true, the Houthi victory would mark another major setback for Saudi Arabia in the wake of the recent drone and missile attacks on its oil sites.
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| This brewery in Maine gifts its employees with a free trip to Belgium on their 5 year work anniversary Posted: 01 Oct 2019 12:37 PM PDT  Allagash Brewing Company was voted Best Place to Work in Maine for 7 years running according to Outside Magazine — and has the best work perks.
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| $27 Million in Confiscated Supercars Sold at Swiss Auction Posted: 30 Sep 2019 03:37 PM PDT  Bugatti, Ferrari, Koenigsegg, Lamborghini, and other supercars were confiscated from Equatorial Guinea's vice president as part of a money-laundering investigation. Here are some of the best.
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| UPDATE 3-Missouri executes man convicted of killing ex-girlfriend's lover - media Posted: 01 Oct 2019 05:33 PM PDT ![UPDATE 3-Missouri executes man convicted of killing ex-girlfriend's lover - media]( "UPDATE 3-Missouri executes man convicted of killing ex-girlfriend's lover - media") Missouri on Tuesday executed a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's lover more than 20 years ago, local media reported, after a court rejected his argument he faced cruel and unusual punishment because of a rare medical condition that would make lethal injection severely painful. Russell Bucklew, 51, was pronounced dead at 6:23 p.m. CDT at the state's death chamber in Bonne Terre for the 1996 murder of Michael Sanders, shortly after he moved in with Bucklew's ex-girlfriend Stephanie Ray, CBS affiliate KFVS12 reported. The Missouri Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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| CNN's Jake Tapper politely shreds GOP Rep. Jim Jordan's Trump-Ukraine talking points Posted: 30 Sep 2019 01:01 AM PDT ![CNN's Jake Tapper politely shreds GOP Rep. Jim Jordan's Trump-Ukraine talking points]( "CNN's Jake Tapper politely shreds GOP Rep. Jim Jordan's Trump-Ukraine talking points") Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney "is on shaky ground in the wake of a bad week for President Trump," CNN reports, largely because he didn't immediately "have a strategy for defending and explaining the contents" of a reconstructed transcript of Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tried his hand Sunday with the White House's subsequent talking points. CNN's Jake Tapper wasn't having it.Jordan alleged that former Vice President Joe Biden had pressured Ukraine to fire top prosecutor Viktor Shokin to help out his lawyer son, Hunter Biden, who had recently gotten a seat on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma. "That's not what happened," Tapper said, noting repeatedly that Shokin was ousted because he wasn't prosecuting people and the Ukrainian investigations related to Burisma's owner were dormant when Hunter Biden was hired. Shokin "wasn't going after corruption -- do you understand what I'm saying?" Tapper asked.Jordan kept hitting on the younger Biden's reported salary, and Tapper eventually stopped him. "If you want to push a law saying that the children of presidents and vice presidents should not be doing international business deals, I'm all for it," Tapper said. "But you're setting a standard that is not being met right now." He gave examples from Trump's children."I'm just telling you what happened," Jordan said. "No, you're not," Tapper said. "It's amazing the gymnastics you'll go through to defend what --" Jordan began, and Tapper brought up accusations from Ohio State wresters that Jordan turned a blind eye to sexual abuse by the team doctor: "Sir, it's not gymnastics -- it's facts! And I would think somebody who's been accused of things in the last year and two would be more sensitive about throwing out wild allegations against people.""I understand you want to change the subject," Tapper said, after Jordan began jumping down 2016 rabbit holes, "but the president was pushing the president of Ukraine to investigate a political rival. I cannot believe that that is okay with you."If you are interested in the Hunter Biden story, a former New York Times reporter runs down at The Intercept how Trump, Giuliani, and "the right-wing spin machine" inverted his 2015 reporting on the Bidens, and The Washington Post has a longer look at the Bidens in Ukraine and this helpful explainer.
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| 10 Home Prep Tips Before Going on Vacation Posted: 01 Oct 2019 03:28 PM PDT |
| NASA lander captures marsquakes, other Martian sounds Posted: 01 Oct 2019 12:51 PM PDT  NASA's InSight lander on Mars has captured the low rumble of marsquakes and a symphony of other otherworldly sounds. InSight's seismometer has detected more than 100 events, but only 21 are considered strong marsquake candidates. The French seismometer is so sensitive it can hear the Martian wind as well as movements by the lander's robot arm and other mechanical "dinks and donks " as the team calls them.
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| Prosecutors urge judge to reject ‘fishing expedition’ by Flynn’s defense Posted: 01 Oct 2019 11:06 AM PDT  Federal prosecutors are denouncing as a "fishing expedition" a demand by Michael Flynn's new defense attorneys for nearly 50 categories of information that they contend will undercut the felony false-statement charge the former national security adviser pleaded guilty to nearly two years ago. In a filing Tuesday, government lawyers urged U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan to proceed with Flynn's long-delayed sentencing and reject the move by Flynn's defense counsel to delve into a wide range of allegations against former special counsel Robert Mueller's office and the FBI. Prosecutors argued that the slew of records Flynn's defense is demanding is largely irrelevant to the task before the judge of fashioning a sentence for the crime Flynn admitted to under oath in federal court in December 2017.
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| What the Next Democratic President Has in Store for Us, with or without Congress Posted: 01 Oct 2019 08:14 AM PDT  The betting market PredictIt gives the Democrats about a 60 percent chance of capturing the presidency next year. Their odds of winning the Senate are only about one in three, however — meaning that in the event of a Trump loss, conservatives could feel the relief of sweet, sweet gridlock as Congress simply refuses to pass Medicare for All and zillion-dollar handouts to college grads.But there is good reason to temper your optimism about such a scenario: Congress has handed over to the executive branch a frighteningly broad ability to make laws by itself. The campaign has given us some previews of this — Kamala Harris wants to go after guns and Elizabeth Warren would target fracking, whether Congress likes it or not — though the candidates have mostly been focused on their biggest and most expensive pieces of proposed legislation.Last week, however, the liberal American Prospect rolled out a series of articles proposing a meaty "Day One Agenda" for the next Democrat in charge of the White House. This president could roll back Trump's deregulatory efforts, bring backed stalled Obama initiatives, and launch government giveaways and major assaults on business, all without the legislative branch's help. Read it and weep.Think it would take a vote in Congress to cancel "almost all" student debt? Think again, says Marcia Brown. Citing a forthcoming law-review article by Luke Herrine, Brown notes a provision of federal law giving the Department of Education the authority to "compromise, waive, or release" claims against student borrowers. While other actors in the executive branch (the attorney general and the Office of Management and Budget) might have to sign off, the department could in theory use this authority to simply stop collecting student debt.Think Trump got us out of Obama's Clean Power Plan for good? You shouldn't, Ben Adler says. The next president could take us back down that path. And since carbon emissions are far lower today than anyone expected — thanks to fracking and other technological improvements — the next president could "go further and increase the rule's ambition."Think the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a done deal, so long as Democrats don't have enough votes in Congress to undermine it? Nope, writes Victor Fleischer. The IRS can't repeal the law, but it can aggressively reinterpret many of its provisions, not to mention provisions in the rest of our enormous tax code, in ways that affect the taxation of huge sums of money.There's lots more: A Democratic president could go after drug companies by threatening to let generics manufacturers make patented drugs, create "postal banking" by executive fiat, bring back aggressive antitrust enforcement against the biggest and most successful companies, and make pot "effectively legal."Okay, that last one I'm fine with. But how do we stop the rest?One way would have been for Republicans to rein in the executive branch in the two years they controlled Congress, albeit without a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate, but that didn't happen. Another would be to hold the White House, or at least luck into a moderate Democrat not eager to test the limits of executive power. Once a Democratic president actually starts trying this stuff, though, the issue will fall to the courts. (There's yet another article about that!)The easiest way to argue against an abuse of executive power is to say that the relevant statute passed by Congress doesn't actually authorize it. Though courts have typically given executive agencies broad deference when it comes to interpreting laws, many conservative judges have shown signs that they want to reverse this trend. Some of the actions outlined above do fall well within the discretion Congress has handed over to the executive branch, but the more aggressive ones go far beyond anything Congress anticipated when passing the laws in question.In some situations, such as when the president simply refuses to enforce a law, it can also be argued that the president is violating the Constitution's command that he "take care" to faithfully execute the laws. But there's very little precedent for such cases, and it can be difficult to find someone harmed by the action with standing to sue, or to distinguish a failure to "take care" from normal discretion regarding how laws are executed.Then there's the big kahuna: The "nondelegation doctrine," which holds that Congress can't delegate its constitutional lawmaking authority to the president, at least not when it comes to key policy decisions as opposed to filling in minor details. This doctrine has sat dormant for decades, but the Supreme Court's conservatives are interested in reviving it. The question is how far they would be willing to take it, and to what degree they would treat new expansions of executive power differently from old ones.In an opinion this year, liberal justice Elena Kagan remarked that if the conservatives on the Court were right and the delegation of power at issue in the case was unconstitutional, then "most of Government" would be unconstitutional. (The conservatives lost the case 5–3, but Brett Kavanaugh recused himself, and Samuel Alito voted with the liberals despite wanting to reconsider the nondelegation doctrine in a different case, presumably one where Kavanaugh could create a five-conservative majority.) Kagan's fears are music to my ears, but I bet at least one conservative justice flakes before they are anywhere close to realized, not least because the conservative dissent to the opinion in which she voiced them takes pains to specify that even under the nondelegation doctrine, Congress may, for example, "authorize executive-branch officials to fill in even a large number of details."Still, conservatives could find themselves relying on the judicial branch a whole lot in the years ahead. In the event that a liberal Democrat takes the White House and pushes executive power past the limit, we could be saying "but Gorsuch and Kavanaugh!" for far longer than anyone thought.
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| Meghan Markle stuns in Banana Republic trench dress while on royal tour Posted: 01 Oct 2019 07:52 AM PDT  Meghan Markle stepped out solo Tuesday morning on the second to last day of the royals' South African tour.
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| Japan says Nigerian died of starvation after immigration hunger strike Posted: 01 Oct 2019 03:20 AM PDT  Japanese immigration authorities said Tuesday a Nigerian man who died in detention in June starved to death while on hunger strike, in the first officially acknowledged case of its kind. "An autopsy has found the man died of starvation," an official at the Immigration Services Agency told AFP. The man in his forties, whose name has been withheld, died on June 24 after falling unconscious at Omura Immigration Center and being taken to a hospital in southern Japan.
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| Russians drinking less, living longer, WHO says Posted: 01 Oct 2019 02:27 AM PDT ![Russians drinking less, living longer, WHO says]( "Russians drinking less, living longer, WHO says") Russia remains a nation of heavy drinkers, but alcohol consumption has fallen 43 percent from 2003 to 2016, a key factor in the country's rapid rise in life expectancy, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday. Russians consume the equivalent of 11-12 litres worth of pure ethanol a year, among the world's highest consumption levels, but the reduction since 2003 has substantially reduced mortality, the WHO said in a report.
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| Here's what Donald Trump has said about the anonymous whistleblower so far this week Posted: 01 Oct 2019 12:49 PM PDT  Trump tweeted that the whistleblower's allegations are a "Democrat Hoax." Here are the latest attacks against the individual who filed the complaint.
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| Ukrainian orphan accused of being an adult found with another family in Indiana Posted: 01 Oct 2019 07:56 AM PDT  Following the controversy and mixed accounts surrounding Natalia, a Ukrainian orphan at the center of an adoption scandal, she has reportedly been living with a family in the same state where she was left by a family who moved to Canada.
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| Lebanese prime minister paid $16 million to South African bikini model over Seychelles 'affair' Posted: 01 Oct 2019 10:39 AM PDT  Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri gave a South African bikini model nearly $16 million US dollars after meeting her on holiday, it emerged on Monday, as Lebanon faces violent protests over a burgeoning economic crisis. Candice van der Merwe met Mr Hariri at a private resort in the Seychelles in 2013 when she was 20. The married father-of-three, who is Lebanon's most powerful Sunni politician, was 43. When asked why Mr Hariri gave her the money, she responded that they had begun a romantic relationship. "I have also been told I have a very engaging personality," she said, in court documents obtained by The New York Times. The gift would have remained secret were it not for South African tax authorities, who froze Ms van der Merwe's assets, asking her to explain the change in her fortunes. She filed suit against them for $65 million in damages, alleging that the hold on her accounts forced her to sell the property she had bought with Mr Hariri's gift, while the related publicity severed her connection with the Prime Minister. Candice van der Merwe said she had an "engaging personality", according to court documents The court records filed as a result put the details into the public domain. As Mr Hariri gave Ms van der Merwe the money between his two terms as Prime Minister, while not in office, he does not appear to have broken any Lebanese or South African laws. There are no allegations that the money was linked to public funds, and Mr Hariri, whose personal wealth was estimated at $1.5bn US by Forbes magazine in 2018, is clearly wealthy enough to have sent the transactions from his private accounts. Staff at Hariri-owned English-language newspaper The Daily Star say they have not been paid their salaries in nearly four months. Several have left as a result, leaving the publication severely understaffed. The news of Mr Hariri's gift came as Moody's credit rating agency announced it has placed Lebanon's already low credit rating "under review for a downgrade." On Sunday protests against the failing economy and inadequate infrastructure turned violent in the capital Beirut, as protesters blocked roads and set fire to tires. Mr Hariri has not responded to the reports.
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| Eurasian Showdown: Are China's or Russia's Infantry Fighting Vehicles Superior? Posted: 30 Sep 2019 12:00 PM PDT  We rank these bad boys.
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| Mom sentenced in deaths of 2 girls banished by doomsday cult Posted: 01 Oct 2019 01:05 PM PDT ![Mom sentenced in deaths of 2 girls banished by doomsday cult]( "Mom sentenced in deaths of 2 girls banished by doomsday cult") A Colorado woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars for killing her two daughters after she and other members of a doomsday religious group banished them to a car without food or water because the girls were thought to have been impure. Nashika Bramble was sentenced to life in prison without parole Tuesday in the deaths of Makayla Roberts, 10, and Hannah Marshall, 8. The sisters' bodies were found in September 2017 in a car parked on a farm near Norwood, a town of about 500 people 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of the Telluride ski resort.
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| Egypt gets back looted gold coffin displayed in New York Posted: 01 Oct 2019 07:37 AM PDT  Egypt exhibited on Tuesday the golden coffin of an ancient Egyptian priest that was returned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art following the discovery that it had been looted and illegally sold. The coffin had been buried in Egypt for 2,000 years before it was stolen from the country's Minya region in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising that toppled veteran leader Hosni Mubarak. Officials say it was smuggled through several countries by an international trafficking ring before being sold to an unwitting Metropolitan Museum two years ago for $4 million.
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| Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Says He Never Spoke With or Met Giuliani Posted: 01 Oct 2019 10:43 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he never met or talked by phone with Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, whose contacts in Ukraine are part of an impeachment inquiry in Washington."I have never met Rudy Giuliani," Zelenskiy said Tuesday at a news conference in Ukraine's capital Kyiv.Trump asked Zelenskiy in a July phone call to work with Giuliani on an investigation into largely discredited allegations against Joe Biden, a frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and his son, according to a rough transcript of the call released last week.Trump alleges that as vice president, Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its prosecutor general in 2016 to stop an investigation of a company connected to Biden's son, Hunter Biden.The U.S. House, controlled by Democrats, is pursuing an impeachment inquiry into Trump, who had cut off military aid to Ukraine days before the phone call. Some Democrats have said Trump's comments to Zelenskiy show an impeachable abuse of power and grounds for an impeachment query, even if Trump didn't explicitly link the Biden investigation to military aid.Zelenskiy, speaking to reporters, reiterated earlier statements he wasn't under pressure from Trump to investigate Biden."I want to tell you that I never feel any pressure and there are very many people in the west and in Ukraine who would like to influence me," Zelenskiy said. "But I am a president of independent Ukraine and I think that, and I hope my steps demonstrate this, that it is impossible to influence me."Zelenskiy also said that the transcript of the conversation, released by the White House, is similar to Ukrainian version.To contact the reporters on this story: Volodymyr Verbyany in Kiev at vverbyany1@bloomberg.net;Kateryna Choursina in Kiev at kchoursina@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Joshua GalluFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Outcry as Pakistan appoints new envoy to UN Posted: 01 Oct 2019 03:00 AM PDT  A decision by Pakistan to appoint a former diplomat as its ambassador to the United Nations has sparked criticism over his alleged involvement in a domestic violence dispute in 2002. Munir Akram "has been appointed as Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in New York, in place of Dr. Maleeha Lodhi," the country's ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement late Monday. Akram served a previous stint in the post from 2002 to 2008.
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| A 30-year-old man was gored by a bison at a Utah state park, then brought his 22-year-old date there and she was gored too Posted: 01 Oct 2019 03:17 PM PDT  Kyler Bourgeous says he probably won't return to the same park again, because he has "this weird feeling that the bison there really don't like me."
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| China is growing fed up with British private schools 'creaming off' the best pupils, headteachers warned Posted: 01 Oct 2019 10:29 AM PDT  The Chinese government is growing fed up with British private schools "creaming off" the best pupils, a conference has been told. Institutions which have set up sister schools or franchises in China now face a "backlash" for party officials, according to Richard Gaskell, schools director at ISC Research which specialises in analysing data on international schools. There are now 47 campuses in China operated by British schools. The £41,580-a-year Wellington College runs schools in Tianjin, Shanghai and Hangzhou while the £44,346-a-year Dulwich College has two schools in Shanghai, one in in Beijing and Suzhou. Mr Gaskell said that British private schools in China have been "growing on steroids" in recent years but they are now facing a crackdown by the authorities. ISC Research conducted interviews with headteachers of 50 international schools in China, and found that they are now facing "extraordinary scrutiny" from officials. Mr Gaskell told delegates at the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC): "Private schools have been subjected to increased visits and scrutiny. There is a backlash against the rapid increase in private schools in China, particularly from the big public schools where it's conceived that they have been simply creaming the best kids for their schools." He explained that local education bureau officials have been visiting private schools in China to "gather intelligence on structure and systems". "The view of some of the heads we interviewed is that they want to replicate these models in their own Chinese schools," he said. Any new schools planning on opening up campuses in China should "be ready for the bureaucracy, legislation and the regulation", he warned, adding: "There is no light touch, it is now highly intrusive." Earlier this year, China announced that all schools would have to adopt a lottery system for places, raising concern among private schools that this will put an end to academic selection. It comes after an earlier ruling that private schools need to teach the Chinese national curriculum as well as whichever international qualifications they offer. Mr Gaskell also said that Beijing is "clearly worried" about the number of Chinese students who go overseas to be educated. Mainland China is the largest source of foreign-born pupils at British boarding schools, with numbers rising 10 per cent last year to just over 9,000. "The Chinese state is now looking at ways to curb number of Chinese families going abroad for education," he said. "They are keen to attract families, who have gone overseas for work and lifestyle opportunities, to come back to China. "There is a focus group investigating barriers to families returning from abroad, and one such barrier is deemed to be guaranteed access to high quality education."
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| Four 'extremely dangerous' prisoners escape after overpowering guards Posted: 30 Sep 2019 01:07 AM PDT  Four prisoners who are considered "extremely dangerous" escaped from a county jail in Ohio early Sunday morning after overpowering two guards, authorities said.The inmates used a homemade weapon known as a shank and stole the keys to a corrections officer's vehicle, which was used in the first part of their escape from Gallia County Jail, Sheriff Matt Champlin said at a news conference.
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| Slain Saudi writer's fiancee says prince must give answers Posted: 01 Oct 2019 10:16 AM PDT  The fiancee of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said Tuesday that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has a duty to answer questions now that he has accepted responsibility for the killing inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last year. Hatice Cengiz told The Associated Press she is apprehensive about returning to the site Wednesday for a ceremony marking the anniversary of Khashoggi's death, but takes strength knowing she won't be alone this time. Cengiz waited outside the consulate last year on Oct. 2 as Khashoggi entered to collect documents needed to marry her.
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| 'King of dad jokes': Colorado man goes viral after taking over his town's community center sign Posted: 01 Oct 2019 10:06 AM PDT  It takes confidence to call yourself "the king" of anything — but when it comes to dad jokes, Vince Rozmiarek makes a pretty strong case for himself.
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| 10 dead in 26 hours: Ohio coroner again raises alarm about drug overdose surge Posted: 30 Sep 2019 01:04 PM PDT ![10 dead in 26 hours: Ohio coroner again raises alarm about drug overdose surge]( "10 dead in 26 hours: Ohio coroner again raises alarm about drug overdose surge") An Ohio county coroner alerted residents that 10 people had died of drug overdoses in just 26 hours calling it "an unusual number" of deaths.
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| UPDATE 1-Kremlin says disclosure of Trump-Putin phone calls would need Russian consent Posted: 30 Sep 2019 06:22 AM PDT  The Kremlin said on Monday that Washington would need Russian consent to publish transcripts of phone calls between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Congress is determined to get access to Trump's calls with Putin and other world leaders, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee's chairman said on Sunday, citing concerns that the Republican president may have jeopardised national security. Asked about those comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Russia would be prepared to discuss the issue with Washington if it sent Moscow a signal, but that such disclosures were not normal diplomatic practice.
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| Firms in Cuba running afoul of US banking squeeze Posted: 30 Sep 2019 06:23 PM PDT  The bank used by a Swiss NGO operating in Cuba has refused to handle any more transfers to Havana over fears of US sanctions, a concern replicated across the international financial system when dealing with the communist-run island. "We don't know what to do," said Luisa Sanchez, coordinator of MediCuba, an NGO operating in Cuba since 1992 providing HIV, cancer and pediatric assistance. "On August 27, our bank called our accountant to inform him that from September 1, there would be no more transfers to Cuba," Sanchez told AFP in Havana.
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| Mexico’s Government Should Sell Marijuana, Key Lawmaker Proposes Posted: 01 Oct 2019 01:20 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Mexico's government shouldn't only regulate pot, it should be the main bulk buyer and seller of the drug, lower house majority leader Mario Delgado proposed in a new bill.A public company named Cannsalud would be authorized exclusively to acquire cannabis from growers with permits and then sell the drug to franchises authorized to sell small amounts to the public, according to the bill."This way the cannabis market wouldn't be left to the autonomous regulation by individuals, but would involve the state as a permanent supervisor and controller of activity involving this substance within a legal framework that would guarantee benefits for all," the bill states.Delgado's ruling Morena party holds majorities in both house of congress, and his intention to push for state involvement in the marijuana trade is in line with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's pledge to increase government presence in the private sector. Lopez Obrador has said regulation of some drugs like marijuana is possible under his administration, but it's unclear if he'd support a government company running the trade.Individuals would be able to grow as many as six plants for personal use without permits, but Cannsalud would be the exclusive seller of marijuana to the pharmaceutical industry, according to the bill.Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard has said Mexico should promote other story lines beyond television shows that portray it as overrun by narcos.To contact the reporter on this story: Nacha Cattan in Mexico City at ncattan@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Robert JamesonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| R Kelly complains about not being able to see more than one girlfriend at a time in jail Posted: 01 Oct 2019 01:38 AM PDT  R Kelly has apparently included not being able to see more than one girlfriend at a time as one of the reasons he should be granted bail.According to the Chicago Tribune, Kelly's lawyers have asked the judge in the singer's New York federal case to reconsider after he was refused bail in July.
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| View Photos of the 2020 BMW X5 M and X6 M Posted: 01 Oct 2019 03:01 PM PDT |
| Court: No statute of limitations in Dutch colonial crimes Posted: 01 Oct 2019 07:49 AM PDT  In a groundbreaking decision, an appeals court in the Netherlands ruled Tuesday that the statute of limitations does not apply to allegations of colonial era crimes committed by Dutch forces in what is now Indonesia. The Hague Court of Appeal issued rulings in two cases linked to torture and summary executions by Dutch forces during Indonesia's struggle for independence after World War II.
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| In Death Penalty Cases, Sotomayor Is Alone in 'Bearing Witness' Posted: 30 Sep 2019 12:50 PM PDT  WASHINGTON -- The terse Supreme Court rulings arrived in the evening, in time to allow an execution later that night. There were three rulings in the last month or so, at 5:52 p.m., at 7:01 p.m. and at 10:13 p.m. They were bland and formulaic, saying only that the court had denied an "application for stay of execution of sentence of death." The inmates who had filed the applications were put to death within hours. In all three cases, only one member of the court bothered to write an opinion, to give a hint about what was at stake. That was Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who maintains a sort of vigil in the capital cases other justices treat as routine. She described shortcomings in the trials the inmates had received and oddities in the laws the courts below had applied. "She's bearing witness," said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University. On Wednesday, for instance, she wrote about the trial of Robert Sparks, in Texas in 2008. One of the bailiffs had worn a black tie embroidered with a white syringe, later admitting that he wanted to express his support for the death penalty. "That an officer of the court conducted himself in such a manner is deeply troubling," Sotomayor wrote. But, with seeming reluctance, she said the Supreme Court was right not to intervene in the case. A lower court considering a challenge to Sparks' death sentence, she wrote, "did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that the jury saw the tie." Still, Sotomayor said the trial judge should have done more. "Presiding judges aware of this kind of behavior would see fit to intervene in future cases by completely removing the offending item or court officer from the jury's presence," she wrote. "Only this will ensure the 'very dignity and decorum of judicial proceedings' they are entrusted to uphold," she wrote, quoting an earlier decision. "The stakes -- life in this case, liberty in many others -- are too high to allow anything less." There is a precedent for Sotomayor's attention to capital cases, said Jordan M. Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas and an author, with Carol S. Steiker, of "Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment." "Justice Sotomayor is carrying forward the tradition of Justices Brennan and Marshall," Steiker said, referring to Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall, who came to adopt a practice of dissenting in every death penalty case. Earlier in September, Sotomayor indicated that the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, in New Orleans, had read a Supreme Court precedent too narrowly in rejecting the possibility that some challenges to death sentences could ever be reopened in light of changes in the law. But she said the appeals court's decision had not turned on that point and she did not dissent from the Supreme Court's decision not to intervene. Instead, she looked forward. "In an appropriate case," she wrote, "this issue could warrant the court's review." She made a similar point in August, criticizing a "Kafkaesque procedural rule" in Florida. The rule, she wrote, served to thwart a 2014 Supreme Court decision, Hall v. Florida, that struck down as too rigid the IQ score cutoff Florida used to decide which intellectually disabled individuals must be spared the death penalty. Sotomayor wrote that the state's highest court had performed a strange two-step in enforcing the Hall decision. "With one hand, the Florida Supreme Court recognized that such intellectually disabled prisoners sentenced before Hall have a right to challenge their executions," she wrote. "With the other hand, however, the Florida Supreme Court has turned away prisoners seeking to vindicate this retroactive constitutional rule for the first time, by requiring them to have brought their Hall claims in 2004 -- a full decade before Hall itself was decided." Here, too, though, she stopped short of dissenting. "In an appropriate case, however," she wrote, "I would be prepared to revisit a challenge to Florida's procedural rule." In other capital cases, Sotomayor dissented outright, again writing only for herself. In May, she said the court should have heard a case from Tennessee in which condemned prisoners sought to show that the chemicals the state aimed to use in their executions would cause excruciating pain. The inmates faced two hurdles, Sotomayor wrote. First, the Supreme Court had required them to propose a less painful alternative method of execution. This was, she wrote, "perverse." Second, she wrote, there was "the added perversity of the secrecy laws that Tennessee imposes on death-row prisoners," denying them access to information that could help them make their cases. "Because I continue to believe that the alternative method requirement is fundamentally wrong -- and particularly so when compounded by secrecy laws like Tennessee's -- I dissent," she wrote. Sotomayor's sustained attention to the capital justice system, Steiker said, was part of an effort to speak to many audiences. "She recognizes the institutional limits of the court in correcting every injustice or every misreading of federal law, yet she wants to communicate the wrongness of those injustices and misreadings despite the court's inability to intervene," Steiker said. "Justice Sotomayor is speaking to institutional actors -- judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers -- to make clear that the court, or least some portion of it, is keenly aware of problems that it is not presently able to correct."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Trump's own staff repeatedly warned him that his theory about Democrats and Ukraine had been debunked Posted: 30 Sep 2019 04:48 AM PDT  Trump's former homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, and other officials said they warned the president about conspiracy theories that Ukraine hacked the 2016 election.
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